Borderlands 3

All Characters depicted in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidential.

Cover Art by Dave McKean

Cover Design by Richard Thomas, Dave McKean and Michelle Prahler

Notice: a hardcover limited edition available from Borderlands Press, P.O. Box 32333, Baltimore MD 21208

Introduction

As I write this, the selection and editing of all the stories for the third volume of the Borderlands anthology series has been completed, and all that's left to do is write this introductory piece and the individual author/story intros.

But it doesn't really end there. There are always more stories, and I have already started reading the thousand-plus submissions laying siege to my post office box for Borderlands 4...

(Did I say volume 4?)

I know, friends—I can't believe it either.

It seems as if I just started reading for the first volume of this series...

But I'm getting ahead of myself. This introduction is specifically about the current volume of stories—in which you won't be finding any of the familiar stuff of suspense, dark fantasy, and horror anthologies. Werewolves, mummies, vampires, chain-clanking ghosts, spouses with murder in their hearts, and all the other familiar symbols of outre fiction just aren't going to be found here. In case there's any of you coming to this anthology series for the first time, be advised that this is not the typical batch of weird stories. Key words to describe Borderlands fiction are: innovative, original, experimental, provocative, surreal, seductive, enigmatic, and of course, memorable. This is fiction out on the edge, where it's okay to be different...

Last year I was worried about Volume 2 matching up with the now-legendary Numero Uno. I shouldn't have wasted the anxiety attacks. Borderlands 2 garnered as many raves as its progenitor and the limited edition is almost sold out.

If I've learned anything about editing during the lifespan of this series, it's to simply trust my initial feelings and judgments. And that's why I'm not concerned about the quality of Borderlands 3 matching up to the fiction that preceded it.

As usual, the gathering of stories for this volume represents a wide range of material in terms of theme, tone, length, style, and content. There are offerings by some of the most respected writers in the field alongside stories by bold-thinking rookies and newcomers. The submissions policy has been simple: keep the doors open to anybody who thinks they can yank me over the threshold and take me some place I've never been before. When I assembled the contents page, I tried to present the reader with a carefully-arranged schedule of offerings. If things go according to plan you will always be off your guard, never able to anticipate or prepare for the emotional and intellectual jolt of each new tale.

I read for Borderlands 3 from June through October of last year, and it wasn't easy or very pleasant. I had plenty of help though—several people pulled duty in the slush pile, and one of them, Elizabeth Barboza, worked so diligently, she would get no kick from me if she wanted credit as Assistant Editor.

I don't know about Elizabeth, but for me, there've been a lot of nights when I asked myself why I was doing it, why I wasn't reading one of the hundred or so books from my "gotta read" stacks, or why I wasn't writing a new story for somebody else's anthology...? I've wondered if this was what they always meant when they talked about a labor of love—because it was sure as hell a labor, but I couldn't really cop to loving it. If I was being honest about it, I guess I'd have to say the reason I make myself read so many submissions is twofold: when I find a story that really works, I feel vindicated and secondly, no one else is doing it.

Borderlands is the only continuing showcase for original fiction that's not being shoehorned into a particular "theme" anthology. This is a good thing for all the writers trying to sell their short stories. When you try to tailor a piece of fiction to a singular shtick or gimmick like "Dark Appliances: Great Horror Stories About The Kitchen" you can easily come up with something forced and silly. With an open anthology, there are no restrictions or constraints—the writers can run their imaginations at full bore and produce their best work, no matter what the subject matter.

And so you might be asking: Yeah, but how long can this go on?

Hard to tell, friends. I'm not going to bullshit you by telling you it's getting any easier. But I guess I will keep it going as long as there are enough writers out there every year who're willing to take the stretch, to push themselves to their creative limits, and as long as there are enough readers like you who are willing to support the ongoing project that Borderlands has become.

Thanks for being there. After three books, it's still fun. And as far as omens and portents go, that's a good one.

Thomas F. Monteleone

Baltimore, Maryland

September 13, 1992

Brazo de Dios by Elizabeth Massie

I have watched Beth Massie mature as a writer for more than a few years now. Having read some of her earliest appearances in the magazines of the small press, I knew she had the stones to be an exceptional writer. She writes with a subtle power that rips at your emotions with velvet claws. Beth more than fulfilled my expectations when her Borderlands 1 story, "Stephen," won a Bram Stoker Award in the Novelette category in 1991. Since then, she's published her first novel, Sineater, and continues to create what can only be called exceptionally wrought tales of human anguish. The following story may be her best ever.

The walls were dry, and the floor wet. There was a drain hole in the middle of the small room. Puddles of water stood in low places on the concrete. The concrete was coarse, laced with chunks of oyster and clam shells. Sand in the concrete sparkled in the dull light of the string of bulbs above Catherine's head. It had taken her more than an hour to find out this much about the cell. It had taken her that long to loosen her bruised arms from about her face to look around.

The welt on the side of her head rocked a terrible rhythm, driven on by the screams in the cells beyond her own. The blood on her wound had dried. She could smell her own sharp sweat. Her stomach cramped, bloated with fear. This is a washing room, she thought. A washing cell. They wash away signs of their crimes.

Catherine put her fist to her mouth. A wave of anguish and pain took her and spun her violently. Tears cut her eyes.

God, help me.

She drew up against a dry wall. Her body shook. A spider on the ceiling found a burned-out bulb between the bright ones, and began its determined web-making. Ceiling to floor, floor to ceiling, touching the wet concrete surface just barely before climbing up again.

Be rational, she forced herself to think. Take it rationally. You're alive. You still have your clothes. Appeal to the law. You know the law.

She had been taken in a jeep, in the very early morning. Quietly hanging out the mission linens alone, Catherine had watched the orange spot of the sun as it pushed itself into the sky. Dogs had growled at the groan of the engine but Catherine had thought nothing of it. When it stopped beside the mission garden, she had turned then, too late. There were dark men with rifles. In their swift purpose, she could not register faces, only shadows. Then a rifle came down on the side of her head and shattered the morning.

The law requires me to see a judge, she thought. I've not been charged. She looked at the spider, intent on its instinctive task. She remembered the grinning face of the captain of the fuerza as he had watched her in the village and near the mission. An ugly old man, he had winked at her and licked his lips. A sob caught Catherine's throat.

"No," she whispered. "There is law to be followed here."

But they disdain the law. Remember dear Pablo. Holy Christ, Remember Maria. The captain had taken notice of Maria as well.

Catherine dropped her aching head into her knees and gave her prayers and her consciousness to God. The peasants saw Blessed Visions, and heard miracles of holy voices. Catherine prayed for one. Nothing came but sleep. It was filled with fever. Someone awakened her with a gentle shaking of the shoulder. She blinked, then shuddered. She pressed the heel of her hand to her temple to catch the pain, and looked up. The man above her wore black, similar to the garb of the mission's priest. She did not know this man. He nodded to her. "You are all right?" he asked.

Catherine looked beyond him. The spider had made quite a web. To be a spider now. To be mindless and overlooked by men. This man in black would take her to the captain. God help her.

There was no saliva in her mouth. Her words were strained through cactus thorns. "What time is it, senor?" she asked. She squinted; the throbbing of her eyes made it difficult to focus.

"It is morning, sister."

"What time is it?"

"I do not wear a watch. I do not know."

Screams from nearby cells made the backs of Catherine's arms go cold. "I hear the others," she said. "Campesinos, aren't they? The Fuerza de Seguridad Publica has taken me."

"The security force has brought you here, yes," said the man. "No harm intended to you, sister. They let me come to talk with you, to help you not be afraid. The campesinos, the peasants, you hear, are criminals. You need not worry for them."

"The captain has asked for my arrest?"

"The captain? I don't know what you mean."

A woman, not far away, separated only by the walls, cried, "Jesus!" Her voice spiraled upward, an animal shriek. "What crime is that woman guilty of?" Catherine whispered.

"Campesinos want what is not theirs. You work with them, you know they are often greedy beyond their station." The man smiled and patted Catherine's arm. His hand was soft and the nails of his fingers trimmed and clean. Padre Felipe, back at the mission, had broken nails and dark grooves in the skin of his hands. Padre Felipe's hands were beautiful and worn.

Catherine swallowed but the motion was worthless. Thirst made her cough. "Senor," she said. "I know the laws of this country. I'm an American but I've chosen this place in which to serve my God and brothers. I learned a lot before I came, and have learned a lot since being here."

The man smiled, nodding his head. His teeth were fine and even.

"The law says I must be brought before a judge before twenty four hours is up."

"I understand what you say," said the man. "I, too, know the law. We are good people, with good laws. Do not be afraid. Trust me. The policia have their job. It is a difficult one, you can imagine."

"Have I been here twenty four hours?"

The man stood, still smiling, and opened the door. "I tell you I do not wear a watch. But what is time to the faithful? Rest, sister. I will come visit again."

Catherine tried to count her breaths to steady them. It did not work. "The captain..." she murmured.

"I do not know what you mean," said the man.

He went outside. The door closed behind him.

Catherine rose onto her knees and prayed the prayer of her mission.

"Father, still the hand of the tormentor. Open the hearts of the oppressor. Bring understanding and peace to those in danger."

A child from another cell, a boy or girl, she could not tell, cried out in exquisite pain. "Yatagan, no, no!" Catherine spun about on her knees and threw her face against the door. "God stop them, don't let the torturing go on." Her teeth ground against each other. "Please," she said. "Don't let them torture me."

It was a number of hours before anyone came again to her cell. The activity beyond her room quieted, and although the bulbs above her head burned in unflickering, yellowed consistency, and shadows were the same as when she had arrived, not a one traveling across from corner to corner as would happen in a windowed room, Catherine guessed it to be a meal time. Even the fuerza would stop to eat.

The door rattled and unlocked, and the man in black entered, carrying a scratched aluminum tray with food. He set the tray before Catherine on the floor. His eyebrows jumped as if in apology for the lack of a proper table.

"You are feeling better?" he asked as he took a paper napkin from the top of a bowl of rice and corn. A small loaf of bread lay beside the bowl along with a mug of coffee.

Catherine's head pounded, but she did not say so.

"May we talk, then?"

Catherine looked at the bread, and wished the man would leave her alone so she could perform the Lord's supper. 'This is my body, broken for you...'

"May we talk?"

Catherine said, "Yes." She took the coffee, and sipped tentatively.

"You come from America. What state is that?"

"Kentucky."

"What is Kentucky like?"

"Hills. Mountains. Trees."

"Like our country in some ways?"

"In some ways."

"You have problems in your state in America?"

"Of course."

"Campesinos, wanting land that does not belong to them? Building huts where they should not be, ignoring the capataz who tells them to leave?"

"No, not like that. Every place has problems. We have poverty, yes. But our problems are different in other ways. Ours are not the same as the ones here."

"Why do you not stay in Kentucky and stop the problems there? Why do you feel you need to come here?"

Catherine hesitated. Her bowels were full and she shifted uncomfortably. She wiped at the salty grit in the corner of her eyes. She put the cup of coffee back onto the tray. She knew the answer. How would it sound, out on the air of this cell of terror? "The church sent me."

"But why? Why does the church send you? It seems presumptuous to me, can you see why?"

"Missions takes us beyond our own backyard. We are to take the word into the world."

"Most of our people are Christians. They have the word."

"They're suffering," said Catherine. She winced at the pain in her head, and at what she had said. People the world over suffered. People in her own Kentucky suffered. There was no right answer here. It was a labyrinth. What would Padre Felipe do? Would he remain silent?

"Hmmmmm," said the man. "And you would do what you could to reduce suffering?"

Catherine said, "Yes."

"Anything you could?"

Catherine looked the man in the eyes. They were black eyes, possibly kind eyes, possibly cruel eyes. She could not tell. He was here, he knew the security force and believed them to be right, therefore the eyes must disguise cruelty. But he had not abused her, he had not been the one who had arrested her, he had not beaten her nor raped her. So the eyes might be kind. They might be the eyes of a friend in an insane world. Perhaps, the eyes of the Savior would be found here, a miraculous vision of hope. "I pray so, yes," she said.

"You are a Christian," said the man. "God must love you very much. Enjoy your meal. Forgive its simplicity." He rose and left the cell.

Catherine uttered a trembling grace, then tasted the beans and rice. The flavor was bland, without hot spices. She ate a small bit. Minutes later, the screaming began again, and she threw the meal up over the wet drain hole.

Catherine slept then awoke. Her neck throbbed from the angle her head had rested in as she lay on the floor. Surely it had been twenty four hours. She knew the chances of being brought before a judge for an official charge were slim. The fuerza rarely followed the laws of its country. This was one reason she had come to this place. Innocent, illiterate people were losing their land and their property to military leaders who forged legal documents and drove the campesinos away with threats, arrests, and murders. Those arrested were usually tortured, sometimes to death. Many others joined the ranks of the "disappeared". Surely Christ wept over the inhumanity of his children. And therefore, those who served Him should not look away, should not count the dangers.

Her clothes, simple jeans and work shirt, were now not only dirty from her work on the school repairs, but stinking from her hours in the prison. She needed to use a restroom, but was afraid to bang on the door to ask for help. Maybe it would be better to be alone and perhaps forgotten.

Cautiously, and with humiliation, she emptied her bladder and bowels over the drain hole in the center of the cell.

Kentucky, your problems should have been mine, she thought with shame. The screams of your starving, your ignorant, your cruel, I didn't hear. I didn't follow.

She paced around the cell walls. She looked at the spider's web, praying to see a divine message, but there was nothing, only the mass of white, tangled threads.

The memories of girlhood ebbed and flowed through her mind, filling her with touches of warmth, making her seasick. She could have become a teacher. She could have had a little house and an azalea garden. She could have become a wife. Scott, her high school love, who had first aroused in her sweet dreams of passion, might at this moment have been making tender love to her. Instead, a crazed captain would soon rape her for his own horrendous pleasure.

The wetness on the floor had begun to dry. Who had been in the cell before her? Whose anguish had been rinsed away by casual buckets of water? A beautiful olive-skinned child, nails torn out so his mother in the room next door could hear, merely to confess and die?

Had Pablo, the old farmer, been subjected to the capucha, the rubber suffocation hood, to the point of near death, only to have it done again and again as reported by campesinos who knew of the atrocities of the security force?

Or had Sister Maria been raped here? Had the policia used the electric prods on her and in her, anointing her with water so the shocks rode more cleanly to her core?

Sweet Jesus, to see the hills of her home again, to walk the valley and smell the magnolia and lilac. To be content to bloom where she had been planted, to serve those with whom she had lived.

To be Scott's wife. To raise children.

That would have been as good.

Would that have been as good?

Who would have come, then, to this dangerous country?

Who, then, has stayed behind to help those of my own mountains?

She could not think. She could not know. God did not answer. Perhaps the man was wrong. She was too confused to call herself a Christian. She was too frightened. Her head pounded. Her muscles were cramped with fear.

She sat and waited. She looked for Jesus' face in the patterns of her hands and saw nothing.

Some time later, the man returned. He wore the same clothes; Catherine could not guess if he had gone home, wherever that might be, or if he had been at the detention center the whole time. She wondered if he had family. Did he have a wife who loved him? Was he the father of little children? Did they know of the place where he worked, and of what went on there? The man brought water in a pitcher and a glass. Catherine sat on the floor and turned away. She was surprised he did not gag at the stench in the room.

"Sister," said the man.

"How long has it been?" she asked. "Twenty four hours?"

"These things take time," said the man. He put the pitcher and glass on the floor beside Catherine. She was thirsty but did not reach for them.

"What things? What things take time? Why am I here?"

"I am not of the fuerza. I do not know the specifics."

"I'm to be questioned?"

"I do not know. I do not believe so. Have some water."

Catherine shook her head.

"You have great faith," said the man.

Catherine said nothing.

"Your love is great. What does your faith say to you?"

Catherine did not want to talk. She said, "That Christ gave His life for us. We should love as He loved."

"You believe life is sacred?"

"Yes."

"But Christ gave up His life? He did not see His life as sacred?"

Catherine closed her eyes, then opened them. The smell of the cell made them burn. "Life is sacred. Love is more sacred. Sacrifice for others is the ultimate love. You aren't a Christian?"

"I have an interest in Christianity." The man sat down, then, beside Catherine. He folded his hands. "You would do whatever you could to stop suffering and death, sister?"

Catherine felt sweat between her breasts and under her arms. Of course she would, she was a sister, a Christian. Christ could expect no less of her.

"You would do whatever you could?" the man repeated.

"I would do whatever I could," said Catherine. There was glass in her words. Her throat felt gouged and bloody with the commitment.

"Life is sacred," said the man. "Christ said so."

"Yes."

"The screams of the campesinos bothers you."

Catherine nodded. "Dear God, yes."

"You would like to save a life, sister?"

Catherine's heart flipped. Now, oh God, she would know why she was here.

The man took Catherine's hand in his own. He said, "The name of your mission, the name of Padre Felipe's mission, is 'Brazo de Dios', is it not?"

Catherine stared at him. Slowly, she said, "Yes." It was all she could do to not jerk her hand away from the smooth clasp of the man in black. "The Arm of God. We are part of the body of Christ. The arm of God reaches out to the poor and needy."

"You have a lovely arm," said the man. And he lowered his smooth, smiling lips to Catherine's arm and kissed the flesh. Catherine flinched. "God should be proud of his creation."

"Please," said Catherine. Think of God, she thought. Pray for a sign. Think of the love of Christ. Christ help me. "I know a little nursing. I help children at the mission when they're hurt. I would do what I could to help stop pain. Shall I minister to those the fuerza interrogate? Is that why you brought me here?"

"Sister," said the man. He let go of Catherine's arm, and she immediately drew it up about herself. "It would not be right for you to see what goes on behind the hidden walls. It is very ugly."

Catherine picked up the glass, and tried the pitcher, but it shook too much to pour. The man took it from her and filled the glass. Catherine sipped, choked, and sipped again. In her ears, her heart thundered.

"Come, my sister," said the man. "Our time is here." He stood and reached out his hand for Catherine. The glass fell from her fingers and shattered on the concrete floor by her knee. She took the man's hand and stood.

"The captain," she said.

"Shhh, now," said the man.

Pray for us now and in the hour of our death, amen.

A blindfold was tied across Catherine's eyes, but the man did not use handcuffs as had the policia when she had been brought here. He was not rough, but decidedly gentle. Yes, she thought anxiously. Maybe he is a good man, in a place of bad men. His kiss might not have been lecherous, but fatherly. He would not take her to the captain, he would let her free.

The cell door was opened; Catherine could feel cooler air against the skin of her face. She walked carefully, following the man's steady lead.

Human shrieks were clearer now. Low growling voices of the policia, inhuman laughter at the plight of their captives.

Mama, take me home. Sweet Jesus, Mary, Mama, Daddy, I want to go home. Tears leaked through the cloth of the blindfold. Catherine swayed, horror stealing her balance. They walked the corridor. The man squeezed Catherine's hand as if they were lovers on a first date, pressing his shoulder to her so she would not fall.

"I'm with you, sister," said the man. "Do you trust me?"

Catherine began to sob.

"Do you trust me?"

Catherine said, "I want to."

"Trust me," the man said.

They stopped, and a door was opened. There were no screams in this room, and through the blindfold Catherine was aware of bright lights. With the man's urging, she stepped carefully over the high threshold.

The blindfold was removed. They stood in a room that resembled a clinic. It was clean and white. There was a little window, and through the window Catherine could see the shadowed shape of branches and leaves outside. A white-sheeted bed sat in the middle, surrounded by floor lights and a wheeled table. A second man in white, a doctor, she thought, washed his hands at a steel sink.

"Christ sacrificed his life," said the man in black. "We do not ask that of you."

Catherine's legs gave. She dropped to the floor. Her head bobbed as though her neck was broken. "No," she said. "I'll tell you anything. What are you going to do? Please, no."

"Sister."

"Don't let the captain have me. Please let me go!"

"Sister," the man said again. "There is no captain here." He put his arms beneath hers and took her to the table. "We do not ask your life. We do not ask that you tell us anything, for we know anything you might know. Do you not trust me? I have not lied to you at any time. I merely ask to see your faith."

Catherine watched the doctor put on gloves. The disinfected smell was that of lilacs and magnolias. The doctor's face swam, shimmering, becoming that of her father, and of Padre Felipe, and of Pablo. On his face, then, was the demonic grin of the captain, and she could hear the shrieks of Maria as he had abused her body.

"I am interested in Christianity."

Catherine looked away from the doctor to the man in black. He nodded, and gestured to the table. Catherine shook her head. The man smiled patiently, and with a swift movement, lifted Catherine onto the table and lay her on her back. Catherine tried to hit him away but he held her hands down. "Now, now," he said.

"Twenty-four hours," Catherine managed. "Listen to me, please. Wait, listen." God, a miracle now, a message, a vision, now or never, amen! "How long have I been here? I'm to have a judge. You said you knew the law. Please listen to me."

"This is not a matter of law," said the man. "It is a matter of faith."

The doctor moved to the table's side. He removed Catherine's shoes and put them on the floor. The sensation of bare feet cut Catherine with a surge of mortification and helplessness. Her breaths convulsed her entire body. The light above the table seared her skin as if it were the fire of hell.

"Twenty-four hours. My mother, I mean Padre Felipe won't know what's happened. I've got to go home."

Home, the mountains, Kentucky, the mission, God, where is home?

"Your mother did not worry when you came to our country, she knows you did it with faith." The man in black stroked Catherine's shoulder while the doctor unbuttoned her blouse and lifted her slightly to slide it off. "Now," the man said. "You told me you would do what you could to save a life. You have heard the screams of many dying here. Worthless lives, I believe, but you say you would save one. Did you not?"

Catherine closed her eyes to the light and the men. She tried to think of Kentucky and of the familiar roads and farms and forests. No visage of God appeared on her lids.

"Your church sent you here. You believe its teachings. Can you follow your words?"

"The Lord is my shepherd," prayed Catherine. There was a wonderful Wednesday night mass in her home town. Father Altman would sing with his guitar and there would be a covered dish dinner afterwards. Scott would be there. He and Catherine held hands under the long folding table. Catherine would make fried chicken. Her mother had taught her to fix chicken the good way. Crunchy and with lots of pepper. "I shall not want."

"I will give you the chance to save a life."

Fried chicken and lilacs. Simple pleasures. Given of God. Given of God and taken away.

"Will you give your arm to save a life?"

"My arm?" gasped Catherine. Her eyes remained closed. The man in black slapped Catherine's face. Her eyes sprang open. "The chance to save a life," he said. "Will you give your arm to save a life?"

"My arm?"

"Brazo de Dios. Arm of God. Given for his children. Are you willing to do what he would do?"

Catherine looked at her hands, her arms. They would take her arm away to save a life. They would take an arm away to test her faith and to save a life. A sudden, violent tremor twisted Catherine, and she screamed, "Not my arm! Don't cut off my arm!"

There was silence for a moment, and the man in black said, "Not even for a life, sister?"

Campesinos, Catherine thought wildly. They expect violence, they live it, they are used to it. They won't know what I've done here. I can't lose my arm. Catherine bent her head to her chest. They'd never know my sacrifice.

"Not even for a life?"

Catherine thought, Without my arm I couldn't make fried chicken. I couldn't hold the bowl and stir the coating. Her lungs felt crushed. She struggled for air.

"My arm," she hissed. "Oh God, no."

"Very well, then," said the man in black. "We shall let you go back to the mission. I see what Christianity is now."

"Yes," said Catherine then, and her soul wailed at what fate her voice had sealed. "Take the arm, oh dear God, take the arm from me." Acid tears drew savage lines on her face. "What arm will you take, you bastard?"

The doctor turned and pulled a syringe from the wheeled table. He forced fluid through the tip, then pinched the skin beneath Catherine's right forearm.

The man in black kissed Catherine's cheek. "I am not a bastard. There is no pain. We will make you feel nothing. I could be a Christian, could I not?"

There was a sting, and the needle was moved in and out of Catherine's upper arm, numbing it instantly in several places. A moment later, the entire arm was deadened. The doctor silently patted the skin, and frowned with duty. He tied a rubber tourniquet about the arm, just beneath Catherine's arm pit.

"You toy with me," Catherine said. "You filthy bastard."

The doctor brought out a small knife, and a surgical saw.

"I am a good man," said the man in black. "The policia would have raped you many times, and beat you for their pleasure. The capucha on a woman fills them with lust, and they would use you until your death. I am not a bad man." He rubbed his mouth, nodding, seeming to consider his words. Then he said, "Turn away, now. This will be ugly."

Catherine turned away. I'm saving a life, she thought. Remember this, Lord. Her eyes found the window, and the shimmering trees beyond. Leaves caught sunlight, reflecting it like chips of liquid emerald. Catherine tried to watch it to become part of it. Part of the beauty that was God's natural world. Harmony, sweetness, peace, gentleness.

And she would no longer be natural. Her body was being destroyed on a whim. And she was enduring it, for the sake of faith. She had no promise a life would be spared for this obscene test.

Certainly God did not want this. This was evil's desire. No. God would not want this.

No.

"No!" cried Catherine. "Don't take my arm!"

She looked back at the doctor.

He was holding her arm. It was no longer attached to her shoulder. Blood poured in a hot stream as he held it, looking confused at Catherine's sudden cry.

Catherine looked at the short stump, at the deep, scarlet pool and the flap of skin the doctor would stitch up to cover the raw end.

She screamed, a supreme and mortal sound. She thought she saw the man in black mouth, "Trust me." She fell, then, into unconsciousness.

Her sleep was as empty as the hole of hell.

There was the sound of rumbling, and the sensation of rough waters. There was heat and a taste of brine.

Catherine opened her eyes. She was in a jeep, and it was traveling the pocked roads of the night countryside. She was alone except for the driver beside her. She could not see who it was. His clothes were as black as the sky. She tried to think of who he might be, or why she might be with him, but something in her veins made thinking difficult. Her heart pumped betrayal to her limbs and her mind. She felt bile rise and with effort, she swallowed it back. "Where?" she asked.

The driver did not look at her, but when he spoke, she remembered him.

"We are going back to Brazo de Dios," said the man in black.

The jeep hit a pit and Catherine fell against the low door. Her arm, however, did not come in contact with the frame. There was no specific pain, just a sickening sensation of nothingness. She looked over to see why she was leaning on her side.

Her right arm was gone. The stump was bandaged and pinned neatly. Catherine moaned. Nausea came and went.

"And you'll kill me now, won't you?" she said then. "I'll become one of the disappeared."

"We are going back to Brazo de Dios," the man repeated. "You will listen to me, because I tell the truth. I am not a liar, nor a bad man."

Catherine looked up and could not see the moon. Stars hid themselves behind the dark clouds of a coming storm. God did not show Himself.

"Sister, I know the captain of whom you spoke. In that is the only lie I have told you today. The captain of the fuerza is a strange man. A brutal man. He has no respect for religion or things of God. But he did not send for you today. I had you taken by the force."

Catherine touched her face with the fingers of her left hand. Her lips were cracked. She fought to keep her eyes open. She fought to listen to the man.

"The captain has plans tomorrow morning to come to your mission. All of the people who work there will die." Catherine felt the drugs tug her stomach. She leaned forward and spit on the floor. Her shoes were spattered. "What do you mean?" she said slowly.

"What I say I mean," said the man. "The captain has plans to find all the sisters and brothers and even your Padre Felipe and take them to the field. There they will be gunned down. You, having caught his attention, would have been molested before your death. You would have been passed around to any of the men in his favor. And then you would join the others of the mission, in a ditch in the field. You see, church is trouble to the captain. He does not tolerate trouble."

Catherine shook her head. "He can't do that. I love those people." Then she said, "You took my arm from me."

The man drove in silence. Catherine could see the familiar rise of a knoll, and knew they were, indeed, driving toward the mission.

"The captain," said the man in black. "He does have a love, or a sympathy. I do not know the difference. The captain's sister is a cripple. His sister, not as the church, but as a brother and sister, do you understand?"

Catherine understood, but could not nod.

"The captain's sister was wounded as a child when he was but a boy himself. He was playing with his father's gun and there was an accident. The gun went off and shot his sister in the arm. It tore the arm up badly, and poor treatment made amputation necessary."

"Why are you telling me this? You are taking me to the mission. We are all going to be killed!"

"He loves his sister. He has sympathy, maybe guilt. He will not harm cripples."

The jeep reached the top of the knoll. Dim lights spotted various windows in the mission's dormitory. A dog, belonging to some campesinos living in close vicinity of the mission, barked at the approaching vehicle.

The man in black drove to the gateway and stopped the jeep. He looked at Catherine. "He will not harm cripples. He will see you, and he will let you live. He will kill the others. There is nothing anyone can do. Nothing I can do. Nothing you can do. But he will leave you alone, he will let you live because of your affliction."

Catherine pressed her left hand to her mouth. She thought she felt the phantom right hand pressing her heart.

"Go, then," said the man. Catherine dragged herself out, holding to the door so she would not drop to the dirt. "Say your prayers, sister. The Lord has been with you."

The jeep made a sharp turn and then rattled off into the darkness.

Catherine watched as it vanished down the knoll. And in the spector of its ghost-image, she saw the face of Christ.

Witch Hunt by Andrew Vachss

What can you say about a guy as downright interesting as Andrew Vachss? Not only is he a Manhattan lawyer who specializes in cases concerning child abuse, but he is also the creator of the most intriguing "hero" in dark crime fiction—a shadowy, clever guy named Burke. Andrew's novels include Strega, Blue Belle, Hard Candy, and the recent bestseller,Sacrifice; but he is also building a large body of short fiction that has the speed of bantamweight and the power of a heavy. He has earned my respect as both a writer and a genuine square-business friend. His stories often peel back the onion-skin layers of his characters' tortured psyches. "Witch Hunt" is no exception.

The first time I heard a message, I couldn't obey. I could hear it, but I was distant from it, the way I am from people talking. They think I can't hear them, but I can—I just can't get close enough to say anything.

The messages don't come from inside my head, no matter what the doctors say.

I was small when I first heard them. I couldn't do anything to stop them. Any of them. The people, I mean, not the messages. I can stop people, sometimes, but I would never stop the messages.

No matter how much I screamed, my parents would still leave me with her. They acted like they didn't understand, because I couldn't talk then.

By the time I could talk, I was too scared.

Ellen burned me. Just to show me she could do it. My babysitter. She was in charge when my parents would go out. Sometimes she would beat me. Spanking, she called it. She would do it real hard until I would cry. Then she would tell me I was a good boy.

She showed me how to do what she wanted. If I didn't do it, she would hurt me. Sometimes she hurt me anyway. She liked to do it. She would get all sweaty and close her eyes. Later she would laugh.

My parents liked her. My mother told my father he only liked her because she wore her blue jeans so tight you could see her panties right through them. My father got red in the face and said how reliable she was. My mother said how hard it was to get anyone to watch me.

Ellen made me lick her. And she put things inside me too. When I got older, she took pictures of me.

She said if I ever told, they wouldn't believe me. And then she'd get me good the next time.

Cut out my heart and eat it.

Sometimes Ellen wore a mask. Sometimes she burned things that smelled funny.

Her eyes could cut me and make me bleed.

She had a tattoo inside her leg. On the high, fat part where her legs came together. A red tattoo of a cross, like in church. The cross was upside down. Where it would go into the ground, it went inside of her.

I told on her. One night, just before my parents were going to go out. I was five years old and I could talk. I was so scared I wet all over myself, but I told.

They looked at each other—I've seen them do that a lot, ever since I started watching them. But when Ellen came over, they told her they weren't going out that night and she could go back to her house.

Ellen looked right at them. Right in their eyes. "Is Mark telling his crazy stories again?"

"What stories?" my mother asked her.

"His Devil stories, I call them. He told me his kindergarten teacher was a monster. How she wore this mask and carried fire in her hand. It must be that cable TV. My Dad won't let me watch it."

I could see it happening. I screamed so loud something broke in my eyes. Then I couldn't see anything.

They put me in a hospital. A lady came to see me. She was very nice. She smelled nice too. She came a lot of times. Every day.

After a while, I could see again.

I wouldn't talk to the nice lady at first, but she promised me Ellen could never get me. I was safe.

So I told her. I told her everything. She said she would fix it. Everything would be all right.

When they came back a couple of weeks later, they had the nice lady with them. She sat down on the bed next to me and held my hand. She said they looked at Ellen. Without her clothes on. And there was no red tattoo like I said. It must be my imagination, the lady said. She had a sad face when she said it.

I knew it then. She was with Ellen.

I was already screaming when they showed me that first needle.

I was in the hospital a long time. Sometimes my parents would come in there with the lady I thought was nice. After I took my pills I would get dreamy. But I wouldn't sleep, not really. Just lie there with my eyes closed and listen to them.

"We could get sued," my father said. "Ellen's father hired a lawyer. He said false allegations happen all the time. A witch hunt, he called it."

It scared me, the way he said it. I didn't look.

They tested me, to see if I was stupid. When they found out I wasn't, then they said I was crazy. I had to talk to a doctor. I told him about the messages. He was the first one. He said they came from inside my head. I told him "No!" and he pushed a button and some big men in white coats came in.

Later, they started the drugs. Haldol. Thorazine. All kinds of things. I learned to take the pills. Otherwise, it was the needle.

Some of the attendants, they gave you the needle anyway, even if you were good. They liked to do it. But it was the nurse who gave the orders. She was with Ellen.

They let me go home sometimes. My mother would make me take the medication. I got older and older, but it didn't make any difference. I still had to do what they said.

I cost a lot of money. I heard them talking. A lot of money.

"Paranoid schizophrenic," my mother would say. What the doctors told her, like a religion.

Ellen's picture was in the paper. Her father was arrested for having sex with his daughter. A little girl. Nine years old. I was eleven then, and I could read good. Ellen's picture was in the papers because she told on her father.

In the paper, they said Ellen was a hero. For saving her sister.

When I asked my mother about Ellen, she slapped me. Then she started crying. She said it wasn't my fault—I was born this way. I knew she meant the messages. Then she called the hospital and they came and took me away.

The medication has side effects. I know what they call it. Tardive dyskinesia. My face jumps around. My whole body twitches. My mouth is so dry it's like it is stuffed with cotton. My hands shake. I'm dizzy. My stomach is upset. I hate it.

When I stop taking the pills, they give me the needles.

They never catch me not taking the pills. It's just that I act different without them. And they can tell.

Act. That was a message I got all the time. Act!

I'm an out-patient now. I live in a room. My parents moved away. I don't know where. I'm an adult now. Twenty-three years old.

I get a check. From the Government. Every month. It comes to where I stay. I pay my room rent. I eat in restaurants, but I don't eat that much. I'm not hungry much.

There is a television set in my room. I always leave it on. Messages come through it for me.

I don't take the medication very often, but I act like I am. Nobody looks that close.

They send you cues. That's the message, to watch for the cues. I go out, looking. The subways are the best. There's all kinds of crazy people in the subways. People never look at me that way. I look right. I'm careful.

I look carefully. At everything, I look. There's a third rail. It's death to touch it. If you look down, down into the pit, you can see the other tracks. Water runs between the tracks, like a river. You can see the things people throw there. Sometimes you can see a rat, watching up at the people.

The messages are everywhere, but they are never spoken. Not out loud. They come through things.

You have to watch them from behind because their eyes can burn you.

The first time, in the subway, the train came through the tunnel. Shoving through, too tight for the tunnel, like Ellen did to me. When the train screamed, I knew I was in the right place.

From behind, they look alike unless you look close. If you can see their panties, the outline of their panties, under their skirts or their slacks, then that's them. That's how you know them.

The first time I saw that, the train was screaming in. I was close behind her in the crowd. When I pushed her, she went right under the wheels. Then everybody screamed like the train.

Nobody ever said anything to me.

The message comes to me anytime. Especially in my room, where the medication doesn't block the signals. When I hear the message clear, I go out. To do my work.

I'm on a witch hunt.

The Owen Street Monster by J. L. Comeau

Most of the time, when we're reading submissions, and find a story we think we might want to buy—I usually put it in a stack of "possibles" for a second or third reading. If I still like it as much the second or third time around, it makes the Contents page. But every now and then, a story just simply zaps me with its energy and its narrative punch. When Elizabeth handed me "The Owen Street Monster," saying "This one is great—we have to buy it!", I knew we had one of those instant winners. It seethes with a just-beneath-the-surface vileness that I simply love. If Judy Comeau keeps turning out concise, powerful little barbs like this, she's going to make a name for herself as a real master of the short form.

(connect)

"Hi, Addie? It's Janine. I just wanted to call and tell you how sorry I am about your loss and let you know I'm here for you if you need anything. Anything at all. God, it's difficult, I know, but really, Addie, you have to go on for the sake of the other children, and... Well..."

Sigh. "Yes, Janine. Thank you so much. I saw you at the funeral yesterday, but I just couldn't—"

"Oh, honey, I understand. We all assumed you'd been given a tranquilizer. You hardly seemed to know where you were. God, Addie, it was so terrible for you, I know."

"No one can know what it's like until they've lost one of their own. I—it's unnatural to bury a child. It should have been David burying me, don't you see? He was only a baby. Six years old. Just six."

"Please don't cry, Addie. You still have Sherman, Jr. and little Melody. They need you to be strong now. Think of them."

"I know you're right, Janine. Thank heaven school started last week. I don't think I could have held out any longer. Poor little David... I, oh... God."

"Oh, Addie, Addie. You poor, poor darling. Try to be courageous for the others. They need your strength, and you're a very strong woman; we all know you are. And remember, if there's ever anything I or any of the other girls on Owen Street can do to help you through this terrible ordeal, we're here for you. Do you hear me? We-are-here-for-you."

"God bless you, Janine. And thank you for all the food you and the girls brought over to the house. I don't know what I would have done—"

"It was nothing. Absolutely nothing at all. You just take good care of yourself, Addie. We love you. Remember that."

"Oh, Janine..."

"Look, honey, I can tell you're a wreck. Go ahead now, get yourself a nice glass of wine and settle down for Oprah. Today she's having on women who've lost their limbs to accidents."

"Arms and legs, you mean?"

"Yes. Can you imagine? Well, look, it's almost four, so I'm going to let you go now."

"Janine?"

"What, hon?"

"Thanks."

"Oh, hush. Bye now."

"Bye bye."

(disconnect)

▼

(connect)

"Hello, Samantha?"

"Yeah. Janine?"

"Yeah."

"Did you see Oprah today? The one about women who've lost their limbs?"

"Yes. Wasn't that bizarre? What are you making for dinner tonight? I can't come up with a thing."

"Oh, Christ. I guess I'll nuke some chicken and boil up some Rice-a-Roni. Maybe I'll just call out for pizza. Tell you the truth, Janine, this maternity leave is about to kill me. I can't wait to get back to work. The kid screams twenty-four hours a day, Jack's whining for tail all the time, and I—"

"Listen, Sam. I talked to Addie Wilmer this afternoon."

"What?"

"Don't get crazy. I just called her to see how she's getting along."

"What did she say?"

"Well, she's grief-stricken, of course. Who wouldn't be after losing a child?"

"Janine, I think we ought to just leave Addie alone."

"Look, Sam, we all live on Owen Street. We're going to be seeing Addie for a long time. She's our neighbor, after all."

"Maybe if we just cut her off, you know, give her the cold shoulder, she'll move away. We could—"

"No, no. That wouldn't work. We don't want to do that. Addie's a good neighbor, Samantha."

"But that kid. That David."

"David's gone, Samantha. He's not a problem any more."

"Yeah. Okay, I guess you're right, Janine. But I just feel so weird with Addie being right down the block. You know?"

"I know, I know. But listen. That boy is gone, so try to be friendly to Addie and her other kids. Please. It means so much. You're my very closest friend, Samantha. I know you can do it."

"Well... All right, Janine. I'll try."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"So how's your sex life, Sammy? Jack keeping you on your back?"

Laugh. "Naw. I'm keeping him on his."

Laugh. "Good for you. Gotta go."

"Right. See ya."

"Bye."

(disconnect)

▼

(connect)

"Nicole?"

"Yes?"

"Janine."

"Oh, hi, Janine. I was just thinking about you."

"We do seem to have some sort of mental connection, don't we?"

"Yes, we truly do. It's uncanny, isn't it? Sometimes I know exactly what you're going to say just before you say it."

"It's the most extraordinary thing. I've heard that best friends like us sometimes develop a kind of telepathy."

"Really? Where did you hear that?"

"Donahue or Geraldo, I guess. I can't remember. It's a fact, though."

"Did you see Oprah yesterday? Women without limbs?"

"Yes. Weird, huh? Today she's having on people who mutilate themselves to relieve stress."

"You are kidding."

"Nope. Not to change the subject, Nicole, but I was talking to Samantha yesterday and she's getting a little nuts about this Addie Wilmer thing."

"About the dead kid, you mean."

"Well, not so much that as she's uncomfortable about facing Addie."

"Samantha is such a wimp."

"Really. But we've got to convince her that developing an attitude against Addie at this point would only be counterproductive and possibly detrimental to everyone concerned."

"Samantha is such a dumb bitch."

"Yes, I know, but I'm counting on you to help Sam through this, Nicole. We all have to help her. Remember, we're only as strong as our weakest link."

"Yeah, I guess we're stuck with her now."

"Yes, Nicole. We are."

"Okay, I'll talk to her, but I've got to go now, Janine. The kids are raising red hell out in the back yard. Christ, I'll be so glad when they're old enough for school. Oh shit, I think one of them's bleeding."

"Go ahead, then, Nicole. And remember, be nice to Samantha. We've all got to help her over the hump."

"I will, I will. Gotta go, Janine. Jason is beating Michelle to a pulp."

"Okay, go ahead. Bye."

(disconnect)

▼

(connect)

"Janine?"

"Hilary?"

"Janine, I've got to talk to you."

"What's the matter?"

"What's the matter? Are you kidding?"

"Hilary, you sound terrible."

"I'm scared, Janine. I can't sleep, I can't eat, I—"

"Hilary. Honey. I'm surprised at you. You were the one who started this whole thing in the first place, remember? You were the one who convinced us all that we had to do it. And you were right, Hilary. One hundred percent right. What's going on?"

"Jesus, I don't know. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I read all the wrong conclusions into totally innocent behavior. Maybe—"

"Maybe nothing. You were right. You just have a case of the jitters. It'll pass. I promise. Be strong. Just be strong for a little while and it'll pass."

"I don't know, Janine. I'm losing it. I'm really losing it."

"That child was a monster, Hilary. David Wilmer was a monster. Every one of us saw the signs. All the newspapers and magazines confirmed our suspicions, remember?"

"But those newspapers were tabloids, not the Washington Post or New York Times."

"It was in black and white, Hilary: craves attention, unaffected by punishment, cruelty to animals, setting fires, vivid fantasies. David displayed all those deviations."

"I don't know, Janine, thinking about it now, I don't think any of us ever saw David harm an animal."

"He was scared to death of animals; it's the same damn thing. It's not natural for a little boy. Remember when Nicole's collie tried to play with David?"

"Lamby knocked David down."

"The dog was just playing, for Christ's sake. Boys are supposed to love dogs. David hated animals, you could tell. He would have hurt one if he'd gotten the chance."

"How about setting fires? We were never entirely sure he caused the Lovett's fire. The firemen said faulty wiring."

"You saw the look on that kid's face as the Lovett house went up. Total fascination. Enchantment. He was a firebug, all right. Funny how he was right there to witness the fire."

"We were all there, Janine."

"Hilary, listen. How would you have felt if six or seven years down the road they found your precious little Sarah dumped out in the woods somewhere, raped and mutilated? Torn to pieces?"

"Oh, God, Janine. Don't say that. Don't breathe it."

"That might have happened, Hilary. We heard what can happen with children like David on all the talk shows. He was a killer in the making. We had to do it."

"Jesus, I can still hear David screaming. I can't get it out of my head."

"Get hold of yourself, Hilary. We're all having a hard time with this. Don't forget, we each took an equal hand in it. Samantha poured the gas, Nicole lured David into the shed, I locked the door, and you threw the lit cigarette in through the window. You started the fire, Hilary. You're the one who actually killed David Wilmer. You. There's a death penalty in this state for murder. You'd be the one to die, Hilary. Just you. The rest of us would probably get off with probation. And think of your family. The publicity would ruin their lives forever. They'd all despise you if they found out."

"Oh, God. What am I going to do?"

"You're going to quit blubbering and pull yourself together, that's what. It's a bit late for tears."

"Janine, I've got to go. I can't talk anymore."

"Please don't do anything stupid, Hilary. For your kids' sake. For Harold. Think about your parents. This would kill them."

"I'm going now, Janine. I can't live with this anymore."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to take a little trip to the stars. I'm going to stop this pain once and for all."

"Hilary, calm down. Take some Valium. Have a Seconal."

"That's just what I intend to do."

(disconnect)

▼

(connect)

"Nicole? Janine."

"What's the matter?"

"It's Hilary. She's falling apart. Having second thoughts, a guilt attack."

"Oh, no."

"Don't get excited yet. I think she's planning to commit suicide. I just talked to her a minute ago, and I swear I think she's planning to overdose on pills."

"What should we do? Should we call an ambulance?"

Pause. "I don't think so, Nicole. I think we ought to let her go ahead and do it."

"What?"

"Listen to me. Samantha we can handle. She's just a little nervous. She'll be okay. But Hilary... I think she'd eventually go to the police."

"God."

"Yes. I think we should just bide our time for now. Lay low. Stay cool."

"What if she changes her mind and doesn't take the pills?"

"We'll keep an eye on her house. If either one of us sees her leaving, we'll intercept her. If you see her first, bring her to my house. If I see her first, I'll bring her to yours."

"What then?"

"We'll discuss that when we need to."

Sigh. "Janine, this is getting sticky. I didn't think it would get so complicated."

"Relax, Nicole. Nothing's happened yet. Probably nothing will. Don't worry. Best friends like us, we can handle anything."

"Yeah, you're right. We can handle Samantha and Hilary. We're an invincible duo." Laugh.

"Best friends to the end. And Nicole?"

"What, hon?"

"Keep your eye on that Frazier kid down the street at 510. He seems a little odd."

"Will do. Talk to you later."

"Bye bye."

"Bye."

(disconnect)

The Man Who Was Made of Money by Avram Davidson

I can't remember when I first read an Avram Davidson story, but I know it's been many years ago, and it may well have been an old Ballantine paperback collection of his named after his classic, "Or All The Seas With Oysters." I suspect that the latest generation of readers and fans doesn't know much of his work because he hasn't been writing much lately. In fact, Avram couldn't sign the limited edition of this book because his health simply wouldn't allow it. But that was a small price to pay for the honor of publishing a new Davidson story—a chilling satire of contemporary culture that is far too close to many a suburban reality.

Beth and Joe Braidel (accent on the last syllable) hadn't even moved into their new home when old Mr. Goodworth came to see it. She said, "And how do you like our ranch house?" And instead of a decent, "it's very nice", at the least or words of praise which any civilized person would feel were only proper, the old man had to ask, "And where are the cattle?" Oh, of course Beth smiled, but she really could have killed him; however, as she told herself, she didn't have to live with Harry Goodworth. Let him look around and make his remarks, in a few minutes he would go away and write up the policy, that was all he was there for, and there wouldn't be any nonsense about his calling every week to collect the money the way he was still doing for that piddling little life insurance that Joe's parents were still paying for. No thank you, none of that for Beth, the new place was far enough away from the old neighborhood and besides, with this kind of policy you only paid once a year. Twice?

It was a lovely house, a beautiful house—

Beth could have done without old Harry Goodworth altogether, not only in regard to the insurance on the new house, but the one on Joe's life, which had been taken out years ago. Who needs Goodworth, she had argued back then. Maybe the old man knew that and that was why...? No. That's just the way he always was. Well. One of these days. A yellow face like that, he wouldn't be around much longer. And the policy could be transferred, couldn't it? To someone who could really be of use to Joe in business... so. She wasn't having any more of old Goodworth or of Joe's parents, or, for that matter, of her own parents, than she could help. It was her house and it was going to be furnished her way. And this was where real loyalty came in. Never mind what it all cost. A woman has a right to have nice things in her house, isn't that right?

When we say that Beth Braidel didn't want too much to do with her own parents, that isn't to say that she didn't want anything to do with them. As soon as the house was ready to show people, one of the first she showed it to was her mother. Wall-to-wall carpeting in every room, every appliance the human heart could want, serving-for-ten of everything, original modern art on the walls—

"Well, did your little girl do all right for herself?" asked Beth, in her funny way.

And Beth's mother, nodding, and with that typical little dry smile that only Beth's mother can do so well if she wants to (and God help you if she doesn't!), said, "Not... bad. Not bad at all. See what you can do if you handle the husband right?"

Meanwhile, and far more important for the moment, were her two closest friends. Her two closest friends.

It was perhaps just a little bit unfortunate, their both having the same first name, thus requiring them to be referred to by their last ones as well, Joan Raisen and Joan Kaye. If everyone had gone along with the simple little idea which Beth had thought of, namely calling one "Joan" and the other one "Joanie," but some people for some reason seemed unable to grasp this concept, even their husbands, for example, so there was nothing to be done about that: And after Joe Braidel had said, I know... I know, very apologetically, he gave every indication of having learned his lesson...

Keeping up with the Joanses!

Some sense of humor.

After all, why does a woman want a nice home? For herself? Hardly worth the worry and aggravation. For her husband? Does the average man, left to himself and his own devices, even know? He doesn't know. Food, a comfortable old chair, a couch and a bed and a television set—enough for him. As for children, too ridiculous to consider that and that was a bridge she didn't even intend to come to, let alone cross, for a goodly period of time, if at all.

No.

A woman wants a nice home for the same reason she wants a nice husband, because what else is there to compensate her for everything she gives up when she gets married and everything she has to put up with after she gets married? She wants a home and a husband that she can show her friends and family without being ashamed. And to say that "a woman's place is in the home," to interpret that as meaning that her place is only in her home, is disgusting. But after all, where does the average woman have a better chance to display what she is really made of and what she really is, except in her own home? Beth's little cousin Kippy, now just take Beth's little cousin Kippy. Two children in two rooms and a filthy so-called artiste's studio, and in what a neighborhood! And when does she ever get out with her stupid artist husband, and then where do they go? A museum, a gallery! And yet she says she's happy!

Whereas a successful woman, a woman who has a lovely home, a woman who has time and leisure and means to go where she pleases when she pleases, a woman who has the latest of everything, such a woman can, so to speak, open her home to the whole world in complete confidence that nobody can turn up a nose and nobody can look down on her and/or pity her. Such a woman need bear no resentment for the past regarding if she were perhaps treated unfairly by a parent or if an older or younger sibling had favorite status. Such a woman can look her aunt, let us say, in the eye and she doesn't have to say such words as, "your marvelous Vicki that you were always boasting off: Does she have two dishwashers? Three freezers? A floor-level wine-cellar? Stereo, with speakers and controls in every room? Ten complete servings of imported tableware? The very latest subscription copies of French and British magazines? Not just a few copies you bought six months ago and six months from now the same ones will still be there staring you in the face, but the latest!" Such a woman doesn't have to say things to her aunt. Her aunt has eyes. Her aunt is not a complete fool. Neither is her mother, and not her school friends and not their mothers, aunts, sisters, and so on and so on.

Such a woman is a success!

And success can only be matched against other successes.

It had always seemed that Joe Braidel had appreciated it. If you have a lovely home, if you have a lovely wife, if she has jewelry, if you have two decent cars and a station wagon, and if you have enough insurance, well, what more can a man ask for or expect?

Suppose he had a wife who insisted on going out to work and he could never be sure that she was really in her office and not in a little apartment with her so-called employer, instead of taking care of her lovely home or enjoying some well-earned leisure with a woman friend or two.

After all, Beth never for a moment forgot what her duties were. And neither did she demean herself by forgetting what her husband's duties were. And a lovely home and everything that it entails has to be kept up, doesn't it?

But a man feels he has to grumble. He has to? All right, let him grumble.

"Why do you need a new station wagon, now?", grumbles Joe.

"I need a new station wagon? All the groceries I buy for myself I could carry on a scooter. You want to do the shopping?" is how Beth puts it to him, pithily.

