THE FIRST

By Scott Nicholson

Published by Haunted Computer Books at Smashwords

Copyright 2009 Scott Nicholson

This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. This ebook may not be shared, given away, or illegally copied, and all rights belong to the author. This is a work of fiction, and any coincidence between any persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Thank you for reading the book and please post a review or tell your friends if you like this work. Visit Scott Nicholson at www.hauntedcomputer.com.

OTHER BOOKS BY SCOTT NICHOLSON

The Red Church

The Skull Ring

Burial to Follow

Drummer Boy

Flowers

Ashes

The Harvest

The Manor

The Home

The Farm

They Hunger

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PHANTASMIA

1. The Way of All Flesh

2. The Night The Wind Died

3 Dumb Luck

4. When You Wear These Shoes

5. Must See To Appreciate

HYPNOGAGIA

6. Heal Thyself

7. Letters and Lies

8. Wampus Cat

9. Beggar’s Velvet

DYSTOPIA

10. Tellers

11. Angelorum Orbis

12. Doomsday Diary

13. Narrow Is The Way

14. The Shaping

15. Socketful of Blather

AFTERWORD

BONUS MATERIAL: Shifting Sands of Memory

Article: Don’t Sweat The Short Stuff?

THE WAY OF ALL FLESH

The warrior came to Ibeja in the night. He was the greatest warrior, at least in that day's battle, and the scent of blood hung about him like smoke. He climbed onto Ibeja's body that was barely more than a layer of dry skin over bone. She stared at the gap in the thatched roof, at the sprinkled mocking stars. He mated without speaking.

The sounds of other matings came from the nearby huts, drowning out the buzz of insects that devoured the withered grass. Ibeja's heart felt like a small hot stone in her chest. The other women were taking seeds, would give birth to the tiny, shriveled things that would one day soon become warriors themselves. But she alone was not allowed the joy of bringing forth life.

The warrior thrust against her, quickly and without passion, muscles glistening in the dim starlight. Her bones rattled like a cage of sticks, her flesh a leathery prison, her body as light as the birds that picked over the battlegrounds at sunset. Ibeja accepted the mating the same way she accepted the dying moon, the gray emptiness of the fields, and the dust-choked riverbeds that stretched bleakly beyond the village.

The warrior's eyes were wide and white, staring past her into a long darkness. He grunted with release. She allowed him his moment of pleasure before she took him. Her ribs stretched apart and the skin peeled back, the night air cool against her exposed lungs and heart. The bones separated and their sharp edges clasped his shoulders, pulled him against her slick organs. His grunts turned into screams, then were smothered by viscera. She hoped her heart was a sweet enough distraction as it thrust into his mouth.

Her torso opened wider, her own need now strong. As always in this moment of taking, she thought of the flowers she had seen in her youth. Sometimes a sudden storm had risen, sending a drowning fury that drummed down too fast for the ground to absorb. Then the harsh sun would return, and in those brief hours before it vented its own full wrath, bright red flowers unfurled from the vines that ran beneath the shady rocks.

That's the image Ibeja held in her mind, the only image she had found that didn't repulse her. She herself was a flower, a blossom that would become fruit. She was the new mother of nature in a world that nature had long since fled.

The hut filled with the wet gurgle of the ritual. Her nameless and faceless lover entered her, she took him into her torso and felt his blood and meat coursing through her veins, filling her, bloating her limbs, reviving her and giving her the strength to finish her loving work. Ibeja's ribs worked like fingers, thrusting the honored warrior deeply inside her.

As his bones cracked and dissolved, her skin stretched to cover the added bulk. The skin knitted itself together and the weight spread sluggishly throughout Ibeja's body. Her belly grumbled as it digested the tough and bitter male flesh. She was helpless now, unable to move, and all she could do was wait and watch as the stars slowly disappeared into the orange flesh of dawn.

"Ibeja?" The voice outside the hut broke the stillness of dawn.

Ibeja worked her lips together, getting accustomed to their new thickness. "Enter."

The woven grass that covered the door parted, and a thin brown woman came into the hut. She was naked and carried a colorful clay jug. "A great new day, Mother," she said, kneeling beside Ibeja.

"A great new day, Yoru," Ibeja answered.

Yoru lightly placed her hand on Ibeja's stomach, admiring the tautness. "You took a big mate," she said.

"Yes," Ibeja said. As always, she was disturbed by the awe in the voices of the others. Did they not sense that she would trade places with them a thousand times, she would gladly give her exalted place for one night of human love, for a chance to couple with a mate who kissed her and called her by name, or for one day of carrying life in her belly instead of death?

But she swallowed her own jealousy, a thing more bitter than dried blood, and asked, "How was your mating?"

Yoru giggled and rubbed her own gaunt belly. "I believe he planted one. Maybe someday it grows into a great warrior and comes to you in the night."

Yoru's eyes shone with remembered pleasure as she dipped her hand into the jar and brought a palmful of water to Ibeja's mouth. Ibeja sipped it until her tongue no longer felt like an old bone. "Where are they fighting today?" she asked when the water was gone.

"To the east," Yoru answered, pointing. "My mate says that water was found there, at the bottom of the mountains. He says he saw a tree." She raised her hands and let them drop slowly, wiggling her fingers.

"Tree?" Ibeja said. The digestion was nearly complete. She wiggled her own plump fingers in imitation of Yoru, though she could not yet lift her swollen arms.

"Tree. Many tribes send warriors there to fight in a great battle."

Battle. And those left standing at the end of the day would return to the village, would come into the huts and lie down with women. The greatest warrior of that day, the one who spilled the most blood, would come to Ibeja.

If their tribe won, the warriors would cut down the tree and bring it back so that all could admire it, could touch its rough bark and pull the brown leaves from its branches. Then they would burn it in sacrifice, and the children would be brought from the hard hills to dance around the fire. As the sparks rose to the black sky, the warriors would praise the silent spirits that delivered the tree unto them. The women would wait in the huts, alone except for the singing and chanting and the pounding of children's feet.

But first, this day had to be lived. This day's work had to be done. Ibeja groaned with effort as she tried to roll onto her side. Yoru helped by tugging on her shoulder, but the young woman was too weak from hunger. Ibeja settled onto her back again.

"Your skin shines," said Yoru. She ran a hand over the supple flesh, tucked gentle fingers into the thick folds. Her touch was that of a worshipper.

"Your eyes shine," Ibeja said. "Brighter than my skin. It's the magic of the life you carry inside."

Yoru moved her hands from Ibeja. "Oh, to give birth is nothing. Any of the others can do it. But none can do what you do. You are truly the giver of life."

Ibeja turned her face to the far wall. The thing she had consumed made her momentarily ill. Or perhaps it was the hollowness deep inside. Now matter how much she brought into her body, she was never full. Always the longing, the ache, the loneliness twitched warmly in her chest.

"I should have said nothing," Yoru said. "You are the Mother. We are the children."

Ibeja shook her head, her jowls quivering gently. "You are no child. You make children yourself."

"We make too many children. More and more. The grain dies under this sun, and the fires of battle blow hot over the fields."

"There is enough," Ibeja said, closing her eyes. "There is always enough."

"Warriors die, too."

"And more are born." Ibeja groaned with effort and sat up. Yoru bent over her, helping her reposition herself.

"More warriors have lost themselves inside me than have been taken in battle," Ibeja said. Tears filled the corners of her eyes. She would never allow herself tears outside these walls, in front of the villagers. Too many looked to her for strength and courage. She rubbed a plenteous palm against her cheeks, and the tears dried in the hot still air.

"You give more life than you take," Yoru said soothingly.

"No. It is exactly equal."

"Mother, you—"

Ibeja held up a hand to interrupt her. "Don't call me that. You are a mother. I am not."

"But without you, the children—," Yoru protested.

"Shh. Tell me how it feels, to have the live thing in your belly. I know only the feeling of dead things." Ibeja shifted on her worn mat, her flesh rippling gracefully with the movement.

Yoru bowed her head, and her words became dream-like, distant, as reverent as the chant made over captured trees. "At first, you can't feel the child," she said. "Except you know it's in there. You know it even before the mate rolls away and sleeps. There's a warm glow, like you swallowed fire. And the child whispers of its dreams, only the whisper is in your head."

Yoru paused, and Ibeja knew the woman was waiting to see if she were angry. Ibeja said, "And what does the child say to you?"

"It says 'Bring me into the world. Let me live.'"

Ibeja's own night voices were silent. Her dreams held their mournful tongues. "And as the child grows inside you?"

"It falls into the rhythm of my breathing and my heartbeat. It sucks life from me, but it also gives life back. It makes me weak, but it also gives me strength. Is that too strange?"

"Not strange. Beautiful." Her voice became softer. "And when it's ready to come out?"

Yoru gave a bitter laugh. "It fights. That's how you know it will be a mighty warrior. It is born in blood, and will live in blood, and will die in blood, with great honor. It does not cry, if it is to be a warrior."

Ibeja nodded. Only those who would grow to be mothers were allowed to weep, even from the womb. As if the males slithered into the burning world full of the hate of their enemies, with no room left for sorrow. "The one you have inside you now, can you tell what it is?"

Yoru stood suddenly, almost losing her balance. She waved her thin frantic arms and her voice rose. "It will be a great warrior," she shouted. "It will kill ten times ten of the enemy, whether they come from the east or the west. It will bring tall trees to the ground, trees so high they brush the bottom of the clouds. It will be the one that comes to you, that gives itself to your belly so that you will be large."

Sweat dappled Yoru's skin. Ibeja stared at Yoru's small breasts that were as withered as the berries on the hills. Then she touched her own pendulous breasts, hefted their bountiful mass in her palms. The curse of her station went beyond the nightmare of taking and consuming the hard bitter flesh of warriors. She alone had this glorious excess, this largesse.

She saw her reflection sometimes, in the surface of the water when attendants brought her the morning jar. She knew how stunning her face was, with its drooping skin and the creases beneath her chin. Too much of her, in a lean land among lean people, more of her than she deserved. She looked down at the distended belly that flopped so languidly between her legs.

If only a child were inside her, then she could forgive herself this vain bulk. But she didn't create life. She absorbed it and changed it, transformed it from hard muscle to soft gruel. She destroyed life.

The sun was higher now, pouring its anger through the cracks in the grass-walled hut. From the village outside came the songs of the women who were returning from their morning forage. The songs were sad, of warriors lost and rivers that had run away and fields that were too crisp underfoot. The smell of smoke was in the air, probably a brush fire from some distant war.

"I don't want to take your child, so I hope he's not a great warrior," Ibeja said. "But that is many days from now. First it must be born."

Yoru's belly had gotten larger, the skin slightly distended outward. She patted it lovingly. "The afternoon always comes. So does the child."

"And when it comes out, and it is held up to you and placed on your chest, how does that feel?" Ibeja asked, knowing that she could never truly understand, but wanting to hear of it anyway.

Yoru looked up through the roof. "It is a moment bigger than the sky. You feel both that you are blessed by the spirits to have such a thing, yet also very small, because this thing is now larger than your own desires."

"And its needs come before your own." Ibeja knew that much about motherhood. When she herself looked on the faces of the children, she had that same feeling. She held no ownership of them, no pride in them, but she also knew they more important than her. No matter how big she became after consuming, she was never larger than the children's needs.

They were the future, after all. They were hope in a land where hope was as rare as rain. One day a child, maybe even one born in this generation, would lead the people from these harsh sands. Or would become a warrior so great that all other tribes would fall before him. Or would have Ibeja's gift, to take her place as the sacred vessel.

"You are making yourself sad," Yoru said.

"No, I am happy." And she nearly was. The warrior was completely digested now, distributed evenly throughout her body. "It is time. Help me up."

Yoru planted her feet, sank her sharp fingers into Ibeja's upper arms, and leaned backward. Ibeja grunted and pushed with her calves. She rose against the invisible hand of gravity and stood with her flesh gently undulating. She braced herself against Yoru until she gained her balance.

With each new meal, she had to learn to rise all over again. She wondered if the sun had to learn to rise each day, bloated on its meal of stars. Or did it work the other way, that as it speared itself on the sharp ridges in the west each evening, it gave birth to those many scattered lights? She closed her eyes, forgot the foolishness of worrying over stars, and thought about the children.

Even the nourishment that coursed through Ibeja's veins didn't provide all the strength she needed. Walking always felt so strange, as if she might either sink into the ground or else get blown aloft by the frugal wind. She took a trembling step to the door, Yoru at her side. Another and another, her broad feet like pouches of mud.

She pushed aside the woven mat and blinked against the afternoon. This was her walk. It was time to forget about her own loneliness, the hollowness in her heart that was in such war with the heaviness of her body. It was time only for children.

As she walked past the brittle huts, mothers came to the doors or put down their weaving or claywork to watch. Their gaunt faces were slack with reverence, their eyes gazing in wonder at Ibeja's wobbling mass. The women's bellies were all bulging slightly from the previous night's seed. If they dreaded the pain that would come in a few hours, they gave no sign.

They would be mothers this day, as every day. They thought Ibeja was their own mother. She knew better. She was no one's mother.

Ibeja had mastered her bulk now, and walked with more command, her heavy head tilted slightly upward. Yoru trailed behind, and a few of the mothers left their huts to follow also. They talked among themselves of Ibeja's beauty, the generous wealth of her flesh, the divine curves and bulges.

The procession went past the last of the huts toward a grouping of large rocks. The gray and tan boulders leaned against each other as if carelessly dropped on the earth by the spirits. In the nooks and spaces between the rocks were the few places that the stern sun spared.

Ibeja thought she saw movement in the shade. Then came the sounds of play, soft laughter, a shout of surprise. One of the children peered from a dark hollow, a small boy with large eyes and round cheeks. Ibeja looked at him, trying to remember if she had seen him before. She wondered what name she would have given him if he had been hers.

The child smiled at her, and a tiny girl appeared at his side and stepped into the light. Her skin was as smooth as moist clay. She squealed in delight, and other children came out from the slivers of darkness to scramble over the stones. Ten, then twenty, stood waiting for her, eyes bright with expectation.

Ibeja went to them, regal and serene. These girls would grow to be mothers, these boys would harden into the most fearsome of warriors. The plump brown flesh would lose its healthy glow, would shrink and shrivel and wrinkle. They would one day know hunger, would give and take seed, would take their part in this weary yet wondrous cycle. But today they were only children.

She came to the base of the stones and eased herself down, her miraculous flab swinging like a thing separate from her real body. She was warm, but didn't want the sweat to come. She couldn't waste herself that way. She settled on her rear, the eyes of the children on her, their gaze crawling across her skin like insects. The mothers stood some distance away, knowing this wasn't their moment, that their children belonged to the True Mother.

Ibeja lay on her back in the sand. The sun had started its downward slide, on its way to eating or birthing stars. A wisp of cloud floated high and forlorn, stingy in the heat. One more sparse and stingy creation in a sparse and stingy world, a world that did not give enough of itself. She watched the cloud as the heat untangled its white threads.

The first child came forward, the tiny girl who had proclaimed her arrival with a shriek. Behind her came the others. They, too, approached slowly, as if this were some strange new game and they didn't know the rules. They were strangers, always strangers, even though she saw them every day.

If only these were my children, Ibeja thought. Then I could love them and feel they were part of me. In the loneliness of night, maybe they would whisper their dreams to me.

The tiny girl touched her on the belly. Ibeja scarcely felt it, so thick was the layer of meat. She closed her eyes. She heard the feet of the other children, the soft swish of sand as they gathered about her.

Her skin split from neck to pelvis, like a swollen seed in damp soil. Her ribs snapped and the bones peeled back, and Ibeja winced with the pain. Perhaps this was like the pain of giving birth. She wondered if the flowers had screamed in their first red glory. But she would never know.

A small hand reached into her torso and tugged. Then came another hand and another, hundreds of grasping needy fingers. Ibeja lay still and gave of herself. None would go away hungry.

As the children fed and she peered past the sky, she consoled herself that perhaps, in some small way, these were her children. They carried her inside themselves, she lived on in them. And what is a mother who doesn't surrender herself to the needs of the children?

And when they were fed, when her body wove itself back together, she would lift her clacking bony frame and drag herself back to her hut while Yoru and the other women grunted in their own sweet agony. And tomorrow there would be new faces, more children, more mouths to feed. But she would return, and she would give enough for all.

But first, another night and another great warrior to honor. And then the long silent black and bloated wait, ears straining in the hope of whispers.

###

THE NIGHT THE WIND DIED

The wind was heavy.

Too heavy for Wendy, who was only fourteen and didn’t like dry lips. But Mom said Wendy had to blow, push air out of her lungs and past her throat and over the pink rug of her tongue until the sky gave way.

Wendy would rather breathe shallowly, taking tiny sips of air as if it were some bubbly soft drink. She wanted to flare her nostrils delicately, like one of those thin glamorous models in the smoking advertisements, though smoking was totally gross. Wendy would deal with a little ickiness in order to be ladylike and dainty for a half a minute or so.

But, no, she was the wind girl, and there was nothing for it but to purse her lips, gulp and grab the air, suck in like a starving fish, swallow, suck some more, and then hold

it, heavy as gold, inside her chest until the moment was just so.

Sometimes the moment was close, sometimes the moment was days away. Waiting, that was the worst part. If it were up to her, she would draw it in and spit it right back out. But sometimes Mom said she had to suffocate until the rain girl or the cloud man or Mister Thunder was ready.

Take today, for instance. Here she was, minding her own business, thinking of her two best friends. Beth and Sue Ellen had been teasing each other all day at school about a boy named Randy. They had met him yesterday at the pool, and of course Wendy wasn’t there, Wendy had to come right home after school and sit on the back porch and huff and blow.

Mom opened the door. “No sign of the rain girl cutting up?”

“She must be happy today.”

“Not a cloud in the sky. Still, it’s March, and you’re supposed to blow.”

March made Wendy’s mouth tired and her cheeks chapped. March, March, March, which was almost as bad as November, except November was colder, but then you only had to wait for the Snow Boy or his cousin Frost. In March, you had the creek minders and the season people and the rain girl and Mister Thunder and a bunch of ice makers from the Antarctica breathing down your neck, trying to make everything move in its proper patterns.

If only there were one big weather creature, somebody to run all the elements and make the world spin. Then maybe Wendy and all the other makers could be normal again. Why not even leave it to the humans to worry about? Surely a computer was smart enough to do it, if somebody pressed the right buttons.

“Mom, I can feel the bones of my ribs,” Wendy said. “Can I let go now?”

Mom cupped her palm over her eyes and studied the horizon. Over the last few days, the edge of the earth had turned from brown to green. “Not a sign of the others.”

“Can’t I just go by myself? I promise to only make it a little wind, so that not too many leaves get on the lawns of the people who are already mowing their grass.”

“This is March. A lot of makers need to join together, at least here in the early days of the month.”

Wendy told herself to just remember the “lamb” part. In like a lion, out like a lamb. Come to think of it, why couldn’t animals run the wind and sun and moon and water? That would work so much better.

Then November could be in like bird, out like a turkey. December could be in like a dove and out like a polar bear, and so on. Then Wendy wouldn’t have to be the wind girl and could hang out with her friends.

But right now there was nothing but the stupid waiting.

While Beth and Sue Ellen were chatting with Randy.

Oh Randy, who no doubt was gorgeous, most certainly a life guard, with muscles and water-resistant hair and probably his driver’s license already. And here Wendy was, stuck on her back porch, choking herself, her lungs as swollen as balloons, while Beth was probably saying something like, “Randy, do you know how to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?”

Beth was the flirty one, she would giggle when she said silly things, and Sue Ellen was already doing a decent job of stretching out a bathing suit, so Wendy would have no chance anyway. She never had a chance, because all the other boys wanted “normal” girls.

Who would ever want to kiss a girl who would probably ram his tongue all the way down her throat until he tasted whatever she’d had for lunch? Who wanted to sit around and hold hands while the girl beside him gasped and wheezed like a sick whale? What guy would put up with Wendy’s Mom standing beside them on the porch, asking if they wanted lemonade and telling the boy he couldn’t stay too much longer because Wendy had chores.

Oh, how she wished she could just let the wind fall, leak out on the plains and oceans of the world. Let the wind slither down the mountains, let it sink in the valleys and trickle down along the creeks until it disappeared into all the little holes in the ground. Why couldn’t wind just shut up, just lie down and sleep and let the clouds be still and never never never bother Wendy again?

“My belly feels full,” Wendy said to Mom.

“What did you have for lunch?”

“A peanut butter sandwich and a bunch of grapes. And air, so much air that it makes me sick.”

“Wendy, don’t talk like that.”

“I want to throw up.”

Mom put a worn hand on Wendy’s shoulder, brushed her hair out of her face. “It’s a hard job, honey, but—”

“I know, I know. Somebody has to do it. Lucky me.”

“I was the wind girl, too.”

“A long time ago. At least you’re through. You get to rest now.”

“And you will, too, someday.”

Someday. Didn’t Mom know that someday was a million years away? What did grown-ups know about “someday,” anyway? You’d think the longer they lived, the more they should realize that time doesn’t last forever. And meanwhile, Randy was all smiles with Beth and Sue Ellen.

“There’s a cloud, Mom,” Wendy said, trying to stifle the hope in her voice.

Mom squinted, now that the boy who saw fire was putting the sun to bed and the sky was orange in the west. A lot of the March storms arose as the night came, and that was almost not so bad, because then Wendy could push the air out of her lungs and inhale through her nose and smell the first sprinkles and the thirsty flowers and the freshly-plowed gardens and the silver wetness of clouds.

And, best of all, when the storms came on fast, Wendy could just throw all her breath at the sky and be done with it.

“I don’t think that’s a cloud,” Mom said.

“Please let it be a cloud.”

The boards of the porch trembled slightly, or at least Wendy thought so. “Aha. Mister Thunder, coming this way.”

“I believe that was a truck, honey.”

The air grew heavier in Wendy’s lungs. She might be fifteen before the next storm. Why, Beth or Sue Ellen would be practically married to Randy before Wendy even got to meet him.

Mom had been married once. It was something Mom didn’t like to talk about. But why should Wendy be the only one who was uncomfortable?

“What happened to Daddy?” Wendy asked, since it looked like they would be in for a long wait and Mom would have to come up with another creative lie.

Mom sighed and almost stirred a small breeze, but her lungs were too soft, too thin and weak. “Maybe you’re old enough for me to tell you the truth.”

“I’m almost fifteen.”

“Almost fourteen-and-a-half, you mean.”

“Same thing.”

“Don’t be in such a hurry to get old, Wendy. I know all your friends make a big deal—”

“Friends? I don’t have friends. I have stupid air in my lungs because everybody thinks the world needs wind. Well, whoop-de-doo, let the flags go limp for all I care.” “That’s the same thing I said, back before I met your father.”

Wendy had seen pictures of him, a sullen, gray man with small eyes. Mom, at different times, had said he was a sailor, a carpenter, a preacher, and a bank robber. Wendy had no idea which of those were meant as jokes, because Mom was always sad when she talked about the man in the pictures.

“He left us, didn’t he?” Wendy said.

Mom looked off toward the setting sun. Somewhere the fingers of the night maker were preparing to cast a black sheet over the sky. A star shaker had dashed the first tiny dots of light against the darkness. The moon girl was tugging the greenish-white crescent up the opposite horizon from the sunset. This would be a perfect night, if not for Wendy having to hold her breath and Mom turning so quiet and serious.

“He left me,” Mom said. “I don’t think he ever left you.”

Left. Like Wendy would leave all this blowing-the-wind business in a heartbeat. “Didn’t he love us?”

“Love comes in many ways, sweetheart. You’ll have to find that out the hard way. I could tell you and tell you, but I don’t even know half of the ways and I’m probably wrong about the half I do know.”

“So he loved you enough to have me, but not enough to stay.”

“He was a good man. But he was just that—a man. He could handle the good times, but responsibility scares even the best of them.”

“You mean he left because you were a wind girl?”

“We were different. There’s no plainer way to say it than that.”

“Can’t people love people who are different?”

“I think it’s happened before. Mrs. Seaver next doorlikes cats and puzzles and Agatha Christie, while Mr. Seaver likes snakes and football and Stephen King. But it’s different when the two different people are both of the same kind. Makers and people don’t seem to mix too well.”

Did that mean Wendy could never even think about kissing Randy? Or any of the boys she knew? Did this wind business have ways of hurting that even love hadn’t invented yet? If she had to give up kissing before she’d even started, she wanted to get unmade from being a maker, and fast.

“So how come you tried?” Wendy asked. “Even when you knew it wouldn’t work.”

“Because you always have to hope that it does work. That’s what it’s all about. Even when it seems impossible.”

“Is love ever possible?”

Mom stood behind Wendy, lightly rubbing her shoulders. “I needed a child, too. And we needed somebody to run the wind because I knew I wouldn’t be young forever We thought that having you would solve everything, you’d be the magic that kept us together.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Is love ever possible?”

The sky was darker now, a bruised shade of purple. More stars had been shaken out and the moon girl was right on schedule.

After a cricket chirped in the stillness, Mom said, “I suppose.”

At that moment, Wendy wished she were a rain girl, so she could cry and be done with it. Where were the clouds? Where was that dumb thunder? She wanted to get rid of this wind in a hurry.

Voices came from down the sidewalk. Under the streetlamp, Wendy saw three shadowy figures, then heard Beth’s giggle. The three stepped into the light, Beth on one side, Sue Ellen on the other, and in the middle—oh, sweet mother maker, it must be Randy.

Randy, who was even taller than she imagined, and even in the bad light and him thirty feet away, she could see that his eyes were big and bright and were those dreamy kind that probably looked at you when you talked instead of walking all over your body.

Sue Ellen was closest, and she waved to them on the porch. Sue Ellen was in her blue wool sweater, the one that showed off her fast-developing figure. Wendy hated Sue Ellen at that moment, because Wendy was stuck like a lump in her rocking chair, waiting to make some stupid storm, and was wearing a ratty old sweatshirt.

Beth had her arm locked in Randy’s. Beth had to walk off-balance and kind of leaning over, because Randy was so tall. Beth didn’t seem to mind too much, because she kept falling over and bumping into Randy.

“Hey, Wendy,” Beth said, when they were closer. “Hi, Mrs. Wells.”

“Hi, girls,” Wendy’s mom said.

“Hey,” Wendy said, barely a whisper, but the plastic lawn bird spun its wings.

“Randy wanted to meet you,” Beth said. Wendy couldn’t tell if Beth was joking. Or maybe she was showing off, because she managed another of her four-star giggles.

“Hi.” Wendy flipped her wrist in greeting as if she could care less whether Randy turned away or whether he came closer with those big eyes that didn’t look like they could hurt you.

“Hi, Wendy,” Randy said. He was wearing a T-shirt, even though the night was cool, and his forearms had real muscles, not like the arms of ninth-grade boys.

“We’re going for a pizza,” Sue Ellen said. “Want to come with us?”

Pizza. With Randy. That meant she’d have garlic breath and there would be no way to kiss him and, anyway, when they slid in the booth it would be Sue Ellen and Wendy on one side, Randy and Beth on the other. Suddenly-clumsy Beth, who would manage to fall into him at least four times before the waitress even brought the pitcher of tea.

But for an hour of those eyes across the table—

“Can I go, Mom?”

“Sorry, honey. You have chores, remember?”

Wendy gazed at the black sky, the clear stars, the moon with no cloud touching it. Perfect weather. Perfect for everything but Wendy getting to do something fun for once.

“I—I’ll see you guys at school tomorrow, I guess,” Wendy said, as if she were the last puppy in the pound.

“You sure?” Sue Ellen said, secretly rolling her eyes toward Randy as if to say, “How can you pass up a chance with this dream machine?”

“I have stuff to do. Maybe some other time.”

Some other time, right. After Beth was wearing Randy’s ring, and it would shine with real stones, because you could just bet that a guy with a smile like Randy’s had a way with money. Or Sue Ellen might lure him away by wearing one of those blouses that showed off her belly button.

And here Wendy would sit, a stupid old lump.

“Sorry, girls,” Wendy’s mom said.

“Too bad,” Beth said, and almost managed to sound like she meant it.

“Maybe I’ll see you around,” Randy said to Wendy.

“Maybe.” She felt swollen and strange, holding in all that wind while trying not to talk like a dork.

The three continued down the sidewalk, Sue Ellen actually skipping, Beth stumbling artfully, Randy walking with his shoulders straight as if he didn’t care whether Wendy was watching him or not.

And he probably didn’t care.

Who would waste time on a stupid wind girl, who could do nothing right but stir the sky?

What guy in his right mind would fall in love with a maker?

And even though she knew it was probably not possible, that Randy could never love her long, she also knew how Mom felt all those years ago. You have to breathe, you have to inhale, you have to walk through the air.

