The question still remains. Shall I do another short story, or start posting a novel. You tell me.

Now you can leave a comment without using your name.

I can continue to post a short story once a month, or I can post one of my six finished novels. So many pages, twice a week. Take a minute to tell me what you want. Horror, fantasy, crime thriller. Name your poison.

The second person point of view isn’t easy, and should be reserved for the intense emotions of your protagonist. You have to crawl into your head and tell your story. When it works, it works. As always there is the hook to start things off with, and it has to be big. Pacing has to move the story along. Who you are, what you think and why, and what you become . . . because. Empathy with your character, which is you, is paramount. It’s tapping into what makes the grotesque possible, and can be used for the wondrous, too. The deepest part of who you are is explored by you, and put into words. This story is over a decade old, has been published three times, and made one reader wonder if I was all there. I’m okay, though I am moderately fit, and have a beard. Remember, I’m a storyteller. I think up and tell stories. I’m still only 99% with my editing skills, but, here it is, and I hope you enjoy it. Leave a comment if you do, or one if you don’t. I would love to hear what you think.

　

Serve Revenge Hot

　

Bryan-with-the-bright-green-eyes saw it coming. His mother’s eyes, intelligent eyes, expressing love and joy. Eyes alive with wonder at almost everything this world had to offer. Eyes filled to overflowing in their final moments with an unfathomable fear.

　

He pushed his fat, raspberry colored fluffy teddy bear Pudgy to one side, off the back seat of the car and onto the floorboard, so Pudgy wouldn’t get hurt. Such a considerate boy.

　

He closed those beautiful eyes, actually pinched them shut; then hunched his narrow shoulders, and pulled a thin arm up to cover his handsome little-boy face.

　

A useless gesture, like all useless gestures, conceived of in a moment of desperation. It was the best he could do. The only thing he could think of at the time. Nobody could fault him for it, he was only five fucking years old.

　

The sawed-off scattershot blew his little arm and hand apart, a bloody wad. Bryan’s head

splooshed into a cloud of red and gray, yellow hair and pinkish-gray brain tissue coating the automobile’s plush rear interior. Everything he was—the questioning crooked smile, bundle of feet running through the house when he was told repeatedly not to, stubborn foot-stomping "I don’t wanna go to bed yet!"

bouncing baby boy—gone. Just gone.

　

"BRYAN!"

　

Screaming your dead son’s name jolts you awake, your heart racing. The grisly vision of your son’s murder fresh in your mind. Cold clammy sweat pours off you to dry in the chill night air, realizing it was another nightmare, one of several, realizing it wasn’t quite light out yet, the dawn a couple of hours away from what the digital display says. You’ll never get back to sleep now, and it’s no big thing. You haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in three years. Five hours most nights, four hours this night.

　

Did the neighbors hear your scream?

　

Maybe the scream was all in your head. And if the walls did carry the sound, it wouldn’t be the first time, and frankly you don’t give a shit. The nosy neighbors can kiss your hairy ass, for all you care. Give your farthest hole a good Frenching. Like they don’t have their faults?

　

Old man Cruthers, across the hall and to the left, all gut and no ass, pacing the narrow hallway at night in his dirty socks, boxers and tee. The old man seemed tolerably lucid, and could hold an interesting conversation about the state of the building or the weather. A serious attempt at an overall exercise program? Shed a few pounds? Walking, good for the soul.

　

Or desperate Deena, forty-five years desperate, fat and ugly ta-boot. Nightly ordering takeout from every joint around the neighborhood, hoping to get lucky, hoping one of the delivery drivers was more desperate than she was. Most would waive the tip and run like hell. Once in a great while she’d get lucky and get laid. She had to have a hell of a job to pay for what little comfort she got. The warmth of another soul, pushing the bush.

　

Then there was Mrs. Boswellia directly across the corridor, hovering day and night by her peep hole. The only thing more exciting than NYPD Blue reruns or Oprah seemed to be the soap opera that played out beyond her apartment’s windows or peep hole. Maybe Mrs. Boswellia had a thing for old man Cruthers in his boxers, fat gut and flat assed as he was.

　

Maybe old man Cruthers was hoping desperate Deena would notice him and extend an invite. Give him a ball-draining blow job, or a roll on the carpet. Fat-people sex.

　

It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.

　

You push slowly out of bed, the pain grips you by your balls, threatening to walk you around the room on tip-toe. It’s bad today, but pain is your life. Every minute of every waking day is filled with mountainous pain. Physical pain that sharpens all your facilities. Emotional pain for surviving one more day. Pain you inflict upon yourself because you have to.

The shower’s coarse spray heats your skin and warms muscles, stopping the dull ache in your bones. Underneath the magnificent flow of water is where you need to be, where you want to stay, but as the spray loses its potency you stop the wondrous cascade and exit, sorry it couldn’t last forever. The towel is rough. Water drips from your beard.

　

Feast like a monarch in the morning, and grab what you can the rest of the day. Six extra-large eggs from the refrigerator, poached. A pound of bacon, salty, crisping nicely, spatters in the cast-iron skillet. A dab of grease pops out of the pan onto your bare chest. This pain is nothing.

　

Six slices of heavily buttered toast—real cream butter, not flavored vegetable ooze—and your cholesterol level be damned.

　

And it’s good. You finally learned how to cook. It’s not like you had a choice. After their deaths you had more than enough time to learn many things.

　

Hate was new, but you learned how to hate. You simply let your mind dwell on what was taken from you, and hate bloomed like an endless spring meadow in your soul. Hate fed by needs you never truly understood before, but now have an intimate relationship with.

　

You have a fourth cup of coffee, watching the sun rise over a nasty trash heap called a city. The only decent light you get from your cheesy apartment windows the entire day. It’s like the bright yellow globe is there for you alone, bathing you in life’s affirmations. There to watch over you.

　

You want to sit for a fifth cup, watching the sun stretch into the sky, or a sixth cup as the rays warm your soul, but you can’t. The pain will only settle deeper into your joints, making the slightest movements agony. Soon the pain will be gone. The pain in your heart will always be there in one form or another, though it may dim with time.

　

Pretend you’re fighting ten men at once. Slow, deliberate moves. Punch, kick, hands and feet, elbows and knees, turning small circles within the confines of your living room. Couch to one side, two chairs and an end table to the other side.

　

Now, move a little faster. Your joints scream, lacking proper lubrication. You ignore them.

　

More imaginary opponents get in your face. It seems you have an endless supply of first-class fighters at your disposal, thanks in part to your rediscovered imagination. A gift from your son. Games of cars, his Batman to your Robin, wrestling, tag, story time. Silently you thank him, and promise to honor his memory.

　

Every single day of the week you work your body and mind to exhaustion. You know why. Plans can go wrong at the least, Murphy’s Law detonating in your face at its worst. Every contingency must be thought out, explored to its fullest, options devised.

　

Faster. Feel the burn. Feel your once-damaged heart beat proud and true.

　

Suck more air,

it’s not over yet. You have two days left out of three very long years of intense preparation. Two glorious days.

　

Today.

　

Tomorrow.

　

Two hundred pound squats with the bar squarely over your shoulders. Dip low, push up hard. Six sets of ten. Five hundred crunches, twisting at the top for maximum gain. Three hundred each: dips, pushups, chins. Then do preacher curls until your biceps threaten to burst. The harder you push yourself, the less likely you are to erupt before you’re ready, and you’re almost ready.

　

"Never ever, not even in prison, have I witnessed one man work out with the single-minded intensity you give those weights. Absolutely possessed."

　

"Monk," you say between breaths. "I’ve changed . . . that lock . . . three times . . . because of you. I’m going to start charging . . . for the repairs."

　

Monk laughs. "I do that to keep in practice. You’re not the only one. The occasional surprise inspection can yield stupidity and graft."

　

"Or get you shot."

　

"Think so?"

"Why are you here, Monk? I didn’t think this early in the morning was your style, addicted to the nightlife and such."

　

"Shove enough crank up your nose and sleep becomes a moot point," he says. "I want you to tell me about the other night. The niggers say they were shorted ten pounds of C-4."

　

Monk begins to poke around the place, and yes you took it, but he’ll never find it. The bulk of it is already in place.

　

"Let me get that pesky closet door, Monk. Feel free to look under the bed or the couch."

　

"Tell me about the shipment, dude."

　

"Tommy boy weighed it out. He packed the boxes and sealed them. That’s the way he wanted it. We delivered the shipment with me at the wheel. He never let it out of his sight, I never touched it."

　

"That’s what he said."

　

You were counting on it.

　

"Sounds like them bangers are greasing our dicks, Monk. Masturbation isn’t my style."

　

"Not the first time."

　

Monk hands you a gym bag. Inside is a .45, and a digital camcorder.

　

"I think Tommy boy fucked up for the last time. Plant him. I want a first-rate epic." Then he hands you an envelope full of Franklins. "I want his cunt and brat growing maggots, too. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?"

　

You shake your head. "My pleasure," you say.

"And while you’re out, get us more gas."

　

"The tanker will be parked under Fletcher’s canopy before the afternoon is over. Have him dig a hole for three in the garden."

　

"We’ll dance on Tommy’s grave tomorrow night."

　

You pull a small black box off the kitchen table and open it for Monk’s inspection.

　

"You like?"

　

Monk says, "Is this the ring Baldy’s giving his ugly little slit? The stone . . . it’s so small. He bought this. Nobody in their right mind would steal something that tiny."

　

"You’re the best man. You want to take it now?"

　

"Give it to me tomorrow. I might lose it between now and then. Christ that’s small."

　

Monk pops open a vial and spreads some gummy powder on a mirrored tray you keep handy. He cuts it into four fat lines and does two. You snort your two. The powder burns its way deep into your head. The rush hits almost instantaneously.

　

"Whiskey," Monk chokes.

　

You pull a bottle and take a swig. Monk takes the bottle and slams half of what you have left.

　

"If Tommy boy calls, Monk, go with it. Whatever I say."

　

You see Monk to the door.

　

"I just want him dead," Monk replies.

"And next time, knock."

　

He gives you a look that could freeze Texas.

　

"Yeah, right, knock." He raps the door. "See? I’m knocking."

　

Monk closes the door behind him. You seethe.

　

　

Your first hit, you didn’t think you could kill a man, but the asshole wasn’t a man, he was trash. Taking out the trash is a job real men do. Monk asked you to do it as a test.

　

The dickless wonder pissed Monk off. He bothered Monk’s greedy sensibilities. Skimmed some drug money and bought himself a grave.

　

You did it with your own two hands and a smile. Monk was highly impressed. He slapped your back and put you above many of his so-called friends, which suited you just fine. It made you money, not that you needed any, and gave you access.

　

You flip open your phone.

　

All the drugs you moved. Weapons, ammo, some of it Nam surplus, most was state-of-the-art. It all passed through your hands, and you had the pick of the litter. Death and mayhem sold on the streets to ignorant fools.

　

"Wake up, Tommy boy . . . ."

　

Then your second hit. The rest of the crew liked your work because you had style. You didn’t care one way or the other how they felt because it was Earth Improvement Day, and you just wanted to do your part.

　

"Fuel. Monk wants you to take the bitch and brat. Look legitimate for me . . . ."

Today.

　

"We play well together, and it’s his sandbox . . . ."

　

Tomorrow.

　

"Be my guest. He’s waiting for you to do just that . . . ."

　

Killing this waste of skin will be fun.

　

Now for your second call, and this one is hard to make.

　

Donna’s father Fred loved you like a son, once. Yet he disagreed with you in your darkest hour.

　

Three years ago

you woke up in a dimly lit bleached room, full of machinery. Ear-piercing bleeps, low pitched buzzing, loud hums and rhythmic whooshes. You could smell industrial strength cleaners, your own sweat, and someone else’s fecal matter.

　

You were alive, albeit barely from the look and sounds of it all. Blood and other liquids were being forced into your veins drop by machine-fed drop. The beating of your heart was being watched for discrepancies. You slept for long periods of time.

　

You knew where you were, but where was your wife? Your son? Were they in other rooms, struggling through their own tangle of tubes and machinery? Were they home safe? Could they, or did they visit?

　

That night you had your first nightmare. You woke, wanting to die. The nightmare had imparted the impression your wife and son were not coming to visit, not ever. Fred finally confirmed your worst nightmare was real. And as much as you wanted to die yourself, the damned stuff surrounding the bed wouldn’t let you.

　

Pain and sleep came and went with each syringe added to your IV drip, but you endured.

　

There was the endless parade of doctors, stopping in twice a day to collect their fair share of your insurance company’s green.

　

Later, between sessions of physical therapy, with nothing to do all day but suffer and mourn, you watched hours of television. It didn’t take you long to realized why it was called an idiot box by informed advocates for higher IQ scores. Yet, many strange notions presented on various tasteless programs, gelled into one seriously warped idea.

　

That one idea sprouted into a forest of what ifs, the what ifs snowballed into a plan of sorts, and nothing told you, no matter how hard you asked yourself the necessary questions, the plan was bad. You told Fred.

　

Fred listened, and left for the night, but came back the next night and asked you to move on. You shouted many things you’ve come to regret, and haven’t spoken to him since.

　

"Myer’s Oil. Fred Carnes."

　

"It’s me, Fred."

　

Dead air. You can feel his thoughts shifting around in his head.

　

"It’s been a while," he finally says.

　

"I need a big favor."

　

"What is it?"

　

"I need a gas tanker. Full. The semi will be returned, but the tanker will be a total loss."

　

"It won’t bring them back. You know that."

　

"No, it won’t."

"Why are you doing this?"

　

"To stop them from murdering someone else, Fred. Three more times it’s happened, and no one has stopped them. The cops can’t do a thing. Everybody lies, and money buys justice. You, Fred, know that all too well."

　

More dead air.

　

He’s had time to think.

　

God knows you argued with him that day so long ago until you thought about killing him. He held tight to his beliefs, and you never mentioned it again.

　

"I’ll leave the key in the ignition. Truck 46. When can you steal it?"

　

"One hour."

　

"Exit through the south gate."

　

Maybe he pays more attention to the news at night. Once his daughter and grandson became a statistic it was real for him. Maybe, deep down in his heart, he knows you’re right.