Of course the new wagon has more room in it than the old one, but that's not the point, the point is that it's a new one. What man wants his wife to drive around an old heap of junk already over two years old?

"And the insurance is due next month, too," Joe concludes. This is supposed to be Beth's fault. As though Beth had demanded that he arrange quarterly payments, let him pay it annually like the fire and burglary insurance, or semi-annually, whichever is the most convenient for him, as she points out. And he talks about her clothes! A man can wear a suit from one year's end to another, as long as he remembers to have it cleaned and pressed regularly, but that's just not the way women's clothes are. And that goes for every kind of clothes, from underwear to fur, as well as accessories, wouldn't you agree? Of course!

"No, I don't want you to make your panties out of flour bags" says Joe, "but what in the hell do all these bills have to do with wearing underwear made out of—?"

"I'm sorry about the bills, Joe," she says contritely, and points out that if he put more money in her account she could pay cash.

And sometimes it is necessary for her to tell him not to raise his voice to her. You just don't let them get away with it, that's all. If they say no you have to keep after them until they say yes, and if they try to get away then you stand in the doorway or you follow them into the bedroom. "Everybody in the neighborhood will hear you," says Joe.

"Everybody in the neighborhood will hear me? Then everybody in the neighborhood will hear me," says Beth, letting him know what his own words sound like. "If everybody in the neighborhood will hear me—"

Joe holds his head in his hands, because men love these little dramatic tricks, and pretends to groan and moan and then he says, "All right, all right, oh my God—Yes! Yes!" He opens his mouth again but is forestalled in his intended underhanded tricks by his long-suffering wife who quickly reminds him that everybody in the neighborhood will hear him, if he doesn't stop his shouting, and this never fails to shut him up.

▼

"Just like a child," says Joan Raisen.

"They are just like children," agrees Joan Kaye.

And they caution one another.

"Never make a man jealous," they say, "there are better ways."

It is agreed that if there are no children, and there are as yet no children, then mention of more insurance should always be made casually. It is agreed that insurance is very important. And they squabble politely over the tab, and whose turn to pay it.

Beth is feeling so much better. Such afternoons are, after all, a form of therapy, wouldn't you agree? And how would Joe like to have to pay those kind of bills? So, Beth is sorry to deny her friends the pleasure, but insists that it is her treat. "My Aunt Simma," she just remarks in passing, before they part, "who is in many ways really an awful old woman, always used to say, 'Better insurance without a husband than a husband without insurance.'"

Her friends, nodding solemnly with raised eyebrows and lower lips tucked under, digest this... and then assure her, that, Yes, well, it is an awful thing to say, but... still... you know...

Beth has almost forgiven Joe by the time she gets home.

However, Beth is not the morbid type, and rather than let her mind dwell on such subjects, decides that Joe deserves a good break, something nice: something really, really nice. So she trades in her old car and buys an imported sportscar for him. Since the day she had her friends over for the special viewing on the then new house, Beth has never felt so happy. She anticipates the look on Joe's face...

But the look on Joe's face is not at all what she anticipated. Joe, in short, proves to be a real bastard and a son of a bitch about her lovely present for him. And he insists on holding some kind of senate hearing about it. How he can't use it for his work. How they already have two cars. How even if they sell one, what will it bring? As though Beth is supposed to be a goddamn blue book; how is she supposed to know how much it will bring? And how this and how that, and so all the pleasure she anticipated in driving the lovely little sports car is gone, it is just gone, and she breaks into tears. And he is still a son of a bitch! Not until Beth has completely lost control of herself and sprawls on the ground weeping in anguish does Joe decide that this time he has gone too far.

Joe looks at her and evidently he reads her mind through her face. She raises her head and touches her hair. "Oh, now, don't bring up that bull about sewing your underwear out of flour sacks," he says, with sadly misplaced humor. "Just try to remember that I'm not made of money—" Beth says nothing, she just looks at him. "Well, am I?" he asks.

No one could stand it, and Beth's iron control breaks down and she all but screams at him, "Yes! Yes! Yes, you are—you have to be! Somebody has to be! Who else should be? Me? Me?" And she clenches her fists and her jaws clench, and she says, beside herself, "You have to be made of money!"

Well, for a wonder! Joe does not carry on anymore: now that the facts of life have been laid before him, so to speak, all he says is, "So I have to be made of money..." And then he goes and takes some pill or capsules with milk and goes off to bed. And Beth—

And here comes the funny part. You have never heard anything as weird as this in all you life. Because after he drops off to sleep, or maybe before, it doesn't make any difference, Beth has this absolutely fantastic and incredible dream! She dreams that suddenly she is wide awake and some sort of little glow of light is in the room, not electricity and not moonlight, but enough to see by very clearly, and she goes and looks at Joe's bed and he is there, yes, but very, very different. In fact, in this dream there is this huge and enormous mass of money in the bed and it is shaped just like Joe! Joe is actually made of money. So in this dream Beth immediately gets up and tiptoes over and slips several bills off the pile where his stomach was, so to speak, thinking to herself, "Well... he weighs too much anyway." She giggles and opens a drawer in her dressing-table and slips two bills clearly identified as $500 each and one $1000 bill into a little purse she had there and closes it up and giggles to herself again and gets back into bed and goes to sleep.

Have you ever heard of such a thing? No, of course not, and neither has anyone else.

Next morning Joe seemed kind of tired and, not grouchy, just sort of, oh, slumpy. Hardly gave her a civil word! Maybe he hadn't slept well, if so, that's his problem, she didn't write those prescriptions. And yet Beth had this crazy sort of idea in her mind that Joe actually had been awake and had seen her take the money and put it in her purse and that after she went to sleep he got up and took it out and—oh, she couldn't imagine the rest of it. It was a crazy idea, but the more she thought of it the more she resented it: after all, it was her money. So what right did he have? And the more she thought about it, the more she resented it. Which is what effect a selfish husband can have upon even the most unselfish of wives.

Finally, as Joe was getting ready to leave, she simply informed him, "Joe, you won't forget to make a deposit in the bank, in my account?"

Give him credit, he didn't complain, he didn't raise his eyes, he just said, "How much?" and she said the first figure which popped into her mind, which was "two thousand" and he nodded. Which was very nice so she went over and gave him a kiss and a hug and of course he at once started getting ideas and of course Beth knew how to handle him and gave him a little pat and sent him off to work. So that was that and that was alright.

Well, two thousand dollars, to a child that is all the money in the world, but, after all, to an adult used to a moderate but respectable standard of living, what is two thousand dollars? Two thousand dollars is nothing. It would have been a perfect day if Beth hadn't taken pains to add up the cost of the few absolutely essential little accessories which it had been necessary to purchase for the sports car, and thus observed that the two thousand dollars was barely adequate to cover her expenditures. This is what is meant by maturity, a child imagines that two thousand dollars will last forever and is angry if it doesn't, but to a mature person the matter is otherwise.

Nevertheless this matter must have rested on Beth's mind because she had exactly the same sort of dream again; but whereas before in the funny dream Joe had been lying on his side, now he was lying on his back. His pajamas seemed made out of paper money and his legs and arms sticking out seemed made out of checks and it seemed as though his hands and feet were made out of gold coins, and his head too, except that his hair was money orders and his nails were silver coins. It sounds crazy but it was really the most realistic thing imaginable! Like—here's a tiny little detail which stuck in Beth's mind, just for an example—as she tiptoed over and in her dream stood looking down at Joe it seemed as though one of his eyes was just a little bit open the way it sometimes is with a person, even though he's asleep, and it seemed as though the eyeball was gleaming under the eye-lid. Actually, of course it was only an edge of a silver coin shining underneath a gold coin—but so real!

Well, it was all so silly that Beth, in her dream, could hardly help laughing but, thinking to herself that "business is business", she helped herself quickly to some money, only this time she observed what she was doing in greater particulars and this time she took $5,000. She wondered, where should she put it this time, and the thought occurred to her, why not put it in the toes of one of the new shoes in her closet? And she glanced at Joe while she was crouching by the closet, but his pajama-top just kept on rising and falling just as if it was really a man breathing and not a pile of money in the shape of a man. Then she went back to bed and fell asleep.

Sure enough, next morning the shoes weren't in their usual neat lines but do you think that any money was in them? Not on your life! Beth had this idea again, just seemed to feel it; he'd been awake the entire time and looking at her and after she had fallen asleep he'd gotten up and taken the money! Oh, she was burned up! But... after all... what could she do? Face him with the facts? He'd deny it, of course he would; who was it who said, "If you find an honest man, breed him"? Some joke. So she took the only sensible action, she thought, Well, Beth, so you have a $5000 line of credit with your husband, so to speak, and she restricted her next credit purchases to that amount, and not for any inducement could she have been persuaded to exceed that sum.

And despite Joe's sneaky behavior in taking her money, let it be said to his credit that Joe did not complain about these bills, he merely paid them all in full for the new things, the envy of all her friends and family; not only because it was no more than right, but because it was his duty. The wife keeps the house and the husband pays for it. That is what is meant by equality.

Anyway to avoid repetition, this same scene or variations on this or similar scenes, continued. Why Joe Braidel had to play this silly little game, Beth could not imagine; why he didn't simply say, I understand that there is an inflation, that I am married to a polished and sophisticated woman used to a certain standard of living which must on no account and under no circumstances be diminished. So therefore I am raising your allowance and increasing the household money, I am doubling and tripling both of them—why Joe did not simply say and do this, who indeed can tell? He didn't have the money? He did have the money, if he didn't have the money could Beth have spent it? But there you are, men are just like children, so immature, they have to play these games all the time in order to bolster their infantile egos. So Beth simply shrugged. If Joe wanted to play these foolish games in the world of dreams, well, go ahead. Some wives would have made scenes, but that is not Beth's way, another reason why she is so widely admired and envied.

Which is more than can be said for some people.

After Beth realized that her pent-up talents for creativity were now to have freer play and that Joe wasn't going to make silly fusses, well, for one thing, she had the entire house redecorated. To show how inconsiderate some people are, who showed up then but Joe's parents, sneaking and peeping nosily asking how much it was all going to cost and other matters none of their damned business. And then had the nerve to ask if she didn't think that Joe wasn't spending too much money.

"No, I certainly do not," was Beth's crisp answer.

And she let them know that she was not the kind of wife who interfered with her husband's desires.

However, the matter preyed upon her mind to such an extent that as soon as the redecorating was finished and completed, she simply had to yield to her fatigue, and went to the Bahamas for a month.

Upon her return, of course, needless to say that Joe was overjoyed having her back, he was really very sweet. But once the novelty had worn off, who could say where things would be? In fact, so little had Joe gained in maturity, no sooner had he fallen asleep and was dead to the world, when Beth observed that once again he was indulging herself in the selfsame dream fantasy as before, once again he was imagining that he had turned into a big pile of money. Though one or two signs indicated that things were not quite as before. Although the outlines of this so called "body" in the bed were Joe's outlines, and the "body", in fact the corpus delectus, was composed of such things as treasury notes, government bonds, federal reserve notes, checks, money orders, and silver and gold coins; yet the pile was of lesser bulk. So Beth merely extracted the money needed to cover accumulated bills and perhaps an equal amount, or maybe even just a bit more to stay on the safe-side, as a contingency. And she put it all in the upper left-hand drawer of her vanity.

Feeling much, much better after this, and feeling fully able to cope with the problems of every day existence, she had now to face the fact that one reason why her husband seemed so restless and at the same time listless at home was that it still contained almost of all the same old junk which had come with them when they'd moved, more or less. So regardless of the toll which such exertions had always taken, Beth fearlessly began to tackle this next problem. Who could deny, therefore, that many of the obsolete items anyway, did not fit in with the houses brave new decor. The old order must change, or something like that.

But Joe's new attitude struck her like a thunderbolt, to wit; he informed her that he'd been advised on medical grounds to stop work, leave home and to enter a small private hospital for what was obliquely termed "observation"! He added, as though it mattered, that his parents agreed. His parents! His mother, he meant! No wonder Joe was showing the strain.

But Beth had to steel herself on these points, though her heart ached, because it would not only have been unfair to her, it would have been unfair to him. Imagine what a thing it would be if she had allowed a man of his age to begin yielding to his mother, for heaven's sake! A man's duty wasn't to his mother, was it? Of course not, ask any psychologist; a man's duty, first, last and foremost, is to his wife. After all, was it for herself that Beth wanted new furniture and so on? Don't be ridiculous. But the fact is that she wanted it and so it was his duty to provide the wherewithal. When a wife wants something she has a right to have it, a man assumes this responsibility at marriage. It is his duty to care for his wife in all things and, if not, then that's his fault, and if it's his fault, than obviously it's not her fault.

And another thing, suppose Joe were to play this game of his about turning into a pile of money at night, right there in the hospital. How would it look to the doctors and the nurses? How? To have his ego destroyed in this manner by strangers? And therefore she couldn't consent. Why should strangers be plucking and pulling at him while he was in that condition? It would be simple robbery, because who could check up on them?

No!

"I didn't marry a man who's in the hospital," she reminds him. "I want a husband who's here at home when I need him," she says. "All the doctors want is your money; who owns that small private hospital? The doctors," she says, no longer able to control her emotions and, unlike her usual self, talking in a somewhat loud voice. "I'm the one who should be in the hospital, I'm the one who has the worry and the concern and aggravation. Sickness is for old men and I didn't marry an old man!" Sometimes it's necessary to be blunt. Sometimes you just have to tell them about it and hammer it home. "You'd better wake up before it's too late," Beth reminds him, aghast to realize that she is practically shouting—

—but, after all, it's not her fault—

And what does Joe do then? Sit there with tears crawling down his face! How weak he is, she thinks, how weak he is. Beth is obliged to take control and for his own good make him admit she is right and he is wrong. "Yes," he says. "Yes, yes... yes..." And she gets him up to bed and brings him his medicine and brings him warm milk and she tucks him in and sits on the edge of the bed until she is ready to drop and finally he falls asleep. After all, what is a wife for?

However, Beth was gaining in maturity and ceasing to engage in projecting infantile fantasies. She was still dreaming that when asleep Joe turned to a pile of money, only with her decreased interest in the game, it was really not a pile any longer, it was just an outline on the bed. One layer of paper money and underneath were make-believe bones of gold coins. Beth stood there very thoughtfully. Just suppose that Joe did something unwise, such as spending the night somewhere else at a time when he was still under this delusion? This far-out possibility continued to prey upon her awareness, and it seemed that her entire life was just one worry after another. It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair.

So Beth, with a sigh she was unable to conceal, gathered all the money from the bed, every single bit of it, and she put it in her safety-box. However, at the last minute, with a shrug and a slight smile, because no one has a keener sense of humor than Beth, she withheld the tiniest coin, a two-dollar gold piece no bigger than a fingernail, and put it back on the bed. And then, unable to keep her eyes open any longer, she yawned and stretched... but no one was there to appreciate her exhaustion.

And so there you are. People talk so easily about tragedy and heartache, but do they even know what the words mean? Joan Raisen can tell you that people don't even know what they are talking about, and so can Joan Kaye. Between themselves they speak in whispers, they think that Beth can't hear them, but she hears them all right, even though she is under very heavy sedation, because it is a thing of the past that a woman should be expected to go through an ordeal of this sort without the protecting miracles of modern scientific medicine. Although she hears what they are whispering, nevertheless she doesn't mind, it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that she get through this very difficult period without breaking down. They are protecting her, she doesn't need to see other people at a time like this; what good would it do Beth? —old Mrs. Braidel, with her screaming and carrying on, as though she didn't have other children, and even grandchildren, and what is so much more important, she still has her own husband.

And not only her, the mother-in-law, but this horrible old man, Harry Goodworth, and an insurance-man is supposed to be a comfort to you at a time like this. But do you call this a comfort, the way he kept sneering and intimidating as though it was in some way Beth's fault that her husband was a mere shadow of himself, mere skin and bones so to speak, when he passed away?—as though it were Beth's fault somehow that it turned out that Joe had been milking his business and taking everything out of it and putting nothing back into it and how he had borrowed, borrowed, borrowed on the business and on the house and on the insurance policies and who knows for what? Who knows for what? Whether he was gambling or whether he was keeping a woman or whether he was taking drugs—until who knows what would be left for Beth if she hadn't been able to put aside a little something, and if she didn't have her jewelry and her this and that and a few other things? No.

No. Nobody needs old Goodworth hanging around and slandering the living and the dead. However, Beth is after all a young woman, she still has her good looks and her good friends, and they will look out for her. They will see to it that she has a good lawyer, and if Joe's family thinks for one moment—

—but her friends don't want to raise their voices—Beth will find someone else. There are lots of good men who go along thinking that they will never get married but you would be surprised, a young widow with no children hanging around her neck—well, well, time enough to discuss that afterwards. As for Joe, who would have thought of it, so deceitful, so irresponsible and after everything she did for him... well, no doubt he had his purpose to fulfill in the world before he left it; that's what the greatest philosophers all say and we have to believe them.

The Brotherhood by John Alfred Taylor

I've seen John Taylor's work sporadically over the years in the occasional magazine and most often in the various volumes of Karl Wagner's Year's Best anthologies. His work is marked by a sense of literary decadence that is both charming and disquieting, and always informed by an intellect of great scope. John teaches at Washington Jefferson College in Pennsylvania and is not afraid to let his scholarship elevate his fiction. He has sent me many fine stories for the Borderlands series that didn't cut it for various reasons, but I always knew it was just a matter of time before he hit me between the eyes. And then "The Brotherhood" came rollicking into my post office box...

"On your bellies, jarheads!"

Don Broca dropped with the other pledges, barely taking the shock on his knees before he straightened out flat on the indoor-outdoor carpet. The carpet smelled of dust and old vomit.

He'd heard a grunt of pain to his right, and now Sam seemed to be snoring with every breath.

"On your feet!"

As he leaped up Don glanced sideways, saw Sam with head bent, bleeding from his nose, the front of his t-shirt already crimson.

"What are you looking at, faggot?" screamed Walker, the brother in charge. "Look straight ahead—"

Don realized Walker was addressing him. "Look at me, dipshit! Or we serve your balls for prairie oysters."

Walker went on chewing Don out till his face turned purple, finally moderating his invective enough to explain: "Don't any of you worry about each other, just worry about yourself, because you're gonna need to—

"So down on your bellies this instant!"

Crash. "Now up, up, up, jarheads."

When Don jerked up he saw Sam still on the floor, but stared straight ahead. Walker noticed the empty space, glanced down, nodded silently, and a brother came up from behind and bent over Sam. "OK you dorks—Jumping jacks. One-two, one-two, one-two—"

A second brother came up on the other side of Sam and helped the first half-drag, half-carry him away.

▼

When they were finally set free Don and another pledge walked Sam back to Gardner Hall. Sam was a little dizzy, and still had one nostril plugged with a wad of toilet paper, but tried to see the brighter side, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going, right?"

Though Don had the bottom bunk, he wasn't going to make Sam climb, even if he bled on the sheets. Sam started to snore like a bucksaw the moment he hit Don's rack: it was going to be a great night, a real great night.

Don went into the bathroom to piss.

Afterwards he looked in the mirror, and wondered why he was pledging Alpha Pi Omega. How had Sam talked him into it? Or had he talked Sam into it? Don was too tired to remember—the rings under his eyes had rings under them.

They'd agreed Alpha was the boss fraternity on campus, dominating the Greek Council. Off campus too, because the alumni always came back, always stuck together, always got the younger brothers jobs. And Sigma Gamma ("Smegma Gummy") was full of weenies, the jocks in Beta Delta Phi were second-stringers.

But was Alpha worth this?

In spite of the anti-hazing rule, the other frats gave their pledges rough times: the Sigma Gamma pledges counted cadence as they jogged, the jocks in Bubba Felta Thigh couldn't bathe and wore burlap undervests.

Alpha was tougher. Don knew the "jarhead" business and the pledge haircuts and brutal physical training came from the Second Founder, real name Jack Martin, because in the tradition talks he'd heard much more about the Second Founder than about the First Founders of the last century. Martin had been an ex-Marine, flying for the CIA in Guatemala in 1954 and, after the success of the coup, had hung around long enough to bring a great secret out of the jungle. Afterwards he'd decided to get an education, coming to Frobisher on the Korean GI Bill to share his secret with his fraternity brothers. The secret was what made Alpha special.

It had to be worth the agony. Because even though the brothers never talked about it, you could always sense something unspoken, something that gave them an edge.

Don went back and climbed up into his roommate's bunk, but couldn't get to sleep for a long time, turning over repeatedly to find a more comfortable position for his aching shoulders and thighs while Sam snored thickly below.

"Relax jarhead," Parisi said. "We're just going to have a little talk after you look at a few educational pictures."

Don looked around, unreassured. The two of them were in another room in the basement of the chapter house, much smaller than the big one with the indoor-outdoor carpet, only large enough to hold a card table and two folding chairs. The plasterboard walls and ceiling closed in on them, painted with stripes and dapplings of sulfur yellow touched with black and gray; even the inside of the door was part of the swirling, oppressive pattern.

Parisi picked up the stack of posterboard rectangles on the table like a giant's deck of cards, lifted the one on top to show the picture pasted to its underside. It was a color picture of a steer hung upside down in a slaughter-house, blood still coming from its throat, eye frozen in dumb terror. A bit disgusting, but what was the point?

Then Parisi showed the next card, and Don's stomach turned over. A bleak hardcore photo of a woman making it with a German Shepherd.

Just what had he gotten himself into?

Next came an accident victim embedded in what was left of his windshield. Don was used to this from high school safety programs, except this was a Polaroid original.

A homosexual (or at least a masochist) who smiled and posed with rings through his pierced nipples.

Don recognized the next image because it was famous: a screaming Vietnamese girl running toward the camera, clothed only in flames.

Charles Manson grinning.

A faded photo of a face half-skull and half-char that was staked down with split bamboo at the collar bones (Don's best guess was a Japanese soldier captured in World War II and gone over with a blowtorch.).

A crazy dark painting of a huge goat who sat up like a man in a circle of hags.

A newsphoto of a suicide just clearing the rail of a bridge. A collage where the Virgin was a flasher—one of Khoumeni and the Pope embracing—a color glossy of a female mantis eating the male in the act of love—an engraving of a mixed-sex daisy chain from some antique porn novel with every organ meticulously and naively delineated—

Then Parisi put the last card of the devil's deck face-down. "So what do you think of our pretty pictures?"

Don's gut had calmed down, but still roiled. Even if it drew flak, he had to say it: "You want my honest opinion? I think they're sick."

Parisi chuckled. "Don't lose your cool. We just want to toughen you up, make you a man of the world. And get you ready for the initiation. Let's go through the stack again."

Don looked away for a moment, but the senseless pattern on the wall was worse than the pictures.

They went through the stack two more times. The last time Parisi said, "And here's the joker in the deck, jarhead," and turned up a sheet with a mirror glued to it.

Don barely recognized himself in the tiny glass.

▼

Sam almost whispered. "It's not going to be so bad."

Don lowered his voice too. "What?"

"The initiation." They didn't need to be loud, sitting next to each other on the edge of Don's bunk in the early morning light. "So how do you know?"

"Ralph Bishop told me."

Don made a dubious noise. "He's only a pledge."

"Yeah, but this elder brother—he wouldn't tell me who—anyway the brother saw how scared Ralph was, told him what to expect."

"And?"

Sam giggled "It's going to be heavy. They'll talk as if they're going to rape us like in jail, screw us in the ass, you know."

"Afraid I do."

"Anyway, we'll be blindfolded. But they won't screw us—just let us worry awhile, then give us an enema."

"That'll really be fun."

"We've had enemas before."

"Never volunteered for 'em."

"Me neither. They were always my mom's idea, or maybe some nurse's. Still, would you rather try the alternate—um—should I call it consciousness-raising experience?"

Don nodded uncertainly "Guess it's good to know what we're in for tomorrow night. Otherwise they might scare us shitless."

Sam tried to grin "That could mess up their plans. Or at least jump the gun, if you know what I mean."

Don grinned back, even if unreassured. Maybe the brother had lied, maybe Ralph was in on the trick—like the trained goat slaughterhouses were supposed to use to sucker the sheep in. But he kept his doubts to himself: mentioning Judas goats to Sam would be just plain cruel.

▼

Next day Don watched what he ate at the Commons, in case the scenario Sam had relayed was true: macaroni and cheese at lunch, mashed potatoes at dinner and afterwards a disgusting custard dessert, lots of bulk without much fiber, whatever he could pass without strain.

Then Don tried to study at the library awhile. Because it was Friday he was alone, with the only noise in the basement stacks the sighing of the ventilation system. When the ducts started talking, Don gave up and went back to the room.

Sam was standing at the west window, silhouetted against the dusk, the shadows of the new leaves on the tall branches beyond moving in the wind. He looked around. "Hi."

"You OK?"

"Sure," Sam said. "Why not?"

"Another half-hour."

A few minutes later there was a knock at the door. "Come in."

It was Ralph Bishop. "Only a little while now."

Don was glad to see Bishop because it gave him a chance to ask for himself. "Sam told me what you said about the initiation. Fake rape but really just an enema. Did an Alpha brother actually give you the word on that?"

"Swear to God."

"You think he was telling the truth?"

Ralph nodded earnestly. "I wouldn't be going through with it if I didn't. It'll be a bit gross is all."

"Yeah," said Sam, "but then we'll be brothers."

▼

Don hoped Ralph was right, because this was scary. Even with all the black candles burning, the big room was chilly when you were naked, which is why the brothers had bathrobes on. Don wondered whether his goosepimples came from fear or cold. Sam looked calm enough but on his other side Kearney was green with fright.

Don could understand why. The brothers had put on a great act—it had to be an act, though it was awfully convincing—of drawing lots for the pledges. They'd explained that was so they wouldn't fight over the best-looking boys, and afterwards Stein the quarterback had strutted over to Kearney to whisper. "Now that's what I call the luck of the draw—I just love blond guys with tight asses."

Now Stein was back with the other brothers, terrycloth robe open, pulling his foreskin back to stroke himself erect as he winked at Kearney. And Walker had his hand moving inside his blue and white robe.

Still Don suspected Ralph's story was true. Not just because he wanted it to be, but because he was standing on a vinyl tarp. Why would they have pledges standing on a tarp unless enemas were involved? Anal rape wouldn't be likely to get the indoor-outdoor carpeting dirty.

Walker leered, the plum-colored tip of his organ thrusting between the sides of his robe. "Down on all fours," he yelled, and Don and the rest threw themselves flat.

"Blindfold the pledges." A brother wrapped a black scarf over Don's eyes and pulled it tight, scaring him even more until he realized that it fit best with Ralph's story of a fake, because they wouldn't want you to see what was really happening.

"Get their knees wider." Hands touched the inside of his thighs, pressed outwards.

"K-Y Jelly time, jarheads," Walker gloated.

Don tried to keep from shuddering while a finger forced a glob of lubricant in, fearful Ralph had been a Judas goat after all.

People were moving around. He could hear a heavy pair of feet approaching and stopping behind him.

"Fun time, guys!"

Walker himself. Don's skin tingled, his whole self contracted. Then he felt the hard little nozzle easing its way in, and could breathe again.

Ralph was right. He was safe, it was just an enema.

Yes and no, Don realized as the terrible joy invaded him, climbing up his spine hot and electric, better than love or religion, more monstrous than rape, making him instantly powerful, frighteningly intelligent. Most of him gave in, collaborated ecstatically with the invader, loved the brightness taking him over, merging with him, but one trapped part of him resisted, walled off, screaming forever.

Don pulled off the blindfold, stood up with the others. While they were blindfolded, a serving cart with an aquarium tank on top had been wheeled in. In the tank seethed milky luminescence, the larger specialized cells big as grains of rice. A pupilless eye formed on its surface, rose on a translucent stalk to look at them.

This was what Jack Martin had brought out of the Guatemalan jungle hidden inside his body.

The Father Thing began to talk to them. Without words, because part of him was in each of his new sons. Telling them how special they were to have been chosen, how they would rule.

This was what brotherhood meant.

The Sixth Sentinel by Poppy Z. Brite

One of the more commented-upon stories of Borderlands 1 was "And His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood" by Poppy Z. Brite. At the time of that story's publication, Poppy was relatively unknown other than for her appearances in some small press magazines. During the past two years, her richly textured stories have been found in the most prestigious magazines and anthologies, and have garnered many award nominations. Her first novel, Lost Souls, was published by Delacorte/Abyss in the Fall of 1992, and Borderlands Press will publish Swamp Foetus, a collection of her short fiction, in early 1993. She writes that the following story, set in her native city of New Orleans, "is a kind of companion piece to "...Wormwood." It is only appropriate, then, that it appears herewith.

I first knew Hard Luck Rosalie Smith when she was a thin frayed rope of a child, twenty years old and already well acquainted with the solitude at the bottom of a whiskey bottle. Her hair was brittle from too many dye jobs, bright red last week, black as the grave today, purple and green for Mardi Gras. Her face was fine-boned and faintly feral, the eyes carefully lined in black, the rouged lips stretched tight over the sharp little teeth. If I had been able to touch Rosalie, her skin would have felt silky and faintly dry, her hair would have been like electricity brushing my face in the dark.

But I could not touch Rosalie, not so that she would notice. I could pass my fingers through the meat of her arm, pale as veal and packed like flaky fish flesh between her thin bones. I could wrap my hand around the smooth porcelain ball of her wrist. But as far as she was concerned, my touch went through her like so much dead air. All she could feel of me was a chill like ice crystallizing along her spine.

"Your liver has the texture of hot, wet velvet," I would tell her, reaching through her ribs to caress the tortured organ.

She'd shrug. "Another year in this town and it'll be pickled."

Rosalie came to the city of New Orleans because it was as far south as her money would take her—or so she said. She was escaping from a lover she would shudderingly refer to only as Joe Coffeespoon. The memory of his touch made her feel cold, far colder than my ectoplasmic fingers ever could, and she longed for the wet kiss of tropical nights.

She moved into an apartment in one of the oldest buildings in the French Quarter, above a "shoppe" that sold potions and philters. At first I wondered whether she would be pleased to find a ghost already residing in her cramped quarters, but as I watched her decorate the walls with shrouds of black lace and photographs of androgynous sunken-cheeked musicians who looked more dead than alive, I began to realize I could show myself safely, without threat of eviction. It is always a nuisance when someone calls in the exorcist. The priest himself is no threat, but the demons that invariably follow him are large as cats and annoying as mosquitoes. It is these, not the intonations and holy water, that drive innocent spirits away.

But Rosalie only gave me a cool appraising look, introduced herself, then asked me for my name and my tale. The name she recognized, having seen it everywhere from the pages of history books to the shingles hanging outside dubious "absinthe" houses in the French Quarter. The tale—well, there were enough tales to entertain her for a thousand nights or more. (I, the Scheherazade of Barataria Bay!) How long had I wanted to tell those tales? I had been without a friend or a lover for more years than I could recall. (The company of other local ghosts did not interest me—they seemed a morbid lot, many of them headless or drenched in gore, manifesting only occasionally to point skeletal fingers at loose fireplace flagstones and then vanish without a word. I had met no personalities of substance, and certainly none with a history as exotic as mine.)

So I was glad for the company of Rosalie. As more old buildings are demolished I must constantly shift about the city, trying to find places where I resided in life, places where a shred of my soul remains to anchor me. There are still overgrown bayou islands and remote Mississippi coves I visit often, but to give up the drunken carnival of New Orleans, to forsake human companionship (witting or otherwise) would be to fully accept my death. Nearly two hundred years, and I still cannot do that.

"Jean," she would say to me as evening fell like a slowly drifting purple scarf over the French Quarter, as the golden flames of the streetlights flickered on, "do you like these panties with the silver bustier, Jean?" (She pronounced my name correctly, in the French manner, like John but with the soft J.) Five nights of the week Rosalie had a job stripping at a nightclub on Bourbon Street. She selected her undress from a vast armoire crammed full of the microscopic wisps of clothing she referred to as "costumes," some of which were only slightly more substantial than my own flesh. When she first told me of the job she thought I would be shocked, but I laughed. "I saw worse things in my day," I assured her, thinking of lovely, shameless octoroon girls I had known, of famous "private shows" involving poisonous serpents sent from Haiti and the oiled stone phalluses of alleged voodoo idols.

I went to see Rosalie dance two or three times. The strip club was in an old row building, the former site of a bordello I remembered well. In my day the place had been decorated entirely in scarlet silk and purple velvet; the effect was of enormous fleshy lips closing in upon you as you entered, drawing you into their dark depths. I quit visiting Rosalie at work when she said it unnerved her to suddenly catch sight of me in the hundreds of mirrors that now lined the club, a hundred spangle-fleshed Rosalies and a hundred translucent Jeans and a thousand pathetic weasel-eyed men all reflected to a point of swarming infinity far within the walls. I could see how the mirrors might make Rosalie nervous, but I believe she did not like me looking at the other dancers either, though she was the prettiest of a big-hipped, insipid-faced lot.

By day Rosalie wore black: lace and fishnet, leather and silk, the gaudy mourning clothes of the deather-children. I had to ask her to explain them to me, these deathers. They were children seldom older than eighteen who painted their faces stark white, rimmed their eyes with kohl, smudged their mouths black or blood-red. They made love in cemeteries, then plundered the rotting tombs for crucifixes to wear as jewelry. The music they listened to was alternately lush as a wreath of funeral roses and dark as four a.m., composed in suicidal gloom by the androgynies that decorated Rosalie's walls. I might have been able to tell these children a few things about death. Try drifting through a hundred years without a proper body, I might have said, without feet to touch the ground, without a tongue to taste wine or kiss. Then perhaps you will celebrate your life while you have it. But Rosalie would not listen to me when I got on this topic, and she never introduced me to any of her deather friends.

If she had any. I had seen other such children roaming the French Quarter after dark, but never in Rosalie's company. Often as not she would sit in her room and drink whiskey on her nights off, tipping inches of liquid amber fire over crackling ice cubes and polishing it off again, again, again. She never had a lover that I knew of, aside from the dreaded Coffeespoon, who it seemed had been quite wealthy by Rosalie's standards. Her customers at the club offered her ludicrous sums if she would only grant them one night of pleasure more exotic than their toadlike minds could imagine. A few might really have been able to pay such fortunes, but Rosalie ignored their tumescent pleading. She seemed not so much opposed to the idea of sex for money as simply uninterested in sex at all.

When she told me of the propositions she received, I thought of the many things I had buried in the earth during my days upon it. Treasure: hard money and jewels, the riches of the robbery that was my bread and butter, the spoils of the murder that was my wine. There were still caches that no one had found and no one ever would. Any one of them would have been worth ten times the amounts these men offered.

Many times I tried to tell Rosalie where these caches were, but unlike some of her kind, she thought buried things should stay buried. She claimed that the thought of the treasure hidden under mud, stone, or brick, with people walking near it and sometimes right over it each day, amused her more than the thought of digging it up and spending it.

I never believed her. She would not let me see her eyes when she said these things. Her voice trembled when she spoke of the deathers who pursued grave-robbing as a sport. ("They pried up a granite slab that weighed fifty pounds," she told me once, incredulously. "How could they bear to lift it off, in the dark, not knowing what might come out at them?") There was a skeleton in a glass-topped coffin downstairs, in the voodoo shoppe, and Rosalie hardly liked to enter the shoppe because of it—I had seen her glancing out of the corner of her eye, as if the sad little bones simultaneously intrigued and appalled her.

It was some obsessive fear of hers, I realized. Rosalie shied away from all talk of dead things, of things buried, of digging in the ground. When I told her my tales she made me skip over the parts where treasures or bodies were buried; she would not let me describe the fetor of the nighttime swamp, the faint flickering lights of Saint Elmo's fire, the deep sucking sound the mud made when a shovel was thrust into it. She would allow me no descriptions of burials at sea or shallow bayou graves. She covered her ears when I told her of a rascal whose corpse I hung from the knotted black bough of a hundred-year-old oak. It was a remarkable thing, too—when I rode past the remote spot a year later, his perfect skeleton still hung there, woven together by strands of gray Spanish moss. It wound around his long bones and cascaded from the empty sockets of his eyes, it forced his jaws open and dangled from his chin like a long gray beard—but Rosalie did not want to hear about it.

▼

When I confronted her with her own dread, she refused to own up to it. "Whoever said graveyards were romantic?" she demanded. "Whoever said I had to go digging up bones just because I lust after Venal St. Claire?" (Venal St. Claire was a musician, one of the stick-thin, mourning-shrouded beauties that adorned the walls of Rosalie's room. I saw no evidence that she lusted after him or anyone else.) "I just wear black so that all my clothes will match," she told me solemnly, as if she expected me to believe it. "So I won't have to think about what to put on when I get up in the morning."

"But you don't get up in the morning."

"In the evening, then. You know what I mean." She tipped her head back and tongued the last drop of whiskey out of her glass. It was the most erotic thing I had ever seen her do. I ran my finger in among the smooth folds of her intestines. A momentary look of discomfort crossed her face, as if she had suffered a gas pain—attributable to the rotgut whiskey, no doubt. But she would not pursue the subject further.

So I watched her drink until she passed out, her brittle hair fanned across her pillow, the corner of her mouth drooling a tiny thread of spit onto her black silk coverlet. Then I went into her head. This was not a thing I liked to do often—on occasion I had noticed her looking askance at me the morning after, as if she remembered seeing me in her dreams and wondered how I had got there. If I could persuade Rosalie to dig up one cache of loot—just one—our troubles would end. She would never have to work again, and I could have her with me all the time. But first I had to find her fear. Until I knew what it was, and could figure out how to charm my way around it, my treasures were going to stay buried in black bayou mud.

So within moments I was sunk deep in the spongy tissue of Rosalie's brain, sifting through her childhood memories as if they were gold coins I had just lifted off a Spanish galleon. I thought I could smell the whiskey that clouded her dreams, a stinging mist.

I found it more quickly than I expected to. I had reminded Rosalie of her fear, and now—because she would not let her conscious mind remember—her unconscious mind was dreaming of it. For an instant I teetered on the edge of wakefulness; I was dimly aware of the room around me, the heavy furniture and flocked black walls. Then it all swam away as I fell headlong into Rosalie's childhood dream.

A South Louisiana village, built at the confluence of a hundred streams and rivulets. Streets of dirt and crushed oyster-shells, houses built on pilings to keep the water from lapping up onto the neat, brightly painted porches. Shrimp nets draped over railings, stiffening with salt, at some houses; crab traps stacked up to the roof at others. Cajun country.

(Hard Luck Rosalie a Cajun girl, she who claimed she had never set foot in Louisiana before! Mon petite chou! "Smith" indeed!)

On one porch a young girl dressed in a T-shirt and a home-sewn skirt of fresh calico perches on a case of empty beer bottles. The tender points of her breasts can be seen through the thin fabric of the T-shirt. A medallion gleams at the hollow of her throat, a tiny saint frozen in silver. She is perhaps twelve. It can only be her mama beside her, a large regal-faced woman with a crown of teased and fluffed black hair. The mama is peeling crawfish. She saves the heads in a coffee can and throws the other pickings to some speckled chickens scratching in the part of the dirt yard that is not flooded. The water is as high as Mama has ever seen it.

The young girl has a can of Coca Cola, but she hasn't drunk much of it. She is worried about something: it can be seen in the slump of her shoulders, in the sprawl of her thin legs beneath the calico skirt. Several times her eyes shimmer with tears she is just able to control. When she looks up, it becomes clear that she is older than she appeared at first, thirteen or fourteen. An air of naivete, an awkwardness of limb and gesture, makes her seem younger. She fidgets and at last says, "Mama?"

"What is it, Rosie?" The mother's voice seems a beat too slow; it catches in her throat and drags itself reluctantly out past her lips.

"Mama—is Theophile still under the ground?"

(There is a gap in the dream here, or rather in my awareness of it. I do not know who Theophile is—a childhood friend perhaps. More likely a brother; in a Cajun family there is no such thing as an only child. The question disturbs me, and I feel Rosalie slipping from me momentarily. Then the dream continues, inexorable, and I am pulled back in.)

Mama struggles to remain calm. Her shoulders bow and her heavy breasts sag against her belly. The stoic expression on her face crumbles a little. "No, Rosie," she says at last. "Theophile's grave is empty. He's gone up to Heaven, him."

"Then he wouldn't be there if I looked?"

(All at once I am able to recognize my Rosalie in the face of this blossoming girl. The intelligent dark eyes, the quick mind behind them undulled by whiskey and time.)

Mama is silent, searching for an answer that will both satisfy and comfort. But a bayou storm has been blowing up, and it arrives suddenly, as they will: thunder rolls across the sky, the air is suddenly alive with invisible sparks. Then the rain comes down in a solid torrent. The speckled chickens scramble under the porch, complaining. Within seconds the yard in front of the house is a sea of mud. It has rained like this every day for a month. It is the wettest spring anyone has ever seen in this part of the bayou.

"You ain't goin' anywhere in this flood," Mama says. The relief is evident in her voice. She shoos the girl inside and hurries around the house to take washing off the line, though the faded cotton dresses and patched denim trousers are already soaked through.

Inside the warm little house, Rosalie sits at the kitchen window watching rain hammer down on the bayou, and she wonders.

The storm lasts all night. Lying in her bed, Rosalie hears the rain on the roof; she hears branches creaking and lashing in the wind. But she is used to thunderstorms, and she pays no attention to this one. She is thinking of a shed in the side yard, where her father's old crab traps and tools are kept. She knows there is a shovel in there. She knows where the key is.

The storm ends an hour before dawn, and she is ready.

It is her own death she is worried about, of course, not that of Theophile (whoever he may be). She is at the age where her curiosity about the weakness of the flesh outweighs her fear of it. She thinks of him under the ground and she has to know whether he is really there. Has he ascended to Heaven or is he still in his grave, rotting? Whatever she finds, it cannot be worse than the thing she has imagined.

(So I think at the time.)

Rosalie is not feeling entirely sane as she eases out of the silent house, filches her father's shovel, and creeps through the dark village to the graveyard. She likes to go barefoot, and the soles of her feet are hard enough to walk over the broken edges of the glittering wet oyster-shells, but she knows you have to wear shoes after a heavy rain or worms might eat their way into your feet. So she slogs through the mud in her soaked sneakers, refusing to think about what she is going to do.

It is still too dark to see, but Rosalie knows her way by heart through these village streets. Soon her hand finds the rusty iron gate of the graveyard, and it ratchets open at her touch. She winces at the harsh sound in the predawn silence, but there is no one around to hear.

At least, no one who can hear.

The crude silhouettes of headstones stab into the inky sky. Few families in the village can afford a carved marker; they lash two sticks together in the shape of a rough cross, or they hew their own stone out of granite if they can get a piece. Rosalie feels her way through a forest of jagged, irregular memorials to the dead. She knows some of them are only hand-lettered oak boards wedged into the ground. The shadows at the base of each marker are wet, shimmering. Foul mud sucks at her feet. She tells herself the smell is only stagnant water. In places the ground feels slick and lumpy; she cannot see what she is stepping on.

But when she comes near the stone she seeks, she can see it. For it is the finest stone in the graveyard, carved of moon-pale marble that seems to pull all light into its milky depths. His family had it made in New Orleans, spending what was probably their life's savings. The chiseled letters are as concise as razor cuts. Rosalie cannot see them, but she knows their every crevice and shadow. Only his name, stark and cold; no dates, no inscriptions, as if the family's grief was so great that they could not bear to say anything about him. Just inscribe it with his name and leave him there.

The plot of earth at the base of the stone is not visible, but she knows it all too well, a barren, muddy rectangle. There has been no time for grass or weeds to grow upon it; he has only been buried a fortnight, and the few sprouts that tried to come up have been beaten back down by the rain. But can he really be under there, shut up in a box, his lithe body bloating and bursting, his wonderful face and hands beginning to decay?

Rosalie steps forward, hand extended to touch the letters of his name: THEOPHILE THIBODEAUX. As she thinks—or dreams—the name, her fingers poised to trace its marble contours, an image fills her head, a jumble of sensations intense and erotic. A boy older than Rosalie, perhaps seventeen: a sharp pale face, too thin to be called handsome, but surely compelling; a curtain of long sleek black hair half-hiding eyes of fierce, burning azure. Theophile!

(All at once it is as if Rosalie's consciousness has merged completely with mine. My heart twists with a young girl's love and lust for this spitfire Cajun boy. I am dimly aware of Rosalie's drunken twenty-year-old body asleep on her bed, her feminine viscera twitching at the memory of him. Oh, how he touched her—Oh, how he tasted her!)

She had known it was wrong in the eyes of God. Her mama had raised her to be a good girl. But the evenings she had spent with Theophile after dances and church socials, sitting on an empty dock with his arm around her shoulders, leaning into the warm hollow of his chest—that could not be wrong. After a week of knowing her he had begun to show her the things he wrote on his ink-blackened relic of an Olympia typewriter, poems and stories, songs of the swamp. And that could not be wrong.

And the night they had sneaked out of their houses to meet, the night in the empty boathouse near Theophile's home—that could not be wrong either. They had begun only kissing, but the kisses grew too hot, too wild—Rosalie felt her insides boiling. Theophile answered her heat with his own. She felt him lifting the hem of her skirt and—carefully, almost reverently—sliding off her cotton panties. Then he was stroking the dark down between her legs, teasing her with the very tips of his fingers, rubbing faster and deeper until she felt like a blossom about to burst with sweet nectar. Then he parted her legs wider and bent to kiss her there as tenderly as he had kissed her mouth. His tongue was soft yet rough, like a soapy washcloth, and Rosalie had thought her young body would die with the pleasure of it. Then, slowly, Theophile was easing himself into her, and yes, she wanted him there, and yes, she was clutching at his back, pulling him farther in, refusing to heed the sharp pain of first entry. He rested inside her, barely moving; he lowered his head to kiss her sore developing nipples, and Rosalie felt the power of all womanhood shudder through her. This could not be wrong.

With the memories fixed firmly in her mind she takes another step toward his headstone. The ground crumbles away beneath her feet, and she falls headlong into her lover's grave.

The shovel whacks her across the spine. The rotten smell billows around her, heavy and ripe: spoiling meat, rancid fat, a sweetish-sickly odor. The fall stuns her. She struggles in the gritty muck, spits it out of her mouth.

▼

Then the first pale light of dawn breaks across the sky, and Rosalie stares into the ruined face of Theophile.

(Now her memories flooded over me like the tide. Some time after they had started meeting in the boathouse she began to feel sick all the time; the heat made her listless. Her monthly blood, which had been coming for only a year, stopped. Mama took her into the next town to see a doctor, and he confirmed what Rosalie had already dreaded: she was going to have Theophile's baby.)

Her papa was not a hard man, nor cruel. But he had been raised in the bosom of the Church, and he had learned to measure his own worth by the honor of his family. Theophile never knew his Rosalie was pregnant. Rosalie's father waited for him in the boathouse one night. He stepped in holding a new sheaf of poems, and Papa's deer shot caught him across the chest and belly, a hundred tiny black eyes weeping red tears.

Papa was locked up in the county jail now and Mama said that soon he would go someplace even worse, someplace where they could never see him again. Mama said it wasn't Rosalie's fault, but Rosalie could see in her eyes that it was.

It has been the wettest spring anyone can remember, a month of steady rains. The water table in Louisiana bayou country is already so high that a hole will began to draw water at a depth of two feet or less. All this spring the table has risen steadily, soaking the ground, drowning grass and flowers, making a morass of the sweet swamp earth. Cattails have sprung up near at the edge of the graveyard. But the storm last night pushed the groundwater to saturation point and beyond. The wealthy folk of New Orleans bury their dead in vaults above ground to protect them from this very danger. But no one here can afford a marble vault, or even a brick one.

And the village graveyard has flooded at last.

Some of the things that have floated to the surface are little more than bone. Others are swollen to three or four times their size, gassy mounds of decomposed flesh rising like islands from the mud; some of these have silk flower petals stuck to them like obscene decorations. Flies rise lazily, then descend again in glittering, circling clouds. Here are mired the warped boards of coffins split open by the water's relentless pull. There floats the plaster figurine of a saint, his face and the color of his robes washed away by rain. Yawning eyeless faces thrust out of stagnant pools, seeming to gasp for breath. Rotting hands unfold like blighted tiger lilies. Every drop of water, every inch of earth in the graveyard is foul with the effluvium of the dead.

But Rosalie can only see the face thrust into hers, the body crushed beneath her own. Theophile's eyes have fallen back into their sockets and his mouth is open; his tongue is gone. She sees thin white worms teeming in the passage of his throat. His nostrils are widening black holes beginning to encroach upon the greenish flesh of his cheeks. His sleek hair is almost gone; the few strands left are thin and scummy, nibbled by waterbugs. (Sitting on the dock, Rosalie and Theophile used to spit into the water and watch the shiny black beetles swarm around the white gobs; Theophile had told her they would eat hair and toenails too.) In places she can see the glistening dome of his skull. The skull behind the dear face; the skull that cradled the thoughts and dreams...

She thinks of the shovel she brought and wonders what she meant to do with it. Did she want to see Theophile like this? Or had she really expected to find his grave empty, his fine young body gone fresh and whole to God?

No. She had only wanted to know where he was. Because she had nothing left of him—his family would give her no poems, no lock of hair. And now she had even lost his seed.

(The dogs ran Papa to earth in the swamp where he had hidden and the men dragged him off to jail. As they led him toward the police car, Theophile's mother ran up to him and spat in his face. Papa was handcuffed and could not wipe himself; he only stood there with the sour spit of sorrow running down his cheeks, and his eyes looked confused, as if he was unsure just what he had done.)

Mama made Rosalie sleep in bed with her that night. But when Rosalie woke up the next morning Mama was gone; there was only a note saying she would be back before sundown. Sure enough, she straggled in with the afternoon's last light. She had spent the whole day in the swamp. Her face was scratched and sweaty, the cuffs of her jeans caked with mud.

Mama had brought back a basketful of herbs. She didn't fix dinner, but instead spent the evening boiling the plants down to a thin syrup. They exuded a bitter, stinging scent as they cooked. The potion sat cooling until the next night. Then Mama made Rosalie drink it all down.

It was the worst pain she had ever felt. She thought her intestines and her womb and the bones of her pelvis were being wrung in a giant merciless fist. When the bleeding started she thought her very insides were dissolving. There were thick clots and ragged shreds of tissue in the blood.

"It won't damage you," Mama told her, "and it will be over by morning."

True to Mama's word, just before dawn Rosalie felt something solid being squeezed out of her. She knew she was losing the last of Theophile. She tried to clamp the walls of her vagina around it, to keep him inside her as long as she could. But the thing was slick and formless, and it slid easily onto the towel Mama had spread between her legs. Mama gathered the towel up quickly and would not let Rosalie see what was inside.

Rosalie heard the toilet flush once, then twice. Her womb and the muscles of her abdomen felt as if they had gone through Mama's kitchen grater. But the pain was nothing compared to the emptiness she felt in her heart.

The sky is growing lighter, showing her more of the graveyard around her: the corpses borne on the rising water, the maggot-ridden mud. Theophile's face yawns into hers. Rosalie struggles against him and feels his sodden flesh give beneath her weight. She is beyond recognizing her love now. She is frantic; she fights him. Her hand strikes his belly and punches in up to the wrist.

Then suddenly Theophile's body opens like a flower made of carrion, and she sinks into him. Her elbows are trapped in the brittle cage of his ribs. Her face is pressed into the bitter soup of his organs. Rosalie whips her head to one side. Her face is a mask of putrescence. It is in her hair, her nostrils; it films her eyes. She is drowning in the body that once gave her sustenance. She opens her mouth to scream and feels things squirming in between her teeth.

"My cherie Rosalie," she hears the voice of her lover whispering.

And then the rain pours down again.

▼

Unpleasant.

I tore myself screaming from Rosalie—screaming silently, unwilling to wake her. In that instant I was afraid of her for what she had gone through; I dreaded to see her eyes snap open like a doll's, meeting me full in the face.