You must use whatever you have to grab whatever you can.

And so she relaxed her throat, clenched the muscles of her stomach, and drew an extra whiff of atmosphere through her nostrils. Now the wind would come, no matter that the cloud girl and Mister Thunder were miles away from getting their work done.

“Wendy, it’s not time yet,” Mom said.

“It’s time. It’s either now or never.”

The words came out with a soft wheeze, and behind the syllables a true bluster broke forth, rising from a whistle to a screech to a keen to a scream.

Wendy exhaled, and the sky ripped apart. Mom shouted something that was lost in the wind. A soda can rattled along the street. Leaves flapped like a thousand birds lifting, branches bent, the tongue of the mailbox fell open.

And still Wendy let loose, pushing out her anger and her desire, freeing shingles on the houses across the street, making the streetlamp sway. Beth shouted and lost her balance so thoroughly that she fell to the ground.

Sue Ellen spun around and caught her sweater in Mrs. Seaver’s rose bushes. Randy turned and faced the gale, his hair barely tousled even though hedges leaned and shutters knocked wood.

Randy fought against the force of Wendy’s breath, and Wendy kept blowing even as she thought how strange this was, attracting a guy by pushing him away. But he was as strong as he looked and kept coming, elbow raised across his face.

This was the biggest storm Wendy had ever thrown, and all by herself, too. Sure, the lightning woman and Mister Thunder would have helped the show, and a thick rain would add some color, but Wendy was giving it all she had. The wind poured out of her chest and through her mouth and she had never shrieked as she did now.

Randy reached the fence, hanging onto a post as the wind whipped his clothes. He held on until at last Wendy’s lungs were empty.

“Wow,” Randy said. “Did you do that?”

Wendy nodded.

“You’re different.”

“I’m nothing to sneeze at,” she said.

Mom was getting upset, but Wendy didn’t turn around to look at her. Instead, she looked at Randy as Sue Ellen and Beth gathered themselves from where they had fallen.

“Do it again,” he said, right to Wendy, his dreamy eyes crinkling as he smiled.

Wendy said, “Will you wait?”

He nodded.

The wind fell off in small currents and eddies, floated between the exhausted trees, settled on the skin of the land. The wind died like an impossible love.

Wendy inhaled, so softly that March seemed September.

And she held her breath.

###

DUMB LUCK

Amman opened the letterbox, tugging at its silver tongue that mockingly curled out at him. If the thing had ears, it would have thumbs stuck in them, and it would be wiggling merry fingers.

The letterbox laughed, in its slightly rusty voice, as its jaw dropped. Amman peered into its throat. A white envelope lay inside. It was another one of those.

Amman wiped his hand on his Chinos and reached inside. He picked up the envelope as a sixth-grader would pull a dead snake from the grass, holding it gingerly and bringing it into the sunlight.

There was no return address. Amman looked at the postmark. Riverside, California, the same as those half-dozen others, as if the letters were all spawn of the same post office, salmon swimming upstream from a tainted bay to lay their deformed eggs in the eddies of Amman's psyche.

He stood in the street, the asphalt warming his feet through the soles of his sneakers, and ran a fingernail under the envelope's seal. He wasn't sure why he didn't just throw it away, send it to the dead letter office of his garbage bin. Perhaps it was the serialized nature of the lunacy that intrigued him.

He pulled the letter from the envelope and read it, squinting as the sunlight reflected off the white page into his dark face.

Hey you,

If you don't send this letter to eight people within the next two weeks, bad luck will come to you. This is no joke. William R., of Council Bluffs, IA, didn't send along this letter. He died in a car accident the next day. Susan H., of Norwich, CT, did, and three months later her screenplay was purchased by a major studio. Avoid bad luck; act now.

Sincerely,

A concerned friend

So the implied horror had escalated, and so had the rewards. The first chain letter had threatened him with a failed relationship if he did not continue the paper pyramid. And Amman had laughed, thinking it a practical joke or the work of gypsies or carnival cons. But the early letters had stressed that he should send no money. And he didn't have many clever friends these days.

Amman did not believe in predestination. As a lapsed Muslim, he believed that Fate or Destiny or Luck were largely the result of one's own actions and not some cosmic dice roll. So when Samantha, his girlfriend of three years, told him she was ready for "a little space, to get her head together," he figured it was because she was trying to reconcile her previous divorce and her latent attraction to other women. That was cool with Amman.

And it was only coincidence that the next letter had promised him a chance to "come into money" if he'd continue the chain. Amman had ignored the demands. The next week, his employer downsized, which had sent his pocketful of gratis stock spiraling. That was proof that luck was random and blind. Unfortunately, Amman had been one of the layoff victims, so he ended up without a job and nearly broke. Similarly, the ensuing chain letters that threatened trouble at home, a health crisis, and legal problems had nothing whatsoever to do with his burst water pipes, the skiing accident, or the I.R.S. audit.

Now poor William R. had just been on a blind date with a telephone pole, which, like a woman at closing time, had become more attractive after the eighth Scotch and soda. Merely because he hadn't coughed up a few bucks in postage.

And Susan H. had actually sold a screenplay, pulled at random from the slush pile that filled a back lot somewhere in Hollywood, a screenplay whose plot was exactly like "The Big Chill," only none of the characters came to any self-realizations at all. Which made it exactly like the ten million other unsolicited manuscripts that cluttered the mailrooms of the major studios.

But lucky Susan H. had the foresight to send off eight copies of her chain letter, instead of wasting the time and effort to line up a good agent and develop an original plot.

Amman chuckled to himself. He had a half-finished screenplay lying around somewhere, and probably a novel outline and a recipe for mass-market salsa. That was what had brought his family to America, the rags to riches potential, the overnight success stories, and the self-made millionaires. And he supposed everyone who'd ever made the bigtime had passed along their chain letters as well. Sure. Did people actually believe in this stuff?

He balled up the letter and stuffed it in his pocket. He glanced at his watch and decided it was time to head down to the automatic teller machine and draw out a little pocket money. There was no reason to deprive himself just because he was jobless. He backed his Fiat out of the driveway and headed down the palm-lined street. He had the top down, but the Pacific breeze barely ruffled his thick black hair.

"Insufficient funds? Account closed? What the—"

Amman pounded on the ATM.

"Give me my card back, you stupid box of wires."

Amman kicked at the machine.

"I know I've got a couple of hundred in there. Give it up. It's mine. Mine, mine, MINE." Amman noticed that the middle-aged couple in line behind him were staring at him as if deciding whether to run or call the police.

Amman tugged at his necktie and walked back to his Fiat. He picked his cellular phone off the passenger seat and dialed the bank.

"Account number?" the teller asked after Amman described his problem.

Amman heard her entering the numbers as he recited them. "Sorry, sir. That is an invalid account number."

Red rage flared under Amman's skin. "I've been dealing with your bank for six years now. Let me talk to the manager.

"The manager won't be back until three. Your name, sir?"

"Mahmoul. Amman Ibn Mahmoul," he hissed, spelling it for her slowly as if for a child.

"Sorry, no customer by that name in our records. Have a good day."

"But—"

The broken connection hissed back at him.

On the way home, the Fiat went funky. Amman was weaving through the interstate traffic, cursing the Americans in their long awkward cars, when a pickup with a camper top suddenly slowed in front of him. He stomped on the bake pedal, but his foot encountered as much resistance as if he'd stepped on a tomato. The pedal descended to the floor.

Amman cursed the God he didn't believe in and swerved into the outside lane, then eased over onto the grass median. Pieces of cast-off tire rubber flapped under the Fiat's chassis as Amman downshifted forcefully. An overpass loomed ahead, its concrete pillars rising in glistening solid defiance. Amman spun the wheel and the Fiat turned sideways, spending its momentum by plowing black arcs into the earth. The car came to a rest by bumping lightly against the broad base of a pillar.

Amman gripped the steering wheel, his normally-dark hands white with adrenaline. The engine hiccoughed and stalled. The passing traffic slowed as the drivers gawked, but, seeing no blood, they continued on with their frantic missions. After Amman's hands stopped most of their trembling, he picked up his cellular phone to dial for help.

"Of all the rotten luck," he moaned weakly to himself.

He was watching the smog-laced clouds drift by and listening to the buzz of the cars on the overpass when he suddenly remembered the fate of William R.

The next day, two letters arrived. The first was from his insurance company, telling him his auto coverage had been retroactively terminated last week due to insufficient balances in his draft accounts.

The second was from his "concerned friend." Amman opened it with trembling hands.

Amman:

Old pal. Let's get real. I'm getting tired of fooling around here. And you're getting tired of the accidents. So let's come to some kind of agreement. Namely: Send eight copies of this letter today, and I won't have to ruin your life. And for a limited time only, you can be like Brandi D. of Akron, OH, who found her engagement ring behind the washing machine after finally continuing the chain. (After four years of stubborn resistance.) Now if she could only get the engagement back as easily.

Take a hint, pal.

Sincerely,

A Concerned Friend

From Riverside again. Coincidence. But Amman shuddered anyway. Where had they gotten his name? And how did they know about the accidents?

Perhaps it was time to ease his mind and mail the damn letters. Maybe then he'd be left alone. But that would be giving in, actually admitting to himself that this crap had credence. Brandi D. notwithstanding, he didn't believe he had much left to lose anyway.

He went inside and turned on the television. A CNN anchor's bland white face filled the screen, droning about unrest in some faraway armpit in Africa. Then the picture flickered in gray and blue zigzags. Was the cable company cutting off his service already?

"Amman."

Amman looked around. It wasn't the answering machine. He'd turned that off when the creditors had started filling the tape with stern warnings. He only hoped he hadn't missed Zeke's call.

Zeke was supposed to set him up with a sweet opportunity. "Hey, I'm talking to you, you dot-headed heathen." Amman swiveled to face the television set.

"Yeah, it's me, you low-down antisocial sonuvaswami. Your concerned friend."

Amman's eyes bulged. He could feel them swelling like boiled dates in disbelief. The television was talking. To him.

"You're starting to disappoint me, Amman. I've given you every chance in the world. I've gone way out of my way to help you along. Admit it," came the thin, compressed voice from the television speaker. The TV talked like Robin Williams doing an amphetamine-laced impersonation of Billy Crystal.

Amman stared at the snowfield of static, his jaw gaping. "Haven't I?" the speaker blared. Amman nodded dumbly.

"But did you heed my advice?"

Amman shook his head from side to side, mechanically, hoping he was dreaming, wondering if one of the neighbors had spiked his bottled water. This was California, after all.

"Of course you didn't," said the Magnavox. Amman noticed that the squiggly bands of color vibrated in sync with the words. "You want to know why?"

"Uh...." Amman wasn't sure he wanted to actually talk to his television set.

"Come on, come on, pal. Time is money. You've got to meet me halfway on this thing."

"Okay, then," Amman said, feeling like he was taking the first soft step into madness. “Why don't I, er—take your advice?"

"Because you don't keep the faith, man. You're wire-walking without a net. Because you're stubborn, see?"

"Stubborn?"

"Look at everything I've offered. And tell me, what have I asked in return?"

Amman glanced at the sofa, wondering if the remote control was lying on one of the cushions. It had probably slid between the cracks, down there into the twilight zone of stale popcorn kernels and loose change and junk mail.

"What have I asked?" the speaker razzed, in a thin, whining voice. The television spoke as if berating a child.

"Not much," said Amman. He wondered what would happen if he actually touched the control console on the set. He didn't know what any of the buttons did, but one of them had to be a volume control.

"Not much," the speaker mocked. "A few measly bucks in postage. And that you believe."

"Believe?"

"What are you, a freaking Arabian parrot or something? Yes, believe. You think I'm going to all this trouble just for my own little kicks? Well, let me clue you in, pal. All these accidents are a lot of work for me. Bad luck doesn't just fall out of the sky. Somebody's got to rig the jury, you know what I mean?"

Amman nodded again, even though he had no idea what his television meant. He looked around at the coffee table. There, the ceramic Buddha lamp that Samantha had bought for him, back in their more carefree days. It was ugly and fat and weighty, everything that Amman needed in a religious icon at the moment.

"You gotta work with me, pal," said the television, with renewed vigor. "Just pass on the letters. Works like karma, man. You know, what comes around goes around, do unto others, an eye for an eye, that type of jazz."

Amman lunged for the Buddha lamp and jerked its cord out of the wall. He pivoted and hurled the smiling statue into the face of the Magnavox. The glass exploded with a satisfying flush and silver shards rained onto his carpet. Amman almost leapt for joy as the shattered Buddha collapsed among the wires and circuit boards inside the set.

He ran to get his Dustbuster from the closet, humming happily. He hadn't felt this good in weeks. He was stooping to clean the mess when the mangled Magnavox spoke again.

"Amman," it said, sighing. The paper cone of the speaker was actually fluttering in exasperation. "Amman, Amman, Amman. You've got to learn to deal with your anger, old pal."

Amman grabbed the set and hurled it to the floor. The box burst apart, and Amman saw the speaker in its plastic shell. He jerked its lead wires and stomped the cone.

It gasped as his foot rose and fell. "Hey, is...that...any way...to treat a concerned...friend...?" Then the voice trailed to a hiss of white noise before fading altogether.

Amman left the ruins in the living room and poured himself a double Scotch.

He retired early, hoping if he went to bed, he'd wake up and find that it had all been a dream. The second drink had served him so well that he took the Scotch bottle to bed with him. He nursed it as he leaned against the headboard.

The phone gargled from the night stand. Apparently they hadn't cut off his telephone service, either. He lifted it, wondering if it was some collection agency or other. No, it was after sundown. Those guys were button-down types these days, nine-to-fivers. They didn't need the hassle of late-night merchandise repossession.

It had to be Zeke. Zeke had his fingers in a lot of pies, and he'd been promising to dish some to Amman. Phone scams, long-distance porn, Internet rip-offs, Zeke was on the cutting edge of white-collar crime. No blood on his hands, no fingerprints, no felony raps. Just quick money.

Amman figured he'd need two grand to get the Fiat back in action, plus a couple of grand to grease the wheels that had been squeaking over his delinquent accounts. Then he'd be in shape to go legit again, find some middle management position and build up the old surplus. In and out fast, that's what Amman wanted. It reminded him of his nights with Samantha.

He flipped the talk button and pressed the phone to his brown ear. He didn't get a chance to speak first.

"Hello, Bedouin-breath."

"Zeke? That you, dude?" Zeke had been known to play games. Thought of himself as a poor man's Eddie Murphy.

"I thought we were reaching an understanding. Then you go and lose your temper."

"Zeke. It's okay, the line's clear. Drop this code nonsense and talk straight."

"It's not okay, pal. Only one thing will make it okay. And we both know what that is."

The voice sounded familiar. Reedy, compressed, and—condescending. Amman froze, unable to move the phone from his ear.

"What goes around comes around, you camel-riding raghead. How's about a little faith? Hmm, old pal?" the phone bleated.

Amman's muscles uncoiled and he flung the phone against the wall, puncturing the sheet rock. The earpiece popped off and rolled across the floor and the phone cable pulled free from the wall outlet.

"All it takes is a little faith, friend," the tiny speaker buzzed. "Nowhere to go but up. When opportunity knocks, you gotta answer.

Amman tossed his pillows over the phone. He could hear the muffled pleas fighting through the foam pellets.

"All you gotta do is believe, Amman."

He wrestled his mattress off the box spring and flipped it onto the phone.

"I'm starting to get really concerned about you, pal." Amman fled from the room, slamming the door behind him.

He danced across the broken glass in the living room, his bare feet aflame with sharp pain. He collapsed on the couch and huddled in a ball. The pieces of the television were strewn around him like bones in a technological graveyard.

Mercifully, exhaustion soon claimed him and he slept without dreams.

When Amman awoke, head throbbing and feet prickling, he decided to beat his concerned friend to the punch. He shoved his computer into the hall closet, removed the smoke detectors, put his stereo system in the garage. He drowned his Walkman in the toilet tank and tossed the answering machine over the shrubs to his neighbor's Doberman. Then he went to the kitchen window and drew the shades.

He waited in the dark, peering between two slats at the bright, warm, insane world outside. The mail carrier was only a few minutes late. He waited until the postal jeep rattled down the street, then he tiptoed to the door and crept outside.

Amman told himself that sometimes checks showed up in the mail. The old cliché had to have some basis in fact. He was desperate. He could use a break. It didn't have to be the Publisher's Clearinghouse sweepstakes. He'd take a five dollar incentive check, the bribes that the long distance companies sent if you switched. He would switch a thousand times if he could. He never planned to use a telephone again.

He didn't think about the chain letter that would be in his box, cajoling and threatening him. He could always ignore it, or tear it up. It was only paper. It held no magic power over him.

He opened the mailbox. Only bills.

"At least there's no chain letter," he said to the high clouds in the sky. The smell of freshly-mown grass drifted down the street. Two yuppie housewives jogged past, sleek muscles churning, barely breathing hard. Amman watched their feminine attributes quivering under taut nylon. Maybe life wasn't all gloom and doom. He closed the mailbox.

It fell open with a soft click.

"Hey, old pal," it said.

Amman glanced up and down the street. No one was watching, no one to testify that he'd gone certifiably insane.

"Thought I'd skip the letters, you sheet-shirted sandsucker. Subtlety's completely wasted on you," the mailbox said.

Amman trembled in rage and fear.

"Eight stamps, some nickels for Xeroxing, a few envelopes. It's soooo easy. Don't fight it, friend."

"No" said Amman, quietly and firmly.

"All you gotta do is believe. And good things will come your way. Do yourself a favor. Listen to a concerned friend."

Amman started to walk away.

"Wait, wait, man. Just hear me out."

Amman spun, anger sparking his black eyes. "I've heard enough. My life's gone to hell, my house is a mess, I don't have a car or a job, my love life would make a monk weep with pride, and now my goddamned mailbox is talking to me. And you ask me to believe?"

The mailbox gaped silently.

"You think it's all a matter of luck?" Amman growled, leveling his finger at the mailbox. They waited, holding their respective breaths. A dog barked down the street.

"Okay," the mailbox said finally, sighing in resignation. "Okay. Point taken. I've been playing hardball. Came on a little too strong. And I'm sorry."

Amman glowered, his dark eyebrows furrowed. It was his "noble suffering" look, the one he liked to use on women.

"But, hey, pal, you don't know what it's like," the mailbox said, now on the defensive. "I've got thousands of these little jobs going, and I can't be everywhere at once. And the pressure's just incredible. You know, upstairs, downstairs, good, evil, everybody wants a little favor, you know what I'm saying?"

"My heart bleeds," Amman said, crossing his arms.

"Okay. I'll level with you, friend to friend. This could go on forever, back and forth, give and take, me bugging you, you wasting my valuable time. Let's just cut to the chase, draw a line in the sand—"

Amman raised a finger. "First off, you quit the racist stuff."

"Hey. Nothing personal. A fella picks up some bad habits in this line of work. I apologize."

"Okay. Now lay out your cards."

"Final offer, friend. You get back everything you lost. Just send the letters."

Amman shook his head. "No dice. I need compensation for pain and suffering."

The mailbox sighed again. "Sheesh."

Amman turned away, smiling.

"All right, all right," the mailbox said. "Double or nothing. Just lick the stamps, friend."

"Deal," Amman said, then went into the house. He knew he had a book of stamps laying around somewhere.

Amman whistled on the way to the mailbox. His Fiat sat in the driveway, next to his new cherry red Maserati. His old boss had called, pleading for Amman to come back. Amman enjoyed having a Vice President's nameplate on his desk. He was shooting for CEO in three years, tops. And he had a nice new widescreen television, with a satellite dish to boot.

He opened the mailbox and poked around the stack of letters, then opened a fat brown envelope. "What do you know? I did win the sweepstakes," he said to no one in particular.

He fanned the letters out like a deck of cards. Money knew how to find him these days. He sniffed the gum and ink and wood pulp.

"You sound surprised,” said the mailbox.

"Ah, one in seventeen million. Sucker's odds."

"Well, pal, thanks for sending the letters. Stirred up a lot more work for me, though. You remember LaVonda D.?"

"Of Prospect Plains, New Jersey?"

"That's the one. Seems she disregarded the letter you sent to her, Amman. Tossed it in her coupon drawer."

"She of little faith, huh?"

"I'm going to have a talk with that woman."

"Give her hell. Say, did I tell you Samantha's back?""You're joshing. You old studmeister, you."

Amman beamed and straightened the collar of his Brooks Brothers jacket. "You gotta believe, right?"

"You got it, friend. See you tomorrow?"

"Sure, pal, sure,

Amman whistled his way back to the house, where Samantha was waiting in the hot tub with a bottle of iced champagne. Samantha had brought along her former college roomie as well, the double-or-nothing part of the deal that was blonde, brown-eyed, and didn't particularly care for sleeping.

Amman didn't need faith. He didn't need to believe in luck. And hard work wasn't the only road to success. He always knew the finer things would come his way.

He'd just needed the right opportunity, that's all.

Amman opened the door that led to the rest of his life.

###

WHEN YOU WEAR THESE SHOES

When you wear these shoes, you go places.

Oxford shoes, these are. Sure, that may sound fancy, but take a look. Just plain shoes, really.

Scuffed all across the top of the toe box, heels about worn down to the tacks, tongues hanging out like a hound dog's on a hot August day. Insoles nearly worn through, meeting up with my skin where the holes in my socks are.

But my feet never blister, nosiree. Never had a corn or bunion one. And I've put many a mile on them. Tens of thousands, if you can believe it. But I see you don't.

I'm just getting these shoes broke in, in fact. You take a new shoe. It's hard and stiff as a brick and the leather smells like it's still got cow inside. You got to pry it on with a metal shoe horn, then squeak around with miserable toes for a few months. Strings are brittle, too, won't hardly stay tied. You end up doing more bending over than walking.

And walking's what it's really all about, ain't it? Racking up miles, one shoe in front of the other. That's what brings our kind out to these hiking trails. Ain't it funny how they have to set aside places where you can walk these days? You can't just up and hoof around any old place.

And in country like this, out in the middle of nowhere with the sun long gone, not many people would let a stranger even so much as speak to them. But I reckon a strapping young fellow like you don't scare easy.

I can tell you're a traveler, same as me. You with your backpack and two hundred dollar boots with cleats so deep you can walk on marbles. Them boots are designed by computer, I hear, what is it they call that brand? Oh, yeah, "a unique combination of comfort and durability." Them words add about eighty bucks to the cost, I'd imagine.

Now, don't look at me like that. I read things. I may not seem like much, just like these old shoes don't seem like much. But you ought not judge a book by its cover. Since you don't mind me sitting here and sharing your fire, I might just open up this old book. Meaning my story, that is. Or more rightly, the story of the shoes.

Ah, there we go. I still like to rest my feet a little now and then. Something to eat? Why, yes, thank you kindly, that would hit the spot. Tuna fish is good energy food. Only, don't mind me if I slip up and talk with my mouth full now and again.

I was about your age, more or less, when I walked into the little town of Seymour, Indiana. I worked the fields, a harvest hand, moving from crop to crop with the seasons. It was a good, carefree life for a young man back then. A lot of my old school chums went straight into business, bought vests with shiny black buttons and pairs of fancy Florsheims. But I never had that sort of ambition.

I wanted to poke about, see the world a little, sleep under the stars at night. Now, in all the miles I've walked, all the different places I've been, those stars are the same as the ones that are starting to wink on up there right now. It's comforting to me, lying down with the earth snug at my back and knowing those stars will be the same day after day and mile after mile.

It was in Seymour that I bought these shoes. I was flush, had a pocketful of green from a good corn haul, and it was burning a hole in my pocket. I wasn't the reckless sort, I never got much joy out of blowing two weeks of work on a night at the happy house. Now, I'm not against a drink now and then, or a little professional companionship, but I like to make my memories stretch out, same as my walking legs.

If I was careful, I could make a payday last me a few weeks, weeks I wouldn't have to sweat under the Midwestern sun with chaff cutting at the back of my neck. There was this little second-hand store in Seymour, the kind of place where you can pick up a few goods on the cheap. I found a couple of pairs of denim jeans, which wear out fast doing farm work, let me tell you. I suspect you've never done much farm work, have you?

Now, you can take that look off your face. If a man's smart enough to get out of bone-wearing work, I say more power to him.

Anyway, I got those jeans and a cotton shirt that had only one elbow patched, and I found a good wide-brimmed hat. I figured that was about all I could fit in my rucksack. I liked to travel light then, same as I do now. I was going up to the counter to pay when I saw the shoes.

I wasn't crazy about shoes back then. I thought one pair was pretty much like any other. And that black mud of Indiana found ways into any kind of shoe, let me tell you. If you didn't have a hole between the toes, it would work through the string-holes and down the tongue until it found skin to bother. If you had on boots, it would squish up and climb your leg, then sneak on down from there.

Anyway, I saw these shoes, sitting on the floor beside a pasteboard box full of rotted harness parts. They were kind of off by themselves, away from the rest of the footwear, almost like they got up and walked there. I stooped over and picked them up, and as soon as I ran my fingers over their dusty stitches, I knew I had to have them.

You ever had that kind of feeling? Like you suddenly want something you could live very well without, but it's almost like it's choosing you instead of the other way around? Then you have to have it, no matter the cost in money, pain, or pride? I expect a lot of bad marriages are made in just that fashion.

But this was just an old pair of shoes, and the price was right, or so I thought. The clod-hoppers I was wearing at the time were more hole than shoe anyway, so I went out and sat down on the old wooden porch of that store and took them off. I shucked my socks and let my toes see a little sunshine for a change. They were blanched white and kind of wrinkly, like they'd been in the water too long. But a breeze came down from Dakota-ways and perked them right up.

When my feet were feeling refreshed, I put on my other change of socks. Then I tossed them old clod-hoppers under the porch for the mice to nest in. I picked up that pair of shoes I had bought, kind of like you pick up a kitten, and held them up to the sun. They were solid, built to last, the way things were made back then.

I slipped on the right one first. It was like that shoe sucked my foot inside the way it went on so easy. You know how some shoes will squeeze your toes together so the toenail cuts into the toe beside it, all the way down the line? Well, these had plenty of wiggling room, and the shank curved up just right under my arch—now you're giving me that look again. Well, I've studied up on shoes, let me tell you. Call it a hobby of mine.

Then I tied the string, and it was almost like it tied itself, it looped together so easy. I put the other one on the same way. Another snug fit. I don't know if you know it or not, but a lot of people's feet are different sizes from each other. And a shoe don't always match up perfect with its mate. But these were lucky shoes.

As soon as I got them on and stood up, I felt like a teenager again. I mean, my feet felt young. I could have danced for a month of Sundays. Out of the blue, I got a notion to walk up and see Lake Erie. I had the money and, Lord knows, I had the time. I gathered up my things and balled them up in my rucksack and I was on my way.

I walked days, not stopping at all. At night, I'd lay down and sleep, take off my shoes so both them and my feet could air out a little. Food was easy to come by, it was the tail end of the harvest season, and back then practically everybody had a garden out back of the house. Who would notice if a cabbage head or acorn squash walked off in the night? And, of course, thanks to that other famous traveler, Johnny Appleseed, there was always apples.

Johnny Appleseed's a made-up story, you say? Well, I used to think so myself, only now I'm not so sure.

I made about forty miles a day. Yeah, that's a lot, but the miles roll on by when your feet keep working, when your shoes are putting one in front of the other right steady. As soon as the sun went down, I could rest, although I wasn't ever really tired for some reason. It was almost like the shoes had charged up my feet, given them fresh energy.

Well, I reached Erie in four days, and I looked out across that blue sparkly water while that fishy smell played around in my nose. You been there? Yeah, it's brownish now, kind of scummy-looking last time I saw it, but it was blue back then. Anyway, I thought I'd better find a little work there, maybe loading barges, to keep a little coin coming in. But I got the urge to walk on around the lake, up to the canals, then over to Niagara Falls. Now, there's a pretty place. I wish I could have stood there forever, watching that old water roaring down in a billion silver streaks and that cool mist settling on my skin.

But I didn't stay. I had to get to the Adirondacks, because the leaves were just starting to change over for autumn. Did you know Adirondack is a Mohawk word that means "they eat trees"? When you get around, you learn things. Well, I dogged around up in them old worn mountains that looked like they were covered with a quilt, there was so many patches of red, purple, and gold. I went down through the Catskills, then over to New York City to see the Statue of Liberty. That's one beautiful lady, that is. Symbol of freedom.

I like freedom and all the things that stand for it. So I went down to Philadelphia to see the Liberty Bell, and it really was cracked just like I'd heard. Then it was a hop, skip, and a jump over to D.C. with all its monuments and historic places. Walking days, sleeping nights, not working, but somehow never going hungry. Seems like food just kept coming my way. Like that tuna fish you gave me.