　

"After this," he says, "you will never contact me again."

　

And you feel a moment of pity for a man resigned to his fate as a silent accomplice.

　

　

A strange sight, a fucking-big gas truck in a residential neighborhood, but this "hood" doesn’t have Betty Crocker living on the block. Best Homes & Better Gardens is used to swat flies and roaches, and the Weekly World Dispatch is just another book in a strange bible, with the words inside spread with fear and conviction. The old in their decrepit boxes, the young breeding a new generation of crime and death; multicolored weeds, dirt for yards, peeling lead paint.

　

"I called Monk," Tommy boy says. "He said to play it your way, but the kid isn’t here. He took off this morning when I slapped him upside the head. I caught the brat dipping into my stash."

　

Tommy boy’s woman tops off a bottle of pop with whiskey and hands it to him. The kid is a loose end, but it still works to your favor. The kid hasn’t made you, and can’t place you. When he realizes his parents are never coming home, maybe, with luck, the kid will find more to his life than drugs and prison. Though, from what you know of the kid, he’s tarnished. Abused into a semblance of adulthood, possibly beyond redemption.

　

"Fletcher’s," you say, "but not too close."

　

The drive is a long one. Down a small little-used highway into the desert. Fletcher lives ten miles from the pavement in a box canyon. Ten miles, and you can see anybody and everybody coming. If it has value: guns, drugs, this gas, it’s there. And that’s the beauty of God’s grace. Sometimes things come together like tits on a Ritz. Good cracker.

　

When you were incarcerated those many weeks in the neighborhood ICU, wrapped in pain, sleep was blessedly provided. The drugs couldn’t stop you from remembering, and it hurt to do more than let the tears slide silently down your cheeks, but still you cried.

　

A detective came and asked you questions. You told him what you could, gave him their descriptions, and the one name you heard.

　

No arrests were made, nothing happened, no prison for the killers of your family. You once asked the detective why, and he said there wasn’t enough proof to convict them. "Their high-priced lawyers would eat you alive in court." They had each other as alibis.

　

"Park it over there," Fletcher calls out. "Get it covered!"

　

You back the rig up, Fletcher unhooks the tank, and you pull forward a few feet and shut the rig down. Tommy boy and his woman help with the canopy. You cover it all with the camcorder.

　

"Fletch," you say, "take this off my hands."

　

"Yeah," he somberly says. "Monk called me about that. I’ve known them for years, but you do what you have to, right? Can’t have them running their own show."

　

Tommy boy sees your piece just before you shoot him in the leg. Then you shoot his wife in the head. Only for her will you show an inkling of mercy.

　

"Fuck me!" Tommy boy screams over and over as he tries to slink away.

　

"You don’t screw the pooch!" Fletcher shouts back.

　

You shoot Tommy boy again, in the gut, and watch him squirm some more. Then once more in the head. He twitches as he dies. Fletcher puts the camcorder down.

　

"Too quick?" you say.

　

He shakes his head and asks, "Where’s the boy?"

　

"I’ll have to deal with him later. Seems he got caught pinching a bud. Tommy boy probably fucked him up bad."

　

Their bodies get slid into the hole Fletcher dug. There’s no conversation until the newest mass grave is filled. A few stones are sprinkled about to make the mound look decorative.

　

"How many are planted in this garden, Fletch?"

　

"Now? Twelve. I have a buyer for the rig, dude. You get to take Tommy boy’s shit-mobile home."

　

"Not me. I’m walking home, just to see if I can. Take that garbage out and junk it."

　

"You’re nuts!"

　

"Got a gallon of water I can take with me?"

"I got your water, bro. How do you like the decorations for Baldy’s nuptials?"

　

Kegs line the grounds, waiting for ice.

　

"Which one’s mine?" you ask. "Baldy, he gets him a whiff of pussy and has to tie the knot."

　

"At least she loves him. She is an ugly little thing, though."

　

"He shaves her twat and pulls her hair up into pigtails."

　

"You’re cruel."

　

"If you can’t enjoy life, what’s the use of living it."

　

"Bad man," Fletcher says, and lights a doob and passes it over.

　

"Water first, and sell me some snort while you’re at it."

　

"Here," Fletcher says, and hands you a large vial. "Take it. You earned it."

　

A spoonful goes up each nostril while you wait for the water, studying the rock wall in front of you.

　

　

It takes half a day to get back home. Monk calls and you did a good job. A palm-full of aspirin takes away some of the pain.

　

In bed you think about tomorrow, and fall into a troubled sleep. You dream the nightmare you’ve lived with for so long. The same nightmare night after night, for the last three years.

　

It was a nice day. Not too hot for a Sunday drive. Bryan was excited, and Donna had packed a perfect picnic lunch. You left home not knowing where you would end up.

　

You stopped at a place everybody called "the Bluffs," and ate lunch in the sunshine. Crispy fried chicken with the works. Bryan tried to feed a lizard its meal.

　

After lunch the rocks called out, and the three of you answered the challenge. The sweat poured, soaking your shirt. You realized just how out of shape you were. Breathing hard at your age was shameful. Donna thought it was funny. Bryan didn’t care, it was enough keeping him out of trouble.

　

When you got back to the car it was surrounded by long hair, dirty beards and halter-tops. A bunch of stoners out for the day. You wished they would have stayed home, scurrying into the shadows like good little roaches, doing whatever scum like that does. But they had claimed the spot for themselves, swapping smoke and spit and cheap beer. Trouble was the last thing you wanted. You said as much as you unlocked your car door, and they, in turn, smiled their evil smiles, said it wasn’t a problem, but they didn’t back off.

　

You strapped Bryan in, but before you could unlock Donna’s door they had her on her knees with a .9mm to her head, a dirty dick shoved down her throat. You fought hard. Bryan was crying.

　

The hairy fucker shot his wad; then your wife.

　

The fat bald guy shot your son to shut him up.

　

The dude they called "Monk," he shot you six times, point-blank in the chest, and then they all took turns kicking and stomping, listening to your bones break. They thought it was funny.

　

Almost dead, eyes on the carnage, your soul had been re-forged in the flames of hatred, infused with a need for revenge, tempered by pain.

　

　

"Brother!" Baldy shouts. "Glad to see you. You have my ring?"

　

"I don’t have the ring," you say. "You have the ring?"

"Ring?’ Fletcher says. "I gots no stinking ring."

　

"Cut it out, you guys."

　

Monk picks up on the joke and carries it farther. "I have a ring around my bathtub, a service ring on my finger, and one around my dick made by your woman’s lips."

　

A good joke, but Baldy doesn’t have the patience for it on his special day. You say, "I have the ring, dude." And hand Monk the box.

　

"Baldy’s Ring of Enslavement," Monk adds. "Fucking small if you ask me."

　

"Well I didn’t ask you, asshole," Baldy says. "This was the ring my daddy gave my momma."

　

"He pried it off her dead hand." Monk pockets the ring and tops off his beer. "He dug the bitch up, and probably left with the casket still open."

　

Fletcher pulls you to one side. "Like the snort?"

　

"I found it potent."

　

"You come back if you need more. I want to stay on your good side."

　

"I’m not going to kill you, Fletch. I’m going to kill everybody here."

　

"So," Monk says, "the boy does have a me sense of humor. And all this time I thought you had something jammed up your ass."

　

"I do. It’s called attitude, Monk."

　

"It must be an attitude thing. A baseball bat attitude adjustment would cure that, you know."

"And when the dead speak, the living can’t hear shit."

　

Two more spoonfuls go up your nose. The others are laughing at a joke only you understand. Monk gives you the eye, so, just to piss him off, you wink and tip your beer.

　

Tina, Jackson’s new pump, whispers in your ear that she wants to suck you off. You tell her to do it here and now.

　

She does.

　

Jackson is pissed, but pretends not to see. Monk pulls his tool out. Tina doesn’t want him, but she can’t say no. She knows all the unspoken rules. She drains you then turns toward him. You decide to give them their privacy.

　

Jackson sneaks up from behind and growls a threat in your ear. You grab him by the throat and ask for an apology, which you get.

　

"This is a wedding," you say. "Be happy."

　

Not an ordinary wedding. The vows traded today come from a code recorded in memory, not a Bible. The Bible would melt in their hands. The ceremony was born this century, and was about to start. Baldy fires his shotgun into the air.

　

What you see only strengthens your resolve. A founding-father-of-a-figure stands before them all, guiding them into Hell.

　

"Baldy. Do you intend to enslave your cunt? To beat her without mercy if she turns into a bitch? To fuck her holes, using dick and dildo, or whatever else pleases you? To film what you do for fun and profit? Do you promise to keep her until she gives out and dies, sending her stupid soul to Hell?"

　

"I do."

　

"Cunt. Do you promise to take everything this man has to give? Abuse and cock? To work, so he doesn’t have to?"

　

"I do."

　

"Let us party." Cheers and gunfire boom across the landscape.

　

It’s time. From this point on you focus only on your goal.

　

With the party in full swing you make your way to the rock wall. A series of cracks and stones form a path you climb like a ladder. Fletcher, yesterday, when you asked why that particular area looked unusual, called it his escape route. He had worked on shaping it for years. Nothing is there to cover your back.

　

Halfway to the top, in-between two rocks, is a device you take into your hand like hope itself. A remote detonator you placed the day before. It starts a timed bomb, sealing the entrance to the canyon, trapping all the scum inside. Three minutes, not really enough time to finish surmounting the wall, but it’ll have to do.

　

Two minutes and fifty-nine seconds.

　

You force yourself up, breaking through the pain.

　

A few of the smart ones will realize where the attack came from and do like you, climb the walls. They’re the ones you can’t let escape.

　

One minute and thirty-five seconds.

　

Faster.

　

Eyes follow you up the wall, you can feel them, but they have no idea why.

　

Faster. You have to climb faster.

Three years. Three years of death and drugs everywhere your eyes fell. Innocent lives devastated time and again. Three years of the most excruciating, soul-wrenching pain ever conceived. Only God could understand how you’ve suffered. How much pain you let loose in the world by allowing these freaks to live, even this long. You knew the only way to end this disease on humanity was to formulate a final outcome.

　

Three. Two. One.

　

Eight pounds of C-4 explode. The concussion almost shakes you loose. Dust and stone pummel your head and back. The entrance seals, and you pray nothing large is headed your way. That would be the cruelest jest of all.

　

The sound of the explosion is replaced by screams of terror. The sound is honey sweet.

　

At the top you find another remote detonator. At the other end of the signal is the remaining two pounds of C-4, attached to Fred’s fuel tanker. This one isn’t on a timer. This one will blow the moment you push the plunger, serving the very idea of Hell on a gold platter made from the memories of your wife and son. You push it and dive for cover.

　

Twenty feet into the air the heat pushes you, on into the sand and rock, which you willingly eat.

　

Behind you is an inferno, cleansing the Earth. The smell makes you vomit.

　

You look up and see legs. The legs belong to Monk. Monk has a gun to your head. He’s a little scorched around the edges, and definitely not happy.

　

"WHY!" he screams into your face, eyes wild.

　

"Three years ago, Monk. Do you think you can remember that far back? I was with my wife and son at The Bluffs. Baldy shot my son, just to shut him up. He couldn’t take the noise. Fletcher made my wife suck his dick, and then shot her when she didn’t do it to his satisfaction."

　

"And I popped you. Six shots to the chest."

"But I was still breathing, so you—"

　

"I remember."

　

"Are you the only one to escape?"

　

"I followed you when I saw you climbing the wall. If what you said was true, I was going to kill you, and here my paranoid ass is. I’m the only one. I’m going to empty this entire clip into your head."

　

"One question first."

　

"Why not."

　

"Why?"

　

"Why did we kill your family that day at the Bluffs?"

　

"Yeah."

　

"It was something to do. That’s all. We were bored. Now to finish the job."

　

You jerk your head to one side just before his finger tightens on the trigger, spinning to the left, onto your side, thrusting your right foot into his kneecap, shattering it.

　

Monk screams out but remains standing, and lethal.

　

You immediately spin back to the right and the other foot sends the barking gun flying. Monk sits down, hard.

　

The second shot grazed your shoulder, but this pain you don’t feel at all.

Monk wants to survive, and heaves his body toward you. His hands are at your throat.

　

You break his arms as easily as you would two cheap pencils.

　

Losing it, his teeth gnash at your face.

　

You make him eat them. Then snap more bone.

　

He begs, offering hundreds of thousands you know he has.

　

The words mean nothing to you, yet you give him one last minute to contemplate his death.

　

You say, "I’ll let you live if you ask me for forgiveness."

　

He spits blood into your face.

　

You pull him up by his head and savagely twist it, but his face offends you, so you smash it with a rock the size of a watermelon.

　

"It’s done, Donna. Rest, Bryan. Rest."

　

Over three hundred human beings are dead in the hole behind you. A question comes to mind, the same one you asked yourself the very moment you birthed your inspired plan.

　

The question? Whether you can live with yourself afterward.

　

Five miles out, next to a shrub, is an outfit in a grocery bag. A pair of scissors is in the bag. You cut your hair, trim your beard short, and bury it all, covering the hole with a rock and some scrub. You take a minute to finger your wound.

　

The last item in the bag was a razor. Sweat helps it glide over your face, changing you, back into you.

The answer to the question?

　

Yes.

　

And you know in your heart you’ll sleep the whole night through.

Had company, I'll post tomorrow.

I'll post a new story here tomorrow, just for you.

I need to get two novels up and out, now! With all that work to do I'll post when I can with what I have. See you soon.

I'm late. Give me a week.

You ever think about voice? What does that all-important concept in writing mean? You have enough here and to judge for yourself what voice is. It changes as I need it to change. It tells the story the way it needs to be told. Voice is the art within the words. I know what it is, and how to use it. I’ll post this chapter to one of my many finished novels to showcase voice. Yes I need to edit one last time, so if there is a typo I don’t care. Have fun. See you next month.

　

After causing the desolation of many sentient worlds, He of the oldest race was brought before the reigning council for judgment. Found guilty, this sentence was passed.