But Rosalie was only sleeping a troubled slumber. She muttered fitful disjointed words; there was a cold sheen of sweat on her brow; she exuded a flowery, powerful smell of sex. I hovered at the edge of the bed and studied her ringed hands clenched into small fists, her darting, jumping eyelids still stained with yesterday's makeup. I could only imagine the ensuing years and torments that had brought that little girl to this night, to this room. That had made her want to wear the false trappings of death, after having wallowed in the truth of it.

But I knew how difficult it would be to talk these memories out of her. There could be no consolation and no compensation for a past so cruel. No treasure, no matter how valuable, could matter in the face of such lurid terror.

So I assure you that the thing I did next was done out of pure mercy—not a desire for personal gain, or control over Rosalie. I had never done such a thing to her before. She was my friend; I wished to deliver her from the poison of her memories. It was as simple as that.

I gathered up my courage and I went back into Rosalie's head. Back in through her eyes and the whorled tunnels of her ears, back into the spongy electric forest of her brain.

I cannot be more scientific than this: I found the connections that made the memory. I searched out the nerves and subtle acids that composed the dream, the morsels of Rosalie's brain that still held a residue of Theophile, the cells that were blighted by his death.

And I erased it all.

I pitied Theophile. Truly I did. There is no existence more lonely than death, especially a death where no one is left to mourn you.

But Rosalie belonged to me now.

▼

I had her rent a boat.

It was easy for her to learn how to drive it: boating is in the Cajun blood. We made an exploratory jaunt or two down through Barataria—where two tiny hamlets, much like Rosalie's home village, both bore my name—and I regaled a fascinated Rosalie with tales of burials at sea, of shallow bayou graves, of a rascal whose empty eye sockets dripped with Spanish moss.

When I judged her ready, I guided her to a spot I remembered well, a clearing where five enormous oaks grew from one immense, twisted trunk. The five sentinels, we called them in my day. The wind soughed in the upper branches. The swamp around us was hushed, expectant.

After an hour of digging, Rosalie's shiny new shovel unearthed the lid and upper portion of a great iron chest. Her brittle hair was stringy with sweat. Her black lace dress was caked with mud and clay. Her face had gone paler than usual with exertion; in the half-light of the swamp it was almost luminescent. She had never looked so beautiful to me as she did at that moment.

She stared at me. Her tired eyes glittered as if with fever.

"Open it," I urged.

Rosalie swung the shovel at the heart-shaped hasp of the chest and knocked it loose on the first try. Once more and it fell away in a shower of soggy rust. She glanced back at me once more—looking for what, I wonder; seeing what?—and then heaved open the heavy lid.

And the sixth sentinel sat up to greet her.

I always took an extra man along when I went into the swamp to bury treasure. One I didn't trust, or didn't need. He and my reliable henchmen would dig the hole and drag the chest to the edge of it, ready to heave in. Then I would gaze deep into the eyes of each man and ask, in a voice both quiet and compelling, "Who wishes to guard my treasure?" My men knew the routine, and were silent. The extra man—currying favor as the useless and unreliable will do—always volunteered.

Then my top lieutenant would take three steps forward and put a ball in the lowly one's brain. His corpse was laid tenderly in the chest, his blood seeping into the mounds of gold or silver or glittering jewels, and I would tuck in one of my mojo bags, the ones I had specially made in New Orleans. Then the chest was sunk in the mire of the swamp, and my man, now rendered trustworthy, was left to guard my treasure until I should need it.

I was the only one who could open those chests. The combined magic of the mojo bag and the anger of the betrayed man's spirit saw to that.

My sixth sentinel wrapped skeletal arms around Rosalie's neck and drew her down. His jaws yawned wide and I saw teeth, still hungry after two hundred years, clamp down on her throat.

A mist of blood hung in the air; from the chest there was a ripping sound, then a noise of quick, choking agony. I hoped he would not make it too painful for her. After all, she was the woman I had chosen to spend eternity with.

I had told Rosalie that she would never again have to wriggle out of flimsy costumes under the eyes of slobbering men, and I had not lied. I had told her that she would never have to worry about money any more, and I had not lied. What I had neglected to tell her was that I did not wish to share my treasures—I only wanted her dead, my Hard Luck Rosalie, free from this world that pained her so, free to wander with me through the unspoiled swamps and bayous, through the ancient buildings of a city mired in time.

Soon Rosalie's spirit left her body and flew to me. It had nowhere else to go. I felt her struggling furiously against my love, but she would give in soon. I had no shortage of time to convince her.

I slipped my arm around Rosalie's neck and planted a kiss on her ectoplasmic lips. Then I clasped her wisp of a hand in mine, and we disappeared together.

The Man In The Passenger Seat by Bentley Little

Of the thousands of writers who've submitted material to this series over the years, only one has managed to place a story in every volume thus far—Bentley Little. A winner of the Bram Stoker Award for First Novel in 1991, he is quickly establishing himself as a major voice in HDF for the Nineties. For me, his short stories, even the ones I reject (and there have been many), have a compelling quality about them. They make you want to keep reading, even if you don't really "like" them. He has the ability to create images that are so singular, so bizarre, that you can't get them out of your head. When a writer does that on a consistent basis, he is nothing less than wonderfully original, and that's why Bentley has been along for the ride three times running. And speaking of rides, check out the modern fable that follows.

Brian was already late for work, but he knew that if he didn't deposit his paycheck this morning he'd be overdrawn. His credit rating was already hovering just above the lip of the toilet, and he couldn't afford another bounced check.

With only a quick glance at the clock on the dashboard, he pulled into the First Interstate parking lot. He grabbed a pen, deposit slip and his paycheck from the seat next to him and sprinted across the asphalt to the bank's instant teller machine. Behind him he heard the sound of a car door slamming, and he glanced back at his Blazer as he pulled out his ATM card.

Someone was sitting in the passenger seat of his car.

His heart lurched in his chest. For a split second he considered going through with the deposit transaction and then going back to his car to deal with the intruder—Kendricks was going to be climbing all over his ass for being late as it was—but he realized that whoever had climbed into his vehicle might be attempting to steal it, and he pocketed his card and hurried back to the Blazer.

Why the hell hadn't he locked the car?

He pulled open the driver's door. Across from him, in the passenger seat, hands folded in his lap, was a monstrously overweight man wearing stained polyester pants and a too-small woman's blouse. Long black hair cascaded about the man's shoulders in greasy tangles. The car was filled with a foul sickening stale smell.

Brian looked at the man. "This is my car," he said, forcing a toughness he did not feel.

"Eat my dick with Brussels sprouts." The man grinned, revealing rotted stumpy teeth.

A wave of cold washed over Brian. This was not real. This was not happening. This was something from a dream or a bad movie. He stared at the man, not sure of what to say or how to respond. He noticed that the time on the dashboard clock was five after eight. He was already late, and he was getting later by the second.

"Get out of my car now!" he ordered. "Get out or I'll call the police!"

"Get in," the man said. "And drive."

He should run, Brian knew. He should take off and get the hell out of there, let the man steal his car, let the police and the insurance company handle it. There was nothing in the Blazer worth his life.

But the man might have a gun, might shoot him in the back as he tried to escape.

He got in the car.

The stench inside was almost overpowering. The man smelled of breath and broccoli, old dirt and dried sweat. Brian looked him over carefully as he slid into the seat. The man was not holding a gun in his hand, there was no sign of a weapon at all.

"Drive," the man said.

Brian nodded. Hell yes, he'd drive. He'd drive straight to the goddamn police station and let the cops nail this crazy bastard's ass.

He pulled onto Euclid and started to switch over to the left lane, but the man said, "Turn right."

He was not sure whether he should obey the request or not. The police station was only three blocks away, and there was still no indication that the man was carrying any sort of weapon—but there was something in the strange man's voice, a hint of danger, an aura of command, that made him afraid to disobey.

He turned right onto Lincoln.

"The freeway," the man said.

Brian felt his heart shift into overdrive, the pumping in his chest cavity accelerate. It was too late now, he realized. He'd made a huge mistake. He should have run when he had the chance. He should have sped to the police station when he had the chance. He should have—

He pulled onto the freeway.

Several times over the past two years, on the way to work, he had dreamed of doing this, had fantasized about hanging a left onto the freeway instead of continuing straight toward the office, about heading down the highway and just driving, continuing on to Arizona, New Mexico, states beyond. But he had never in his wildest imaginings thought that he would actually be doing so while being kidnapped, hijacked, at the behest of an obviously deranged man.

Still, even now, even under these conditions, he could not help feeling a small instinctive lift as the car sped down the on ramp and merged with the swiftly flowing traffic. It was not freedom he felt—how could it be under the circumstances—but more the guilty pleasure of a truant boy hearing the school bell ring. He had wanted to skip work and shirk his responsibilities so many times, and now he was finally doing it. He looked over at the man in the passenger seat.

The man smiled, twirling a lock of hair between his fingers. "One, two, eat my poo. Three, four, eat some more."

Brian gripped the steering wheel, stared straight ahead, drove.

There was no traffic, or very little. They travelled east, in the opposite direction of most of the commuters, and the city gradually faded into suburbs, the suburbs into open land. After an hour or so, Brian grew brave enough to talk, and several times he made an effort to communicate with the man and ask where they were going, why this was happening, but the man either did not answer or answered in gibberish, obscene non sequiturs.

Another hour passed.

And another.

They were travelling through high desert now, flatland with scrub brush, and Brian looked at the clock on the dashboard. Ordinarily, he would be taking his break at this time, meeting Joe and David for coffee in the break room. He thought of them now. Neither, he knew, would really miss him. They would file into the break room as they always did, get their coffee from the machine, sit down at the same table at which they always sat, and when they saw that he wasn't there, they'd shrug and begin their usual conversation.

Now that he thought about it, no one at the company would miss him. Not really. They'd be temporarily inconvenienced by his absence and would curse him for not being there to perform his regular duties, but they would not miss him.

They would not care enough to call and see if he was all right.

That's what really worried him. The fact that no one would even know he'd been abducted. Someone from Personnel might call his apartment—the machinery of bureaucracy would be automatically set in motion and a perfunctory effort would be made to determine why he was not at work—but there would be no reason to assume that anything bad had happened to him. No one would suspect foul play. And he was not close enough to any of his co-workers that one of them would make a legitimate effort to find out what had happened to him.

He would just disappear and be forgotten.

He glanced over at the man in the passenger seat. The man grinned, grabbed his crotch. "Here's your lunch. I call it Ralph."

Shapes sprang up from the desert. Signs. And beyond the signs, buildings. A billboard advertised McDonalds, two miles ahead, State Street exit. Another, with the name of a hotel on it, showed a picture of a well-endowed woman in a bikini lounging by a pool.

A green sign announced that they were entering Hayes, population 15,000, elevation 3,000.

Brian looked over at his passenger. A growling whirr spiraled upward from the depths of the man's stomach, and he pointed toward the tall familiar sign of a fast food restaurant just off the highway. "Eat," he said.

Brian pulled off the highway and drove into the narrow parking lot of the hamburger stand. He started to park in one of the marked spaces, but the man shook his head violently, and Brian pulled up to the microphoned menu in the drive-thru. "What are we getting?" he asked.

The man did not answer.

A voice of scratchy static sounded from the speaker. "May I take your order?"

Brian cleared his throat. "A double cheeseburger, large fries, an apple turnover and an extra-large Coke."

He looked over at the man in the passenger seat, quizzically, but the man said nothing.

"That'll be four-fifteen at the window."

Brian pulled forward, stopping when his window was even with that of the restaurant.

"Four—" the teenaged clerk started to say.

"Gonads!" the man yelled. "Gonads large and small!" He reached over Brian and grabbed the sack of food from the windowed shelf. Before the clerk could respond, the man had dropped to the floor and pushed down the gas pedal with his free hand. The car lurched forward, Brian trying desperately to steer as they sped out of the parking lot and into the street.

The man sat up, dumping the contents of the bag in Brian's lap. The car slowed down, and there was a squeal of brakes as the pickup truck behind them tried to avoid a collision.

"Asshole!" the pickup driver yelled as he pulled past them. He stuck out his middle finger.

The man grabbed a handful of french fries from Brian's lap.

"Drive," he said.

"Look—" Brian began.

"Drive."

They pulled back onto the highway.

A half-hour later they caught up with the pickup. Brian probably would not have noticed and would have passed the vehicle without incident, but, without warning, the man in the passenger seat rolled down his window, grabbed the half-empty cup of Coke from Brian's hand and threw it outside. His aim was perfect. The cup sailed across the lane, through the open window of the pickup truck and hit the driver square in the face. The man screamed in pain and surprise, swerving out-of-control. The pickup sped off the shoulder and down an embankment, colliding with a small palo verde tree.

"Asshole," the man said.

He chuckled, his laugh high and feminine.

Brian looked over at his passenger. Despite his throwing capabilities, the man was grossly overweight and in terrible physical condition, no match for himself. He turned his attention back to the road. They would have to stop for gas soon—at the next town if they weren't pulled over first—and he knew that he would be able to escape at that time. He would be able to either run away or kick the shit out of the obese bastard.

But though he wanted desperately to kick the shit out of the crazy fucker, he wasn't sure he really wanted to escape. Not yet, anyway. He didn't seem to be in any physical danger, and if he were to be perfectly honest with himself, he was almost, kind of, sort of having fun. In some perverse, almost voyeuristic way, he was enjoying this, and he knew that if he allowed the situation to remain as is, he would not have to go back to work until they were caught—and he wouldn't even be penalized, he could blame it all on his abduction.

But that was insane. He wasn't thinking right. He'd been brainwashed or something, riding with the man. Like Patty Hearst.

After only a few hours?

"Holy shit," the man said. He laughed to himself in that high-pitched voice. "Holy shit."

Brian ignored him.

The man withdrew from his pants pocket a small, lumpy, strangely irregular brown rock. "I bought it from a man in Seattle. It's the petrified feces of Christ. Holy shit." He giggled. "They found it Lebanon."

Brian ignored him, concentrating on the road. On second thought, he wasn't having fun. This was too damn loony to be fun. But the man was finally talking to him, speaking in coherent sentences.

"We need gas," the man said. "Let's stop at the next town."

Brian did not escape at the gas station, though he had ample opportunity. He could have leaped out of the car and ran. He could have said something to the station attendant. He could have gone to the bathroom and not come back.

But he stayed in the car, paid for the gas with his credit card.

They took off.

For the next hour or so, both of them were silent, although Brian did a lot of thinking, trying to guess what was going to happen to him, trying to project a future end to this situation. Every so often, he would glance over at his passenger. He noticed that, out here, on the highway, the man did not seem so strange. Here, with the window open, he did not even smell as bad. What had seemed so bizarre, so frightening, in the parking lot of the bank, in the business-suited world of the city, seemed only slightly odd out here on the highway. They drove past burly bikers, disheveled pickup drivers, Hawaiian-shirted tourists, and Brian realized that here there was no standard garb, no norm by which deviation could be measured. Manners and mores did not apply. There were only the rules of the road, broad guidelines covering driving etiquette.

Inside the sealed worlds of individual cars, it was anything goes. Brian did not feel comfortable with the man. Not yet. But he was getting used to him, and it was probably only a matter of time before he came to accept him.

That was truly terrifying.

Brian squinted his eyes. Ahead of them, on the side of the road, was a stalled car, a Mercedes with its hood up. Standing next to the vehicle, partially leaning against the trunk, was an attractive young lady, obviously a professional woman, a career woman, with short blond hair and a blue jacket/skirt ensemble that spoke of business.

"Pull over," the man said.

Brian slowed, stopping next to the Mercedes.

"That's okay," the woman began. "A friend of mine has already gone to find a phone to call Triple A—"

"Get in the car!" The man's voice was no longer high and feminine but was low and rough, filled with an authority backed by a veiled threat of violence.

Brian saw the woman's eyes dart quickly around, assessing her options. There was no place to run on the flat desert, but she was obviously trying to decide if she could make it into the Mercedes and close her windows and lock her doors in time. Or if that would even help.

He wanted to tell her to run, to get the hell away from the road, that they wouldn't leave the road to find her, that the man never got out of the car. He wanted to shift into gear and take off, leaving her there safe and unharmed.

But he remained in place, did nothing.

"Get in the car, bitch!" The violence implied in the man's voice was no longer so covert.

The woman's eyes met Brian's, as if searching there for help, but he looked embarrassedly away.

"Get—" the man started to say.

She opened the door and got into the back seat of the Blazer.

"Drive," the man said.

Brian drove.

None of them spoke for a long time. The landscape changed, became less sandy, more rocky, hilly canyons substituting for rolling dunes. Brian looked at the clock on the dashboard. He would be just getting off his afternoon break now, walking through the hallway from the break room to his desk.

"Panties," the man in the passenger seat said.

Brian turned his head.

Frightened, the woman looked from him to the now grinning man. "What?"

"Panties."

The woman licked her lips. "Okay," she said, her voice trembling. "Okay, I'll take them off. Just don't hurt me."

She reached under her skirt, arched her back and pulled off her underwear. In the rearview mirror, Brian caught a glimpse of tanned thigh and black pubic hair. And then the panties were being handed forward, clean and white and silk.

"Stop," the man said.

Brian pulled over, stopping the car. From the pocket of his blouse, the man took out a black Magic Marker. He laid the underwear flat on his knee and began drawing on the cloth, hiding his work with one greasy hand. When he was done, he rolled down his window and reached outside, to the front, grabbing the radio antenna and pulling it back. He quickly and expertly pressed the metal antenna through the white silk and let it bounce back.

The panties flew at the top of the antenna like a flag.

On them he had drawn a crude skull and crossbones.

"Now we are whole," he said. He grinned. "Drive."

The day died slowly, putting up a struggle against the encroaching night, bleeding orange into the sky. Brian's muscles were tired, fatigued from both tension and a day's worth of driving. He stretched, yawned, squirmed in his seat, trying to keep himself awake. "I need some coffee," he said. "I—"

"Stop."

He pulled onto the sandy shoulder.

"Your turn," the man said to the woman.

She nodded, terrified. "Okay. Just don't hurt me."

The two of them traded places, the woman getting behind the wheel as Brian settled into the back seat.

"Drive."

Brian slept. He dreamed of a highway that led through nothing, a black line of asphalt that stretched endlessly through a desolate featureless void. The void was empty, but he was not lonely. He was alone, but he was driving, and he felt good.

When he awoke, the woman was naked.

The driver's window was open, and the woman was shivering, her teeth chattering. None of her garments appeared to be still in the car save her bra, which was stretched between the door handle and the glove compartment, over the man's legs, and held two thermos cups filled with coffee. From this angle, Brian could see that her nipples were erect, and he found that strangely exciting.

It had been a long time since he'd seen a woman naked.

Too long.

He looked at the woman. No doubt she thought that he and the man in the passenger seat were both criminals, were partners, fellow kidnappers. Since she had come aboard, he had not behaved like a prisoner or a captive and had not been treated like one. He had also not made an effort to let the woman know that he was on her side, that they were in the same position, although he was not quite sure why. Perhaps, on some level, he enjoyed the false perception, was proud, in some perverse way, to be associated with the man in the passenger seat.

But that couldn't be possible.

Could it?

His gaze lingered on the woman's nipples. It could. In a strange way, he was glad he'd been kidnapped. Not simply because he'd had a chance to see a nude woman, but because an experience this extreme gave perspective to everything else. He knew now that, prior to that moment in the bank parking lot, he had not been living. He'd been simply existing. Going to work, eating, going to sleep, going to work. The motions had been comfortable, but they had not been real, not life but an imitation of life.

This was life.

It was horrible, it was frightening, it was dangerous, it was crazy, and he did not know what was going to happen from one moment to the next, but for the first time in memory he felt truly alive. He was not comfortable, he was not merely existing. Travelling through the darkness toward an unknown destination with a man insane, he feared for his safety, he feared for his sanity.

But he was alive.

"We killed father first," the man in the passenger seat said. His voice was low, serious, almost inaudible, and it sounded as though he was talking to himself, as though he did not want anyone else to hear. "We amputated his limbs with the hacksaw made from mother's bones and sold his parts for change. We killed sister second, gutting her like a flopping fish on the chopping block..."

Brian was lulled by the words, by their rhythm.

Again he fell asleep.

When he awoke, both the woman and the man were standing in front of the car. It was daytime, and they were on the outskirts of a large city. Houston, perhaps, or Albuquerque. The woman was still naked, and there were frequent honks and excited whoops from men who passed by in cars.

Brian stared through the windshield. The man held, in one hand, half of the woman's now torn bra, and he dipped a finger in the attached thermos cup as she fell to her knees. He placed his coffee wet finger on her forehead as though anointing her.

He returned to the car alone.

Brian watched the naked woman run across the highway and down the small embankment on the other side without looking back.

The man got into the passenger seat and closed his door.

"Where are we going?" Brian asked. He realized as he spoke the words that he was asking the question not as a prisoner, not as a captive, but as a fellow traveller... as a companion. He did not fear the answer, he was merely curious.

The man seemed to sense this, for he smiled, and there was humor in the smile. "Does it matter?"

Brian thought for a moment. "No," he said finally.

"Then drive."

Brian looked at the clock on the dashboard and realized that he didn't know what he would ordinarily be doing now.

The man grinned broadly, knowingly. "Drive."

Brian grinned back. "All right," he said. "All right."

He put the Blazer into gear.

They headed east.

Ghosts of Christmas Present by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

It seems like it happens every year: I reject a story and then, months (and hundreds of stories) later, I realize I'm still thinking about it, still remembering specific scenes or pieces of dialogue. When that occurs, I do the only thing I can do—I call the author and see if the story's still available because I've been told by my subconscious that I'd better damned well buy it. Such is the case with "Ghosts of Christmas Present." Its author, Kris Rusch, is the editor at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, as well as one of the founders and Elder Gods at Pulphouse Publishing in Eugene, Oregon, and I can't imagine where she gets the time to do all that and still turn out stories that have the depth and emotional power of the one that follows.

For unto us a child is born

▼

Fog, thick and old, smelling of saltwater and decayed dreams, rolled in off the ocean. The streetlights shone yellow in the dampness. A cat hiding in the enclosed stairway leading into the bakery hissed as Michela passed.

Michela drew her coat tightly against her chest. If she strained hard enough, she could hear the waves breaking on the beach. The night was empty and she was cold.

Back home, the snow would be a foot deep and the air would be brittle. Candles would line the church steps, giving an illusion of warmth. On Christmas Eve, she and Daniel used to play in the snow. They would fall backwards into drifts and then flap their arms and legs to make angels. But the angels had grown up with them, and a smaller angel had joined the tableau.

A shiver, made of wet mist-tendrils, ran down her back. The streets were silent. Not a single car had passed her since she left the restaurant. Usually a car would swoosh by, scaring her as she walked, making her feel vulnerable and alone. She was surprised to discover that she felt more alone without one.

A hollow sound slipped into her consciousness like the drip of a faucet slipped into dreams. The noise sounded ancient and foreign. It rang like footsteps on pavement, but the rhythm was wrong. A thread of fear ran through her. She ducked into the doorway of the town's only used book store and hid back against the door. Suddenly a carriage emerged into a patch of yellow light. The horse was sleek and black, spirited, each step a display of nervous energy as if the animal threatened to bolt. The carriage was black too, with a driver perched on top and a passenger encased inside. She caught a glimpse of a luminous face peering out of the curtains and then the carriage was gone, wrapped in mist as if it had never existed, leaving only the sound of hoofbeats to echo like a fading memory.

She stepped out of the doorway and stared at the road. For a bleak half-second, she expected violins to screech and someone to leap at her with a knife. Then she smiled at her fantasies although the fear stayed with her, thick as the mist. This was Oregon in December. And she was alone in the fog.

▼

Unto us

a son is given

▼

The fog ran its ghostly fingers against her window. Michela drew the curtain and stepped back into the silent living room. She had seen fog once before at Christmas, the year of the strange winter thaw. But here, on the coast, people acted as if fog were normal. Her mother, a good southern woman now long dead, used to say that if God wanted snow at Christmas, Christ would have been born in Alaska. Yet Michela had always found something magical in the snow, a deadly purity that seemed appropriate to the season. Fog belonged to Halloween and horror movies, to crisp fall nights when children wore masks against the darkness and bonfires burned to protect the world from evil spirits.

She remembered the carriage and shuddered.

Perhaps she should have gotten a tree. It would have given the drab, rented furniture a festive air—

At the ring of the phone, the silence exploded. She stared at the princess model sitting on the stained end table. No one called her. Only work had her number and she had just left there.

The ring echoed again, less harsh this time because she expected it, but still violent and intrusive. She belted her robe more tightly and then picked up the receiver.

"Hello?" she asked quietly.

"Karen?" The voice was young but it had a querulousness she associated with the elderly.

"No, I'm sorry," Michela said. "But there's no Karen here."

"What number do I have?"

Michela repeated her phone number to the caller and got a sigh in response. "This is the only number I have for her," the caller said. Michela couldn't tell if the voice was male or female. "And I don't know her last name. I guess I'm going to have to spend the evening alone."

Michela could imagine the expression on the caller's face. She had seen the look all evening in the restaurant. Solitary diners spending their Christmas money on themselves as they tried to make Christmas Eve special by eating an expensive meal. She had been kind to them, but distant; as if getting too close to their loneliness would remind her of the emptiness of her apartment. "I'm sorry," she said again.

"I bet you have company," the caller said. "And a tree that touches the ceiling—"

"No."

"—presents that glitter under the blinking lights and a turkey roasting in the oven, the smell filling the house like the sound of children's laughter—"

"No!" Michela slammed the receiver down. She stared for a moment at the offending phone and then wrapped her arms around herself. The holiday did not exist. A holiday was only a holiday if you celebrated it and she was refusing to celebrate. She grabbed a book off her shelf and flopped onto the sofa. She opened to the first page but the words seemed to run together. I bet you have a tree that touches the ceiling...

"Oh to hell with it," she said, setting the book down and turning on the radio. Christmas music wafted in, bringing with it a chill as damp as the fog.

And then the phone rang. She was reaching for the receiver before she had a chance to think. It might be Daniel, she thought as she placed the plastic against her ear, calling from Wisconsin to ask her to come home.

"Yes?" Her voice sounded strange to her own ears. She never answered the phone that way.

"I'm sorry." She was not surprised to hear the androgynous voice on the other end of the line. "You're spending the evening alone too, aren't you?"

She knew she shouldn't answer, that she should hang up before something bizarre happened. "Yes," she said.

"They don't think about us," the caller said, "those people in their warm houses, drinking hot buttered rum and playing Santa Claus for their children. They forget that some of us sit alone in tiny apartments, trying to find something on television that isn't accompanied by Christmas carols. Did you ever read Dickens?"

Suddenly she was convinced that the caller was male. Something in the question, a timbre at the edge of his voice led her to that conclusion. "Once."

"We're the true ghosts of Christmas Present," he said. "Visible, yet invisible. We don't have chains to rattle like Marley, because we're still alive, still forging them—"

"I really don't want to listen to this," Michela said and felt immediately guilty. Was he talking obliquely about suicide? She couldn't tell.

"It's okay. Why should you? A strange voice invading your own private pain." He chuckled ruefully. "I really did call back to apologize and to wish you a Merry Christmas."

She almost—almost—asked him over. For a moment his voice seduced her into believing in an evening of before and laughter before the true vision of the night set in. At best it would be two strangers sitting on opposite corners of her worn sofa, trying to make cheerful conversation. At worst he was some kind of pervert who would leave her mutilated body for the manager to find when the neighbors complained about the smell.

She heard the rattle of carriage wheels, the shriek of imaginary violins and the dripping moistness of the fog. "Merry Christmas," she said.

"Yeah. To you, too," he replied and hung up.

The Christmas music sounded tinny and the apartment suddenly felt smaller. She set the receiver down slowly, wishing that she had extended the invitation after all. He sounded depressed and she would worry all night that she had been his last call before his suicide—and anything, even awkward conversation, seemed better than spending the night alone.

She shut off the radio and headed toward her bedroom to change clothes. Even on Christmas Eve, there would be a bar or two open. And maybe one of them would be playing something other than Christmas carols.

▼

Unto us

A son is given

▼

The fog seemed thicker near the entrance to the bar. Her hand nearly disappeared in the dampness as she reached for the doorknob. She pulled the door open and stepped into the dimly lit room.

The smell of pine boughs and stale beer hit her first, followed by a hollow laugh that emphasized the room's emptiness. She thought about turning around, but resisted the urge. If she didn't stay here, she would have to return home to the treeless apartment and the silent phone.

The clock near the coat tree read 10 o'clock. It was midnight in the Midwest—Christmas Day. Last year at this time, she had been standing in the front row of the church choir, staring at Nathan, sleeping in Daniel's arms. They looked so peaceful in the pew, father and son, waiting for her to finish so that they could go home. Then the director brought his hands down and they began to sing the Hallelujah Chorus. She had always believed the Hallelujah Chorus had no place at Christmas. The Savior did not become a savior until He rose. No, Handel's true Christmas carol also came from the Messiah, but the words had always chilled her. The idea of a son being given spoke more of abandonment and neglect than redemption. Who was the unspecified us the music referred to and why did they deserve a child?

No music was playing, but the television blinked silently. The bartender was wiping the bar with a dirty towel. The only customer, a middle-aged man in a business suit, stared drunkenly at the flickering images on the screen. Michela hovered near the coat tree, half-repelled by the emptiness. She had come for noise and laughter, not to sit and drink in silence. But the need for human companionship drove her inside.

"I'm trying to close," the bartender said.

She set her purse on the bar and climbed onto one of the stools. "I'd like a Tom and Jerry," she said as if he hadn't spoken. When he looked up, she noted that he was a young man. She had thought, from his graying hair, that he was much older. He probably had a family to get home to. "I'd—just like one."

She wanted to believe that the look which passed crossed his face was compassion and not pity. "It's a bitch being alone on Christmas, isn't it?" he asked.

Tears filled her eyes. She blinked quickly, hoping that he hadn't noticed. He looked down and concentrated on mixing the drink.

"You a tourist?" he asked as he set the liquid in front of her.

She shook her head and took a sip. The warm sweetness followed by the alcoholic bite reminded her of Christmas dinner at her mother-in-law's. She took another sip, but the drink had lost its appeal. Grabbing her wallet, she asked, "How much?"

"It's on the house," he said.

The tears still danced behind her eyelids. She opened her wallet. "I'd like to pay for it."

He ignored her money. "Don't you have anywhere to go tonight"

"There's always home," she said brightly and smiled even though she knew that a man with eyes as old as his would not be fooled by her cheerfulness. She left the money beside the full glass and started out of the bar. Behind her, the drunk laughed again.

She didn't blame him for laughing. Home was a funny concept when you didn't have one. Safety and security were myths concocted by the same people who made up the idea of Christmas spirit. Safety and security had trapped her in a world of boredom and frustration, a place filled with little irritants that kept building and building until the day she exploded. She had exploded and Nathan got caught in the fallout. Nathan, the son she had been given.

She slung her coat around her shoulders. He had still been in the hospital when she left, but Daniel said he would be okay. Her last image of Nathan would always be of the moment she came to herself: her son, wrapped in the fetal position, his arms draped protectively around his bleeding head. Daniel had been more than fair. He let her choose between potential arrest for child abuse or leaving and giving up her rights to Nathan. After what she had done to the boy, she thought leaving would be the best thing.

No one out here knew that she was married or had a child. No one really cared. And sometimes she wondered if she had made the right choice. But she had always done what Daniel had told her to do—and he had said that the second option was the one which would probably help all of them. When she got to Oregon, she had sent him a postcard with her name and address on it. In four months, she had had no reply.

"Home," she whispered as she pushed the heavy door open and stepped out into the fog.

▼

For unto us

(For unto us)

A child is born

(a child is born)

▼

The fog smelled of seawater and decayed dreams. Michela walked quickly down the empty sidewalk. The cool air taunted her, made her skin tingle and reminded her that she was alive.

Her footsteps rang against the concrete. We are the true Ghosts of Christmas Present, the caller had said. Perhaps she deserved to be a ghost, to wander alone on what had been her favorite holiday. Christmas belonged to children and she, in beating her son, had committed a sin against the holiday itself.

Suddenly the carriage emerged into a patch of yellow light. She had been so preoccupied that she hadn't heard its approach. The horse danced before her, and as the carriage passed, she realized that the face in the window belonged to a child. She understood, then, what was happening. Someone had spent a fortune to give a child a special Christmas Eve. Michela felt a strong urge to be part of that specialness. She waved her hand and cried "stop" before she had a chance to think.

The carriage turned and slowly rattled back to her. The driver hunched over the reins. A scarf protected his face from the dampness and his tall black hat obscured his eyes. She glanced down at the horse. The blinders directing its sight made it too seem eyeless. The violins screeched in the back of her head and cinematic images of dead prostitutes on fog-covered streets rose in her mind. Yet she stepped forward and opened the carriage door.

There was no child. In its stead sat a man. He wore long black pants and leather shoes. A cane rested against his hip. His suitcoat and vest hadn't been stylish since the turn-of-the century, but his white cotton shirt was open at the neck. He held out a gloved hand. "Welcome," he said. "We needed a soprano."

His face was hidden in the shadows of the carriage, but his voice was rich and warm. She found herself thinking that there was a strange kind of logic to it all, that magic, if it were going to happen, would on Christmas Eve. The carriage did not exist, the man did not exist, just as she did not exist anymore to the folks back home. Her mind was playing out a fantasy to hide her loneliness.

She placed her fingers against the smooth silk of his glove and let him help her inside. The door swung shut behind her and the carriage started forward. He held her hand until she was safely seated. She opened her mouth to ask him how he knew that she was a soprano, but the carriage moved out of the light. And in the darkness she felt totally alone.

The rhythm of the wheels rolling beneath them hid the roar of the ocean. Michela tried to look out the window, but only blackness faced her. Finally the carriage stopped. She reached for the door handle, but the man was quicker. His long, slim body brushed against her as he pushed open the door. "Let me," he said. He grabbed his cane and stepped down, then held his hand out for her once more. She was acutely aware of the inappropriateness of her clothing. She should have felt the swish of skirts about her ankles instead of the tightness of her jeans. She set her hand in his once more and climbed out of the carriage.

They had stopped in front of a church. The great stone edifice rose in the fog like an old English castle. Candlelight flickered inside. Behind the building, the ocean broke against rocks, splattering spray against the cliff face, the church and Michela herself. The cold, salty water ran down her cheeks and into her mouth. It felt real, but it wasn't. No church would sit so close to the ocean. And waves that big could not exist without wind. "Come," he said and took her elbow, but she held back. No one moved inside the church, only the candles, flickering.

"What's the matter," he asked, his grip growing tighter. "Have you abandoned the church too?"

His question stung like the spraying saltwater. She didn't want to be in this fantasy any more, but the images refused to go.

"It's real," he said softly. "This is very real."

"I would like to go home," she said.

"Yes." She could hear the smile in his voice. "Wouldn't we all."

He led her forward, toward the church. His fingers pressed against her elbow so tightly that rivulets of pain ran down her arm. She stumbled as she tried to keep up with him. As they reached the church steps, another wave broke against the rock wall and sent water running over them. Michela shook her hair out of her face. She was drenched.

He pulled open the great wood doors and they stepped inside a large entryway. Stairs curved up each side of the entry, and before her stood another set of rounded doors. Candles burned in every available corner and evergreen bows decorated the walls, but the church was cold and silent. Michela shivered.

"The choir loft is upstairs," he said as he let go of her elbow. She turned to see his face, but only caught a glimpse of his coattail before the door closed behind him. There were no handles inside, nothing that made the doors seem anything but decorative. She pushed against the wood, and the door moved silently as though blocked by an outside lock.

Damn nightmares, she thought. Watch her wake up on her couch with Christmas music drifting in like cold on a windy night. But for the moment, she was trapped in the images her mind created. She sighed and started up the stairs to the right.

The polished wood banister was cool beneath her fingers. No sound came from the choir loft. All she could hear were the waves breaking against the rocks below. She climbed until she reached the wooden doors at the top of the stairs. They too had outside locks, thin metal strips that bolted into the floor. She had never seen a church so obsessed with the ability to lock things inside. She pulled open the door. Rows of robed choir members looked at her. The director, a rotund, redheaded man who looked as if he were deathly ill, tapped his baton against a metal music rack. "Let's give Michela a moment to put on her robe." And as she passed him, he hissed, "You're late."

An automatic guilt rose inside her, as if she really were late for choir rehearsal on Christmas Eve. But she refused to apologize. She went to the back to the tiny room and grabbed the remaining green robe. She slipped it over her shoulders and zipped up, feeling warm for the first time since she arrived. Then she took the only available chair, in the front row right before the director.

"Now that our lead soprano is here," the director said, "we can get started. We don't have much time, so we'll warm up and then march down."

He hit Middle C on the ancient piano and they began a series of runs that went up by half steps. As they went up into the higher range, Michela's voice cracked. It had been so long since she sang that she was starting wrong.

"Diaphragm," the director snapped at her. She took a deep breath and filled her diaphragm with air. Suddenly the notes burst from her with a fullness of tone she had never had before. Then, with the circular movement of one hand, the director cut them off.

"Let's go down," he said.

The back row started filing out the door and down the twisted staircase. Michela tapped the woman beside her on the shoulder. "What are we singing?" she whispered. The woman handed back a booklet of music. Written in bold Gothic letters on the cover was "The Messiah by Georg Frederich Handel."

Michela took the sheet music and clutched it against her chest. Somehow she had known they would be singing from that. She followed the woman out another set of double doors and down the left staircase. The sleeve of her robe caught on the edge of the banister, jerking her, making her lose her balance. Her foot slipped forward and she nearly fell, but she was able to grab the railing with her hand. She stopped to catch her breath.

"Keep walking," the director said.

He was right behind her. She looked into his watery eyes and thought she saw contempt there. With two fingers, he flipped the edge of her sleeve off of the banister. She turned away from him and continued down into the heart of the church.

The stairway led directly into the choir loft. The loft was the second of three tiers that faced the congregation. Below the loft stood the pulpit, a heavy octagonal wood structure that seemed to imprison the minister instead of elevate him. Then the loft itself with rows enough for a choir twice the size of the one she was in. And behind them all rose the great silver and gold pipes of a magnificent organ, although the instrument itself was nowhere in sight.

Michela stood before the last chair at the end of her row. At the director's small signal, she sat with the rest of the choir. The cold metal of the chair seat seeped through her robe. What kind of church could afford such a beautiful organ and yet refuse to heat the sanctuary?

She could hear the rustle of the congregation, but could see nothing. A shiver ran through her. She didn't want to be in the choir. She didn't want to sing. All she wanted to do was wake up and shut off the Christmas music that had to be interfering with her dreams.

A loud chord from the organ made her start. The organist was running through the opening chords of "For Unto Us A Child Is Born." The director tapped his baton on the music stand and the choir stood up. Michela stood with them. They were singing the appropriate chorus, but she didn't want to blend her voice with the music. She couldn't sing a hymn about an abandoned child that would become a sacrifice, a human sacrifice that forgave sin instead of preventing it.

The director looked at her sternly and she found herself mouthing the words. Suddenly the constriction in her throat disappeared and her voice sang out over the choir and the organ, sweet, fluted and clear—angelic and totally out of place. The director smiled and extended a hand toward the congregation. She was to look at them, not him.

She gazed out at the emptiness. Nothing in the pews moved, But toward the back, a man started down the aisle. He was cradling something against his chest. She could see his outline as he moved in and out of the candlelight. She knew that she should be preparing for something else, some new horror, but she found herself listening to the harmonies the choir created with her voice. There was a beauty in the chorus that she had always suspected, but never heard. A beauty that her voice, soaring over the congregation, had found. She had always believed that music was the purest distillation of spiritual power and the hymn was proving it, with the contrapuntal melodies, the richly varied voices blending into a bittersweet unit with her own notes providing a flowing descant.

The man stepped into a pool of light before the pulpit. It was Daniel standing there like an angry god with Nathan huddled against his chest. Blood ran down Daniel's hands onto his pants and into the carpet. Daniel's gaze met hers and she saw in his eyes the same cold look that he had had that morning in the hospital. "He's dead," Daniel said flatly. "You killed him."

Her descant turned into a wailing scream and the music stopped. The director tapped on the music stand for order. Michela stepped to the edge of the loft. "You said he was going to be all right."

"You killed him," Daniel repeated and disappeared. The pool of blood gleamed darkly in the light.

She leaned forward over the edge of the loft and would have tumbled behind the pulpit but for the hands clutching at her robe. They hauled her back toward her seat and she found herself looking up at the director. "I didn't kill him," she said.

"No," the director replied. "You only beat him. But you are killing him now."

"I don't even see him."

"Precisely," the director returned to his podium and tapped at the music stand. "Sing now, with the richness and warmth and fullness of Christmas Past. Fill your voice with the memories and—"

"No!" Michela flung down the music and ran from the loft. Her heels got tangled in the hem of the robe, but she managed to shake them free. She turned away from the base of the staircase and followed the corridor until she reached the main entrance. The doors stood open, sending wisps of fog and sea breeze into the large room. Michela took a deep breath and plunged into the night.

The carriage stood at the edge of the sidewalk, the horse pawing restlessly at the ground. The man who had brought her stood outside the carriage as if he had been waiting for her. As she drew closer, he pulled open the door and helped her inside.

She huddled against the far window, and this time, after he shut the door, the full darkness felt comfortable. Her heart was racing and she wished that the nightmare would end. "Can you take me back?" she asked. She wasn't sure if she were asking to return to the foggy street or Christmas Eve a year ago when she stood in a real choir loft, gazing fondly at her husband and unscarred child.

But he said nothing. All she could hear was the rattle of the carriage as it clattered down the wind-drenched road. The darkness was becoming suffocating, the noise louder. Her heart began to beat in her throat.

"Some," he said, his voice reverberating in the tiny carriage, "push a razor into their wrists. Others let the loneliness take them, holiday after silent holiday, until they simply slip away. But they all realize what they've done. You think you've sinned because you've abused your son. I think you've sinned because you abandoned him. A thousand people who don't deserve to spend this holiday alone. And then there are the ghosts with no chains to rattle, living, breathing skeletons with only a trace of humanity remaining—"

"Stop," she whispered. "Please stop."

The carriage stopped. He reached past her, brushing against her like he had before, as he opened the door. Only this time, he didn't help her out. "Ghosts," he said softly, "should be laid to rest."

She stepped out of the carriage into the yellow glare of a streetlamp. The carriage door slammed shut and the carriage disappeared into the fog. She stared after it, shivering in the damp chill. The nightmare had ended. She was back on the empty sidewalk, staring down an empty street. Alone. She sighed and stepped forward—and nearly tripped when her heel caught in the hem of her green robe.

▼

For

Unto Us A Child Is Booo —

(A Son is Given)

—oorn. Unto Us

A Son is Given.

▼

The fog swirled before her window. If she squinted hard enough, she could almost see the ocean salt in the droplets of mist. She let the curtain fall back into place and turned to face her silent living room. There were no ghosts in the room, no unseen presences mocking her. It was as if the place had been sterilized between tenants and she had brought nothing with her to fill the emptiness.

This had been the longest night she had ever experienced. The clock's hands moved slowly toward five, each minute taking an hour to complete. Five was the earliest that she could call, the time when she was certain that Nathan would have awakened Daniel. Nathan couldn't sleep past seven on a regular morning. On Christmas, he would get up even earlier.

Finally the chimes echoed softly and she lunged for the phone. She picked up the receiver. The buzzing tone sounded loud against her ear. She had a moment of doubt—what if Daniel hung up?—and then, with shaking fingers, she began to dial.

Each ring seemed to last forever. Finally, a sleepy woman's voice answered the phone. "Hello?"

Michela drew in her breath sharply. Perhaps the vision had been right. Perhaps Nathan was dead, Daniel had moved and they had reassigned the phone number. But it made no sense. Someone would have let her know.

"Hello?"

"I—Is this the Holbert residence?" Michela stammered.

"Yes." The voice had become wary.

"May I speak to Nathan, please?"

"Nathan?"

A shudder ran down Michela's back. Nathan was dead. He should have been squealing in the background, but instead she heard only the hum of the phone line.

"Nathan is asleep."

Asleep? This late on Christmas morning? "Could you wake him up, please?"

"Who is this?"

"His mother," Michela whispered

"Who?"

"His mother," Michela repeated. She spoke with a conviction she did not feel as if she were doubting her own right to the title.

"He doesn't have a mother," the woman said, and from the shock in her voice, Michela could tell that the woman believed it. Suddenly the phone on the other end clattered to the floor and then someone picked it up.

"Leave us alone," said Daniel.

"Daniel, let me speak to Nathan."

"No."

Michela felt the old frustration beat at the edges of her stomach. She started to shake. Whenever she wanted to do something, Daniel stood in her way, telling her that it wasn't proper or that she couldn't or that she was incapable. "Please, Daniel. It's Christmas."

"That's exactly why you shouldn't talk to him. I want him to get over you." The phone went dead. Michela stared at the empty receiver until it clicked and the dial tone returned. Slowly she hung up.

Ghosts should be laid to rest.

We're the true Ghosts of Christmas Present. We don't have chains to rattle like Marley, because we're still alive, still forging them...

Ghosts should be laid to rest.

She found herself in the bathroom with a razor blade clutched between her thumb and forefinger. Her left hand rested palm up on her knee and she realized she had been studying the veins, their blueness an outline for a new and personal type of artwork. The blade, cool, smooth and sharp, touched the base of her wrist.

I want him to get over you.

She finally understood what Daniel had said. She was Nathan's ghost. But he was also hers: the baby she had found out about three days after she had rented her own apartment ("You can't leave now," Daniel had said. "The child would grow up fatherless."); the fetus that had distorted her body, made it swell, pulled the skin across the belly so tight that she could almost hear a sound like rubber being stretched beyond its limits. Daniel loved her thick, heavy breasts and the stomach hiding another life. He spoke to the child, but he never spoke to her. They never talked about an abortion and he was the one who went and canceled the lease on her apartment.

The razor blade slipped through her fingers and clattered onto the tile floor. She put her hand across her flat stomach, covering the scar a doctor had left with his razor as he pulled Nathan into the world.

Nathan, the infant who didn't sleep, who spent the first three months of his life shrieking, who quieted for his father and his father only. Nathan the boy who once smashed an entire table full of dishes, who kicked a hole in his bedroom wall, who did everything he could to get Michela to notice him, to love him, and she couldn't because he was the one who trapped her there, who prevented her from walking away and starting over, from getting rid of Daniel who had stopped loving her a long time ago. On that morning, that hot August morning, when she turned around and saw Nathan holding a dead mouse, she had asked him to give it to her and when he said no, she had tried to take it, and instead she hit him and hitting him felt so good that she continued to hit him until she realized that he wasn't moving, he was laying there bleeding, maybe dying, and that Daniel would never forgive her and that a part of her didn't care...

As she leaned over to pick up the razor blade, she noticed that it was raining. The drops were warm as they landed on the back of her hand. And then she realized that they weren't rain but tears. Tears as welcome as the first snow of the season. And she buried her face in her hands and sobbed for first snows, first loves, snow angels and dreams that had gone sour.

▼

And his name shall be called

Wonderful...

▼

The fog was gone when she finally staggered out of the bathroom. The sun shone feebly through the clouds, giving a light so pale that it could barely be called sunlight. Michela pulled back the curtain and stared, realizing if she tried hard enough, she could see the ocean.

She let the curtain fall, went back into the bathroom, pulled off her robe and stepped into the shower. The hot water invigorated her, warmed her. It was Christmas morning. She felt alive for the first time since she had arrived in Oregon. The man in the carriage had been wrong. She wasn't a ghost. Ghosts disappeared at dawn.

Like Nathan. Nathan would survive without her until she found a way to deal with her anger and frustration. He had a woman, a mother perhaps, who spoke with the voice of Christmas Future. And he had Daniel who had always loved him more than anything else.

Michela sighed and shut off the water. On her first Christmas alone, she would take a walk on the beach and then head over to a restaurant that was serving a Christmas brunch. She would eat a good meal, talk with people who were as alone as she was, and come home. Maybe she would make herself a hot buttered rum or maybe she wouldn't, but either way, she would toast the ghosts of Christmas and hope, that before the day was out, a few more would be laid to rest.

The Ugly File by Ed Gorman

Another repeat offender from Borderlands 1 ("The Man in the Long Black Sedan") is Ed Gorman. He lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and is best known as a tough-nosed mystery writer. However, he's also a fine anthologist with such titles as the wildly successful Stalkers and the wickedly delicious Dark Crimes to his credit. Oddly enough, he is probably least recognized as a short story writer, but I feel his short fiction is his real trump card. The story which follows is another excellent example of the economy, tension, and emotional punch that makes this guy The Real Stuff.

The cold rain didn't improve the looks of the housing development, one of those sprawling valleys of pastel-colored tract houses that had sprung from the loins of greedy contractors right at the end of WWII, fresh as flowers during that exultant time but now dead and faded.

I spent fifteen minutes trying to find the right address. Houses and streets formed a blinding maze of sameness.

I got lucky by taking what I feared was a wrong turn. A few minutes later I pulled my new station wagon up to the curb, got out, tugged my hat and raincoat on snugly, and then started unloading.

Usually Merle, my assistant, is on most shoots. He unloads and sets up all the lighting, unloads and sets up all the photographic umbrellas, and unloads and sets up all the electric sensors that trip the strobe lights. But Merle went on this kind of shoot once before and he said never again, "not even if you fire my ass." He was too good an assistant to give up, so now I did these particular jobs alone.

My name is Roy Hubbard. I picked up my profession of photography in Nam, where I was on the staff of a captain whose greatest thrill was taking photos of bloody and dismembered bodies. He didn't care if the bodies belonged to us or them just as long as they had been somehow disfigured or dismembered.

In an odd way, I suppose, being the captain's assistant prepared me for the client I was working for today, and had been working for, on and off, for the past two months. The best-paying client I've ever had, I should mention here. I don't want you to think that I take any special pleasure, or get any special kick, out of gigs like this. I don't. But when you've got a family to feed, and you live in a city with as many competing photography firms as this one has, you pretty much take what's offered you.

The air smelled of wet dark earth turning from winter to spring. Another four or five weeks and you'd see cardinals and jays sitting on the blooming green branches of trees.

The house was shabby even by the standards of the neighborhood, the brown grass littered with bright cheap forgotten plastic toys and empty Diet Pepsi cans and wild rain-sodden scraps of newspaper inserts. The small picture window to the right of the front door was taped lengthwise from some long ago crack, and the white siding ran with rust from the drain spouts. The front door was missing its top glass panel.

I knocked, ducking beneath the slight overhang of the roof to escape the rain.

The woman who answered was probably no older than twenty-five but her eyes and the sag of her shoulders said that her age should not be measured by calendar years alone.

"Mrs. Cunningham?"

"Hi," she said, and her tiny white hands fluttered about like doves. "I didn't get to clean the place up very good."

"That's fine."

"And the two oldest kids have the flu so they're still in their pajamas and—"

"Everything'll be fine, Mrs. Cunningham." When you're a photographer who deals a lot with mothers and children, you have to learn a certain calm, doctorly manner.

She opened the door and I went inside.

The living room, and what I could see of the dining room, was basically a continuation of the front yard—a mine field of cheap toys everywhere and inexpensive furniture, of the sort you buy by the room instead of the piece, strewn with magazines and pieces of the newspaper and the odd piece of children's clothing.

Over all was a sour smell, one part the rainsodden wood of the exterior house, one part the lunch she had just fixed, one part the house cleaning this place hadn't had in a good long while.

The two kids with the flu, boy and girl respectively, were parked in a corner of the long, stained couch. Even from here I knew that one of them had diapers in need of changing. They showed no interest in me or my equipment. Out of dirty faces and dead blue eyes they watched one cartoon character beat another with a hammer on a TV whose sound dial was turned very near the top.

"Cindy's in her room," Mrs. Cunningham explained.

Her dark hair was in a pert little pony tail. The rest of her chunky self was packed into a faded blue sweat shirt and sweat pants. In high school she had probably been nice and trim. But high school was an eternity behind her now.

I carried my gear and followed her down a short hallway. We passed two messy bedrooms and a bathroom and finally we came to a door that was closed.