So I kept on down the coast. With winter coming on and all, I figured it would be best to make for the Gulf of Mexico. I hoofed through these here Appalachian Mountains, oh, yes, I've been through them three times now, only back then there wasn't one long trail like there is now. You kind of had to make up your way where you found it. But the shoes didn't seem to mind.

I went down through Atlanta, followed Sherman's tracks for a while,, then veered on over to Mobile and New Orleans. I spent the winter between Beaumont and Lubbock by way of San Antone, just walking under those wide open skies with the smell of cattle and trail dust in my nose, acres and acres of sun-scorched mesquite and tumbleweed with barely a soul to bother me. I covered some of those old pioneer trails, you could still see where the wagon wheels had carved ruts in the red clay.

I saw the sun sparkling fire off the snowcaps of the Sangre Cristo Range and I threaded up through the Rockies following the Rio Grande and the Gunnison. Boy, my toes just about froze off. It was like these shoes had two dead tree-stumps in them. But the shoes just kept on, one in front of the other, except at night, like I said.

Let me stop here for a minute and slip off these shoes. Here, see how easy they slide off, smooth as kid gloves, I tell you. I invite you to hold them, rub your hands over them, smell the leather, no, not the inside, I'm not that mean. Just soak in their history and all the places they've been, all the dirt they've kicked up.

Now, go ahead, try them on, just so's you can get a real feel for them. Go ahead. Don't be shy. They won't nip at you.

See? See how easy they go on? Never felt something so comfortable, have you? Not even your fancy boots match up. Go on, wiggle your toes some, so you can explore their history a little. Because all the miles have touched them, and changed them, and become a part of them.

Thought they would be too small, did you? Well, I'm not surprised they fit even your big old feet. They got a way of stretching out and making themselves at home, no matter what feet they're wrapped around.

Now where was I? Oh, yeah, then it was over to the Great Salt Lake and around the desert, which was like a lake, only holding yellow and white sand in its banks instead of water. My feet burned like I was walking on the hot coals of hell, but the shoes never quit. On up north to the Matterhorn and Walla Walla, then along the Columbia River over to the foggy Oregon coast. I followed those stormy Pacific cliffs down into California.

At that point I'd been walking for nearly two years, ran, shine, snow, or sleet, like a mailman only without the pay. Every single day I was putting one shoe in front of the other. Every night I took them off and rested, wondering if I really wanted to walk anymore, if it was time to settle down and grow some roots. But in the morning it would be up with the sun and back on with the shoes, and more miles of country laid out in front of me.

I rubbed up against a world of natural wonders along the way, plus lots of things that will never be wrote down in books. And I've met many a fine person along the way, too. Maybe that kind of traveling ain't as romantic as a rich man's with his jet planes and yachts and all, but it gets you more in touch with the salt of the earth.

So I went through California down to the Baja and then back out to the Midwest to hit the corners of the country I'd missed the first time around. And I just kept on and on, all these years.

I see I'm losing you now, you're thinking maybe I'm crazy after all. Well, you see, the walking wasn't my doing. I was just the flesh, the legs and feet. I was just the means of transportation, same as a car or boat.

What it was, was the shoes. The shoes wanted to go places. The shoes made me keep walking, putting one foot in front of the other every single day. The shoes that got themselves on my feet every morning at daybreak and wouldn't let me walk away from them at night.

You laugh. Just an old pair of shoes, you say. Just a crazy old coot spinning a yarn for his supper. Go on and laugh.

My, how I've rambled on. Plumb talked the night away. Look yonder at the sun just starting to pink up the sky, slipping over them mountains. Time just flies when you're caught up in a good story.

Now, in all that walking, and all those miles, I've had plenty of time to think. And I'm thinking that these shoes need some new feet. I'm thinking that these shoes ain't even begun to travel.

And now that the sun's up, don't you feel like they've made themselves at home? Don't you feel like they've grown right on your feet? Ain't they just itching for you to start putting one in front of the other? Remember what I said about things choosing you?

You don't?

You're taking them off?

Drat darn it amighty.

I was looking forward to resting a spell. Nothing personal, mind you. I just have to try that every month or so, in hopes that these shoes are ready for a change. But maybe you ain't got it in you. Maybe you don't know how to wear them like they ought to be worn.

So you just put on your fancy boots and curl up your shiny sleeping bag and get on with your high-dollar walking. At least your trail's got an end to it. At least you got a choice.

Me, I expect I'm heading down to Florida. The shoes feel like touching a bit of Gulf water. Mind your step, and thanks for the grub. What's that the poet said, about miles to go?

See, one shoe in front of the other. That's how you go places. That's how you get there. When you wear these shoes, you know.

###

MUST SEE TO APPRECIATE

This was the part that Reynolds hated the most.

The deal was so close he could almost smell it. The fish was nibbling, practically had the worm between his nubby gums. Reynolds had wowed the mark with the double bay windows, the parquet flooring, the loft bedroom with skylight, and the view of the Appalachian Mountains stretching a blue hundred miles in the distance. Custom cabinets and a cherry stair railing hadn't hurt, either, and the deck was wide enough to field a baseball game. Surely that was enough to convince anybody that this twenty-acre piece of real estate and 7,200-square-foot floor plan was the steal of a lifetime, especially at the sacrificial price of four hundred grand.

But the mark wanted to see the basement. They always wanted to see the basement. It figured. Reynolds was stuck handling the only haunted house on the local market, and these idiot buyers didn't make the job any easier.

"The bulb's burned out in the basement, David," Reynolds said. "Had the caretaker up here the other day, and said he'd get around to changing it. You'd think he'd carry one in his truck, you know it? Good help is hard to find around these parts, David."

Maybe he shouldn't have said that last bit. This buyer was from Florida, and might think that poor work habits were an Appalachian trademark. Reynolds looked David in the eye and smiled. It was Reynolds' plastic smile, the closer smile, the glib smarmy hypertoothiness that he'd learned in salesman school.

The man reached into his back pocket and pulled out a flashlight. "I used to be a builder," David said. "You can tell a lot about how a house is put together by looking at the floor joists. A house needs a good foundation, especially when it's clinging to the side of a ridge."

Damn, Reynolds thought. "David, you're a man after my own heart. A real fixer-upper, I'll bet. Not that you'll need to do much work on this house."

Even though every corner is slightly out of square.

Reynolds thought about slapping David gently on the back to punctuate the statement, then decided against it. David seemed more like the firm-handshake, no-nonsense type. A tough sell. A man that was hard to sucker. The kind of man who wore a little tape measure on his belt.

Reynolds headed toward the door that led to the basement stairs. The chill crept over him as he palmed the door handle. He put an ear to the door, pretending to check the hinges when actually he was listening for the spook. Damned thing had cost him a commission three times already.

Reynolds made a show of looking at his watch. "You said you had to meet your wife at the airport?"

"Yeah," David said, studying the blown gypsum ceiling for cracks. "But there's plenty of time."

"Traffic can be a bear around here. You may have noticed that all the roads are twisty, and you're bound to get behind some flatlander tourist—no offense, mind you."

David stepped to the basement door. "I'll manage."

"David, this is a whole lot of house for the money, David," Reynolds blurted. Had he said David's name twice? In realtor finishing school, he'd learned that you used the name of the potential buyer as much as possible. But maybe he was overdoing it.

He was losing his concentration. Sweat pooled in the armpits of his shirt and stained his serge jacket. He lightly bit his lip to bring himself under control. The bite turned into a disguising smile.

David smiled back. The man was too patient, in Reynolds' opinion. One of those forty-somethings who had already finished his life's work, his bank account probably set for the downhill run. Had a kid at Duke and one in an academy somewhere, a tennis-playing wife who probably came from old textile money. Reynolds saw no troubles in that tan, placid face, and a flare of jealousy rocketed across his heart.

But it wasn't David's fault that Reynolds dropped eighty grand in a sour time-share deal. No, not time-share. Interval ownership was the new gold-plated term for it. But by any name, Reynolds was in the hole and had a lot riding on this sale. Haunted house or not.

David switched on the flashlight. Reynolds turned the knob and let the basement door swing fully open. The hinges creaked like an old woman's bones.

"Going to need a little oil there," David said, playing the light over the hinges.

"Y—yeah," Reynolds stammered, as the cold crypt air wafted up from the basement and bathed his skin.

"You going first?"

"You're the guest."

"But you know the territory better."

"Yes, yes, of course, David."

Careful, Reynolds chided himself. He was oh-so-close to nailing this one down. All he had to do was smile and walk down the stairs, let David have his little look, rap on a few floor joists, kick the support beams, and they'd be back in the office in no time, running some numbers and working up papers. And Reynolds would be rid of this house forever.

All Reynolds had to do was finish the tour.

He surreptitiously wiped the sweat from his brow and stepped past David into the murk. His feet found the steps and he laughed aloud, trying to hide his nervousness.

"What's so funny?" David said.

"I forgot to tell you, the basement's half-finished. The previous owner was converting it into a rec room. Talk about your amenities, David. Only a little bit of payout, and you can have the perfect little hideaway. From the wife and kids, know what I mean?"

"I like my wife and kids," David said. "What about the previous owners?"

Damn, damn, damn. They always asked that question. Reynolds cleared his throat and continued down the roughed-in wooden stairs, following the flashlight's beam. The darkness swallowed the light ten feet ahead as hungrily as the crawl-space swallowed the sound of their footsteps.

"Well, David, the previous owners were—" This was the real no-no. The one thing he'd learned was that you didn't talk about people who had died in a house, especially a house you were trying to sell. Buyers were superstitious.

"The previous owners were old, and this was a little too much house for them. They bought into a sweet condo deal on the coast." Reynolds found lying distasteful. Sometimes lying was difficult for a salesman to avoid. But he preferred the more sophisticated methods of distraction, bait-and-switching, and blinding the customer with useless but eye-catching extravagances.

A nice window treatment kept them from noticing that the window was broken. A crystal chandelier hid stains caused by a leaky roof. A gilt-edged and wall-mounted mirror kept them so busy looking at themselves that they failed to see the odd shapes hovering in the alcove.

David shined the light into the belly of the house as they reached the smooth concrete floor at the bottom of the stairs. "Going to need a few strip lights down here."

"Great place for a pool table and a big-screen TV," Reynolds said, looking around warily.

David studied the plain gray walls, the nails visible in the sheetrock. "Smells a little musty," he said.

"Yeah, been closed up too long. You get a little air in here, it'll clear up in no time."

It's just a little decay. And that odor that never seemed to go away completely. Nothing unusual.

David sniffed again. "Sure there's no mice?"

Mice? Everybody had mice. But maybe David didn't tolerate mice. Some buyers were like that, even a man's man like David.

Everybody's got their own little quirks, don't they? You, for example. Acting like a big-shot wheeler-dealer, cool as a termite, like you could care less whether anybody ever takes this dump off your hands.

"Look how solid this construction is, Dave," Reynolds said, sneaking a peek to see if David minded the shortened form of his name.

David pounded on the sheet rock partition wall and frowned. "Sounds hollow."

Reynolds licked his lips. The spook should be here by now.

"So, why are the owners selling?" David asked. He shined the light into Reynolds' face, causing him to squint.

"Uh...they wanted to move to a warmer climate. These Appalachian winters can be tough."

Oops. You need to sell them on the summers, when the air is fresh and the shade inviting and the cool creek bubbling beside the house is an asset, not an ice-coated hazard. Play up the investment angle, too.

"They move to Florida?" David asked, investigating the galvanized ductwork that ran beneath the flooring. Yellow insulation filled the gaps between the floor joists.

"Sure. Doesn't everybody?" Reynolds chuckled. He kept his eyes glued to the bouncing circle of the flashlight beam, though the thing he really wanted to see was probably hiding in the darkness, mere inches from the edge of light. His dread was nearly matched by his curiosity.

"You wouldn't be lying to me, would you, Reynolds?" The light exploded in his eyes again. "About somebody living here?"

He blinked rapidly. "I don't know what you're talking about, David. Now, we need to be getting back. Afraid I've got another appointment."

The light remained on his face. Reynolds could see nothing of the man behind the bright wash.

"Haven't you seen enough?" Reynolds said, a little bit of the hey-old-chum tone still working its way into his voice. He decided to give one last try at turning over this property. "You just can't find places like this anymore. More than a mile from the nearest house. You don't have to worry about the neighborhood brats bugging you."

"I like kids," David said.

"Sure, David. And your kids will love it here. Plenty of room to play, hike, or just scream at the top of your lungs if you feel like it. You can scream for days and no one will notice."

"And why would somebody need to scream? Is this place occupied or something?"

David's words were eaten by the shadows. The stillness of the basement was broken only by Reynolds' ragged heartbeat and breath.

"Occupied?" Reynolds said, not even having to pretend to sound startled. "This place isn't occupied."

"You wouldn't lie to me, would you, Reynolds?"

He wasn't lying. The house wasn't haunted. Rather, it was...what was that catch-phrase? Oh yes, multi-dimensionally possessed.

Still, beads of sweat erupted on the high bare plane of Reynolds' forehead. The light mercifully fell away and raced across the smooth white-gray of the cement.

"David, David, David," Reynolds tutted, recovering somewhat now that his face was hidden by the darkness again. "I'm not a high-pressure kind of guy. If you don't want the house, that's fine with me."

Well, not all THAT fine, because then I might have to drape a rope over the ductwork and twist a little noose and take myself a midnight swing.

Not many buyers existed for a palace like this. While the layout was great, the house was a little too angled. You stepped inside and you felt uneasy. The walls listened and the electrical sockets were tiny black eyes and every single nail and screw and chunk of spackle whispered and every board groaned, even when the wind was still.

Surely David had sensed it, too. That's why he'd asked the question. It's the kind of house you'd expect to be occupied.

"I'll have to put some deadwood braces between those joists," David said. "They're starting to bow a little."

Reynolds smiled to himself. David had spoken possessively. The deal was all but sealed.

If only she would stay away long enough to get David back up the stairs.

"Uh, David? Don't you have a plane to catch?"

"Uh?"

"Your wife. You said you were picking her up at the airport."

"Oh, yeah. Guess I've seen enough, anyhow." David headed for the stairs.

Reynolds' heart flipped for joy. He didn't even mind that David had left him in darkness. He hurried after David.

That's when it came out, built itself from the bricks and mortar of nightmare. Nailed itself together with the claw hammer of insanity. Staple-gunned its mockery of flesh into form.

It was her.

She looked him in the face, her eyes deeply bright and strange, her mouth curled into a smile. "You're real," she whispered, no fear in her voice.

Reynolds drew in a sharp breath, then swallowed the scream that filled his lungs. The basement air tasted of fiberglass and tomb dust. David paused on the stairs, then whipped the light around.

"What was that?" David asked.

"Nothing," Reynolds said. "Nothing but a bunch of nothing."

David thundered down the steps, splashed the light around in the corners of the room. "I know I saw it."

Reynolds adjusted the necktie that seemed to be choking him. "Listen, David my man, you've seen all there is to see."

"Except the breather."

"The breather?" Reynolds shrugged innocently. The last three prospective buyers had said nothing, only shivered and hurried up the stairs. None of them had returned Reynolds' follow-up phone calls. But David seemed to be immune to the skin-crawling sensation caused by the basement's tangible tenant.

"I know there's a breather here," David said, sounding like all the other pompous out-of-staters who thought money gave them the right to bully around mountain people.

"No breathers," Reynolds said. "Breathers don't exist."

"Most of the summer houses in the Appalachian Mountains are supposed to be empty. I'll be damned if I'm going to own a house that has a restless spirit banging around. Where's the peace in that?"

The woman stepped into the flashlight's beam. Reynolds stumbled backward, bumping into the bottom step and nearly losing his balance.

"I see you," she said, reaching out her hand as if to touch an expensive fabric. "I knew this place was haunted."

David splashed his beam of light on the breather. Her satisfied grin absorbed the light, sucked it into the netherwhere of her chest. The dim basement grew even darker, became the pit of a hell so bleak that even fire could not draw air. The only luminescence came from the strange glowing eyes of the human, floating like the lost moons of insane planets.

Reynolds fell to his knees, his only comfort the hard, cold concrete. He hated this next part. The only thing worse than losing a sale was watching a fellow ghost have his very foundations rocked. The prospects either went insane or found a religion that worked, but either way Reynolds remained stuck with this damned piece of overpriced unreal estate.

The woman flipped on the overhead lights and punched at her cellular phone, her breath as sharp as a winter wind in her excitement. "Meryl?" she said into the phone. "You know that house I just bought? It's haunted! Oh, this is just so terribly delightful."

David backed up the stairs slowly, disgust and horror etched on his face.

"Jackie's going to simply die with jealousy," the breather prattled into her phone. "We'll get together for a séance soon, I promise. Right here in the basement, that's the cold spot. Of course, I'll have to redecorate first."

Reynolds drifted after David, who had already reached the top of the stairs. "David. It's not what you think. I can slash it to three-and-a-quarter, David. But the offer's not going to be on the table long."

David was pale, shocked, too recently dead to comprehend all the workings of the immaterial world.

"Excuse me, I...I have a plane crash to catch," David said, looking down at his hands as if expecting to see an owner's manual for his amorphous flesh. Then he shimmered and whisked across the room.

"Call me?" Reynolds said weakly, but David was already through the wall.

Reynolds succumbed to the sideways gravity and the interdimensional currents dragged him to the basement stairs. He sat on the hard wood, mingling with the dust that the breather had stirred with her industrious cleaning. Her words echoed off the concrete walls, frightening and shrill.

"And black velvet drapes," she said into the phone. "No, there are no windows down here, but drapes are called for all the same. One can't have a séance room without black velvet drapes. I'll have some crates of candles shipped in for the occasion. Oh, this is going to be simply divine."

Reynolds rubbed at his weary eyes and looked up at the beam where he had draped the noose. The wood was slightly splintered from the friction caused by his body weight. Eighty grand in the hole hadn't been worth killing himself over. Not to get trapped in a hell like this one, where he had to close a final deal before being allowed to rest in peace.

"Oh, I'm certain he'll be back," the woman said. "He had that look. You know, the one your second husband had? Yes, the 'doomed puppy dog' look." Her laughter hurt Reynolds' ears.

Reynolds stood and brushed the cobwebs from his sleeves. No use hanging around here. He'd be summoned back soon enough. In the meantime, self-pity wasn't going to get this house moved. He'd learned that in salesman school. The only way to unload property was to circulate, press the flesh, talk fast and smile faster.

Maybe the breather would take a vacation, fly down to Florida, go on a tour of America's haunted houses or something. A window of opportunity would open, another mark would want to be shown around. All Reynolds had to do was keep the old confidence, comb the hair over his bald spot, and act like a generous uncle who wanted to make someone's American dream come true, and maybe soon this house would be somebody else's problem.

She'd said he looked a doomed puppy dog. What an insult. The living had absolutely no sensitivity. Well, at least he didn't lurk in dark basements hoping to catch a glimpse of the other side.

Reynolds tried on a glib smile. His "closer face." A good salesman didn't stay down for long. He whistled as he drifted through the wall and under the moonlight in search of buyers.

A sucker was born every minute, he reminded himself. And just as many suckers died.

###

HEAL THYSELF

Jeffrey Jackson peeked over the top of the magazine. His eyes went to the clock on the wall. Had it really been only four minutes since he'd last looked?

His hands shook, so he put the magazine aside before the pages started flapping. Every session left him calm for a day or two, fists unclenched, the red behind his eyelids dulled to brown. But always the raging night crawled out on its belly, fingers tickled his brain, his cabbies got radio messages from Mars, the clowns bit him in his sleep. Those last days leading up to the next session were a cold turkey of the soul.

Jackson wondered if what he'd read were true, that patients became more addicted to therapy than they ever could to drugs. He gripped the arms of the waiting room chair, palms slick on the vinyl. He tried one of the relaxation techniques that Dr. Edelhart had taught him. That wallpaper pattern, reproduced a thousand times in the expanse of the room. If Jackson crossed his eyes slightly...

No good. He settled on watching the receptionist, who pretended to be busy with paperwork. She was nearly pretty, but Jackson no longer had much interest in the opposite sex. Or any sex, for that matter.

He started from his chair when the buzzer rang. The receptionist gave him a two o'clock smile and said, "Dr. Edelhart will see you now."

Why did the doctor never have an appointment before Jackson's? If only Jackson could see another patient walk out of Dr. Edelhart's office, face rosy with beatitude. Perhaps that would give Jackson hope of being healed. He crossed the room and, as always, reached the door just as it swung open.

Dr. Edelhart smiled broadly, teeth bright against his wide dark face. He extended his hand. Jackson wiped his own hand on his pants leg and shook Edelhart's. Prelude to The Ritual.

"How are you, Jeffrey?" The same question as always.

You know damned good and well how I am, Doc. You've shrunk my brain and cracked open my past and put every little memory under your magnifying glass. Walked me back to my childhood. Into the womb, even. And beyond.

Jackson blinked, barely able to meet the taller man's eyes. "I...I'm doing fine."

He brushed past the doctor, headed for the security of the familiar stuffed chair. Edelhart didn't believe in the couch. He was too post-Freudian for that. Edelhart was of the New High Church, a dash of Jung, a pinch of Skinner, and equal portions of new age-right action-spirit releasement-astral projection-veda dharmic-divine starpath to inner beingness. Add water and stir.

Edelhart's mental porridge cost $75 an hour, and Jackson considered it a bargain. He settled in the chair as Edelhart closed the door and adjusted the window shades. Since the office was on the seventh floor, the traffic sounds below were muted. Jackson was almost able to forget his fear of cars.

Jackson closed his eyes. Edelhart's chair squeaked behind his polished mahogany desk. The room had an aroma of carpet cleaner and sweat. Or maybe Jackson was smelling his own panic. He tried to breath deeply and evenly, but he was too aware of his racing heartbeat.

"So, where were we, Jeffrey?" The doctor's voice was deep. Even this familiar question took on music, a sonorous bass.

"We were..." Jackson swallowed. "Going back."

Jackson didn't have to look to visualize the doctor's head gravely nodding. "Ah, yes," said Edelhart. The shuffling of papers, a quick perusal of notes, Jackson's round peg of a head being fitted into this square hole and that triangular niche.

"So you've accepted that present life conflicts and traumas can have their roots in past lifetimes?"

"Of course, Doctor. Especially that one."

"We each have at least one bad former life, Jeffrey. Otherwise, there would be no reason to live again. Nothing to resolve."

Jackson almost wanted to ask which of the doctor's past lives were the most haunting. But of course that was wrong. Dr. Edelhart was the one behind the desk, the one with the pencil. He was the doctor, for Christ's sake.

Sheesh, no wonder you're on the teeter brink of bumblefuck crazy. Starting to shrink the SHRINK. And this guy’s the only thing standing between you and a rubber room. Good thing Edelhart doesn't believe in medication, or you'd be on a brain salad of Prozac, Thorazine, lithium, Xanax, Xanadu, whatever.

No, the only drug that Edelhart believed in was plain and simple holism. Jackson's soul fragments were all over the place, in both space and time. Edelhart was the shaman, the quest leader, the spirit guide. His job was to take Jackson to those far corners of the universe where the fragments were buried or broken. Once the fragments were recovered, then all it took was a little psychic superglue and Jackson would Become Authentic.

Jackson just wished Edelhart would hurry the hell up. Seven months of regression therapy, and they were just now getting to the good stuff. The tongue in the sore tooth. The fly in the ointment. The nail in the karmic wheel. The life that pain built.

"I'm ready to go all the way," Jackson said, surer now. After all, what was a century-and-a-half of forgotten existence compared to thirty-plus years of real, remembered anxiety?

"Okay, Jeffrey. Breathe, count down from ten, your eyes are closed and looking through the ceiling, past the sky, past the long night above..."

Jackson could handle this. He fell into the meditation with practiced ease, and by the time the doctor reached "Seven, a gate awakens," Jackson was swaddled in the tender arms of a hypnotic trance. He scarcely heard Dr. Edelhart's feet approaching across the soft carpet. The doctor's breath was like a sea breeze on his cheek, the deep voice quieter now.

"You're on the plantation, Jeffrey. The wheat is golden, the cotton fields rolling out like a blanket of snow. The oaks are in bloom, the air sweet with the ripeness of the earth. Somebody's frying chicken in the main house. The sun is Carolina hot but it will go down soon."

Jackson smiled, distantly, drowsily. The Doc was good. It was almost like the man was there himself, simultaneously living Jackson's past life. But Jackson had described this scene so well, it was seared so deeply into his subconscious, that it was no wonder Dr. Edelhart could almost watch it like a movie.

Part of Jackson knew that he was half-dreaming, that he was actually sitting in a chair in a Charlotte highrise. But the image was so vivid, the farm spread out around him, the boots heavy on his feet, the smell of horses drifting from the barn, a cool draft on his neck from the creek. This wasn't real, but it was. He was this farmer, edging along the fence line, poking along the rim of the cornfield.

Sure, it was bumblefuck crazy, but he was Dell Bedford, Southern gentleman, landowner, a colonel in the Tryon militia. Because they all knew that Lincoln and them Federalist hogwashers were going to try to muscle the South back into the Union. But what Lincoln and his boot-licker McLellan didn't figure on was that the Confederate States of America might have other plans.

The nerve of that Lincoln, telling them what to do with their niggers.

Jackson swallowed hard, sweat ringing his scalpline. This part bothered him. He wasn't a racist, not anymore, not now. He'd voted against Jesse Helms. He even saw a black therapist. He was cool with it all, brotherhood of man, harmony of one people.

But he had no proof that he hadn't once been Dell Bedford, slavemaster and swine. How could he deny the word "nigger" that sat on his tongue, ready to be spat over and over again, a sick well of hate that never ran dry? He was Dell, or had been, or...

"Are you there, Jeffrey?" came Dr. Edelhart's voice. Decades away, yet right on the plantation with him, like a bee hovering around his ear.

"Yep," Jackson/Bedford said. "Corn's come in, gone to yeller on top. If I can round me up some niggers, might get me an ear or two in before first frost."

"Those slaves. Always causing you problems, aren't they? Building up stress, making your chest burn with rage." Dr. Edelhart's voice was rich with sympathy.

"Damned right." Jackson/Bedford felt the muscles in his neck go rigid. He thrashed at the corn, then hollered. "Claybo!"

The shout scurried across the stalks of corn, rattled the corners of Dr. Edelhart's office. "Never can find that Claybo when you need him, can you?" said the doctor.

Bedford left Jackson, had no use for him, just as well let him sit in a chair and talk to a dandified free boy. Bedford had chores to get done. And there was only one way to get them done. "Claybo," he shouted again.

The sweat was running down the back of his neck, the brim of his hat serving hell for shade. Bedford hurried into the field, leather coiled in his taut right hand. His oldest son was on horseback in a far meadow, galloping toward the Johnson place to scramble hay with one of Johnson's bucolic daughters. Bedford gritted his teeth and waded into the corn.

"Claybo, if I ever get my hands on you..."

"Then what, Dell?" It was the dandy nigger. Dell shook his head. A damned voice from nowhere. The nerve of an invisible nigger to mess in a white man's business.

"Then I'll kick his uppity ass. What else can you do with a sorry nigger?"

"He's not in the cornfield, Dell. You know that, don't you? We've already been through this."

"Bumblefuck crazy, I am." Bedford tore through the corn, knocking over stalks, heading toward the thin stand of pines where the slaves were quartered. "Bet that damned good-for-nothing Claybo is taking himself a little snooze. And the sun ain't even barely touched the trees yet."

"That Claybo. He's nothing but trouble. Probably even learning to read. Bet he's got a spelling book under his strawtick."

"Niggers. The first word they teach each other is 'no.' Well, I know how to drive the book-learning out of them." Bedford let the whip play out as he ran, jerked his wrist so that the length of leather undulated like a snake.

"That's it, Bedford. Feel the anger. Embrace it. Breathe it."

Bedford scratched at his ear and ran on. He burst from the cornrows and crossed the bare patch of dirt that served as nigger town square. Six cabins of rough logs and mud squatted under the spindly pines. A little pickaninnie sat in front of one of them, playing with a rag doll. She'd be able to walk soon, and finally be able to work for her keep.

Bedford went to the last cabin and kicked at the door. It fell open, and Bedford shouted into the dark. Then he saw them, three pairs of white eyes. There was nothing quite like a nigger in the dark. Hell, he didn't even mind when his neighbors had runaways, because they were so much fun to hunt.

"Tell me what you see," came the distant voice. Smooth-talking nigger, like one of them Yankee preachers that come down once in a while to rub in their faces that, up North, niggers were free. How Northern niggers owned all kinds of land, while Bedford had only thirty hardscrabble acres.