　

He was to be imprisoned in utter isolation, surrounded by stone, and again by the life-force of those whom passed this judgment. To keep the followers of this most evil of all ancient beings from ever setting Him free, His prison was cloaked in a most obvious fashion, guarded by the ordinary. Two of the remaining council were then chosen to watch this prison for all eternity. — An excerpt from the Book of No Names

　

One

　

I, am a fool. The Fool, and my Emperor requests a gratifying tale from me, but which compelling narrative in my vast repertoire shall His Fatassness receive? A questing yet witless knight, braving outlandish elements of fable and fantasy with a personal code of honor sufficient to turn any stout stomach? Or, perhaps, an adventurous yet resourceful thief in his never-ending pursuit of liquid wealth, tight wet fellowship and heady spirits? Alas, with both I must provide a companion, and I’m not feeling generous.

　

The Empress, in turn, invites a poignant tale within whose dark heart exists a riddle. May I pluck the knotted hair off her pointed pale chin and from under her bulbous reddened nose for such an unsatisfactory suggestion.

　

The Lovers stop their perpetual grope to propose forbidden love as a topic. They should stick to the task in hand and let me tell the story I wish.

　

The Executioner puts in his personal recommendation, but tonight is not a night for bloody revenge. The Hierophant wants redemption with ascension. The Hanged Man, dangling such as he does, says nothing.

　

Then it comes to me, inspirational lightening, pinning me down with a wondrous tale that must surely gratify all. A fantastical epic from long ago, when there existed such things as Space and Time.

　

"Get on with it, Fool," commands the Emperor in-between mouthfuls of roasted meats and tiny sweet-cakes, quaffing at will wine made by old, ineffectual, impotent and incontinent gods. "You’re milking it."

　

"Of course, Majesty," I say, thinking about a large chunk of that moldered meat lodged deep in his throat, stealing what he calls his pitiful excuse-of-a-life out of him.

　

I must confess I am milking it for all it’s worth. I’m a bit of a ham. What fool is not? To draw the audience inside the story is my vocation. To keep them enthralled by the narrative is my gift. I endeavor to give generously.

　

"A proper piece of pretentious nonsense must have an appropriate beginning," I say, "and this chronicle is without exception. The question here is not where to begin, because I know where to begin. The question here is who to begin with?"

　

And I think Xavier Collen will do nicely.

　

There, that’s him, the spry old fart pacing the floor around his desk. Top floor of the Collen building, London proper. A titbit of prime tattle from the Queen herself, no less, set his shallow money-obsessed thoughts spiraling down the loo, and that was just the beginning.

　

Mr. Collen didn’t sleep well at all that warm, surprisingly comfortable night, tossing this way and turning that way. Dozing only until a night fright would wake him, monitoring his bedside digital display between time.

　

His Wednesday was shot to hell-in-a-handcart before it began. He couldn’t find his expensive wingtips, his mattress-pressed slacks wouldn’t wear right, and tie his god-awful much-too-costly power tie? The spouse thankfully took over and saw to it he was shooed out of the house properly coifed and garbed, looking so much the better than he actually felt.

　

A morning’s repast was completely out of the question. More to his mood was a tall bottle of bright-pink Peptic Bismuth, followed by several large shots of Ireland’s best single-malt whiskey. Boar’s Head. Neat. Why dilute the esophageal burn with something as practical and soothing as melting ice.

　

On his way to the office he made two exceedingly important calls from the company limo. Both calls to his efficient yet under-salaried secretary, a lovely woman with short raven-black hair and sizable tits, setting a domino theory of predictable—he hoped—events into motion.

　

At the office he uncorked a bottle of his personal best, reserved for him alone, and reviewed several thick files. Clients, no matter how wealthy, were only allowed to imbibe the cheaper hooch. An unspoken, unbroken rule.

　

He placed various directives composed of yellowed parchment into their proper order, ran a tired hand through his thinning white hair, and jabbed the intercom button with a jittery finger, sporting an impeccably manicured nail.

　

"Send me Jonathan Stately."

　

"Certainly, Mr. Collen," came the canned reply from his boob-luscious aide.

　

And speaking to himself, he said, "Trusting this assignment to a simpleton, the most important commission to exist within this firm’s doors . . . ‘Use someone disposable, Collen dear, with experience in the States. (The Queen Mother had said this before she passed on to whatever death held for her, and Xavier’s impromptu impression of her statement was marginal at best.) After all, time, when due, will be of importance.’ Indeed. What did she take me for? A second year law clerk? An associate? Better to be a research assistant. As if I couldn’t manage my own position within these walls. I made this firm what it is, and I’ll tend to its proper performance!"

　

Yesterday, you see, the Queen informed him that Lady Simona Watersomes had passed on in a, "ahem," questionable manner. The Queen said much, mostly about Lady Watersomes long list of antagonists, though nothing could be corroborated, and instructed him to implement the proclamation’s protocols post-haste.

　

He switched his thoughts toward the late Lady Simona Watersomes and said, "How that disgusting troll-of-a-woman could live for so bloody long is beyond me."

　

What it was that had him thoroughly rattled was a different, if not immensely distressing conversation he’d had with the late Lady Watersomes herself, which took place years ago in the late Queen Mother’s apartments, concerning said documentation on his desk. It all began with the Lady’s harangue about the Queen. "She should tend more to her wayward children and their bloody whelps, than to me and mine!"

　

The Queen Mother had surprisingly agreed with Lady Watersomes’ assertion, but to Xavier Collen, most of what Lady Watersomes had then spouted went in one ear and out the other, as per usual. If it wasn’t immediate business, it wasn’t important, and to Hades with it. Though, now, each and every word seemed world-shattering important, and forced a fifth double into his hand.

　

"That one, Xavier, not the other," Lady Watersomes said that fine morning, leaning over and tapping her fat pink sausage-like finger on the grainy, glossy color print resting between them on the breakfast table.

　

"Him?" he replied, studying the man.

　

"Quite. He’s the one. Do you find him impressive?"

　

"Not exactly the word I’d choose."

　

"You’re spying greatness, dear boy. He, is my heir."

　

Of course the years-before choice of the Queen Mother’s term "disposable," when viewed within the context of the present topic was ominous. He wasn’t quite sure what she had meant by it then, or what he made of it now, so he mentally reviewed his many underlings until the perfect selection came into that vast peat bog he called a mind.

　

No single human being employed within the firm was more "disposable" than one Jonathan Niles Stately. He drained his drink and poured a sixth.

"Dash it all!" he shouted to the highest heavens. "Why were we foolish enough to get involved with that viperous old witch Watersomes in the first place?" Scanning the room like she might have heard his rage even in death.

　

The answer to his foolish question was, of course, greed. Greed ruled all in Xavier Collen’s tiny corner of the world. It was his life? breath? love? passion?

　

All of the above.

　

A nightmare. The poor man felt as if he had been thrust into a nightmare without the likelihood of ever waking. It was if the old witch had him by the nuggets, and was leading him around his desk on tiptoe.

　

What if she could rise from the grave? He wouldn’t put it past her. Which has lead us to our next important yet minor personality.

　

　

　

Jonathan Niles Stately wasn’t wholly convinced he should turn the clear glass doorknob, but did so anyway, entering Xavier Collen’s plush yet tastefully decorated office, sure he was about to be dismissed for some unknown gaffe, whether the mistake was his or otherwise, and closed the door behind him.

　

The Callas account was secure for the moment with more than satisfactory results, and that had been the only item to occupy his desk for almost a month. The little things the firm threw at him day-to-day were too monotonous to cause any real trouble. Still, he made the time to review and understand them. One must be thorough.

　

Employed twenty years, yet this was the first time he had been summoned to this particular office on the top floor. It took four days for his ears to stop burning after his first (and he had hoped his last) visit to the top floor. He had let a client get the best of the firm, and lost an important account and its quarter-of-a-million-pound-plus retainer to a competing firm.

　

That was a sad, sad day. He had seriously contemplated suicide, but couldn’t commit. Now, here he was, about to be dressed, a pheasant ready for basting. His continued existence would depend on this mysterious confabulation’s outcome.

　

"For God’s sake, Stately," Xavier Collen said, "sit down!" Pointing to a posh leather Wingback chair, running point for Xavier Collen’s more-than-massive black walnut desk.

　

Stately’s Adam’s apple performed a fairly rough dip, an involuntary reflex action to be sure, which repeated itself a moment later. He sat wishing for something, anything wet, so he could swallow in comfort.

　

"Sir?" Managed to squeak out on its own, timed right for the occasion by my personable pal Fate.

　

"Pardon me, Fool," the Empress says. "Isn’t Fate that vile old man, you know the one, he dances around, cackling, striking down the peasants with his malodorous teddy bear?"

　

"Only if they’re foolish enough to tempt him unnecessarily, my Empress. Stupidity does play a part in how he acts or reacts."

　

"A pox and death be on him then," the Executioner spouts.

　

There is no love lost there, but what care have I? Fate has a purpose he serves, and he is either kind or cruel, but never is he abusive without reason.

　

"If I may continue?" I say.

　

"Please do," the Empress voices.

　

Now, where was I? Oh yes, Jonathan Niles Stately, and Xavier Collen is about to address his strained, greatly subjugated employee.

　

"We have a job for you, Stately. Do you have any plans for the next week or two?"

He did have a few things penciled in. Dinner with Mum was one, the Vicar intended to stop by next Monday night by six for some reason or another. There may have been one more item, something to do with Thursday, but he was much too rattled to think it through. So, like any good company man would, he said, "A clear calendar, sir."

　

"Excellent," Collen declared. "Now pay close attention and make no mistakes. Not a one. There will be no blunders with this assignment. Is that clear?"

　

"Sir?"

　

Stately was told his final destination, and the name of his contact there. In fact, most of the morning was spent examining, and reexamining the many intricate details of this most important venture. Too many specifics to catalog, but every word and order issued was firmly, or more to the point, piss-pounded into his skull. Nothing, though, seemed to make sense, and the facts, overall, were interesting yet trite.

　

A simple retrieval, and he would do as he was told, even if that meant sitting atop a flagpole with his knickers down, hard-pulling his yank, grinning like the village idiot the entire time.

　

Stately was confused yet pleased. Others in the firm had been promoted ahead of him without regard to his seniority, and more than a few were firm-shattering mistakes, waiting to happen. He felt this was his opportunity to shine like the sun on a clement spring morning.

　

What seemed like a ream of paper was thumbed into a pile that meant something. Stately stuffed it all into his rather large satchel (his secretary had delivered it at Mr. Collen’s request), with an envelope full of cashiers’ checks from the Central Bank of London. The last item collected was his ticket for Heathrow. His flight would depart in slightly more than five hours. He was instructed to take as little as possible, and to arrive early, security being what it was, so as not to be delayed at the gate. Wear clean socks. He would secure a return flight himself when his assignment was completed.

　

It took a short while, but he managed to find decent lodgings for Barrister, his fully functional tom tabby. The poor thing had a disgusting tendency to mark its considerable territory, which meant pissing on everything within sight, and everybody he knew was well aware of Barrister’s instinctual compulsion. Room and board at a local haven would flatten his wallet by several pounds each day.

　

Two transfers, several questionable meals accompanied by flatulence and one full day later found him in Yucca Springs, California, worn by overtaxed nerves to the point of shattering.

　

A short stint with a talkative cabby had him standing in front of the black granite counter at the Terrace West, with a young clean face in a powder blue jacket saying, "May I help you?"

　

"Jonathan Stately. I believe reservations were made?"

　

"One moment," the first clerk said, divining for his name on a large computer terminal. "Yes. Here we are. If you would sign in?"

　

Which he did.

　

"Thank you," the clerk said, passing Stately his key card. "A rental car has also been reserved in your name. Your key. You’ll find a red Nissan Sentra parked in the side lot, space twenty-nine."

　

He was delighted with the Terrace West’s efficiency, but then a rather strange look passed between both clerks had him realizing it was nothing more than a concerted effort to get him out of the lobby based on his rumpled, and he was sure, gaunt appearance.

　

"Thank you," Stately said, and meant it nonetheless.

　

A comely lass wearing an identical blue blazer, with a much better fit, groped for his grip.

　

"I’ll take you to your room, sir." And into the elevator and up.

　

He keyed his door and tipped her ten American. With the door shut behind him he targeted his bed, leaving his shoes and jacket to fend for themselves on the floor. Not really his style, being a moderately neat man, but he was simply too damned tired to care.

It was 6:00 a.m., Tuesday, the twenty-seventh of August.

Wordmongering is a fitting lifestyle for me, while others prefer warmongering. Could you kill one to save thousands? Could you order someone to die to save hundreds? Would you let billions die to save but a few? Tossing the coin of Fate allows one to see both sides, and rare indeed does it land on edge. See you next month.

　

Fit for Survival by M. S. Sutton

　

Leslie Tharp roused tired, as she always did exiting hibernation. The light level was .03, but stabbed at her eyes. She would note the fact in her first report, and hauled herself out of the warmed sleep chamber, wishing for minimal cold-sleep cramps. She was needed.

　

With a hefty exhale she yanked the fat ventilation and feeding tubes from her throat. Painfully she swallowed until her saliva glands began production. She disconnected the webbing of electrodes strategically attached down the entire length of her torso, and began stretching long dense limbs.

　

Leslie Tharp. Warrior. The best Earth has to offer. Survivor of fifteen missions over the last–

　

"Computer," she hissed, her vocal cords craving flexibility. "How long have I been in storage? It feels like forever."

　

"Ten years," came the canned response.

　

–eighty-eight years.

　

"Mission parameters?"

　

"Humanity has encountered a new and secretive species, the name of which translates as ‘Roundhead.’ Both species wish to colonize the second planet, system A-55, sector Sigma. One warrior has been chosen by each species as per Rules of Engagement. Combat will commence in two hundred terrestrial hours."

"Describe enemy species."

　

"No description is available."

　

"Why not?"

　

"No description has been filed."

　

"Did Central request a description?"

　

"Unknown at this time."

　

Ask a stupid question.

　

"Find out if Central requested a description. If not, contact the Council directly and request one."

　

"Confirmed."

　

"Location of combat?"

　

"Displayed."

　

Possession of Earth’s solar system would never be in doubt. All there belonged to humanity. But as Earth stretched its ambitions, humanity found an autocratic interstellar community, cemented in rules firmly based upon nature’s grand scheme to promote intelligence. Survival of the fittest.