"Have you ever seen anybody like Cindy before?"

"I guess not, Mrs. Cunningham."

"Well, it's kind of shocking. Some people can't really look at her at all. They just sort of glance at her and look away real quick. You know?"

"I'll be fine."

"I mean, it doesn't offend me when people don't want to look at her. If she wasn't my daughter, I probably wouldn't want to look at her, either. Being perfectly honest, I mean."

"I'm ready, Mrs Cunningham."

She watched me a moment and said, "You have kids?"

"Two little girls."

"And they're both fine?"

"We were lucky."

For a moment, I thought she might cry. "You don't know how lucky, Mr. Cunningham."

She opened the door and we went into the bedroom.

It was a small room, painted a fresh, lively pink. The furnishings in here—the bassinet, the bureau, the rocking horse in the corner—were more expensive than the stuff in the rest of the house. And the smell was better. Johnson's Baby Oil and Johnson's Baby Powder are always pleasant on the nose. There was a reverence in the appointments of this room, as if the Cunninghams had consciously decided to let the yard and the rest of the house go to hell. But this room—

Mrs. Cunningham led me over to the bassinet and then said, "Are you ready?"

"I'll be fine, Mrs. Cunningham. Really."

"Well," she said, "here you are then "

I went over and peered into the bassinet. The first look is always rough. But I didn't want to upset the lady so I smiled down at her baby as if Cindy looked just like every other baby girl I'd ever seen.

I even put my finger to the baby's belly and tickled her a little. "Hi, Cindy."

After I had finished my first three or four assignments for this particular client, I went to the library one day and spent an hour or so reading about birth defects. The ones most of us are familiar with are clubfoots and cleft palates and harelips and things like that. The treatable problems, that is. From there you work up to spina bifida and cretinism. And from there—

What I didn't know until that day in the library is that there are literally hundreds of ways in which infants can be deformed, right up to and including the genetic curse of The Elephant Man. As soon as I started running into words such as achondroplastic dwarfism and supernumerary chromosomes, I quit reading. I had no idea what those words meant.

Nor did I have any idea of what exactly you would call Cindy's malformation. She had only one tiny arm and that was so short that her three fingers did not quite reach her rib cage. It put me in mind of a flipper on an otter. She had two legs but only one foot and only three digits on that. But her face was the most terrible part of it all, a tiny little slit of a mouth and virtually no nose and only one good eye. The other was almond-shaped and in the right position but the eyeball itself was the deep, startling color of blood.

"We been tryin' to keep her at home here," Mrs. Cunningham said, "but she can be a lot of trouble. The other two kids make fun of her all the time and my husband can't sleep right because he keeps havin' these dreams of her smotherin' because she don't have much of a nose. And the neighbor kids are always tryin' to sneak in and get a look at her."

All the time she talked, I kept staring down at poor Cindy. My reaction was always the same when I saw these children. I wanted to find out who was in charge of a universe that would permit something like this and then tear his fucking throat out.

"You ready to start now?"

"Ready," I said.

She was nice enough to help me get my equipment set up. The pictures went quickly. I shot Cindy from several angles, including several straight-on. For some reason, that's the one the client seems to like best. Straight-on. So you can see everything.

I used VPS large format professional film and a Pentax camera because what I was doing here was essentially making many portraits of Cindy, just the way I do when I make a portrait of an important community leader.

Half an hour later, I was packed up and moving through Mrs. Cunningham's front door.

"You tell that man—that Mr. Byerly who called—that we sure do appreciate that $2000 check he sent."

"I'll be sure to tell him," I said, walking out into the rain.

"You're gonna get wet."

"I'll be fine. Goodbye, Mrs. Cunningham."

▼

Back at the shop, I asked Merle if there had been any calls and he said nothing important. Then, "How'd it go?"

"No problems," I said.

"Another addition to the ugly file, huh?" Then he nodded to the three filing cabinets I'd bought years back at a government auction. The top drawer of the center cabinet contained the photos and negatives of all the deformed children I'd been shooting for Byerly.

"I still don't think that's funny, Merle."

"The ugly file?" He'd been calling it that for a couple weeks now and I'd warned him that I wasn't amused. I have one of those tempers that it's not smart to push on too hard or too long.

"Uh-huh," I said.

"If you can't laugh about it then you have to cry about it."

"That's a cop-out. People always say that when they want to say something nasty and get away with it. I don't want you to call it that any more, you fucking understand me, Merle?"

I could feel the anger coming. I guess I've got more of it than I know what to do with, especially after I've been around some poor goddamned kid like Cindy.

"Hey, boss, lighten up. Shit, man, I won't say it any more, OK?"

"I'm going to hold you to that."

I took the film of Cindy into the dark room. It took six hours to process it all through the chemicals and get the good, clear proofs I wanted.

At some point during the process, Merle knocked on the door and said, "I'm goin' home now, all right?"

"See you tomorrow," I said through the closed door

"Hey, I'm sorry I pissed you off. You know, about those pictures."

"Forget about it, Merle. It's over. Everything's fine."

"Thanks. See you tomorrow."

"Right."

When I came out of the dark room, the windows were filled with night. I put the proofs in a manilla envelope with my logo and return address on it and then went out the door and down the stairs to the parking lot and my station wagon.

The night was like October now, raw and windy. I drove over to the freeway and took it straight out to Mannion Springs, the wealthiest of all the wealthy local suburbs.

On sunny afternoons, Mary and I pack up the girls sometimes and drive through Mannion Springs and look at all the houses and daydream aloud of what it would be like to live in a place where you had honest-to-God maids and honest-to-God butlers the way some of these places do.

I thought of Mary now, and how much I loved her, more the longer we were married, and suddenly I felt this terrible, almost oppressive loneliness, and then I thought of little Cindy in that bassinet this afternoon and I just wanted to start crying and I couldn't even tell you why for sure.

The Byerly place is what they call a shingle Victorian. It had dormers of every kind and description—hipped, eyebrow and gabled. The place is huge but has far fewer windows than you'd expect to find in a house this size. You wonder if sunlight can ever get into it.

I'd called Byerly before leaving the office. He was expecting me.

I parked in the wide asphalt drive that swept around the grounds. By the time I reached the front porch, Byerly was in the arched doorway, dressed in a good dark suit.

I walked right up to him and handed him the envelope with the photos in it.

"Thank you," he said. "You'll send me a bill?"

"Sure," I said. I was going to add, "That's my favorite part of the job, sending out the bill," but he wasn't the kind of guy you joke with. And if you ever saw him, you'd know why.

Everything about him tells you he's one of those men who used to be called aristocratic. He's handsome, he's slim, he's athletic, and he seems to be very, very confident in everything he does—until you look at his eyes, at the sorrow and weariness of them, at the trapped gaze of a small and broken boy hiding in those eyes.

Of course, on my last trip out here I learned why he looks this way. Byerly was out and the maid answered the door and we started talking and then she told me all about it, in whispers of course, because Byerly's wife was upstairs and would not have appreciated being discussed this way.

Four years ago, Mrs. Byerly gave birth to their only child, a son. The family physician said that he had never seen a deformity of this magnitude. The child had a head only slighter larger than an apple and no eyes and no arms whatsoever. And it made noises that sickened even the most doctorly of doctors...

The physician even hinted that the baby might be destroyed, for the sake of the entire family.

Mrs. Byerly had a nervous breakdown and went into a mental hospital for nearly a year. She refused to let her baby be taken to a state institution. Mr. Byerly and three shifts of nurses took care of the boy.

When Mrs. Byerly got out of the hospital everybody pretended that she was doing just fine and wasn't really crazy at all. But then Mrs. Byerly got her husband to hire me to take pictures of deformed babies for her. She seemed to draw courage from knowing that she and her son were not alone in their terrible grief.

All I could think of was those signals we send deep into outer space to see if some other species will hear them and let us know that we're not alone, that this isn't just some frigging joke, this nowhere planet spinning in the darkness...

When the maid told me all this, it broke my heart for Mrs. Byerly and then I didn't feel so awkward about taking the pictures anymore. Her husband had his personal physician check out the area for the kind of babies we were looking for and Byerly would call the mother and offer to pay her a lot of money... and then I'd go over there and take the pictures of the kid...

Now, just as I was just about to turn around and walk off the porch, Byerly said, "I understand that you spent some time here two weeks ago talking to one of the maids."

"Yes."

"I'd prefer that you never do that again. My wife is very uncomfortable about our personal affairs being made public."

He sounded as I had sounded with Merle earlier today. Right on the verge of being very angry. The thing was, I didn't blame him. I wouldn't want people whispering about me and my wife, either

"I apologize, Mr. Byerly. I shouldn't have done that."

"My wife has suffered enough." The anger had left him. He sounded drained. "She's suffered way too much, in fact."

And with that, I heard a child cry out from upstairs.

A child—yet not a child—a strangled, mournful cry that shook me to hear.

"Good night," he said.

He shut the door very quickly, leaving me to the wind and rain and night.

After awhile, I walked down the wide steps to my car and got inside and drove straight home.

As soon as I was inside, I kissed my wife and then took her by the hand and led her upstairs to the room our two little girls share.

We stood in the doorway, looking at Jenny and Sara. They were asleep.

Each was possessed of two eyes, two arms, two legs; and each was possessed of song and delight and wonderment and tenderness and glee.

And I held my wife tighter than I ever had, and felt an almost giddy gratitude for the health of our little family.

Not until much later, near midnight it was, my wife asleep next to me in the warmth of our bed—not until much later did I think again of Mrs. Byerly and her photos in the upstairs bedroom of that dark and shunned Victorian house, up there with her child trying to make frantic sense of the silent and eternal universe that makes no sense at all.

Midnight Grinding by Ronald Kelly

There is a sub-genre that seems to have come to life on its own—a kind of spontaneous generation once ascribed to maggots on dead meat, or that coiling swirl of dust balls in the corner of an abandoned house. It's called Southern Horror, and it's marked largely by a preying upon the natural urban paranoia of the rest of us, i.e., those of us who don't live in places called "vales" or "corners" or "hollows." Ronald Kelly writes the stuff, and it's marked by a strong regional flavor, a familiarity with custom and superstition, and a style that can't be faked. "Midnight Grinding" is a curious little piece that's part folklore and part rural nightmare.

"Which one must I kill first? Oh, sweet Lord in heaven, please tell me... which one must I kill first?"

The first time Rebecca heard the voice of Green Lee it came rasping through the lush leaves of the tobacco rows like the coarse hide of a snake rubbing against dried corn husks. She and her brother, Ben, had been performing the chore that Papa had given them that day; picking off the plump, green worms that nibbled on the summer tobacco and squashing them beneath the toes of their bare feet. But as they left one dense row and moved on to the next, the old man's whispering plea echoed in the dusty afternoon air, curling through their youthful ears and stopping them dead in their tracks.

Rebecca and Ben backed up a few steps, listening to the sinister words and watching for a sign of the one who uttered them. "Heavenly Father, Lord Almighty on high, please tell me... which one shall it be?"

A rustling of tobacco leaves sounded from a few feet away, drawing the frightened eyes of the two children. And from within that dense patch of greenery crept a gnarled claw of stark white bone.

The youngsters broke from their fearful paralysis. Screaming, they ran along the field rows, feet churning clouds of powdery clay dirt into the hot, still air of mid-July. They soon burst from the high tobacco, their cries rising shrilly as they crossed the barren road to the gathering of shabby tin and tarpaper shacks that made up the itinerant farm camp. They saw their mother sitting on the front porch of one such house, washing a few articles of clothing with a scrubboard and a bucket of sudsy, gray water.

"Lordy Mercy!" said Sarah Benton, looking as drab and threadbare as the clothing she washed. "What's the matter with you young'uns?"

It was a moment before they could summon the breath to tell her. "There's a ghost in the tobacco field," gasped the eight-year-old Rebecca. "A ghost with a bony claw!"

"Ya'll hush up now," said their mother. She cast a glance at the house next door and saw their neighbors sitting on the porch, snapping beans and eyeing the two children curiously. "I don't wanna hear such foolishness from the two of you!" The Benton family had only joined the farm camp a few days ago in that sweltering summer of 1908 and it wouldn't do to have the three neighboring families thinking that the Benton children were touched in the head or some such thing.

"But it was there, Mama!" proclaimed little Ben, nearly in tears. "And it said it was gonna kill us!"

Sarah was about to put her bucket and board aside and give the unruly pair a sound thrashing, when her husband, Will, emerged from the tobacco rows with a few of the other farmers. He approached the stone well that stood in the middle of the encampment, where a bucketful of cold water had been drawn, and took a long drink from a gourd dipper.

Rebecca and Ben left their mother and ran to the big, rawboned man. They frantically told their father the story of the voice in the rows and the bony claw that had poked out of the leaves.

Will Benton laughed heartily and put comforting hands on their shoulders. "Aw, don't go fretting yourself about such. That was just old Green Lee over yonder. He ain't gonna hurt you none."

The children looked to where their father pointed and saw a man standing in the speckled shade of a hickory tree several yards away. The fellow was gaunt and lanky, wearing faded overalls and filthy longhandles underneath. He leaned against the trunk of the tree and grinned at them, his teeth stained with tobacco and his eyes holding a disturbing shine of madness. He had a scraggly gray beard and what little hair he possessed laid lank and lifeless along his scalp like sun-shriveled cornsilk. The children looked to his crossed arms and saw that the right hand was strong and whole, hard with the calluses of daily work. But the left one was fleshless; a gnarled claw of stiffened bone, looking like the pale, dry husk of a spider that had curled in upon itself in death.

Rebecca stared at the man, still uneasy in her mind. From the shadows of the big tree his eyes burned with a feverish light and his lips silently mouthed those awful words she had heard him utter in the close-grown rows of the hundred acre field. Then, with a big wink, the old man turned and walked to his own house no more than a stone's throw from the place where Rebecca and her family lived.

▼

That night after supper, their father told them the story of Green Lee.

He had once been a good man; a religious man who tilled the earth of the fields during the week and preached the word of God on Sunday morning. He had fought in the Spanish-American War as a young man and, after serving his country, had returned to his native Tennessee and worked as a farmer in the tobacco fields near the rural town of Coleman. He married a sturdy woman named Charlotte Springer, who a year later bore him twin sons. In all, Green Lee was a respected member of the community along Old Newsome Road... or he had been until his unfortunate accident in the spring of 1903.

It had been a scorcher of a day and Green Lee was plowing a forty acre stretch, when something peculiar happened to him. His wife went out to call him to supper that evening and found him in the center of the half-plowed field, standing over the lifeless body of his finest work mule. When she walked out to see what had happened, she found her husband giggling wildly like a demented child. The mule had been stoned to death, obviously by the farmer himself.

Large hunks of uncovered rock lay scattered around the poor animal and a particularly heavy chunk had been used to shatter the mule's skull.

By the time Charlotte could summon some of the neighboring farmers, Green Lee had collapsed in the evening shadows and laid trembling in a violent palsy of unknown origin. He was immediately put to bed and his body bathed with cool water. The local physician drove out that night in a horse and buggy, and examined the feverish man. The doctor soon came to the conclusion that Green Lee had suffered a heatstroke, due to plowing that hot day without benefit of a hat to shade his head.

After a month in bed, Green Lee escaped the prospect of immediate death and rose to resume his life, although never fully recovered. He was given to bouts of uncharacteristic behavior. For weeks at a time he would seem normal enough, tending to his crops and preaching the Lord's gospel. Then, abruptly, his morals would become totally depraved and devoid of restraint. He would frequent a local roadhouse known as the Bloody Bucket and blow his earnings on whiskey, gambling, and whores. Soon his behavior lost him the respect of his neighbors and the faith of his congregation. Gradually, the good and bad of Green Lee seemed to balance out and he grew more eccentric as the days went by, dividing his time equally between God and the Devil.

Before his illness, the man had been stubborn and head-strong. But in the years afterward, Green Lee became increasingly weak in mind and incredibly gullible. This condition was best summed up by the incident that led to the ghastly crippling of his left hand. Among his other afflictions, Green Lee suffered a bad case of arthritis in his wrist and finger joints, and he was always on the alert for some new medicine or folk remedy that might cure him of the bothersome pain. One night a couple of drinking buddies pulled a cruel joke on the man and suggested a cure that he had never heard before, but one they assured would rid him of his agony. That night, after his family had gone to bed, Green Lee fired up the woodstove in his kitchen and set an iron pot of cold water over the flame. He immersed his left hand in the water and—per his friends' instructions—let the water come to a steady boil. Slowly, the nagging pain in his fingers and wrist disappeared until only numbness remained. Green Lee was sure that he had miraculously been healed of his ailment... until he withdrew his hand from the scalding water and watched as the meat slipped free from his bones and fell, like a fleshen glove, into the churning currents of the boiling pot.

His unfortunate crippling made it impossible for Green Lee to sustain the rigors of tobacco farming. He began to make a meager living as a handyman and an errand boy, working for a man named Leman McSherry who owned a number of itinerant farm camps in Bedloe County. To that day, Green Lee helped out the farming families that plowed, planted, and harvested the fertile tobacco bases along Old Newsome Road. He harnessed mules, went into town for supplies, and helped chop and split tobacco when the crop was mature enough to be readied for sale.

The old man's bizarre behavior was endured with a grain of salt. Most farmers thought of him as nothing more than a harmless imbecile. But the women and children of the camp felt differently, especially the handyman's own family. Sometimes he would approach the children, his bony hand outstretched and the menacing words of "Which one must I kill first?" quavering through his whiskered lips. As of yet, Green Lee had harmed no one, had not even lifted a hand to his own young'uns, but there was some talk that he was a man to be watched, especially when the menfolk were busy laboring in the far reaches of the tobacco field.

▼

The sweltering days of summer soon passed and with the cooling of autumn came the time of harvest. The ripened leaves were cut, lashed to long poles, and fire-cured in the tobacco barn of a local landowner, Harvey Brewer, whose structure was large enough to prepare four crops at one time. Toward the end of September, Rebecca's father and some of the other men planned to load the cured tobacco into mule-drawn wagons and make the long trip to Nashville to the big auction house near the Union Station railroad tracks. During Will Benton's two day journey, his family was to stay the night with their next door neighbors.

They were to stay the night at the house of Green Lee.

At the mere mention of such a visit, Rebecca felt as though she were being cast into the prelude of some horrid nightmare. Both she and her brother were deathly afraid of the lanky man with the skeletal hand. Several times since that day in the tobacco rows, the Benton children had been aware of an unwholesome interest that Green Lee seemed to hold for them. Sometimes he would simply stand beneath the hickory tree and watch silently as they played. Other times, as they walked along the winding bed of Devil's Creek, they would see him following at a distance. Once, when she and Ben were sleeping near the open window of their bedroom during a particularly hot night, Rebecca had awakened to Green Lee's whispering voice. She sat upright in her bed and saw the skeletal hand, blue-white in the moonlight, snaking through the open window and gently running its bony fingers through the hair of her sleeping brother. Rebecca had unleashed a shrill scream, but by the time her parents awoke and came to them the intruder was long gone. Her mother and father had insisted that she had only been dreaming, but she knew that had not been the case.

And there was one other thing in connection with Green Lee that made her uneasy. Sometimes, at the hour of midnight, she would awaken to a peculiar sound, a harsh and unnerving sound. The sound of grinding. Sometimes when she looked from her window, Rebecca saw nothing. But on other occasions she would see a weird glow coming from the back porch of the Lee house. It was the spray of fiery sparks; the kind generated from the clashing contact of steel against whetstone. The grinding would last for only a few moments, then the sound and the strange light would cease, once again surrendering to the nocturnal symphony of crickets, toads, and lonely whippoorwills.

Much to the dread of Rebecca and her brother, the night of their visit to the Lee house finally came. Will Benton had left with the other farmers for Nashville with the dawn and, when the dusk cast its shadow upon the rural countryside, Sarah locked up the little house and ushered her reluctant children to the residence next door. Charlotte Lee and her two children welcomed the Benton family in their customarily quiet and nervous manner. Suppertime was long since over and the women sat around the long eating table, talking and drinking coffee, while the children played with a well-worn set of ball and jacks on the dusty planks of the cabin floor.

Green Lee was there, sitting in a cane-backed chair next to the potbelly stove. He sat there moodily, smoking a corncob pipe and staring intensely into the hot, red slits of the grate. The crimson glow reflected on the whites of his eyes and sometimes he would chuckle, as though he had glimpsed some mysterious revelation within the crackling coals. Fortunately, Green Lee seemed to pay neither Rebecca or her brother any mind during the course of the evening. He merely sat there hunkered over, indulging himself with his smoking and fire-watching.

Eventually they all settled in for the night. The Lee family retired to their own beds in the back room, while Sarah Benton and her two children slept on pallets on the bare boards of the floor. When the candles had been extinguished and the last creak of bed-springs was heard, Rebecca laid there next to her brother and stared into the unfamiliar darkness. She strained her ears for the first sound of Green Lee leaving his bed and making his way to her pallet. But after an hour of fearful anticipation, she heard no such move on the old man's part. Fairly exhausted by her anxiety, Rebecca was soon claimed by slumber, joining the realm of the sleeping forms around her.

Later on that night, Rebecca was awakened by the sound of harsh grinding. She rose and looked at the old German clock that hung on the bedroom wall. The ornate hands read five minutes past twelve. Rebecca's eyes searched through the darkness. She found the place where Green Lee slept to be abandoned. Quietly, the girl left the blankets of her bed and padded from the room into the adjoining kitchen.

She hid behind a kitchen chair and stared through the interlaced bands of cane weaving at the strange sight that revealed itself beyond the back door, which was open despite the coolness of the autumn night. The lanky form of Green Lee, clad only in filthy longjohns, hunched over the big grinding wheel on the back porch. His bare foot worked the pedal furiously, sending the circular stone whirling at a steady pace. The man giggled and cooed softly as he worked. First, he pressed the edge of a hatchet to the stone, honing its breadth with expert precision. Shavings of hot steel glanced from the hard surface in orange sparks, then died as they cooled to dark cinders in the September chill.

When Green Lee was satisfied with the job he had done, he set the hand-axe aside and took up a straight razor. Again, he hunched over the wheel and went to work. Back and forth he drew the wicked blade of the shaving implement across the whirling flat of the wheel. When the razor was finally lifted away from the stone, Green Lee held the blade aloft. In the faint moonlight outside, Rebecca could see that its edge had been ground to a thinness that bordered on transparency.

She was about to duck back into the bedroom, when Green Lee twisted his grizzled head around and stared straight at her, as if he had known of her presence all along. His snaggletoothed grin grew wider and his eyes wilder, and he asked in a rasping voice "Is this the one, Lord? Is this the one that I seek?"

Rebecca broke from her hiding place and ran back to her pallet. She burrowed beneath the blankets and pulled them up over her head, shuddering with the fear of having been discovered. She waited, listening for the old man's approach. It came moments later; the creaking of bare feet on the floorboards. She pulled herself into a tight ball, expecting the edge of honed steel to bite through the cloth of her blankets and find the tender flesh of her body or the fragile shell of her skull. But it did not happen. She peeked from beneath the covers and saw the shadowy form of Green Lee next to the big brass-framed bed. The old man lifted his pillow and laid the sharpened hatchet and razor underneath. Then the sleeve of cloth and goosedown obscured the weapons from view and, with a soft prayer on his lips, Green Lee settled into the sunken spot next to his wife and soon drifted into a snoring slumber.

▼

After that night, Rebecca never strayed far from the Benton farmhouse. Life went on in the farming camp as the colorful fall stretched into a bleak, gray winter. Most of the men, her father included, found jobs at a sawmill in a neighboring county to make ends meet, while Green Lee did odd jobs in town, toting firewood and cleaning out chimney flues.

But, at night, she could still hear the urgent sound of grinding.

Then, in mid-February, horrid screams roused the farming camp at the hour of midnight. Will Benton and a few of the neighboring farmers armed themselves and went out to see what the commotion was all about, while their wives and children watched fearfully from the frosty panes of the windows. They could see fleeting forms running across the barren, snow-covered tobacco field; frantic forms that wailed with shrieks of laughter and terror. Then there came the sound of a rifle shot and, soon, Rebecca's father and the others dragged the weeping form of Green Lee back across the road. His right leg was bleeding from a gunshot wound and in his hands he held the weapons that Rebecca had seen that night in September. The hatchet was clutched in his good hand, while the razor was wedged tightly within the bony fingers of his skeletal claw.

After Green Lee had been tied to a rocking chair on the front porch of the Lee house, his family was brought to the home of the Bentons. They were distraught and trembling, bearing a few shallow wounds, but nothing worse. A while later, the county sheriff arrived and took Green Lee with him. It was the last time that Rebecca ever saw the madman with the bony hand the heavenly plea of murderous intention on his lips.

Not long afterward, Rebecca and her family moved on to another farming camp, for her father was a man who wandered from one community to the next, searching for a life he was never destined to find. A few years later, Rebecca heard that Green Lee had died in an insane asylum. According to the stories told, the lunatic had laid thrashing on the dank floor of his solitary cell, bound in a straightjacket and screaming for the Lord to "answer the riddle of his madness"... He had screamed long and loud, until his brain exploded with the strain of his hysteria and his eyes grew dark and bulging in their sockets, like blood-engorged ticks on the point of bursting.

▼

In the year of 1923, Rebecca returned to Bedloe County, Tennessee. With her was a husband, Jasper Howell, and two young children, Mitchell and Millicent, who were barely of school age. Like Rebecca's father, Jasper was a tobacco farmer by trade. When he had told her that they would be moving once again, Rebecca had really thought nothing of it at first. She had become accustomed to the nomadic ways of the itinerant farm family during her childhood. But when they arrived at the farm camp and Rebecca realized exactly where they were, she felt a wave of cold dread engulf her like the treacherous waters of a swollen stream.

The four, drab tin and tarpaper houses, the stone well, and the vast expanse of prime tobacco land across the dirt road—it all came back to her from the year of her eighth birthday. She was back at the farm camp that had served as her home fifteen years before. It was the place where she had first been introduced to the emotion of sheer terror, in the form of a crazed cripple with murder in his heart and stone-honed steel in his grasp.

Rebecca said nothing to her husband about her sudden revelation. It would have done no good. He would have simply called her foolish and refused to move on. There were two other families at the camp when they arrived, which meant that two of the shabby houses were still vacant. Luckily, they moved into the same house that the Benton family had occupied when she was a child. That left the ramshackle structure next door empty and dark... the house that had once been the uneasy home for the family of Green Lee.

They arrived in early spring, in time for Jasper and the other men to set about the task of furrowing the vast field and planting the shoots of young tobacco in orderly rows. The first few weeks passed without incident for the Howell family. Jasper worked the fields from sunrise to sunset, Rebecca busied herself with the chores of a homemaker, and Mitch and Millie spent their days studying at the one-roomed schoolhouse near the forks of Old Newsome Road.

Then, one night, Rebecca woke at the hour of twelve. She sat up in bed and stared into the darkness, trying to determine what had roused her from her sleep. It had been a noise; a coarse, monotonous sound that rang with a disturbing familiarity. She strained her ears and heard the sound again. It echoed through the blackness of the outer night. From the direction of the old Lee house.

She rose and walked to the window at the far side of the room. From that vantage point she could see the southern face of the abandoned house. The moment she looked through the dirty panes of the bedroom window, the puzzling noise ceased. She peered at the shadowy overhang of the back porch, certain that she had glimpsed a flash of fiery sparks a second before the sound of grinding had come to a halt.

Which one must I kill first? echoed the voice of Green Lee from the far reaches of her mind, as chilling now as it had seemed fifteen years ago. Tell me, Lord, which one shall it be?

Rebecca stared out at the darkness for a while, then returned to her bed. She lay awake for a long time and listened for the haunting clash of steel against stone, but the only sounds she heard was the chirping of crickets in the dark hours of the night, as well as the soft snoring of her sleeping husband.

▼

Spring stretched into summer, and soon the tobacco grew lush and chest-high in the hundred acre field. The men spent their days weeding and hoeing, while the children played hide-and-seek amid the thick stalks and pretended they were explorers in some great and mysterious jungle.

Rebecca and the other women of the farming camp had planted a small vegetable garden behind the houses and, by mid-July, the patch was ripe with fresh tomatoes, snapping beans, and corn. On one such summer day, Rebecca was digging taters and picking roasting ears for that night's supper, when the sound of youthful screams cut through her ears like shards of broken glass. The sound froze her heart and, at first, she was sure that one of the children had fallen down the stone well or had been bitten by a copperhead snake.

She stepped from the garden and watched as Mitch and Millie ran screaming from the dense growth of the tobacco rows and ran across the rural road as if Old Scratch himself was fast on their heels. "What's wrong?" she asked as they clung to her gingham skirt, nearly in tears.

"It was a man!" sobbed Millie. "There was a man in the field!"

"What are you talking about?" demanded Rebecca. "What kind of man?"

"A crazy man," said little Mitch. "A man with bones for a hand."

Rebecca's heart grew as cold and heavy as a winter stone. She grabbed a hatchet from off the chopping stump near the back porch and—despite their squalling protest—made the children show her where their frightening encounter had taken place. She felt her skin crawl with gooseflesh when she discovered it to be the exact same spot where she and her brother had first known the horror of Green Lee.

She walked up and down the adjoining rows, but found no sign of anyone having been there recently. Her husband and the other men were working at the far end of the property that day, a good distance from the spot that Mitch and Millie had shown her. Although she hated doing so, she assured the children that it had merely been their imagination playing tricks on them. They looked doubtful at her explanation, however, and felt that she didn't believe their fantastic story.

But, secretly, Rebecca Howell had good reason to believe every word of what they had told her, even though it was impossible to consider such a thing actually happening... especially with the culprit long since dead and moldering in the dark depths of his grave.

▼

As the summer months slowly gave way to autumn, life in the farming camp continued uneventfully. The routine of each new day remained the same as that of the day before. The children seemed to have forgotten their harrowing experience in the tobacco field, but Rebecca hadn't. The screams of Mitch and Millie still lingered in her mind, as well as the distant image of a claw of gnarled bone and the memory of a malevolent whisper from her own childhood. She attempted to drive those thoughts from her mind, for it seemed foolish to linger on such things.

Then, toward the end of September, thoughts of Green Lee resurfaced. Rebecca was awakened by that peculiar sound of metallic grinding. Swiftly, she left her bed and went to the bedroom window. This time she saw a faint hint of irregular light coming from the back porch of the old Lee house. Intrigued, she felt her way through the pitch darkness of the room and made her way to the kitchen for a better view. From her own back porch she saw the flashing bursts of orange sparks and heard more clearly the distinct grating of steel against stone.

Curiously, she padded with bare feet across the weedy stretch of yard that separated the two houses. By the time she got within thirty feet of the rickety porch of the deserted house, both the noise and the light had vanished. Cautiously, Rebecca stepped onto the bowed boards of the porch and approached the old grinding wheel that still sat where it had fifteen years ago.

She put her fingertips to the wheel and immediately jerked them away. The stone was hot to the touch. She crouched down and found that tiny bits of newly ground steel were scattered upon the dusty boards underneath. But there was no sign of the person who had done the grinding, or the instruments that had been subject to the stone's whirling edge.

Could he still be alive? Rebecca wondered. Could Green Lee be alive, despite what I heard before? Or could his ghost be haunting this place after all these years?

As if in answer, the sound of heavy footsteps on aged floorboards echoed from within the darkness of the open door. Rebecca found herself rooted to the spot as a pale form slowly emerged from the shadowy kitchen beyond.

"What are you doing over here?" someone asked her and Rebecca felt her fright melt away at the sound of her husband's voice.

"I thought I heard something," she said, catching her breath.

"So did I," replied Jasper. "A noise and a light. But doesn't look like nobody's here now. Must've been an old hobo messing around or something."

Rebecca crossed her slender arms against the night chill and was escorted home by her husband. When they finally settled into bed once again, Rebecca glanced at Jasper's pocket watch lying on the bureau and saw that it was only a few minutes past the stroke of midnight.

▼

During the next few weeks, Rebecca couldn't shake the dreadful shadow of that night on the back porch of the Lee house. During her daily chores she found herself casting an uneasy glance at the dark, empty windows, as if expecting to see a wild-eyed, whiskered face leering out at her from amid the broken panes.

And it was even worse at night. Her dreams were filled with the threat of Green Lee. Sometimes she would find herself running across a snowy field with Mitch and Millie in tow as a dark form pursued them, fistfuls of honed steel flashing wickedly in the cold, winter moonlight. Sometimes she would dream that she heard the whimpers of children drifting through the ebony night, along with the smell of cooking meat, and she would go into the kitchen and find Green Lee standing over a vast iron pot on the wood stove. From the boiling waters he would drag the bodies of her children, holding them aloft and cackling insanely as the blistered meat slid limply from their naked bones and fell like pale suits of dead gristle into the steaming cauldron.

As if the horrid nightmares weren't enough, Rebecca began to have suspicions that her husband might be playing a part in her sudden uneasiness. She came to the realization that he was acting strangely and not at all like the man she had married.

Lately, Jasper had chosen to spend his evenings sitting by the door of the big iron cookstove, smoking his pipe and staring into the glowing slits of the grate, as if searching for the clue to some inner mystery. He also began to talk in his sleep. Not coherently, but in low whispers, reminding Rebecca of the breathy pleas of that lunatic handyman she had once known.

And objects around the house began to mysteriously disappear. One morning in December, Rebecca noticed that Jasper was shaving with a new straight razor. When she questioned him about the whereabouts of his old one, Jasper grew defensive. "I reckon I just misplaced it, that's all," he said curtly. Also, the hand-axe she used for chopping kindling vanished without a trace from the stump outside.

There was the matter of the bed linen as well. Sometimes when she did her washing, she would find some of the sheets filthy with mud and dank leaves, as if someone had gone for a nocturnal stroll and then climbed back into bed without wiping their feet.

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It was on a cold and snowy night in the middle of February that all of Rebecca's fears and suspicions suddenly came to a head and she found herself lying awake in her bed, filled with a sensation of overbearing dread.

Her hand moved to her husband's side of the bed and found the space unoccupied. She rose and instantly smelled a sickening scent in the air. It reeked like spoiled meat cooking in its own fetid juices. Uttering a silent prayer, Rebecca stepped into the hallway and checked the bedroom of her children. Mitch and Millie were both gone. Their beds were empty and their blankets had been violently flung across the floor. She looked down the dark corridor and, from the kitchen, thought she heard the boiling of water... and the low, giggling mirth of an unsound mind. Then came the sharp slap of the back door slamming shut.

Bracing herself for the worse, Rebecca Howell entered the kitchen. Despite the cold of the winter night, the interior of the room was sweltering hot. The stove had been stoked. A crackling fire raged within its iron belly. The narrow slits of the grate winked at her like crimson eyes, privy to some evil knowledge that she was thankfully ignorant of. But not for very long.

As she walked nearer, Rebecca saw that her largest iron pot was on the stove and that plumes of acrid steam drifted from the bubbling waters within. The odor of cooking meat was stronger than ever and Rebecca fought the sickness that threatened to seize her. Taking a step closer, she peered through the warm mist and into the torrid waters beneath. Something danced in the dark depths; a couple of small, pale objects rising and falling amid the swirling currents. At first she didn't know what they were. Then, as they rose to the boiling surface, she recoiled in horror.

They were clumps of flaccid skin. Pale blossoms of lifeless flesh that had slipped from the understructure of human bones. The objects waved at her like disembodied gloves. Tiny nails, bitten to the quick, graced each fluttering finger.

Rebecca moaned with terror. "My babies! What has he done to my babies?"

She recalled the slamming of the back door and, from the darkness of the night beyond, again heard the low chortling of maniacal laughter. She grabbed a heavy stick of firewood from the box, then opened the door and stepped out onto the porch.

It was a frigid night. The ground was inches deep with fresh snow and moonlit icicles hung like jeweled fangs from the eaves of the overhang. Rebecca breathed frosty plumes of winter air, then, raising the stick of wood overhead, stepped off the edge of the porch.

And instantly felt her bare foot sink into the cooling sludge that had once been her husband's brain.

Before Rebecca could give way to the scream that rose in her throat, she heard the rasping sound of tiny voices.

"Which one must we kill... next?"

Then, from the dense shadows beneath the back porch, came the flash of sharpened steel and youthful bone.

Multiple Dwelling by Kathleen Jurgens

Kathleen Jurgens is not really a "new" writer because she's been writing and publishing short stories for a good handful of years now. Problem is, she's been publishing almost all of them in what's called the Small Press—a surprisingly large number of magazines appearing on a regular to semi-regular basis, with circulations ranging from 500 to several thousand, displaying an admirably high level of craft in terms of writing, art, and design. They have gained the reputation as a kind of training ground for writers who will ultimately make it to the Big Time, but some writers attain a level of notoriety in the Small Press and seem content to remain at that level. Thankfully, Kathleen Jurgens is not one of them. I had to read the following story several times before I fully understood what was really happening, but the prose was so precise, the characters so fascinating, the experience reinforced my belief that good fiction should never be too easy.

Chunks of dates, batter-coated raisins, streaks of cinnamon and clove swam atop the thick mixture. Operating an antique hand sifter, Meg coated individual pudding tins with a dusting of flour. She didn't look up when Edwina entered.

"Fanciful. I call it plain fanciful. Imagine having a dinner party when we're forced to live in such reduced circumstances." She sneezed delicately. "You're going to have a mess to clean up. There's always a mess to clean up when you're in charge. Well, you can't say I didn't warn you. No one will appreciate this little soiree, the work you've invested in it. I shouldn't think anyone wants to attend. It's really not fair of you, Megan. None of us are that well-acquainted." Edwina left, leaving a trail of sneezes behind her.

Relieved by the sudden stillness, Meg proceeded to ladle batter into the tins. She immersed the bottoms of the tiny pans into a large baking sheet half-filled with water. From a cavernous apron pocket, she withdrew a small velvet jeweler's box. Springing the lid, she studied the contents.

The charms were no bigger than the nail on her pinkie finger. Each was over a century old, intricately designed. The rotund little pig symbolized good fortune; the sculpted acorn kept illness at bay; the tiny bell protected against danger. There was also a grouping of individual porcelain dolls. A doll could mean a long voyage, a pending marriage—they were open to interpretation by the finder.

It was imperative each guest discover the charm intended for him/her. Mentally alphabetizing the guest list, Meg selected a token for Charlie and dropped the bell atop the batter. It stayed afloat—the pudding was a selfcontained quagmire. Using a fork, she buried the bell beneath the surface, went on to the next tin. A thimble for Edwina, a cherub-faced baby for Lorene, the pig to Lost Boy. She paused at her own name, then plucked a horseshoe from the box to submerge beneath the lumpy ooze. Patty was the recipient of the acorn.

She held a half-dozen bisque dolls in the palm of her hand. No two were alike; all were exquisitely molded, glazed in a soft shade of pink. The tallest was a half-inch in height; all were frozen in upright positions, arms at their sides.

Megan positioned the dolls in the final tin, chanting, "Ring around the rosie, pocket full of posie..." As the tines of the fork sank each porcelain caricature beneath the surface, she repeated, "All fall down, all fall down."

Hot air hushed from the oven door as she slid the baking sheet inside. Anticipating the spicy fragrance, her guests' expressions of surprise, she hummed as she tidied the kitchen. For the first time in months, maybe years, she was looking forward to an event with something other than dread.

She was twenty-eight years old, divorced, and her former husband had custody of their five-year-old child. He was a very wealthy man, the son of an even wealthier man, and family money had robbed her of the child.

In court, his witnesses had testified she was psychotic, schizophrenic, a manic depressive. After listening to the testimonies, she'd almost come to believe she was insane. She'd felt like a prisoner of war. Defenseless, she'd emotionally withdrawn, leaving behind only the shell of her former self. Afterwards, THAT man had attempted an apology, saying he regretted his actions but that it was for the best, that she needed psychiatric help. Even Vlad the Impaler had shown greater mercy by executing his victims!

Eventually she'd sought therapy to overcome the pain, grief. She was not psychotic, schizophrenic, or manic depressive. Instead, she was a pale, slender woman who often bit her lip to keep from crying, a woman who finally realized that laws are not impartial or fair, that the mercy of the court was synonymous with contempt of court.

If not for her companions, she couldn't have survived. That's why she was determined, over Edwina's protests, to hostess a dinner party. It was true; her guests were not well-acquainted. But after tonight, they would know each other intimately. Or, as Lost Boy was apt to say, "Together 'til the end."

Charlie had requested pot roast with "them new potatoes on the side. Now don't go and overcook them. They got to be a might firm with taut skins."

Easing aside the heavy lid, Meg nudged the roast with a fork. It simmered quietly in its own broth. Two bay leaves, like bark canoes, rode the bubbling juices. On the back of the stove, a battered kettle held the new potatoes. Anxiously, she checked to make sure the tight skins remained whole. Nothing threw Charlie into a rage like a carelessly prepared meal. Sighing with relief, she replaced the lid. There hadn't been a crack or a puckered seam in a single potato.

She removed the faded apron, slung it over a chair back and escaped the kitchen. The dining room table looked like an arrangement from "Better Homes." Mismatched bone china from garage sales gleamed in the muted lighting.

The napkins were starched into knife points, the dime-store silverware toweled to remove water spots. Although Christmas was a month past, she'd saved back fragile tree baubles, filling a clear plastic bowl with them. Silk poinsettias and gaily colored velvet ribbons were intertwined among the ornaments. It added color to the dreary little room. It was too early to light the green tapers that cast long slender shadows across the white tablecovering.

Megan bit her lip. She'd tied sprigs of curling ribbon around the necks of baby food jars. She hoped Charlie wouldn't comment upon the homemade candle holders. His observations were often sarcastic to the point of cruelty.

In her bedroom, she searched through the few clothes in the closet. Edwina chose to enter when she'd decided upon a favorite blue knit dress.

"I wouldn't wear that if I were you. Remember what happened last time you wore that particular frock? I wasn't there, but you confided the vile things Patty said. As if Patty has any room to talk. I can't believe you invited a whore to dinner. Heaven help us if Charles learns what she does for a living."

Silently Meg extracted a grey jumper and white blouse from the closet.

"Much better," Edwina approved. "After all, you are the caretaker, the provider. Though what you see in these people is beyond me. Imagine knowing someone with a name like 'Lost Boy.' Probably an unkempt hoodlum who abandoned his birth name to protest a Christian upbringing and god-fearing parents." She snorted.

"I don't know why you've invited me to this gathering. But, don't worry, I'll be there. One of us needs to keep a level head and keep up appearances. If you'll excuse me, I must tidy my hair, find the brooch Papa gave me. He was such a good man," she sniffed, "so attentive, so anxious to please me with little tokens of his affection. So gentle, so loving," Edwina disappeared, still spouting sentimentality.

Meg envied Edwina. She had no memories of her own father. After her marriage, she'd moved cross-country and, for reasons she couldn't fathom, she and her father had never corresponded, visited. Her mother had been dead for...

Meg stopped struggling with the buttons on the blouse to think. She was twenty-eight, her mother had died the summer she'd turned twelve. Subtracting, she deduced her mother had been dead sixteen years. It didn't seem possible. Why was it she could remember her mother's crooked front tooth, her wide smile, the bunion on her left foot but couldn't recall her father's face?

Shaking her head, she put the puzzling question aside for later. She had to make cream sauce for the peas, warm the dinner rolls.

The puddings were brown, the tops split and oozing sauce. Meg lowered the oven temperature. The final half-hour was the most critical. The interior of the pudding had to be firm but moist. She imagined the charms rising from the bottoms of the tins to gradually become encased within a wall of crumb.

A little before six, Lost Boy arrived, untypically on-time. Meg ushered him into the dining room and a seat at the table. She'd reserved the foot of the table for herself, the head for Charlie, because he expected it.

She studied the table decorations through Lost Boy's eyes, waited for his comments.

"Ya did a fuckin' good job decking out the table. But I got to ask myself 'why?' Why go to all this trouble for a bunch a losers ya really don't like. Don't deny it, Meg. Only reason ya keep me around is ta see what I'll say or do next, right? If you wasn't so fuckin' scared a your own shadow, ya wouldn't need me. I see the way you look at me when ya think I'm not watchin'.

"I got needle holes trackin' both arms. I got 'em a'tween my toes. You're wonderin' where I got this."

Unconsciously, Meg raised her hand to trace a finger over her right eyebrow, mimicking Lost Boy's actions. The cut was livid, jagged and purple with swelling. Stiff suture threads criss-crossed the wound.

He grinned wickedly. "Didn't know about the latest, huh? Ya know how it is when ya don't have two dimes to rub together, and ya gotta have a fix? Found me a John, said he'd pay me in 'H.' Only I didn't know 'H' meant hell. When I asked for a deposit, he opened me up here," the finger slid over the brittle threads. "He nearly tore me open trying to..."

"No more," she cried, clapping her palms over both ears. "I don't want to hear it." She removed her hands. Lost Boy was silent, uncommunicative.

"Charlie's coming tonight. If you dare talk like that, he'll kill you. I mean it, Lost Boy. He'll slice you, and you know he can do it."

Edwina entered the room. "Since it appears you have everything under control, I think I'll take my place at the table." Ignoring the boy, she sat as far from him as she could across the table. It would've been beneath her dignity to offer to assist in the kitchen. Edwina had never cooked or served a meal in her life and wasn't about to start now. She did, however, suggest that Megan light the candles.

Humming tunelessly, she watched Meg strike a table match and touch it to the wicks. She clapped her hands excitedly. "Oh, how charming, how utterly charming. Now it's like a real dinner party. I recall the time Papa invited his business associates home for supper. He'd bought me my first pair of high heels. They were red kid leather with tiny bows on the toes. I practiced walking in them the entire week before the dinner. Up and down stairs, over the kitchen linoleum, across the thick carpet in the den. After our guests left that night, he hugged me ever so sweetly, said I'd proved myself to be a grown-up woman." Staring into the past, Edwina didn't notice Megan slip from the room and into the kitchen.

Edwina was Megan's age, but to hear her talk, she lived in some by-gone era. It was always Papa said this; Papa did that; Papa gave her this and that. It drove Megan to distraction that she could picture Edwina's father so clearly—a man she'd never met—and couldn't dredge up one detail about her own.

As she removed the puddings from the oven, she felt another's presence in the room. The cloying perfume identified the caller: Patty. Smothering a groan, Meg placed the baking dish atop the stove, covering it with a tea towel to hold in the moist warmth. As she poured peas into a serving dish, Meg inclined her head in greeting.

"Sure smells good, honey. Hope it tastes as good as it smells. I haven't had a decent meal in ages, and tube steak don't count, if you get my drift. Say, who's the kid with the banged-up face? Don't sit me across from him, could ruin my appetite. Bad enough some of the things I gotta put in my mouth to make a few bucks, but I was counting on a nice, leisurely meal tonight. You cut your hair or somethin'? You look different for some reason. Nah, it ain't your hair. Wish you'd let me have a go at it. You got great hair, if you'd just do something with it. The long, straight look went out with yesterday's cum rag." She giggled.

"Trade joke, sorry. Anyway, you do look different, almost pretty. Must be the excitement of having company. You ought to get out more. I could introduce you to a great bunch of guys. You wouldn't have to put out for them; they're gentlemen. I do, because a girl's got to earn a living, especially if she can't cook or type. But you, why they'd treat you like a lady. Buy you mixed drinks, take you to dinner, maybe even a movie. You can't shut yourself off from the world, honey. There are a few decent men out there," she paused, listening.

"Oh hell, did you go and invite Charlie? Did you? Ah hell, I'm gonna sneak down the back hall and get to the table before he runs into me. Whatever possessed you to invite that son-of-a-bitch?" Her heels tapped a staccato message as she hurried across the tile floor to the door leading down the hall.

Mechanically, Meg forked the roast from the pan, centered it on a platter for Charlie's cutlery expertise. Straining to hear his voice in the next room, she spooned potatoes into a bowl, slid tendrils of parsley between the steaming jackets—just the way Charlie liked.

Without warning, he was at her side. She didn't think he touched her, but still, she shuddered at his proximity.

"Looks delicious, Megan," he growled. "But looks is deceiving. Who the hell did you invite to supper? Was that Patty I seen sneaking down the hall? Was it?" he demanded harshly. His hand closed over a serving fork.

"Yes," she whispered. "Patty and Lost Boy; Edwina, you know; um, Lorene should be arriving shortly."

"Lorene's here, sitting next to Edwina with that weepy look in her eyes. I told you a'fore I don't like the people you keep company with. I told you a'fore I don't want to be around them. So what do you do; you invite them to eat with us. I won't have it; you hear me? I won't have you going against what I say."

The fork penetrated the back of her hand before she was aware of his intent. Immediately three pricks of blood formed below her knuckles. "Please Charlie, don't hurt me. Not tonight, not now. We, I, have guests, and dinner's ready to serve. It's special, you'll see. Everything you like, cooked just the way you like it. Go in and sit down. You can cut the roast while I bring in the rest of the dinner. Please."

The fork smoothed over her forearm, pressing but not puncturing the soft flesh inside her elbow. Abruptly, he picked up the platter, fitting the meat fork on the rim of the dish. Without another word, he left the kitchen.

She fought tears, her eyesight blurred as she loaded a tray with entrees. When she entered the dining room, it was awash in silence. Charlie had that kind of effect on people. Megan didn't look up as she placed the bowls on the table, retreating to the kitchen for rolls and deviled eggs.

Finally she was forced to join her guests at the table. At the other end, Charlie intoned, "Bow yer heads and we'll give thanks for what the Lord has provided." He waited until his orders had been carried out. Even Lost Boy's natural tendency to rebel remained in-check in Charlie's presence. "Lord, we thank you for the food we are about to eat. I ask you to forgive the sins of those sharing this bounty with me and to lead them in thy redemptive ways. Amen."

He glanced down the table at Megan. "Start passing the food a'fore it turns stone cold." He glared at Lorene. "Quit that sniveling or I'll backhand you a good one. It's right you should suffer for what ya done." He stared around the table, daring anyone to speak in Lorene's behalf. No one did.

He burst out laughing. "My, don't this beat all. Never thought I'd see the day I'd be sitting at the same table breaking bread with the likes of you. That Geraldo fella would have a heyday with this one. Got Miss Prim and Proper to my left who won't let a man touch her 'cuz her dead Daddy was and still is the love o' her life. Next to her is a lady who paid money to have her unborn child sucked outta her belly and now she can't forgive herself. Then we got Megan, our hostess. She's like one of them cruise directors, always planning activities, trying to keep our lives on a steady course. But she's a female and the job's too damn big for her.

"I can't help but noticin' that Lost Boy's got hisself another set of stitches. What happened, boy? Some guy try to bugger you without paying first? Then there's Patty, who's got a lot in common with the boy. Only she ain't a whore; she's a high-class tramp. Just out to make the gentlemen happy, right Patty?

"How old are you, anyway? Must be close to Megan's age, but damned if you don't look all dried up and juiceless. Must be damn hard competing against all that prime pussy walking the streets. I see we got a no-show tonight, Megan. Who else you invite and forget to tell me about?"

Megan swallowed the tasteless bit of beef in her mouth, sipped from her water glass before answering. "I invited Keeper, but he can't come until later. I put a plate out for him just in case, to be polite."

The silence around the table was a pall. The only sounds were of silverware clinking, a cup scraping across a saucer. Finally Patty spoke. "Why'd you go and invite Keeper? He's worse than..." she glanced at the head of the table. "That man gives me the creeps. Never says a word, just sits and watches, like he's waiting for something. Only you never know what he's waiting for. None of us here knows one another that well, but I lay odds we'd all agree Keeper is... well, he just doesn't belong."

There was a sudden shriek as Lorene's tumbler slipped from her fingers. Water spread across the tablecloth like a creek overrunning its banks.

Charlie reared back in his chair. "Goddamn it, you stupid little bitch. Shoulda knowed, shoulda 'spected this from you. I don't tolerate clumsiness at my table, girl." He seized a serrated knife from his table setting, started to stand.

Edwina shrank back as he loomed over her, trying to reach Lorene. Blubbering, Lorene mopped at the spill with her napkin. She didn't attempt to protect herself from attack. She expected it, willed as punishment for her sin.