"What the hell you think I see? You were here with me last time I done this." Bedford was nearly as mad at the invisible nigger as he was at Claybo. He strode into the cramped dark.

"Don't hurt me, Mar's Bedford," Claybo pleaded. Like a little sissy girl who was going to get a hickory switch across the bloomers. "My baby's took sick. I swear, I was going to go back and work. I just had to come look in—"

Bedford's eyes had adjusted now, and he could make their outlines. The woman on the bed, holding the infant, both of them slick with sweat. Claybo kneeling beside the bed, hands lifted up like Bedford was Jesus Christ the Holy Savior, but Claybo should know that Jesus never came for niggers, only for whites.

The woman wailed, then the baby started crying. Bedford's blood coursed hot through his veins, his pulse was a hammer against the anvil of his temples, his head was a powder keg with a beeswax fuse.

"You're right to feel anger," whispered the educated nigger, the one that was so far away. "You've been wounded. This is where your soul bleeds, Jeffrey."

Bedford wondered briefly who the hell Jeffrey was, then grabbed Claybo by the shirt and tugged him toward the door. As much as he would have loved to stripe the nigger in front of his woman, the cabin didn't allow for good elbow room. Claybo only half-resisted, dead weight. He didn't dare struggle too much, though. Because the nigger knew if he did, his woman would be next.

Bedford's anger settled lower, took a turn, became something warm and light in his stomach.

Joy.

He loved beating a nigger.

He pushed Claybo to the ground, tore at the big man's shirt. He gave the nigger a kick in the ribs to get the juices flowing. The whip handle almost throbbed in his hand, as if it had a turgid life of its own.

"Seize the fragment," came that confounded invisible nigger. "Look at yourself, Jeffrey. You're splintered, apart from the world. Outside the circle of your own soul."

"Bumblefuck," Bedford grunted through clenched teeth.

"These are the traumatic emotions and body sensations that have tracked you through the years. This is where your pain comes from. This is your unfinished business. This is your wound."

Bedford tried to ignore the nigger-talk. He stepped back, hefted the whip, felt the grace of the leather unfurling, rolled his arm in an easy motion, sent the knotted tip into Claybo's broad back. The flesh split like a dropped melon. A sweet pleasure surged through Bedford, a fever that was better than what he found between his wife's legs, even between the nigger cook's, a honey hot heaven. He whisked the whip back to deliver another blow—

"This is your discarnate self, Jeffrey. Doesn't it sicken you? Don't you see why your soul is so far from releasement?"

Bedford paused, the leather dripping, hungry for a second taste of blood.

"Restore balance, Jeffrey."

Bedford/Jackson looked down at the huddled, quivering Claybo.

Dr. Edelhart spoke again, gentle, encouraging. "Resolve the conflict and heal the emotional vulnerability. Seek your spiritual reattachment."

Jackson felt dizzy. The whip wilted in his hand. He wanted to vomit. He couldn't believe he had ever been so brutal. Not in any of his lives. "I didn't..."

"Denial is not the path to wholeness, Jeffrey. Empower yourself."

Tears trickled down Jackson's face. He could feel the eyes watching from the cabin door. A witness to his spiritual fracture. How could he possibly make this right? How could he become a soul-mind healed?

Sobbing, he turned to the only one he could trust. "What do I do now, Dr. Edelhart?"

"You know the answer. I can only lead you here. The final steps are yours."

Jackson bent to his victim. Claybo looked at him, wide-eyed, wary. Jackson placed the whip at Claybo's feet. Then he slowly unbuttoned his shirt, his skin pale in the sunset.

Jackson knelt on the ground. He put his face against the dirt, pine needles scratching his cheek, dust clinging to his tears. "Free me," he said to the man he had whipped.

"Mar's?" Claybo slowly lifted himself, his shirt hanging in rags from his dark muscles. Both men were on the knees, equal.

"Whip me," Jackson commanded. Then, begging, "Please."

Claybo stood, six-three, a man. He fumbled with the whip, making an awkward arc in the air. He snapped his wrist and the leather slapped against Jackson's bare back.

Not a strong blow, yet the pain sluiced along Jackson's spinal cord. Though the agony was soul-searing, Jackson knew the blow wasn't nearly hard enough to drive the transpersonal residue from his soiled psyche.

Jackson swallowed a scream, his lungs feeling stuffed with embers. He gasped, then panted, "Harder."

The whip descended again, more controlled this time, scattering sparks across Jackson's fragmented but hopeful spirit-flesh. Claybo was intelligent. He was a fast learner. The whip fell a third time, inflicting a deeper, more meaningful misery. Flogging Jackson closer to whole.

"Your hour's up," Dr. Edelhart interrupted.

Jackson came around, brought back by the words that he'd been trained to recognize as the trigger that would pull him from hypnosis. He blinked as he looked around the office. He was soaked with sweat, his muscles aching, his throat dry. Dr. Edelhart was standing over him.

"How do you feel?" said the doctor, eyes half-closed as if studying a rare insect.

Jackson tried the air, found that it came into his lungs, then out. He was alive, back in the reality he knew. Years away from the scarred night of his soul. He felt a strange peace, though he was tired, drained.

"I...I feel..." He searched through Dr. Edelhart's catalog of catch-phrases, then found one that seemed to fit. "I feel a little more integrated."

Dr. Edelhart smiled. "I feel that we've made true progress today, Jeffrey."

Jackson sat up in the chair. "Wow. I haven't felt this good in years."

"A hundred and forty, give or take a few."

"How...how did you know?"

Dr. Edelhart waved at the diplomas and framed certificates on the wall behind his desk. "I'm the doctor. I'm supposed to know."

Jackson stood, walked the soreness from his legs. "I could walk right through a crowd right now, and not even notice all the eyes watching me. I don’t feel angry at all."

"Progress through regression. But—"

Dr. Edelhart's word hung suspended in the air, like a tiny sliver of discarnate spirit.

"But what?" Jackson said.

"Let's not forget. This is only the beginning. A giant step, to be sure. But only a step."

Jackson looked at the carpet. "I should have guessed it wouldn't be that easy. Not after spending months just to get to this point."

"It will get easier, though. Now we know where your spiritual bondage is. Next time, we can go a little farther."

Jackson gave a smile, enjoying this moment of enlightenment. He was on the road to recovery. Sure, it might take months, maybe years. But he'd be whole. Even if it killed him.

Or rather, killed Dell Bedford.

"Funny, isn't it?" Jackson said. He always felt a little more informal at the end of a session. He'd feel great for a couple of days, no worries, the spiders at bay. He'd even be able to take the elevator to the street.

Dr. Edelhart seemed to be in a good mood as well. "What's funny?"

"My fragmented past life. That my psychic wound would be racism. Well, racism, sadism, masochism, the whole laundry list we've already been through."

"What's so funny about that?"

"Well, you being black and all. Or should I say African-American?"

"Black's fine. Maybe it's not a coincidence at all. Spiritual paths do have a way of intersecting here and there along the way."

Jackson looked into the doctor's eyes. For just a second. Then the brightness was gone, the doctor shielded behind his clinical expression, lost behind the other end of the magnifying glass.

But for just that one second, Jackson had seen Claybo in there, hunted, haunted, vengeful. Wet with his own psychic scars.

No. Jackson shook the image from his head. He wasn't here to drive himself bumblefuck crazy. He was here to be healed.

"See you next week, same time?" Jackson said.

Dr. Edelhart smiled. "I'm looking forward to it."

###

LETTERS AND LIES

"Neither rain nor gloom nor dead of night...that doesn't sound right. Now how does that go?" Charlie Blevins shook his head. "Something something appointed rounds."

Charlie steered his postal jeep to the curb on Poplar Hills, where box houses with vinyl siding and slatted shutters horseshoed around a cul-de-sac. All the poplars had been cut down because the trees got too tall and homeowners' insurance had gone up. The leaves of the spindly maples that had been planted in their stead were just beginning to turn orange-red, and the grass smelled sweetly of autumn. This was Charlie's favorite time of year.

He lifted the bundle of papers, letters, and catalogs off the seat beside him and swung his tan, knobby legs onto the pavement. The two little dogs behind the fence at 106 were yapping, just as if he hadn't driven by every day, excepting legal holidays and Sundays, for the last five years. Punters, Charlie called them, the kind that would lift satisfyingly off the foot and sail about ten yards.

Charlie walked along the fence to the mail slot hanging by the garage door. The punters followed him every step of the way, tumbling over each other in their frenzy. Charlie pulled a rubber band off the pile of mail, glanced around to make sure the snoopy old bat at 108 wasn't watching, and shot the rubber band through the chain links, hitting the closest dog in the nose. Its face registered surprise, and a good two seconds passed as its brain analyzed the new information. It decided pain was the message the brain was receiving, and the brain sent an order to the dog's mouth commanding it to yelp.

"The U.S. Postal Service. We deliver," Charlie said, blissfully unaware that he had lifted the line from a rival package company. He walked to 107, whistling cheerfully. 107 had a heft of mail, including a pair of periodicals in plain brown wrappers. Charlie recognized the return address. He delivered a lot of these "pictorials" to this end of town, where the citizens were just solid enough to worry about appearances. They couldn't just buy their smut off the convenience store rack, right in front of God, the PTA, or whoever else might happen to stop in for a Big Gulp and a pack of smokes.

Charlie dropped off the stack and continued to 108. The curtains didn't part, so Miss Mauretta Whiting, You May Already Be A Winner, was definitely not at home. Today she had a pair of sweepstakes packages from the same clearing house, one addressed to "Maura White," the other to "Ma Whiting." If she had been home, she would be standing by the mailbox waiting for him.

"Time-dated material," she would say. She personally blamed him for all the shortcomings of the postal service. She didn't even have to be standing there for Charlie to hear her thin, scratchy voice.

"Why, for thirty-three cents, I'd expect a letter to get here the day before it was mailed. You keep chargin' more and more and gettin' slower and slower. Sometimes they don't get through at all. Back in my day..."

Yeah, they used to walk through six feet of snow with one hand tied behind their backs and a pack of starving wolves latched onto their ankles. Well, this isn't your day anymore, lady, thought Charlie.

He opened her mailbox and crammed it full with her beloved sweepstakes material. Maybe she was just perpetually disappointed that his jeep, and not Ed McMahon's prize wagon, that drove up.

She vanished from his mind as he made his way to 109. The flag was up at the box, so Charlie reached in and pulled out a couple of letters in #10 envelopes. As his fingers brushed the letters, a mild tingle crawled up his arm. He hoped his blood sugar wasn't getting low again. He walked back to the jeep and tossed the letters in the "out" basket without looking at them.

Charlie finished his rounds and drove back to the office. He walked up the loading bay ramp with the basket of outgoing mail, passing Susan, the counter clerk, who was sucking on a Virginia Slim. Her eyelashes drooped from the weight of mascara, like tree branches that were laden with wet leaves. Charlie's private nickname for her was "Next Window," because she had the far more pressing responsibility of pleasing the stockholders of her favorite tobacco company than satisfying the postal customers of Silver Falls, Virginia.

She looked ready to complain, so Charlie obliged. "Hey, Susan, how's it going?"

"My feet are killing me," she said. "I'm thinking about putting in for disability."

"Well, darling, you go right ahead and then come back in a few months and see how this place falls apart without you. We'd have St. Louis in with San Francisco and next-day air freight would be stacked in the broom closet."

She fluttered her eyelashes. "And you'd think a girl would get a raise once in a while. At least a 'thank you' would be nice."

"There's always the satisfaction of a job well done." Not that you would know, Charlie silently added. He walked over to the sorter and dumped his basket. Most of the mail would zip down to the center in Danville, where it would leave tonight for parts all over the country and world. Some of it would stay in the office and go out tomorrow on the local routes. A piece or two would fall in a crack and gather lint for a while.

Bob Fender stood by a package bin, looking at a letter as if it were a spot of blood. His blue suspenders, already taut, stretched to the snapping point as he bent over and picked it up. He saw Charlie and said, "Hey, look here at this."

Charlie squinted at the letter, cursing the weak fluorescent lights. The postmark was dated fifteen years ago. This branch office had only been open for four years. Before that, they had worked out of a little stone building that had been crumbling since the turn of the century. Somehow, the letter had made the move and remained hidden, like a stowaway that had forgotten to disembark. Bob was willing and able to spend a half-hour of government-subsidized time recounting its possible history.

"That damned thing is loster than a preacher at a strip joint," said Bob. A good-natured guffaw rippled the folds of his beer gut.

"If it was a love letter, you can bet the flame has long since flickered out," said Charlie. "If it's a check, the account's probably closed. If it was news from home, there's sure nothing new about it now."

"Makes you wonder, though. Looks like a woman's handwriting, or maybe one of them fancy college boy's. Funny, ain't one word changed in this thing in fifteen years while the rest of the world's just gone on getting crazier. Just like every time there's a mail bomb, everybody yells, 'It was the Aye-rabs,' but then they come to find out it was a good corn-fed country boy instead of a raghead. Just gone on getting crazier." Bob shook his head. "Them was simpler times back then."

"Sure was." Charlie was anxious to steer Bob off-track before he really got rolling on the list of society's ills. "So, you going to give this to Red?"

"Well, curiosity killed the cat and never did no good for the mouse, neither. If we deliver this, there'd be a story in the local paper for sure. Some snot-nosed kid fresh out of newspaper school would have a field day comparing us to snails and all that."

"Yeah, and then laugh up their sleeve like they were the first ones to ever think of it."

"This baby's going on a one-way trip to the dead letter office." Bob tossed it in the trash can. "What they don't know won't hurt them."

After Bob left, Charlie picked the letter out of the can and looked at the return address. He went into the bathroom and locked the door, then tore open the envelope and slid the letter out. It was musty, like a canvas tent that had been stored in the basement too long. Charlie unfolded the two yellowed pages and read the big cursive scrawl:

Dear Rita:

I know you really owe me nothing since it was a mutual decision to break up. I heard you got married, and I hope you're happy because you deserve it. Here in Kansas, even the sky is flat. I can hardly go day-to-day, sometimes there's no reason to get out of bed. Remember when you used to laugh and say I was crazy? Well, I guess you were more right than you know.

There's a hole where hope used to be. See that trick of words, how one letter can change everything. The world I see is now the word I see. Sometimes when the night is black, I look for stars and all I see are scars. My heart is bound with barbwire, and despair is a prison of my own design and execution. Funny, I wanted to be a writer, now I'm a waiter. I guess it's only people and words, and words tell lies.

I used to play the existentialist, all that heavy stuff about the individual and the freedom of choice. Well, Camus and Nietzche are dead, so what does it mean? Maybe that's the point. Enough philosophy, I know that stuff always bored you silly. I'd love to hear from you, so drop a note (not a not) to say you're alive and that somewhere there are butterflies and sunshine. I'm not asking you to understand, I just want to hear from you while I figure out if life is worth living. One letter makes all the difference.

Best wishes,

Jason

Charlie had a feeling that Jason was reunited with his old friends Cay-mus and Nietzche, whoever they were. Well, if Jason wanted to feel good about himself, he should have gotten the hell out of Kansas. Wait a second , Charlie thought. Didn't Nietzche used to play middle linebacker for the Packers?

Charlie shook the gloom off like it was dandruff and stuffed the letter in his back pocket. He took a leak and went back to the sorting floor.

Red Stallings, the regional postmaster, was there, his postal blues pressed so sharply that they wore like wood instead of cotton. Red was a Viet Nam vet, and tried to run the office like it was a military unit. Charlie wished Red would choke on his "oh-seven-hundred hours" and his referring to sacks and jeeps as "ordnance." Red glared at Charlie as if expecting a salute, but Charlie just waved and rolled a cart of mail over to the loading bay.

Charlie killed the rest of the day, dodging Red when he could, then drove his jeep home. He pulled into the drive and looked at his small brown house with its blistered yellow trim and the window screens with fist-sized holes in them. He didn't think of it as his castle so much as a place where his mail got sent. He went inside and changed clothes so he could mow the grass.

His wife caught him as he was about to go out the door, her face sweaty. "I found this in your work shorts. It about went through the washer," she said, waving the letter in the air as if it were a stick she wanted him to fetch.

"Oh, I found that in the trash."

"Since when did you take up stealing people's letters?"

"When you started sticking your nose in my business, that's when."

"Why are you getting all mad over somebody you don't even know?" She shaded her eyes with the letter.

"There's something funny about that letter, and I'm going to try to figure it out," he said.

"Well, I read it, and it's crazy. Says here 'despair is a prison of my own design and execution.' What's that mean?"

"Maybe it means sometimes people ask for help and they never get an answer. It's like those letters addressed to Santa Claus. All these kids writing letters telling how good they've been and what the elves can make for them."

"It makes people feel good. What's wrong with that?"

"Those letters are nothing but a pain in the rump to the postal service. Because of junk like that, sometimes the real important messages get lost."

She crossed her arms. "You're getting strange on me, Charlie. That's just one little letter. Just think about the good news you deliver every single day."

"Yeah, I wonder. Sometimes I wonder if any news is good."

"Well, don't let that bad stuff rub off on you. Now get the grass mowed, and I'll fix us up some pork chops."

After dinner, Charlie spent the rest of the evening parked in front of the television set, sipping beer while the Lions ripped the Vikings on Monday Night Football. He forgot all about the letter.

But in his dreams, he was in a prison camp and words circled overhead like black buzzards and he was digging, digging, digging, trying to escape the oppressive unseen eyes of Jason, who was on guard duty in the barbwire tower above and Charlie was burrowing in the dirt when the searchlights found him and the dirt turned into mounds of rotting mail and a gate lifted and a lion came out to eat him and...he woke up tired and sweaty.

He made his rounds that day in a haze, as if he were underwater. The letters seemed to burn in his hands. He noticed that it wasn't the electric bills that bothered him, it was the personal letters. He found himself wondering what heartaches he was bringing to people's doors.

He cursed his imagination and ground the gears of the jeep. He pulled into Poplar Hills and didn't even stop to razz the punters. As he was bringing mail to 106, he almost fell over when a surge of heat flashed through him. He dropped the bundle he was carrying and gripped his knees until the spasm passed. He stooped to collect the mail- a coupon book, a catalog, a telephone bill, and a letter- but he jerked his hand back when he touched the last item.

Charlie knew what the letter said, as plainly as if he could read it. "I'm coming for the kids," came the words, in an unfamiliar voice. "The courts can't keep me away from my own kids. And in case you're thinking about a restraining order, you go to the cops and I'll make you sorry you ever met me. Even sorrier than you already are. Only this time, there won't be any lawyers, just you and me. Just like the good old days."

Charlie shoved the mail in the slot and backed away. He shook his head and went to 107. He didn't believe in ESP crap. Must be his blood sugar. He'd take off tomorrow and go to the doctor.

He opened the box at 107 and was about to shovel in the mail when the odd feeling struck him again.

"Howdy, Hank," came a sultry female voice. "I know you told me not to write you at home, but your wife doesn't open your mail, does she? Anyway, lover, that money you said you'd send hasn't gotten here yet. I like the little games we play, but the rent has to be paid. I'd hate to start sending letters to your wife, with a few photographs dropped in the envelope. What I'm asking for is cheaper than a divorce..."

Charlie slid the mail in and closed the box. He wiped his hand on his shorts, trying to get rid of the slimy feeling. The letters were talking to him. What was it his wife had said? Something about bad stuff rubbing off?

He picked up Mauretta Whiting's mail A single letter was among the sweepstakes bundles, and it spoke in a tear-soaked young woman's voice. "Aunt Retta, I'm sorry to hear about your cancer..."

Charlie jerked his hand back as if he had touched live snakes. If he was going nuts, madness wasn't slowly shadowing him like a moon eclipsing the sun, the way he always figured things like that happened. It was more like flipping off a light switch. Blood sugar, hell. It was the letters.

He hurried back to the jeep. The out basket sat in the passenger's seat, and voices rose from it, old and thin, raspy and squeaky, bass and tenor, speaking in snatches:

"...and when Robbie overdosed..."

"...going to have to apply for food stamps..."

"...I'm afraid I have some bad news..."

"...died in that car wreck..."

"...don't blame you for running away..."

"...real lonely in here..."

The voices crowded each other, babbling in Charlie's mind, murmured lullabies of pain that carried him special delivery into a secret land where words bled and paper wept and postmen only rang once. He drove back to the office, making a stop along the way.

Charlie nodded to Susan at the back door of the post office. The Virginia Slim in her right hand had cherry lipstick stains on the butt. Her other hand was on her round hip.

"Hey, Mr. Sunshine," she said. "Why don't you come back and join me at break time?"

"Maybe later. Can I borrow your lighter?" Charlie wasn't sure if he had thought the words, or spoken out loud.

"You don't smoke," she said, handing him the lighter.

He entered the storage area. Bob stood just inside the door, grinning and fanning himself with an L.L. Bean catalog. Bob asked about the five bucks he had lent Charlie the Thursday before.

"Check's in the mail, pal," Charlie said, making his way to the sorting area. The mountain of mail called to him, a cast of thousands clamoring for attention. Scraps of sorrow, broken phrases, and poisoned lines swirled in his mind like a siren song.

"...sorry to have to tell you..."

"...death of..."

"...never did love you..."

"...a question about your tax return...."

"...kill you, you bastard..."

"...what about the kids..."

"...just couldn't face..."

"...thank you for submitting your manuscript, but..."

"...come to the funeral..."

Charlie bent to the pile and thumbed the lighter, holding the flame to one corner of a drug store flyer. The flame flickered for a second, sending a thread of greasy black smoke to the ceiling, then burst brightly to life. Red stepped around the corner and dropped his coffee mug in amazement. A brown puddle spread around his spotlessly buffed boots.

"What's going on, soldier?" Red bellowed.

Charlie pulled the .38 from under his jacket. Red's military training failed him when it mattered most, because all he could do was stand there with his jaw hanging down. Charlie fired twice, hitting Red in the stomach and knocking him backward. Red tumbled into a letter cart, his life leaking out to stain the snowy whiteness of the mail.

The fire kicked up into a roaring blaze. Bob ran up, having heard the shots but unable to reconcile those sounds with the everyday hum of postal business. He looked into the eyes of Charlie, but his friend had been replaced by a scowling specter whose eyes shone like sun-bleached skulls.

"Can't you hear them?" Charlie yelled. "The hurt...people and words...it's all our fault. We have to stop the hurt."

Bob backed away, sweat popping up on his beefy face. "Uh, sure, buddy, whatever you say." After a hot, heavy pause, as if waiting for the cavalry to arrive, Bob added, "And you can just forget about the five bucks."

"But the voices...we're to blame...letters and lies."

Bob's eyes flitted to the now-raging fire and then settled on the gun pointed toward his face. He licked his lips. "Easy, now, Charlie...yeah, I can hear them."

He tried to turn and run, but damned if Charlie wasn't another corn-fed country boy gone crazy and Bob's feet may as well have been freight scales. The bullet whistled into his throat. He fell like a sack of junk mail, without bouncing.

Charlie grinned into the bonfire, adding a few armfuls of mail to the immolation, a burnt offering to some great Postmaster in the Sky. The voices in the letters screamed in pain and supplication. Out of the corner of his sepulchral eyes, Charlie saw Susan trying to crawl away from the loading dock. If he didn't stop her, she might rescue the letters in the drop box out front.

Susan fell face-first as two bullets slammed into her back. Her half-finished cigarette rolled away from her slack hand and down the ramp, coming to a stop in the shadow of Charlie's jeep.

He wheeled the remaining carts of letters to the fire and tipped them in, including the cart that contained the late Red, who stoically rode shotgun on his final mission. Charlie saluted him and crouched to avoid the black layer of smoke that clouded the office. He reloaded his gun.

The voices in his head faded, leaving an echo as bitter as ash. Charlie could think his own thoughts again, but they made no more sense than the voices he had stilled, because he could only think in words, and words told lies.

He went out the back door, the heat from the fire curling his hair. Sirens wailed in the distance, reaching Charlie as if from across a void, from another zip code. He ignored them as if they were fourth-class letters.

Charlie climbed into the jeep. It was time to make the rounds.

###

BEGGAR'S VELVET

Cynthia knew she should have left the light on.

Because now the noise came again, soft, like the purr of a rat or the settling of disturbed lint.

A layer of lint had gathered under her bed because she couldn’t clean there. She was afraid of that dark, mysterious space that had never been explained to her satisfaction. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and pictured the sea of dust, the fine powdered layers of accumulated motes. Beggar's velvet, she'd heard it called. But that thick gray fur didn't bother her. What bothered her was the beggar, the man that wore the dust, the creature that slept in the bright of day and made those terrible sounds at night.

The noise came again, a flutter or sigh. Louder tonight. The beggar must be more formed, closer to whole.

Cynthia had moved in three weeks ago, though the efficiency flat was a little beyond her means. She'd been attracted by the cleanliness, the wooden floors, the queen-sized four-poster in the bedroom. That, and the streetlights that burned outside the bedroom window. Best of all, the neighbors were within easy screaming distance.

Not that she would scream. If she screamed, the beggar would awaken, reach up with one monstrous hand and grab her around the ankle, tug her down twisted sheets and all, draw her into the deep, thick fog of the underthere. Better to bite her lip, close her eyes, and put the pillow around her head.

She shouldn't have moved so often. She should have stayed and faced him that first time, back when she had a roommate. So what if the roommate, a fellow college student, looked at Cynthia strangely when Cynthia crossed the room at a run and dived into the bed from several feet away? So what if the roommate poked fun because Cynthia always slept in socks? The roommate wasn't the one who had to worry about the beggar, because he only lived under Cynthia's bed.

Six months, and the roommate had forced Cynthia to leave. Cynthia's name wasn't on the lease, she was behind on her half of the bills, and she'd lost her job because she had to sleep during the day. Perhaps having to move out was for the best, though. Her roommate had started muttering strange languages in her sleep.

So Cynthia dropped out of college, worked the graveyard shift at the Hop'N Go, and took a cramped studio apartment downtown. That place lasted two months, and she'd ended up sleeping on the couch. Even with such a small space to work with, the beggar had still knitted himself into flesh, worked the lint into skin and flesh, formed arms and legs from the dust, shaped its terrible rasping mouth.

Though her new landlord said a professional cleaning crew had given the efficiency a white-glove treatment, the dust gathered fast, like clouds in a thunderstorm. The noises had started on the second night, so hushed that nobody would have heard them who didn't know what to listen for. Every night louder, every night another ounce of substance incorporated, every night a new muscle to be flexed.

But the beggar had never been as loud as he was tonight. Her night off from work, she should have known better. If only she had a friend to stay with, but she was a stranger in this city, locked out of the social circles by her odd hours. But here she was, in the dark, a silver swathe from the streetlight the only companion.

Except for her beggar.

Even with the pillow wrapped so tightly around her head that she could barely breath, the muted clatter reached her, chilled her, cut like a claw on bone. Maybe if she held her breath . . .

She did, her heart a distressed timpani, thudding in a merciless race to some vague coda.

But it worked. The rustling died, the velvet fell in upon itself, the dust settled back into its slumber. All was still in the underthere.

Cynthia couldn't hold her breath forever. Every time she exhaled, slowly, the air burning through her throat, the noises came again. With each new lungful of darkness, the beggar twitched. She should have slept with the light on. Not that the light made any difference.

But worse than the fear, the tension in her limbs and stomach from clenching in anticipation of his touch, would be actually seeing that hand rise above the edge of the mattress, claws glittering amid the matted gray fur, the beggar made flesh.

Better to imagine him, because she was sure her imagination could never paint as terrible a picture as reality could.

Better to hold her breath and swallow her whimpers and bathe in her own sweat than to peek out from under the blankets and see if tonight would be the night of the hand.

Better to lie here and never dream, eyes closed, better to wait for morning, morning, morning.

The next morning came as always, the sun strong and orange this time, not sulking behind clouds. It was the kind of morning where she could sleep, and no sounds rose from that strange land beneath the bed. She slept until early afternoon, then rose, still tired.

Cynthia always felt silly in the morning. She wasn't a child, after all. As Mom was so fond of reminding her.

With the sun so bright and the world busy outside, normal people on everyday errands, Cynthia almost had the courage to jump out of bed, go to the other side of the room, bend down on her hands and knees, and look at the empty space under the bed. Because everyone knew nothing was there. Just an old story to scare children with.

But she wouldn't dare look. Because he might look back, his eyes cold amongst the velvet, his hand reaching out, wanting to touch.

Cynthia shuddered, her bedclothes damp from perspiration. She kicked off the blankets and stretched her cramped body. She rolled off the side of the bed, looking between her legs. But he only stirred at night. The floor was safe.

She showered, brushed her teeth, adjusted the angle of the cabinet mirror so that she couldn't see the bed.