　

Days one through eight, for the most part, were mundane with food and exercise. The training rooted in martial arts and close-quarter weaponry. Catching up on news and correspondence between time was a big deal, with Earth just completing the second step in their effort to terra form Mars, using the rich atmosphere of Venus. Two water mining colonies were lost on Europa for some unknown reason, and her great-granddaughter, Tinka, was now twelve.

　

"Computer, connect to Earth. Family. Monica Wilkins."

　

"Connecting."

　

She waited for quite some time before, "Grandmother? It’s been ages. How are you?"

　

Monica looked old. Far older than she had expected. "I’m fine. You look good."

　

"You look good. I’m pushing forty, and you still look twenty-five. I have some bad news to tell you."

　

"Can it wait until after my mission?"

　

"Not this time. I’m sorry, but we buried mom five months ago . . . an accident . . . Folio Orbital Base II. She left you a letter. I’ll transmit it to you later today."

　

"Thank you. I’m sorry too, Moni. I never said my goodbyes. I haven’t told her that I loved her in years."

　

"She never came to grips with you as a Warrior, yet she had to have space as a home. She made Assistant Commander, did you know that?"

　

"I know now. And you? Did you learn to accept me as a Warrior?"

　

"My problem was Mother’s space fetish. I’ve been in space only once in my adult life, and that was more than enough. Tinka, she wants to be a Warrior. Her school says she has the aptitude. She’s been giving it some thought. You are rather famous as Earth’s oldest surviving Warrior."

　

"Key words: oldest, surviving. I can’t tell her what to do, but this isn’t the life I would’ve ever chosen on my own. Back then, they chose me."

　

"They’ll never take her before her first child. She has time."

　

"You should try to talk her out of it, nonetheless. I’ve missed so much."

　

"I know. I sent several news squirts over the last few years. Did you get them?"

　

"Yes I did, and I’ve gone through them twice. I’m sorry, I have to go. Thank you again for Amanda. I’ll miss her, and you and Tinka."

　

"Awake only for another mission?"

　

"The life of a Warrior. I love you all."

　

"We love you. Good luck."

　

She had two hours to quietly grieve her only daughter.

　

It was time to make her final selections. She procured her equipment out of military shipboard stores. Every item selected was as lightweight and as lethal as possible. Look non-threatening, be deadly.

　

Explosive Bolos: these would wrap around neck or limb, and explode with malignancy enough to cancel the victim and anything nearby.

　

Disruptors: micro-pellets that worked on the molecular level, releasing the electrical energy binding any living organism with tremendous explosive force.

　

Ringer Bullets: they would bore into the skin and rummage for an enemy’s vital organs, injecting them with a potent acid.

　

Concussion Grenades: for distraction in surprise.

　

Silencer Bullets: tiny handheld devices firing a poisonous dart, using compressed air.

　

Cadmium Mini-mines: she didn’t need the enemy warrior skulking up behind her if the battle was prolonged by strategy.

　

One last item, the PDA to enter her battle-log. Strapped to her wrist, she could key an entry on events and set it to transmit hourly or daily. It was time to go.

　

"Shuttle prepped?" she asked.

　

"Shuttle is ready," the computer replied.

　

"Relay current log and repeat every six hours. I’ll instruct you on the battle-log later."

　

"Program code Alpha, complete." The computer was set for shuttle recovery and ship return, whether she lived through the battle or not.

　

She entered the shuttle and belted up. The hatched closed automatically and locked.

　

"Program code Alpha engage," she said. The launch was sweet. Into space and falling.

　

"Designated battleground in ten minutes," the computer informed.

Leslie Tharp. Warrior. Chosen for her caustic intelligence, willing to fight and die based on substantial maternal instincts toward humanity as a whole.

　

"Designated battleground in five minutes."

　

The shuttle savagely rocked back and forth upon entering the planet’s thick atmosphere, but smoothed a moment later.

　

Her mind blanked. Her body sagged. The last few minutes she spent gathering her strength based on an internal mantra burrowing deep into her soul, fueling her heart and mind.

　

"Designated battleground in four . . . three . . . two . . . one."

　

With the shuttle down, she popped her belt and blew the hatch, eyes livid with survival, and dove from the shuttle, finding cover behind a massive green boulder. A quick 360 revealed zip possible enemy life forms. The smell was that of any living ecosystem: decay and methane. It was midday, and already hot.

　

Her eyes registered an anomaly of light fourteen degrees from zero, and processed the same into her consciousness. Upon further study she concluded it a camouflaged structure. She studied the immediate area again and confirmed no other possible targets.

　

She quickly spidered to the left and watched, not long though, her shuttle depart as per Rules of Engagement. Defiling Rules meant extreme sanctions. Was the structure the enemy’s craft? Had the enemy risked exile from the greater galactic community?

　

The dry rocky landscape allowed advantages, and sliced the odds in her favor. She planted a mine with a ten meter proximity fuse, and began a wary reconnaissance of the structure.

　

One third of the way around an opening presented itself, and although the structure seemed empty from her position, she was unsure. She set her second and third mines and inched closer. A choice had to be made.

　

No physical description of the enemy rocked the odds toward the enemy. This structure was clearly a trap, and an all-out frontal assault tipped those same odds toward her favor, but left her vulnerable for the millisecond she needed to identify the enemy and secure the kill.

　

Three grenades sailed into the structure and detonated, quickly followed by Earth’s finest Warrior.

　

The door thudded shut behind her, as expected. She crouched, waiting for the enemy to pounce from a hidden vantage point: from a wall, the floor or ceiling, but nothing happened, nothing at all. She waited until she could wait no more.

　

A slow visual inspection of the room revealed nothing. The walls and such were baby butt smooth. All corners rounded. Leslie Tharp’s equipment clinked, tinkled and whuffed as she closely probed the walls, floor, and ceiling.

　

The door had shut with a seam, yet dry air squeezed past. She wasn’t in any danger of suffocation.

　

I could, she thought, pack explosives into the seam and scrag the trap. In the silence of her thoughts she noticed the room softly clinked, tinkled and whuffed back at her.

　

She scritched her last three mines open and rolled the explosive contents like clay, packing a half meter of seam. Would it be enough?

　

She cricked open a Bolo, one side only, and molded that into the seam. A proximity fuse was set for one meter. She lay flat, up against the opposite wall, and tossed the Bolo’s cord.

　

She felt and heard the crack-whoomp, yet the structure was unmarred when examined.

Acid from her supply of Ringer Bullets did nothing, and the Disruptors were useless. Zwipps and snicks were added to the low din, and the mingled sounds were annoying.

　

She keyed events into her log, and concluded her report with these words:

　

MY FIRST ATTEMPT USING AVAILABLE RESOURCES HAS FAILED. I WILL CONTINUE WITH REMAINING WEAPONRY. THE SOUNDS I MAKE ARE COLLECTED BY THE STRUCTURE AND REFLECTED BACK CONTINUOUSLY. THEY SEEM TO BE GROWING IN INTENSITY.

　

She again packed the same spot with her remaining explosives, effectively doubling the charge, and detonated. Nothing happened but more sound. She sat and thought about her problem for quite some time.

　

MY TIMEPIECE NOTES TWO STANDARD DAYS HAVE PASSED, AND THE NOISE IS FAST BECOMING UNBEARABLE. WADDING PACKS MY EARS. EXPLOSIVES SPENT. OTHER WEAPONRY ALMOST GONE. I WILL CONTINUE TO EXPLORE EVERY AVAILABLE SURFACE FOR POSSIBILITIES.

　

NINE DAYS SINCE LAST REPORT. I DESTROYED MY EARDRUMS TO SAVE REMAINING SANITY. I HAVE FAILED. ANY SOUND I MAKE CONTINUES TO AMPLIFY EXPONENTIALLY. I FEEL THE VIBRATIONS IN MY INTESTINES.

　

RATIONS GONE THREE DAYS NOW. USED A SILENCER BULLET ON MYSELF. LAST ITEM ON MY LIST OF OPTIOND. SAT LOG REPEA EVTKP JEIP% KS . . . .

　

***

　

"Madame President?"

　

"Come in and sit. I just finished the report on the Warrior named Tharp, and didn’t like what I read. Did we have any trouble recovering the body?"

　

"The structure’s door remained open for all recovery efforts."

　

"Surprising."

　

"It surprised us, too."

　

"Our best Warrior, Puffer. Gone. She did everything she could, right to the bitter end. Is it our policy to treat obvious traps the same as an ambush? Hit them head-on and hope for the best?"

　

"Yes, ma’am."

　

"I don’t like it."

　

"History has proven the technique successful 87.3% as compared to other methods."

　

"We might want to reconsider that. Have the strategists search for new options. It looks like she tried to set her battle-log at the very end, but the poison was too fast for her. Have all Warriors key their battle-logs to transmit every hour automatically. No exceptions."

　

"Yes, ma’am."

　

"She died an ugly and entirely needless death, Puffer. We could have relinquished the planet without losing credibility, if we had known her predicament. We could have saved her life. I don’t want something like this to ever happen again. I suppose I’ll be the one to notify the family. And I noticed in her records she has a great-granddaughter. The girl’s school notes some aptitude as a Warrior. Have her accepted as a Warrior, and arrange for a child within the next year. The sooner the better."

"Yes, ma’am."

　

"We also have two upcoming battles with the Roundheads, and both worlds are marginal at best. I don’t want the galaxy thinking humanity unfit to survive. Concede until we have more information on them as a species. Give my regards to the Council."

　

"Yes, Madame President."

There are a few things you should know about this short story. The first is this story has been published twice. The second thing is I still need to go over it all one last time, just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Typos are such a pain in the ass, and they pop up when you least expect them. The third thing about this story is I still think it’s one of my best. I stood outside one morning and dictated the whole thing into my tape recorder, with a few minor changes. For some reason all of it worked. That’s the magic of what I do. I weave spells with words that work. The magic is yours to enjoy. See you next month.

　

How the People Kept Their Power by M. S. Sutton

　

When the Grandfather spread his hair, sparks from each strand became the stars. It was he who made the Sky Father and the Earth Mother. Also he made the Moon Sister, whose life cycle affects us all.

　

I am old, and do not believe all the stories as they were told to me, yet know the universe is vast. I also know the universe is a bubble, and we are on the inside where there is no way out. It is the Circle of Life, and the Circle of Life is what we are.

　

The Moon Sister was pretty, yet was barren. The Earth Mother was not. It was she who made the bear and bird, the fish and wolf, and all other creatures. She also made man and woman, for we are also animals, and her knowledge is found in the hearts of all things. This made the Moon Sister angry and jealous, so she hid her face until the Sky Father spoke to her and asked that she smile, which she does now once a month out of joy. She knows the Sky Father loves her.

　

The anger and jealousy of the Moon Sister, what she kept hidden, soured, and a Black Warrior rode the darkness to infest the Earth Mother. This happens now and again. It was I who fought the last Black Warrior. I was young and impatient.

　

Mountains rumbled, and the Earth Mother shook. It seemed she had a secret to tell. It was I who went into the mountains to listen, to touch the spirit of the Earth Mother.

　

The insects were frightened, so did not bite. I am always grateful for small favors and thanked them. Snakes were to be avoided, for they were angry, and would remain so for several days.

　

I was on a spirit quest, so took no food. I had nothing to drink, but knew I would find water enough to quench the most powerful thirst. I sheathed my knife, and also my pipe, so I could take council from nature.

　

I climbed the holy places, and when I looked down between my feet I saw Grandfather Peyote. I pulled the button from the soil and ate it, for contained within Grandfather Peyote is a powerful medicine. It makes the heart beat strong, and the spirit unfold like a spring bloom.

　

I found sweet grass, which I cut. I gathered wood and made a fire with the back of my knife, striking it against a stone, and smoked the sweet grass to purify my spirit and body. When my clothes vanished I knew my prayers had been answered. The spirits would protect me as long as I was not foolish.

　

I was thirsty and could hear water as it tumbled toward the grassy plains below. I found the stream and drank. And as I drank, I saw in my reflection the wisdom of two. Two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs, man and woman, body and spirit.

　

I had been told to beware the spirit world if I was unprepared, so I asked the spirits if I was ready, and was answered. A black bear tore through the trees, then lumbered up to me and spoke.

　

"You are unsure," the bear said. "Perhaps you are not the warrior I seek. Do you have any food to eat? A bear is always hungry."

　

"I have no food for you. Are you the Black Warrior I must face?"

　

"I am, but you do not possess the strength to defeat me."

　

"Then I must call to the spirit of the grizzly bear, for he is more fierce."

　

So I called to the spirit of the grizzly. It came, and I was the grizzly.

　

We stood and roared our challenges. I knew my words and deeds were strong and clear, and charged the Black Warrior.

　

His claws raked my chest, and his bite was deep, but the fur of a grizzly is thick, and his skin tough.

　

We rolled on the ground, biting and clawing each other until dirt flew into my eyes. I quickly cleared my vision, but the Black Warrior was gone. I was myself again.

　

The wounds bled, but I found a yellow root at my feet that halts the flow of blood. Once again the Earth Mother had provided.

　

I climbed further up the mountain and found some snow and danced. I did so to live. I danced, and an eagle’s feather fell at my feet. The feather was wide and long. I picked it up and asked the eagle for his power, and danced so to commune with his spirit.

　

I listened to the wind whisper that I could ride the currents, and heard the proud cry of my sky brother. There was love in his voice, and when I closed my eyes I saw with his eyes a puma, watching me as I dipped and wheeled in my joy. This puma was the Black Warrior.

I dived down and tried to rake the puma’s eyes with my strong talons. His paw swiped at me, but I tucked my wings up against my body and rolled out of reach. With each beat of my powerful wings I climbed higher into the sky vault. It was then that I truly understood the Sky Father.

　

Water makes the clouds; lightening tears the clouds; clouds water the earth. That which is given birth will die and be reborn. Life is an endless ring with no beginning or end. The joy of being.

　

I whirled to attack, but the puma was gone. In his place was a rattlesnake. This was not the Black Warrior, but a temptation he had put there. To fight an angry rattlesnake is foolish.