"NO." Megan shouted. "NO, Charlie. This is MY house, and you will not assault a guest. Sit down!"

There was a long, horrible silence before Charlie unexpectedly complied. But not before he buried the tip of the knife into the table top. It quivered, the wooden hilt shivering with the force of the blow.

Shocked by her show of strength, Megan sat back, wondering where courage had come from. Trying to put on a show of normality, she looked around the table, finally settling on Patty, who appeared the least likely of her companions to instigate trouble. Patty was a whore, but she had street-smarts, an instinct for survival. She'd been up against men as vicious and cruel as Charlie in an assortment of cheap motel rooms but had managed to survive.

"You know, Patty, I just might take you up on your offer to do something with my hair. Yours always looks so... so Hollywood. Maybe a few curls would erase some of the years."

Before Patty could answer, Lorene responded in a timid voice. "Please don't, Megan. I like your hair. It reminds me of Mama's, long and silky and that rare shade of auburn. Just like Mama's, remember, Meg? Remember how sweet it smelled and how she'd let us brush it out fan-shaped on long summer nights on the back porch? Then she'd squeeze us quick-like, and we'd snuggle our nose into her neck where it was warm and smelled of gardenias. Then Papa would come out...", her voice trailed away.

"Don't you dare say one cross word about Papa," Edwina scolded. "You're just jealous, 'cuz he loved me best. You accused him of VILE things, horrid, unnatural acts. You almost convinced Mama, until I spoke up and told the truth. It was natural, after that, that he didn't want anything to do with you and turned to me for affection. You couldn't stand that he gave me little gifts and took me with him on the train to Phoenix that time and tucked me in bed at night. You're a jealous, spiteful, wicked girl, and that's why I remember Papa so clearly and you can't." Edwina settled back in her chair, a smug smile curving her lips.

"Girls, girls, calm down," Patty intervened. "We're upsetting our hostess, and after she went to such pains to entertain us." She winked at no one in particular. "Lorene, you're right about Mama. She was a real lady, but she shoulda listened to us. I'm not saying she was wrong in ignoring our... problem; poor dear had troubles of her own. What with the cancer and all." Her voice rose as she faced Edwina.

"But for you to defend that sweaty-palmed bastard is more than I can bear. 'Let me touch you, honey," Patty mimicked. "This won't hurt a bit, just relax. Don't cry; you're daddy's brave little sweetheart. Make Daddy happy and he'll buy you that pretty little sweater you been eyeing down to Fander's Department Store." She paused, her throat tight with unshed tears.

"Don't you go making out our dear Daddy was anything but an incestuous child molester. He made us what we are today. Me and Lorene and Megan and even you, Edwina. You're a dried-up old maid, terrified of men. Me, I'm so hungry for a man's attention I sell myself to the lowest bidder. Megan lost her child because she couldn't stand up to a man, and Lorene destroyed her child before some man could snatch it from her. We owe all THIS to Papa. May he rot in hell." Lifting her water goblet, she toasted the man in question and spat the mouthful of water on the floor.

Voices raged around her, cried within her, until Megan thought she'd go mad. Clumsily, she scooted back her chair, excused herself to bring in the puddings. She placed each inside a custard cup, dolloped them with a spoonful of lemon sauce, set them on a tray. Lost Boy met her at the doorway.

"Think I'll skip dessert. Got to meet somebody."

"We started this meal together; we'll finish it together," Meg said.

"Please, Meg, I'm scared. I got the shakes. I need a fix so bad. Don't make me..."

"I'm sorry, but I must insist. Besides, there's a little surprise baked inside each pudding. Just like when we were growing up and Mama would bake a treat inside the Christmas pudding."

Lost Boy's eyes brightened as he recalled the Christmas dinners before Mama had gotten too sick to make an effort. "Is there a surprise in mine, Megan? Is there? You wouldn't lie to me?"

She smiled, shaking her head. He held the door wide so she could maneuver the tray. Setting it on a wobbly tv tray, she served each of her companions.

Charlie's spoon picked at the moist crust on top. "Looks familiar but damned if I know why."

Lost Boy burst into speech. "It's a tiny Christmas pudding, Charlie. Like the kind Mama used to bake. 'Member, Charlie?" Lost Boy's voice was animated, high-pitched with childish excitement. "An' Megan says there's a treat inside each pudding. We all got our very own surprise. Neato, huh?"

Finally, the mood around the table was one of merriment. Each of the guests carefully spooned into his dessert, searching for the elusive gift. The seat at Charlie's right remained empty, but Megan had placed a pudding out for Keeper. It was getting late, but there was still a chance...

Charlie was the first to find a charm: the bell. "Ahh," he approved, then frowned as he peered closer at the miniature. "Damned if there isn't some kind of flaw. There's a crack in the bell." A crack in his armor against danger.

Next to him, Edwina stared aghast at the thimble, for it predicted she would remain unmarried "a dried-up old maid, terrified of men."

When Lorene removed the bisque baby from the cup, contact with the cold spoon caused the glaze to craze. As everyone watched, the baby shattered into dozens of glass slivers, which fell like shrapnel on the table.

During baking, Lost Boy's "good fortune" pig had melted. It was a solid pink teardrop, a bead of fetal tissue—the unrealization of fortune of any kind.

The acorn in Patty's cake was swollen and cracked. She picked it up, dropped it immediately as heat seared her skin. Her laughter was a cry of pain. "How droll. A nut keeps away illness. Guess what, folks? I've been such a busy little career gal that I neglected to visit the clinic like I should." She chuckled between tears, questioned Meg, "What did the giftee give to you?"

Megan held two halves of a horseshoe pinched between thumb and forefinger. "So much for warding off the evil eye," she said.

Their voices were angry, plaintive, accusing—buzzing and colliding inside her skull like a swarm of bees. The candles wavered, dimmed, fought back into elongated flames. The stillness was immediate, oppressive.

"I'm here," the voice growled. "Will no one greet me?"

Keeper was greeted with fear-drugged silence.

"Not even you, Megan; you who invited me to this multiple gathering, this gathering of multiples." His shout of laughter shook the table, set the water sloshing in the glasses. Keeper recited their names one-by-one: "Lost Boy, Patty, Charlie, Edwina, Lorene, Megan." As he said each name, his fingers dug into the pudding in front of him, tearing out six porcelain figures. He arranged them neatly on the cloth, all in a row: six perfect charm dolls. "It's only fair we go in birth order."

Still, no one spoke.

He picked up a heavy tumbler and deliberately poured water over the minute bisque bodies. They gleamed slick pink in the candlelight. "Edwina, you were born shortly before your tenth birthday. You came into being a few weeks after Papa raped you. So, my dear, you must be the first we bid farewell." The thick tumbler came crashing down upon the first of the six dolls, smashing it into bits of ground glass.

Edwina was gone... forever.

No one stirred or attempted to stop Keeper.

"Patty arrived when you ran away from home at age eighteen. You had minimal job skills but knew how to please a man. Daddy taught us well. We've always been fond of you, Patty. You maintained a sense of humor throughout it all—the beatings, the rapes, the squalor. I'm sure you'll thank us." The tumbler crushed another of the dolls.

And Patty was gone... forever.

Using an index finger, Keeper carefully slid the bits of dust and glass cuticles into a tiny heap. "Lost Boy, you're the saddest of our creations. A woman disguised as an adolescent male, you prostituted yourself for men with no time or desire to discover your womanhood. Your addiction is not to heroin but to pain. You are every child without a mother's love—a lost child." For the first and only time, Keeper shed tears as he destroyed the third doll.

Lost Boy was gone... forever.

"Lorene, you are most like your late mother. She was a good woman but she was weak, unable and unwilling to protect herself or her child from the tyrant. I remember the day you joined us. It was after Megan lost custody of her first child and learned she was pregnant. The pregnancy terminated upon your arrival. You are a victim of the system, but you are a willing victim." CRASH.

Lorene was gone... forever.

Charlie was the first and only one to fight back. Wrenching the knife from the table, he slashed once, twice before Keeper twisted the weapon from his hand. Parallel seams opened on the arm, seeping thick rivulets of blood that spilled onto the white linen cloth.

Keeper ignored the wounds, even though the force of the flow lifted the torn skin to escape. "You, Charlie, are your father's most diabolical offspring. But for you, the companions may have found a way to survive, but all lived in fear of your temper, your obsession with things sharp.

"We stopped going to the therapist to protect her from assault. We hid scars beneath long sleeves, grew our hair long so punctures and slashes would go undetected. You destroyed the system. It's with great pleasure we destroy you." The tumbler fell again and again, until the charm was fine dust. It was scraped into the pile with the rest.

Charlie was gone... forever.

"Ah Megan, at last, it's just you and me. We know the outcome, for you summoned me. Will you speak?"

Megan obliged for, with the death of the others, she was almost alone within herself. "All these years, I've been afraid to say your name aloud, afraid it would bring greater pain. Keeper of the Darkness. Instead, I find you're Keeper of the Light." She paused. "They're gone, really and truly gone?"

"Just as you intended."

"I'm the only one left?"

He chuckled. "Not quite, Meg. I'm the last, but I want to tidy up after you've gone. After being together all these years, you've managed to instill some housekeeping tendencies in me."

"You lied."

"How's that?" He was clearly startled.

"You told Edwina she was the first to share my body. She wasn't, you know. You were."

"I was never very good at chronological order. Remember junior high, Miss Sweetzer's Library Skills class?"

"How could I forget?" She chuckled, then gasped.

"Are you all right, Meg?"

"Just a bit woozy. I get that way around blood. There seems to be quite a lot of it puddling around your arm."

"There is indeed," was the calm observation. "Lay your head back; take a deep breath. You won't feel a thing; I promise."

Believing him, she did as he said. The tumbler struck the figure and the table with resounding force, smashing the last personality.

Megan, messenger for the system, was gone... forever.

Without the original, founding personality, Keeper worked by rote. Without being aware of doing so, Megan had given him instructions. Removing the serving spoon from the curdled creamed peas, he heaped it full of porcelain crystals. They clung to the walls of his mouth, to the surface of his tongue like burrs as he swallowed, choking on the stinging sediment. He drank long and deep from Charlie's water glass, screaming as microscopic shards snagged the soft lining of his throat. The blood streaming from the corners of his mouth was hot and bitter. As his head fell forward on the table, the bright red trickle blended with the stain spreading across the linen cloth.

The candles burned low, the wax snapping and popping as it struggled to sustain life. Seven very different personalities had come together for a party. Seven places had been set at the festive table, only one had been used. Seven had died; there was only one corpse. The candles sputtered; their dying flames silhouetting the Keeper in the Darkness.

Night Life by Michael Cassutt

Michael Cassutt is an interesting and talented guy. He lives in Los Angeles and works as a television writer on lots of shows you've probably seen—including that doomed gem Eerie Indiana. He's also probably the resident expert on the Soviet Space program, as well as a science fiction writer. I have the honor of having "discovered" him back in the mid-seventies when I was reading the slush-pile for Amazing Stories. I passed a Cassutt story on to Ted White, who bought it for Michael's first professional sale. Years later, we met at a convention and have been friends ever since. The following story is a hardboiled, disturbing look at a diversion that can assume a life all its own.

They say you meet all kinds of guys in a place like the Club, but that's bullshit. It doesn't matter whether they wear suits, like the visiting businessmen, or dozer caps and jeans, like the truckers, they all want help jacking off.

Princess spots one of them—engineer by his face, trucker by his clothes—blinking in the spotlight by the entrance. He has managed to avoid the rain, which is coming down hard, making Princess wonder if it's letting up early tonight.

Stubbing out her cigarette, she decides to save him. Make yourself comfortable she tells him, smiling brightly, pointing toward a chair close to the stage but not at the stage. Don't scare him.

He blinks and Princess sees he's not a trucker. He doesn't have a mustache or that windburned greasy look. He's actually quite a beautiful young man in a crisp white shirt. She's always liked beautiful young men in crisp white shirts. He must have a girlfriend who's out of town.

He takes the seat Princess offers. Can I get you a drink? A beer, he guesses. She goes for a Lite.

His eyes—blue with gold, the same as her own—are wide with amazement at Vanity on the stage. Vanity is impressive, Princess has to admit: her hair is so bleached it's almost white, her tits are the best money can buy, she has a creamy all-over tan. Her song says I wanna know what love is and she shows the guys she is really a blonde. Then dances off.

He blinks and pays for the Lite. Wow.

One of our more attractive models, Princess tells him. You're new here.

It shows?

It's not a crime, she says. I'll explain everything.

That would be nice.

You're free to sit here and watch all you want, as long as you buy a drink an hour. You can tip your waitress extravagantly, of course.

Of course.

If you sit at the rail, the dancer will expect a tip. How much is up to you. For ten dollars you can have a private table dance. Anything else is up to you.

Eyes adjusted, he looks around.

This being a Thursday in the rainy season, about eight in the evening, the Club is almost a tomb. When the rains let up, about ten, the truckers will come in. Right now there are maybe six customers of the engineer type. Princess knows three of those as regulars, harmless guys in glasses who would rather drink and watch naked women than just drink. One of the customers is having a private table dance from Lori, who will let him feel her up for an extra ten. Another one has Maxine in his lap. That's another story. There is an older girl—Crystal—behind the bar, and Rick the bouncer.

The Club isn't bad, as these places go. Unlike the Clown Room, which burned down last week out in Belle Isle, it is pretty clean and the drinks are so overpriced that there are no regular hustles, none of that twenty-five dollar bottle of champagne shit. The Club is happy with half of the table dance money.

What's your name?

Princess.

It takes him a second. Oh, he says. Did you pick that?

Yeah. It's more ladylike than Poontang.

It takes him another second.

Am I bothering you? she says, motherly.

No. Surprising me.

What's your name?

Ray.

Did you pick that?

He smiles for the first time. As a matter of fact, I did. Then he changes the subject. So pretend I asked the question.

Narrow it down a little for me.

What's a nice girl...?

...Doing in a place like this? She was beginning to think he was a lost cause. Or maybe just an innocent, like a priest out where he shouldn't be. Making a thousand a week, she says, finally. And maybe I'm not so nice.

You look nice.

Thank you.

I'm boring you.

No. He wasn't, really. Look, she says, since you're new here, I'm a stripper. You're a customer. Both of us are in different ends of the same business. I'm selling a... a fantasy. That's what you're buying.

You've given this some thought.

Between dances I study.

Working your way through college.

Working my way back in. Maybe.

Vanity's number ends. Princess nods at Rick, the manager, who is indicating that she's up next.

When will I see you again? Ray asks.

In about three minutes. She gets up, adjusts her teddy, then leans over Ray. He smells as good as she hoped. Don't ask too many questions, she says. It spoils the fantasy. Then she goes backstage.

▼

The first time Princess danced nude she was so drunk she almost fell off her heels. They let new dancers break in during afternoons, when it was really slow. One of the other girls just told her, just like going to the beach. Except Princess never went to the beach.

The second time she was less drunk, and these days hardly at all. One glass of wine, tops.

She hands Rick her tapes, then maneuvers around Vanity, who is coming in from collecting her stage tips. Four bucks, she says, jamming the money in her cup with disgust. Beat that. Princess doubts she can; blond, big-titted, tan Vanity is the star whatever shift she dances. Princess, with her lithe, that is to say, small-breasted dancer's figure, dark brown hair and pale skin, is no competition.

Show time. She tightens the strap on her shoes—hooker shoes, so she won't fall on her butt—and straights the G-string. She thinks she'll start with a filmy halfnightie, make herself look a little virginal under the lights. It also has the virtue of being cool and easy to get rid of.

The final touch is a girlish ribbon in her hair. For anyone out there looking to play Daddy.

The music hits and she starts onto the stage, right to the lip, the exact spot where during her first week she had learned how to make very good tips from the guy who wanted her to step on his hand.

She usually doesn't take anything off during the first song; save it for the second one, just let them peek around the straps. This is the closest she ever gets to real stripteasing.

Ray has moved up to the rail. He seems to be the only one of the five or six customers actually paying attention to her. The others have ambitious dancers on their laps or are buying them drinks. One guy is watching a basketball game on the TV over the bar.

What the hell: she dances just for Ray.

Maybe it's the wine. He suddenly seems awfully goodlooking. He looks awfully good looking at her.

He slides a twenty onto the stage, so she gets down on her hands and knees and leans over him as she undoes the last strap on her gown. The song ends just as it falls open. She gathers it in and goes backstage.

Another sip of wine. When she comes out for the second song she's wearing only the G-string and heels. She finds Ray again, but this time she thinks she'll make him beg a little. She dances at the other end of the stage, where she finds herself moving faster and faster, touching herself with hands that—strangely—seem to belong to someone else.

Princess starts doing some weird hula. Where'd this come from? The sparse crowd begins to hoot in appreciation. She lets herself go in a way she never does, spreading herself wide, arching herself off the floor.

Suddenly she realizes the song is over and she is still dancing. She blinks and focuses on the faces floating by the stage. Oops, got a little carried away, she says. She recovers and gets herself backstage.

Maxine, the Vietnamese girl who follows her, is doing some blow. Jesus, she says, sniffing. What am I supposed to do after that? Jam a zucchini up my thing?

Probably the only thing you haven't had up your thing, Princess says sweetly. (Maxine fucks the customers for money. Not that Princess gave a shit, but it makes things harder for the rest of them.)

She wraps her teddy around her and goes out to pick up the tips.

Ray is gone. Something she said, probably.

When she picks up tips, however, she finds a fifty sitting there with the twenty.

▼

Next morning she gets a call around ten—before she is even awake—asking if she'll fill in for Vanity. What happened to Vanity?

She hasn't shown up and all I get is her machine.

I'll be in at three.

Make it one.

Three. She hangs up. Into the shower maybe five minutes, the phone rings again. Dripping wet, she answers it: Fuck you, I'll be there at two...

Sharon, it's your mother.

Oh. Hi. They haven't talked in two months. I thought that was my boss.

Funny way to talk to your boss. We worry about you.

Mom, I'm doing fine.

Where are you working?

I'm dancing, all right?

Not that place—

Mom, it's just a job. She never fucked guys from the club, except maybe three times. And then not for money, just for, you know. How's Dad?

Better now. He started to golf again.

Good. I mean, that's great.

Do you have enough money?

Yes. I mean, who's ever got enough. But I'm doing fine. She was only a month behind in the rent, which was all right because the super liked watching her catching rays by the pool. A couple of good nights—maybe a busload of Marines on their way to Basic—and she might even get ahead.

You can come home, you know. You can start over.

Home to Illinois. Thanks, Mom, I gotta go. I'll call you.

Dripping wet.

▼

By three she has danced two sets and made thirteen dollars. Still better than asking would you like fries with that, but not much.

Just as she is headed back to the stage for her third dance, Ray comes in.

This is unusual. He was here last night at eight, so he probably doesn't work nights. He's here now at three, which means he isn't working normal days. She wonders if he's got the scent. But if he thinks she's easy to get down on all fours, why did he leave?

She plays it cool. Hi, stranger. Let him make the move.

Sorry about last night, he said.

Don't be sorry. That was a nice tip.

You probably thought I didn't like you.

Should I?

I realized I was late for something.

Church, probably.

Another take. Yeah.

Crystal will get you a drink or whatever. I'm on. And she thinks he is even better looking in daytime.

That face is just what she needs to get through this dance. It reminds her of the year she spent playing Cinderella at Disney World, which is why she chose Princess as her dance name. She was only able to get through the four hundred shows—each exactly like the other—by playing to a face in the crowd.

It works for the other guys, too. She can tell without counting she's made twice as much in tips and caught everyone's attention.

She comes offstage and finds Tiffany crying. What's wrong?

Vanity, she says.

What about her?

She's dead.

What happened to her? Princess demands, but Tiffany is trying too hard to hook up her stockings and garters while wiping her eyes to be coherent. Princess goes looking for Rick.

Samantha and Crystal and Brittany are sitting at the bar wiping away tears. Rick is hanging up the phone. There's no music playing and the customers—maybe a dozen—are starting to wonder what the hell's going on.

Rick says he says they found her in a ditch out near Lockhart. She'd been raped and strangled.

Oh god, Crystal says, crossing herself.

Did she go with anyone from here? Princess asks. She feels bad about Vanity, but she wants to know if she should feel sympathy or fear.

I didn't see it, Rick says.

Somebody waiting for her?

Hey, I walk all of you out and wait until you drive away. What happens after that is your business.

Fuck you, Princess tells him, suddenly angry, you sound like the wiseguys who run this place. And she walks away, blindly heading for Ray. It isn't until she sits down that she realizes she's wearing her shoes and nothing else.

I collected your tips for you, he says, handing her seventeen dollars.

Thanks. Then she tells him about Vanity.

Were you friends? he asks.

None of us are friends, she says, still angry, thinking of how she found out Heather was fucking Gary for weeks when they were still together. Heather had just laughed.

Sometimes Princess thinks all of the others are a different species, like they have a club and she isn't a member. And no one who knows will ever tell.

The music starts up. Madonna. Tiffany comes out.

This is kind of creepy, Ray says, standing up. You won't be offended if I get out of here.

Only if you don't take me along, Princess says.

▼

For a while she wonders if it's worth it. He is not a jump starter. Which is pretty much okay: neither is she.

Once they kiss on the couch for a while he begins to take charge, which she likes. He slips off her top, quite calmly unhooking her bra. As advertised, she tells him. They look even better here, he says, examining them. Feeling them. She feels him, and is already glad she brought him home.

Taking his hand, she pulls him off the couch and guides him down the hall. Bedroom for you, she says, bathroom for me. Don't start without me.

His crisp white shirt falls to the floor. His back is smooth, muscled. She slips in the diaphragm and, pleased with her own prudence, hides one of Gary's rubbers in her hand.

Into the bedroom. He has lowered the blinds and pulled back the sheets. Now he stands there naked before her. Shouldn't we have music, he says? To be absolutely fair? Her turn to miss a beat. Oh! You should be wearing shoes.

Then she kisses him, pressing herself against his chest. He finds the rubber in her hand. Do I need this? he asks.

Your option, she tells him. Slipping under the sheets. I'm protected.

He lowers himself to her side and touches her. She sees that he's uncut, a new one for her. Unscarred in any way, come to think of it. Unlike Gary.

Her legs move apart and then he is moving above her. Inside her. For a moment Princess wonders who he is. Then her knees come up. His hands cup her. Like dancing, one, two, one, two... Gary would finish at this point... but Ray still moves. Yes, she says. Yes, she feels, pulling him closer. One, one, one. Oh god, she says.

▼

She says oh god two more times in the bedroom, and once on the couch in the living room, when he was supposed to be getting dressed. Between three and four she asks him what he does. Besides fuck, she means.

Travel, I guess.

Moving on? she says. Her fingernail walks up his cock. You could be very popular around here.

Maybe I'll stay.

She wants to know more, but the fingernail does the trick, and then she's not interested.

She chases him out by six, then locks the door. She feels so good she can't decide whether to sleep or eat.

On the dresser she finds two hundreds.

▼

She has a nightmare, waking up at three in the morning convinced Ray is the guy who torched the Clown Room and killed Vanity. Knowing it's crazy, she checks the locks.

In the mail the next morning—Fed Ex from her mother—is a ticket from Orlando to Chicago.

She wants to call her mother and tell her to fuck off. She wants to tell Ray—nice cock and all—to fuck off. But she thinks if she talks to her mother for more than five minutes, she'll wind up going home. It's been five years. She is not what she wants to be.

And she has no idea how to find Ray.

Princess puts tickets and cash in her purse and goes to the Club.

▼

On the board with the schedule is a note about a memorial service for Janet Lynn Holstrom aka Vanity on Monday.

In the rest of the Club it's business as usual. A Saturday night, the heart of the weekend. On Saturday night Princess can make at least as much as Ray gave her.

By seven o'clock the place is jammed, wall to wall truckers, engineers, even college boys. Nine girls are working and all of them are doing okay.

Twice Princess thinks she sees Ray in the crowd. With the lighting and the sheer numbers blocking the view, it's hard to tell. Not that she cares, really.

While she is sitting backstage smoking a cigarette with Jewel, Maxine comes in from her dance, and she's freaked.

Somebody grab you?

Not that that would freak Maxine out. She just shakes her head. Look at this, she says. And she holds out a hundred.

So you got a fan, Jewel says. Hope he has another one.

I saw this guy a couple of days ago, Maxine says. Thursday afternoon. With Vanity.

How do you know it's the same guy?

I did a couple of table dances for him. He's not like most of these other guys, he's always wearing a nice white shirt...

Princess wants to know where.

On the right side, near the rings.

Princess peaks around the curtain. He's not more than ten feet away. He sure looks like Ray—

But it isn't. His hair is darker. The eyes are brown. He could almost be Maxine's half-brother.

She is surprised at how relieved she is.

Jewel goes out to dance. Princess goes out to waitress.

▼

Wondering if the guy by the rings is really a Ted Bundy-type killer, or just somebody who wandered in here like Ray, Princess tries to work her way toward him. From behind him, while he examines Jewel's boobs, she says need another? Even though his drink is maybe half gone.

He turns and suddenly his hair is lighter and his eyes are blue, and it is Ray after all.

Hi, he says, as if nothing had ever happened.

Princess is already fumbling in her stash. She puts two hundreds on the tray and sets them before Ray. You forgot your change, she says, then pushes herself away.

She winds up crying in the ladies' room. She can't decide whether it's fear or embarrassment. Either way it sucks.

Then Ray comes in behind her.

You can't come in here, is all she can say.

Rick the bouncer is already pounding on the door. Ray is holding out his hands and saying I want to talk.

Princess sighs. Everything's fine! That will hold Rick for two minutes, she tells Ray. Time enough for a very quick blowjob, or were you interested in something else?

Why'd you give the money back?

Why do you think?

I don't know. I thought you needed money.

Everybody needs money. But I'm not a hooker! Is that so fucking hard for you to understand? She is beyond tears now. I slept with you because I liked you.

You don't belong here.

Tell me about it.

You should leave.

Thank you. I'll give that some thought. She goes for the door, but he puts out an arm to block her.

Oh, now you're a big tough guy. Gonna drag me out to the swamp like Vanity? I don't need the bouncer, I'll tear your fucking eyes out—

I didn't hurt Vanity, he says. This place hurt her. Night life hurt her.

He sounds more like a maniac than ever. She wants to scream, but the door opens. It's Jewel. Well, she says with a little grin, I didn't know it was so busy. Mind if I pee?

She goes to a stall. As Jewel—big, blond, green-eyed—passes Ray his face changes. His hair lightens, his complexion pales, his eyes go green. But only as long as he looks at Jewel. When the door closes and he looks at Princess, he's got blue eyes again.

Oh my god, she says.

He says nothing, but she remembers how he looked like Maxine when he watched Maxine, and how right now he looks like her.

No wonder he seemed so familiar. So safe.

For the first time in years she believes in the devil.

The toilet flushes and Jewel comes out, snapping her G-string into place. I'll just leave you two lovebirds alone. And she goes out.

Who the fuck are you?

A messenger, he says.

What's the message?

Fire, he says. Fire in the night.

You did the Clown Room.

And he doesn't deny it. Do you really love the night life? he asks.

Then she sees his eyes aren't blue or green or brown, they're pure gold. Pure fire. Is this where you want to stay? Tell me now.

No, she says. No. I want to go home.

Then go.

And there in the bathroom a hot wind blows.

Princess opens the door. Maxine is on the stage, naked, hanging on the rings. N.W.A. blasts on the speakers. All of it in slow motion. Slower.

She feels the heat boiling out of the room behind her. Sees the light on each face that she passes. They are starting to react, to turn and blister.

She is lifted by a roar.

She flies through the door into the parking lot, scraping her knees on the asphalt.

Her heels sink in the tar. She kicks off her shoes and runs.

Bare-breasted, wearing only her G-string and purse, she finds herself inside her car. She fumbles a key into the lock, and pulls away, knowing she can not look back.

In the rearview mirror she sees a pillar of flame where the Club used to be.

▼

No one who knows will ever tell.

A Stain Upon Her Honor by John Edward Ames

The same thing happens every year—I promise myself I am only going to buy stories for the Borderlands series that are innovative and wildly original, etc., etc.... and then somebody comes along and sends me a story that is so wonderfully written, or has so much style and grace that I fall for the sheer quality of the writing, and find myself making excuses for the familiarity of the plot or thematic material more traditional than I usually buy. So it is with "A Stain Upon Her Honor" which, on first reading, dazzled me with its language but put me off with a storyline that treads close to the edge of being at best, imitative "splatter" writing, and at worst, blatant misogyny. I had to read it again, convincing myself of its worth, and even had its author retool the ending. For whatever reasons, he agreed, and the results follow herewith.

They say the man who drinks black coffee will rule Ireland. Therefore, I am going to tell you in plain, undiluted language why I killed a woman solely because there was a stain in her underwear.

But first you must understand: I did not hate her, and I do not hate you.

Hatred implies a measure of emotional involvement with others of which I am utterly incapable. I do despise you because that is effortless, and I would perhaps kill you, too, should our vectors cross, because the kill done well is pure and glorious and leaves my man-gland hard and throbbing with excited blood. But I certainly do not hate you. Do not flatter yourself on that score. To me you are a mere bubble blown by a baby, a lump of slag on launch pad.

You must understand: I am a poet of the most remarkable and unusual sensibilities. I do not look where other men look. While the crowd is watching a beautiful woman or a mincing Clydesdale, I will stare at a rumpled Kleenex, at a cigarette burning in an ashtray. I am sensitive to the smell of old dust and menstrual blood. I pity the rich, scorn the homeless, and fervently believe that Humpty Dumpty was pushed.

You must understand: Do not let that dumb flywheel of reading habit force the weight of my words below their true meaning.

As a poet, I know the rules, of course. I know all the tired prosaic baggage which comprises the conventions of terror: about the "sheared-copper odor of blood," about the obsessed mind which returns to a problem "like a tongue to a broken tooth"—yes, even about "Jesus H. Christ" Himself and all the other verbal rituals writers have concocted to insulate themselves and their readers from that genuine shudder and bristle of true fear, fair and undisguised.

To you, such herd melodies are sweet. But I will not bother with this insipid dreck. After all, I'm the one who examined a pair of panties and then committed murder.

▼

It was not the mere fact of the stain which impelled me to kill her, of course. Indeed, women leak all the time—they (you should pardon the pun) give generously at the orifice. But herein lies the essential problem: Satan can enter any of the seven openings of the body, and he has a natural predilection for the nether portals.

No, you must understand: it was the quality of the stain which mattered, not its mere being. A certain telltale shape, a nuance of color, particular and subtle signs which my extraordinary sensibilities and poetical training have prepared me to apprehend. To those of you who express a fastidious disgust at my iconoclasm: why do you look so curiously into the toilet before you flush, or examine the glutinous green contents of your handkerchief after you blow your nose? What is it you hope to glimpse, what dark, terrible, beautiful secret of your own unfathomable mortality?

The average mind shuts down completely before the exquisite enigma of a beautiful woman having a bowel movement—the arcane, chtonic mystery of how her perfect body takes bean sprouts and tofu and Haagen Dazs and turns them into "that which may not be mentioned." But I have it on excellent medical authority that healthy shit does not, in fact, stink. Else why would Venus, inquires an irreverent bard, erect her temple near the place of excrement?

Yes, I killed. But you must understand: I am not therefore a killer. I am the Ton Ton Macoute of Art, a member of the esthetic Wehrmacht, dedicated to replacing the old Christian hymns with a new metaphysical scat. While avant-garde writers "push the envelope," I shatter the old paradigms completely and map out a brand-new ambit.

I am a flaneur, a wind that bloweth where it listeth, a holistic quester of the true, a fowl owl on the prowl—I am Eros and Thanatos locked in their dirty dance. I am Inframan.

I had been on the qui vive for months before I finally spotted her. Appropriately enough, she was attending a poetry workshop in which, simply as a lark, I also had enrolled.

It was more workshop than poetry, a group of conventional dullards who met every Monday night in a redbrick school building to share their cow warmth and gush over jerrybuilt jingles. Our 'facilitator' was, of course, a standard-issue academic wordmeister, a card-carrying member of the Effete Elite, a sensitive liberal concerned about the ozone layer and "the rights of women"—in short, a cracker-barrel philosopher in a cheap polyester tie.

But of course he hardly mattered. I had finally discovered her—Her name was Ursula. She was willowy and demure, with cola-colored eyes and raven-black hair pulled into a tight Psyche knot. When she closed those eyes, as the professor read badly from some trash by Dylan Thomas, the lashes curved ever-so-sweetly against her pallid cheeks. Hers was a quiet, Levantine beauty that left retinal afterimages when I shut my own eyes.

But though her beauty, with the exception of a very slight jaw-alignment problem, was complete and meticulously polished, her intellect was still in the rough draft stage. I realized this during that first night, when she failed completely to comprehend my own mordant genius vis-a-vis Mumford, our 'facilitator.'

He had just finished relating a tiresome, mawkish story about his father's deathbed stoicism. As he finally wound down and dabbed at his tears, I cleverly blurted out, "His art belongs to Dada!" Mumford only smiled wanly, his eyes going remote and sliding away from mine. He only half-glimpsed, you understand, that I was mocking him in a clever pun. But what truly saddened me was Ursula's reaction: She flushed and failed to meet my gaze for the rest of the class period.

Time, they say, heals all wounds. But that is more pious piffle promulgated by the herd. You must understand: Time is a wound, and space is only that which we can not imagine not. When other men skim the lines, I memorize the subtext. While elegant fops cry, "You gotta have art. I piss into the Cosmic crack.

▼

Against your better judgment you will read this disgusting story for the same reason the editor bought it: because you will not be able to put it down. And the reason you will not put it down hasn't thing one to do with 'style' or 'fine writing'—I am a meta-stylist, a meta-rhetoritician. I have left my jism in dirty socks, I crave the smell of my own farts, and I believe a thing of beauty is merely one more item to kill. I am loathsome, psychotic, and instinctively spiteful, and you—decent denizen of this Great Shining Republic—are enthralled by all of it and by me.

If you are a woman, you may well lubricate before I am done, even as you revile me; if a man, you will surely hate me intensely, feel the vicious sting of a cowardly envy at my visionary brilliance, but what of that? You'll read—oh, you will read, just as you always look in the toilet before you flush. And long after you have forgotten your favorite "opening hook," the mindworm nurtured by my story will remain a glorious and festering canker in that collection of chemical traces you call memory.

▼

It was essential that I obtain a pair of Ursula's underwear. But before I actually accomplished this, I managed to engage her in face-to-face interaction.

This transpired at the next meeting of our "poetry workshop"—my last, as it mercifully turned out. However, I was first condemned to once again endure the insufferable verbal effusions of that poetical panjandrum who presided over us.

Mumford was, of course, true to his ilk, and thus given to spontaneous outbursts of overpowering emotion. On this night he suddenly exclaimed, "As poets, we must drink life to the lees!" A moment later an ebullient young bubble-snapper in a ZOUK TILL YOU PUKE! t-shirt raised her hand to ask what "lees" meant. He himself was in fact drinking tepid coffee from a paper cup, and saw no irony in any of this. He answered as calmly and carefully as if she had asked him to differentiate between an iamb and a trochee.

I finally cut short his flummery by abruptly rising and announcing, "I have written a poem."

Ursula actually met my eye at this and encouraged me with a subtle glimmer of a smile. The rest watched me with expectant faces, providing a "supportive" atmosphere. I slipped a dog-eared sheet of notebook paper out of my shirt pocket and unfolded it.

"It's titled 'The Exhortations of Inframan,'" I explained. After a gravid pause, I added coyly, "It's by Inframan."

The sonorous rumble of my own voice, as I read aloud, raised the fine hairs on the back of my neck and stiffened my nipples into hard little BB's:

"Socrates was a plebe. So

mostly it is only ambiguity

of purpose;

Or, to be brief:

Why did the old faggot quaff the leaf?

Rub your boogers on a rock,

And pule the shake of Three!

The tips of flywing glow glittergreen

and blue, but fly's rare affection

is rarefaction to you who gild

great surfaces with cat gories.

What is Art?

Art is that which fits

into the trunk of a Volvo and

comes home with you on weak ends."

The immutable beauty and truth of my lines moved me to rare tears. But the mood in the room, when I had finished, suddenly came down like a blow card fluttering out of a magazine.

"Some very... interesting uses of language," Mumford finally managed, though the others—including Ursula—remained as silent and still as stone lions in a midnight garden. Nonplused, Mumford now announced a short break.

Still riding the adrenaline high of my recital, I boldly approached Ursula where she stood alone in the small ell of vending machines outside the classroom, perusing a volume by Mallarm. Opening my shiny new American Heritage Dictionary, I said, "Dictionaries are extremely useful, don't you think? Listen to this: 'Fucker: One that fucks.' Hah!"

I fully expected this display of playful levity to finally break the ice. Instead, she flushed pink to the very tips of her earlobes and hurried away to join Mumford, who was just then in the act of drinking his second cup of bad coffee to the very lees.

Her bizarre behavior finally convinced me that I had guessed correctly about her. I exited the building for good, elated, determined to obtain a pair of her underwear as tangible proof of my suspicion.

▼

Things are gouged out of the nose, flicked off the fingernail, and eventually returned to dust. But now it is dust touched by humanity. And so you run along a beach thinking it is only sand, but it'sssnot.

Do you get it? I like that pun; oh, Jesus H. Katy Christ-on-a-crutch, I like that one—that's clever!

▼

An opportunity to obtain proof of my theory about Ursula arrived sooner than I anticipated.

I had easily obtained her address from the city phone directory and was strolling slowly through her uptown neighborhood, laying plans to stake out her house, when I spotted the lady herself through the front window of a Laundromat. Heart stomping violently against my ribs, I ducked into the marl-paved lot and entered the building.

My eyes prowled the interior and found her immediately, feeding clothes into a dryer. But while I was calculating how I might discreetly obtain a pair of her underwear, a dashing young man in a classic pink '57 Cadillac convertible pulled up outside. Seeing him, her face "lit up," as the pulp writers say. Soon the two of them were engaged in a lively tate-E-tate in front of the very dryer I hoped to raid.

Competition often inspires me to brilliance. Deciding to take the bull by the horns, I now boldly approached the flirting couple. "You know what the whores in Quebec say," I greeted her. "Big car, little dick— I have no car."

It was a brilliant sally, but of course I was casting pearls to swine: both of them gaped stupidly like stoned metalheads at a Rachmaninoff concert. Her inamorato was nearly twice my size and weight. But after a brief glance into my eyes, he paled noticeably and hastily led Ursula away—no doubt he sensed the apocalyptic vision she was incapable of comprehending.

It was child's play now to pop the dryer door open and swipe a pair of pink cotton panties. The particular stain I had in mind would not be removed by detergents. I stuffed the panties into my pocket and returned to my dingy one-room walkup for a long examination. However, all my efforts proved bootless: the crotch of her underwear was immaculate.

▼

I see them: in the mornings I see them, in the morning-smoked silver streets, their arms linked, I see them slowly purl away, lost in their own eyes before mine. Come up from your dying, go to your life, come away from your beat leaderless to dance with me!

Beneath their scorn, and so, beyond, I watch them dance on a string, confusing freeplay with tangenital absolute. Dance, brave indentures, on the thrust and tips of your disciplined wingtoes, dance to the tremulous ritual of Being.

▼

I was not, however, dissuaded by this apparent setback with the clean panties. Obviously, the omniscient presence she harbored within had anticipated my vigilance and planted a "pink herring," so to speak, to throw me off the trail. I expected as much, and the clever ploy only renewed my determination. Nothing excites me more than a worthy adversary. I now laid plans to enter her dwelling the very next night and obtain another piece of evidence.

Ursula rented a downstairs apartment in a plush glass-and-red-wood house set well back from the street. The only vehicle in sight was a Mercedes two-seater parked in the crushed-shell cul-de-sac out front. Patting my pocket to make sure I had what I needed, I approached under cover of some poinciana bushes just as night was beginning to draw its indigo burial shroud across the heavens. A nascent moon like a sliver of cold ivory hung low in the sky.

I ignored the waisted curtains which marked the kitchen window and circled around a small backyard pond carpeted with water lilies. Spotting a bay window on the side of the building hidden from the street, I crept nearer and peeked through a wide gap between the brocade draperies. I glimpsed shirred lampshades, a Boston rocker, an antique cherry spinet, a Hepplewhite loveseat.

Ursula was settled in comfortably among some scattered cushions in the middle of the living room floor, working on a beautiful origami rose. Behind her, a demi john of wine on a glass-topped table; behind that, in a gold scrollwork frame over the loveseat, a painting of a farthingaled Madonna. It seemed to mock me and ridicule my purpose. But again I was not deceived by this clever prop.

I made my way around to the side of the building, then felt a smile tugging at my face: the bedroom window stood wide open.

The rest happened as if in a well-choreographed dream sequence. I stepped easily over the low sill onto a thick pile carpet which muffled my footsteps. The room smelled vaguely of almonds and patchouli, laced with the faint damp-earth odor of female sex. A Tiffany lamp glowed on a nightstand beside the bed, pushing the shadows back into the corners.

And illuminating the delicate silk undergarment which lay in a puddle near the bed.

It was a teddy, a one-piece chemise top combined with loose-fitting panties. Quaint, I thought as I reached to pick it up. It conjured up the 1930s and gin-flavored kisses and spit-curled "dames" with husky contraltos.

Heart scampering in my chest, I turned the panties inside out and held them close to the light. A second later my blood seemed to stop and flow backwards in my veins.

I ignored the lone black comma of a pubic hair, likewise a faint, rust-colored trace which might have been feces or blood: instead my attention was riveted on the gamboge-colored amoeba of stain which so surely marked her as one possessed.

How could I know this? Better to ask, why does a stone go on being a stone? Better to ask, like that weary roue gazing out over the streets of Paris: Why these things and not others? Just as spent seed stains the bedroom air with a lingering smell like bleach, so the Foul Tyrant always leaves a distinctive, golden-yellow mark behind. My male muscle was rock hard now, twitching with each heartbeat, and the breath fairly whistled in my nostrils. Dizzy with purifying elation, I dropped the teddy on the floor, followed a narrow hallway to the living room, moved to within five paces behind her.

"Ursula," I called out softly.

It was a final proof that the naughty little thing had been expecting me all along. She hardly even started; indeed, she almost forgot to drop the delicate paper rose from her hand. She merely looked back over her shoulder and paled slightly.

"You," she said in a whisper. Please understand this point: She could have screamed. They usually do.

"You surely must know," I admonished her gently, "that when you cross your legs, you close the gates to Hell?"

She feigned an exterior puzzlement, the huge cola eyes fixating on me. Her breathing matched my own now: fast and hard and hoarse, a lover's pant. The foul entity inside would not let her consciously admit it, but she welcomed my presence and what I was about to do. Her eyes cut to the pulsing furrow along my right thigh, and I knew she liked that too. "And do you know," I said, my words nearly tumbling over each other in my excitement, "this is fascinating! I mean, right now—now, as I speak—I am watching the initial stages of shock glaze your eyes! True fear, fair and undisguised..."

But my words were coming out thicker now, and besides, terror had nearly reduced her to a palsy—this play-by-play account of her emotional undoing was as superfluous as foreplay at an orgy.

"Undress," I instructed her gently, "and then spread your legs wide."

The haste with which she almost eagerly shucked her harem pants and bikini briefs convinced me further that she subconsciously championed my cause.

"Rape me," she said, voice cracking with the weight of her awful guilt, "but please don't hurt me. Please..."

She lay back against the cushions and scissored her long and slender legs open wide, exposing the salmon-pink depths. Instantly I smelled the dank jungle odor of womanness: and the sulphurous, outlaw presence of the intruder within. Dropping to my knees between her splayed-open legs, I lowered my voice to an intimate whisper and asked shyly, finally opening up a little and letting her glimpse the man behind the artist:

"Ursula? You know those tiny white bumps on the bottom of a man's thingie—the little pickle warts? Well, I pinched one the other day and this tiny nurdle of zit meringue spurted out! I rubbed it off on something, of course, and I've since forgotten what. But don't you ever wonder: where does all of it go, the secret little castoff bits of us like those fuzzy little brown hairballs stuck inside our underwear, or—"

"I won't fight it."

"What?" I regretted my harsh tone, but she had interrupted me at a special moment and I was piqued.

"I won't fight it," she babbled on, cutting me off rudely now as he moved her to gibbering hysteria in a last-ditch effort to thwart me. "I'll try to make it good for you—but—but please don't hurt me!"

Clearly she had wanted me all along, but this was pathetic and I could stand her hell-spawned theatrics no longer.

"What is my undersin against the scale of your wrong?" I demanded of her, flecks of spittle spackling her face. "Your dying generations at their wrong? What have platoons ever left for history? You provide references? So! Then you also provide frames!"

She had begun hyperventilating even before I finished these last Zen koans. Now, even while my eyes slid south again to the nooks and crannies of her exposed womanness, a quick-streaming arc of urine spurted down the inside of one thigh as her bladder emptied reflexively.

Watching Ursula's pee drip into the rose-patterned carpet, I nodded approval. My voice sounded small and exhausted when I said, "Good... that means he's gone now. Left in a hurry, too, by God!"

At this, fear and revulsion finally overloaded her synapses: As if finally resigned to her awful guilt and complicity, she did not even cry out, but—brave little trooper!—only spasmed a few times like a gut-hooked fish and passed out without a whimper.

Then, with tears of mingled joy and compassion streaming down my cheeks, I removed the tube of epoxy from my pocket and quickly, methodically sealed all of her openings, keeping the Beast far hence that's foe to man.

▼

My black nightslime, under moon's sear visage, chokes wildlife still left to create.

Wings droop with my dumbshow intent.

I lower all-peering eyes before clouds not manufactured.

I am beneath your scorn, and so, beyond.

I am Inframan.

Leavings by Kathe Koja

"Distinctive" is the single word most readers would use to describe the style of Kathe Koja. She recently won a Bram Stoker Award in the First Novel category for The Cipher, and is regarded by many to be a talent to be watched. Her short fiction has begun appearing in many magazines and anthologies over the last few years with increasing frequency. While her quirky, literary short-hand flavored with a dash of stream-of-consciousness recalls the American Dadaist writers of the Thirties, her voice in the genre of imaginative fiction remains unique and worthy of attention. "Leavings" is one of those strange evocations of universal experience—the one where we just can't get away from something or someone we detest.

Another hair.

Stuck this time half-down his gagging throat; spit-clumsy fingers and Gordon reeled it out: long and dark and slick as surgical silk; unmistakably Sophy's.

And beside him Andra, roused by his movement, puffy blue eyes and last night's elaborate coif now gone to the dogs and beyond, "What's the matter?" and he reached beneath the pilling blanket to give her breast, big breast, a reassuring squeeze, tried to talk and coughed, gagged again, louder and wetter. On another hair. Wrapped around his tongue.

"What's the matter?" the balance between annoyance and concern, he shook his head, false cheer, tugged at the hair. It slipped through his fingers, savage tickle at the back of his throat, was he going to puke or what. Feel its curl, floss-like, between his front teeth.

"Gordon, are you all right?" Plop flop, somehow ludicrous in her concern, would she really give a shit if he choked to death? Of course. Grabbed for the hair again and missed, of course she would, he was projecting again, Sophy's leftover spite like a malignant fog, a big black fart; a long black hair.

Finally. Wiggling his tongue and grateful for the freedom, regarded the hair with a careful face, a neutral corner. As carefully put it in the wastebasket beside the bed, beside the others.

"Okay now?" Andra said, and he smiled, touched again those big breasts, self-reassurance this time.

"I'm fine," he said. "Just absolutely fine."

▼

He drove her back to her car, brand-new Toyota, gutter's reflection on the spill of its insect hood. Carapace. She kissed him twice before she drove away; he managed to conceal the hair in his mouth until she was gone, retching silent the minute it was safe.

"Damn it," slimy in his touch, rubbing his fingers again and again down the seam of his jeans, new jeans. New jacket, too. New stereo, expensive prints, lots of nice new things. He owed it to himself. A bad time, a harrowing time, escalating carousels of pity and rage until the last one, oh yeah, some ride. And yes, Sophy had had a bad time too, Sophy's time had been so bad she died of it. Was it his fault?

Stop it, walking faster, get in the car. Drive. Stop for coffee, stop thinking about it, broken windows, the smell and shiver of the room, how she looked when he found her. When she cut herself with scissors. When she cut off all her hair. Stop it, Gordon, his convulsive brushing, wiping at the blood, stop it, she said. You're pulling my hair.

Finally, aloud, "Stop it!" to himself the only way to interrupt the cycle, yes Sophy, wherever you are, it hurts me too but life has to go on, that's what the shrink said, life's for the living and none of it was my fault. Turning into a coffeeshop, the first place he saw.

The thick black grind she taught him to favor, slow sip and remembrance, coiled and futile, inescapable. Jealous Sophy and her screech, how he had come to hate that special high-C rant, to circumscribe his activities—innocent; or almost so, he was in a relationship, not a grave—to go in fear, yes, in fear of that sound, building like some diamondpoint tornado, pterodactyl noise aimed straight at his head.

Such as: Near-morning, later than he planned but not as if he'd stayed out all night. Dry eyes wide-awake, long white legs bare, drawn up and oddly beautiful with tension, "Have a good time?" Already, the sizzle, fingers nervous with rage, twisting her hair.

Patiently, he always tried for patience, it was never his fault that things always ended up so out of hand. "It was a meeting, Soph." Or, "It kind of turned into a party, not really a party, but—"

"Forget how to use a telephone? Or were your hands full?"

Always, couched in those mocking questions, she could make anything sound bad. He always came home to her, didn't he? Even knowing she sat waiting, rehearsing herself flawless for the screaming to come, giving herself all the best lines. Who wanted to come home to that? He was pretty damned loyal, he thought. Considering.

"If you keep patting yourself on the back," rising now, voice and body scaling, girding, "you might knock yourself over," the whip of her hair as, impatient with battle, she shook the touch of it from her face, as she would shake away his touch, later, much later, lying cold in the conciliatory bed. And in the morning, always: the tears. Patting her back, now, petting her, bringing her long scrolls of toilet paper to blow her nose.

"Shhhh. Sophy."

Not penitent, no; but entirely sorry. "I love you, Gordy." Snuggling against him. Wet nose on his chest, for God's sake Sophy, use the tissue. Red wet nose, red eyes, sore with a long night's tantrum and still so hot, stroking the long scarf of hair, wrapping it around his fingers, his wrists, stray hairs gently scattering and her uncertain smile growing bolder as she slid lower, in the bed, all that hair drifting the tensing landscape of his thighs.

Smile, there in the coffeeshop, if you have to remember at all, remember her that way. Drinking the last of the coffee, slight cough on bitter grounds. He left a big tip.

Turning his key into the loft's artful disarray, smiling at the pleasing mess of the bed, last night's nest: on impulse he lay, shoes still on, lifting the pillow to track the warm primal scent of Andra's body, holding it against his face to catch instead the iron-dry smell of blood; the itch of hair.

"Shit," press and jerk of fright and on his feet, cat's cradle around his fingers just as it used to, she always did shed like a dog, petting her hair, tangles of hair like the grass underwater that reaches eyeless and warm, the grass you never see until it touches you.

The shrink kept saying he was projecting. The shrink knew Sophy only as montage, smiling snapshots, a morgue photograph.

Washing his hands, over and over, damp fingers on the phone book: Cleaning Services. How much to scour the place, just totally top-to-bottom; today? Fine. Leave the check on the counter. Gone for the day, and why hadn't he thought of this before. Grisly little souvenirs. I bet you think it's funny, Sophy, wherever the hell you are.

After the errands a movie, just to make sure, sitting through all the credits, deliberate amble to his car. Late, and even in the dark the loft was different, smelled disinfected. Cleansed.

Leisurely bedtime ritual, brush teeth, strip, set the clock. Clean sheets beneath him. He fell asleep right away.

▼

all that blood

"Sophy?" his animal whimper

it's all over, all over her hair, all over his hands and smearing it back from her face, those are scissors, oh Jesus God what she did to herself

grinning at him

"I cut my hair, Gordy, like it?"