"Why don't you put the mattress on the floor?" her reflection asked. "That way, there would be no underthere."

"No," she said, a froth of toothpaste around her lips. "Then I'd be in the underthere. Lying right alongside him, or on top of him, or him on top of me, or something."

"It's only dust."

"From dust we come, to dust we go. Haven't you ever heard that?"

"Only crazy people talk to mirrors," her reflection said.

"You said it, I didn't."

Behind the mirror were drab vials with small pills. Pills could talk, if you let them. She couldn’t trust pills, not with those strange runes scribbled across their faces. One therapist said they made you shrink, another said they made you grow tall. She wasn’t that hungry.

The telephone rang. Cynthia went into the living room to answer it, standing so she could keep an eye under the bed. It was Mom.

"Hey, honey, how's school going?" Mom was five hundred miles away, but sounded twice as far.

"Great," Cynthia said, too loudly, too assuredly.

After a pause, Mom asked, "Have you had any more of your . . . problems?"

"They told me I was so much over it that I didn't need to come in for a while."

"I know we shouldn't talk about it—"

Yet they did. Every time they talked. As if this were all the two of them had in common. "I'm fine, Mom. Really."

"He wasn't like that when I married him. If only I had known—"

Here it came, the Capital-G Guilt Trip, as Mom shifted the blame from the one who deserved it onto Cynthia. That way, Mom wouldn't have any share of it. "I know I should have told you," Cynthia said. "But it's the kind of thing you just try to forget about. You lie to yourself about it, know what I mean?"

"Yes, honey, you're right. He's dead. Let's forget about him."

Forget who, Cynthia wanted to say. But lying to herself didn't do any good. "So, how's Aunt Reba?"

They talked about Aunt Reba, Mom's new car, and Cynthia's grades. Somehow Mom was never able to turn the conversation back to that sore spot she loved so much. Cynthia could never understand her mother's fixation with the past. Let the dead be dust.

"Got to go, Mom," Cynthia finally cut in. "Got class. Love you, bye."

Cynthia locked the apartment, left the beggar to his daydreams, and caught a bus downtown. A fat man with an anaconda face sat next to her.

"Afternoon for the pigeons," he said.

Cynthia stared straight ahead. She didn't want to hear him.

"At the airport, cannonball to the heart,' he said, thumping his chest for emphasis.

He didn't exist. None of them did, not him, not the Puerto Rican woman with the scars on her cheeks, not the longhair with the busted boom box, not the old man asleep under his beret. These people were nothing but hollow flesh. Formed from dust, passing through on their way back to dust.

The bus stopped and she got off, even though she was two blocks from her destination. "Cigarette weather," the fat man shouted after her.

She bought a hot dog from a street vendor, after checking under his cart to make sure the beggar wasn't hiding there. She sat on a park bench, ate the hot dog, and threw the wrapper into the bushes. Pigeons pecked at the paper.

The bench was perfect for a late afternoon nap. The seat was made of evenly-spaced wooden slats, so she could occasionally open her eyes and make sure the beggar wasn't lying on the ground beneath her. He could have been hiding in the shadows of the tall oaks. But he was most likely in her bedroom, waiting.

Cynthia's back ached by the time she awoke near dusk. At least some of the weariness, built up over months of restless nights, had ebbed away. She hurried around the corner, ignoring the strange people on the sidewalk. Their faces were blank in the glow of shop windows.

The counter clerk at the Hop'N Go nodded when Cynthia walked in the door. They settled the register, Cynthia mumbling responses to the clerk's attempts at conversation. Her shift started at ten, and she rang up cigarettes, condoms, candy bars, corn chips, shiny products in shiny wrappers, taking the money without touching the hands of those giving it. At midnight, the other clerk left and the beer sales increased.

At around two in the morning, a young man in an army jacket came through the door. It was that point in the shift when the wild-eyed ones came in, those who smelled of danger and sweat. Cynthia wasn't afraid of being robbed, though. Compared to the beggar, even a loaded automatic was a laughable threat. But this customer had no gun.

He placed a can of insect spray on the counter. His fingers were dirty.

"Four-seventeen," she said after ringing up the purchase.

"You don't look like the type of person who works a night shift at a convenience store," he said. He put a five in her hand.

She tried to smile the way the manager had taught her, but her face felt like a brick. She glanced into the man's eyes. They were bright, warm, focused.

"How fresh is the coffee?" he asked when she gave him change.

"I made it an hour ago."

"Bet you drink a few cups to get through the night. Always thought it was weird, people who didn't sleep in a regular cycle."

There was a button under the counter which she could press and send an alarm to the police. If he kept being friendly . . .

"It's natural to sleep when it's dark," he continued. He smiled, his rows of teeth even between his lips. He looked to be two or three years older than Cynthia.

"Unless you have to work in the dark," she said.

"Throws your whole cycle off. Do you go to State?"

Another customer came in, this one the normal, shifty-eyed sort. The man in the army jacket poured a cup of coffee and sat in one of the corner booths near the refrigerated sandwiches. The shifty-eyed man bought a can of smokeless tobacco, glared at Army Jacket, then asked for a copy of Score from the rack behind Cynthia. The magazine was wrapped in plain brown paper, but Cynthia could imagine the lurid pose of the cover girl, airbrushed breasts thrust teasingly out.

The shifty-eyed man paid, rolled the magazine and tucked it under his arm, then headed out under the streetlights. Army Jacket brought his coffee to the counter.

"Pervert," Army Jacket said. "Bet you get a lot of weirdoes on this shift."

To Cynthia, the weirdest people were the ones who talked to her. But this guy didn't talk crazy. Even for a man whose mouth was a cavern filled with invisible snakes.

"It's okay," she said, feeling under the counter for the alarm button. "My job likes me."

He laughed, took a sip of his coffee, then poked his tongue out. "Ouch. That's hot."

She pointed to the sign that was taped to the coffee maker. "Caution! Coffee is hot," she read aloud.

Army Jacket laughed again for some reason. She read the name sewn in a patch above his breast pocket. Weams. He didn't look like a Weams, so she decided to still think of him as Army Jacket.

"My name's David," he said. "What's yours?"

"Alice Miller Jones," she said, making up a name from somewhere.

"Alice. That's a good, old-fashioned name. Most girls these days are named Maleena or Caitlin or something trendy like that."

"Ask Alice. Wasn't that in an old Sixties' song?"

Army Jacket, who might be a David as far as she could tell, shook his head and took another, smaller sip of his coffee. He reached in his pocket for change. "Guess I better pay for this."

"Ask Alice."

He smiled. "What do you do when you're not running a convenience store register, Alice?"

"Trying not to sleep."

His eyelids drooped slightly. "Sleep is the greatest waste of time ever invented. There are so many better ways to spend time. Even in bed."

She looked at him. His eyes were like Styrofoam picnic plates, bright and empty. "I have a strange bed," she said. "Would you like to see it?"

His hand shook, splashing a few drops of coffee on the floor. She took the change from him and the coins were covered in sweat.

"Sure," Army Jacket said, leaning stiffly against the counter in an attempt to look relaxed.

"How do you feel about dust?" she asked.

His eyebrows raised in a questioning expression. "I don't mind a little dust. Dust thou art, isn't that what the Bible says?"

"Only talking Bibles."

A couple of people came in the store, rummaged around near the candy rack, then came to the counter with a bottle of wine. Cynthia thought one of them had swiped a candy bar. He had a bulge in his front pocket. She decided to let him wait, so that the chocolate would melt and stain his underwear.

"I can't sell wine," she said. "It's illegal to sell alcohol after 2 AM."

The man with the bulge looked at his wristwatch, which was plated with fake gold. "Sister, it five o'clock. It already tomorrow, and I goin' by tomorrow time."

"Sorry," she said, folding her arms. "Cigarette weather."

"What the hell?" the man said.

His companion, a pasty-looking blonde, grabbed his arm. "Forget it, Jerry. I got some back at my place."

"This bitch tellin' me it ain't tomorrow yet," he said.

Army Jacket cleared his throat and straightened himself. "Sir, she's only doing her job," he said, looking down at the man from a four-inch height advantage.

"She's only doing her job," Cynthia said.

"Don't get smart with me, bitch." The man raised the wine bottle as if he were going to swing it. Army Jacket stepped forward and grabbed his wrist, taking the bottle with his other hand. The man grunted and the aroma of vomit and cheap booze wafted across the room. He struggled free and headed for the door, the blonde following.

At the door, the man paused and squeezed the bulge in his pants. "Got something for ya next time," he said. The blonde pulled him cussing toward the street.

Army Jacket placed his coffee cup on the counter.

"You get a lot of weirdoes on this shift," Cynthia said.

"I already said that. When do you get off work?"

They had breakfast in a little sidewalk cafe. Cynthia ordered coffee and butter croissants and scrambled eggs. Army Jacket was a vegetarian, but he said he could eat eggs. Cynthia thought that was strange, because eggs weren't vegetables.

They reached Cynthia's apartment just before noon. "So, where's this bed of yours?" Army Jacket asked.

Cynthia had a few boyfriends in high school. After the beggar had started sleeping under her bed, she'd quit dating. But now that Army Jacket was in her apartment, she decided that she'd been foolish to face the fear alone. She'd give Army Jacket what he wanted, and then she'd get what she wanted.

She led him to the tiny bedroom. She half-suspected that the beggar crawled from beneath the bed while she was gone, to sleep between cloth sheets and dream of being human. But the beggar belonged to dust, the dark, permanent shadow of underthere. The blankets were rumpled, just as she'd left them.

"You don't mess around, do you?" Army Jacket said.

"It's only dust," she said.

"I didn't mean that kind of mess," he said, looking at the dirty laundry scattered on the floor. He sat on the bed, Cynthia watching from across the room, waiting to see if the gray hand would clutch his ankle.

He patted the mattress beside him. "Come on over. Don't be shy."

She looked out the window. "Looks like cigarette weather."

Army Jacket took off his army jacket. Without the jacket, he was just a David. Not a protector. Not some big, brave hero who would slay the beggar.

"Come on," he said. "This isn't a spectator sport."

She crossed the room, crawled onto the bed beside him, mindful of her feet. They undressed in silence. David kissed her, then clumsily leaned her back against the pillows. Through it all, she listened for the breathing, the soft knitting of dust into flesh, the strange animations of the beggar.

David finished, rolled away. "Where are the cigarettes?"

"I don't smoke."

"What's this about 'cigarette weather,' then?"

"The man with the anaconda face said that."

"Huh?"

She put her arm across his chest, afraid he'd leave. She scolded herself for being so dumb. If David left, she'd be alone again when darkness fell. Alone with the beggar.

David kissed her on the forehead. "Ocean eyes like ice cream," he said.

She tensed beside him, sticky from the body contact. "Did you hear that?"

"What?"

"Under the bed. A noise."

"I don't hear anything." David made a show of checking the clock on her dresser.

The soft choking sound came again, the painful drawing of an inhuman breath. The beggar stirred, fingers creeping like thick worms across the floor. He was angry, jealous. Cynthia should not have brought another man to this bed. Cynthia belonged to the beggar, and always had.

"He's coming," she said.

David sat up and looked at the door. "Damn. Why didn't you tell me you had a boyfriend?"

"Only crazy people talk to mirrors."

David reached off the bed, grabbed his clothes, and began dressing. "You're crazy, Alice."

"Who's Alice?"

David ignored her, teeth clenched in his rush to pull up his pants. "I hope to hell he doesn't carry a gun."

"Shhh. He'll hear you."

David slipped his arms into his jacket. Now he was Army Jacket again, just another one of them, a hollow man, a mound of dust surrounding a bag of air. None of them were real.

Except the man under the bed.

Army Jacket struggled into his shoes. Cynthia leaned forward and watched, wondering how far the beggar would let Army Jacket get before pulling him into the velvet.

"Green licorice. Frightened of storms?" Army Jacket asked, his breath shallow and rapid.

"No, only of him."

"Razor in the closet since yesterday." Army Jacket tiptoed out of the room, paused at the front door and listened.

"He doesn't use the door," Cynthia called out, giggling. The beggar would slide out from under the bed any moment now, shake of the accumulated dust of his long sleep, and make Army Jacket go away.

The phone rang. It had to be Mom. Seven rings before Mom gave up.

Army Jacket swallowed, twisted the knob, and yanked the door open, falling into a defensive crouch. The hallway was empty.

"Allergies," he yelled at her, then slipped out the doorway and disappeared.

Cynthia fell back on the pillows, sweat gathering on her brow. The beggar hadn't taken him. The beggar had not been jealous. The beggar was too confident, too patient, to be jealous.

She clutched the blankets as the afternoon sun sank and the shadows grew long on the bedroom wall. She should have fled while it was still light, but her limbs were limp as sacks of jelly. Fleeing was useless, anyway. He'd always had her.

Dusk came, dangling its gray rags, shaking lint over the world.

Under the bed, stirrings and scratches.

Under the bed, breathing.

Cynthia whimpered, curled into a fetal position, nude and burning and vulnerable. Waiting, like always.

The hand scrabbled along the side of the mattress. It clutched the blankets and began dragging the body that wore it from the vague ether. Cynthia closed her eyes, tight like she had as a small child, so tight the tears pressed out. She trembled, her sobs in rhythm with the horrible rasping of the beggar's breath.

She could feel it looming over her now, its legs formed, the transition from dust back to flesh complete. Cynthia held her breath, the last trick. Maybe if she could hold her breath forever . . .

The hand touched her gently. The skin was soft, soft as velvet.

Cynthia almost screamed. But she knew what would happen if she screamed. Because Mommy might hear and things like this are secret and it's okay to touch people who love you but some people wouldn't understand. Bad girls who scream have to be punished. They have to be sent into the dark place under the bed.

And they have to stay under the bed until Daddy says it's okay to come out.

So Cynthia didn't scream, even as the hand ran over her skin, leaving a trail of dust.

She didn't make a sound as the beggar climbed onto the bed. If she was a good little girl, then the beggar would go away after he finished, and wouldn't drag her into the underthere.

The dust settled over her, a smothering blanket of velvet.

If only she could hold her breath forever.

###

TELLERS

Hey, you.

Waiting for the lift, are you?

It’s late, but what’s time, right?

There’s an old saying you hear once in a while, usually from the mouths of fazzed-out wireheads. “Time is money,” the saying goes. That’s an absolute laughtrack. Anybody with half an idea stuffed in their blatherhole knows that time isn’t money.

Time is time.

If you don’t believe me, just slide your card into any Teller. Watch your chrono digits counting down, the seconds ticking away, your account heading for the Big Zero. If you still believe that life is cheap, if you’re feeling generous, then you won’t mind dumping a few of your numerals into my account.

I like spending time, as long as it’s somebody else’s. I’ve survived more clocklaps that you can imagine. And I’ve done it the old-fashioned way: by peddling the juice that you downtowners value even more than your next breath.

Yeah, I’ve helped people plug into all the sweetest junk. You want some Hell’s Sunshine? How about some Funeral Party? Or, if you’re in the mood for a real highwire act, I’ve got some Happy right here in my coat pocket. Of course, Happy will set you back about seven weeks.

And I could use seven weeks. My account’s down to about three hours or so. And I’ll bet you got a few years to spare. You can’t be more than, what—twenty-five?

Okay, twenty-seven.

I’ve been that age about six times already. You can’t tell by looking, but right now, I’m just a geezer kicked down to my last dime. And you’re my only hope of ever seeing twenty-seven again. I don’t have enough minutes to catch the lift downtown, so I could prowl the smuggered-up alleys where all my favorite junkies hang out. I can’t suck time from any of my customers. But you, you’re here, and you got time to spare.

I don’t believe you. Never done any Happy? No juice at all?

Say, you’re not a Spirit Spy, are you?

Hmm. I didn’t think so. You don’t look like Areopagan stock.

To be oh-so-lutely honest, I don’t use juice, either. Who wants to slide a wire into his head, just to pretend that he's alive and not some figment of the Areopagus’s collective imagination? Me, I’ll take the bad air and the red sky and the grit under my feet any day. That’s what’s real. Not some wire trip.

But you and me thinking the same way doesn’t help me solve my problem. Because we’re not equal. You got time, and I don’t. But I’ll tell you what. You might not want any of my juice, but I got something you need.

It’s called blather.

And because I like you, because you got eyes and can see that this whole world’s one big joke waiting for God’s punchline, I’m going to let you in on a little secret.

But it’ll cost you. A week.

Come on, now, don’t play hardball. I need the time and you need the little life lesson I can give you.

Don’t look at me that way. You know I’m desperate.

Okay, okay. Three days, you cheapskate. That’s hardly an eyeblink to somebody as young and rich as you are, but it could keep me out of bankruptcy. And you know what happens when the Tellers zero your account, don’t you?

I hope you never have to find out. But you will. Unless you give me your three days. Then I’ll tell you how to live forever.

Deal?

Okay, first the story, then you pull the transfer. Only, I have to hurry. Like I told you, I don’t have all day.

This would have been a few hundred clocklaps ago, when it happened. In real days, you know, the sun passing overhead and all, it might have been a week. They say you used to be able to see the sun cross the sky, starting at one end over all those smokestacks, then rising up straight overhead before falling off the edge of the earth on the other side of the sky. The oldtimers say you could tell time that way, by where the sun was. Not like now, when it’s either day or night and nothing in between.

I was standing in the mouth of a downtown bank. Over by the Genworks, where you can taste the sulfuric acid in the air. It was payday, see, and any juice pusher knows the best time to make time is when your junkies got time.

You know how it works: the Areopagus dumps your time right into the Tellers. The wireheads work sixty and get credit for forty. A slow way to die, if you ask me. If I were one of them, I wouldn’t want to see the evidence of the government’s rip-off. But on payday, they all swing by the Tellers to check their accounts. Maybe it gives them a sense of personal accomplishment or something, as if anything matters besides staying alive.

Business was brisk that day. I moved a dozen hits of Teenage Wasteland and a fistful of Gasm and even a dose or two of Yesteryear. The ladies, they usually go for one of two things: Gasm or Motherhood. Yeah, Motherhood, if you can believe it. Stick a wire in their heads just to believe a squirmy little bag of meat is filling up their guts. Like people get born, not made.

Whatever. I don’t judge, I just deliver.

I had my card in the Teller, in the Plus hole, and the junkies were making me rich. They lined up, hands shaking as they slotted their cards, their eyes already looking past the real world toward whatever trip they were taking. As creepy as their faces were, the Teller’s face was even creepier.

You know how those rows of lights wink on, like they’re watching every move you make? Green to red to gold? Well, this one lit up like a jetcar crash, like it wasn’t pleased with me dumping so much time into my account. Some people say that the Tellers are wired straight into the Areopagus, that the government has nothing better to do than to keep track of how downtowners waste their time. Laughtrack.

After my last customer headed for a dark place to juice up, I punched up my balance. I was thirty-five again. Not as young as I like to be, but I was two years better off than I had been before the feeding frenzy. I smiled and patted the Teller, and even the seconds counting down in red didn’t bother me too much.

Except the Teller didn’t give me back my card.

I pushed that little button beside the Plus hole. I pushed it again. Nothing.

My heart was ticking like a junkie’s on a dose of Clockwork. I was afraid something had gone wrong, that maybe some of the numbers were mixed up. I know, I know, the Areopagus never makes mistakes, but we all hear those whispers, don’t we? One little bug in the Teller’s brain, and my account would be closed. The Big Zero.

And once a Teller’s eyes burn you into dust, then the words “internal error” don’t mean a whole lot.

So I freaked, I starting kicking the thing, jabbing the little buttons, clawing at the metal lips that had swallowed my time card. No good. All I got was sore hands and proof that even a pusher bleeds. The display blinked off, and I couldn’t see my account anymore. A message came up on the screen: “Ring For Assistance.”

I knew right away what that meant. But I was so desperate I had no choice. I’m used to being desperate, anyway. We all are. Hey, I didn’t set up the rules, I just play by them.

I pushed the little red button, and the Teller’s lights went crazy. I’ve heard that some machines are on the juice themselves, that they can be rigged for wire trips. I was afraid maybe this was one of them, that some Johnny Zoid had played metal games and dosed the Teller with some Flower Power or Big Sleep. Who knows what you get when a machine is tricked into thinking it’s human?

While those lights were flashing, shining so bright that they probably were visible outside the bank, I heard a scream. Sometimes you hear screams from the alleys, at least in my part of downtown, where the junkies huddle up and slip their favorite wires in their skulls and pretend that they’re alive. Being alive makes anybody want to scream, but most of us stay too busy hustling hours to look past the end of our noses.

I squeezed my eyes shut, the lights were so brilliant. I felt like a Juvenator had dug its claws into my brainbox. I must have fallen to my knees, because when the voice came, it was above me, like a speaker grid on God Day blathering out Areopaganese.

“What’s the problem?” the voice said.

My eyes tricked themselves open. Above me stood a man dressed in white chrome. His hair was gray, the color of the true rich. He was smiling and, believe it or not, he had wrinkles on his face. My first thought was “Spirit Spy.”

I struggled to my feet and sucked enough air into my lungs to speak. “Teller ate my card,” I said, acting dumb.

“Don’t take it personally,” he said. The Teller’s lights bounced off of his suit.

“It’s personal if that thing”—I pointed toward the hulking frame of the Teller—“zeroes out my balance.”

“You’ve gone around the clock a few times, haven’t you, Mister Gustavo?”

“How do you know my name?”

The man ignored me and went to the machine. He took a tool from one of his pockets and worked at a panel underneath the Teller’s eyes. The lights went cold. We stood in the dark hollow of the bank for a moment, me glad to be alive, the man in white looking at me as if waiting for something.

“Can I get my card back?” I asked.

“Depends,” he said. “How much is it worth to you?”

If he was a Spirit Spy, I didn’t know what I could offer. I thought he wanted a piece of the action, maybe a few extra weeks, though he already looked rich enough to live forever. Then it came to me. Even those who work for the Areopagus are human, as least that’s the buzz on the street. And if this man was human, he probably craved escape as much as any of us dirt-poor downtowners did.

Since he knew my name, he probably knew I was a juicer. Maybe this was one of those people who live on the upper levels, so high in the sky that they can see the sun above the smugger. Maybe he was so rich that he could afford to waste time looking through the eyes of Tellers. Maybe he saw how ordinary people threw it all away for artificial dreams, silicon lies, and small-time deals.

Or maybe this was a test. The Areopagus didn’t like people who were as lucky as I had been. I’ve heard of people half my age who mysteriously disappeared, probably at the business end of a Teller’s stare.

“What do you want?” I asked, afraid to make the first move. On juice deals, I set the terms, but none of my customers have as much bargaining position as a man who might have just saved my life. Or is getting ready to zero it.

“You’re a pusher,” he said. His eyes were strange, not accusing, just curious.

The Areopagus could zap me anytime it wanted. So why play blather games? I told him, “I know how to get things.”

“I’m looking for an experience,” he said.

He looked like the type who could use a thrill. And could afford it. “How about some Gasm?” I asked. “Makes you think it lasted a month, but only sets you back two weeks.”

He gave me that weird smile, a smile that didn’t smack of the desperation that all us downtowners taste with every single breath. “I don’t want a wire,” he said. Then he pushed the hair away from his temples.

No socket.

This guy didn’t have a socket.

If I was scared before, I was plenty close to one of those old-fashioned Big Zeroes, the kind the oldtimers talk about, where you just fall down and your heart stops and your turn to slow dust instead of fast dust. The man moved to the bank’s opening and surveyed the street. He turned and lowered his voice. “This junk has to come from somewhere. I want you to take me underground.”

My heart was beating again. I said to him, “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

He went to the Teller again, tinkered with some of its mechanisms, and then held open his palm. My card lay in it. My life.

“Underground,” he said. “And don’t worry. I’m not working for the Areopagus.”

Sure. That’s exactly what a Spirit Spy would say. He wanted me to sell out my contacts. But why would the Areopagus waste resources by busting up a small-time pusher? Everybody knows they like to keep us downtowners juiced and dumb and staring at the clock.

But if they wanted to bust me, I’d already be a palmful of grit. The Teller had recorded my transactions, and therefore knew my whereabouts. Its eyes must have monitored the gray-haired stranger. I could picture a dozen jetcars, packed full of armor-clad Spirit Spies, swooping down from the smugger to land on the street outside.

If I lost my supplier, I might never find another source of juice. But every sell-out has a price. Like I said, time is time.

“Time doesn’t matter down there,” I said, my eyes fixed on the card in his hand. “She doesn’t care how rich you are.”

“Time doesn’t matter up here, either,” he said.

Easy for him to say. He had my card. I had a feeling that he could slip it back into the Teller’s mouth, lay into the machine with his secret tool, and wipe out my account. I didn’t have any weapons to fight something like that. All I had was a hundred different hits of juice, and this guy didn’t even have a socket.

“I get my card back,” I said, then nodded toward the Teller. “And you work your wonders and dump twenty years into my account.”

“Deal,” he said, handing me my card. “You get the time when we get back.”

Twenty years. I don’t have to tell you, that’s Big Time. I went into the shadows, into the dark corner of the bank. “And don’t say I didn’t warn you,” I told him. “If you want experience, I got all you can handle.”

He followed me, and I led him behind the Teller, into the cracks between walls where the real world lies. Sure, we see the buildings, they go up and up and disappear into the smugger, and all of us downtowners think the buildings keep right on going into the sky. We think that the people who live up there must be pretty lucky, and plenty rich. Probably hooked in with the Areopagus.

But the underground, even the Spirit Spies don’t know much about it. Because that’s where emotions come from. That’s where she is. That’s where she makes the juice that keeps so many of my customers happy. You probably don’t believe me, but I see you’re not walking away, either.

I led this strange man with the chrome suit into the crevices beneath my favorite bank. Some pushers have gotten lost in those corridors, wandered around in the gridworks until their cards expired. But, me, I’m a pro. Which is why I never sample the merchandise. I like to keep my head clear so I can take care of business.

A good hour passed, us feeling our way through the rusted pipes and broken stairs. We went through a couple of doors, the old-fashioned kind that swing open. Then we heard the moaning, what sounded like a street full of trippers all plugged into the same bad wire. Then we heard a single scream.

The stranger had barely spoken since we slid into the walls, but as he heard the scream, he clutched my arm. His skin was as cold as a rain factory. “What’s that?” he asked me.

Screams, when you hear them underground, rattle around between the walls, bounce back and forth, get you all fazzed up. It’s one thing to hear the sound from a street junkie, but when it’s real and raw and loud as the dark, you know you’re someplace you shouldn’t have gone.

I said, “It’s what you’re paying for.” I led him through a few more turns, glad that the scream died away. One more, and he’d have dashed into the black mouths of one of those corridors, and I’d have missed out on those twenty years he’d promised.

We finally saw a fuzzy glow at the end of one of the halls. I’d been there before, so it wasn’t any big time to me. But I heard the stranger gasping and wheezing like somebody had flashed him with a God screen. I pulled him through a hole in the wall, and we were in the juiceworks.

Every trip to the juiceworks is different. That’s another reason I don’t like wires, because the juice experience is always the same. Underground, you can almost pretend that there’s no Areopagus. You almost feel like your time belongs to you, and not to the Tellers. Because she’s real.

She sat on a heap of slag, her face lit up by the forge, clumps of circuits and cables dangling like hair. The stranger tried to hide behind me, but I wanted him to get his time’s worth. She tilted her head up at the sound of our footsteps. She was blind, of course, just like the legends say. My guess is that a Teller once tried to stare her down.

“Who is it?” she asked, barely audible over the bubbling smelt. Not a whisper of fear was in her voice. Only curiosity.

“Gustavo,” I said. “And a friend.”

“Friend,” she said. “You wouldn’t know what the word means.”

“He’s not a junkie,” I said.

“Nobody is,” she answered. She returned to her work as if we weren’t there. Her hand dipped into the forge and brought up a palmful of the molten metal. She shoved it into her socket, the leftovers dribbling down her face in red streaks before hardening. She smiled, then groaned, her face like a junkie’s on a dozen different trips at the same time.

Her body shook. Gasm or Teenage Wasteland, I figured. Sparks flew from her fingers. The stranger stepped into the light of the forge, trembling in witness to the miracle of birth.

She relaxed after a moment, breathing in the rhythm of clocks. She pinched at her socket with two fingers, and brought a new silvery wire into the world. She knew I was looking at it, as hooked as any of my customers.

She tossed the wire onto the gritty floor.

“You don’t have a socket,” she said to the stranger.

He fell on his knees before her, there in that dim cavern of smelt tins and slag. I stooped and began gathering handfuls of the wires that were scattered around my feet. Twenty years wasn’t enough for me, not when months and months of juice were right there for the taking. But I knew she had her own price, her own measure of value, and I wasn’t sure whether it would be me or the stranger who would pay.