　

I let my sky brother go to fly where the wind would take him, and noticed the sun was tired. I was also tired, and gathered more wood to throw onto my fire. The night would be long and cold for a warrior without clothes.

　

"Earth Mother, wind, forest, hear my prayer. Protect me this night that I may finish my battle and defeat the Black Warrior." Then I made a brush shelter.

　

I smoked more sweet grass and listened to my stomach complain for something to eat. It was then I heard the call of Sister Owl, who flies with the Moon Sister. I went to where she sat high in a tree and asked her what she wanted. She threw down a hare for me to eat, then flew away to catch one for herself. I thanked her for the gift and skinned the hare. I did not know why Sister Owl had helped me. It gave me something to think about.

　

The wood I had gathered provided a spit to cook the hare, and as the meat sizzled I smoked more sweet grass and pondered my fate.

　

I was tied to the Black Warrior. Twins tethered by heritage. The lives of our forefathers flow like many streams. We belong to our ancestors. One nation makes us strong. I had forgotten those concepts, remembering them was a lesson. This knowledge was earned.

　

I ate the hare while searching beyond the light of my fire. Darkness is a friend I was taught to embrace, so did not fear it. Shadows were made to hide our sorrows, and as I thought this, I noticed shadows gathering in the night like mists over warm waters on a cool morning. These shadows took the true form of the Black Warrior, whose eyes had a red glow. He looked like me.

　

"As with the birth of the life-giving sun each morning," he said, "I am born. As with the death of the sun each night, you will die."

　

His voice was that of the badger when angered. I was not sure I should speak to him in his true form, but did so anyway.

　

"If I am dead in your words, then I am dead."

　

"You cannot heal your soul," he said, "yet you try to free your spirit."

　

"I was not aware my soul was damaged."

　

"You are not free to follow the deer, the elk, what is left of the buffalo, which are free. You are not free to fish any wide river, or migrate like the goose when winter comes."

　

I offered him a leg and thigh of the hare to eat. It was all I had left.

　

"I came to fight," he said. "Not to eat."

It was then I heard a wolf sing in the distance, and so did the Black Warrior.

　

"A wolf will fight to lead his people," I said. "Rarely does he shed blood. His warriors are necessary. A dead hunter cannot catch food."

　

"Does this mean you will not fight?"

　

"When Sister Owl gave me the hare to eat, I realized I had won this battle. You see, Grandfather Peyote gave me his wisdom, the Earth Mother gave me her sweet grass to heal my soul, and her yellow root to heal my body. When I drank the water I saw the wisdom of two acting as one, and with a child’s wonder I saw myself as a sacred being in the eyes of the Grandfather. Supernaturals like you, Black Warrior, are the teachers of new wisdom, or like for me, wisdom that has been forgotten. Like the grizzly my skin is thick, and my heart tough. The Earth Mother will never forsake her people. We fly like the eagle.

　

"I understand how the Sky Father makes love to the Earth Mother, and how I should love my people. Temptation will always have fangs, but to give in to temptation is foolish.

　

"We will speak our languages to our young until the white skins see this as wisdom. We will tell our stories so we as a people never forget who we are. We will dance our dances to free our souls. I will council this. Our history is our culture, our connection to our ancestors. We may die in spirit on these lands, these reservations, but the dead see things differently, and our spirits will be reborn with each story. With each dance will the people keep their power."

　

With my words the Black Warrior smiled at me, and entered my heart to live as a part of me; the part that is just and wise. That was why he looked like me.

　

The reservations are still our homes, but it does not mean we are not one nation, and we are still powerful. Now our white brothers seek our knowledge, try to learn our ways, and because they were lost to us when the world was young, we give them our understanding.

　

The children of the Earth Mother are tied together like sticks in a tight bundle. What happens to one, affects all, or all our songs will remain silent, and all our prayers unspoken.

　

Go now and remember, peaceful are our lodges in the setting of the sun.

I had a hard time deciding what I would post this month, but I hope you enjoy a little of deus ex machina. A horror novel I started a month or so ago, enjoying my first literary love interest. This is only the rough draft of the first chapter. A chapter I have yet to complete. Rough draft means all the mistakes I’ve made are still there, waiting for a little editing. Myself, I love the imagery in those first opening paragraphs, and I’m sure this is the way a writer should start a novel. Enjoy.

　

deus ex machina - a work in progress by M. S. Sutton

　

Chapter One

　

A gray and brown sparrow deep in Blocker’s Woods caught a glimpse of unnatural movement below its perch. Beady black eyes watched a rectangular mound of short grasses, flowers, and soft rich dirt, shift under the freckled sunshine of an ordinary day. When a pale human hand trust itself out of the soft dirt into the warm humid air, the sparrow startled and flew away.

　

The hand was thin, and not very long. A child’s hand. Small craving fingers groped at the debris surrounding it, finding a short fat branch. It used the sturdy branch to pull against the soil a slim colorless wrist into view, and then an arm; then a pretty young girl in dirt-blackened rags out of her shallow grave.

　

She sucked at the clean warm air with newly formed lungs, gulp after gulp, brushing the loam from her desperate face. Out of her wild brown eyes tears flowed. She heard crickets trilling, frogs croaking, birds piping, and two squirrels chittering an argument over what she might be doing within their territory.

　

When she finally noticed them, both squirrels quieted. They had been frightened into silence. She felt their fear as clear as the sky was blue above her. They moved on, looking back once, but not twice.

　

Her grave then caught her attention, and she knew it for what it was. She stared at the hole, and her nose filled with the smell of this dirt. There remained a sense of home about the hole. Her lips, plump and red, contorted into a grimace of fear as whimpering sounds rushed past them.

　

Tears shed were not going to help her out of these woods. She swallowed her fear, dried her eyes with the back of her hand, and looked about, seeing nothing that would help. Sounds of civilization did not reach her ears. The sun seemed to be straight overhead. Which direction would see her safe?

　

A thought that was her and not her crossed her mind. She knew. She knew what she had to do. Eyes now closed, she stretched her mind outward, letting it flow in all directions. Each insect presented itself within her mind, driven to do or not do by hunger or scent, the cold yes or no logic within their tiny brains, and were all dismissed as distractions.

　

Animals hid themselves from her mind’s touch. They scrambled into burrows or under logs, secreting themselves behind clumps of leaves on branches, and they feared. She did them a kindness and soothed them with an image of darkness, lulling them into an early sleep.

　

Farther her mind stretched itself until it touched a fence. From this fence she followed the contour of the land up, and it led to a road. The road was gravel, not mud. Pavement would have been a sure sign of frequent travel, but gravel would have to do. She opened her eyes and began to walk.

　

There was no path to follow. Branches grasped at her like hands to be avoided. Tangles of underbrush frustrated her every step. When she tired she sat on a log, and heard her first true sign of civilization. It sounded like an old car or truck. It sped its way past her and on down the gravel road, still some distance away. It remained silent for quite some time, and then she heard another car or truck.

　

Sweat poured down her face, little tickles slid down her front and back, catching on the remaining fabric of her tattered dress. Her birthday dress. She had turned thirteen that day. She remembered unwrapping her beautiful summer dress, and wanting to wear it. And, in that moment, she remembered everything.

　

She remembered the party, the cake and ice-cream, her parent’s love, her little brother as a pest, her friends, and her best friend Robin. She walked Robin home after the party.

　

By herself, headed home, less than a half a block away from her house, a man came out from behind the Mason’s hedge and hit her in the face. She later opened her eyes and discovered he had shoved her to the floor on the passenger side of his nearby car. Under the wide vinyl dashboard. He growled at her to shut up. He hit her hard on the head with his fist when she did scream, and pulled a gun out from between his legs and jammed it into her face. The barrel of that gun looked wide and deep.

　

She remembered her fear, and running her tongue over the hole where a tooth had been. Without thought her tongue slid into the gap.

　

The man drove for quite a while that day, never uttering a single word toward her, but he whispered and giggled to himself the whole frightening trip.

　

Later that night, when he parked his car, he yanked her out from under the dashboard, and did things.

　

The man did many awful things to her. Yet, when the bad man was finished with her, he said he would grant her a kindness. He dragged her deep into the woods, pulled out a big knife, and sliced her open from groin to sternum and watched her die.

　

From above she watched as he did more things to her dead body, redressing her when done.

She watched as he dug a hole.

　

She watched as he whispered and giggled to himself, filling the hole with her inside.

　

She watched as he cleaned up his tools, cleaned up his car, changed his clothes and drove away, whispering and giggling to himself the whole while.

　

There was something wrong with the man. There was something inside him. Something old.

　

She then remembered the light that had summoned her and comforted her with its enveloping peace.

　

She stood and walked in the sound’s direction until the fence she knew was there presented itself. Four strands of rusted barbed wire stapled onto old wooden posts. Beyond that was a steep hill, and up that hill was the road.

　

She spread the middle two strands of barbed wire far apart and crawled through. It took some effort to scale the deep ditch, grabbing what she could of the surrounding vegetation, but she made it to the top. In the far distance she saw an old red barn amongst the trees. Maybe there was a house by the barn, or maybe not, but help had to be nearby. Her intuition told her to walk in the opposite direction, away from the barn.

　

A half mile down the road she saw a car, a bright yellow car, coming toward her. She knew there were two people in the car, a man and a woman, and that they were good people. She was safe.

　

The car slowed to a stop. She walked over to it, the woman inside rolled down her window and said, "Good lord, what happened to you?"

　

The man at the wheel said, "She looks like she’s in shock."

　

"Call an ambulance."

　

"We can’t call out on the cell from here, no signal."

　

"Sweetheart," the woman said. "Can you hear me?"

　

She nodded, and tears began to flow down her cheeks for the second time.

"Would you like to sit by me?" the woman asked, and opened the car’s door. "There’s a small hospital nearby. We’ll take you there."

　

She moved around the door and the woman squeezed over to the middle of the seat. She climbed in and shut the door, locking her seat belt in place. The woman pulled a tissue out of the purse in her lap, and offered it. She dabbed her eyes and cheeks with it, the woman handed her another tissue, and she blew her nose.

　

"I’m Hunter Reed," the woman said, "and the old man behind the wheel is Richard Reed. Do you know who you are?"

　

"My name is Georgie," she said. "Georgie Beach."

　

Hunter Reed asked, "Do you know how you got out here?"

　

She shook her head. Yes, she knew, but what she knew, what she had evoked, was best kept to herself. Such good people should not know evil so intimately.

　

"That name . . ." Richard Reed said. "Georgie Beach vanished five years ago, I think. It was all over the news for weeks. You can’t be that Georgie Beach, you look as old now as the day she disappeared."

　

Richard looked her over until his wife told him in no uncertain terms to watch the road. There was no more conversation after that short exchange, not for several miles. Hunter, a shapely woman in her early thirties with short brown hair, tried not to stare at her, and watched either her husband or the road. Richard looked like the farmer he was, with his rugged work shirt and ball cap. He was clean shaven, but with his graying hair, looked older than Hunter by a good ten years. They turned onto a two lane highway before Hunter broke the silence, saying, "Ten more miles and we’ll be in Warner. Have you ever been to Warner?"

　

"I don’t know," Georgie told her.

　

"Do you remember how old you are?" Reed asked.

　

"I’m thirteen," Georgie said.

　

"I remember thirteen," Hunter said. "Too old to play with dolls, but young enough to collect them. I collect dolls to this very day. I have over a hundred, and know all their names."

　

"She has a whole room for them dolls," Richard said with a chuckle. "And she does know all their names."

　

"They’re like little people. My favorite doll is Shelly. She was the very first doll I bought myself. She has long black hair, a pretty summer dress that’s sky blue, and dark blue shoes that buckle on the side."

"She sounds pretty," Georgie said. "I can’t remember if I have any dolls."

　

Hunter looked at Richard, and Richard looked at Hunter. Neither said anything after that. They drove into Warner, through the business district, and turned into a large busy parking lot.

　

The sign over the door said Emergency, and that’s where they parked. Georgie opened her door, waited for the Reeds to lead her inside, and sat down with Hunter while Richard explained things to the nurse at the front desk.

　

Georgie felt the spirituality of this place. The walls of the emergency room choked with pain, sadness, and death. Chairs were filled with apprehension or relief. Ghosts that lingered were old, tired, fading; a chill in the air as they passed. The staff countered all this with optimism and humor.

　

Within moments two nurses and a doctor arrived and led her into a private room. Hunter tried to follow.

　

"I’m sorry ma’am," one nurse said. "You’re not a parent, not a relative, or legal guardian. You’ll have to remain in the waiting room."

　

To which the other nurse said, "We’ll let you know how she’s doing. Give us some time to sort things through."

　

Once the examination room door was closed they asked her questions. Lots of questions. Who she was. Where did she live? What happened to her. Were the Reeds responsible for her condition? She answered only what she thought best to answer, protecting both the Reeds and herself, feigning ignorance, leaving the doctor to speculate on possible neurological stress or damage, brought about by her apparent ordeal.

One nurse gave the doctor a knowing look, and the doctor returned that look with a nod. Georgie knew she had left the room to contact the authorities, the detectives in charge of her case, and from there her parents would be contacted.

　

The doctor, a stern man in his forties, clean shaven, dressed in blue scrubs, examined her closely, head to toe, noting no apparent injuries, but there was a large amount of dried blood on her dress. She shrugged her shoulders when asked.

　

"Aside from the scratches on your legs," the doctor said, "and the dirt, you seem as healthy as a horse. The nurse here is going to clean you up and give you a set of clothes like my own. Is that okay?"

　

"Okay," she said.

　

"While I’m at it," the nurse said, "maybe we can find some foam slippers for your feet. I have a pair at home I wear all the time."

　

Which was a lie. Georgie could see it in her eyes, the lie. Knew it was such the moment it tumbled from her lips. The doctor closed the door behind him when he left.

　

"Why do people lie?" Georgie asked. "Telling the truth is easier."

　

"I don’t understand," the nurse replied.

　

"You lied to me about the slippers."

　

"A little white lie so you would wear the slippers. I didn’t mean anything by it. They’re warm, from what I’ve been told, and comfortable."