▼

grabbing for the light, elbow to the clock so it fell, cracking sound and the light went on and he saw it, all of it, rich and matted at the foot of the bed, surreal pet awaiting his regard.

▼

Bundling the blanket, hands shaking, call the fucking cleaning service first thing in the fucking morning, first thing and he did. With empty professional regret, No, of course not, of course if you're certain another crew can be dispatched, and residue of half-hysteria smothered by the light of day, the office sounds around him, coaled down like a fire but burning, still, beneath.

His hands, shaking on the phone, his first cup of coffee sitting too far to grab. "You can get the key from the building manager," he said. "I want that fucking place cleaned this time, all right?"

Hang up hard, whacked unwitting his elbow, swore and snatched the coffee. Lukewarm, he drank it anyway, up all night watching the blanket like a kid, certain it was moving, it was—

Moving like the hairs in the bottom of his coffee cup, slow swirl, unspeakable choreography, he flung the cup against the wall. Picked it up before the office door opened, made a gritty joke, a worse excuse, shut the damn door. Shut the damn door! Go away.

He bought two Pepsis from the machine in the cafeteria, drank them warm and suspicious. The cleaning service called around one to tell him that a crew had been out to his apartment, and in the future, please inform the service that there was a pet, there is an extra charge for pets.

▼

He didn't want to go home, but he wasn't hungry, didn't want to sit through a movie, anyway he'd have to face it sometime, right? If there was anything concrete to face. Which there wasn't, don't be such an asshole, key in hand and pushing open the door. Are you going to get spooky about a bunch of hair?

Poised, he realized it, almost tiptoe with apprehension, but a walkthrough showed the apartment was clean. Clean and empty. He drank a glass of ice water (clear liquid, no darknesses to hide in), washed hard in the shower. Disconcerting erection. He called Andra from the bedroom: "How about I visit you this time?" and Andra thought that would be just fine.

Her apartment smelled like air freshener, room freshener, fake cinnamon in the kitchen and fake orchids in the john. The sheets of her bed were a raveling warm vermilion and he crawled between them like salvation, spread her slack honey thighs and felt beneath his fingers the sweet landscape of hairless skin, smooth and soft and safe.

▼

hair on the blades of the scissors

her gummy touch, scrabbling for the scissors out of reach and her face, her face

"Like it?"

hair stuck to his fingers, bits of it under his nails

Hands on his shoulders, shouting and he struck at them, saw in the last confusing shreds of nightmare Andra's hands, coated with hair, swarming with hair and he pushed away, she started yelling but oh no, not again, not another screamer and he rolled out of bed and got gone, safe, leaning against the moving solidity of the elevator wall.

Called in sick. To hell with it. He washed his face in the bathroom at McDonald's, drank two cups of coffee, tried to eat the soggy muffin but found, nestled in its depths like a perfect pearl, a bloody hair.

Afraid to go home. Afraid to find out, to see. Just like old times, isn't it, Sophy, you cunt, you twat, you dead filthy hairy bitch, screaming in the car and get a grip on yourself! Get some kind of grip on yourself. Get some help. Go home. Call the shrink.

And tell him what?

And tell him nothing.

▼

Clear things. Bouillon, and water and vodka, and weak tea, pale enough to see if anything waited inside, moving in the thin spoon-current. Sitting up in bed with an unread magazine, covers pushed a safe distance, the better to see you, my dear. Naked, to catch the drift and creep of hair, last night he had woken from the nightmare (again) to see a sly and messy braid halfway up his unsuspecting thigh, who knew what it was planning to do.

Hair in the shower, plugging the drain. Hair on doorknobs, the phone, coiled in cups and glasses, smoldering in the microwave. He had given up on restaurants, he had sent back enough food to fill a supermarket, a city of supermarkets, they all thought he was crazy. Hair up his nose, for God's sake, not many but enough, oh yeah, you didn't need many for what she had in mind. It took him long minutes, sweaty minutes, to blow it all the way out, and when he clenched it in the tissue it moved.

The bouillon was cold again. Tough shit. He put it aside, no hunger left, except of course a hunger for meaning, as in what is your problem, Sophy, smug and dead what is your trouble. No need to ask why me. Slivered ice in the vodka glass, clear glass, good going down because he was cold and it was warm, isn't that funny, iced vodka so warm, down his throat and tickling

like a hair

a lot of hair

and frightened fingers down his throat, jabbing hard for the gag reflex, come on, come on, reeling it up and the vodka bubbling back, swallow it

struggling into the bathroom, stop it, you're panicking, stop it! Trying for air. Trying for air as all the hair on his body stretched, curling undersea dance, slow and stately mimic as he saw, cloudy in the mirror, the empty bedroom reflected: and a figure, black like thready ropes, like slick necrotic veins, hair in the shape of a woman writhing sweet and ready on the bed.

Traumatic Descent by Lawrence C. Connolly

Larry Connolly's short stories have appeared in The Twilight Zone, The Horror Show, The Year's Best Horror Stories, and other magazines and anthologies in both the HDF and SF genres. Two of them have been optioned for film, and one of them, "Echoes," was released in 1990. He's a full-time member of the English Faculty of the Sewickley Academy just outside of Pittsburgh, where he emphasizes his love of writing and the performing arts. His contribution to the current volume is one of the most troubling stories in the book. Connolly's evocations of a being just slightly out of synch with your world are disturbing and unforgettable.

At last the receptionist returned.

"Excuse me," said Helen.

The receptionist began clearing her desk.

Helen stood. "Miss? Excuse me!"

The receptionist was one of those big women with brutally masculine features. She turned slowly and stared out through the rectangle of sliding glass that separated the reception office from the waiting room. Helen stared back, trying not to flinch at the sight of the woman's sloping forehead and receding jaw.

Helen leaned toward the glass. "My appointment was for three o'clock," said Helen.

The receptionist forced her wrinkled face into a smile. "Sorry," she said. "Dr. Salvador's running late."

The waiting room clock showed that it was now half-past five. Helen wanted to protest, but, instead, she turned and headed back to the couch.

Eric looked up from a coverless comic book. "What'd she say, Mom?"

"A few more minutes," said Helen.

"Yeah sure!" said Eric. "She told you that an hour ago."

"Yeah," said Chris. "An hour ago!"

Helen sat down, reclaiming her place between her fidgety sons.

"I'm starving!" said Chris.

"Just a few more minutes," said Helen. She looked across the waiting room and saw that the reception office behind the sliding-glass window was once again silent and still. Helen tried believing that the receptionist had gone to tell Dr. Salvador that he had one more patient waiting. She leaned forward, hoping to hear the far-off rumble of Dr. Salvador's voice, but all she heard was a muffled click, and, with the click, half the lights in the reception office winked out.

"Looks like they forgot about you," said Eric.

"Don't be silly, honey. I just talked to the woman; she said a few more minutes."

"Yeah sure!"

Helen looked at the boy. In a way, his childish belligerence reassured her. It was familiar behavior, and familiar things were so much easier to deal with. She frowned at Eric and said: "You shouldn't talk back to your mother, Eric."

"All I said was 'Yeah sure!'"

"You shouldn't say it," said Helen. "It's disrespectful."

Eric nodded. "Yeah sure!"

A shadow moved on the wall beyond the sliding glass of the reception office. Again, Helen got up and approached the window. This time she pushed back the glass and leaned inside.

The receptionist, now squatting by a file cabinet, turned and looked back at her.

"I hate to be a pest," said Helen. "But my children are getting tired and—"

"Try being patient," said the receptionist, and she turned and opened the bottom drawer of the file cabinet. She reached inside and pulled out a pair of large sneakers. As Helen watched, the receptionist removed her dress shoes and placed them in the drawer where the sneakers had been. The woman had incredibly large feet: flat as skillets and nearly as broad; she raised the left one, turning its leathery sole to the window as she pulled on one of the running shoes.

Helen cleared her throat.

The receptionist turned from a half-tied shoelace and glared at Helen. "What is it now?"

"I was just thinking that maybe... if this is a busy time—"

"It's not a busy time," said the receptionist. "You're the only one here." She grabbed the lace of her second shoe, yanking it taut. "Besides, the appointment book's already closed. I can't cross you off now." The woman knotted the lace and stood up. She took her coat from a brass hook; her arms hissed into the sleeves as she turned her back to Helen. "We did you a favor by squeezing you in," the woman said. "You did say it was an emergency, didn't you?"

Helen lowered her eyes. "Yes."

"Then why in the world would you cancel the appointment?"

"Sorry," said Helen. She turned away from the mannish woman and reclaimed her place between her androgynous boys.

"Mom," said Chris. "I gotta take a shit."

"Don't use that word," said Helen.

"I gotta poop," said Chris.

"I'll take him," said Eric.

"No," said Helen. "No one goes anywhere without me."

"Not even to the men's room?" said Eric.

"Not even," said Helen. She looked around the waiting room. The place had looked almost normal two hours ago, but now things were beginning to change again. The chairs looked different, broader and flatter. The end tables were lower, and the magazines...

(A voice in her head said: "Look at the magazines!")

She trembled as she looked into the grinning face on a nearby cover of GQ. She pressed her hands between her knees, steadying herself as she said: "I don't want you kids leaving me alone in this office."

"Why?" said Eric.

"I don't like the way it looks."

Eric looked around. "Yeah sure!"

She was beginning to accept the fact that Eric and Chris didn't see what was happening to the world.

("But you see it, don't you, Helen?")

Yes, she saw the changes, and, if she were seeing things that no one else saw, where did that leave her?

("In a psychiatrist's office, right where you belong.")

"But I'm not crazy," she whispered to the voice in her head.

("No? Then why don't your kids see what's happening to the room? Why don't they see what's happening to the faces on the covers of the magazines?")

Helen glanced again at the magazines on the coffee table. Preppy men in Polo sweaters leered at her with chinless jaws. As she stared, the faces seemed to buckle and twist, growing uglier before her eyes. Helen clenched her fists. Soon the world would be as ugly as it had been yesterday morning, as hideous as it had been when she opened her eyes after a night of fitful sleep to find herself tangled in foul-smelling sheets in a strangely empty bedroom. She had tried running then—running from the stinking bed, from the hollow room, from the cavernous house—and she might still be running if the children hadn't caught up with her, brought her back to the room, and dressed her in the ill-fitting clothes that filled the musty closets. It was strange to think how helpful the children had been.

She reached down and squeezed Chris's hand.

Across the room, the door to the reception office clicked open; the receptionist leaned into the waiting room. "The doctor will see you now."

Helen turned to Eric and touched his girlish face. She let her hand linger on his well-formed jaw. "Cut it out, Ma!" He backed away.

The receptionist drummed her fingers on the open door.

Helen stood. Her purse lay on the floor by her feet. She picked it up and felt the weight of her deadly "ticket out" as it shifted against the loose change and wads of Kleenex that lined the purse's bottom. Funny, she'd almost forgotten the thing was in there.

"Please hurry," said the receptionist.

Helen bit her lips as the purse's taut strap tugged against her shoulder.

The receptionist stepped aside as Helen crossed the room and entered the office. Beyond the office stood a short hall and a closed door. The receptionist pointed to the door. "He's waiting," she said.

Helen carried her heavy purse into the room beyond the door.

▼

The doctor sat writing at a small desk inside the examination room. At his back stood a door with a translucent window. Beyond the glass, shadows moving through a dim hall. Helen imagined the shadows belonged to office workers—healthy, normal-looking people rushing to catch elevators and busses. She tried not noticing how hunched the shadows were, or how the silhouetted shoulders rolled with the weight of elephantine arms.

"Sit down," said Dr. Salvador.

Helen moved to a chair that sat across from Salvador's table. The chair looked comfortable, but the moment her back touched the cushions she knew the seat's dimensions were all wrong. She tried settling in; the chair wouldn't yield.

Salvador looked up from his pen. Helen met his eyes. A wave of relief washed over her as she saw the strong, well-defined chin that lay beneath his beard.

"When you called," he said, "you mentioned something about being afraid,"

"Yes."

"Why are you afraid?"

"Things keep changing."

"Changing how?"

"Getting different."

"Different how?"

She bit her lips.

Salvador said: "When did you first notice these changes?"

"Yesterday morning," said Helen. "Things were bad yesterday morning. Then they got better. Now they're getting worse again."

Salvador picked up his pen and wrote something. When the pen stopped moving, he asked: "Have you mentioned this to your husband?"

"I... don't have a husband," said Helen.

Salvador wrote.

"I mean," said Helen, "I had a husband, but he left two days ago and—" She looked at the floor. "My husband has nothing to do with the problem."

Dr. Salvador leaned forward. He removed his glasses, folding them neatly in his hands. He looked her straight on and said: "Do the people around you seem to be changing?"

She froze.

"Answer my question," said Salvador. "Are the people around you turning ugly?"

"Yes."

"Why do you hesitate? Aren't you sure?"

"No," said Helen. "I'm sure. But how do you know about the changing? Do you see it too?"

"I see a great deal," said Salvador. "Tell me about your children. Have you noticed similar deformities in them?"

"Oh no! Not my children! They look as normal as I do. As normal as... as normal as you. They brought me here, you know?"

"How old are they?"

"Six and ten."

"And they brought you here?"

"Yes. There've been moments during the past two days when they've seemed very mature."

"Mature?"

"Yes. This morning, for example, after I found—" She glanced at her purse.

"Go on," said Salvador.

"This morning it was Eric who told me I needed a psychiatrist. He found your number in the book. He made me call you."

"And this strange maturing is the only change you've noticed in them."

"Yes," said Helen. "But the maturity doesn't last long. Usually they act like kids."

He picked up his pen. He wrote. "What about everyone else—people other than you, me, and your children? Is everyone else strangely deformed?"

"Yes," she said.

"Has this changing accelerated since four o'clock?"

"Yes."

Salvador wrote. When he spoke again, he said: "Do you consider yourself suicidal?"

Helen's eyes darted to her purse.

The intercom buzzed.

Salvador turned to the speaker. "What is it?"

"Your colleagues are waiting."

"Thank you." He turned to Helen. "I have a meeting with some field workers, but I want to see you again tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"We open at nine," said Salvador, "but I want you back here at eight-thirty."

"But—?"

"Tomorrow. Eight-thirty."

"But there's something else you should know," she said as he led her to the door. "You asked if I considered myself suicidal—"

"We can discuss that tomorrow."

"Why won't you help me now?"

He pushed her through the door.

"Tell me," she said. "If I'm crazy, just tell me. It would make things so much easier if someone would just tell me—"

The door snicked shut.

Helen stood alone in the silent hall.

▼

She returned to the waiting room. Misshapen chairs crouched in the darkness. Beastly faces leered at her from the covers of dim magazines. Only the hum of ductwork broke the silence.

"Eric!"

No answer.

"Eric! Chris, honey!" Her fingers brushed the waiting room's wall, hunting a switch until—click—the lights came on and she looked around to find her children gone.

Outside, in the main hallway, a ringing bell cut the silence.

She ran for the door.

"Eric!"

The waiting room's carpet gave way to gray linoleum as she hurried into the hall. Fifty feet away, a coat-draped figure moved toward an opening elevator door. Helen recognized the coat.

"Hey!" Helen's voice trembled as she ran. "Wait a minute, please!"

The thing stepped into the elevator. The door began closing.

"Wait! Please!"

A black glove reached out, catching the door and pushing it back as Helen drew nearer. The receptionist, even uglier than before, squinted out into the hall.

"Going down?" it said. Its sloping forehead ended in a matted brow. Its chin was gone. Its face came to an impossible point. It spoke with a heavy grunt that distorted the words nearly beyond recognition.

"Where are my children?" asked Helen.

"What children?" Watt chill'n?

"My children!"

"Sorry, honey. I didn't see any children." Soree,'onny. A'dn't s'any chill'n. The receptionist pulled its gloved hand away from the rubber bumper on the edge of the door.

"Wait!"

The door closed. The car descended. Elevator cables clicked and hissed, and, like all powerful things in the world, the sound of that descending elevator was disturbingly masculine; it seemed to be speaking to her. It seemed to be saying: "Purse... purse... purse!" It sounded like Eric. Big Eric. Eric, Sr. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the sound. And then, from farther down the hall, Helen heard the gurgling whoosh of a flushing commode.

▼

Helen's heels rattled on the hard linoleum as she hurried toward the men's room.

"Chris!"

The churning rush of another commode echoed through the hall.

"Eric!"

She rounded a bend in the hall.

The men's room door came into view. The sound of churning water gurgled behind the door; the kids were in there, the two of them, being bad, flushing the toilets one after another.

Ka-WOOOSH!

"Eric! Chris! Stop that!"

She opened the door and stepped into the harsh, blue smell of cleanser and disinfectant. At first she saw no one, but the flushing continued; the sound was coming from beyond a row of gray-colored stalls—from somewhere in the back of the room.

Helen peeked around the stalls. She saw a shadow—short and bloated as it slid like a flattened toad across the tiled wall. Then, in a mirror, she saw its face. It had a mouth like a toad. No teeth. No cheeks. No chin. Its nose rose out of its upper lip. Its eyes, like blisters, stared at Helen from either side of its flattened forehead. A tuft of green hair grew on a hump between its eyes.

"Looking for someone?" Oookin'er umm-un?

"My children," she said.

"Children?" Chill'n?

She grew bolder. She walked forward until she stood a few feet from the toady man. "I'm looking for my children!"

It shook its head.

For the first time she noticed its clothes: bib-overalls with an oval name tag. The thing was a janitor. Its name was Ron.

"Were they in here?" she asked.

Ron scratched thoughtfully at his crotch. Then he shook his head and turned away.

"Will you help me find them?"

Ron pulled a rag from a stained pocket and turned back toward the urinals.

"I'm asking you a question," said Helen.

No answer.

"Why are you ignoring me?"

Ka-WOOOSH!

Helen shifted her purse to her right shoulder, and once again she felt the awful weight shift inside. The weight... her "ticket out."

("Use it!" said the voice in her head.)

Helen reached inside the purse and pulled out the gun.

▼

Like the receding jaws and sloping foreheads, the gun was not part of her normal reality. This morning she had discovered it lying like a metal penis on the bed beside her. Beneath it she had found a note telling her how to release the safety and cock the chamber. The note had referred to the gun as her "ticket out," and it assured her that the jacket was loaded with a single, hollow point bullet—the kind of bullet that would enter small and exit large. All she had to do was put the gun in her mouth and pull the trigger; after that, the madness couldn't touch her.

("Ticket out!")

Helen released the safety. She cocked the barrel. She raised the gun, aiming at the back of Ron-the-janitor's head.

The man-thing turned. It saw her. It saw the gun. Helen waited for fear to spread through its froggish face, but, instead, the thing waved her away with a dripping rag: "Get out of here!" it said. G'outa ear!

Helen placed her finger on the trigger.

The thing turned, giving Helen its humped back as it went back to scooping crud from a urinal.

"Hey!" Helen yelled. "Look at me!"

Ka-WOOOSH!

"Damn you! I've got a gun! LOOK AT ME!"

Helen stood, watching as the thing moved indifferently to another urinal.

("It doesn't care about you," said the voice.)

The gun grew heavy. Her hand trembled. Her arm dropped to her side. The weight of her own insignificance sent her running from the room.

▼

The hall had changed.

She stood outside the men's room, trying to make sense of her new surroundings. The hall had narrowed. The ceiling hovered less than seven feet from the ashen floor. The elevator was gone; in its place stood a steel fire door and a red sign reading: THIS WAY TO EGRESS.

Helen slumped back against the stone wall. "When's it going to stop?" she asked.

("When you use the ticket," said the man in her head.)

"I need it to start making sense! Please, God—make it make sense!"

("Kill yourself!")

She slammed her head against the cinder-block wall. Yellow pain flashed behind her eyes...

And then, from down the hall—coming muffled through the translucent glass of a distant door—Helen heard a voice say: "Yeah sure!"

She leaned toward the sound, holding her breath, cocking her head, listening.

Another voice spoke. A younger voice. Chris's voice. Helen tried making out words, but all she heard was: "psychosis."

Psychosis? It was happening again; her six-year-old was talking like an adult.

("And he's talking about you!")

Helen shook her head, trying to drive the inner voice away. Her brain shifted, thudding softly inside her skull. She shook harder. Shards of light danced on the edge of her vision. The inner voice died and was replaced by thudding pain.

From the translucent glass came another voice—Dr. Salvador's voice: "Do you think she'll do it?"

Helen moved toward the voice.

"Yes," said her older son. "We haven't left her much choice."

"I think so too," said Chris. "I only wish we had given her poison instead of a gun."

"She won't take poison," said Eric. "She has a compelling need to do something aggressive, even if that something involves putting a bullet in her own head."

"How many bullets are in the gun?" asked Salvador.

"One," said Eric. "That's all she'll need. Provided she doesn't miss."

"And provided she uses it on herself," said Salvador.

Helen crept slowly, silently down the hall until she stood three feet to the left of the door with the translucent window. She held her breath, listening, waiting for the conversation to continue. Please, she thought, please let me hear them say what's wrong with me.

"In a way," said Chris, "I feel sorry for her. It's not her fault she descended."

"It's no one's fault," said Salvador. "Descent from the higher realities is neither fair nor unfair; it's a fact. It happens. It's up to us to deal with it, not to pass judgment on it."

"Do you think maybe it was her husband deserting her that caused her descent?" asked Chris.

"That's possible," said Salvador. "Have you read Dr. Pico's study on Traumatic Descent?"

"No."

"Do so," said Salvador. "If you're going to make field work a career, you'd be wise to keep up on the literature."

A moment's silence, and then Chris said: "I just keep thinking that it'd be so much better if we could elevate her back to her own reality."

"Yeah sure! How're we going to do that when we don't even know which higher reality she came from?"

"We know a little about where she came from," said Chris. "We know she had a family. We know she had two boys, Eric and Chris. We know she loved them."

"We don't know that," said Eric.

"We can infer it," said Chris. "Haven't you seen the way she looks at us? It's different from the way she looks at other things. When she looks at us, she's seeing the children she left behind."

"She told me about that when we talked," said Salvador. "She also told me that I looked normal. I also believe that she only heard half of what I said to her. She's having auditory as well as visual hallucinations."

She slammed her head against the wall. Sparks erupted behind her eyes. Dizziness swirled through the center of her brain, but somehow she remained standing, holding her ground while Chris asked: "Are we sure suicide's the only solution?"

"It's the only practical one," said Salvador. "There's a slight chance—a theoretical chance—that she could return to her own world, but that would require a resilience she doesn't have."

"So we have to kill her?" said Chris.

"No," said Salvador. "She has to kill herself. We're physicians, not murderers."

Another awkward silence, and then Chris said: "Where is she now?"

"Outside," said Salvador. "In the hall. Listening."

"You're kidding," said Chris.

"Open the door," said Salvador. "See for yourself."

▼

Helen froze.

Inside the office, heavy feet shuffled against the floor. She wanted to run, but she could only brace herself, leaning back against the cinder block wall while Salvador said: "I'm sure I heard her moving out there." The voice changed as it spoke. I'm sure I'erd'r mooen'a'der.

Helen raised the gun, holding it high with her right hand while her left hand reached for the knob on the office door. Was it locked? She turned the knob. The latch clicked. The door slid inward, swinging wide to reveal a distorted examination room. Oddly shaped furniture crouched beneath a low ceiling. In the room's center, three bug-eyed toads stared at the open door.

▼

She raised the gun. When she squinted, two of the toady shapes looked almost like Eric and Chris. The third toad had to be Salvador. She turned the gun on that third shape and squeezed the trigger:

BLAMMMM!

Flame shot from the barrel. Her hand jerked. A third nostril opened in the center of Salvador's nose; he jerked away while the back of his head exploded. Strings of sludge slammed the wall, fanning out while the toad-like body struck the floor.

One of the kids said: "Oh shit!"

She turned to the kids. "Who said that?"

Eric met her gaze. Chris looked away.

"Chris!"

Chris turned his blue eyes toward the smoking gun.

"I warned you, Chris. I warned you about that kind of talk."

Chris looked at Eric. He seemed to say: What now?

She crossed the room, taking Chris's hand. (It felt warm and soft in her closing fist.)

"Come on," said Helen.

"Where're we going?" asked Chris.

"Home."

She pulled Chris toward the door.

Eric followed.

They descended the stairs to a door that opened onto a filthy street lined with sooty buildings. Toad-like men paused and shied away as they noticed the gun in her hand. A bloody sun lay low upon the city's domed roofs; ashen moons rose in the west.

("You're totally mad. It's all insanity. The only thing real is your madness.")

When she squinted, the rusty, iron sidewalk looked almost like the road to home.

Baby Sue, We Love You! by Marthayn Pelegrimas

An award-winning poet and playwright, Marthayn Pelegrimas is a native Chicagoan who employs crisp images and dialogue to create short fiction that nails you with its immediacy. "Baby Sue..." is a clever, wrenching investigation of pain and how terribly it may not only affect, but actually shape our lives. Marthayn has had several horror scripts produced for Public Radio, and is the driving force behind Audio Oddities, Inc., an audio publisher of a continuing tape/anthology entitled Thirteen Doors. Although she's had many stories published in the Small Press, the following gem is her first appearance in a major anthology. It won't be her last.

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

—Emily Dickinson

"Turn on the TV; it's nearly time for my shows."

Georgie ran into the livingroom.

"And stop running or I'll have to spank."

"Sorry."

▼

Oprah's theme song came up slow, tender. She was doing a heart-felt show this morning, the kind saturated with unrehearsed tears.

"Today our guest is Rosita Lewis, the thirty-year-old mother of Baby Sue. By now you've all read accounts in the papers, seen reports about the fifteen ounce premie, fighting for her life at Children's Hospital." Oprah paused, the camera shifted, emotions were momentarily put on hold for a close-up. "Rosita, tell us how you and your husband...?"

"Ted."

"Yes, thank you. Tell us how you and Ted are holding up."

The distraught mother knit her hands together. "Okay, I guess."

"It must be awful for you. Just awful."

"We've spent every night and day at the hospital. The nurses are becoming almost like family. Ted and I are scared though; we just don't know what we're going to do. His insurance is running out; we've both been forced to take leaves from our jobs since they transferred Susan to Dr. Stevens, here in Chicago."

"Dr. Thomas Stevens? The specialist?"

"Yes." Rosita tugged at her too-tight sundress. "How long has she been here?"

"Susan Marie was born twelve days ago. She's been at Children's for a week now. Each night they try preparing us. They say she probably won't make it till morning. And each morning—there she is. I know she smiles at me sometimes." She gulped down a whimper. "But my poor baby's so tiny, so fragile."

A woman in the fifth row cried out loud.

"Vince, can we run the tape?" The talk show host handed her guest a Kleenex. "If you'll all look at your monitors, we'll show some footage shot by Channel Seven News." Studio lights dimmed and images traveled over national airwaves.

Stuffed animals and dolls sat propped in corners. Acrylic walls partitioned incubators from one another. Nurses clothed in rubber and gauze stopped only to wave for the camera. White, the predominant color, or lack of, coated the walls, the ceiling, like milk.

A rocking chair was positioned beside each baby, pictures of absent siblings stuck to glass. "We try to give parents every opportunity to bond with their child," a concerned voice narrated. "Here in the neo natal intensive care unit at Children's Hospital, we encourage recordings of family member's voices be played. It's comforting... reassuring." A music box rendition of Rock-a-bye Baby accompanied squeaky little boy tones.

Then a zoom shot singled out a tiny patient. She was encased in an incubator. Tubes fed into a bruised arm, another ran down her throat. A piece of surgical tape covered over the crusted umbilical stub; all the time her fists batted the air. Opalescent eyelids squeezed out pain and bright lights. The audience groaned sympathy and the unrelenting camera's eye continued scanning until it stopped to focus on a crayola colored banner. Appearing almost obscene, it proclaimed: BABY SUE, WE LOVE YOU!!

▼

"Watch the TV."

"I can't. Don't want to."

"Why must you always pout? You're not being punished. You're my darling boy."

"I know, but it hurts."

"Well, stop wiggling then. Watch the baby."

"But I..."

▼

Oprah returned from a short commercial message. "I believe I read you have other children at home?"

Rosita nodded. "Two. Back in Ohio. Melinda and William."

"Did you carry them full term?"

"Yes. Not one single problem. They're both fine, healthy children. William's eight and Melinda's five. Hi Mellie! Hi William!" Rosita waved at her children somewhere out in televisionland. "Is it okay to say hi?"

"Sure, don't worry."

"They're always asking when Baby Sister will be coming home."

Oprah looked for an encouraging sign. "We all want Susan home: strong and healthy." Sporadic applause grew into a unified roar.

Rosita dabbed at tears, embarrassed, overcome.

"We'd like to do something special—to help you. So a fund's been set up. Please..." she turned brown eyes to camera three, "...please send donations to: Baby Sue, in care of the Oprah Winfrey Show, Post Office Box 623, Chicago, Illinois, 60606."

"Bless you. God bless all of you."

"Just take care of that sweet baby. And we'll be sending our financial support as well as lots of prayers."

Credits rolled, the audience cheered, and a local anchorman interrupted.

"Catch an update of the Baby Sue story Live at Five."

▼

Georgie rocked back and forth, hugging scarred legs tightly to his chest. The floorboards beat against his bare bottom, sounding like the paddleball game from last birthday. The catheter stung, hot, with each sideward jerk.

She picked up the remote control. "Georgie Porgie. Puddin' 'n Pie. Kiss your mom and make her cry." She bent to smooch his cheek. "You're my sugar-coated angel. Know that?"

▼

"You're watching Live at Five, Chicagoland's fast breaking news station. Sitting in for Ron Duncan is Pauline Sanders."

"Thank you and good evening. Tonight's top story features Susan Marie Lewis, the premature baby weighing in at a record fifteen ounces. Struggling for almost two weeks against incredible odds, this little girl has endeared herself to families from coast to coast. Doctors continue to marvel at the tiny baby's stamina. Leading pediatrician, Dr. Thomas Stevens, was quoted as saying, 'We're doing everything we can for this incredible fighter. The willpower she's demonstrating is amazing.'"

Pauline agreed, "Amazing. We're all praying for you, Susie."

▼

"See? The whole city wants Baby Sue to get better. That's love."

Georgie hummed; his left ear hurt a little. He'd flinched. She'd only been trying to make him clean.

"Dinner time! Your favorites! Look. Chocolate pudding, in your red Muppet bowl, and a big glass of Pepsi."

She tried so hard. He could feel how desperately she tried.

"I'll feed you after we get this set up." A wisp of long hairs spidered into her eyes. Twisting them around two fingers, she jerked out strands by dark roots. "Where's a good vein? Show me a nice, fat vein, and afterwards, I'll feed you yummy pudding." The I.V. bottle clanked against its metal support.

"I can feed myself. I'm big now. Five years old, I can..."

"Don't argue," her voice raised. "I have to do this. I need to do this for you."

The needle burned as she jammed it into his baby fat. Two warmblooded spots spattered his nose.

Georgie giggled.

▼

"This is Nightline with Ted Koppel. Tonight we'll be discussing compassion versus technology. Is it our moral obligation to sustain a premature infant, in spite of the increasing possibility of brain damage—heart, liver, kidney failure? Is it ethically correct to allow, not only infinite suffering of the child, but of all family members as well?

"We have with us, via satellite, Dr. Theodore Sadonick. Dr. Sadonick is the author of last year's best seller: 'At What Cost Life?' Also joining us is Professor of Ethics at Yale University, Daniel Rosen.

"Professor Rosen, welcome. Dr. Sadonick, glad you could be with us."

"Thank you, Ted," the men replied in unison.

"We'll start with the Professor. Is it ethically sound to prolong a new life, no matter the consequences?"

The professor stroked his smooth chin. "Ethically, the medical profession, as a whole, is committed to saving and prolonging life at any cost..."

Dr. Sadonick interrupted, "Life, yes, but we're talking survival for its own sake. What does a premature baby, weighing in under one pound, have? The trauma suffered during those months of struggle, long-range effects of large doses of medication, therapy required. Not to mention the pain. Studies are just now being conducted to measure pain factors. What once was thought sufficient sedation for these infants, is now known to be inadequate. Is this technology or sophisticated methods of torture?"

"If I might interject," Koppel said, "outside our studio, here in New York, are twenty to thirty demonstrators demanding Baby Sue be kept alive.

"I understand Mr. and Mrs. Lewis issued a statement this afternoon instructing doctors that treatment not include extraordinary methods. I can surely understand their concern for Susan's suffering. With a baby of this abnormal size, the unmeasurable pain factor you spoke of, are we doing a disservice keeping her alive?"

Dr. Sadonick shook his head. "I believe the suffering should be of prime consideration. Since verbal communication is impossible, we can only estimate doses for a patient of this weight. I do fear her pain must be unbearable at times."

"Possibly. But it is our obligation as a civilized, compassionate society, to preserve life as long as possible." Professor Rosen smiled, pleased to deliver the last word.

▼

"Pain's good for you. You always hurt the one you love, there's a song about it. And Mama loves Georgie better than anyone in the whole wide world."

"Is Uncle Billy coming over tonight?" Georgie hoped the question would distract. He wanted to lay down with his blanket. Today had been so busy.

"I don't know. Why?" Warm water filled the enema bag, spilling over, running down her arm.

"I miss him."

"When I was a little girl," a smile of memory licked her lips, "your Uncle Billy carried me around on his shoulders. And he always protected me. There was this kid, I think his name was Fred Hubbard.

"One day Fred said something mean, made me cry. Well, your Uncle Billy came running after Fred and knocked him down—smack on his back. Then Billy sat on Fred's stomach and hit him, right in the face, with his Speller. Got him good. He was the best brother. Maybe we should call him. I'll even let you dial."

Georgie clapped. "Goodie!"

The doctors were still on TV; it was boring. He didn't understand what they got so excited about. He understood hurting though... real good.

"Uncle Billy?" Mama held the phone. "I would really, really, really like for you to come see me." The number of "reallys" were their secret code.

"I'll be right there, pal. You okay?"

"Yeah, but hurry. I love you, Uncle Billy."

"Love you too, Georgie."

She held the receiver to her ear, anxious to add a good-bye. The connection broke, and still she listened, entranced by the void.

"Mom?" Georgie was excited now. "He says he's coming over."

"We'd better finish up. Have to get my Puddin' all clean for company." She snaked the rubber tube deep inside him, stroking his thigh.

His legs wobbled every time she bent him over the bathtub, offered gifts of warm water and love.

"I can't hold it. I'm gonna pooh."

"Now, now. You can make it. Don't want to hurt my feelings, do you?"

"Nooooo," he wailed. "I gotta make number two."

▼

"All of us at Nightline send best wishes for a long and healthy life to Susan Marie Lewis. Baby Sue, we love you, too.

"This is Ted Koppel saying good-night."

▼

Impatient, he accelerated into the passing lane. Georgie had called, adding three "reallys." Angry, he floored the pedal. Poor kid. Overweight, fatherless. Billy's guilt overrode reason when it came to Georgie.

Hadn't it been his urgings that moved them, one van and a carload, to a strange town? Hadn't he promised they'd be a whole family? He owed them some time, attention, support... his life. But Georgie could be a handful. Those temper tantrums screamed at the right moment rewarded the boy immediate gratification. He probably needed a swat now and then, maybe the belt. Hell, it never hurt me, he thought. And Sis tries being a good mother. I try being there when they need something. And Georgie tries—at least as much as a five year old can.

Billy pounded the steering wheel. A blue-haired driver crept out of a parking space. "Hurry up, you old bat!" Ashamed instantly when words hit the air, he blasted the horn. "Come on! Move it!"

Her front door stood cracked open an inch; a TV blared throughout the livingroom. Not again. Christ Almighty, can't you help me? I can't do this again.

"Georgie? It's Uncle Billy. You there?"

"We're in here," she answered.

All the carpet had been torn up since his last visit. Germs, he remembered she told him, multiplied deep down inside the nasty pile. They made Georgie sick. He should have taken the child for tests—to make sure. Laura was busy with her causes: pro-life marches, saving some endangered species, always involved elsewhere. Georgie and Sis were his responsibilities, his family... his burden.

Windows hid behind white sheets. A couch, overstuffed and unraveling at the seams, was the only piece of furniture. And the TV vibrated on.

He raced down the hallway.

"Uncle Billy!"

"Oh my God."

The bathroom was speckled in browns and red. Georgie stood naked, a rubber hose dragging from his butt like a scrawny kangaroo tail. His platinum hair, uneven, had been ripped out in raw patches on top. An I.V. tube connected his arm to the bottle suspended from a coat hanger. The room smelled of rancid meat.

"Sweet Jesus, what are you doing?" William sprinted into the room, twisting Sis' anemic wrists.

"William, let me go, you silly. We'll be finished in a minute and then a movie? That's a good idea. Isn't it, Georgie?"

"I gotta pooh," he held onto the sink, fighting weakness.

"Stop it. Can't you see you're killing the kid? You've done enough damage." William shoved her, repelled.

"Damage?" she screeched. "I'm the best mother in this building—this whole godless town. Ask anyone." Her bloodshot eyes burned with rage.

William tugged the enema tail loose, setting Georgie down on the toilet. "Best mother? You're sick. I had no idea how sick. What'll I do? You can't continue tormenting this baby. I can't stand it. When did you get all this equipment? It's inhuman. All these things. What do you use... no... I don't want to know. Goddamn inhuman."

"Professor Rosen, from Yale University, said we should take care of..."

"I don't want to hear!" William stormed into the living room, jerking Baby Sister's cassette from the VCR. "You can't do this anymore. This tape's ancient history, Susan."

"So what? I'm not. Millions and millions of people sent dollar bills, William. They sent me toys and cards. Everyone prayed for Baby Sue to live. And those prayers were answered."

He tried calming her, maybe the act would soothe himself as well. "We all wanted you to live. And we do love you—very much."

But the guilt amplified his thoughts. Inside his head he shouted: and I wanted you to get well more than anyone. I wanted a normal sister, not a professional martyr. You thrived on the attention. You drained away my childhood—stole it.

She pinched tracks up her arm. "Everyone loves me. All the doctors and nurses. Everyday they gave me shots and medicine. They always told me how sorry they were when I hurt. Love's just like that," she shrugged.

"No. Love's gentle... kind." At least it's supposed to be, he reassured himself. At least in some fantasy where everyone's beautiful and healthy, love's supposed to come guilt-free. "You were just very sick."

William checked over his shoulder. Georgie stood, trying to wipe his bruised bottom clean.

"Watch. You'll see how they all wanted me to come home, be with you, Mellie, Mom and Dad," she grabbed for the cassette. "Look, you'll remember."

He smashed the video, bringing down his work boot again, and again. "I don't have to watch. I was there, this is my life too, and I can't stand to look at it anymore. You aren't Baby Sue now. Understand?"

"I passed all their tests. I was a good girl. I'll always be Baby Sue... I deserve to be."

"Well, Georgie deserves better. I'm taking him away, just 'til we figure out what to do."

"I can't let you. I have to care for him—only me." Anxious now, she needed her shot.

"Georgie, bring your mom's medicine," he shouted.

"Pick me up, William, like you used to," she lifted her arms. "Carry me on your shoulders. Up high. Stop being so mean. Sing to me. You always used to sing me that lullaby song."

William led her to the couch. "You're too big for me to carry... all grown up now. Please," he pleaded, crying into her shoulder. "Help me. I can't take care of you and Georgie if you won't help. I can't make everything better."

Georgie held a finger over the I.V. hole punched in his arm. His baby teeth clenching the syringe as he painfully walked to his uncle.

Baby Sue struck her child open-handed. "I don't want to be sleepy. Get that thing away from me!" The needle stuck her palm like a dart in a bullseye.

"Give me your hand," William tried retrieving the syringe but she pounded, ripping at get-well cards papering the wall. She pounded and screamed until the needle punctured through. The silver point glistened between her knuckles.

Then she confided, "I knew you loved me. I knew it. Everyone loves Baby Sue."

And her madness purged the guilt. There was nothing left but to save Georgie.

William scooped his nephew up, "He's coming with me. I told you. You're going back to the hospital." Removing his flannel shirt, William draped it around Georgie's body. "I'll send someone back for you. Don't leave."

She stood, dazed, reading a card from the Henderson family of Seattle. They wished many years of continued good health.

"It'll be alright now. Auntie and I'll take real good care of you," panic and the narrow stairway sapped his breath.

Georgie kicked Uncle Billy in the stomach. "Not good like my mom," he squirmed to free himself from the bear hug.

"Better. You'll see." Hang on tight, he coached himself, running. Don't let him slip away. There's still time. Run.

"Put me down!" the child screamed. "Stop! I need for you to put me down."

The second landing offered a rest. William lowered Georgie onto worn carpeting.

"You're upset, pal. Hungry. Let me fix you up here," he started adjusting buttons when Georgie broke for the stairs.

"You're bad, Uncle Billy," he scolded. "It's bad to take a little boy away from his mom."

"But, Georgie. Wait. I'm gonna save you... let me..."

He couldn't believe the child's speed. And as William watched Georgie race ahead of him, upstairs, he caught sight of scars running jagged and white across his thighs. Tomorrow, he vowed, he'd get a lawyer. William started after the boy, but Georgie managed to outrun him.

"Stop! Come back here!"

"No! Leave me and my mom alone." The apartment door slammed shut; a lock bolted into place.

"I'll call the police!" William pounded the idle threat into rough wood. "Susan! Georgie? Do you hear me? I'll call the doctors. Susie?"

She laid on her stomach. There was a two inch space between the door and threshold. "What will you tell the police?" Baby Sue taunted. "That I'm a good mother? My son loves me? Wants to be with me forever? He really, really, really does.

"When they find out I'm famous, they'll probably want my autograph."

William's legs gave out; he crumbled to the floor. "Nobody wants your autograph. Nobody cares anymore..."

"William," she whispered now. "William, I have to go and take care of my precious baby. Someday, when you and Laura have children of your own, you'll understand what great responsibilities I have. Such sacrifices I've made. But there's a bond between me and Georgie. A bond you'll never know."

"Yeah, Uncle Billy," Georgie agreed. "You just don't know how to treat a kid."

High Concept by David Bischoff

It's hard to pin down the career of Dave Bischoff. He's been a professional writer for more than sixteen years, and he's written so many stories and books I have no clue as to their number other than to say they are legion and that they cover practically every genre, including young adult and film novelizations. He has two new upcoming novels (with John DeChancie) from New American Library concerning the exploits of a character named Doctor Dimension, and he is also doing a Star Trek novel for Pocket Books. He's also been one of my closest friends for twenty years; but that hasn't made it any easier for him to get a story into Borderlands. I think I rejected four or five of his submissions before buying the following tale. Dave lives in Eugene, Oregon, but he used to live in Los Angeles. After you read "High Concept" you might better understand why he deserted that place of freeways and power-lunches.

I was dry.

I was blocked.

I was a successful Hollywood writer, a world of riches at my command, and I just couldn't come up with two right words to rub together on my word processor.

After a few weeks of this burnt-out hell, Jim Hampton told me about the Church.

▼

"So, how's it pumping?" said my tennis partner on this splendid L.A. day, sky only slightly smeared with smog.

"Not well," I replied.

"Still running on empty?"

"I'm not even running any more. I think the motor's dead. I've never been blocked so long before."

"A week longer than last time I asked." Jim Hampton took a towel from his bag and wiped the sweat off his face. He replaced the towel and pulled out a tube of number 15 Sun Block, rubbed some in his right hand and carefully re-applied it to his face. He looked up from his seat on the bench out at the tennis court. "Happens to us all."

Which was his usual answer.

Only this time as he hopped to his feet, adjusting his sunglasses for the next set of their tennis game, sweeping a practice swipe with his racquet, Jim continued. "Tell you what, Don? Buy me a drink after the game, I might have something that could help."

As I served the ball, I wondered what the guy meant. A job? As an executive producer for the hit show, The Hit Squad, Jim Hampton could certainly throw a few scripts my way. Hell, he could cut some guy off "at story"—rework it to his satisfaction with the help of his staff of producers and story editors and then toss me a beat sheet I could write the teleplay for in my sleep.

Problem was, A: I was way past The Hit Squad in my career and taking such a job would be a black mark on my record, even if I put a pseudonym on it.

B: I still don't think I could write.

Beneath the L.A. summer sun, sucking in far too much pollution for my good, whacking the ball back and forth, sweat trickling into my eyes, I thought about the Mill out here and how I'd run afoul of it.

I'd come out here with a few novels under my belt and ten years teaching at a midwestern college. I'd gotten an option on one of the novels, an espionage thriller, to get me going. My agent got me a draft of the movie screenplay and while the project landed in development hell, that screenplay showed me and lots of people that I could handle the form. Sales to television gave me the actual confidence of seeing my work produced and led to a couple of movie scripts that paid me a lot of money and put me in the fast lane. The wife I'd come out with found her true self and a new lover in a Self-Actualization program at Esalen. She moved up to Marin County with a hefty divorce settlement. I found a new woman who gave up an unpromising career as an actress to give birth to three children. She had a taste for expensive landscaping and lavish interior decorating and demanded a second home in Arizona 'to get away from the craziness here.'

That, along with my own taste in high-tech gadgets and sports cars pretty much ate up the income.

Trouble is, you set yourself up out here in La-La land thinking the income is going to be the same each year, you set yourself up for a serious fall. I'd gotten so used to writing scripts that I'd lost the knack for writing regular prose fiction and the money was so far inferior, anyway, I couldn't afford the time and effort involved in writing it.

Nor did constant jobs mean I wasn't prey to misfortune and surprise. Studio executives change, producers change, stars and directors bail out of projects. It's a crazy living. And don't let anyone tell you that it isn't just an industry here, either, a mill churning the stuff out. Churning it out in a convoluted, weird way, true—turning out not only product, but ceaseless variations of the same product to suit various committee whims and moods. I'd hooked up expecting fame, money, glamour and a materialistically high quality of life. What I ended up was trapped. I had to keep stoking the engines of Hell.

Stoking it with ideas, high concepts, characters, endless pages of script copy that only a few people would ever read and would probably get changed, if it even made it to the wide screen or the altar of the Nielsen God.

And the ideas, the pages weren't coming. The characters came out stillborn. And the concepts weren't anywhere near high; they were barely low.

Which was why I was damned interested in hearing what Jim had to say.

At the club bar later, I worked on a Gatorade over ice while he sipped a lime and soda. (It would be bad form to have the martini I really wanted—drinking and snorting away your woes in this town was strictly out.) He analyzed the mistakes I'd made in our hour's worth of tennis, then guided me over to an unusually dark booth in the back of the bar for that chat he'd promised.

"About five years ago, I was in the same soup you are now."

Jim's forty-three years old, but he's taken the time to keep himself in shape and nature has given him greying hair rather than bald spots, so he still looks great. That would have made him only a year younger than I was now when he was in that 'same soup'.

"Writer's block?"

"Uh huh. And I could ill afford it, let me tell you."

"Yeah. My own reserves are about tapped."

Maybe he was going to offer a loan. Maybe I was going to take it.

"But you still got some... for an investment?"

"An investment? Hey, Don, how am I going to afford an investment when I've got to pay my nut and necessary luxuries and all that's coming in are tiny residual checks?" I think a little bit of my despair leaked into my sentence; the word 'residual' squeaked.

He shook his head. "No. I'm talking about an investment in your writing ability. Your inspirational fecundity. An investment in you."

"Sounds like a sales pitch."

"I get no money out of this," he said, looking a little hurt. "And I'm risking a lot for a tennis buddy." He turned and sipped at his drink, looking slightly peeved.

I let it hang in the air for a couple moments, but not for too long. No, I was far too desperate. Bankruptcy would not only kill my credit rating, it would kill my career. It's a pool of sharks out here and since sharks have to swim to live, sharks that aren't moving are considered dead sharks and promptly allowed to sink into the sludge.

"You say you were blocked and this... this investment finally helped you?"

He nodded. "Yes. And you know that I've got other projects going besides The Hit Squad. I write plenty. Don't you ever wonder how I get time to play tennis with a loser like you?"

I laughed. He smiled. The bridge was mended.

"Okay. I guess I could come up with a few bucks. Do I get to see what I'm investing in?"

"What are you doing tomorrow night?"

Tomorrow night was Thursday night, which was traditionally Extra Writing Night. Since I wasn't writing, I wasn't doing anything.

I told him.

"Good. Come with me."

"What is this. Some kind of writer's seminar?"

"Uh, uh." He finished his soda and lime. "It's the Church."

▼

The place was a large house in the Hollywood Hills. I hesitate to say mansion. It was just a big old house that probably belonged to some director, producer or actor back in the thirties. I didn't get a tourists history either; we just drove up there in Don's Jaguar at eight thirty.

"I faxed them your background and credits," he said after a jokey warm-up, rehashing the days gossip as he pulled off Franklin to head up a canyon road. "They called back with a tentative approval. Did you bring a check?"

"Yeah."

"How much is this going to cost me?"

"For tonight's session, it'll be a thousand dollars."

"Just for tonight?" I said, being philosophical. A thousand bucks wasn't going to kill me financially. A writer's block would.

"If it doesn't work for you, all you do is sign a paper swearing secrecy about the Church and you get the money back. Fair enough."

"One session's going to do it for me?"

"If one session doesn't, two won't."

As the beautiful green car purred up the grade, I shrugged. "Sounds just fine to me, Jim. And Jim... thanks."

He smiled, but I thought I saw a touch of grimness at the corners of his mouth.

"Sure," he said. "But remember, guy... I'm doing this because I know you need it."

"Yes, sure. I appreciate that."

I wasn't sure what he meant.

Jim found the place way up in the hills and it was situated on a nice chunk of land, with a horseshoe driveway. Don stuck an identification card in a slot in a machine. The heavy gate slid open, and we drove up the driveway. Jim pulled his Jag up onto the curb, parked, and we got out.

The lights of the Los Angeles basin glittered like cheap jewelry. The chill of night had come on, and I was glad I'd worn my black silk sport jacket. The scent of sage from the hills melded pleasantly with the smell of the flower beds surrounding this old house. With barely a word, Jim guided me around the side of the house, along a path lit by small electric lights. "Church is held in the back," was all he said in way of explanation.

I didn't ask any questions. Jim is either extremely talkative or totally mum, and while I usually fill in the dead air during his silent phases, somehow now didn't seem the time for verbosity.

Along the side of the path, a man was sitting in the shadows. He asked for our names and we gave them. I suddenly had an unusual sense of dread. The man in the darkness radiated some kind of menace wholly alien to the usual L.A. casual. I shuddered a little bit as a flashlight was shone into our faces.

"Don's new, then," said the man.

"That's right."

The flashlight got directed onto a clipboard. Papers rustled. I got the glimpse of the butt of a gun.

"Okay. Everything's in order, Mr. Hampton. Have a good evening."

We walked on, me with a bit a shudder.

The narrow path opened up into a large backyard. There was the de rigueur Hollywood Hills kidney-shaped pool of course, but beyond it was what seemed to be an old gymnasium. A red light shown above a closed door. We walked along a path edged with hedge and lights. Jim knocked on the door. It opened. A tall, powerfully built man examined us carefully and then beckoned to another. A shorter man came up. He looked like an agent, dressed in a shiny Armani suit, his blond hair slicked back, his eyes glittering, his mouth filled with flashing teeth.

"Hello, Jim," he said. "This would be Mr. Edwards then. Hello, Don. I've admired your work over the years." I got a firm lingering handshake. "I'm Michael. I'm glad you've chosen to try our little group. I think you'll receive a great deal of... inspiration from our little service."

"That's what I'm here for," I said. "I'm afraid I'm not much of a religious man."

"Religion can be very beautiful," he said. "Especially if it's practical." Smile. Glint of eye. I recognized him now. He was an agent. A sub-agent for a large agency. I'd seen his picture in the trades. I didn't remember his last name, though. Not that it mattered. To tell the truth, I was a trifle bit intimidated by the interior of the old gymnasium into which we'd walked.

"Come and let me show you gentlemen to your seats," he said. "Oh, but first... There's a little trifle we should deal with."