The stranger brought out an electromagnetic scrambler, what the Areopagus used before vaporizers became the most efficient science. His hands shook as he aimed that primitive weapon. I backed away, wondering if the electromagnetic pulse would scramble my own biorhythms.

“You’re a Spirit Spy,” she said to him. Even blind, she knew what was happening. I swear to God that she was smiling. Then her machines lit up, all ten hexamillion of them, every color you've ever plugged in, all sparkling and flashing.

“You—you’re beautiful,” he said. I knew how he felt. Everybody who sees her on display gets that same lift, as if gravity just got forgotten and blood is as good as any juice.

But he had a mission. Decades of Areopagan training was stronger than any leap of faith. And all leaps of faith end in graceless falls, anyway.

He triggered the scrambler, and my heart stuttered in my chest. The three of us screamed and laughtracked and trembled together on the biggest time trip of all: the one where you’re dead.

I leaned against the wall until the Spirit Spy collapsed. After I regained my senses and my heartbeat, I lifted the dense metal corpse. I shoved him into the forge and watched him melt down. That’s one of my all-time favorite highs.

“He was a good experience,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said to her. “He was going to give me twenty years.”

“I believe I’m worth more than that,” she said, and, like always, I couldn’t tell if she was serious.

“What’s he worth?” I said.

“You’ve already named your price,” she said, pointing to the wires in my hand.

“Might take me around the clock a few times,” I agreed. I retreated to the mouth of the cave, went back through the corridors and up the stairs until I reached the street. As I walked out under the smugger, where we all dream that we’re free, I thought of something she’d told me once.

I’d asked her what was the big fazzing deal, what did she get out of it, why did she bother?

She told me, “We’re all Spirit Spies. We just steal in different ways.”

Yeah, sing it to the Tellers, next time your account’s down to a couple of minutes. See what they say about it.

There’s a bank right around the corner.

I don’t care if you believe me or not. That’s not part of the deal.

Now, pay up.

It's only time, after all. And Tellers never lie. They just steal in a different way.

###

ANGELORUM ORBIS

Grayfield could sense the chunk of compact rock waiting beneath the ship, as if its atmosphere were a held breath. Would this be the one? He approached each new contact with a mixture of excitement and dread. Always the Areopagus won. And still he came away empty.

"Contact established, Imperius."

"Lock in, Praetor, and close," Grayfield said with practiced formality.

"Computer has anticipated and enacted, sir."

The spaceship automatically honed in and did a thousand calculations. It was at these moments that Imperius Grayfield, proxy commander and Chief Spirit Officer, felt most useless. Technology had rendered many of his executive decisions impotent. High Command wasn't the blood and guts of old; now it was a palmful of soulless silicon. Grayfield sighed and watched through the simulation screen as the ship he still couldn't help thinking of as his entered the new planet's orbit.

"Docking complete, sir."

"Secure all decks and assemble Diplomatic Corps, Praetor."

"Computer has already issued those orders, sir. Corps awaiting debarkment."

Grayfield removed his simulation visor and dragged his weary human bones from his bunk. He looked around his spartan quarters, wishing he had a flawed oil painting hanging on the wall or a handmade sculpture sagging in the corner, some non-manufactured object he could take comfort in. There was only tungsten precision and bright rayon upholstery.

He entered a code into a small keypad and a panel slid open. He knelt and gazed into the velvet interior of his secret sanctuary. Here was his collection: buddhas and Ibeji twin-figures that were banned on his native planet, Oortian relics and the sacred bones of a Centauri sandreader. A Denebolan ghost-image was sealed in a crystal vacuum, swirling in an eternal aurora of red and orange. Thick crumbling books and dusty tablets sat weighty in one corner, holy words of wisdom from dozens of species, some in languages long forgotten. If the Areopagus ever found out about these forbidden artifacts, Grayfield himself would be only dust, all record of his existence obliterated from their great computers.

He wondered what sort of religions might have flourished on the planet below. Maybe a new totem or fetish might find its way into his vault. But he would trade them all, along with his position, prestige, and wealth, for one ounce of enlightenment. Not the enlightenment of scientific discovery that was espoused by the Areopagus, but the kind that was hinted at in his collected legends.

Grayfield closed the panel and walked down to the debarkment area to meet the Corps. His arrival was awaited by a phalanx of bright-eyed, eraser-headed graduates. Their eyes shone with dutiful enthusiasm.

"Briefing?" he asked the room at large.

An apple-polisher stepped forward, jutting out her chest to make her name insignia more visible.

"Planet first identified by subspace microwave in the year 2414. Initial probe revealed various carbon-based species dominated by intelligent civilization with complex social organization. The name the species gives itself translates as 'Pacis Manus.' Apparently benevolent."

Grayfield said, "Did you memorize all that or just have the chip installed?"

"Sir?"

"That's all, Praetor."

The praetor stepped back into rank and stood rigidly with the others. Grayfield said, "Let's go to work. The Areopagus awaits our report so they can decide if they wish to assimilate."

Of course the Areopagus would wish to assimilate. Bigger was better, whether computers, star-eating spaceships, or interplanetary alliances. The Areopagus had expanded its influence across dozens of solar systems, brought hundreds of intelligent species under its heel. And if these Peacehands resisted? Too bad for them.

Grayfield pressed the transition button and instantly the Corps was standing in a high basalt dome before a trio of Peacehands. They looked just as the simulation screen reports had depicted them. An anthropoid species with milk-colored leathery skin and four sets of eyes that ringed their oblong heads. Stocky builds with short, blunt limbs, withered wings on their backs that they were losing in evolution's ever-changing wisdom. Exoskeletons covered with thin fibrous clothing.

One of the Peacehands stepped forward, eyes jiggling at the ends of limpid stalks.

"Greetings, members of Areopagus. We are pleased to meet your species," she said.

Tiny ear-implanted computers translated her musical clicks and whistles instantaneously into Neo Celtic. Grayfield nodded and bowed slightly, one of his vertebrae popping audibly as he did so. He spoke, a chip on his larynx translating his words into the Peacehand language. Studies had shown that species were more likely to let down their guard when Spirit Officers spoke to them in their own language.

"The Areopagus returns your greetings," he said, prefacing the same speech he had given on many other planets. "We're always pleased to meet new peoples and to explore new areas of space. We hope you'll learn from us as well. The Areopagus believes we have much to offer each other."

Yes, we offer you the chance to lick the asteroid dust from our boots and you offer us unfettered access to your natural resources, Grayfield thought bitterly. If the Peacehands had tongues, that is. He had seen no movement inside the Peacehand ambassador's speaking orifice. Her glottal phrasings wouldn't necessarily require a tongue.

"I am—," the Peacehand ambassador said, chirping a name that the computer randomly designated, "Exa. Please allow me to give you a personal tour of our city."

Grayfield bowed again. "That would be most generous of your time, Exa." Then, to his praetors, "Commence exploratory duties as per High Command orders. Meet here in one hour, and remember, no trouble."

The rows of gleaming uniforms saluted him and disbanded into groups of two and threes.

Exa led Grayfield down the long basalt hallway to a large door. Grayfield looked up at the arch twenty meters above and wondered why the stubby Peacehands needed such clearance. Then he was squinting into the daylight that rained from the planet's cool orange sun. The light reflected off the slightly elevated streets and radiated about the buildings, causing the entire city to shimmer before his eyes. He followed Exa out the door.

As much as he loathed computers, now he was grateful for the biomaintenance system tucked into his front pocket and attached to his aorta by thin wires. It regulated oxygen and filtered toxins, making protective suits necessary only in the most inhospitable environs. He breathed the thin air of the planet without fear, savoring the respite from the stale shipboard air that was continually recycled until it lost its essence.

Now that his eyes had adjusted to the sunshine, he scanned the city that stretched gleaming in all directions. The structures were built of white marble, and followed neat geometric organizations of height and width. More Peacehands walked the streets with shuffling, meek movements, their eyes bugging out from every side. And the streets...impossible! The streets were paved with pure gold, and his boots made no sound on the hard but yielding metal.

Whatever slim chance the planet had of not being assimilated was now down to zero. As soon as Grayfield filed his report, the Areopagus would send a fleet of excavating machines hurtling through space, staffed by a crew of geologists of the Computer Generation, their heads full of rocks and dreams of motherlodes. But first came the formality of diplomatic contact.

And Grayfield's own private mission.

"What do you think of our city, Imperius Grayfield?" Exa asked.

"Why, I've never seen anything so beautiful." He had used the exact same words on every planet he had set Areopagan foot on, but this was the first time he really meant it. The sky was a rich cobalt blue and moist silver clouds drifted in gentle circles. Then he pictured the black industrial smogs that would soon be fighting those clouds for airspace, and turned his attention back to the ground.

"You have such splendid architecture," Grayfield said, rubbing his fingers over the smooth polished wall of a building. The marble was cool to his touch. "Solid and durable, yet highly aesthetic."

"You are most kind, Imperius."

Peacehands passed them on both sides as they walked through the orderly golden streets. A sweet honeyed odor of distant meadows wafted in the faint breeze like notes of music. Soft dusts blew in from the far hills and powdered the edges of cut stone and doorframes. Even the insects floated passively about, as if afraid to offend.

"Tell me of your people," Grayfield said, with an unconscious note of command in his voice.

"We are simple people. We work for the greater good of each other. We aspire only to happiness."

"Yes, yes," he said impatiently. "But what about industry and economic structure?"

"We are each industrious and we all are rich."

"Surely you must have some political organization. After all, you are representing your people."

"We are each ambassadors of our way of life. I had no other work today."

"But someone must decide how things are going to be done. You can't build a city with good deeds."

Misunderstanding clouded her many eyes. "We built it with our hands."

Grayfield was getting nowhere with his questioning. This was a delicate chore, this probing, and so far a computer did not exist that could do the job better. It was a skill that had propelled Grayfield up through the ranks of the space fleet.

The Areopagus could easily send down fire from the spaceships, then let their machines sift the rubble. But merely crushing and sluicing wasn't satisfying enough. Wealth was also found in the souls of species, and souls could be wrung dry in search of valuable spiritual knowledge, another weapon to be added to the Areopagan arsenal. Grayfield's interest in this abstract discipline had made him a mental guerrilla, a philosophical spy.

He tried another approach. "Well, what of crime? Stealing, for example."

"Stealing?" Exa shook her head, causing the stalks of her eyes to wiggle.

"Taking the property of another."

"There is no need to take what already belongs to you."

"Well, does your race kill? Even if only for food?"

"Food is provided. We eat of the bread of life. We value all living things even as we do our own bodies."

"You mean to tell me, as far as you know, one Peacehand has never slain another?"

"We would as soon slay ourselves."

"Then certainly you lie," Grayfield said.

Every species Grayfield encountered had lied at one time or another, usually in their first translated sentence when they said "Pleased to meet you." Lying was a universal truth.

"We have no reason to lie, because lying is done for gain of some kind. We already have the wealth of spirit, and the wealth of materials naturally follows."

"Sex, then. Much evil is committed in the pursuit of lust."

"We do not reproduce in the genetic manner you are thinking of. Our bodies have evolved to function eternally. Our physical pleasure stems solely from mental harmony. We have no desires."

Grayfield was irritated. Such virtue could not exist among creatures of flesh and consciousness. "And hate? Not a single bad thought among any of you?"

"That I cannot truthfully deny. We are on constant guard against such things, but, to us, it is not the thoughts themselves that are wrong. They spring unbidden, as natural as breath. It is acting upon evil thoughts that we each have the power and responsibility to avoid."

"But how do you police those actions?"

"It is not our place to punish. It is our place to strive for goodness, or at least avoid any evil action."

This was maddening, Grayfield thought. They were halfway through the city and he could see the basalt dome from which they had started walking. It towered above the white stone slabs of the shiny buildings. The marble structures that lined the streets were interrupted by more of those too-high arched doorways set at intervals among the tidy squares of the other doors.

He was about to ask about the irregular doors when his Command-implant clicked and a shipboard message filled his head: "High Command computer advises that it is time for Diplomatic Corps to reassemble."

"Exa, would you be so kind as to escort me back to our meeting place?" Grayfield said, flashing his worn smile and extending a gentlemanly arm. "Such a beautiful creature at my side in such a beautiful city would make me feel like a god."

"I would be honored," Exa said, hooking her blunt arm with his. All of her blue eyes sparkled, at least the six that Grayfield could see at the moment. Had she suffered, however briefly, from the sin of pride?

"What is a god?" she asked.

Grayfield had no answer for her.

Back in the ship's diplomatic area, Grayfield met with the Corps' Praetor Majoris.

Mahmallah was ecstatic, gushing on about rivers of gold, mountains of mineral wealth, tons of titanium.

"I've seen the potential," Grayfield said. "But what do you think of them?"

"Them?"

"The Peacehands."

"They give me the willies, sir, with all those eyes hanging out, watching you everywhere you go. But I see no harm in them."

"And your impression, Lorca?"

Lorca, who had studied anthropology, was practical yet sensitive. Unlike most of Grayfield's officers, he had been born at the front end of the Computer Generation, and was therefore a little less blinded by ambition. He rubbed a hand over his olive, close-shaven chin.

"Sir, I've seen no evidence of discord or want among the Peacehands. They defer to each other and to us with a humility that defies logic. How could such a species survive and prosper under the laws of natural evolution, much less the rigors of social development?" Lorca asked.

"Precisely what I was wondering myself," Grayfield answered. "And you, Hobson?"

The mustachioed Hobson was the Conquest Officer. She spoke in a smoky, deep voice. "Any resistance would be temporary at most. I saw no military organization or even the most rudimentary hand weapon among them." She sounded disappointed.

Mahmallah broke in, enthusiasm painting his words. "Sir, it's a cakewalk. There will be bonuses all around, maybe even a vacation among the beauties of Sector Seven. I've never seen such precious ores as these."

"Save your ardor for furlough, Praetor."

Mahmallah, chastened, returned to his computerized geology plots. Soon their data and reports would be sorted and efficiently analyzed by High Command, conclusions reached among the microprocessors, and viability determinations channeled back to the Areopagus. Then would come orders, from across the cold voids of space, sent by that invisible and almighty tribunal.

Grayfield suspected that the Areopagus was only a more sophisticated computer, a futuristic Alexander the Great made of circuitry and bit-streams. But the chain of command had been drilled into him and was unbreakable. Orders were orders.

"Lorca, I'm disturbed by their passivity. They seem willing to embrace us and welcome us without fear. And their demeanor is submissive, even though surely they sense that our interest is more than academic. The only word I can think of to describe them is 'beatific.'"

"'Made happy through blessing,'" Lorca translated automatically. "But I observed no outward display of religion, no icons or temples, no symbols, no paraphernalia of worship."

"Think, man," said Grayfield. "Streets of gold. Wings atrophied from lack of use. Spiritual satisfaction. Eternal bodies. Inner peace. What does that bring to mind?"

"You mean the old Christian legend of heaven?"

"Absolutely. It all adds up."

"Sir, computers have proven beyond doubt that such a place could not exist. All cults have been founded on flawed data. That is why the Areopagus banned religion."

So even the sentimental Lorca wouldn't make a leap of faith. Grayfield sighed. Better to show no more weakness. All the praetors coveted his position and were trained to seek opportunities for their own advancement. It was the spirit on which the Areopagus Space Fleet was founded.

"So they have, Lorca. Meeting adjourned. File your reports."

High Command seconded the motion into their ear-implants.

Grayfield returned to his quarters, his head buzzing. In his own report, he would name the planet. It was one of the perks of his rank. He had already decided on "Angelorum Orbis." World of Angels.

He wrestled awhile with his data, then lay on his bunk to think. All species had their belief systems. Mere physical survival was never enough. Where there was thought, there was reflection. He had studied many religions, seen forms of worship so obviously flawed that they seemed the product of mass madness. Indeed, the more outrageous the religion, the more fervent its followers were.

Yet here was a species whose spirituality was apparently above reproach. Grayfield had been raised on the cocksure rightness of Areopagan philosophy. But did it not fall short of the glory of the Peacehands, who practiced goodness for the sake of goodness instead of goodness for the sake of reward?

He filed his report, then requested another meeting with Exa, alone. There was a riddle here, and he would solve it or be damned.

They met at the dome. Grayfield had left his Command-implant on board. He didn't want the ship's computer to record his conversations. If there were truths to be found here, Grayfield wanted to savor them alone.

"Do you wish to take another walk, Captain?" Exa asked.

"Please lead on."

He was aching for another vision, itching to take in the glory and serenity of the golden land. He was rewarded with a splendid sunset, its rays gilding the city under violet skies. Grayfield wondered if this was the peace and tranquillity that had long eluded him, and if it was, how he could possess it. His eyes drank greedily as they walked in silence.

Exa finally spoke. "Imperius Grayfield, I have told you of our people."

"You've been very patient."

"Now I ask you of yours."

"We're a noble species, as well. We, too, work for a greater good, but our good is for the entire universe, not just our own species."

"What is your 'good'? I know only of your computers and your scientific discoveries and your quest for knowledge," Exa said, her eyes fixed on his.

"We believe life has no mysteries, only answers waiting to be found. That's what we search for."

"That is the difference between us. We do not have to search for what we already possess."

"And that makes you better than us?" Grayfield asked. Was this another vanity, another sin? Was a crack appearing in her sanctimonious facade?

"There is no better or worse, only good and evil."

Grayfield made no response.

Exa continued, "And if you had your answers? What then?"

A rage overtook Grayfield. He wanted to bruise her milky skin, pluck her wobbling blue eyes from her head and hurl them against the marble walls.

He spoke through clenched teeth. "Why, I suppose we would start over. It is the nature of our species to conquer."

"So you wish to conquer us?"

"There are other powers at work here besides you and your people's bliss. To understand you is the will of the Areopagus. And also my will, you see."

Exa did not see, even with eight eyes. "So it is truth you seek, and all of your sins are justified under its banner? Then truth to you must be merely another possession, another form of currency."

"We suffer from greed. But you yourself are not free of sin. I've seen it."

"You've seen what you wanted to see. As I told you, we are not without bad thoughts. But there is no place among us for those who act upon them."

Grayfield looked up. He had lost his way. They were in an unfamiliar part of the city. Darkness was falling like a nylon cloak on the moonless planet. The streets were still, as if the Peacehands had been swallowed by their silent landscape.

"But don't you tire of your ceaseless perfection?" he asked.

"Perfection is an ideal, a way of life. For us, it is life. The alternative is too unpleasant."

"You mean being like us with all our human failings?"

He was incensed. He suddenly grabbed Exa around her leathery throat, pressing her just as the night was pressing down around them, as if he could squeeze her people's secrets from her. She made no move to resist, her flesh relaxing under his stranglehold. He hissed, "Tell me. You have no monetary system. How are your sins paid for?"

Something rustled in the shadowed alleys, and sharp high whispers echoed off the marble walls. Grayfield squinted into the indigo night, then looked back at Exa's pale passive face.

She spoke, gasping around her words, her circulatory system straining under Grayfield's assault. "Our twins. They also work...for the greater good."

"Whose greater good?" Grayfield said between clenched teeth.

She continued, a hoarse martyr. "They lie in wait for those who act on bad thoughts and cull them from our species. It is a mutually beneficial coexistence."

Grayfield played her words over in his mind. Had the Peacehands' eyes evolved from paranoia? Had their smiles been carved upon them as solid as marble, lest they slip the slightest bit? Did fear drive them to their immaculate behavior?

He looked at Exa, but he couldn't make out her face. He saw only the rapt gleam of her many eyes. She wasn't afraid of dying by his hand. He released his grip and peered into the darkness around him.

"Our twins also hunger for knowledge. To them, new sins are tasty delicacies. And you have brought them fresh evils, ones our people could never hope to understand," she said.

Muffled clicks on black gold streets.

"We are indeed blessed," she said.

Monstrous forms hovered over Grayfield, slithering towers of scaly spikes, red eyes, and glittering talons. More shapes emerged from the tall sleepy doors, dripping hunger from yawning jaws.

Understanding dawned on Grayfield, brighter and more piercing than the light from a hundred heavens, nirvanas, and utopias. He had finally found purity and truth, his most highly valued prizes, but he would never live to savor them.

Exa's voice whistled and clicked somewhere beside him. "You call us 'The Hands of Peace.' You may call our twins whatever you wish. It still translates as 'The Claws of Guilt.'"

The Imperius tried to run, but it was as if his boots were gold bricks that had fused with the street. As long ebony arms slashed sideways and aimed for his guts, he knew running was futile anyway. Where could he run to escape his own evil and human heart?

His last thought was that the Areopagus would never assimilate this planet. All future explorers would fall victim to themselves. For in the face of those who possessed humility, goodness, and perfection, Grayfield's people all suffered from the sin of envy.

###

DOOMSDAY DIARY

October 27

Fuck you, diary.

Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.

There.

I've been wanting to say that. I feel a lot better now. Actually, I don't feel that much better. The meth I spiked has me kind of wired. That's why I'm writing so fast and bad. Plus, you know, with time running out and everything, who wants to sit around and write stuff?

Me, I guess.

Maybe it's just some screwed-up desire to leave something behind. To touch something that doesn't turn to crap in my hands.

Except this diary is crap. Sentence fragments. Grammared wrong. Every rule in the book broke. I bet that asshole Ruggles would have a stroke if he read this. He was my Language Arts teacher the year before I dropped out.

But Ruggles doesn't matter, just like the diary doesn't matter. Nothing matters anymore. One of the fringe benefits of the end of the world.

Ah. Popped the tab on a cold one. Reneau, the bum that lives behind the shopping center, bought me a six-pack. Of course, I had to give him money so he could buy himself some wine. No skin off my nose. I ripped off Dad's wallet for a twenty.

Reneau's pretty cool, for a fucking homeless jerk. As a matter of fact, that's one dude who's glad the end is here.

When you ain't got nothing, you ain't got nothing to lose. Those were his exact words. Double negatives. Ruggles would be rolling over in his grave, if he was already dead.

Fuck Ruggles.

And fuck you, Diary.

October 30

Dear Diary,

I lied.

Way the hell back in September I promised that I'd write in you every day. But I'm as faithless as a whore.

So sue me.

I've missed weeks at a stretch, but hey, when you're young and doomed, it's hard to slow down long enough to sit at some desk with a pen in your hand. It's easy for you. All you got to do is lay there like a woman, all white and clean and blank.

I'm the one who has to come up with all the deep thoughts. But I'll try to do better. Acid today. Lonnie came up with some paper blotter from somewhere. The hits had drawings of Mickey Mouse on them. Can you believe that? A drug maker with a sense of humor.

The world could use more humor. Saw a guy in a business

suit today wearing out the sidewalk on LaCroix Row, where all those fancy-assed shops are. He was carrying a sign that said, "Jesus Loves You."

I laughed, and the guy got this weird look on his face. He stops walking and says, "What's so funny?"

"If Jesus loves me, why am I in hell?" I say.

Then he goes, "The end is near."

I go, "Big woop." You'd think the guy was the first one who ever came up with that line, he was so intense about it. I was tripping pretty heavy by then.

“Repent and be saved," he says. He had an orange stain on his collar. How the hell do you get an orange stain on your collar? I mean, gravy or lipstick or red wine, I could understand. But here I was grooving on this orange stain that was sort of shaped like an flower. Then the flower turned into a burning bush, and I started freaking a little.

The guy was all smiles then, figuring he'd got himself in good with Jesus by setting me on the righteous path and putting the fear of God in me. But I've always had the fear of God. That's what God's all about, isn't it?

Didn't some dude in the Bible see a burning bush out in the desert? Maybe he found some psychedelic mushrooms or something. Visions have to come from somewhere. They don't just pop out of thin air. I hope the guy with the Jesus sign is the first to fry when January One rolls around. I'd pay money to see that happen. Sleepy now. Took two Quaaludes to come down from the acid. Good old stumble biscuits.

Nighty night.

November 2

That was a hell of a party.

Halloween. Let's see, was that two or three days ago? Whatever.

Me and Lonnie went over to Denita's. Her folks were gone. They're as rich as royalty, and they figure you can't take it with you, right? So they're jetting all over the world, trying to see it all before the big bang or whatever.

They left the liquor cabinet stocked. I was lazy this year, I went as a bum. I traded Reneau one of my Dad's suits and five bucks for his nasty rags. I put them on, and I smelled like I'd been sleeping in a hog pen. Pretty cool.

Denita was dressed as a ballerina or something. Made herself up to look like a little girl, with buckled shoes and a big bow in her hair. The jocks were on her like flies on shit. I don't know how many she had that night, but she was never one to turn anybody away, even back when AIDS and getting pregnant mattered. Nobody's going to live long enough to die from AIDS anymore, so why not go for it?

Lonnie was dressed in some kind of silver get-up. He'd found one of those '70's disco outfits, with the bell bottoms and wide lapels, and the crazy bastard had spray-painted it with silver glitter. Lonnie really gets into Halloween. He's the kind that will spend two months working on his costume.

Roget was there, too. I used to think Roget was a total dick, because he sat at the front of the class and wore glasses and was in the Chemistry Club. But he did an about-face when we learned the end was near, that it was really going to happen and wasn't just an excuse for a televangelist with big hair to beg for money. Now Roget's as wild as a one-eyed jackalope.

We must have smoked twenty joints. I had a fifth of tequila all by myself, and Roget had some coke. I did a few lines, even though the stuff always makes my nose bleed. The jocks kept going in and coming out of Denita's room. The other girls there were jealous, but what the hell, it was her party, right?

I had the hots for one of the girls there. Melanie. I love that name. But she's kind of shy and serious, and she hung out in the corner talking to one of the fat chicks all night. Probably debating Shakespeare or something. Even as buzzed as

I was, I couldn't get up the nerve to go over and talk to her. Did I just write that? Looks stupid as hell, right there in black and white. The world is over, and I can't get up the nerve. Well, hell, these is weird times.

I didn't talk to her, but I sure checked her out. She was dressed in one of those Japanese things, a kimono. Her black hair was tied back and she'd done some makeup to her eyes that made them look slanted. She pretended like she didn't notice what was happening in Denita's room.

By midnight, I was pretty wasted. I almost took a turn

with Denita myself, but I was afraid of what Melanie would think if she saw me. As it was, I ended up going home with Lonnie. He does it as good as a girl, and he doesn't need cuddling after. Don't you dare tell anybody, Diary.

I don't want anybody to think I'm a fucking queer or something.

November 3

I hate Dad.

Fucker accused me of stealing one of his suits.

He's a lawyer. A lot of people quit their jobs when they found out what was going to happen. Like, what's the point of working, right? No need to sock it away in a bank account.

But Dad can't quit. It's in his blood. Dad's a lawyer like Reneau's a bum like I'm a junkie. You gotta be you, I guess.

Dad likes to brag about how he didn't have to pay Mom one dime of alimony. And he got custody. Like keeping me was some kind of victory or something. I guess it was, at least on paper.

I hate that fucker.

November 6

Roget beat the rush.

I heard the sirens, and usually I don't give a damn if the whole town is on fire. But this time I got one of those

prickly feelings when the hair on the back of your neck stands up. Of course, that could have been the four hits of speed I'd taken.

Turns out Roget had eaten a bottle of Valiums and washed it down with a pint of vodka. Lucky he died pretty fast and left a clean corpse. Sometimes, something like that will make you vomit, and you go messy. Or you end up in the hospital with a machine doing your pissing and shitting for you.

Me and Lonnie held a private little service for Roget. As a kind of half-assed tribute, I did some coke that Roget had left at my house.

"Here's to memories," I said, and hoovered two big chalky lines of the stuff.

"To Roget," Lonnie said. He had some champagne and two

of those dainty little glasses with the long stems. We touched glasses and drank, then smashed the glasses in the fireplace, like they do in the movies.

My nose was bleeding, and suddenly I started laughing like a stoned hyena. I don't know why. It was just funny. Roget was dead, Dad was going to raise hell when he saw the mess, Lonnie was going to fuck me, and my nose wouldn't stop bleeding.

It was just funny, that's all.

November 12

You won't believe this.

You just won't fucking believe it.

I talked to her today.

Melanie.

I was down at the game room in the mall, trying to score some X. Ecstasy is mostly a sex party drug or when you want to pull an all-nighter dancing at a rave, but the way I look at it, no need to wait for a special occasion, right? So I was hitting up the skinhead peddlers who worked out of the back of the arcade. You know you're a bad motherfucker when you hang out in the pinball corner. Besides, the games are always busted, so it's the darkest part of the room. All you can see is their eyes shining like dirty dimes.

Nobody had any X, so I scarfed a baggie of marijuana that was laced with angel dust. On my way out I saw Melanie playing some dorky karate game. I couldn't believe it. I mean, I'd seen her at parties and stuff, but I never expected to see her in the arcade. I guess I'd put her on a pedestal, in a way.