The second nurse then returned with a set of greens, as she called them, and together they waited. Georgie knew they were waiting for a female police officer to arrive.

　

"Are you hungry, Georgie?" the first nurse asked. Her name was Lidia Jones, according to the name tag, and had worked in the Emergency department for ten years. Nurse Jones was blond, wide in the hips, and wore granny glasses. She had on pink scrubs.

　

The second nurse, Marta Gonzales, was taller than Nurse Jones by a head, and had reddish brown hear she tied back in a long braid. Her name tag declared her a nurse in the Emergency department for three years, she also wore pink scrubs.

　

"A little hungry," Georgie replied. She was, too. "And thirsty."

　

"I’ll be back in a few moments," Nurse Gonzales said. "The nurse’s lounge has a few things in the refrigerator for occasions like this, and a pop machine by the door."

　

Two police officers arrived before Nurse Gonzales returned. One was male, the other was female. The male officer did not enter the room, but the female officer did. She quietly asked the nurse pull a rape kit and follow the prescribed procedure.

　

With the female officer watching, they removed her clothes and put them in a paper bag, sealing it with tape found in a separate drawer. The female officer signed and dated the bag, noting the time the her clothes had been collected.

　

The nurses combed her hair and used a plastic bag to collect what had been teased from the strands. They did the same for her pubic hair.

　

Nurse Gonzales held her hands, and Nurse Jones scraped what had been under her fingernails into a separate baggy, sealing that, handing it to the officer.

　

They then swabbed her mouth, vagina, and anus, sealing and bagging those.

　

Pictures were took by the female officer.

　

"Now we can clean you up proper," Nurse Jones said. "Put these on. We’ll take you up to a private room on the fourth floor, where they have a proper shower. The doctor wants to keep you overnight for observation."

　

"I managed you a pudding cup and a cola," Nurse Gonzales said. "Nurse Jones will get a wheelchair for you, following hospital policy."

　

"Do you have a spoon?" Georgie asked.

Chapter One

　

New York, New York. September 13, 2120

　

Life endured, and the sun still rose in the east and set in the west. Toxic clouds composed of non-methane hydrocarbons, sulfur dioxide, ammonia, makeyourownlistandputithere, have long since cloaked the planet, and were in no danger of dissipating anytime soon. And waiting for the sun (he had never seen) to rise even higher (he had been told by Momma Cola it was a big yellow ball high in the sky) was a twig of a boy all of fourteen years old by the name of Pap. Pap’s stringy black hair was matted, lice infested, and shoulder length. He was wearing just enough to cover his narrow little fanny, and shoes.

　

Pap was busy, busy hunting cat. The quasi-telepathic tabby or calico that could easily survive without human intervention. Cats ate rat, and rats were good roasted, but Pap didn’t want rat. Not that night, or any night too soon. He was tired of rat. Rats ate roaches. Roaches were good fried, with a dash of hard-to-find salt.

　

Though Baby Sister never said so—she never talked, her eyes would speak to him, and in his own way he understood more from her gaze than all the words constantly hurled at him from Momma Cola’s puffy red mouth—Baby Sister was tired of rat, too.

　

Pap spotted his orange and white prey in the blanched morning light and let his mind drain. He nocked an arrow, slowly pulled back on the string, watching the curious cat as it sniffed ever closer to his position, and heard a distant deep rumble from the sour sky. Thunder lords in combat was the thought, but it was a thought he shouldn’t have contemplated.

　

The cat’s head popped up gold eyes wide. Its fuzzy ears panned this way and that, probing for Pap’s mental oops, quivering pink nose and all. Pap jettisoned any remaining thoughts out of his head, changed the even flow of his breathing into a non-rhythm the cat’s finely tuned hearing couldn’t place as hungry human, and waited.

　

The cat wisely crouched and surveyed its bleak environment for quite some time. It didn’t smell anything unusual from any wind-borne direction, and because it didn’t hear or see anything it could equate with danger, warily went back to snuffling the acid-scorched ground for whatever reason it had locked in its quasi-telepathic cat brain. Perhaps kitty-cat was hungrily stalking fat gray rat. Without thought Pap sighted in and let go.

　

The thin yellow arrow flew straight, and Pap watched it pierce the cat’s scrawny chest behind its shoulder blade. A good kill shot. The cat flipped side to side and end over end.

　

Pap, fearful kitty-cat might fall into an asphalt crevice he couldn’t retrieve kitty-cat from, nocked another arrow, but the cat was dying to dead. Its spindly body quivered and stretched as its nerves telegraphed their last.

　

Another clap of thunder roared across the murky heavens much closer than before, and a single drop of acid rain landed on his forearm, burning and smoking its way into his hide. Pap did two things almost at the same time. He spat on his arm to dilute the acid, and frantically clawed his way into the ruins of what was once Grand Central Station before the deadly squall began.

　

He still had a good view of his tasty meow meat, and watched with regret as kitty’s orange and white pelt smoked and melted with each toxic raindrop from the poisoned clouds. The blue plastic feathering on his yellow metal arrow would have to be replaced.

　

"Norse mythology, boy," a coarse voice inquired, "do you know anything of it?"

　

Pap pulled his knife and faced the potential threat this strange new voice held. In the stormy gloom he spied a withered old man in rags, doodling with a brown knobby finger in the dirt. A toothless grin under a bulbous red nose, round bald speckled head, one good ear. Yellowed old eyes rested above the nose, and spoke of clarity of vision and mind.

　

"In Norse mythology," the old man with one ear began, "maggots from the dead body of the giant Ymir changed into the Faerie. Bright light elves and dark elves. The Icelandic version had the first woman, Eve, washing her many children when God spoke, and in fear and with shame she hid her dirty children. God punished Eve by turning those children into the Faerie. Other races have their own versions, you know. Tricksters and pranksters, magical monkeys and more. Now, boy, what do you think about that?"

　

Pap’s agile mind asked itself many questions, none of which were about Norse mythology or the Faerie. In answering those questions Pap decided the old man was not a danger to him.

　

"Your words mean nothing to me, old man," Pap replied truthfully, never one to mince words, and turned his attention back to his kill. Fluffy’s exposed skin blistered and peeled itself off the tasty red muscle tissue. The delicious meat quickly dissolved off the white bone, which began to disintegrate into an ever-widening puddle of crimson goo.

　

"It doesn’t cost you anything to listen to them words of mine," the old man muttered through chapped thin lips. "You go on, watch that cat melt like ice cream on a hot plate. Don’t mind me. I’m old, I know it. The young never listens to the old. It’s like we don’t exist. Like you have better things to do right this minute than listen to a toothless old man."

　

The best of the cat was gone, it would stop pouring soon enough, and Pap still had to wait for it to dry before resuming his hunt. Baby Sister and Momma Cola were counting on him for their supper, not to mention how hungry he was.

　

"What about these Faerie you spoke of?" Pap asked, turning back toward the toothless old man momentarily curious. Only the old man wasn’t there anymore, and there wasn’t anyplace the old man could go, not without getting wet.

　

Pap searched where he could within the ruins, over and under thick stone and broken brick, finding squat and not much else. No corpse was nearby outside, melting.

　

The old man talked nonsense and vanished like a ghost. Pap gave it some quick thought and decided the old man was already dead. There was no other explanation for the old man vanishing like he did with no place to go, especially during a cloud burst. Pap concluded he had seen his first spook.

　

Momma Cola worried about spooks. She believed the ghosts of those she killed over the years for food and supplies (and there had been a few) might, or probably would come back some dark day to haunt her. Pap never worried about ghosts before that day, and had never killed a one-eared, toothless old man with a bald speckled head. Momma Cola, to the best of his knowledge, never killed a one-eared, toothless old man with a bald speckled head, either. Considering the way she liked to tell stories, the same tired stories over and over, he would have heard if she had.

　

Momma Cola talked and talked and talked. Pap would spend hours tuning out her raspy rants. Baby Sister seemed to listen politely, nodding her head when appropriate, but Pap thought it all an act, something she did for Momma Cola’s benefit. If Momma Cola suspected, she didn’t object.

　

Fine. A dead old fart. He had met his first ghost. A spook who decided he was the one to haunt.

　

Pap could deal with a ghost, but his ghost had been doodling in the dirt, and the design was still there. The drawing the dead old man made looked like a number "8" turned on its side. Was that possible? Could ghosts leave marks in the dirt? Pap would ask Momma Cola when he returned home, but he couldn’t return home with an empty food pouch.

　

When the rain stopped Pap pulled out a small dirt-blackened rag and his yank. Haze from the quickly evaporating rain shower would make it hard to breathe for hours. He whizzed on the rag to block any toxic fumes from entering his lungs; then conserved moisture by filling a dented tin cup he always kept with him and drinking the rest.

　

Pap returned his thoughts to the gathering of dinner. No cat today, but fat gray rat was plentiful.

　

Many long hours later, with four roach-fattened rats tucked into his rough canvas food pouch, Pap picked his way home in and around the Big Apple’s rotten core.

　

"Momma Cola!" he shouted, taking the wide steps down into his subway station home two at a time. Nobody answered.

　

"Momma Cola?"

　

"She’s dead, boy. Over there. Under the mattress."

　

Pap recognized the dead old man’s voice, but moved to examine Momma Cola, making sure she was as dead as the dead old man said she was.

　

Momma Cola, big and black, now big, black and old, found Baby Sister and Pap a long time ago. Left to fend for themselves Pap and Baby Sister managed to find each other, and stole what they could when they could from whoever they could in order to survive, hiding like rats in-between raids. For the third time in as many weeks they were copping a few half-rotted eats from Momma Cola’s meager stash when the big woman found them and blocked their only exit.

"My Lord in Heaven!" Momma Cola exclaimed. "Two tiny little rats in my pantry! Perhaps I should eat ‘em?"

　

Pap might have been three, and Baby Sister four, or just turned five. That’s what Momma Cola said. Pap could barely remember back that far. Momma Cola said she talked them into staying by speaking softly without making any threatening moves.

　

Truthfully, Baby Sister made that decision for them both when she gave Momma Cola a wide-armed hug. She then forced Pap to do the same. That was the one thing about that day he remembered clearly. Having his face shoved between Momma Cola’s massive brown breasts, and choking over the funk.

　

Momma Cola had been field dressed. Skinned and boned, every available scrap of edible meat gone. All that remained was a greasy pile of innards, wide strips of brown skin, and a lot of fat with some bone mixed together.

　

"Where is her head?" Pap asked.

　

"They took it with them," the dead old man replied.

　

His next thought was for Baby Sister. The most beautiful thing Pap had in a very ugly and sad world.

　

"Is Baby Sister dead, dead old man?"

　

"I don’t know what makes you think I’m dead, boy, but I’m not. Neither is Baby Sister. In fact, I’m going to help you get her back. It means a lot to me to get her back alive."

"Are you Baby Sister’s father? Or are you like the trader scum who wants nothing more than to take her to bed. Is that it, old man? You’re here because you want to do her instead of Momma Cola? Missed your chance?"

　

The old man laughed loud and long, choked on phlegm, spat that out, and laughed some more. Pap thought his questions worthy.

　

Momma Cola, being a practical trader, did things for food and water. She’d kill a fellow trader if she knew she could get away with it, and keep what he had for herself. They’d eat good for a couple of days on his goods, and eat even better on the trader. Weeks of good food. Pap had to gather a lot of wood out of the ruined buildings, and it took a while for Momma Cola to jerk the meat, but the work and wait was worth the trouble.

　

"You are a stupid boy," the old man said. "Got any guns and ammo?"

　

"Momma Cola thought it safer to trade guns for food and water."

　

"When she got her grubby little hands on them, I suppose. Don’t want to become too big a threat."

　

"Who did this?" Pap demanded. "Who killed Momma Cola and took Baby Sister?"

　

"You’re in a big snit now, huh? I’ll fuel the fire. The who is the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel trader scum, and now you have a credible reason to despise them even more. The why, boy, is because they want to breed her. They want to do Baby Sister. Make her fat with babies. They already killed some off-islanders over in Jersey, and they did it for five little girls. Took their goods and weapons, gathered meat, and took the women’s heads. They want it all, boy, and you dead. You have to kill them first."

　

Pap didn’t really love Momma Cola in any real sense of the word, but she hadn’t deserved to die. Not like that. She’d traded with everyone for years without incident, occasional disappearance notwithstanding. Everyone knew and respected Momma Cola. They didn’t trust her, the truth being the truth, but knew and respected her.

　

Baby Sister, though, was another matter. He needed her, and she needed him. There was something between them, a link he couldn’t explain. He would get her back alive and kill those who took her. A promise he made to himself without words right then and there.

　

All Pap had was one small bottle of water, some roaches, and a meager supply of rat jerky. The fresh rats he caught would go to waste. He didn’t want to take the time to fool with them. What he had would be enough for the old man and himself a quick bite. Baby Sister, when he got her back, would eat well on trader scum.

　

He checked Momma Cola’s not-so-secret stash and found it empty. Fair enough. He would care for the old man until he killed all those that took Baby Sister. He would divide the spoils, and from there the old man would be on his own.

　

"We have a long walk ahead of us, old man."

　

"I don’t do a whole lotta walking well, boy. But you can follow me and we’ll kill us some trader slime."

　

With that the old man strolled toward the platform’s back wall and proceeded to pull Momma Cola’s trash heap apart, throwing everything willy nilly. It was if the old man was looking for something. Since Pap had fabricated the trash heap in the first place, he stood, wondering if the old man was crazy. "Not right in the noggin," as Momma Cola would say, tapping the side of her head and rolling her eyes.

　

"What are you looking for, old man?"

"A tunnel, boy. We go through this here tunnel."

　

"There is no tunnel there, old man."

　

The train tunnel off the platform caved in years ago, from what Momma Cola said, before she had been born, during or after the Time of Pain, giving the three survivors a dry safe home.

　

"Is that right?" the old man said, removing a rusted blue car hood from against the grimy tiled wall. "Watch my ass."

　

Pap watched the old man crawl his way into a roughed round tunnel that shouldn’t exist. All in all, it confused him. That and the old man had a large hole in his baggy pants, showing flabby, white old-man rump.

　

Pap (a little afraid) followed the old man into the round hole in the wall. It was dark but dry, and smelled like butt crack thanks to the old man’s soiled trousers.