I looked at him, baffled, but Jim nudged me. "The money, guy."

"Oh. Right?" How could I have forgotten? This was Hollywood. 'The money' was paramount. I stuck my hand in my pocket and pulled out the check. I'd had to tap what I called my 'Vegas fund'—money set aside for frivolous conspicuous tossing-away—but this, I figured, was gambling as much as anything. Michael took it, examined it quickly and then slid it into an envelope in an inside breast pocket of the Armani.

"This way, gentlemen, if you please."

As he led us further into the room, I realized that low music was being piped into the room: a wash of New Agey synthesizers.

The reason why I was feeling more than a little odd was because of the way the room was set-up. It really was a church... But most certainly the strangest church I'd ever seen. For one thing, there were pews. Ten rows of finished oak benches complete with an aisle, just as you might find them in your normal corner Presbyterian church. An odd thing to see inside an old gym behind a Hollywood Hills mansion, certainly, but even stranger were the other accoutrements of religious ceremony surrounding it, Christian, non-Christian and miscellaneous oddments quite beyond the pale.

In front of the pews there was an altar and on this altar was a large statue of a fat man in a polo shirt and thick glasses with a huge cigar dangling out of his mouth. He was sitting in full lotus position. On one knee sat a doll of Marilyn Monroe. On the other was an old fashioned Olympia manual typewriter. Strewn at his feet were old scripts.

"Who the hell is that supposed to be?" I whispered.

"A representation of an old fashioned Hollywood mogul," said Jim. "The Church is not without its sense of humor."

"Nor its sense of the bizarre."

There were large candles, of course, and there was incense smoking out of burners that could have come from Nepal or some other mystic land, and there was stained glass windows and icons. But as I looked closely, the icons were of modern folk, often as not wearing glasses. Don caught me gawking. "Founding members of the church," he explained.

As I looked around, eyes adjusting to the dimness, unable to prevent myself from rubber-necking, I began to notice that I recognized some of the forty or so people who sat in the pews. And they weren't all simply WGA members, either. There were producers for TV shows, movie producers... and a few studio executives too. They weren't talking either, which was unusual in schmooze-town. They were either staring straight ahead at the altar or staring down at their laps—both positions appearing to be some kind of meditation.

"Hey," I said to Jim, pointing at a man off to the side of us, who looked a lot like the guy who had just received fourth place in a recent Premiere magazine ranking of the most powerful people in Hollywood. "Isn't that—"

"Shhh!" said Jim emphatically. "Yes, it is. Now you have to be quiet for awhile."

Typical of me. I hadn't been inside a church for a very long time, and I'd forgotten the sense of propriety you were supposed to have in one. Although until I actually shut up, I didn't really even have the sense of this place as being any place actually religious. It was just pure Hollywood mondo to me. But then, when I sat for a while sniffing the incense and listening to the electronic droning and the incredible silence of people who usually yakked away when they were together, I indeed got a sense of the numinous, the oddly spiritual. And it was a vaguely troubling experience, because there was a terrible uneasiness about it all as well.

Abruptly, though, the music segued into a processional. A fanfare of synthesizer trumpets, a whooshing of sampled wind, as though signifying something spiritual gushing over the assemblage.

Then, down the aisle, there walked seven people in robes, cowled. Six wore black. The seventh and final, wore white. The six blacks split up and moved to take their places, three to either side of the 'Hollywood Buddha' as I had come to call it.

The music stopped, and the quiet that dropped onto the scene was unearthly.

I could not help but shiver.

The last, the white one, stood in the very center. He ceremoniously bowed to the blasphemous 'Buddha'. Then he carefully and slowly lit the candles surrounding the altar. The scented burning tallow and wicks cast their own odor through the cavernous room. Everything was so still, I fancied I heard the flapping of bats in the dark rafters. The man in the white robes bowed again, this time to the congregation. Then he took off his sandals, rearranged his robes, then carefully and reverently settled his posterior onto the pillow.

He pulled his cowl back, and revealed a mild-looking man, his blond hair looking as though it had just been freshly snipped and coiffed at a Beverly Hills salon.

"Hi!" he said.

"Hi!" greeted the congregation.

"I was having breakfast today at Ciro's with Michael Ovitz, and I had absolutely nothing to talk about to him. So I'm thinking, here I am at a meeting with one of the most powerful men in Hollywood and I haven't got a thing to pitch!"

Boy, I could identify with that! I looked around, and I could see the looks of terror and sympathy trembling over people's faces.

"Thank God he wanted to talk to me about something!"

Nervous laughter.

"But I thought to myself, in these troubled and troubling times in our profession, how lucky I was to know that we have our Church. And I thanked the spirits of our Founders that we have this solace once a month. And in particular I thanked them that this Thursday night was a service."

"Praise the Founders!" said the congregation, their voices firm and almost chant-like around me. I noticed that Jim blended his voice in with the rest quite emphatically. I was wondering if we were going to have to sing hymns sometime during the service. I really couldn't carry a tune very well, but if it helped my writing, then I'd be happy to stand on my head.

"Welcome to the Church of the Sublime Inspiration!" said the priest, beaming. "Welcome to both new members and old. Our secret society has been meeting for many years now. We have preserved our anonymity these years and we know that we shall continue to do so because of our bonds of flesh and spirit. Let us remember that although at times our lives are very secular, this order is ultimately of a very sacred nature. Ours is the burden of helping to forge the stories, the characters, the themes that inspire and ignite the hopes and dreams of our culture. Our nation, indeed the whole world depends upon us not only for the entertainment that makes their lives less humdrum, but also the dreams that spark their futures and the values of their children."

"Amen!" intoned the assembled. "A-MEN!"

I found myself joining in. A lapsed Methodist, I at least knew that word.

The ceremonies proceeded. None of which made a whole lot of sense to me. There was more chanting in foreign languages. More lighting of candles. Different music wafted from the speakers and at one point an old film projector in a dim part of the gymnasium suddenly came alive, showing clips from classic movies. Similarly, in another corner, an old television set zapped on with a re-run of I Love Lucy.

The service seemed to consist of a hodge-podge of liturgies and verses from different religions and different sects. The English that was used and the verses from the King James Bible seemed to concern aspects of creativity, virility and fecundity. Lots of seeds were sown, and lots of baskets hopped off mystical inner lights. Nonetheless, for some reason the use of verses from the Bible I was familiar with comforted me somewhat. This wasn't, it would seem, any kind of pact with the Devil—not that I believed in the Devil. I was a pure agnostic, with little thought of God for very long. Nonetheless, if the God of Inspiration was around and He had a little cult in the Hollywood Hills, who was I to refuse to drink from His heady cup?

Especially when I'd paid a thousand bucks to do so!

Speaking of which, I thought... When do the lightbulbs start lighting up above my head?

Jim probably noticed that I was getting kind of antsy. "It's coming along. Don't worry."

"What's coming along?" I couldn't help but whisper.

He looked at me with an expression I'd never seen in a TV producer's face before: solemnity.

"Communion," he said.

▼

Actually, what the Hollywood priest called it was 'the L.A. Eucharist'.

One by one, we lined up in front of the altar.

"What's going on?" I asked Don.

"Simple. You do what they tell you to do. You eat and drink what they give you. Just like Mass. You've been to Mass?"

"I've been to Communion."

"There you go!"

An usher came up and tapped our row. Our turn to go down and kneel at the altar. The dirge-like synthesizers from the speakers began to sound like that song 'Hooray for Hollywood' slowed down to a drone. A curious feeling of dread and despair seized me and for a moment I felt frozen to the hard wood of the pew. It wasn't just a sensation of leaping into the Unknown that bothered me, although I'd been feeling that to various degrees the whole trip here, the whole strange service.

No, it was a sudden surge of deja vu, the feeling of vertigo I first felt, moving to Los Angeles to attempt a scripting career. The almost supernatural uncertainty, the mysterious buzzwords, the sweeping insincerity, the vacillations of producers and networks, the sensation of being chewed up, digested and shitted out by mammoth egos prowling beneath the sunny skies and smog for prey.

I'd forgotten those sensations. I'd joined the drooling pack. And now, oddly enough, deprived of the central device that keeps the hungry hungering, the searching was overwhelmed with a sense of wrongness. I don't know if I actually felt evil up there at that altar any more than I ever felt it, toiling in these dark mills of TV and Film Babylon. All I know was that there wasn't a trace of good, and the vacuum seemed to suck out whatever courage I'd packed with me.

"What's wrong?" asked Jim.

"Can't."

"Huh?"

"I can't go up there. I can't do it."

"What? Are you crazy? You paid the thousand dollars!"

"They can keep it. There's something wrong up there."

The others filed up, pretending not to notice the commotion we were creating. Don sat down. He took a breath, sighed it out, put a hand on my shoulder. "That's okay, buddy. That's okay. Yeah, I guess it is a little weird, huh? I'm remembering it was for me, too. Yes, I do recall that I had second thoughts. But I did it, you know. And there's really nothing to it. Look where I am now! I'm successful. Monstrously successful. The American Dream? Hell, I've got more than the American Dream. I've got a great life. But you want it, babes... You want that life and the creativity that brings it, you've got to worship at the altar, you got to drink the cup, you got to eat the offering... That's the way it is out here, babes, and that's the way it's always been, even before the Church started up." He tapped me on the shoulder and cocked a thumb toward the proceedings below. "Jim, you've worshipped at that altar before. You just don't know it."

I looked in his eyes, and I knew, instinctively, he was right. Somehow, the fear left me—and I found myself standing up and walking down that aisle to join the assembled partakers of the mysterious communion.

The actual wine wasn't all that mysterious. In truth, I almost laughed as I knelt down beside Don. In front of us where champagne glasses and the priest was merely walking along, filling up the people's glasses.

"Sip," he intoned, when he was through. "Sip in the name of Mulholland, in the name of Doheny, in the name of Rodeo Drive." Somberly.

I sipped. Dom Perignon. Excellent.

"Now, the most sacred of the Offerings. Take what is given, eat—and enjoy High Concepts!" The last two words were uttered with total reverence. "Lights," he whispered as he lifted a bell-shaped lid from a tray. "Camera! Action!" He picked the tray up and began to serve its contents. "Eat this in the remembrance of great dialogue. Swallow this that the plot points may shine. Take this and chew, that thy character arcs may spark! Digest, in the name of Foster's sunglasses, the Sun and the Holy High Concept!"

On a silver tray, nestled just so amongst doilies, were what appeared to be hors d'oeuvres. Round white crackers, each spread with a neat mound of pate that looked like chopped chicken liver.

My stomach gurgled. I realized that I was hungry.

When the priest passed, I took one of the crackers. Just as the cracker was at my lips, I paused. This was it, something told me. Take this step and you can never go back.

My stomach gurgled again. I could feel saliva in my mouth. The Eucharist smelled really good. It smelled of onions and mayonnaise.

I popped it in my mouth.

I chewed.

It tasted even better than it smelled, like a high quality beef with character. I chewed it and I swallowed it and then, taking the lead from the others, I washed it down with first rate champagne. You'd have to figure, only the best in Hollywood!

One of the less mannered members of the kneeling pronounced his opinion on the subject, belching loudly. No laughter, no 'pardon me's.'

We filed back and took our seats.

As I sat there listening to the final intonations, to tell the truth, I felt absolutely nothing. I was totally confused. I hadn't the foggiest of what had just happened. Was this some weird ritual that used ceremony and spiritual 'mysteries' to unlock the secret navigation to the paths of inner creativity—or were there hidden cameras behind the wall, with some TV host about to trot out, giggling, and announce that it was a practical joke of the most obnoxious sort?

The benediction was read:

"Get thee forth to propagate imagination and entertainment throughout the focal point of this beautiful city, and thus through the entire world!"

I sighed. Hell, all I wanted to do was write!

There was no socializing after the affair. Nobody seemed to want to talk. The people simply shuffled off back to their parked cars.

Don bought me a fresh-brewed Stout at a favorite hangout of ours, Gorky's, to celebrate my initiation. I confessed I felt no different. He just laughed.

I bought some magazines at the corner newsstand, in expectation of my usual bout of insomnia.

But when I got home I felt quite exhausted.

"Out on the town, hmmm?" said my wife, watching Jay Leno and working on her nails.

"Just a late meeting with Don. Project," I said, truthfully enough, sliding into the sheets beside her and grabbing my pillow.

I was asleep almost immediately, and I had no dreams worth writing about.

▼

The next day, I woke up with an idea.

I sat down and started writing a treatment for a pilot for a television series about a city fire department. My father had been a fireman in a city, so I knew a lot about it. I'd had vague notions of doing something along those lines for years, but nothing ever jelled.

Now it was just pouring out.

So much so, that I stopped in the middle of the treatment and said, "Hell, why not?"

I poured a cup of coffee, black, started up a new file on the old computer and jumped right in with both feet.

I wrote straight through the weekend. I was a total demon, tap tap tapping away like a man possessed. My wife was so thrilled that something was coming out, she took it upon herself to fix coffee for me and bring in lunch and dinner.

By Monday, not only had I written an original TV script ('spec script' in the industry parlay) but I also had a complete proposal and 'bible' for a possible series spin-off.

I printed it out, got it copied and foldered and then drove personally to my agent. To the objections of his assistant, I walked straight in and tossed it on his desk.

"Read it and then get back to me!" I said, doubtless fairly glowing with effulgence.

I was going to take the rest of the day off to celebrate, but when I got back and started talking about taking my wife out for dinner, I started getting antsy. I had this positively wonderful idea for a movie.

Two weeks later, Fires Above was written and in my agent's hands.

"It's working!" I said, amazed and admitting it to Jim Hampton after a session of tennis.

"Good," he said, "you can buy the Gatorade today." He grinned. "And then you can rewrite this script a guy turned in the other day."

"Sure," I said, with a confidence I would have never had before. I knew that with the notes I'd get from Jim's story editors, I'd be able to handle the assignment, no problem. The job would pay the mortgage this month and leave me some money left over.

Somehow, I don't know how, that service I had been to not only jump-started my creativity. It charged me with more ideas, more writing power than I'd ever had before.

I was thrilled. It had worked. That was all I needed to know.

▼

The television series sold.

The movie sold.

Before I knew it, I not only had more work than I'd ever had before, I had the willingness and ableness to produce it all. Ideas poured from me willy-nilly; words simply flew at the word-processor. Scenes would thunder into my head whole and complete. Sometimes it was like taking dictation from God. Inspiration, after all, meant 'the breath of God'.

But it wasn't from God.

I found that out soon enough.

One morning, about two months from the time I knelt at the altar, I sat down, coffee cup full, happy as a clam to once again churn forth the words. I sat there for a minute, flexing my fingers and waiting for the ideas to burgeon. I typed out a couple of words, hoping meaning would follow.

But no meaning came.

An hour later, I was staring at those same two words. Absolutely nothing . I started yanking the words out. Two hours later, I had a page and a half and I was absolutely wrung out.

I called Jim Hampton. He was in a meeting, his secretary said. Could he call me back?

You bet he could!

When he finally called me back, late in the afternoon, I was in a panic. I told him why.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you," he said. "The benefits of a service last a limited amount of time. You've burned yours up quicker than most. I was going to mention that some tennis afternoon soon. Didn't think it would happen this quickly."

"Well, what do I have to do? Go to another service?"

"Yes."

"Tomorrow's Thursday. Let's go!"

"No. There won't be another service until next Thursday, Don. I'm afraid you're going to have to wait."

"But you'll take me, won't you?"

"Sure. I'm about due myself anyway. Only, this time, don't blow it all out, okay?"

I sweated out the week, getting behind on work but getting some input in by reading and watching films and TV shows.

The service this time cost ten thousand dollars, but the money was flowing in, so I could easily afford it. Also, when I got to the church, I actually had to join, signing all sorts of papers that I didn't read fully. Maybe I should have read them more carefully, I don't know. Hell, I was used to my agent reading my contracts for me. But as I sat there at that desk, looking over at the altar where that precious stuff was about to be served, it wasn't just my mouth that was salivating. My entire mind seemed to be running over with drool.

▼

A year passed.

I took the Hollywood communion twelve more times in that period, and enjoyed success like I'd never experienced it before. The movie was in production, I had two television series in the works, three pilots and any incidental scriptings or rewrites I cared to take on. I felt so charged with energy I even started writing my dream book... The one that was supposed to show my true brilliance as a writer... If not the great American novel, then something merely that had some art, some taste, some representation of my true feeling, my true soul.

For some reason, however, it just didn't come.

And what I did write seemed as empty of soul as my scripts.

Nonetheless, I wrote those facile scripts like a demon, not slowing down, taking each and every communion available, even though they'd gone up to twenty thousand dollars each. Hell, I thought, with what I'm making these days I'm paying my agent more than that!

Then, about a year and three months after my knees first bent at that altar, I got a call from Jim Hampton.

"Hey. When are we going to play tennis for Christ sakes?"

"As soon as you finish that movie project! You know that! I'm available."

We both laughed. But I felt a little tension in his voice. "Uhm, you know, Don... I told you to go easy on those communions."

"Shit, I got the money. I love 'em. I'm getting positively religious. I'm starting to figure out what it all means. It's kind of Jungian, isn't it? I mean, the whole ceremony!"

"I guess so. Lots of stuff in it and—"

"And somehow, going through it all—well it taps at the well springs. Plumbing the old depth psychology, right? Hypnosis! Psychiatric hocus-pocus!"

"Partially, Don. Actually, there's something more involved."

"Really? What? I'm all ears?"

"Some other time. Right now, you have to take a meeting."

"Sounds fun, fellow, but I'm kind of scripted up."

"No, this isn't that kind of meeting, Don."

"Well, what kind of meeting are we talking then, Jim?" I said, some of my impatience doubtless creeping into my voice.

"It's the meeting you promised to take when you signed those papers last year, Don." He said it tonelessly. Toneless with Jim meant serious. "You know, if you didn't go to so many of those services, you could have put this off for a long time. I didn't have my meeting until three years after my first communion."

"Hmm? Okay, okay. Sounds fine to me," I said. "Where do I have to be?"

"One of the organizers of the Church is Harry Pilgrim."

"Right. Of Rock and Pilgrim Talent Agency."

"That's right. Next Tuesday at 11 A.M. sharp." Pause. "Uhm... Don... You did read the papers you signed."

"Yeah, sure. I mean, I scanned them. What was I supposed to do... have my lawyer look at them? You know how desperate I was for that dose of whatever they were handing out."

"Yeah, right," he said in a faint voice. "Well, I'll get back to you when we can play tennis."

"Right. Your people will call my people."

"Yeah, whatever. Good luck, Don."

Oh well. Just another meeting, I figured.

And if nothing else, I gave good meeting!

▼

Rock and Pilgrim Talent Agency was on the other side of the hill, in Beverly Hills, on Canon St.

I arrived five minutes early. I was ushered into Harry Pilgrim's office immediately.

Harry Pilgrim was a florid faced, slim man of perhaps fifty years of age who looked much younger. He smiled vividly when he saw me and pumped my hand over his desk. I'd seen him at a couple of the services, but I'd never had occasion to talk to him. Nonetheless, he greeted me as though we were long lost brothers.

"Don! Don, so good to see you!"

I played along. "Good to see you, too."

"Don, I hope we can do some business!"

"Business? I'm always ready to do business, Harry. Isn't everyone in this town?"

"Certainly, certainly. More specifically, I wanted you to meet a new client of mine."

I'd noticed the young man sitting on the couch beside the desk, of course, but I thought maybe it was some sort of assistant who was on his way out anyway. I nodded to him.

"Hi."

"Don Edwards, this is Harvey Timmons. Harvey, this is Don Edwards, well known Hollywood television and film writer."

Harvey Timmons bounced to his feet, full of enthusiasm and shook my hand, his face unable to hide frank admiration, perhaps awe. "Nice to meet you, sir. I've seen your name on shows, lots, and I've always enjoyed them. You're a consummate pro, sir, and I'm sure there's lots I could learn from you."

He was maybe twenty-five, tops, eagerness shining in his eyes. I felt a little pang. He reminded me of me when I came to Hollywood, still idealistic, still teeming with dreams, the cream of hope still pure and sweet in the milk of my ambition.

"Uh, nice to meet you, Harvey," I said, shaking his hand. I gave the agent a bemused look.

Harry Pilgrim just kept on grinning. "It's my considered opinion, Jim, that Harvey here is one of the hottest new talents in town. He just hasn't hit properly yet. You know how that is."

"You haven't sold anything yet?"

"I came close. Real close. Mr. Pilgrim says it takes patience. Patience and perseverance. Well, whatever it takes, I'll give, sir. I'm absolutely determined to have a career here!"

"Great! It's tough, I'll tell you!"

"Oh, I know. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it, right?"

"Anyway," said Harvey. "I knew you were looking for new, raw talent."

I was? Nonetheless, I kept my face clear of emotion, and played along.

"Oh. Yes. Of course. Always looking for new writers, new talent..." I said. "I guess I should read your stuff, huh?"

The agent tapped a pile of scripts on his desk. "This guy has got some terrific specs, let me tell you!"

"Okay. Well, give me a couple of the best and I'll certainly take a look at them," I said. "Now, was there something else you wanted to talk to me about, Harry?"

"Hmmm?" He looked from Harvey to me and then back again. "Oh yeah." He shifted gears again. "In a minute. Let's finish this here, okay? Main reason I called you down here, Don. Besides that of course..." He gave me a funny look. "Was so you and Harvey here could meet, get these scripts... Hoping of course that you guys might hit it off... Have lunch sometime, huh? Maybe even breakfast!"

Power breakfasts being the 'in' thing these days, of course. "Sure! I mean... Well, I guess I should read the scripts, first."

"If you could read my scripts," said Harvey, genuinely pleased, "well, that would be just fine with me. I don't know how I come across at lunch or breakfast. Maybe I'm boring, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure I'm a good script writer. And I've got lots of ideas where those came from. I could just go on and on, telling you about my script ideas."

A glint lighted in the agent's eye. The gleam of filthy lucre? What else?

"Great, well, I'll certainly look forward to reading them, then." I shook the kid's hand again and he took that as a cue to get lost. Which he did, quite obligingly.

"Okay, so which scripts should I read?" I said, starting to feel a little better. Well, this wasn't so bad, I thought. Do a little reading for the Church. Maybe that was it... Maybe they were thinking about inducting him for some reason, and I was to evaluate his talent. Nothing so hard about that.

"That's the guy," said Harry when he left. "That's your assignment, Don. He's really just perfect. The ultimate candidate?"

"Candidate? What does that have to do with his scripts?" I said.

The agent looked at me, puzzled. "That's not what we're talking about here, my friend." He tapped his temple knowingly. "That's not what we're talking about at all."

"Look, you want to tell me what's going on here? I'm kind of in the dark."

"You've got something to do for the Church, Don. The church has helped you a lot. You know that."

"Yeah. But I'm still trying to figure out exactly what that is I've got to do!"

"I would have thought that Jim Hampton made that clear to you when you joined. I would have thought you were smart enough to figure it out. It's in the service, you know. It's there. And it's in the contract you signed, too. You agreed to 'obey the summons to provide the Services necessary to sustain the offering, in whatsoever manner that shall reveal itself.'"

"You want to stop being obtuse and tell me for God's sake?"

He shrugged. "Okay."

And he did.

▼

When I got home, I poured a stiff drink, belted it and called Jim Hampton. He was out, so his secretary said, but he'd call me back. ASAP.

Well, he didn't. I kept on calling him, and by the time I got to him at his home that evening, on his private office line, the one he'd forgotten I had, I'd had a few more drinks, so I got straight to the subject.

"What the hell have you gotten me into?" I demanded.

Silence on the other end. But at least he didn't hang up, like he might have.

"Like I said, I thought I'd have time to explain." LA confidential, mano a mano style. I'd heard it before. Sorry about that guy. That's the way the cookie crumbles.

"What do you think I am? I'm not going to do it!"

"Okay. I understand. But you know, they won't."

"I'll pay the fine."

"There's no fine. The penalty is Coventry. Ostracism. None of the Church members will work with you again. Now, that's not all of this town by any means, but it's a significant portion. And I don't have to remind you that this is a small town."

"And I suppose that means you too."

"I'm bound by the oath I made."

"Dammit, why didn't you tell me?"

"I thought there was a chance you might not take the communion. And I knew how much you needed it. I was watching out for you, believe it or not. It's for the best... You'll get used to it. It's not that hard, believe me."

"Well, I'm not going to do it!" I said.

"Fine. That's your option." The voice was stiff and reserved now. "However, do remember... They'll never let you take communion again."

"How could I... I ever take it again... How can you... Knowing..."

"Easy," he said. "People out here have been taking it for a long, long time... Whether or not they're in the Church. Goodbye, Don. Let's put the tennis business in your court now, hmmm? Call me sometime."

He hung up.

I got another drink.

▼

You've seen the experiment.

You teach a bunch of planaria, those cross-eyed worms, to remember to do a trick. Go fetch food, or to hit a certain button so as not to get shocked. Something nice and scientific like that. Then you take those planaria, grind them up alive, and quickly feed them to other planaria.

Bingo. The planaria who've just eaten their brethren know the trick.

Transfer RNA. Memory.

Some tribes in South America and Africa and the South Seas would eat their enemies to obtain their power.

Specially treated grey matter, preserving the genetic structure, the mapping of neurons and synapses that will surge the old electrochemicals in the dance of creation that creates ideas and all the attendant blaze of stories and scripts. Combined with depth psychology, ritual and, yes, perhaps some of that old 'black magic', it created a powerful drug, galvanizing the arthritic typing fingers of burnt-out but greedy Hollywood writers.

And then, too, there was the sacrificial element. Every little bit of significance helped.

That was what was on the cracker, of course. That was the 'meat' of the matter. I hadn't realized it (or had I, subconsciously) but what I was wolfing down so greedily all those services were nothing less than the neural pate of promising young writers, ferreted out by agents like Harry Pilgrim and then offered up in a grill for the crackers of the Church's insatiable hunger.

Profile. Young, eager writer... in from Kickbutt, Iowa, to make his mark on the world. Not a whole lot of background, but a hell of a future. I probably hadn't had the talent to have even been considered. Usually I thought that the worst that could happen to these talents were drugs, alcohol, blah blah blah—the usual Hollywood shmear.

Now I knew that something more evil awaited them... Getting served upon on a cracker with champagne.

And those bastards wanted me to take care of their 'new' mark.

No way, I thought.

Uh uh.

▼

I was dry.

All I had on my screen was blank space and WordPerfect page parameters.

Less than a week after the meeting with Harry Pilgrim and Harvey Timmons, I wasn't just dry, either. A couple of my deals had fallen through, and another was teetering shakily.

The night before last, I'd been impotent with my wife, something that had never happened before. A little sidelight of 'withdrawal' from communion? Maybe. Maybe it was just total terror.

I didn't have a single new idea, and the old ideas were sticking in my throat like dead bugs in a Roach Motel.

I sat in my office, out over the canyon, and terror slowly moved through my guts.

It wasn't just the money, though God knows that was the major part. You get used to money, you get used to the privileged lifestyle it buys, it's damned hard to move backwards. The numbers get into your bloodstream, your sinews; get wrapped up into your ganglia and into your equations of achievement and self-worth. When you consider just how little in comparison it really takes to just survive in lower circumstances, it makes you realize you've got a needle in your head, pumping in those druggy numbers.

But it wasn't just the money.

Failure is not a welcome thing in this town. You're like a leper, you get stuck in metaphorical colonies and people laugh at you when your nose drops off in your soup.

A day later, still cemented in writer's block, brain screaming for communion worse than any junkie's brain ever screamed for heroin, I sat in my office and looked out into the unusually stormy Los Angeles sky.

Rain was trickling down the window, like watery bars.

▼

"Hello?"

"Harvey? Harvey Timmons?"

"Yes."

"Don Edwards here."

A wonderful profile, Pilgrim had said. No girlfriend. Lives in a cheap hotel in Hollywood. He's from North Dakota. Not a whole lot of family.

"Oh... Mr. Edwards... Great! I mean, good to hear from you."

"Yeah, Harvey. I read your scripts."

"Yes?"

"Let's take a meeting. Get to know each other." Pause. Breath. "I think I can use you."

Just A Closer Walk With Thee by John Maclay

One of the hallmarks of this anthology series has been the effort to avoid the hoary cliches that we should all be very tired of. But every once in a while I get a story that takes some shopworn icon and turns it inside out, gives it a new spin, and reminds me that there are no tired ideas, only tired writers. John Maclay appears for the second time in this series with a piece that gives new meaning to the word "perspective." He lives in Baltimore where, with his wife Joyce, he continues to operate a high quality publishing company, Maclay & Associates. He's sold more than 100 short stories that have appeared in more than a dozen mass markets in addition to many Small Press publications, and he is, like your not-so-humble editor, a lifelong Orioles fan.

I'm an old man now, a retired department store clerk, and I live with my wife in a rowhouse with a small back yard. Our two sons are grown, there are a couple of grandchildren, and I've left the scene for a passive way of life. My daily routine consists of helping with the housework, pruning the roses, and a regular schedule of meals, television, and sleep. But to keep myself in shape, and to get out of my wife's hair for a few hours, I take long walks.

Walking is the best exercise, and if you keep at it, you'll find that you've developed a surprising range. When I first retired, I only took strolls around the neighborhood, and came back with aching feet. But after a while I started walking to destinations, maybe a hardware store ten blocks away, or a fast food place fifteen, and I wasn't too tired. Then the tall buildings downtown seemed much closer, and I didn't see any reason not to go there without the car. So one day I wound up at the harbor, hardly conscious of how I'd got there. I took the bus back, but since then I've walked the round trip, with my body not even reminding me in the evening.

When you walk like that, it becomes automatic, and your mind sort of rolls on too. Sometimes you develop patterns of thought, but usually they're random, and unattached to the things you see. And if you're old like I am, you think of things you may have forgotten for sixty years, feeling them come back as fresh as if they were only yesterday. Then you have to come to terms with them again, though your age and the rhythm of the walk makes them more like a movie, something to be watched and not judged.

Because you'll come to judgment for them soon enough, before God. Even if they're horrible... one horrible thing. Even if, as though your automatic feet and mind have drawn you there, you come to the scene.

...Repressing, I think it's called. You do something you should be punished for, to put it mildly, and you're never found out. Then you think of confessing it, but you're too afraid. Then you go through hell about it inside yourself, yet gradually that hell fades. Then you build a life in spite of it, because that's the only thing to do. Finally it becomes like something someone else did, a part of history. Anyway...

The River Road is the shortest way downtown. I grew up near it, on a street of houses that had been built for textile workers before the Civil War. The cotton mill was down along a rushing stream, and the road follows that. There's a lot of history along the road too, since it's surprising how many things built by man don't get disturbed unless they need to be. For example, there's the half circle of a dam, now useless without the millrace. And the small stone drainage tunnel, on a bank above the road, under some long since torn up railroad tracks...

I saw the tunnel again when I started walking the River Road. I must have driven by it many times, but that's not real like walking. Though it's surrounded by a big city, the road isn't much traveled, and it's lined by woods, so a walker can stop, look, and think. And since then, since the first day I noticed the tunnel again, I've thought about it many times. Since then... flashback, I think it's called...

I'm seventy-two now, so I was a dark-haired twelve then, in 1930. My father worked long hours at the mill so my mother wouldn't have to, and his reward was a boy he must have hated. Mother kept me scrubbed clean, dressed me in clothes the other boys made fun of, and generally kept me out of touch from the normal things. I got to know what women were like, but less as a man than as one myself. Mother told me you never kissed one unless you were married. It's a common thing, a woman grasping too much, trying to make her son such a fine man that he isn't one at all. In short, girls were a mystery to me.

I sang in the church choir, too, wearing one of those elastic red skirts and a blousy white top. It was Gospel, and we sang those old hymns that, if you think about the words, are very strange. "Just a Closer Walk with Thee." And the one about the garden, where you walk with Jesus and have an experience that can only be described as... So the church, too, may have helped, in the way it aroused yet twisted the normal urges of a boy of twelve. May have... helped?

It was a hot August day, one of those when nature is burstingly, almost sickeningly full, like a turgid thing. I was walking the River Road, with a vividness in my young mind that made me notice every pebble on the dusty shoulder, every tree and vine in the humid woods, and every ripple in the stream below. It was a Saturday, and the hymns were playing in me, the ones I'd sing the next morning in the brick church I could see in the distance above the bluff. I imagined myself in a hot country, the one whose clay buildings we used to make with blocks in Sunday school.

That's when I saw the boy.

He was walking towards me, alone, out of those strange waves the heat makes in the air. If I'd believed in visions in the here and now, I'd have thought he was sent, somehow. He was eight or nine, blond, was wearing only bathing trunks, and was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, from his smiling face to his smooth, tanned skin and bare feet. I knew I shouldn't be reacting as I was, that it had something to do with the heat and with forces inside me I'd been taught not to know. But there was really nothing I could do.

Then we met, and I started to walk with him. He must have thought I was an innocent playmate, an older boy he could trust, as we explored the woods and skipped rocks into the stream together. But all the time, I felt it building. And when we returned to the road, and decided to search out the wet, dark—

—repressing, I think it's called, since I know now what the symbol was—

—tunnel, my head was pounding and my veins seemed about to burst from what was pent up in me. I found myself staring into the boy's blue eyes, noticing his parted red lips, and he looked not so much like a... girl than like the picture above the altar at church, the picture of the crucified Jesus that the zealots seemed to like so much. I suddenly longed to kiss those lips, and at the same time to inflict that pain, though even then another voice was telling me I had the act, the act I was about to perform for the first time, so very, very wrong. But there was nothing, nothing I could do to stop it.

Then we were at the tunnel, climbing the bank, passing the round stone arch, leaving the sunlight, and it was too late. While the boy quivered in sudden fear and wonder, unable to run away, I was sickly chanting one of those hymns, until it became a high, obscene wail, and my hands were running all over his smooth warm skin. I did kiss him then, sucking at his hot breath, tugging at the waistband of his bathing trunks. And when I freed my penis, the look of revulsion in his big eyes told me it could be only one way.

There were rocks strewn on the floor of the dark, wet tunnel, and one of them found my right hand. For a moment it almost slid away, but I tightened my grip and raised it over my head. By this time the boy's body was crouched and cowering, as if asking for what I was envisioning, the love and the pain. Then my hand was coming down, once, twice, three times, and I was—oh, God—joining with him like that, until everything was sticky and wet.

Until the blood covered his face, the red spurts matching my white ones, and he lay still.

I'd just wanted to enter that tunnel, to express what had grown in my body that hot August day. And I'd just wanted to walk close with someone like Jesus, and be a good boy like my mother said.

After I'd caught my breath, I buried the boy under some big rocks I was able to roll over. There was some blood left on the dirt floor of the tunnel, but I used my hands to rub it away. Then I came out into the sunlight again, and went down to the stream and washed myself clean, as in some useless baptism. River Road, the woods looked the same, but the air tasted clearer. Though it was with a clearness, I think, like that after an awful storm.

It wasn't until the next morning, as I sang in church, that I thought, sickly, of Christ's tomb. But I didn't think the little boy would rise again.

And he didn't. Though I went through hell during the next few months, and shivered in my room as the newspapers followed the disappearance, no policeman ever came to our door. If I'd been a Catholic, my crime might have poured out in the confessional, but I wasn't. And at twelve, no matter how horrible you feel, suicide just doesn't enter your mind.

I did stop singing in the church choir, though, which was the first of many unconscious steps to overcome my mother and her warped religion. I got closer to my father, made more friends, including girls, and became more of a normal boy for my age. Then, when I was eighteen, I made the right kind of love to a woman for the first time, appropriately enough in a woods, in nature, and found that I could. And a few years later I got married, and started my job in the department store.

The vision of what happened in that wet, dark tunnel did flash across my mind from time to time, like a searing streak of red. Even my experiences in World War II were nothing compared to it. But life goes on, especially when you're growing, and even guilt becomes irrelevant. Though the evidence says otherwise, your crime does become like something someone else did, a young, twisted boy.

The evidence...

Last week I walked River Road once more. The stone tunnel was still there, because no one had a need to disturb it, but this time it beckoned. It was a hot August day again, and though the fire in my body had long since cooled, and the fullness had turned to shriveled flesh, I knew I had to go back. So I left the road for the first time since, and climbed the cursed bank again.

There was a rusty anchor fence over the entrance now, but I was able to crawl underneath. There were rats scurrying in the dampness, but I kicked them off. The big rocks I'd rolled onto the... little boy's body were still in place, but like some misbegotten angel at a horrid tomb, I was able to push them away. I drew back, heaving, peering into the darkness...

And there were the bones, the sixty-year-old bones—simple really, so painfully small, strewn on the dirt. But there would be no resurrection here. The boy was, had been for a long time, as I soon would be. So I put the rocks back, and left.

Still I walk River Road, alone. My daily routine, the city above the woods and the stream, and the things I did in it, now seem unreal next to that one, buried place. I walk the road, losing myself in the rhythm of the walk, until I meet my judge. Maybe then, when I walk with the real Jesus, he'll help me find my peace.

The Banshee by Thomas Tessier

Certain writers spend their years quietly building up a body of work that upon retrospect is not only imposing or formidable but is actually brilliant. Although he's far from finished adding to his corpus, Tom Tessier is one of those writers. Underrated doesn't really apply here, because he is respected and he does get the well-deserved good reviews, but high-rolling success has so far escaped him. Upcoming books include White Gods, a new novel, and The Crossing and Other Tales of Panic, a collection of his short fiction that can't be less than spectacular. His "Evelyn Grace" was one of the true gems in Borderlands 1, and I have waited almost two years to coax another story out of him. When I received the subtle, graceful, emotionally charged piece that follows, I smiled. Tessier was home again.

He didn't mean to hit her—hard. But she went down like a toy made out of flimsy sticks, and she began crying in a loud and piercing screech. Even then she didn't stop talking. Bubbles of compressed words burst forth intermittently between heaving gasps of breath. Her features were distorted with anger and pain, her face corkscrewing tightly into itself.

"For the love of Jesus," Dermot muttered, turning away in a state of barely controlled rage. This is how murder happens. He finished the whiskey in his glass, poured a little more. She was still lying on the chipped lino, making noise. "I'm warning you, stop that racket."

"You hurt me."

"It was just a shove. You didn't have to fall down, you did that on purpose. Besides, if you don't shut up my flatmates will throw me out of here. And if that happens, I swear I'll fuckin' kill you."

"They're not here," she pointed out infuriatingly.

"It's the neighbors," Dermot told her. "They'll complain to the lads again, and I'll be in trouble. They're fed up with this sort of carry-on. You can't keep doing this to me."

The noise diminished slightly. That was so typical of her, and so annoying. If he was reasonable, if he was willing to talk to her about it, then she quieted down. But there was nothing to talk about anymore. There never had been. So much trouble, and he'd never even been inside her drawers.

"Come on, now."

"No." Resentful. She made a disgustingly liquid sniffling sound. "I don't want to go yet."

"Well, I want you out of here. Now."

"Dermot, please."

"I told you," he said. "It's pointless."

"Dermot..."

She began to cry again. He never should have let her in his door. Not the first time, not ever. But what could he do? Call the police? That'd be funny. And if he had to argue with her it seemed better to do it in the relative privacy of his room rather than out in the hallway. You couldn't ignore her. She would put her finger on the bell and hold it until you answered. Sometimes she would pound the door with her other fist at the same time.

It wasn't his fault. True, he had smiled at her and chatted freely that first night she appeared at Dolan's, but that was all part of the job. True, when she began coming around almost every night he could see that she was developing a special interest in him, and he did nothing to discourage it, but they saw each other only at the bar and they never actually did anything together, so it all seemed quite harmless. You liked it when she told you you were the best barman in the best bar in Southie, didn't you? You silly great eejit. And yes, it was true that the time came when he invited her back to his place for a nightcap, but he didn't so much as touch her knee.

By then he knew something was wrong. She drank a little too much and spoke a little too forcefully. Her cheerfulness had the sharp edge of desperation, and he began to realize that she was a person with a problem. She was lonely. No crime in that, but it had apparently reached the point where it affected her mind. She would say something every now and then that was—wrong. And it made you think you were in the presence of a sick person.

Dermot instinctively sympathized with her. He sometimes had his own bouts of loneliness and he often felt painfully homesick. But he decided not to get involved, perhaps sensing that he could never fill the emptiness in her life. Probably no one could. It had gone on too long now, and was rooted in her.

Besides, she didn't really attract him, so he had no desire even to try. In the face of fearful odds, Dermot had managed to get to America. He had a job. He had a room. He had plans. He was there to make money, not collect problem souls.

By then, however, it was too late. They talked for a while that first night and then she left. But she came back to Dolan's night after night. She usually stayed until closing time so that the two of them could walk home together. Like Dermot, she lived in the neighborhood. The rear exit of Dolan's led to a dead end alley, so he couldn't easily avoid her. He made excuses—going for a plate of spaghetti with the lads, a poker game—but there were too many times when he had to put up with her chatty company over the few blocks to home.

What kind of life did she have that she could stay out until three almost every morning? She claimed she worked in an office. More than that, Dermot didn't care to know: she might mistake his idle curiosity for significant interest. He occasionally walked her to her door; she always invited him in and he always declined politely. Most of the time he went straight to his place and she tagged along. The last twenty feet were the trickiest, from the sidewalk to the door. It required finesse or rudeness for him to get inside without her. He didn't always succeed, but a glass of whiskey and another forty minutes of forgettable talk usually did the job. If you satisfied her craving for company and attention, then you could ease her out.

The funny thing was, she never made a move on him either. A flash of leg was invariably accidental; the chair slid. When she bumped into him, breasts against his arm, it was the result of an innocent tipsiness. At first Dermot saw these minor incidents as erotic overtures, but he soon realized that they weren't. It was the hour, the booze, nothing more. She was happy just to be with him, to have his company. In his more charitable moments, Dermot thought of her as an eccentric.

"Get up, you stupid cow."

"I don't want to go."

"If you don't shift yourself, I'll drag you by the scruff of your neck and toss you in the gutter."

"Dermot!" A shriek from the back of beyond.

"I mean it. Come along now."

She didn't stir. Whimpering, huddled to herself. Dear God, how did it get to this point? It was actually worse than if they were lovers, because lovers do split up and vow never to see each other again. The clean break. Dermot's mistake had been to let this situation develop to the point where it was a friendship, at least in her mind, and that kind of thing was somehow harder to terminate neatly.

He had underestimated her every step of the way. How had he deluded himself into believing that he was in control? The alarm bells didn't start ringing until the first time she came visiting on one of his nights off. She had finagled his work schedule out of someone at Dolan's. The line was truly crossed. Dermot began calling her names, yelling at her, anything to drive the wretched woman away.

But his insults and verbal abuse didn't seem to matter. It was possible that she found some perverse pleasure in it, taking it as a form of attention. No matter what he did, he only seemed to implicate himself more in this imaginary relationship. Dermot felt helpless and trapped, and that made him angrier. If it took physical force to get rid of her, so be it.

"Come along," he said firmly, grabbing her by the shoulders. "Time to push off."

"You promised me a drink," she protested.

"I did no such thing."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to give you a drink," he said, hauling her to her feet. "I want you to go home and leave me alone. I'm tired and I have to write a letter to my father back in Ireland. He's not very well, and—"

"What about your mother?" she asked quickly, grasping at the slim conversational opening.

"She's fine, thanks. Come on now."

"My mother's dead."

"Ah, you'll be seeing her again soon enough if you don't get out of here in a flash, you drunken old sow."

She smiled at him. "Oh, Dermot..."

He opened the apartment door and gently started to steer her toward the hallway. She resisted, tilting in his direction. She had never really fought him before. Dermot regarded this gesture as an escalation on her part, a clear attempt to move things to a new level. It had to be squelched immediately. He yelled at her as he gave her a stiff-arm to the shoulder. She fell back, tried to steady herself, and pulled a picture off the wall. It crashed to the floor as she landed on a plain wooden chair—the back of it popped loose. Somehow, she straightened up on her feet as the chair cracked to pieces beneath her.

The picture was just a cheap print in a cheap frame, and the chair was worthless tag-sale junk. But they weren't his. Now he would have to replace them. Dermot gazed at the broken glass and wood on the floor. Enough is enough, he thought dimly.

She was about to say something, but he wouldn't let her. He grabbed her by the hair and yanked her out of the flat, through the front door and down the walk. She was screaming now. Dermot swung her by the hair and sent her reeling across the sidewalk. She banged into a car parked at the curb, and sank to the ground. The cries of pain continued, but the volume was down.

"And stay away, you stupid old slag."

Dermot turned and marched back inside. Mr. and Mrs. Thwaite glared down at him from the upper landing. He would apologize to them, but it was useless. They were the kind of people who would tell a leper it was his own fault when his lips fell off. Dermot knew they would complain to the lads, maybe even to the landlord. But he might survive—if that woman never came back.

He topped up his glass of whiskey and tried to calm himself. He sat down at the desk in his room and took out a sheet of lined paper. Dear Dad, he began. The old man wasn't well, that was an honest fact. Dermot hadn't written home in ages. No excuses, he just hadn't done it. There were times when his head felt like an anvil of guilt. He would fail again tonight. He was too jangled and distracted to concentrate.

If only he could ring them up on the telephone. Impossible. Dermot's home was on the outskirts of a small village a few miles from Kilkelly, itself no metropolis, in the bleak heart of County Mayo. There were still some places where the lines didn't reach, or the people couldn't be bothered to hook on. If you absolutely had to use a phone, you went to a pub in town. In all the years of his growing up, Dermot could remember about half a dozen such telephone expeditions.

Yes, it was a bleak corner of the world, but he did miss it. He missed the folks, his sister Naimh. He missed the grim beauty of the stark countryside. It was all so—empty. While here in Boston, everybody lived like matchsticks in a box. All he wanted was a few years here to raise enough money so that he could buy a decent pub back home. Then he'd be away like a shot. Of course, Dermot knew there was many an Irishman who said as much, and then never returned. They went to America and stayed. But he—

"Dermot. Derrrmmmmot..."

The voice was so close he jumped. She was in the side yard, outside his window. Not even six feet away from him, across the desk and on the other side of the wall. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. He couldn't move. His body shook. He saw a splash of whiskey on the barren page. Thank God the shade was drawn. Her voice rose, becoming a scream, and she hammered the wall of the house, but he didn't move. It soon got worse, much worse. If I move I'll kill her, Dermot realized, this time I'll fuckin' murder her.

The next thing he knew, the police were at the door. He let them in, catching a glimpse of the Thwaites outside. Trouble. A couple of cops had been scratched and bitten as they subdued her. She'd gone round the twist. The police knew her, it seemed. The one who talked to Dermot was quite sympathetic, and after a while it occurred to him that he was in pretty good shape after all. A statement would be required. Fair enough.

It got better in the weeks that followed. She had abraded a cornea, detached a retina and chomped a hole in a cheek. Not the kind of thing the police are quick to forgive. She got her licks in, give her that. She had no real job, she was a welfare cheat. When it came to psychiatric testing, she made a poor impression. They found a place for her, and Dermot was told that she wouldn't be turned loose for some little while.

It was the best thing, really. She was lonely, desperate, a disturbed person. She needed care and attention, and now she was going to get it. Perhaps not in the circumstances she would have desired, but it was care all the same. It was far better for her to be where she was, than to continue along the way she had been going until something worse happened.

When the machinery of the state took over, Dermot discovered that he didn't even have a walk-on role. It was surprising, but a relief. Events occurred on the strength of their own momentum. She was the only issue, who she was and what she'd done. Dermot had to remind himself that he had in fact once been involved. He wouldn't have been surprised to get a letter from her, or a bunch of them—lonely, impassioned, repentant, pleading, reflecting a new knowledge of her past weaknesses, some such approach. But he never heard from her again.

The lads seemed to think it was all good crack, and even the Thwaites acknowledged that he was not entirely to blame—he got a civil nod from them, at any rate. Dermot drew pints at Dolan's and gathered his tips, dispensing equal measures of genuine Irish nostalgia and nationalism to boozy Yanks who'd never been east of Revere. So it went until the morning the telegram arrived.

FATHER DYING / NIAMH / TOBERCURRY / EIRE

The back of beyond. He expected things to look different in some ways, and they did. But still, he was shocked. He had been in America for less than a year, and already home seemed so dark, chilly and cramped. His perspective had changed forever. But it was great to see his mother again. She was in fine form, as was Naimh, a lovely young woman of nineteen. And the kitchen was the same warm and cozy room Dermot remembered, the heart of the house where the fire never went out.

His father was not in good shape. The old man smiled at him but couldn't speak. There was barely enough strength left in him to change his position in bed. Dermot told him all about Boston, Southie, Dolan's ("a bar, not a real pub") and the lads ("they're not bad for Kerrymen"). After a while he noticed that his father had fallen asleep, though his eyes were still partly open.

"Why isn't he in hospital?" Dermot asked his mother over tea in the kitchen.

"They can't do anything more for him," she replied with calm and resignation. "He wants to be here when the end comes."

"He has pills to make it better for him," Naimh added.

"What are they, painkillers?"

"Yes, it's a morphine compound."

Dermot nodded. His sister had grown up so much in the last year. She had an air of efficiency and purpose now. No sign of the immature teenager. After two years of looking, she'd finally been lucky enough to land a regular job at a stationer's shop in Tobercurry. She owned a beat-up old Mini and she changed the oil and plugs herself.

Dermot went to bed early and slept late, recovering from the effects of jet lag. His mother cooked a grand breakfast for him: fried eggs, fried bread, rashers of real bacon (not that scrawny American rubbish), sausages, black pudding, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, all washed down with plenty of strong tea. After that Dermot was ready for some fresh air and an eventual pint. He and Naimh went out for a walk, circling across the fields toward the village.

"How long can you stay?" she asked.

"Just the week." He'd told them that last night. "I had a hard time even getting that. Things are nearly as bad over there as they are here."

He knew everyone in the village, of course. They were happy to see him back, and they told him they were praying for his dad. He also got a few nudges and sly winks, as if he had been away on a long dirty weekend in Dublin with the lady representative of the Turf Board.

"Is that your Cadillac parked out front?" Gerry Byrne teased when they went into his pub.

"Of course it is. I flew it over in my Lear jet."

Last year Dermot and Naimh had gathered in Byrne's with some friends for farewell drinks. The jokes had been much the same—all about getting rich in America, fast women, buying huge houses with swimming pools, going to Disneyland. Good for a giggle, but now Dermot could see the black edge in such humor. It took three pints of catching up before he and Naimh were able to move to the corner table and talk alone.

"How long does he have?"

"Days," she said.

"Could it be weeks?"

"It's possible, but not many. And don't you worry about it if he does hang on a bit longer. You don't have to come back for the funeral. He's seen you again and that's the important thing. You were great with him yesterday."

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"How long are you going to stay on at home?"

Naimh shrugged. "Until something better comes along."

That could take ages, given Irish courtship rituals. If she found someone. He knew the local routine. Saturday nights. The twenty-mile drive to the Crystal Ballroom, the one alternative to drinking in a pub. And even then, she would sit around for hours or dance with other women while the lads tanked up. And who were they? The ones not bright enough to go off to technical college, much less the university. It was a desperate business, in such a desperate place. Dermot didn't want to marry Naimh off in a rush but it pained him to think of her growing older alone, working by day and taking care of their mother the rest of the time, passing the prime of her youth in a barren place.

"You should consider Dublin, or at least Galway. And when I get established, the States. There's nothing for you here in the long term, Naimh."

"You could be right about that."

"I know I am."

When they got home they learned that their father had died. Their mother had gone into the bedroom to check him a few minutes earlier, and he was gone.

The next three days were busy with the wake and the funeral, and the other details attendant to an ordinary human death. When it was all over—the prayers said, the papers signed, the booze consumed, the old man in the ground, the last mourner departed—Dermot occupied himself with chores around the house. There were a lot of things that needed doing, things his father had not been able to do these last few months.

Dead at sixty. His mother not even that. She would want to stay on at the house until the day she died. There was no reason why she shouldn't, as long as her health was good. With a little financial assistance from Naimh and Dermot—not much, her needs were few—she'd manage all right.