I kind of walked up beside her and pretended to watch the game. She got killed pretty fast. Her player, I mean. Those video machines eat quarters like hippies eat mushroom caps. When the game was over, she finally noticed me, except I think she might have seen my reflection in the screen first.

"Hey," she says.

I go "Hey" back.

"You went to Northbrook." She said it just like that. Not a question at all. So she remembered me from high school.

"Yeah," I said. "Seems like a long time ago. You know, school and all."

She nodded. Her hair brushed against her cheeks. It was a little stringier than it had been at the Halloween party. "It was a different world then," she said.

"Yeah," I said. I looked into her eyes, trying to see if she was wasted. Nothing there that I could see. She was just naturally weird, I guess.

"You were at Denita's party." Again, not a question.

"Yeah," I say, feeling like a doll with one of those pull strings, when you only have about four lines to say. "It was pretty wild."

"Yeah. Wild."

Just then some muscle guy in a tank top came up and put his arm around her. He gave me the evil eye, like I was a bug he wanted to stomp. Melanie turned and smiled at him. He had a face like a fucking bus. I figured I ought to get the hell out of there. He was giving off some seriously heavy vibes.

Fuck him.

Fuck them both.

Well, maybe just Melanie.

Reneau got me a half-gallon of port. Tasted good with the dope.

November Something-or-other

It's all Lonnie's fault.

Here we are, clipping along toward doomsday, high as a Chinese kite and as fucked up as a football bat, coming to grips with the idea that we all got about six weeks to live. I guess you kind of take it for granted after a while.

I mean, who knows where the idea first started? You know, that the world was coming to an end. Nobody knows why or how the world goes balls-up. All we know is when.

And Lonnie comes up with a jewel.

We were eating pizza for lunch. I was wasted on the angel dust and a few Quaaludes I'd found in one of my pants pockets. Lonnie was pretending to be an artist. He was drinking wine and smoking dope, wearing one of those goofy berets. He kept talking in a fake French accent.

"Zee end, wheen eez it?" he goes.

"What?" I said, even though I'd heard him. I was staring at the pizza. If it was a galaxy, then the pepperonis would be like planets or something. And the crust would be, like, the edge of the galaxy.

"The world, wheen does she blow?" Lonnie said.

That kind of threw me. Everybody has their own idea about how the world's going to end, though nobody talks about it much. Me, I go in for the "Rain of Fire" theory. It's popular with the religious crowd, too, I hear. A few swear by the big flood, but that's kind of hard to picture. I mean, have you ever been to Montreal? Those fucking buildings are tall.

Others buy the plague-and-famine business, but that's too messy and drawn-out. I think it's got to end in the blink of an eye.

But the date is not even a question. It's the end of the year, and that's that. Everybody knows it.

I pretended to check my watch, although I've never worn

one. "That's easy, Frenchie. The end is about six weeks away. Uh, six weeks minus a few seconds. Minus another. And another."

"Why eez it then, and not later?" He was talking with his mouth full, blowing his sophisticated act all to hell. He started talking normal English again. "I mean, is doomsday when this year ends, or when the next year starts?"

He was giving me a headache. I fired up a joint. After

I'd toked a good lungful of brainfuck, I said "What does it matter?"

"They said in Social Studies that the calendar's been fucked with plenty over the years. Who knows what time it really is?"

"Everybody knows. January One is when we all go boom."

I didn't like the way the conversation was going. That kind of talk kills a good buzz.

"Who says?"

"Who says? Who says? Why, everybody says. Preachers, doctors, lawyers, politicians, those pointy-headed guys on the eleven o’clock news.”

I passed him the joint. He looked at it a long time before he took it.

"I just wonder, that's all," he said between tokes.

"Don't wonder. It's party time."

I stuck some cheese up my nose and pretended it was a booger. He started laughing, and we were just two buddies again, hooting and raising hell like there was no tomorrow. We wiped out a case of beer.

Lonnie stayed the night. Sex with him was getting to be a habit. I don't think Dad found out, or he'd have thrown me out on my ass. He's a big fucking hypocrite.

Not that I'm a fag or anything. But try explaining that to Dad.

Anyway, what Lonnie said bothered me for a while. What

time is it, really?

November 21

It blows my mind.

It's Sunday morning, I get up and go downstairs. Dad's sitting in the kitchen in his suit and tie, his hair slicked back and smelling like the perfume samples in a fashion magazine. He kind of avoids looking at me, which ain't at all unusual, but this time he's actually putting effort into it. He pretends to give a damn about what's in the newspaper.

I go to the fridge and get some orange juice. "Who died?" I say, meaning why was he dressed up.

Dad's a lawyer, like I said, but he could have made a hell of a good actor. But being a lawyer pays better. Plus, if you end up on stage instead of in the movies, there's all these fags in stockings mincing around all the time.

Dad clears his throat and says, "Son, would you like to go to church with me?"

Yeah, Diary, you heard me right. Church.

"Church?" I say, kind of smirking, probably.

He gulps so hard that I can hear him across the room. Then it hits me: the bastard is scared.

Dad, scared.

Dad, who had dated and fucked a Prime Minister's daughter in college, while Mounties stood guard outside the door of his dorm room.

Dad, who once hit a top speed of a hundred-and-sixteen miles per hour in his Mercedes on the Buffalo freeway. During rush hour.

Dad, who had the balls to sue a judge for slander. And win.

And here Dad was, just a plain old ordinary mortal. Scared. He looked like he was going to piss in his two-hundred-dollar tailor-made pants. Wanting to go to church, for Christ's sakes.

What could you say? The bastard had never set foot in church since he married Mom. Mom was a big-time Catholic. I think that was one of the things that led to the divorce, all her waving her hands around praying over dinner and having to "Hail Mary" this and "Hail Mary" that. Even got on my nerves, and I kind of liked Mom.

So now Dad was playing the Jesus card, hoping to save his ass. Like five weeks of giving money to the church would save him from something that was written in blood thousands of years ago. What a dumb fuck.

"You're scared," I said. This was better than a nitrous oxide rush.

"No, I'm not," he said, real fast and loud. "I just think it's a good time to get in touch with our spiritual sides. It's never too late for salvation."

It was obvious he'd been talking to some of those sign-carrying Jesus freaks that walked the streets.

"Forget it, Dad," I say. "The devil's got his hooks in

your ass and is just waiting to reel you in."

He crossed the room in a flash, his eyes bright like a meth junkie's as he knocked the orange juice from my hand. He was trembling, he was so pissed off. Dad used to play football, so he throws a big shadow when he stands over you. He drew back his hand like he was going to slap me silly.

I dared him with my eyes. But the bastard wouldn't let me have my victory. He stormed out the door and burned rubber hauling ass to church.

Good luck, God. You got one more fucked-up Christian soldier in the ranks.

November 25

Thanksgiving.

I've got a hell of a lot to be thankful for. I watched

a football game on TV. Big scab-faced guys slamming into each other over a chunk of leather. I don't know why they bother, since the season's going to end before the playoffs.

I guess it's for the same reason that most people keep going to their jobs every day, the same jobs with the sucky bosses that they used to bitch about all the time. Maybe they hope that if they pretend like everything's normal, if they just keep with the routine, then maybe, somehow, the end will slip past and they won't even notice.

Yeah, right.

Still, you see it in their faces. They quit carding at the liquor store, so now I don't have to bother with Reneau. But the bastards still want the money. I'll bet that will be the last little social glue to dissolve.

I'm bummed today, for some reason. Even the liquor's taking a holiday. I'm drinking mostly out of habit. I haven't heard from Lonnie in a week. Dad's at some hallelujah shindig at the church.

Gee, maybe this is what it feels like to be lonely.

December 1

Hello, December.

The last month of reality. It came in with rain, the clouds moping around like a guy whose dog just died. Depression city.

Now it's just you and me, Diary. Dad moved out, all he took was a few suitcases of clothes and a golf trophy. He's

going to live with a bunch of Holy Rollers over at the preacher's house. I guess they're going to pray and circle-jerk until Jesus shows His shiny face.

Same thing's happening all over. The streets are nearly empty now. The TV news says there's been a big drop-off in crime. It's like, who wants to bother, right? What's out there that anybody really wants? You can't take it with you.

I used to think that if I knew I only had a few weeks to live, I'd be raping everything in sight. But, now, I don't even know if I could get it up. Lonnie popped by over the weekend, but neither of us were in the mood. Even the stumble biscuits didn't help. Maybe I'm losing my fagness along with everything else.

You can't take it with you.

December 6

Beer and pills.

I found Dad's stash of porno tapes. I was going through his closet, looking for money in his coat pockets. The tapes

were stacked behind a folded-up exercise machine. "Butch Boy From Bangkok." "The Willie Train." "Frat House Hosedown."

The two-faced bastard. But I have to admit, it kind of makes him more interesting. Maybe that's why he's getting so righteous toward the end. He probably thinks he has a lot of

wickedness to atone for.

I watched the videotapes. Some of the things the guys did to each other even turned my stomach. But half of me wanted to be in the scene, with the guys, anything but alone. I wondered where they were now. With their families? Or did they check out early, like Roget?

It's turning cold. The sky was dark gray today, kind of sooty. I expected snow, but it never came.

But we'll be warm soon enough. It's going to be a hell of a winter.

December 9

They're dying.

Mass suicide today, 230 of them across town. Catholics, if you can believe it. Arsenic in the blood of Christ. That's what I call a communion.

The TV said there were isolated deaths all over. Old folks, mostly. Loners. Losers.

I bought a case of vodka.

December 13

Mondays were bad enough back when there was a real world. Now they're a total bummer.

I've been grumpy all day. Hangover. I suppose it could be worse. I could have to go to work or something.

I walked down to the mall today, hoping to score some grass or X or acid, anything to bend this straight line of reality. The mall was nearly dead. I mean, a few stores had hung some half-assed Christmas decorations, but the total effect was like a grade school festival. I'll bet there weren't a dozen shoppers out, total.

Sign of the times: five stores had closed, even that one that serves all those funky flavors of coffee. Luckily, the arcade was open. The pimply-faced geek who managed the place was nowhere around. Claude was the only dealer in the joint, and he was slumped in the corner, his eyelids twitching. In the greenish glow of the video screens, I could see a little strand of drool drying on his chin.

"Claude?" I hollered over the bleeps and zaps of the machines. No answer. I nudged him with my boot. He slumped lower.

I knelt on the sticky tile and touched his neck. The flesh was cool and doughy. I saw the empty bottle of Valium in his left hand. The dude had checked out, bigtime.

I searched his pockets and came up with a half-ounce of grass and some crumbly, unidentifiable pills that might have been speed.

I'm trying them now. To Claude. May your days be merry and bright.

December 17

Sitting in the park.

First time you've been out of the house, Diary. What do you think of this place?

Yeah, I know, you got no eyes. So here goes:

A layer of gray snow under the bench, pocked by a dozen yellow holes where some bum took a shivery piss. A big black oak tree with its branches overhead like dead fingers. A tiny pond, its surface frozen white. The grass is brittle and thin.

A skinny dog with a mean face sniffs in my direction, but it keeps walking toward the little bricked-in gate that leads to the street. Nobody has passed in the fifteen minutes I've been sitting here. I heard a police siren; why the hell they still bother, I don't know. I guess if you're a cop, you're a cop.

Sitting here on this cold concrete bench, freezing my ass off, I feel like I might as well be the last person on earth.

Sun's going down. Seems like it's always cloudy these days. My fucking hands are freezing.

December 17 (again)

I'm in love.

Two entries in one day, Diary. You know it's got to be good.

Walking home from the park, I saw Melanie. She was going down the street kind of huddled up inside her parka. She was the only other person out. I recognized the little daisy patch on the knee of her blue jeans.

"Hey, Melanie," I said. Her face was hidden by the ring of fur around the edge of her hood. She kept walking, so I yelled again, louder. We were beside a boarded-up drug store.

She stopped and turned, and I could see her eyes. She looked like she had drunk about a quart of bleach. She had dark wedges under her eyes. She kept jerking her head back and forth, like a lamb in the middle of a pack of wolves.

"Hey," she finally said.

A person can change a lot in just a short amount of time.

Of course, we kind of measure time differently these days. Doomsday has that effect on people. But Melanie looked like she'd aged about twenty years since the last time I saw her.

"How's it going?" I asked. My heart was beating like I'd just popped a fistful of speed.

"It's going."

I nodded. "Cold as a cop's heart out here."

"Yeah." She licked her pale lips. I wanted to kiss her.

"Uh..." I figured, what did I have to lose? "Where's your boyfriend?"

Her eyes rolled to look up at the sky. "He offed himself in one of those mass suicides."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not."

I thought about it for a second. "I guess it doesn't matter."

She looked past me, up the street. Dead cars and deader doorways. Then she pointed at the book in my hand. "What's that?"

"Uh, nothing. Just a diary."

She started laughing. It was a weird laugh, almost like she was crying but her breath was all broken up.

"What?" I said. I didn't like being laughed at. Even by a wrecked babe like her.

She said "You're totally apeshit crazy, you know that?" Maybe that was a good thing, in her eyes. I grinned like a corpse.

We talked for a few minutes, about nothing in particular. That's really all that's left to talk about. Then we both started getting cold. I gave her my address and told her to drop by anytime.

We'll see if anything comes of it.

December 22

Doomsday has a bright side.

They forgot to lock the liquor store. I went there today and stocked up. The city's starting to stink, even in the cold. I guess there's probably a lot of rotting bodies behind all those closed doors.

I sat by the window most of the day, watching for Melanie. I saw old lady Benzinger next door slip on some ice and fall flat on her ass. I think she broke her arm. I was going to help her, then I remembered the time she told my dad that I'd been smoking pot behind the garage. By the time she got up and staggered back up the porch, her tears were frozen on her cheeks.

I told you it was cold.

Scotch is pretty good stuff. After a few sips, you can chug it like Kool-Aid.

Melanie didn't drop by.

December 24

I watched a bunch of Christmas specials on TV today. Phones don't work anymore. It's a miracle the power's still on. Otherwise, I'd be freezing my ass off.

I'm down to my last joint. Dope is getting real hard to score. The thought of sobering up is pretty damned scary. But alcohol works in a pinch. Dad came to the house.

"The family ought to be together for the holidays," he said. He'd quit shaving, and he had a fuzzy patch of hair on his cheeks. Looked like a Confederate Civil War general. Maybe he was trying to come off as a half-assed Santa or something.

"As far as I'm concerned, I don't have a family," I said.

"We have each other."

"Wonderful. Merry fucking Christmas."

"Here. Take some money."

I stared at the money and shook my head. What a dumb bastard. "Better give it to your little god," I said. "He needs it worse than I do. He's going to have a hell of a heating bill."

Dad almost cried. Almost.

Melanie didn't come by.

December 25

I had planned on staying holed up all day. Me and two fifths of bourbon. But, it's Christmas, you know?

I ended up going to see Reneau. His favorite supermarket had closed. I don't know where he had been getting his food scraps.

We passed the bottle back and forth. I was surprised that Reneau hadn't frozen to death in that refrigerator box of his. He was wearing the suit I had traded him, and I was pleased to see that it was stained with piss and tomato sauce.

"Reneau, you're apeshit crazy," I said. "All these houses around, all these apartments, all these stores with nothing but dead people in them, and you live in a fucking cardboard box. Why don't you move into some big mansion or something?"

He sucked at the bottle and belched. "I don't belong there," he says.

Doesn't fucking belong. Can you believe it?

But looking at him with that bottle, he was probably one of the happiest people I'd ever seen. The world coming to an end? Big deal. No roof over my head? I don't give a shit. A full bottle of liquor? Now there's a fucking future!

When I got back home, I found a note on the door. From Lonnie. And a present, wrapped in shiny green foil.

I went inside. After my fingers warmed up, I opened the present. A bag of grass and ten Quaaludes. What a great guy.

Then I read the note.

"Hi dude:

Merry Christmas. Sorry I missed you. Hope we can get together before you-know-what. I love you, Lonnie."

I love you.

Can you fucking believe it? He must think I'm a fag.

I burned the letter and then burned some of the grass. Melanie didn't drop by.

December 27

Melanie dropped by.

It's kind of funny.

You want something so bad, you do stupid things to get it. The when you get it, you wonder why you were such a dumbfuck to want it in the first place.

She knocked on the door sometime in the afternoon. I know it was then because I was just waking up. I opened the door and she was standing there, in a long black dress that was made of some kind of clingy material. She had lost weight, but her figure was still pretty nice. She was holding a gray cat like it was a football.

"I just thought I'd drop by," she said.

"Yeah." I stood to one side and she came in. I threw a

look at the sky. A smoggy day, the clouds down to the tops of the buildings over in the business district. God or whoever sure knew how to whip up some kick-ass doomsday scenery.

The power had shut off for good a day or two back, so I lit a candle. We sat in the living room, a table cluttered with empty bottles and food wrappers in between us. She was twisted sideways in a chair, staring at the empty fireplace as if something was burning there. She stroked the cat's head over and over.

"How's it going?" I finally said. I had a headache.

"You know." She didn't look away from the fireplace.

"Yeah." I was turning into that doll again, the one with the pull string.

"Denita's dead. And Charlie and Jacques and Johnny D. and that Wendover girl."

I didn't say anything.

"They went together. They probably got the guns down at one of those abandoned pawnshops, then sat in a circle on the floor. They all pointed the guns at each other, and I guess they counted to three or something. I went over there to score some acid. I was the first one to find them."

"Did you get the acid?"

She shook her head. "The place was too messy, and was starting to stink."

"That sucks that they didn't invite us."

"Yeah. Goes to show who your friends are."

The cat purred, or else Melanie's stomach was growling. "Want something to drink?" I asked. She looked at me for the first time since coming in the house. Her eyes were flat and dry. "What you got?"

We split a fifth of bourbon, then I took her to bed. She was cold, even on the inside. I rolled off her before either of us were satisfied. We smoked a joint in the dark.

She left a few minutes or hours later. She forgot her cat.

December 30

Not much to say.

Two more days, counting today. I’ve been thinking about what Lonnie said. What time is it really?

According to my battery-clock, it's 12:30.

December 31

Melanie dropped by again. Said she'd forgotten her cat. She had a few hits of acid. I couldn't think of a better way to meet the end. That fireball's going to roast us up pretty good. The acid ought to be kicking in any time now, so I wanted to get this written down just in case.

December 31 (Second entry)

I sneaked in here to say good-bye. Lonnie and Melanie are in the living room. Probably still naked.

Melanie saw me earlier, writing by candlelight. She asked, "Is that the diary?"

"No," I said.

"Can I see?”

“No." I had closed you before she crossed the room. I held you behind me.

"Did you say anything about me?"

"Hell, no," I said. "What kind of idiot would waste time writing in a diary when the biggest goddamned fire in the history of the universe is just a few hours away?"

She passed me a joint, then took a slug of tequila. "Yeah."

"Are you scared?"

She took another drink, straight. "I might be."

The acid kicked in, and her lips were too wide, her perfect teeth sharp. She had waxy skin and her eyes were the color of shit.

She started dancing, one of those spastic dances that the girls do at techno clubs. I guess she was hearing music in her head. The room was warm. I wondered if the apocalypse was starting on the other side of the world yet, with the blaze racing toward us. But I looked out the window and saw only gritty clouds and gray streets.

The cat came out from wherever it had been hiding the last few days. Then Lonnie entered the house without knocking. I'd been afraid that I'd have to face the fire alone. Now I'll be going in a crowd.

"Hey," Lonnie said.

"Hey," I said back. I introduced him to Melanie, even though they sort of knew each other. Lonnie looked a little hurt that I had a girl with me. But he got over it when she gave him some acid.

We ended up naked, the way people sometimes do when they're tripping. But we didn't touch each other. We drank and talked and smoked some dope. Then I sneaked in here to write.

Maybe it would be better if it was just you and me at the end. It would be simpler. Extra people tend to fuck things up. Melanie might start crying. Lonnie might throw a temper tantrum or tell me that he loves me. But, what the hell. They're just as scared as I am.

It's nearly midnight. I'd better get ready. I guess this is good-bye, Diary. I love you.

January 1

I woke up.

I actually fucking woke up.

My mouth tasted of rusty metal. Melanie and Lonnie were

in bed with me. Melanie's breath stank when she snored.

The sun was out.

No fire. No bigtime ball-busting trumpet and no pissed-

off Jesus with a sword and a scepter.

Actually, I did smell smoke, but it was only where Lonnie had left a cigarette burning on the coffee table. It had scorched a foot-wide circle in the varnish.

They're still asleep. They don't know yet that doomsday's as fucked up as everything else, that it's a day late and a dollar short. But you can bet your ass, Diary, it's coming.

I looked out the door. A few people were stumbling around on the sidewalks, looking dazed. Somebody in a pickup drove down the street, playing ditzy pop music on the stereo. We're all in a state of shock so big you can smell it in the air. Or maybe it's the smell of expectation, a little human electricity.

I guess every extra minute is a minute not dead.

But it's coming.

In the meantime, I'm going to take a Quaalude to get rid of this headache.

January 2

Melanie left today.

Said that if the end of the world was going to take so damned long, she had things to do. She took her cat this time.

Lonnie's staying. He's like me. He knows it's just a trick, it's God waiting for all these add-water-and-stir Christians to backslide so He can catch them by surprise. The fire's going to come any second now.

Staying wasted just in case.

January 3

Waiting's even worse now than it was before. At least in December the end had an end.

Some people are going back to work. The cops and rescue squad people are carrying out the bodies of all those people who offed themselves. The power came on this morning. No television signal yet.

I went to the liquor store and a jerk with a crewcut was running the register. He wanted money. I spit on the counter and left.

Dumbfucks. They're just going to pick up where they left off and pretend nothing happened. But anybody with eyes can see that the fire's there, just behind the dark clouds. It could be any second now.

I almost learned how to pray today. You know why, Diary? I'm afraid Lonnie might move out. I think he's getting tired of staying drunk all the time.

I don't want to burn alone.

January 10

What in the hell is God waiting for?

I wish He'd quit diddling himself and get down to business. I guess this is going to be my last entry. Nothing personal, Diary, but it's getting kind of boring.

What's the point? I know it's going to be any second now. A big balls-up blaze of hellfire.

Got some beer and pills, just in case.

Bring it on, Mister God Man. I'm ready for you.

January 11

Any second now.

Got to be.

Damn.

Maybe tomorrow.

Maybe tomorrow.

###

NARROW IS THE WAY

The first stone fell short, bounced away from the frame of Rico’s wheelchair and struck the old woman in the leg. The blow gave off a satisfying, dull sound. The woman groaned in pain and stooped to slowly rub at the wound. Her ragged habit fell open to reveal mottled cleavage.

“Missed him, but I got the old bitch,” Andy shouted into the alley behind him. The nun straightened and glared in his direction.

“Got her,” Andy yelled again, waiting for some kind of acknowledgment. Behind him, Sod and Tapeworm were punching each other on the arm. Sod’s fist glanced off of bone and he stuck his fingers in his mouth, muffling his swearing.

Andy bent and picked up a rock for each hand. More walls had fallen during the night. The pink dust of war hung in the air, bitter on the tongue and sharp in the lungs. Los Angeles had always stunk, but now it was as ripe as maggot shit.

“Hey, she’s coming,” Tapeworm said.

“Bullshit,” Andy said. He looked back down the street. The nun approached on wobbly legs, her face blank. She spread her arms apart, palms lifted. Rico watched from his wheelchair, whimpering.

“She wants you, Andy,” Tapeworm snickered, glue-sniffing snot leaking onto his upper lip.

“Shut your hole,” Andy shouted. Tapeworm was the most clever of their little gang, and by rights should have been the leader. But Andy had the balls, as he liked to put it. You could have the sharpest tongue west of the crater that had once been Hollywood, but unless you had the balls to back it up, then better get the hell out of the way.

Andy jumped over a pile of rags and knelt on the sidewalk, squeezing the chunks of masonry in his hands. He judged the distance of his next throw. Smoky sunlight glanced off the windows of abandoned cars. The ragpile moved, reaching out for a bottle, a bread scrap, or maybe help up. Andy didn’t pause to drive a boot into the loser’s chest.

The ragpile was a done deal anyway. He had the Crimson Lung. Blood hung about the man’s cracked lips. Andy met the haunted eyes for a second, then went back to work.

“Hey, Rico!” he shouted, loud enough to impress his gangmates. The nun was still coming.

Rico said nothing, slumped in his chair like a bag of sticks.

“See what happens to them that go over?” Andy hurled the chunk of concrete. It landed four feet from Rico’s wheels, exploded, and sent a gray rain of grit over the crippled boy. Rico wailed. The nun paused, glared at Andy, then turned and headed back toward the crippled boy.

“Why don’t you get closer?” Tapeworm taunted Andy.

“Yeah,” Sod said. “Scared she’ll get you, or what?”

“Who blew smoke up your ass?” Andy said.

Sod backed away. “Hey, you’re the one that made a big deal about getting Rico.”

“I didn’t think the nuns would keep him.” Andy felt his face burn red with anger. Before the Quake, he’d never given half a thought to nuns. Now, though, in this poisoned new world, they seemed to outnumber the Scientologists.

“Maybe they’re taking care of him,” Tapeworm said.

“Sisters of Mercy, my ass,” Andy replied. “Bet they give his legs a happy tug every night when they tuck him in. Then they lean over and ask God to forgive him. But who the hell is going to forgive God?”

The nun had reached the wheelchair now, and began pushing Rico down the street, dodging the husks of cars and the rotting bodies that littered the tarmac. Andy ran forward and launched another concrete missile. It bounced off Rico’s leg, and his scream brought glass tumbling from a broken storefront.

Andy whooped and pumped his arm. Sod made clucking noises. Tapeworm laughed himself into a coughing fit. A wad of brown mucous flew from Tapeworm’s mouth. Andy backed away. The bastard might be catching the Crimson.

“That’ll teach you to cross me,” Andy shouted after Rico. The nun bent and tended to the boy’s wound. As she pushed Rico’s robe up, Sod and Tapeworm fell silent.

Rico’s legs were swathed in soiled bandages. Even at that distance, the gang could see that the bones were unevenly set. Something sharp protruded from the gauze, a yellow and red stain expanding from the ruptured flesh.

“Holy hell,” Andy said, in the closest thing to an awed whisper that fell among the rubble these days.

A man shambled out from the foyer of a crumbling building, one arm hidden beneath his military jacket. Another man came from the opposite side of the street. This one had dark hair and deep bruises around his eyes, a Hispanic like Rico, only this Hispanic carried a metal bar as if he had used it before. More came, spilling out from the dark pockets of doorways and the scabs of windows, like maggots overflowing dead eyes. They moved silently, weaving between the vehicles toward Rico.

Sod and Tapeworm backed slowly into the alley. Andy tried to freeze them with a glare, but his eyes revealed the fear that his clenched jaw kept hidden. The two retreated faster, and Andy skulked after them.

He stopped at the corner and took a final look. The men had gathered around Rico and the Sister. The boy’s screams gained intensity, then died away. The nun’s eyes met Andy’s, and she smiled, her missing teeth making a black wedge of her mouth.

Andy looked away and drove a boot into the living rag pile at his feet. The Crimson victim gurgled, and a disturbed rat scrambled from the rotted cloth and disappeared down a sewer grate. Andy slipped through a gap in the wall and let the ruins absorb him, finding safety in the cool kiss of darkness.

The gang huddled around a fire, its oily smoke thick in the cramped room. The hang-out had once been a souvenir shop. Tattered movie posters and T-shirts moldered on the walls. Andy rubbed his eyes, trying to drive away the vision of Rico’s hobbled legs.

“Wall fell on him, sure as hell,” Tapeworm said. His voice died in the corners of the room as if swallowed by the hush of a high church.

“No damn way,” Sod said. “He was way too fast for that.”

“Maybe he tripped on a midnight run.”

“Or maybe he went over,” Andy said. He got up and took a T-shirt from the bargain rack. He studied the logo for a moment, then tossed the shirt on the fire and sat back down.

“He didn’t need to go fucking with them,” Tapeworm said, sniffling.

Andy stared at the fire in silence. The Christian Soldiers didn’t like noise. If you screamed, they’d get you. If you broke glass, they would be on you like flies on sugar. Only the nuns were left alone, were allowed to walk the streets unchallenged.

Tapeworm coughed and spat copiously into the fire. The skinny bastard was definitely going Crimson.

“Your hear that?” Sod said, eyes as wide as the commemorative Frisbees that were scattered on the floor.

“Hear what, fuckwit?” Andy said, lost in thought.

“Outside.”