　

The walls of the tunnel seemed to glow, so Pap could see where they were going, and the tunnel appeared to change directions at a whim, growing larger with each twist and turn. Both got to their feet.

　

"This tunnel, old man. How is it possible?"

　

"People once thought that giants walked the land, or Big Foot, a half-man half-ape thing, if you know what an ape is, but they didn’t. No Big Foot, no giants, no trolls."

　

"Trolls?"

"Big ugly things. No trolls, no pixies, no brownies, selkies, fachan, phooka, spriggans or gobblins. The Faerie, they were real. They once lived all over the world, long before humans came about to bungle everything. They looked like us humans, too. A bit smaller, of course, but not by much. They taught men and women how to do magic, among other things, and taught—"

　

"All I asked about was this tunnel, old man. Why are you again telling me about Faerie?"

　

The old man stopped, turned around, and looked pissed.

　

"Did you ever stop to think that the two might be interconnected?" the old man leaned in and voiced, hands on hips. "Please don’t interrupt me unless it’s a life or death situation. I’ll shut my mouth until you’re ready to listen. Damn kids never change. Generation upon generation of closed-minded snot-nosed brats with loud opinions that spring from half-formed thoughts. Slap ‘em upside the head twice a day for fun, is what I say."

　

The old man turned, and deeper into the tunnel he went.

　

"Watch your head, boy. Don’t addle yourself more than what you are already."

　

Pap said nothing more, rather insulted the old man had called him a kid, a snot-nosed brat, and continued to call him "boy." He wasn’t a kid, a brat, or a boy. He was a man that took care of his family, and a good hunter. Rare was the day he missed his target.

　

They might have walked a quarter mile more before the old man stopped again, felt around the thick concrete wall, and pushed open a squat wide door Pap knew for a fact wasn’t there a moment before. Brightness washed in and hurt his eyes. The old man stepped out and Pap followed.

"Boy, I don’t know which is worse on these poor old knees. Crawling hurts like hell, and walking isn’t much better. I know my knees wouldn’t have held out if we walked all this way street-side. It pays the devil to grow old, boy. It pays the devil."

　

When the door shut Pap saw it was a sign bolted to a tall building’s cement wall. The faded image was that of a warrior covered head to toe in shiny steel. Pap didn’t want to ask the what or how with the door, sure he already knew the answer. Instead, he asked about the sign.

　

"Something about prophylactics, boy. Condoms. Things men used to slip over their peepees to stop from making babies. I was sure rubbers were a huge waste of time, and time proved me right. Used them as water balloons as a kid."

　

"I don’t understand."

　

"Fill ‘em up with water and drop ‘em out a window onto people’s heads. Very funny."

　

The old man sighed. He said, "It’s not important anymore, and Baby Sister is. We need to slide over a couple of blocks. There’s another tunnel I know about that should take us up inside the trader’s stronghold without any of their sentries seeing us."

　

"We haven’t traveled that far," Pap observed, "yet we’re miles from Momma Cola’s. How can that be?"

　

"That’s what I’ve been getting to in my own round-about way," the old man said. "Anyway, where was I? The Faerie . . . they taught men and women magic—"

　

The old man suddenly stopped his lesson. He first considered one direction, and then another. He turned a slow circle. He said, "Something isn’t right." Then his eyebrows came together and drooped down in the center.

　

"Do you feel it, boy?" he whispered.

　

Pap could feel it. "We’re being watched."

　

"We’re being watched alright, but it doesn’t feel like a who, it’s more of a what, probing the area. Open your mind, boy. Close your eyes and open your mind. I want you to experience this. Know it for what it is."

　

"How?"

　

"You’re able to hunt cat, right? Same thing. Close your eyes and open your mind."

　

Pap closed his eyes and cleared his thoughts as if he was on a hunt, and began to construct a mental illustration of the immediate area. He distinguished obvious hiding places, and not so obvious hiding places, but no motion. He could sense a darkness about him, icky-sticky-gooey, but the darkness seemed out of reach.

　

Pap whispered, "What is it, old man?"

　

No answer.

　

He opened his eyes and looked around. No old man, and Pap never heard a sound.

　

Pap hunkered down and policed for movement. He stood and tugged at the metal sign, but it was bolted to the old concrete wall. There was no hidden latch he could finger. The sign opened for the old man, but wasn’t going to open for him. If he was being observed, and Pap still felt as if he was, he needed to find a place to hide.

　

Across the street was a building that looked fairly intact. Pap picked his way around what seemed to be a parking lot of rusted hulks, crossing the street. A thin stairwell, choked with stone and brick, led to a basement.

　

A dented mailbox had made its last stand at the bottom of the stairwell, and died half buried, clinging to a corroded steel door he hoped to hide behind. Next to the door was a hole-of-a broken window big enough for him to scramble through, covered by a rusty, metal mesh grate.

　

Pap pulled the thin grate off without much trouble, goaded any remaining shards of dirty glass out of the window’s metal frame, and clambered inside. He hurriedly nocked an arrow and waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom.

　

The room was altogether barren. Not even a piece of crumpled paper on the floor. A door leading into the building’s interior had long ago been removed, the empty frame bricked up, hiding something, possibly food or water. His stomach voiced its indignation at the thought of food.

　

He searched outside the window, left to right, top to bottom, but saw nothing, and heard nothing more than his stomach.

　

Pap ate one small piece of jerky, and then one roach at a time, savoring his meal, staring out the window, reasoning his strange new predicament.

　

The old man was gone, but wasn’t dead. He just acted like a ghost, vanishing at will. Tunnels that shouldn’t exist, and doors only the old man could open. Baby Sister needed to be rescued. The traders needed to be killed, representing a continuous threat to both Baby Sister and himself. That meant going into dangerous and unfamiliar territory alone.

　

The idea of a more complete mental map inched its way to the top of his how to kill traders and save Baby Sister musings. He chewed another crisp salty roach and chased it down with a slug of warm water.

　

The jerky and roaches calmed his gut, and the water renewed his energy. Still nothing moved outside.

　

He breathed deep, almost the rhythm of sleep, and backed away from the window. Pap let go his concerns, his fears, and let his mind sculpt the streets and buildings around him. This time the little things: trash, rats, a cat prowling for its dinner, entered his thoughts.

　

There was a presence. A darkness that seemed to be searching for something. Suddenly, many such dark presences revealed themselves within Pap’s mind, only these presences didn’t feel dangerous. It was as if they were shadows of people, and he could reach out to them and know them as well as he knew himself. Pap perceived they were the people who had died during the Time of Pain. Their spirits doomed to wander the dead streets of a dead city as the world gasped its last uneasy breaths.

　

One, though, wasn’t of them.

　

One was feeding from the others, drawing from them their ghostly essence until all that remained was their fear. One that pounced into his living mind.

　

It first felt like an annoying itch he couldn’t possibly scratch, driving deeper into his brain. Then pain the likes of which he never felt before raced around inside his head. It bulldozed through his memories of hunting rat and cat, cleaning and cooking and eating with Momma Cola and Baby Sister. Memories of him gathering wood among the ruins, pulling it off of or out of walls, collecting potable water by draining old pipes in dangerous basements. The force inside his head was picking out locations. The best places to find survivors. A wail of pain could be heard; then a scream Pap knew came from his own lips.

　

The pain stopped, and Pap felt his mind abruptly yanked into a measureless black that threatened to asphyxiate him. He mentally thrashed about until exhaustion forced him deeper into the all-consuming gloom.

　

Slowly, Pap became aware of himself in the syrupy pall. He realized several things at the same time. The first of which he was heart-thundering-in-his-chest alive, sucking air. The second and third things he realized; he seemed to be standing upright on absolutely nothing.

　

He let his mind unfurl to encompass the naught, trying to understand where he was. He expanded his awareness to such an extent he was afraid of forfeiting himself, what he was, to the darkness. He reined himself in and understood nothing, and nothing was what he understood.

　

He was in the nothing before there was something. It was an unusual thought to think, but he recognized this unique concept as a bold but simple truth he could not deny.

　

Pap grinned, pushed his foot down, and immersed it in zilch. He then noticed another item that stilled his happy feet. There was a small pinprick of bright blue-white light off in the far distance.

　

Before he could think about it Pap drew himself toward the small point of light. He circled the light with his mind, and stared into it. His curiosity got the better of him and he touched it with his thoughts. The spark exploded, and a brilliance quickly enveloped him, passing through him, seething with colors he had no names for. Great bubbling globs of light.

　

Pap wanted his mouth to give all around him some visage of sound. A great cry of anxiety erupted to become nothing more than silence.

　

After a short while it all seemed to slow down. Whirlpools of light began to form little dots that radiated out at him untold shades of white, yellow, blue and red. Pap turned a small circle and marveled. It was like being on the inside of a great bubble.

　

Could he? Should he? It meant swallowing all uncertainty.

　

He took a small step and found his footing held, despite what his eyes were telling his brain. He took another step, and then another, and then another. He quickly decided admiring his feet was not the best thing to do during his unique jaunt.

　

There was no real direction to go within his bubble of swirlie-whirly light, so Pap chose the nearest spiral. Each step took him closer than he ever thought possible. He’d never run distances such as those he now traversed with each gangly footfall. One arm within that spiral enveloped him, and Pap stopped to think.

　

With questions he had no real words for, and no hope for answers, Pap scanned the immediate area and discovered one point of dim yellow illumination seemed to entice him. So, for no other reason than it was there, that’s the one point of light he approached.

　

He stopped again when a massive—bigger than he ever imagined—ball of battered gray rock surged past him. Another step later he saw another massive ball coming at him. This one was also round, almost perfectly so, and smooth.

　

The third sphere to pass by, actually roll past him like a ball on the pavement, was pale blue with some muddy green stirred within. Momma Cola once had three marbles, and had shown them to him, explaining what they were. That’s what these balls looked like. Monstrous marbles.

The fourth globe was larger than the last three, bright yellow, and had a dense set of rings. The fifth sphere was fantastically gargantuan. It was angry with clouds of orange, white and yellow. The most memorable feature of this tremendous orb was a great whirling red spot. It looked like an unblinking eye.

　

Another step brought him into a region that choked with rocks of all shapes and sizes. Yet another step brought him to a rust colored ball with thin wispy ribbons of white, floating above its surface. That’s when Pap understood what it was he was seeing, giving the phenomenon its proper name. The first answers to his many unasked questions.

　

Momma Cola’s long forgotten picture books named the bubble the Universe. Momma Cola also called them the heavens. The bright yellow blaze-of-a-ball far from where he was now, was called the Sun. He had seen things called galaxies form, traveled to his own solar system, and walked from planet to planet. The big one with the angry red eye was called Jupter, and the rust-red orb he stood next to was called Mars.

　

"It’s pronounced Jupiter, boy. I knew there was some intelligence in that pointed head of yours. Had to pry it out, though."

　

Pap turned several circles to find himself still alone, yet he heard the old man’s voice.

　

"Where are you, old man?" he asked aloud.

　

"Close enough. Take another step, boy."

　

"Why can’t I see you?"

　

"Because I don’t want you to. Take another step. Learn something new."

　

Pap did as he was told. Earth, the properly named planet he supposedly inhabited ballooned into view, seeming to park itself in front of his eyes. It was a bright blue and white ball, with masses of brown and gold and green, dotting its surface. A pitted moon lazily swung around it, rendered in bright white and drab gray.

　

"Before you ask," the old man’s voice said, "this is what the Earth was, what it looked like before the Time of Pain. Before Faerie or Man walked its surface. Take another step."

　

And just like that Pap was standing on the Earth’s surface, surrounded by things called trees. Looking up past the canopy, Pap saw for the first time in his life a clear blue sky. The sun hung high and bright. Sweet on his lungs was the air, with many agreeable aromas about to tickle his nose.

　

"Feels good to breathe?" asked the old man.

　

"It doesn’t burn."

　

"Enjoy it while you can. This is your home, boy. New York. What it once was, what it may be again."

　

"New York?"

　

"That’s what I said. Once, great forests filled with countless more animals than cats and rats circled the planet, doing nothing more than living, eating, shitting, sleeping, procreating and birthing more of their kind; then dying. The smallest things being food for the small, the small food for the large, and the large for the larger still. The largest living and dying to feed the smallest. A circle of never-ending life. The Faerie came into this world because of the thoughts all these creatures could almost think. Thoughts akin to happiness and love. All that above the underlying instincts to eat or defecate made form. Take a step and move forward within Time."

　

Pap took a step and saw his first Faerie, flittering about the trees.

　

"I see them," he said. They were tiny balls of bright light, representing almost every color. Sapphire, amber, scarlet, more.

　

Did the names he gave their colors come from long dormant memories? Or was it the old man’s influence, giving their colors names as exotic as their substance? Either way he didn’t care. To him they were—reaching for the word on the tip of his tongue.

　

"Magic?" asked the old man.

　

"Magic. But you said they looked like us, only smaller."

　

"So I did. Step again and see them evolve."

　

Pap took another small step and saw the Faerie grow in size. They were still multi-hued balls of light, dancing amongst the foliage, but now Pap could see the bleariest hint of wings.

　

Another step bought the vaguest suggestion of form. Arms and hands in which to pluck things, with legs and feet to alight on branches or the ground, and they were larger. Pap took another step.

　

"Now they look like you, boy. Their wings are gone because they didn’t need them anymore. Magic allowed them to fly without wings. They evolved quickly in intelligence as well as body. Creatures of great power. They learned the potency of thought; the might in invention. They lived with life, not above it. By this time us humans began to take shape. One species of tailless monkey learned to walk upright and left the trees for good. Then they learned to pick up rocks and sticks as tools."

　

"You sound like Momma Cola when she played teacher. Baby Sister and me used to look at the picture books. I should be saving Baby Sister, not playing school with you, old man."

　

"What makes you think I’m playing here, boy? That thing you felt watching us, the thing that picked your brain apart, you don’t know what it is, but I do. I’m not playing at anything. You needed to know a few things, and I took you to the beginning of Time and Space to show you the what and the why. Take another step, boy."

　

Pap did as he was told.