If things went half-well for him, he'd be back in plenty of time to give her some grandchildren and look after her in her old age. And if he eventually changed his mind and decided to remain in America and raise a family there—if things went that well, then he could bring his mother across to live with them. And his sister, if she hadn't gotten married and had a bunch of babies in the meantime.

▼

"Dermot."

His eyes opened in the dark. Chill air. Silence. It was a moment before his mind began to form thoughts. I am home, County Mayo, Republic of Ireland. Mother in her room and Naimh in hers. The peaty smell of turf burning, the fire still alive downstairs. The day after tomorrow—no, it would be tomorrow, in fact—he would get on a plane at Shannon and fly back to Boston.

"Dermmmmmot..."

The bitch. Had her voice come from outside the window, or a window in the back of his brain? The sound of his own breathing. Nothing else. Dreaming—he must have been dreaming about that terrible woman. She was a good three thousand miles away, having all her neuroses and psychoses totted up by bored state employees who would move on to better jobs in due course.

Amazing, the quality of her voice. Like a moan from outside his window, and at the same time like a whisper in his ear. Real enough to wake him. It must have been a bad dream—he wouldn't have any other kind about her.

The rest of the night was ruined. Dermot drifted in and out of sleep, never enjoying more than a few uninterrupted minutes of peace. Not that he heard her again, not that he'd ever heard her in the first place. He just kept waking, dozing, and soon waking again. Useless. Untracked. He grew more tired.

He must have slept again because at some point he opened his eyes and the room was brighter. Day outside, grey light: cloudy as usual. He felt as if he'd been in bed for a long time but the house was still quiet. Perhaps his mother had gone down to the shop for eggs or milk. Was Naimh returning to work today? Most likely. Life goes on.

Dermot couldn't move. Or it might have been that he didn't want to move yet. Some combination of the two, no doubt, inertia and laziness. His body was like a heavy weight, a solid material that encased him. He wiggled his toes a little—that's better. He tried to turn his head a little, and was surprised at how much effort it took to budge an inch. He felt okay. But then again, he didn't feel right.

A while later Dermot opened his eyes. Was I asleep? He had no desire to move now, no will to get out of bed and do something with the day. He had a foreign taste in his mouth, and his teeth tingled unpleasantly—as if he were biting tin. What was wrong with him, he wondered abstractly. It did seem to be a matter of interest, but not a real concern. Thoughts came and went, but he couldn't make anything of them. They were inconclusive, they had the random quality of accidents. Just thinking about what he was thinking about had the effect of exhausting him. Dermot realized his eyes were closing this time, and he felt happy about it.

He was drowning. He gagged, his tongue working furiously to retrieve something that was already halfway down his throat—he woke up spitting. It made a sound like dice on the lino. Dermot swallowed blood as he pushed his face toward the edge of the bed. He saw it on the floor across the room—a tooth. Yes, it's one of mine. The empty socket began to hurt, a deep, throbbing pain. What is this now, a toothache after the fact? Bloody unfair. It dug into him.

His face was wet. That was how he discovered that he'd been asleep again. The old woman was washing blood and dribble off of his chin. She was familiar. He wanted to tell her that she was in severe danger of scrubbing his skin down to the next layer but when she finally let go he was too weak to utter a word. Then he saw the man standing nearby. He looked unfamiliar, but he had to be a doctor. Of course—Dermot was sick. That explained a lot of things. He felt better. Still sick, but better.

Where were they? Why was he alone? They were here a minute ago, he was sure of that. He hadn't seen them leave, but now the room was empty. He was too alone. It was stifling, suffocating. He tried to sit up, but failed; the old muscle tone was somewhat deficient. He opened his mouth and tried to work up some saliva. He called out feebly.

"Haaaaaaa..." Almost a wheeze. They shouldn't leave him on his own like this. Dermot was aware of pain. His insides etched with acid. His throat choking him. Even his arse, God help him, felt as if it had hot coals embedded in it, from not being moved. He couldn't move himself, so it was up to them—and they'd done a disappearing act. He tried to think of anything else, to dodge the pain. Had they picked up that tooth? He was curious to take a look at the rotten bugger.

"Haaaaaaa..."

He looked up and the girl was holding his hand. By God, she was beautiful. He knew her. Naimh. Don't leave. Stay with me. Don't even let go of my hand or I'll fall off the edge. He tried to tell her these things but the words remained stuck in his mind and all he could do was look at her.

Then the boy. The boy? If he'd come such a distance, this must be serious. Oh yes. It had been a while, and he was happy. If only I could tell you that. The boy looked just like him. It was difficult even to understand what he was saying.

"...not a real pub."

Yes, yes, but it's work, it's real money, and you'll be able to build on it for the future. There's nothing for you here.

"...for Kerrymen."

Gone again. Everything goes so fast. You are left alone in a stark room with a view of nothing much. The pain scouring away at his insides had nearly reached the surface. Anytime now. And when it gets here, with any luck I'll dissolve completely.

Dermot's mind was flooded with clarity. This is dying. The hour, the minute. A surge of strength in his arms. He pushed up on his elbows, and then, painfully, his hands. He had to see, to see—but what? Not this mean, damp bedroom in which so much of his life had been spent. Out the window, away. Two people were walking across the field, toward the house. A young man, a young woman. Dermot and Naimh.

"Haaaaaaa..."

▼

First their father, then their mother. It happened that way more often than you might think, when they'd been very close. Or so the doctor said. Dermot went to sleep, and she never woke up. At least with the old man it was expected. But this was a shock. He'd only had a little while to speak with each of them, and even then it was minor, trivial. Dear God. You've put us all in such a lonely, desperate country.

But that was a while back.

He moved. That is, he thought he moved. Dermot couldn't be sure about it. He was dreaming. The whole thing was just a long bad dream. Yes, it often seems that way, doesn't it? But Dermot knew better. He made an effort to move. He put his foot down.

Clutch in.

Shifted up coming out of the bend.

He knew this road. He'd had a few drinks, but that wasn't a cause for alarm. If the Garda stopped him, it meant nothing. He was Dermot Mulreany, bound for Shannon, bound for Boston. He had somehow gotten better, overcome tragedy and loss and reached this point in his life where he—

Clutch in.

Shifted down going into a sharp bend.

He knew this road. Another Saturday night at the Crystal. The band sang "Roisin Dubh," nearly as good as the Thin Lizzy original. The black rose. He would keep that in mind—it was a good name for a pub.

You're so good-looking. So why do you live alone? Why do you sleep alone at night?

The lads reeked of stout and Carrolls cigarettes, as usual. They couldn't dance to save their lives, and all they ever wanted to do was get a hand up your jumper, but—

He glanced down at himself, trembling with sudden awareness. Female breasts inside that blouse. Stocking-clad legs, two knees poking out from beneath the plain skirt that had hitched up a bit in the car. He couldn't take his eyes off them, as if they were the most amazing thing he'd ever seen.

"Dermot..."

The car—watch out. Too late, the road was lost, the tree racing unnaturally toward him—no, her. No! his mind screamed. Not Naimh! This time O God please let me be the one who dies not Naimh not Naimh let me die!

Even worse, he lived.

▼

He saw her on Boston Common. He wanted to turn and run when he saw her coming toward him, but his legs went stiff and he felt swamped with helplessness and inevitability. He simply could not avoid her. Hatred boiled up within him, but at the same time it was crushed with fear. It had to be two years now, more or less. Somehow she had got out. Done her time, had her treatment. They couldn't hold her forever.

He was the only one left.

She looked pathetic, shuffling along aimlessly. Raggedy old clothes, hair a mess, face wrecked by life. Still a young woman, for all of that. Dermot stopped. Couldn't move. She glanced at him. Their eyes met. She had the same look, searching, vacant, lonely, as if she peered out at the world from some awful place. Dermot shriveled inside. Sweat misted his face, turning cold in the sharp November air.

But she showed no sign of knowing him, not even a flicker of subconscious recognition. As if he were invisible and she didn't even see him there. Then she passed through Dermot like a sudden arrhythmia, and was gone.

Hungry by Steve Rasnic Tem

Steve Tem is one of those very quiet, gentle fellows who never seems to let demonstrative types like myself get him upset. I know this because I've rejected more than a few Tem offerings because I kept trying to get Steve to push his personal creative envelope, to give me something less familiar and less comfortable than he usually tried to write. A real pro, Steve always took my feverish notes to him without the hint of a whine or a fuck-you, and he reached down inside to create a family relationship that recalls the unsettling freakishness of Henry Kuttner's "Hogbens". The title, "Hungry," is fascinating in itself because it says nothing and yet it says everything.

Mama?

Vivian Sparks took her hands out of the soapy water and stared into the frosted kitchen window. There was a face in the ice and fog, but she wasn't sure which of her dead children it was. Amy or Henry, maybe—they'd had the smallest heads, like early potatoes, and about that same color. Those hadn't been their real names, of course. Ray always felt it was wrong to name a stillborn, so they didn't get a name writ down on paper, but still she had named every one of them in her heart: Amy, Henry, Becky, Sue Ann, and Patricia, after her mother. Patricia had been the smallest, not even full-made really, like part of her had been left behind in the dark somewhere. Ray had wanted Patricia took right away and buried on the back hill, he'd been so mad about the way she came out. But the midwife had helped Vivian bathe the poor little thing and wrap her up, and she'd looked so much like a dead kitten or a calf that it made it a whole lot worse than the others, so dark and wet and wrinkled that Vivian almost regretted not letting Ray do what he'd wanted.

Mama...

But it wasn't the dead ones, not this time. A mother knows the voice of her child, and Vivian Sparks felt ashamed to have denied it. It felt bad, always hearing the dead ones and never expecting the one she'd have given up anything for, no matter what Ray said. Ray wouldn't have let her adopt him, if it hadn't been for those stillborns, but she would have done it on her own if she had to, even if she'd had ten other children to care for. It was her own darling Jimmie Lee out there in the cold foggy morning. It had to be.

Vivian opened the back door and looked out onto the bare dirt yard that led uphill to the lopsided gray barn. Ray's lantern flickered in there where he was checking on the cows. She couldn't see much else because of the dark, and the fog. It was still trying real hard to be Spring here in late March—she'd caught a whiff of lilac breeze yesterday afternoon—but it worried her that the hard frost was going to put an end to that early flowering before she'd see any blossoms. That was always a bad sign when the lilacs came out too soon and the ice killed the hope of them.

"Mama, it's me."

Vivian reached up and touched her throat, trying to help a good swallow along. Suddenly her throat felt as if it were full of food, and she just couldn't get it all down. Ray said it was because of Jimmie Lee, her problem with eating, said it had been like that for her ever since Jimmie Lee came into their lives. "You don't eat right no more. I guess you can't," he said over and over, the way he repeated something to death when he had a mad feeling about it. "Can't say that I even blame you—it's understandable. Watchin' him go at it, it'd put anybody off their food. That's why I never watched."

She guessed there was truth in what he said, but she didn't like to think about it that way. What she liked to think was that it was all her feelings for Jimmie Lee coming up into her throat when she'd looked at him, or now when she thought about him, all the sadness and the love that made it hard for her to breathe, much less eat. And the memory of him touching her on her throat, gazing at her mouth the night before he left home to join that awful show. That was another reason for her to be touching her throat now, in that same place.

"Mama, I come back to visit."

Vivian could hardly speak. Maybe the love in her throat was so big it was closing up her windpipe. "Come on, come... on, honey. Been a long time."

Past the east fence she could see the darkness gray a little and move away. She started to walk over but a simple yet awful sound—a young man clearing his throat—stopped her. She clutched the huge lump in her throat. It was warm, as if it might burn her fingers.

"Mama, I ate something off the road a while back. I just gotta get rid of it, then I'll come up where you can see me."

She turned her back to him even though it would have been much too dark to see what he was about to do. But after watching him a thousand times when he was little she felt like he was a grown boy now, and deserved some show of respect, and she wasn't sure but maybe this was one way to do it. At the same time she knew her turning away wasn't at all being the good mama, either. She didn't want to see it anymore. She didn't feel like she should have to.

Back in the darkness there was a sound like damp skin stretching, splitting, some awful coughs and gurglings like her son's throat was turning itself inside out (dear God it's got worse!) and then a loud, mushy thump.

A few minutes later she could hear him walking up behind her. "I'm sorry, Mama." His voice was hoarse, like he'd been crying. He used to cry all the time when he was little, complaining all the time about being so hungry, and never getting full no matter how much she fed him, how much Ray let her feed him, or how ever much Jimmie Lee ate on his own to try to fill that awful hunger. His nose would run and his eyes would look all raw and scraped and he'd stop trying to keep himself clean. Vivian took a handkerchief out of her front apron pocket now and turned around to give it to him.

"Thanks, Mama. I'll get good and clean for you, just for you." The young man standing in front of her, saying just what he used to say to her when he was a little boy and had made himself such an awful mess, was taller, surely, and had little scraggly patches of beard here and there where once had been unnaturally pink skin, but other than that he still seemed the pale, skinny little boy who had left her years ago. His chin was covered with thick, soupy slobber which he wiped off with the handkerchief. She didn't mind—that had always been her job, to provide the handkerchiefs, the towels, waiting patiently while he cleaned himself up, directing him now and then to a missed spot or two. Ray had never been able to stand even that little bit of clean up; he'd always just left the room.

"My goodness!" She made herself sound impressed, although what she was really feeling was relieved, and desperate to hug him to her. "My handsome older son."

Jimmie Lee grinned then, showing teeth even worse than she remembered. She could see that at least he'd been able to get some dental work done, but it looked like the fillings and braces had been filed, points added here and there to make him look more like a silly machine, some big city kitchen gadget of some kind. She wondered if it really helped him get the food down or if it was all just for some sideshow or movie work he'd been doing. He'd written her once about one of the movies—"Flesh Eaters From Beyond Mars," or some such silliness. He'd said in the letter that the movie people liked him because he saved them money on special effects, but she'd never really understood what any of that was about.

Other than the metal in his mouth her sweet boy hadn't changed much. Certainly he couldn't weigh much more now than when he'd left her: his body straight up and down like a sleeve with no hips or shoulders to speak of, but his neck about twice as wide as it should be, and faintly ringed, like a snake's belly. Set atop that stout neck was the largest jaw she'd ever seen—it hung out like the bird bath on top the pedestal she had out in the front flower bed. His mouth was wider than normal, she guessed, but had never seemed as big as it should be for that size jaw. His lips were almost blue, and cracked, and there were a bunch more splits in the skin at the corners of his mouth. Because of all the stretching his skin had to do there hair growth had always been spotty. She'd tried to get him to use lotions and oils, but like most children he just forgot all the time. So she'd always rub some into his face every night, being especially careful around the mouth and chin. She wondered if he knew somebody now who cared enough to do that for him.

His eyes were the wide eyes of a lost child's, but then they always had been. Jimmie Lee now was just a larger version of the poor baby that had been born in a backwoods barn and just left there eighteen years before. No one else had wanted the funny looking child but Vivian had known from the very first moment she saw him that this was her son, and would be forever. Even Ray, for all his puffin' and embarrassment about the boy, had resented it when one of the neighbors suggested that maybe they shouldn't keep him. This was his son, even though sometimes he sorely couldn't stand being around him.

And then Jimmie Lee had gone out into the world, maybe to find his "real" mother, or maybe to find whatever it was he was hungry for. She didn't know, and was afraid then, and was afraid now, to ask. All she'd had to remember him by was this awful swelling in her throat every time she thought of him, and every time she struggled to eat or drink something. But nobody'd ever told her that life was fair to mothers.

"Did you ever find her, son?"

"Who, Mama?"

"Why, the one who gave birth to you. The one who just left you here all them years ago." She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice, but the vein went too wide and deep to hide.

His throat gurgled and a raw smell escaped. She started to turn away, but he held out his hand to stop her. "It's okay, mama. I still got it under control. I'm a lot more careful about how and when I eat now. Something I learned on the road, having to be around other people." He looked at her. She waited. "I never found her, Mama. Guess I didn't try much after the beginning. I guess I was a little afraid of what she'd look like."

"You stayin' long?"

"I can't. I finally figured out it's best I be around folks who don't know me so well. But I just had to see you again, and smell you, and listen to you talk. I had to."

Her throat filled and she had to force it back down so that she could speak again. "You best get inside now, have something to..." She looked away from his nervous, hungry face, to where he'd come from in the dark beyond the fence, now turning gray so fast she could see a little bit of what he'd left there: great big mounds of meat still steaming in the cold, their hides partly dissolved away, large hunks of their manes missing, the meat turned to something like jelly, their teeth protruding from lipless mouths. A couple of Winn Gibson's prize mares, she suspected. Well, she guessed Ray was just going to have to deal with Winnie on that one, like he had all those times before. She sighed. "Guess you'd best just get inside..."

▼

Jimmie Lee held up the brightly-colored, tattered poster beside his face. "It don't look much like me, I reckon, but the owner said they had to exaggerate a little bit to draw a crowd. He said people expected it like that, so that it wasn't lyin' exactly. They called me the Snake Boy." The poster showed a giant snake with her son's lost baby eyes on it, its huge mouth gaped open and an elephant disappearing inside. Lined up into the distance were chickens, bears, and a horse with a huge belly, all with worried looks on their faces.

"That's very nice, son," Vivian said quietly.

"But I only stayed there a few months. I didn't much like people lookin' at me like that, you know, mama?"

"I know, sweetheart."

"It was like the way people used to stare at me around here, only worse. Worse 'cause they were strangers, I guess. I never did like strangers watchin' me while I was eatin'."

"It certainly is impolite," she said. "People shouldn't stare at other people while they're eating. You can hardly digest your food that way." She raised her hand to her throat.

"So that's why I left the show. I did odd jobs after that, until I got to do those movies I wrote you about. And once for a few months I had me a dandy of a job in one of those meat-packing plants. It was late at night, and I had the place all to myself. It was great."

"I'm sure it was, Jimmie Lee."

"But the owner of the sideshow, he really could entertain you. That was a good part of it, mama—it weren't all bad. He'd crack all these jokes when he introduced me, and then he'd make more of 'em while I did my 'act,' but all I did was sit up on that stage and eat. But he'd say these things and all the people would laugh and I reckon that's a real good thing. He was real funny, mama, you shoulda seen. You'd a laughed till you cried, I bet."

"I bet I would that, honey."

"We had ourselves enough show 'round here to last us a lifetime, I reckon."

Vivian clutched at her apron. She hadn't heard him come in. She twisted in her chair in time to see Ray throw down his old coat and go stomping off to the bathroom to wash up.

"I guess daddy still don't want me around here." Jimmy Lee sat still with his legs spread, long nervous hands dangling and twisting between his knees.

"Your daddy just gets tired, honey. We all get tired now and then."

She could hear her husband splashing in the water, then hands slapping it onto his face. Jimmie Lee's eyes were large and white in the dimly-lit room. When he was small his eyes always looked like that. Before they discovered the hunger he had, Ray used to joke that Jimmie Lee's eyes were bigger than his mouth. "I get tired, too," Jimmie Lee said. "And, Mama, I still get so hungry."

Vivian couldn't move. She stared at her son with tears in her eyes. "I love you, honey. I just keep loving you and loving you."

"I know, Mama. But it's like the love goes inside me and gets lost and then it just isn't there anymore. Like I eat the love, Mama. And then I'm still hungry."

Ray came back into the room and flopped down into his recliner. He sighed and looked directly at Jimmie Lee. "Well, son, you're lookin'... better. Better than the last time I seen you. That's good to see. You doin' a job now? You find yourself somethin' you can do?"

Jimmie Lee leaned forward and tried to smile. But the cracks in his lips and around his mouth bent and twisted the smile. Vivian started crying softly to herself and Ray looked at her with what she thought was an unusual sadness on the face of this man she'd known almost all her life. Then Jimmie Lee must have known something was wrong, because it looked as if he were trying to pull the smile back in, and it just made it worse.

"I left that show, Papa. I know that'll please you. Made a couple of movies. And I did some real work, too, like at a packing plant, and once I spent almost a year at this junkyard outside Charlotte..."

"Junk yard? You learn the junk business? Now that can be a good trade for a young man. There's always goin' to be junk lyin' around."

Jimmie Lee looked down at his feet. "Well, papa, there was pieces the man couldn't sell, and they were just sittin' around his yard, takin' up too much space he said, and he couldn't get rid of them..."

His father interrupted. "You're talkin' about the eatin' now, and I ain't gonna talk about the eatin'."

"But, Papa, eatin' metal junk, specially cars, why that's become almost like a regular thing in some places. They put it in the papers, and sometimes it even gets on the T.V. Some fella'll eat a big Buick, or an old Ford Mustang..."

His father leaned forward out of his recliner and stared hard at Jimmie Lee. "We don't talk about the eatin' in this house. Look how you've gone and upset your mother."

Vivian sat rock-still in her chair, her eyes closed and mouth open, crying without sound.

"Vivian, why don't you go on out to the hen house and get the boy some fresh eggs? The boy always liked fresh eggs."

She stared at him, her eyes sharp and red. "Wh-what?"

"Papa, I don't need eggs..."

"Sure you do. Vivian, go get the boy some eggs. He used to eat a dozen of 'em at a time, from what I remember. Shell and all. But at least it was real food. Go on now."

Vivian stood stiffly, and left the room. She went out through the back door and around the side toward the hen house. But when she passed near the open window of the livingroom she stopped, because she could hear her husband and her son talking inside. And she knew what they would be talking about—she knew what Ray would be saying to Jimmie Lee. She crept closer, and stood just under the lilac bush by the window, where she could see their faces, and the feelings painted there.

Ray started talking low and firm. "Now it's good to see you, I mean that, son. I know I ain't always been as soft as I should of when you were at home, but I been thinkin' about you every day since you left us. You been sorely missed—you sure have—and not just by your Mama." He leaned back and sighed. "But your Mama's sick, boy, real sick, and I just don't know if she can stand watchin' what you go through, havin' it be like it was before."

"Mama? What's wrong with her? Tell me..."

"Well, she never did eat all that well, and I reckon we all know the reason for that." Jimmie Lee looked down at his stomach and away. Vivian held her throat and struggled not to make a sound. "But that don't matter so much now. It weakened her, and she's had pneumonia so many times over the years she damn near coughed her lungs out. But she's got the cancer now, and it's clean through her, Doc Jennings says, and she can't have long to go."

Jimmie Lee's face was sheened with sweat. That's what he did, instead of crying. His body never had let him cry.

"Even less, I reckon, if you stay around, son."

Jimmie Lee stood up. "I understand, Papa. I appreciate you levelin' with me."

"You're a good son, Jimmie Lee."

Vivian rushed down to the hen house and grabbed what she could, then ran back into the house and into the living room, out of breath, a scarf full of eggs hugged to her bosom. Jimmie Lee was still standing, but had already started for the door. She looked at her husband, then at Jimmie Lee. "You're leavin'," she said flatly. The eggs tumbled out of her arms and splattered across the braided rug.

"I gotta check some things out down at the pasture," his father said, getting up. He pulled on his sweater, started to leave, then walked over to Jimmie Lee and gave him a quick hug.

After her husband left the house Vivian still stood there among the broken eggs, looking at Jimmie Lee as if she were memorizing him, or trying to puzzle him out. Jimmie Lee bent over and started picking up the egg shells. "Leave those alone," she said softly. He straightened back up and looked down at her, his thin lips twitching, the scars around his mouth wrinkling like worms moving across his face. "He told you, didn't he?" she said. "He told you all of it."

Jimmie Lee nodded. "I better go, Mama."

"You come here, baby." She held out her arms to him and when he wouldn't come any closer she walked over to him and attached her frail body to his. "You're not leavin' me this time."

"Mama, please. I gotta go."

"No, sir."

"Mama, I'm hungry." And he tried to push her body away.

She pressed closer, and raised her hand to his lips. "I know, baby." And pulled his thin, cracked lips apart with her fingers. And put her fingers inside her baby's mouth, then put her hand inside, then both hands. As if out of his control, his huge jaw dislocated, his pliant facial muscles stretched. He tried to pull back, to make his mouth let go of her, but she wouldn't have any of that. "No, child. Just take it, child." His mouth wouldn't let go, and as her head disappeared inside him he heard her say again, "I'm not leaving you."

For the first time in his life, what he ate, all that he ate, became nourishment, and remained inside him.

Horror Story by Whitley Strieber

The author of books as primal as The Wolfen, horrifically elegant as The Hunger, and as frightening as Communion does not write enough short fiction. Whitley Strieber wrote a story several years ago entitled "Pain" for an anthology called Cutting Edge which will probably remain with me forever—it is one of the most disturbing pieces of fiction I've ever read. Whitley is one of my favorite writers and I am honored to present you with his latest short story. Like "Pain," the tale which follows proffers some of the most grim answers to the question of humankind's very existence I've seen this side of Kafka. I'd like to say "enjoy," but I know that's inappropriate here.

They were not lovers, not exactly that, but their affection often drifted into physical contact that edged on the erotic. Now they sat together in a studio apartment, listening to the wind whine past the tiny concrete balcony. Inside, the only sound was the occasional turning of a page in the magazine Darin was reading.

"Bloody amazing," Charlie said. He was vehement.

Darin acknowledged this with the smallest possible rebuttal. "It's culture. You wouldn't understand."

Charlie toyed with a bottle of Jack Daniels. He was obviously bored. He probably wouldn't have minded a game of cards. Gin Rummy. Spite and Malice. "You haven't got a boredom threshhold," he said angrily.

Darin closed his eyes in annoyance, flopped his magazine into his lap. "Look, Charlie, it's an interesting story. Ok. Please."

"Who ever ever reads the fiction in the New Yorker ? I'd sooner read the back of a cereal box."

"You read the backs of cereal boxes every fucking morning."

"Now don't bring fucking in, just because you're black."

Darin glared at him, then glanced up into the murky haze that formed the ceiling of the room. He waited, passive, for the distant clatter of the old Smith Corona that was being hammered out there. Finally, it came. "I'm not black, Charlie." Again he looked up. "Is that all?" There came more typing: Darin threw the magazine down. He knew that he wasn't going to get to finish his story.

"You're black," Charlie insisted.

"Ok, look at me. Do I look black? Do I sound black? Do I act black? I ain't black, man! Sheet!" He covered his mouth, looked down at the backs of his black hands. Then he stood up, raised his fist to the opaque, foggy emptiness above. "Come on, turkey, this isn't even good fiction! You can do better than this!"

For a long moment, the typewriter was silent. When it started again, Charlie was the character chosen to speak. "You're black now," Charlie said. "I mean, I remember when you weren't. But now you are."

"I ain't! I mean—oh, shit." Darin stopped. He picked up an ashtray with goldfish frozen in the glass, and hurled it as hard as he could out into the surrounding oblivion. There came a thud, a gasp. Then he regarded Charlie, his arms folded. "Charlie, you never quite understand, do you? It's him. He's out there, causing you to say I'm black. He could turn us into a couple of fucking papooses if he wanted to. But I'm not black and we're not papooses, and that is what is real!"

Charlie went over to the tv, carrying the bottle of Jack Daniels. He turned, wielding it like a club. "This is what is real. Something you can touch and smell and taste and goddamn well drink!" He tipped the bottle and guzzled.

"Charlie, the booze isn't real, either! Don't you hear that fucking typewriter. He's written the booze into your life!"

"I drink like a fish!"

Darin grabbed his friend's shoulders. "You didn't say that, you only think you said it because that's what he wrote! You hate liquor. We don't even have any in the house!"

"You're telling me some guy in the ceiling is controlling us with a typewriter?"

"Yes! He's the writer, we're the characters! We do what he says, say what he says! We're part of him, part of his soul. That's why we live in this stinking little apartment. Because he's got a stinking little soul!"

Charlie was not the kind who would understand a thing like this easily. He was competent, but not mentally nimble. He frowned a deep frown, took a long, sweet pull of Jack. "I'm an alcoholic. And we've got another two cases of Jack in the hall closet. Or we would, if this fucking hole had a hall." Darin got up, grabbed Charlie's bottle. "You don't have this! It doesn't exist. And look at my skin, look at it! It's white again because he forgot to continue with the black imagery, or maybe he thinks it doesn't work and he's going to go back later and revise! He can do that, he can revise us all he wants." Gently, insistently, Darin drew Charlie away from the bottle. He pulled him over to the couch, sat him down. "Charlie," he said, "let me lick your lips for you. They look dry." He smiled softly. "Deliciously dry..."

Darin stiffened, glared upward, screamed over the thunder of the typewriter: "I'd never lick another man's lips! Look, you've got a hell of a lot of control over what we do and say and even some control over who we are. Ok, I accept that! I don't like it, but I accept it! But I also know, because I am part of you, that you are dying of cancer and in a lot of pain and you're scared to death because you are going to leave your wife and son dirt poor, and you have a reputation as a fucking weirdo spaceman, and you're a hideous, run-down old dufus with sores on your fucking schlong that your wife doesn't know about, and—" Gasping with rage, his eyes bulging, sweat popping out all over his body, Darin took a step, glared upward. "Give me a gun, prickface, and I'll put you out of your misery! I'll shoot open those blasted lungs of yours and you'll die right now instead of in six months, clawing for air in some damn cheap hospital ward watched by indifferent gum-cracking nurses whose only concern is that you might blow a sphincter and give them a cleanup job after you go!"

His voice cracked, he keeled, choking and gasping, like the first time the writer noticed his cancer, could not get a breath, turned purple, gagged, coughed black masses of half-dried mucous out over the rug, then collapsed to the floor, blood bubbling in his throat.

"Just like me," a voice whispered from somewhere, "just like me..." Then the typewriter keys pounded, and the two desperate characters continued in their terrible little eternal prison of an apartment, a sleazy, half-thought out place hanging in the middle of the mind's nowhere.

The typewriter pounded, sang: Charlie bent over him, hesitated a moment, then began to riffle his pockets. Sure, they'd been friends for years, but what a marvelous chance this was. Charlie was just a bit dumb, and he liked money because money would buy him women, and he loved women. He loved to put his big hands around their pretty necks and strangle them with great care. Sometimes he'd spend an hour at it, strangling them to the edge, then bringing them back. Listening to the breath whistling, feeling the pee coming out all hot around their legs as they passed out.

He'd wait for them to become conscious again, looking down deep into their eyes as the spark returned, feeling an absolute thrill pass through him as they regained awareness of their situation. He'd listen as they bargained for their lives, even encourage them, even let them win.

Then he'd strangle them again.

Now Charlie was staring upward. His eyes were wide with horror. "Jesus Christ, you are sick!" He ran a little bit, feeling the sense of confinement, of limits everywhere.

He knew where he was and what he was and all he was

"I'm a man," he shouted, "we both are, and you're toying with us, you bastard, you're playing games with our reality!"

This brought movement in the fog, a huge mass, gliding swiftly downward, and then as if the gates of hell had swept aside a huge, sweat-sheened face, the cheeks puffy, the nose disfigured by popped capillaries, the lips dry and flaked with the chalk of a thousand antacid tablets, came looming down toward him. The eyes, the eyes were terrible, glaring like headlights, with a shark's glittering emptiness. Such a horror Charlie had never imagined possible in this world, and he cried out, his soul beaten by the very ugliness of that face, his heart screaming in his breast. He grabbed Darin, shaking and shaking, screaming blindly, the words slurred by mad terror. He could not look again on the face of the monster, but he could feel it's gaze like the fire of a flamethrower boiling into his back and brain.

He shook and shook and shook and finally Darin's eyes fluttered open. "It's here, it's come down and it's here," Charlie bellowed, "my dear God it's horrible! Oh, Christ, Darin, Darin—"

When Darin's eyes finally focused, they gazed directly into the face that had loomed down out of the fog. Unlike Charlie, Darin did not feel terror when he faced the truth of his self and life. In the face of his creator he saw a curious mixture of sledgehammer power and awful, sardonic fear.

"You're one, too," Darin said. And he threw back his head, and he laughed.

Charlie was amazed. "What's so fucking funny! We got King Kong breathin' down our fuckin' necks!"

"He's just like us—a creation, a little bit of somebody else's imagination! He's nothing, too!"

"Yeah, but he's got the fuckin' typewriter, ole buddy ole pal!" The whisper came again, enormous, hollow, infinitely sad. "I certainly do, Charlie. So let's see you chew this little chaw." The face disappeared, and Charlie and Darin sat as still as statues for a moment, listening, waiting for their lives to continue. Soon the rythmic thunder of the Smith Corona started again:

Charlie ripped off Darin's pants and started chewing his dick.

Charlie was furious. He raised his head from his friend's genitals, glared into the fog. "Stop that! Don't write shit like that! Jesus, what're people gonna think?" Then, with a sort of trembling paroxysm mixed of disgust and desire, he bent again to Darin's slack member. "It is lovely, though. I must say." He bent closer, ashamed, hesitant. But Darin's hand came up and twined in his hair, gently urging him closer. There exploded in his heart a thrill of submission and pleasure as his lips came into contact with the warm, slick skin of Darin's rapidly expanding penis—

Then both men erupted, twisting and turning away from each other. Darin screamed a little in his throat, concealing his half-engorged penis in shaking hands. "You dare to write that! My God, what will people think? They think the author is his characters, you fool! They're gonna call you a homo, a queer, a poof! And you're not, you're a staid old family man with cancer!"

Charlie was spitting and cursing. "You about made me throw up, prickhead! Jesus God and Christ, I don't want some guy's dick in my mouth. Why don't you get a chick into this? I'll chew pussy any day of the week."

The typewriter rumbled, it's bell clanging like the bell that calls the souls back to hell. It rumbled, clattered, spread it's poison:

Charlie saw deep inside himself, driven there by the fear and the agony, he saw deep, deep, and there at the center was a little silver woman dancing, and he knew that his fears and his hatreds were dancing with her, and if he wanted to understand himself, ever wanted to get down deep and find out what made him dumb and scared and lonely, he would have to become her, the woman who had been hiding in him from the year one. "Oh, fuck! Oh, no, I see where this is leading!" He stared up into the dense, absent fog. "Don't do this to me!"

But there was no choice. His deepest instincts could not lie. He didn't want to be Charlie anymore—

"You fucking pig!"

—he wanted to be Charlene!

"Fuck you!"

Helpless to control this impulse, he picked up the phone, dialed the number he'd committed to memory when he was a flustered, desperately unhappy fourteen year old. "Doctor," he said, "I want you to make me a woman."

Nah, this is no good. This is shit. So he wasn't talking on the phone, and Darin wasn't unconscious. Let's see. I need to do something here that'll really suck the fuckin' reader in. He's the one gonna get his throat cut, if me and Darin and Charlie have anything to say about it. So, say hey, reader, we're dropping this Charlene move, it's stupid. Every man has a woman in his heart. That's what sex is all about.

But what we're all about, what we're doing here as we stealthily turn you into our main character, is—

Charlie wasn't really talking on the phone, just as Darin wasn't really unconscious. Neither of them was gay and there was no bottle of Jack Daniels in the room. They weren't even in a studio apartment, they were in a luxurious flat in London in the year 1853. And Darin is not Charlie's friend. He is Lord George Darin, surgeon. And Charlie is, well, just plain Charlie, and he's got a pretty nasty cough.

Lord George is listening to Charlie's chest with a sounding trumpet made of gutta-percha. "Take a breath, old chap," he says. He knows from the solid return when he taps the chest that there is a cancer there. He knows, also, that it is hopelessly inoperable, and if he had so much as a grain of decency he would bash the poor jerk's head in and sell his body to science. Instead he's going to operate.

But this is 1853 and there are still a few things not in place in the operating room. Like, there is no hygiene. So, our instruments are crusted with bits of brain from another surgery. A piece of colon and a little fecal matter from yet another. Hair-thin threads of wool from being wiped by the good doctor against his apron. Looking closer, the scalpel is almost entirely covered by virus colonies that look like Pueblo cities seen from the air or the Nazca lines, and there are herds of streptococci racing back and forth in the gleaming universe of the blade's edge, hungry and screaming for food, microbes in starving agony, wondering when the blurred sailing shadows of the gods will come down and feed them into the world of paradise that they seek, the echoing halls of bloodvessels and veins, and the comfortable sweet pads of fat where they will make their happy homes.

And so Dr. Lord Darin lifts his scalpel, absently licks his thumb and tests the blade. He is a brilliant surgeon, he can excise a gallstone in twenty seconds, remove a brain tumor in half an hour, extract a whole bubbling lung in forty minutes. This is important, this speed, because his patients will have no anesthesia not offered by the bottle and the mallet.

Charlie breathes and it hurts, it hurts a lot. "Can't rightly do it, guv," he gasps.

"It's the left lung," Lord George says, "a conflictive humor. It's got to come out, I'm afraid."

Charlie sags, feels his face grow hot with fear, begins to tremble. Then he looks up, toward the ceiling painted with clouds, to the angels hiding in the cumuli that surround the sputtering candle chandelier. "You up there! Why the fuck ain't it Doctor Charles and Darin the fuckin' coalmonger with the bum airbag? You hate me, you always make me the friggin' grunt! And never any pretty girls, you perverted windbag shitface asshole!"

Doctor Lord Darin takes poor old Charlie by the hand. Charlie gasps at his touch and he feels it to his core, the lack of air, the awful hard absence in his chest. And he thinks, this is how it feels to die, and—where the fuck did I get lung cancer?

"Oh, no, moron, those are your thoughts," Charlie screams. "You're the one that's dying and that is flat. I'm a friggin character, I'll change. Or I'll go on after you die, waking up every time the fuckin' page is read, and because this is fuckin' quantum sympathetic magic to boot, getting off the fuckin' page and out into the world anytime some suck-ass reader thinks, hey, this guy is doin it to my head man, he is not creating characters, he is fuckin' for real conjuring. God help us all!"

Doctor Lord Darin understands that this poor screaming maniac will not survive the operation. Of course not, but what an extraordinary addition to science, and perhaps because he dies somebody else will not die, maybe a young and worthy patient of good family will survive because of what the good Doctor Lord learns from this wretched case. He draws Charlie down to the basement beneath his chambers. There is a wooden table, guttered and bucketed like a coroner's slab. But, unlike the coroner's workspace, this object is fitted with thick leather straps.

"Oh, no! No, for God's sake, don't do this! Don't you understand that this is real? I'm going to suffer the agonies of the damned here!"

Which is very sad. So, he's cured!

"Thank the Lord!"

Nope, just joking. You aren't cured at all. In fact, you're worse. He's gonna find that both of your lungs are full of cancer just like mine you arrogant prick of a character!

"Strip down," Lord George orders. Charlie, shaking so hard he can barely manage to untie his trouser-rope, manages. He looks like a cut-rate chicken, all dry and blue under the arms, with funny plucked-wing elbows and the turkey-neck wrinkles of long starvation. He smells like a mixture of old man and urine, with an undertone, when he breathes, of corpse rot.

"I wouldn't mind if I could send for me wife, yer Lordship."

That's crap. Charlie has no wife. His wife is dead. What love he once knew is long gone, dropped into the mystery of the past.

"Never mind her. Now, lie down, that's it." He straps Charlie down. "Now, we'll have it out inside of an hour," he says. "Sister!"

There is a shuffling sound, and a girl of perhaps ten, wearing a grotesquely oversized white gown, comes staggering into the room. A huge sister's cap practically engulfs her head. "Hey, guy," Charlie says, "she's—"

She has the perfect face of an angel. Her eye is pure and clear, and sends a pang of utter longing deep into Charlie's soul. She has appeared as if from on high, an angel dropped from the glories in Doctor Lord Darin's consulting room ceiling. His nakedness humiliates Charlie and he tries to cover himself, then turns his face away, hurt by the assault of beauty.

"All right, sister, I want a spread of clamps and sphincters, and my smaller bone saw for the ribs. Scissors to the right of the clamps. And there, those sponges that lie beneath the basin." The nurse wipes the mould from each sponge as she puts it on the table. She blows hot breath on the scalpel and polishes it on her sleeve, then expertly strops it against the leather strap that is nailed to the edge of the table.

Doctor Lord Darin takes out a cigar, cuts and licks it and jams it in his face. At once a lucifer flares in the sister's pale tiny hand, and orange shadows dance the walls of the surgery, transforming it briefly into an ancient magic cavern, the lair of the rattling old lung-god himself.

With a whick, whick, whick his lordship gets the cigar roaring. "Scalpel," he says into the blue drift of smoke. She slaps it into his hand. Immediately he swipes a gigantic incision from Charlie's sternum right under his ribcage and up into his armpit. As if shocked by the suddenness of the wound, Charlie's body for a moment does not bleed.

"Spreaders!" he screams, jamming his fingers down between two ribs, parting them with a slither and a snap. The sister throws a bunch of railroad spikes at him, which he drives in between his shrieking patient's ribs. Black blood flows out, dropping into the bucket in thick blobs.

"Clawhammer! Tongs! Heat them, for God's sake, red hot! Foolish girl!" Then he stops, hangs his head. "Sorry, Charlie," he says into the tearing shrieks.

Then he lifts his head to the low beamed ceiling. "Stop this! For God's sake, are you crazy? You are fucking dying in the real fucking world and you know too damn much about what happens to people after they die, and that is what this story is really about and that is why it is a fucking horror story! So quit trying to deflect our attention with your lurid paranoiac surgery fantasies and get to the goddamn point!"

A hand reaches down and takes the cigar out of the Doctor Lord's mouth. The Doctor Lord grumps, says nothing. Then the angelic assistant disappears, her tongs and fires and spikes with her. Charlie's wound closes, his cancer cures itself, his clothes spin back around him, he sits up on the edge of the table.

For an hour in heaven, the Smith-Corona is still.

Charlie and Darin wait, marking the slow seconds, as all characters wait in all stories, to be created or read or remembered.

Once or twice, the awful face appears above, as the writer moves about in his room puffing the forbidden cigar. Then there is a long, complex cough, like the rising of a thunderstorm. It begins with a series of pops, rises to great, roaring blasts of sounds like the barking of the hounds of heaven, then tapers into a long, long wheeze, full of liquid and disease.

Finally Darin—who has been listening with disgust—claps his hands over his ears. "You are the loudest writer I've ever been created by! You snort, you gurgle, you cough. You keep on sticking your finger down your throat to feel that lump and making yourself throw up in the process. You have oat-cell carcinoma, dummy, they ain't gonna operate. You're gonna stay on radiation and chemo, because you ain't got a prayer. You're gonna die."

He knew that. He knew he was going to die and he had a boy to raise and a wife to love and they were used to a nice life and it was such a happy family and it hurt so goddamn much and where the hell did I get this fucking monster of a tumor, I don't smoke, I've never smoked and why me God, why me!

"You're smoking a cigar right now."

"That's literary! It doesn't actually exist."

Darin knows that this is the first time that the writer has spoken in the story, therefore entering it as a character. He reaches up. "Come on, Charlie," he says softly. "He's gonna come down."

"Shit if he is. He's gonna send a goddamn python after us next, this guy."

But Darin is right, the writer does come down into the story. He drops as softly as an owl to the floor of the apartment—for it is the apartment again, and the time is the present—and stands there, smiling slightly.

"Now he's feeling sorry for himself. He's dying, and he's—"

"No. I am not dying, not in the story. In the story I can still dream, and I can fly."

"You gave up the typewriter, now somebody else is writing the story?"

"Who?"

"If we could figure that out, we'd be able to figure out how to get out of here, now wouldn't we chummie? Sheesh! You're dumber than Charlie!"

"I don't know about you, Darin, but I'm getting some funny urges connected with this guy. I mean, this is the author. He's—"

"Omnipotent. They say that the author is omnipotent."

"Impotent. I want to, like, feel power over this guy. I want to do something totally obscene to him, or beat the shit out of him or make him eat shit or something."

"If God came to me, I wouldn't do that to him!"

"You are God, and I know it damn well. You're God walking the earth, and so the message I have for thee is, kiss my ass!"

Charlie advanced on the author, and as he advanced he ripped open his trousers, revealing a bitter purple spike that was more a weapon than a penis.

"My God, what degeneracy. An author who wants his characters to rape him. Well, I'll tell you something, Mr. Author, me and Charlie are too decent. You want rough stuff, you get back out to the Corona and create yourself some rough trade."

Charlie stops, turns away from the author, who had been ready to receive him and now slumps forward against him, becoming his burden instead of his victim. Charlie cradles the stinking old man. "The cigar was a fake," he says, "this guy smells like he's been mainlining Listerine."

"I worry about secondary infections."

They take the writer to the couch, sit down with him. Darin gets the bottle of Jack and everybody has a pull. "You want to tell us about it," he asks. The writer, now in tears, nods. Charlie puts his arm around the thin old shoulders.

"Doctor Warden told me that they couldn't operate because there was nothing to take out. 'This is a diffuse tumor,' was the way he said it. I told him the damn thing hurts! I felt like I was being benched for filing a ball or something. Like I was being punished! So I ask him, what do I do for the pain. Take aspirin. Now, that is fucking terminal, when they tell you it's cancer and take aspirin!"

All of that world fades, to the tune of the Smith-Corona, which is chugging away yet again. The writer writes at a desk covered with ancient copies of Sporting News and old weathered literary magazines. He's literary as hell but he's cool because he wears a Pirates hat and follows sports. He can handicap horses. He knows who Joe Shilabotnik is.

And he writes: Oh, Jesus, this is real, can't you understand that. I am here in this miserably dark room scared to fucking death in the middle of the night, sipping oxygen I bought mail order and drinking Jack Daniels because it makes me sick and maybe somehow vomiting will help, and my chest is burning and breathing doesn't work and suffocation hurts, I know because I put a bag over my head like Jerzy Kosinski and it was not a pleasant death, it was pure hell, it was the worst agony I've ever felt, I was never so glad in my life as when I got that bag off and breathed the sweet air and I am alone and I don't want to die, I'm only forty-seven!

Darin, who has come out of the story and is now lying on a old bed in the writer's sleazy office paging through a October, 1953 Police Gazette reading the chewing tobacco and brilliantine ads, gives the writer a long, cool stare. "Whine, whine, whine. Nobody ever wants to die."

"Come on, Dar, give the guy a break." Charlie is standing against the door, maybe guarding it, maybe just smoking the fictional cigar, which the writer has written into his mouth.

"He just about had me torn apart by a crazed surgeon with a fuckin' ten year old nurse!"

"He's trying to work out his fears. Give him a little space. I didn't tear you apart, did I? You're here, aren't you?"

"Yeah, yeah that's true. But it was the fuckin' thought. I mean, this piece of shit thought that up!"

"Charlie, could I tell you something? I know this guy. I mean, I'm more'n a hair smarter than you, am I right? I mean, no offense—"

"None taken."

"That's the spirit. Now, lemme tell you about this guy we got here writing this fuckin' thing, and why he is fucking with us so bad. The guy is dying—"

"Awright awready! I'm bored."

"But there's more to it than that."

"Death, smeth. Ain't there always?"

"A few years ago, this guy wakes up in the middle of the night—somebody flushes a toilet, a truck backfires out in the street, who knows why? But the guy—the dufus—thinks for some cockamamie reason that aliens are stuffing a fuckin' frozen banana up his tailpipe. No, you laugh, but this is true. This is what the guy thinks. Now, this fuckin' asshole, he doesn't just roll with it, let it go, you know. He fuckin' writes a book about it! Fuckin' jerk! He makes a dork out of himself on an international scale. I mean, it is amazing. He becomes known from Antarctica to goddamn Zanzibar as the guy who got his hole cored by little men from Neptune.

"Then something else happens. After it's all over, the guy really does get visited by aliens. Only it ain't like you think. It ain't like nobody thinks. They tell this guy the secrets of the ages. Why? Because they know he's dying and discredited and a dufus and so they just fuckin' do it because they're mean bastards and they see a chance to really scare the turkey so bad his shit turns to powder and his entire body starts growing cancers so weird them babies ain't even got names!"

Charlie had to admit it, he was kind of interested in the dufus with the secret of the ages. So that was who the story was about all right, the dork writing it, not the characters in it.

The dork, and the fuckhead readers who were having their minds permanently drilled and thought it was all some kind of shit-ass game.

This is not a game.

As a matter of fact, he and Darin were actually the writers, and the writer was the character. So they could do anything they pleased to him. "Make him suck his own dick!"

"He's got a bad back."

"So it's cured, shazam! Now he's into yoga. Why do guys go in for that? So they can suck themselves off instead of use a vacuum cleaner. Ok, the dufus is now plug naked on the floor of his office bent up like a pretzel and sucking his own dick. Suppose he can give himself AIDS to add to the cancer?"

Darin was rather put out by his friend. Here he was, about to reveal the secret of the ages and this guy was only interested in playing mind games with some goddam writer who probably doesn't even exist as a character, let alone a real person.

"Listen up, asshole."

"The dufus, he sucks and chews, and he bites it—"

"Shaddap. He's not like that. He's a very nice man, and he has a closet full of five thousand dollar suits and he flies on the Concorde and drives an S-Class."

"Man, I wanta kill this piece of shit slow."

"He's gonna die slow, all right. You don't need to worry about that. This is the part of the story that's real. The guy is telling people, like, I'm dying, and I'm gonna tell you the truth before I go. 'These creatures I saw,' he tells you, 'they ain't aliens. They were here before us. They built the place. And as for us, we're—wrong-uns would be one way to put it. Or we're an experiment. Or a toy. Anyway, what has happened to us is that we have been condemned to hell, as a species. We were given a chance and we fucked up. Royally. The Garden of Eden is a species memory of some really bad shit we did a long time ago. They aren't interested in petty sins. Our lives are entirely meaningless to them. They care about just two things: our fear, and our suffering.'

"'They call this place DEAD FOREVER, because we just keep coming round again and again. We're born, we go through the hell of life, we die. Then we're judged. Do we make it? We never make it. So we're born again, we go through hell, we die.

"'The thing is, it'll never end. Folks, this is hell! You're in it! We all are! And the worst part of it is this particular moment in history, that comes every ten thousand years or so. This moment is called THE SKULL OF TIME. It's all theatre, do you understand that? When we see, each of us in his heart, the SKULL OF TIME, we will realize exactly who we are and what we are. We will remember our whole agonizing past. We will see the bars on the windows of the world, and hear our eternal jailer rattling his eternal keys. Then they bring the world to an end by smacking it with a fucking big meteor, or a pollution disaster or earthquakes or whatever gooses their fucking saint alien behinds. We die in horrible agony, in our billions, in the fire and the dark of the cave of all-knowing. You experience mass death in total darkness and you will know something about fear. Hell, they took Jews outa the gas chambers covered with blood all the fucking time! They sweated blood in there! And Jesus? He can't save anybody! It's a fucking joke. Earth has only been here since we went to hell, which happened a few thousand years ago. The dinosaur tracks and such, the fossils? Planted. It's a fucking trap and we're in it, brother!'"

Charlie and Darin were standing at the far side of the apartment. Beyond the window, the sun set in golden glory. A meteor crossed the purple heights of the sky.

"Oh, Christ, Darin, if this is all true, then why?"

"Who the fuck knows? What's the use of remembering sins that aren't gonna be forgiven? Fuckit."

"You know, Darin, don't pretend you don't!"

Darin gave him a sidelong look. "He knows."

"So let him tell us! Tell us, dufus!"

It's not that we sinned. The worst part is, we didn't do anything wrong to be here. The Jews of Europe were punished to extinction, not because they were evil but because they were there. Cattle die mass in agony and terror, and they are totally innocent. We're not here because we've done something wrong, but our agony is food.

There are people who warm their hands at the fire of our burning. We're a plaything and a source of energy. And there will be no escape, not for any of us.

Charlie wished to hell that the cancerous writer would die.

"Darin," he said, "I hate him."

"You're not alone, buddy. You're not alone."

"If only he'd die—" Darin took Charlie's hand, and they stood watching the writer gag and suffocate on the couch, watched him claw at his throat, struggle and start breathing again.

"If only he'd die," Charlie whispered, "if only..." Then he could close his own eyes and let the warm, soft world of the writer's dream-time envelop him, and he would dream the golden night away... and the golden day to follow, and golden months and years, and the great cycles of years... he would dream on and on, forever and ever and ever...

Dream on.