　

"Men and women came into these lands," continued the old man, "crossing barriers of ice and sorrow, and the Faerie taught them how to survive. What to eat, how to build shelter, how and what to hunt. Taught them other things, too. Magic is taking the forces of nature and applying the power of thought to said forces. Desire makes it happen. All over the world, everywhere, Faerie taught humans magic. Most of humanity had no ability to work magic, but a few did. Those choice few were called wizards and witches. Men and women."

　

The forest faded, and majestic slabs of colored stone formed a city that dwarfed New York in height and breadth. Great fountains and waterways nourished all manner of food for the picking, and everywhere was clean.

　

"This city, boy, is called Mu."

　

Humanity populated Mu, and it was wonderful. The air itself radiated kindness, cheer, and purpose.

　

"Men and women of talent came here to live and study magic," the old man said. "Magic was this city. Its teachings kept it all together, block by block. Take another step and see Mu through new eyes."

　

Pap lifted his foot and saw fear in the people of Mu. Saw people running for their very lives as great bolts of energy tore through the crowds, wiping the multitudes out of existence. Buildings toppled as wizards and witches battled each other, and something yet unseen. Pap watched, stunned.

　

As his foot touched down, nothing remained but the smoking ruins of Mu. All was leveled. The tart stench of death was powerful. Pap stood horrified over such wholesale destruction.

　

"Again, boy. Step again!"

　

Over the devastation of Mu rose a single dark, shadowy figure. Unlike human or Faerie, it surveyed the smokey remains; then focused on him. He could feel its malevolence seep into his heart, holding him in place. A familiar sense of—

　

"Step, boy! Now!"

　

Pap did as instructed, though it took all of his inner and outer strength.

　

Sad waves lapped at charred stones now half buried by sand. Bone fragments and short green grass lay side by side. Mu, and whatever that thing was, both were long gone.

　

"Mu, Lemuir, Atlantis, Le, all gone," the old man explained. "Civilization took a mighty step backward."

　

"What was that creature, old man?"

　

"That-which-was-called, boy. You have felt it before."

　

"That’s what was watching us."

　

"That’s what has Baby Sister. That’s what we have to kill in order to save her and the others. All the children the traders took."

　

Pap hung his head. He felt power in the bone at his feet. "Is it a Faerie? Am I to fight a Faerie?"

　

"Think, boy. I took you to before our universe was born, you saw its creation, saw the cosmos come into being, and in your heart did you name it as evil?"

　

"It was good."

　

"I walked you through Time and Space to see what goodness and joy can create out of nothing. Now imagine a creature that lived its entire life, yet refused to die. Part of it lives elsewhere, but part of it lives here. What called it to our world was sorrow, pain, and all the negative emotions both Man and Faerie were capable of producing. Where life evolved from the good, the bad within life accumulated and grew loud. It became a voice, an urge, a need unto itself, and as it called out into the dark void, so to was it answered."

　

"I’ll kill it," Pap said.

"I hope so, boy. Wake up."

　

Pap woke to find himself still in the basement room, and squatting next to him was a woman so aged and wrinkled, she frightened him into instant action.

　

He rolled to one side and stood, only to become dizzy and fall, scraping his head against the plaster wall. The knife he plucked from his pouch on the way up, flew from his hand on the way down.

　

"The old man sent me," the old woman said. "I’m here to help you survive."

　

Pap let her words register while he caught his breath. Blood seeped into one eye, which he then wiped clear with the back of his hand.

　

"You are the hero I’ve waited two million years for?" the old woman said. "Pap, is it?"

　

"Hero?"

　

"Not the brightest bulb in the stadium, eh? That may very well work to our favor." Two pops and a snapping sound signaled her upright stance.

　

"Old bones," she explained.

　

Pap reclaimed his blade and bow and stood, more slowly than before. The old woman was dressed in a simple flowered gown, and her dazzling white hair was twisted into a tight knot, crowning her head. Gunshots echoed outside the window.

　

"Traders?" he whispered.

"They’re hunting everybody left alive," the old woman replied. "A block by block search for survivors. Kill the adults, take the children. The girl children. You can’t help them. Not yet. They’ll have to fend for themselves. Some will make it, some won’t. Come on, I have a place that’s safe from prying eyes and minds."

　

Pap’s ears heard up to the word "survivors" before he blocked out the rest of the old woman’s blah, blah, blah.

　

"Stay here and stay safe!" Pap said as he pushed his bow out the window.

　

"Stay with me!" the old woman called out in a gruff voice, but Pap didn’t hear that, either. He scrambled out the window, peeked over the stairwell’s edge, and a zing noise flicked his ear with a pop, whining into the cavity behind him, followed by an "uh" and a faint thud. He ducked down and fingered his shredded earlobe.

　

He whispered, "Old woman?"

　

Three more bullets splintered the concrete behind him, leading him to realize their trajectory placed them below rooftop. A stationary guard had been placed in a top-floor room during his unique jaunt, while other traders ousted those unseen. The basement room, now a death trap, was his only option.

　

"You may call me Mother Mary, child. Help me up."

　

"You weren’t shot?"

　

"Faked it to get you back in here with me."

　

"Stay down, against the wall. I’ll kill them as they try to enter."

"Help me up and I’ll take you somewhen, where prying eyes and minds can’t go." Pointing with a flesh-covered framework finger toward the walled-up doorway. The doorway was now open. It was as if mortar and brick had never touched the frame.

　

"A small feit," Mother Mary said. "One that doesn’t attract attention. The wall within the doorframe was built in the past. It’s easy enough to send the doorframe backward in time to before the wall was built and walk through."

　

Pap gently held her outstretched arm. He pulled up, she pushed up.

　

"Can I learn magic?" Pap asked, walking through to a hallway much larger than he would have thought possible. Behind him, the brick and their safety was back in place.

　

"From what the old man told me the magic is already inside of you. Nobody can walk from before Space and Time and not have magic inside. But, you’re worried. You’re worried about Baby Sister. You’re worried that if you don’t get to her soon, she’ll be killed."

　

"She’s all I have."

　

"Do you love her? Like a man loves a woman?"

　

"I don’t know," he said. They turned a corner, and the hallway before them narrowed and ramped up.

　

"Yes, you do. It’s a need for her in your arms. A want to touch her hair. To look over and see her; then wait for her to notice you and smile. To live or die for that smile. Do you love her?"

"I need her."

　

"That’s the answer I expected. Well then, you have to trust in us, Pap. The old man and me. You have to learn what we have to teach."

　

"If the magic is inside of me, what do I have to learn?"

　

"You have to learn how the power resides in you. How to command it. We are your guides, nothing more. Others will teach the lessons we think you need to learn. The first lesson will be self-discipline, but not on an empty stomach. That door there, that’s my place."

　

Mother Mary produced a key from somewhere and slid it into the lock. But, before she unlocked and opened her door, she said, "On this side of the door is the present. On the other side is the past. Don’t be afraid. It’s going to be noisy."

　

Mother Mary opened the door, and Pap truly thought he was ready for anything, but the noise that reached him was powerful loud. Out the windows, though Pap didn’t know what was what, were the sights and sounds of New York past.

　

Traffic choked the streets with rumbling, stinky cars, moving like roaches on parade. People lined the streets, doing everything or nothing. Half of them were speaking, and some of them were shouting. The other half were listening, waiting for their turn to speak or shout back. Sirens blared from many directions, the echoes of which traveled great distances through the concrete canyons. Car horns blasted away like bad music from incompetent instrumentalists. Mother Mary didn’t seem to notice or mind, but Pap stuffed a finger into each ear to salvage his remaining sanity, and for the second time in his life he saw blue sky and sunshine.

　

"Pull your fingers out of your ears and take it all in," Mother Mary shouted at him, moving across the tidy room to shut the window. "Like a bad smell, give it some time and it fades away into the background."

　

Pap waited until the window was down before he removed anything from anywhere.

　

Outside the window was amazing-frightening. Outside the door was quiet and desolation. Pap solemnly shut the door.

　

"So much death," Pap said. "So many died."

　

"It is a bit overwhelming, but, like I said, you’ll get used to it."

　

"Mother Mary, what happened to all of them? The people . . . the city . . ."

　

"Didn’t Momma Cola ever tell you stories about the past?"

　

"She told us many things about the past, but not why they died."

　

"You want to know why they died? Fine. Grand Central Station, where you met the old man, used to have tens of thousands of people moving in and out of it each day and night like maggots through stinky dead flesh. Greater New York once had eighteen million men, women and children, with their piss and sugar attitudes; the crime, grime, wildlife and nightlife, competing for the same space at times. All of it is gone. That’s the shame of it, child.

　

"I doubt if Momma Cola knew the real reasons. She only saw what was left after the worst was over. The world and those in it could be absolutely heartless at times, but that would have been indicative of a symptom. The world didn’t die from pestilence, even though drugs acted as a qualifier. Not from war either, though small skirmishes were fought every day for every dim-witted reason you could think of. Death, he liked to vacation New York at one time, early in the fall months, falling in love with the ambience of Central Park in the late twentieth century, but even he couldn’t stop the inevitable. Earth’s leaders spent too much time frigging their privates instead of solving the real problems the people faced. Industrialists in charge of the only force in the universe more powerful than God herself—greed—kept doing what they did best to keep the gold rolling in, and the rest of the planet be damned. Ignorance destroyed it all, child. Ignorance. All of us should have fought to keep our world alive. We should have given our lives to see to it that it stayed that way. There is a general who leads the forces of evil, and that is who you have to exterminate."

　

"That thing killed our world?"

　

"Others promised wealth and power, destroyed everything to achieve wealth and power. They lived the lives they thought they wanted, only to see it all fade away. Like Mu before it, the creature turned us against ourselves."

　

"How?"

　

"The truth can hurt even more so than a lie, and the greatest lies are often told in silence."

　

Pap didn’t understand, not fully, but he got the gist of Mother Mary’s words. This creature destroyed the world by promising and delivering that which destroyed the world. It made death happen by using people, much like it was using the traders. They had been promised something.

　

"What were the traders promised?" Pap asked.

　

"They get to rebuild humanity, with total control over all the old and the new."

　

"That isn’t going to happen, even if the traders win."

　

"The creature wants the children, not the traders or us."

　

"Mother Mary, what happens when our world is completely dead?"

　

"The beast moves on."

　

"Can the children help it do this?"

　

"In time another race will come to our planet, and will find life once lived here, and once was great. The entity will still be alive, thanks to the life-force within the children. It will do to them what it did to our world, and more, everywhere. Galaxies will fall. Baby Sister, she’s to give birth to the beast’s new form. Are you hungry? You did walk from the beginning of our universe to the here and now, more or less."

　

"You old people talk funny."

　

"We know enough to speak our minds, and have many colorful words to do so."

　

Pap wasn’t hungry. Not really. Peering out the window at the past, knowing his present, guessing the future, bought to him resolve. In him was a great force he had no understanding of, but needed to harness. The depth of his ignorance, appalling.

　

"Eat," she said, "even if you’re not hungry. This is your first lesson in self-discipline. Food and drink build inner and outer strength. You may have to do without food or water later."

"I’ll eat."

　

"Good. While I get things started you can watch something on TV I taped. A wizard’s duel. Boris Karloff and Vincent Price. I can’t remember the name of the movie right off the top of my head, but you might find it interesting. Push this button to turn on the television, and don’t be frightened by what you see, and then this button to play what I taped. The Raven. That’s the name of it. I’m sure."

　

Mother Mary moved over to the window and opened it. Pap found the noise less painful. She called down to someone for food, with a "Yes, Mother Mary!" shouted back. She closed the window but remained close by.

　

Pap first pushed one button, and the TV box lit up. There were funny-paper people in the box, moving and talking, and Pap almost lost himself in the enchantment of it, but remembered Mother Mary’s words. He pushed the second button.

　

The words they spoke were not important. What they were doing, was. Gestures produced energy to shield or attack.

　

"I saw the same thing in Mu," Pap said. "They destroyed everything."

　

Mother Mary sat next to him with something in a large flat box.

　

"Pizza," she said. "Eat."

　

The duel continued with both men growing tired. Expending magical energy drained them. Both were trying to outwit each other. Pap ate the strange and tasty new food without much regard, wiping his oily fingers on his bare thighs.

　

"There’s reality," Mother Mary began, "and fantasy. Mu was reality, this is fantasy. Magic can do only as you direct. You control your magic. The force magic is, is all around you. It always flows, and it can do almost anything. You can win by channeling that flow into and out of your body. It’s done by thought and focus. Desire and self-discipline is the key. Here’s a napkin to wipe your hands on. Would you like to see the duel again?"

　

"Please."

　

"And manners, too. Will wonders never cease?"

　

Pap watched as Mother Mary pushed a third button, which made everything he had seen run quickly backwards. He watched the weak and crafty become strong and careless. The duel began again. Pap ate more pizza.

　

"Only you can be broken, Pap. The magic will still flow whether you’re alive or dead. The creature you must face knows this, but will try to convince you otherwise. Self-discipline will keep your mind ready to fight, but self-discipline must be learned. You’re going to go to a place where rules are everything. Lots of rules. Breaking the rules is not self-discipline, learning not to break the rules is. Problems will confront you, thinking them through is your only salvation. Those who will do the instructing will only see what they expect to see. A young man, not a shirtless young boy in shorts. They will teach you many new and important things, and expect you to learn all the knowledge they impart. You play games and act the fool, they will treat you like a fool and be rid of you.

　

"Now, don’t worry, I won’t leave you there alone not knowing how to flush a toilet. Another will help you in comprehending the small things you’ll need to know to get by. You will be two minds, sharing one body. His name is Deon, and you’ll be able to think thoughts at each other as easily as we trade speech. Speak out loud to each other and they’re going to think you a fool. Not right in the head. Do you understand?"

　

Pap nodded and asked, "How long will I be gone?"

"I said we can give you the time, so that doesn’t matter."

　

"Can I have the last piece of pizza?"

　

"Have at it. Nothing wrong with a healthy appetite."

　

Pap choked down the last piece as he watched for the fourth time the wizard’s duel.

　

Mother Mary asked Pap if he was still hungry. Pap said no, and Mother Mary said it was good. She looked him in the eye and said, "Begone."