The three fell silent. Footsteps crunched in the powdery grit on the other side of the wall. A flashlight played over the gap near the roofline.

“Goon Squad,” Andy whispered.

“Who’s in there?” growled a deep voice.

“The ghost of Howdy Dowdy,” Andy shouted back. Sod and Tapeworm snickered.

“You the punks been throwing rocks?” the voice thundered.

Andy hated cops as much as he hated nuns. Here the city was blown to hell, half of it slipped into the dark scar of the earth, the other half stubbled with ruins, and still the bastards in blue tried to impose law and order. Except in the case of the Christian Soldiers, who were avoided even by the cops. Well, it was a new order now, one built on cruelty and pain and the lack of laws.

“Up yours, pig.” Andy knew the cop wouldn’t try to climb through the narrow gap in the ceiling. A flashlight shined across a small window, the iron bars throwing the shadows of crosses on the far wall.

“You’d better be glad it’s dark, or I’d come in there and—”

“Save it for Judgment Day,” Tapeworm said.

“I’ll get you boys tomorrow. Soon as the sun’s out.”

Andy went to the corner, unzipped his pants, and urinated against the wall. The cops hadn’t caught them yet. The Christian Soldiers hadn’t caught them, either. They would outrun them all.

Except Rico hadn’t. And Rico had been the fastest in the gang. Now they had him, trussed up in his wheelchair, his legs in sodden ruin. Getting pushed around by a nun, his ears filled with prayers, his haunted eyes fixed on some invisible golden stairway that he’d never be able to climb.

The cop’s footsteps faded in the night. Andy returned to the warmth of the fire. Tapeworm coughed and spat, the saliva hissing as it hit the flames.

Andy shivered. There was one thing nobody could outrun: the Crimson.

They had made it, after hours of slinking through the streets. Before them, the old Catholic church rose like rock cliff, taller than any of the surrounding wreckage. The veiled sun sparkled off the stained glass, the blue, green, and amber chunks that were arranged in the form of that taunting bitch Mary. The glass had withstood the tremors, whether due to a miracle or luck. Andy could hardly wait to fling a brick through it.

Sod was with him. Tapeworm had stayed back in the hang-out, said he’d felt like six gallons of shit in a half-pint baggie. Son of a bitch had the Crimson, was what it was. Andy crouched behind a dead van and filled his pockets with rocks.

“You go that way.” Andy motioned Sod to circle around a fallen hotel and up an adjacent avenue. “If the cops come, we’ll be twice as hard to catch.”

Sod nodded at the senseless logic. “Can’t wait to pop her cherry,” he said, shaking his fist at the stained-glass image.

“You sure you got the balls for this? After seeing Rico?”

“They didn’t get Rico. He fell and got hurt, that’s all. And now they’re taking care of him.”

“Right, fuckface,” Andy said. “Begging forgiveness for his sins.”

A wind had arisen, sending grit toward the west. Sod tossed up a rock and caught it, then looked around the street. “You don’t think he went over?”

Andy stared at the glistening spire, the manhood of a God who let a woman do his work. He squinted against the sun. On the hill above the ravaged city, the letters W-O-O stood like teeth in a fractured grin. Maybe after the glass was broken, he’d hike up there and kick the letters over. Another false God to knock down a peg or two.

“You don’t think he did, do you?” Sod repeated.

“Don’t matter none. I’m going to stone his ass either way.” Andy curled his lips and hunched over, then crept up the street toward the church. He waited until Sod had disappeared among the scattered vehicles and then circled around behind him. Let the idiot serve as a minesweeper, flush the Soldiers if any were around.

Andy moved close enough to make out the haloed face of Mary, pacific in the sun, the leaden seams showing between the shards of colored glass. Andy clutched a baseball-sized rock. Right into that smug, sanctimonious face, that’s where this one was going.

Twenty feet more, and he’d be in range. Sod ought to be in position already. But Sod threw like a left-handed girl. He couldn’t hit the glass if the fate of his soul depended on it. He could barely bust a storefront window from ten feet away, and Mary was at least forty feet above street level.

Maybe Sod couldn’t, but Andy would do her, all right.

Andy had the balls to bust up anything that dared to shine with grace and hope and color above a land littered with death and gray waste. The singing came over the wind, a hundred female voices lifted in honor to the God that had delivered them unto this imperfect day. A God that had pissed death from the sky. A god that was praised for wreaking massive destruction while Andy was condemned for tiny acts of vandalism.

Andy smiled as he listened. Just songs, that was all. Just words and sound and nothing. A hymn for the hopeless.

Where was that stupid Sod? Andy cursed under his breath and crept forward. He dodged behind the shell of a municipal bus. She was there, waiting.

Andy was so startled, he almost dropped the rock he’d been holding. The nun’s cloudy eyes held him with the force of searchlights. Her shabby habit was brown from dirt and dried blood, and scabs littered her mouth.

“He sees and forgives,” the old woman said.

Andy tried to step backward, but his legs were frozen. The nun lifted her arms, palms up. “Give me the rocks,” she said gently, her face cracked and creased from her long-suffering smile.

Even though some of her teeth were missing, the smile was peaceful, accepting, inviting. Confused, Andy glanced up at the plate-glass Mary, at an equal serenity mirrored in those amber features.

“Pass your troubles onto Him, and be free from anxiety,” the nun said. She moved forward with a rustle of torn robes.

The motion broke whatever spell Andy had been under, and he fumbled in his pocket for a rock. “Back away, bitch.”

“Your burden is heavy, my child.” Her wrinkled face was just as radiant as before, her eyes unblinking. “Your friend opened up his heart, and now is healed.”

“He’s healed like a damned pig in a meat case, maybe. Who fucked his legs up?”

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

“The meek can damn well have it, as far as I’m concerned. Now, back up, or I’ll bust your face with this rock.

“Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”

The choir’s vocals soared at that moment, as if some off-scene stage director had ordered it. Andy flung the rock at the old woman, then turned and fled before seeing if he’d hit his target. The hymn seemed to expand and fill the valley basin, to soothe the wounded structures, the scarred streets, the jagged hills. Andy covered his ears as he ran.

He rounded a corner and stooped to catch his breath, his hands on his knees. The fucking nerve of that bitch. Trying to shove the company line up his ass and down his throat, hoping the messages would meet in his heart. Well, he didn’t have a fucking heart.

He pulled more rocks from his pocket. He screamed as loudly as he could, rage and betrayal and false courage spewing from his lungs. As the echo died away, he heard the satisfying sound of distant breaking glass.

Then came a clatter from nearby. He turned. Had the nun followed him, even with her face caved in and bleeding?

He clenched a hand around the rock. Let her come. He had what he needed, a good hard rock that was more comforting than any rod and staff. Let them build a church to worship fallen things. He’d be there to tear it down.

He braced himself to leap around the corner. One more rock to the nun’s face, and she’d be no trouble. He could run past her and get the true target. The whore Mary, who would have saved the world a lot of trouble if only she’d kept her legs closed.

He stepped away from the wall, rock poised above his shoulder. Rico sat before him. A blanket covered Rico’s legs, and Andy gulped at the remembered sight of blood and pus. The nun stood patiently behind the wheelchair.

“Don’t, Andy,” Rico said. His eyes were bright with a strange fever.

“You went over,” Andy said.

“It’s not like you think.”

“Fucking bastard.” Andy dashed past Rico and the nun. Rico may have shouted something, but Andy couldn’t be sure over the blood roaring in his ears and the unceasing barrage of the hymns resonating from inside the church. All he could think of was shattering that stained glass, how that might stop the noise, stop the idiotic joy.

The boot came from nowhere, speared out from behind a rusted taxi and tripped him. He sprawled face-first, skidding on asphalt. His chin split open, the air knocked from his chest. Silently and quickly, they gathered around him. Andy could see their worn and dusty boots, smell their sweat and rotted injuries, taste the acrid and cold hate emanating from their bodies.

The Christian Soldiers. Drawn by his scream of anger.

They gathered Andy up and spread him across the hood of the taxi. The Hispanic with the bruised eyes lifted the metal bar while the others held the struggling boy. The bar descended, a punishing staff. The first blow landed on Andy’s fist, which still clenched the rock. Andy screamed and cursed, and the bar fell again, landing on his knee. Others joined in, their fists adding to the percussion. Two more blows from the bar, and Andy slipped into merciful unconsciousness.

The nun’s eyes were wet with tears as she balanced Andy on his crutch. They stood in the great open door of the church. “Careful, my child,” she said.

He let her help, unable to shove her away. His foot was swollen and sore, but, unlike Rico, he might one day walk again. But his rock-throwing days were over. His right arm dangled like a sock full of D batteries.

They’d taken him inside the church, harbored him from the wrath of the Soldiers, cops, and street gangs. Inside, as Andy lay healing, he’d seen other boys, all maimed refugees of this unholy crusade. During the long days of mending, he’d watched the sun tracking across the glass Mary, this time from the inside. He bathed himself in those rich and soothing colors.

Now he wanted to move around a little, to inhale some of the slow poison that passed for fresh air. The nun’s small, stooped form belied her strength. Arm around his waist, she eased him forward, into the city he hadn’t seen in weeks.

He gasped in pain as they hobbled down the stairs.

“Straight is the gate and narrow is the way,” the nun said.

They had gone ten painful steps when Sod stepped from behind a collapsed wall. He had a rock in each hand. Tapeworm skulked behind Sod, blood dotting his nostrils, the Crimson working non-stop to disintegrate his lungs.

“You bastard,” Sod said. “You went over.”

Andy shook his head and grunted. He wanted to tell them how it really was, that the way was narrow and the meek were blessed. But he couldn’t. The Soldiers had taken his tongue.

“After all that,” Sod said.

Tapeworm giggled, coughed, and cursed.

“Stone the fucker,” Sod commanded.

“Forgive them, for they know not what they do,” the nun whispered in Andy’s ear.

He leaned against the nun, and they struggled up the stairs as the stones fell about them. The sun made the colors of fire across the sky. High above, Mary stood fixed in glass, untouched, unbothered, enduring. Soaking up the hymns and the cries of pain with equal pleasure. Through it all, she smiled.

And the stones rained.

###

THE SHAPING

"One in a hundred."

"I've heard more like one in eighty."

"Possibly. Still, my chances are much tougher than yours. Haven't you heard the saying, 'Painter's plenty, one in twenty?'"

"Poppycock. The odds are better than that for gaining entry into the Areopagan Skyfleet."

"Arn, what do you care? You wouldn't be selected if the odds were one in two," a voice scornfully interjected from a nearby bunk.

Ryn put his pillow over his head. He had heard the same arguments nearly every night for two weeks. It had started out as good-natured ribbing, one or two voices reverberating down the long halls at bedtime. But as the day of the Trials approached, everyone was getting on edge. Now nearly four dozen voices were buzzing at once, and probably many times that in the other sleepless rooms that littered the sprawling grounds of the Akademeia. The room smelled of stones and sweat and fear.

Fools all, thought Ryn. This was time for concentration, self-reflection, and meditation. This was a time to scrutinize the mirror, to reach deep and tap into hidden wellsprings. To probe the pleasures and pains and all else that was kept buried. But he supposed each artist had his own methods.

Arn, for instance, was a painter. Such a crude and callous field might call for blustering. Why should Arn care about the inner nature when he only reproduced the external? He worked on a flat surface, in two dimensions. No inner truths to reveal. Arn, and all other painters, were tricksters and illusionists.

And poor Soph in the next bunk, prattling on about metaphors and misplaced modifiers. As a novelist, Soph had no discoveries to make, no secrets to unveil. The words already existed. All he had to do was arrange them. True, writing was a precise craft, but Soph could make revisions at any time. But Ryn was a sculptor. He had no such luxury.

Soph's voice came to him through the clamor. "Ryn? Ryn?"

Ryn lifted the pillow from his head. He turned toward Soph, the sackcloth blanket rasping his skin. "What?"

"What are you thinking about?"

"What else?"

"Are you afraid?"

Ryn searched inside the dark alleys of his head and heart. He knew himself well. He believed he had to, if he was to be selected.

"No," he said. "I just want it to be over." He tried to make out Soph's face in the half-light, but saw only his fuzzy, crown-wreathed shadow in the next bunk.

The windows were small slits set high in the walls, allowing only slivers of meek moonlight to penetrate the dormitory. Rumor had it that the windows were narrow so that no one could escape, but conjecture was a favorite pastime at the Akademeia. Ryn didn't think anyone would leave after being allowed inside the gates. At least, no one would leave as a failure.

After a moment filled with distant shouts and forced laughter, Soph said, "I'm afraid, a little."

Ryn nodded in sympathy, the blanket scratching his cheek. He knew Soph could not see him, but the gesture was reflexive. He reprimanded himself for succumbing to an involuntary movement. One wrong move might prove costly tomorrow.

"Listen to that idiot Fen, bellowing about his coming glory," Soph said. "One would think that a tenor would rest his voice the night before the Trials. What if he should crack during a critical glissando?"

"They say confidence is important. And Fen lacks none of that."

"But I heard one in sixty for tenors. Surely room for self-doubt in anyone, even the megalomaniacal. Or perhaps I should say 'insolent.'" Soph had a habit of revising as he spoke.

The dormitory had grown quieter as the apprentices one by one ducked into the solitude of worry. The distant sounds of Athens washed through the windows, jetcars and electronic chatter and other civilized white noise. A few students still carried on, performance artists hiding their stage fright behind brash ripostes. Ryn whispered the question that was on everyone's mind. "What do you think of your chances?"

"I believe mine are among the worst," Soph said almost cheerfully, as if having the fear exposed made it powerless. "Certainly over one in a hundred. So many try for it, you know. That's why it's called popular fiction."

"Are you satisfied with your portfolio?"

"I believe it's the best I can do at this stage of my career. There's always room for improvement, but now is as good a time as any to see if I survive the cut. I'd hate to waste another dozen years. What about you?"

Portfolios varied for the different fields. The performing artists were judged periodically, on mysterious criteria known only to the Evaluators. But the grading in every field was esoteric and subjective. That was one of the more maddening aspects of the Trials, the one that brought dampness to the palms and mothwings to the belly.

"I am satisfied," Ryn said. "My minor pieces are solid and non-controversial, a blending of gothic form and baroque detail. But I believe my magnum opus gives me an edge."

"Your rendering of Medi. It's one of the best in the gallery."

As it should be. Ryn knew every finely-crafted inch of Medi's flesh, every pore and follicle, down to the tiny bas-relief scar on Medi's knee where he had fallen as a youth. Ryn had spent many nights exploring that skin, the narrow ridges and the taut dancer's muscles and rippling buttocks and angled cheeks. The slight slope of the Romanesque nose, the graceful eyebrows, the smooth plane of the brow, the gently bowing lips. He knew Medi inside and out.

And he had captured Medi perfectly, in gleaming calcite pirouette, a dancer whose soul aimed toward the heavens even as the body remained captive to gravity. A figure so light-footed that any material would prove too clumsy at reproduction. Yet Ryn had accomplished a miracle, giving wings to the earth-bound. He visualized the sculpture. His proud heart swelled against the molten bands of emotional pain.

Soph interpreted the silence as if he had read Ryn's mind. "You're thinking of him, aren't you?"

Ryn swallowed, trying to plunge the thickness from his throat. "It's hard for me. Especially now, when I need to focus my energy toward the Trials."

"Don't blame yourself. Dancers need attitude."

"You've managed to adopt a novelist's reserved facade without becoming cruel. Arn is expressive, but not brutish. And I like to think I've played the starving artist to perfection."

Ryn ran a hand over his ribs like one of the musicians might strum a zither. Perhaps he should have been a string musician. He heard they were in high demand. One in ten, perhaps.

"Performing artists are probably evaluated more heavily on their attitudes," Soph said. "Medi thinks being aloof and arrogant is best for him. Besides, they say emotional tension detracts from performance."

Ryn tried to change the subject. "Do you think it's as difficult at the Technical Schools?"

"Certainly not. Those who are culled from the Skyfleet have plenty of options. Engineers and mathematicians and geologists are needed on every chunk of rock in the galaxy, it would seem."

"What about Spirit Officers?"

"The odds are one in three. And even the failures there are allowed to make other career choices. They can be gardeners or philosophers."

"But we have no options," Ryn said, without bitterness.

"That's what brought us to the gates as children. That's why we capture the public imagination."

"They envy our talent."

"Or hate us for it."

Suddenly Medi's voice erupted from the far dark end of the hall. "Sweet dreams, you poets and songbirds and shapers. Tomorrow will give rest to your noise." Ryn wondered if the words were for him alone, or if Medi was only rehearsing.

A Mentor pounded on the window bars with a cane. "Quiet down in there," came the deep, commanding voice. The smattering of conversations broke off.

They waited until the receding footsteps were swallowed by the walls. "Talent," whispered Soph, mostly to himself.

"What?"

"Talent. It's not a natural blessing. It's beaten out from inside, just the way you beat the beauty out of a chunk of stone and I wring the meaty juice out of the alphabet."

Just as love is, thought Ryn. Everything about us is shaped.

The atmosphere was thick, as if a blanket of anxiety was spread across the room, a smothering and irritating fabric that would afford little sleep. Beneath it, bundled and shivering hot, the students lay with their dreams and frail hopes and attitudes.

The portfolios were submitted and graded. All that remained was to stand in front of the Critics and practice your art before those solemn gray faces. And before the eyes of the crowd, those plebes lucky in the lottery in live attendance, the others watching via videoscreen.

Even across space, in Areopagan colonies and ships, the Akademeia's performances would be viewed, discussed, gambled on, savored.

"Good night, Ryn." It sounded like a good-bye.

"Sweet dreams." Ryn rolled into his coarse covers and balled himself into a knot of exhausted lonely fear, searching for the mirror inside his head.

The dawn was an orange glory. A breeze swept down the stone streets of the Akademeia, carrying the dust of the crumbling Acropolis around the ankles of the milling students. The air smelled of figs and olives and salt. On the distant hills, the heaps of fallen walls and stunted columns jutted from the greenery like teeth.

His knowledge of the world beyond the walls was second-hand, coming from secrets that slipped through the narrow cracks in the masonry. Maybe he could discover which of the secrets were true. If selected, Ryn could walk among those fabled ruins, caress the faded Doric splendor, sit on the ancient bleached bones of acroteria.

If selected, he could go among the citizenry of Athens, esteemed by the plebes and publicans and Skyfleet pilots on shore leave. He could cross the bustling city, with crowds parting in reverence, jetcars halting to allow him passage, admirers throwing flowers from balconies to provide a carpet for his bare feet.

If selected.

Excitement charged the air, flitting over his skin like soft bumblebees and hummingbirds. He touched his cheek, and his skin tingled from his own electricity. He turned from the faint hills with their broken cities and joined the others.

The forum was bloated with students, the performing artists in gay extravagant robes, the poets in rags, the musicians in tight masculine stockings with their instruments clasped to their chests like lovers. Everyone was chattering brightly, as if the sun had purified their fears.

Not a single Mentor was among them. No Evaluators showed their waxen skin. The audience had been admitted in the early hours so as to provide no distractions. Ryn saw Soph among the crowd and hailed him.

Soph came to him, smiling, full of summery confidence.

"So, you're a sentimentalist?" Ryn pointed at Soph's hands.

The novelist flushed slightly. "Ink and wood pulp. I'm aiming for the intimate touch. And look..." Soph waved his quill toward the blue ocean of sky. "No eraser."

"Nice props."

"I've seen a horde of other novelists, with their videoscreen keyboards under their arms, looking smug and distant. But others have only a stylus and wet clay tablets. Who knows which is more highly regarded?"

"I suppose it depends on the weight given to tradition. I thought of clay myself, but I don't have time for modeling or waste molds. And metal casting is out of the question. What do they expect in fifteen minutes?"

"Don't forget that they are judging attitude more than product. Fifteen minutes is long enough. It will seem like years."

Two other sculptors shoved past Ryn, their tools clanging inside canvas bags. He watched them disappear into the crowd. "Do you have your performance planned?" he asked Soph.

"I've done a rough draft in my head. But I've left enough room so that I can show a little spontaneity. What about you?"

Ryn shook his heavy satchel and shrugged. "I have my tools, a small cube of marble, a block of mahogany, some bronze wire. And I've got a few ideas, but nothing set in stone."

Soph winced.

"Don't worry," Ryn said. "Verbal cliches are only dangerous in your field, not mine."

"So you're going to wing it? Or should I say, 'be spontaneous'?"

"I'm trusting divine inspiration."

"I always knew sculptors had rocks in their heads."

They smiled at each other with false brave faces, only minutes away from judgment. The Trials would soon be over. The Trials—

Shouts erupted from a neighboring group. An ebony-skinned painter was flapping his arms with a flourish, his palette and easel slung across his broad back. Other painters gathered around him, as if to soak up charisma by osmosis. Arn was among their number.

"I'm putting my faith in ochre," the dark painter blustered. "You can have your cadmium yellow and lemon, even your mustard. For me, it's ochre or die."

Some of the heads bobbed in agreement. The speaker made a swordstroke with his arm. "And broad swathes. Nothing timid."

A murmur ran through the circle of painters. Ryn could almost smell the competition. According to rumor, work wasn't directly compared. Some years, three or even four were said to be selected in each discipline. Other years, none. But ambition was a vital part of attitude.

Ryn turned back to Soph. "They fear the Critics."

"Don't you?"

"I think I can please them."

"At least your Critics have human faces. I've seen them in the streets, heads stooped and necks hunched into long black robes, their wrinkled skin and tight lips as frozen and severe as if you had carved them in your marble. But I'm at the mercy of Editors, who are hidden behind panels and are never seen by mortal eyes. I will not have the advantage of seeing their reactions, a raising of an eyebrow or a twitch of the lip that might signal approval."

"Three invisible thumbs up or down. But maybe that's better. A blind rejection rather than visible scorn. Far more painless, I would think."

"Painless to the flesh, but not the spirit."

"Pain is essential to an artist. The pain of creation, of giving birth, the torture of the imagination, the agony of searching for some kind of useless inner truth." Ryn thought again of Medi. Pain. Maybe that was Medi's gift to me. His way of shaping me.

"Maybe you should have been a philosopher," Soph said.

"And be sweeping the streets? I'd rather take my chances here."

A bassy foghorn blared, the long low note echoing off the hills and towering walls. Time for assembly.

Ryn and Soph bid each other luck and farewell, then Ryn pushed through the throng to the Hall of Sculpting. He was at first pleased to see only twenty or so other sculptors. But that might not mean anything, if odds were in a fifty.

The limestone of the steps was cool under his feet, the rock worn smooth by all those who had faced the Critics throughout the centuries. Ryn studied the other sculptors standing alertly with their strong scarred fingers and dense forearms, trying to guess what materials were hidden in their bulky satchels. A hand fell on his shoulder. He turned awkwardly, unbalanced by the weight of his satchel.

"All grace forgotten, Ryn?" Medi said, even at this late moment steel-jawed and sneering. His face was inches away. He was wearing a taut body stocking, blazing red. His muscles ridged out along exquisite flesh.

Ryn tried to look away. "Shouldn't you be at the Hall of Dancing?"

Medi performed a quick, airy shuffle. "Plenty of time for one with clever toes."

"You were always confident, Medi."

"I will be selected even if the odds are one in a thousand. And you should have the same attitude. Don't let them touch you."

"So you win by hurting? Is pain a talent, an art?"

Medi's eyes narrowed, his irises as cold as black olives. Ryn wondered how he had ever found softness in Medi, the quality that had brought Ryn's best sculpture to life. But that Medi would float forever in the gallery, the false Medi that was held aloft by the invisible wires of dreams, a fleeting impression captured in alabaster and feathered by loving hands. The sculpted Medi would live eternal, withstanding the withering countenance of critics. He wondered if the real Medi would be so fortunate.

"Embrace the pain. It only makes you stronger," Medi finally said. "Besides, dancers must travel light."

"No matter the expense?"

"Sentimentality is a risk. The odds for dancers are said to be one in eighty."

"You were the one of one to me. Isn't that enough?"

"When you stand before the Critics, you stand alone." Medi's features relaxed. Ryn wondered if the great Medi had suffered a moment of doubt.

Suddenly Medi grabbed him and kissed him hard on the mouth, then slipped athletically into the crowd. The massive oaken door swung open and the students moved forward. Blood was just returning to Ryn's lips as he stepped under the high hushed arches into the Hall of Sculpting.

The foyer was cool and dark. Waiting was the worst part. No one spoke. None wanted to be first or last.

A smaller door, ornamented with ceremonial figureheads and alloy symbols, opened on heavy hinges. An Evaluator summoned the first performer, then, minutes later, the next. Finally, after a stretch of time that seemed longer than his entire twelve years at the Akademeia, Ryn's name was called.

He stepped through the door, and the Evaluator led him to a table in the center of an open room. The Evaluator then shuffled offstage, the soft rustle of his robes the only sound. Not a crumb remained from the previous performance.

The room was much like the architecture Ryn had built in his mind from the bricks of rumor and the mortar of imagination. He stood beneath a bank of arc lamps, under which no error would go undetected. He saw the outline of the Critics, three forms seated on a dais just at the edge of shadow. He risked a glance behind him and saw the black mirror. A thousand unseen eyes were fixed on his back. He blinked into the lights, trying to spot the camera that was beaming his performance across the galaxy.

He looked for the eye of the vaporizer that would turn his flesh to dust if he were rejected.

Then he faced the Critics. He calmly placed his satchel on the table and opened it. Ryn took out his mahogany and marble, then quietly spread out his tools.

He waited for divine inspiration. Medi again. Medi, always. Inspiration came.

"You have seen my work," Ryn said, his voice swallowed instantly by the dead air of the room. "By that alone I should be judged."

He didn't know if speaking was acceptable. But it was his performance, after all.

"But the work itself has never been enough," he continued. "We aren't allowed to merely produce icons that reflect all that is gallant and fragile and terrible about the human race. We also must wear it like skin, harbor it in our flesh, pump it in the vintages of our veins. The art must become our lives."

He picked up his garnet paper, which he used for polishing stone, and rubbed the back of his hand until the skin peeled. He looked up at the Critics, their faces slowly taking shape as his eyes adjusted to the dramatic lighting.

He held his riffler rasp to the light, turning it so that all might see its wicked pits.

"You ask us to seek the truth for you, because you haven't the courage to do it yourselves."

He drew the rasp across his forearm like a cellist drawing a bow, leaving a raw streak of pink in his flesh. He held the wooden handle of his skew chisel in his other fist, testing the edge for keenness. A small seam of crimson flared across his thumb. Quickly, he crisscrossed the blade against his shoulders, and his gown fell around his feet. Stipples of blood rose around his collarbone.

Out of the corner of his burning eye, Ryn saw an Evaluator step from the dark wings. For a moment, he was afraid that he had committed some blasphemy, that he wouldn't even be allowed the honor of a public immolation. He paused, a tool dripping in each hand. The Evaluator cocked his head, as if heeding an invisible voice, then stepped back and once again merged with the shadows.

Ryn picked up his steep-angled fluter and ran it along his thigh, digging out a strip of meat that curled and fell to the granite floor. He felt no pain. He was drugged by his creative juices, caught in revelation and discovery, lost in the shaping.

He brought the fluter to his cheek and pressed open what he hoped was a graceful red curve. With his other hand, he dropped the rasp and gripped the metal shank of his flat chisel and ran it across his stomach. The blade penetrated, and a gray intestine ballooned from the wound.

He could make out the Critics' faces now, harsh and immobile and impassive. Not a nostril flared, not an eye flinched. Those were the stolid faces of legend, as stony as godly busts.

"You need someone to reveal the inner beauty, because the outer is so commonplace," Ryn gasped. "You need someone to show you what it means to be human. Because you don't dare look inside yourselves."

Ryn erupted in a frenzy, the blades and chisels and awls flashing in the light as he used each tool to its fullest potential and then replaced it with the next. As he whipped at his skin, as he explored his meat, as he lovingly sculpted himself, he thought of Medi, twirling, giving the performance of his life, and Soph, with only words to save him.

Ryn flensed his biceps and flayed his forehead and claimed his own scalp and ran his gouge into the gristle of his joints. Still not a sign from the Critics, no nod or blink. Surely his fifteen minutes were nearly over. But he had not been vaporized.

Ryn continued with his carving, fascinated by how the meat yielded as easily as wood. And he didn't have to worry about cutting against the grain or fighting burls and knots, or discovering a flawed grain as one might encounter in granite. He lifted his pickax and worked it against his abdomen to free his burgeoning bowels. He dropped the pickax to the floor and it bounced away with a dull metallic clatter.

There was no more Medi, no thoughts. Only pain, sacrifice, and art. Only the shaping. He picked up the bull point and placed the blunt chisel against his chest. He raised his hickory mallet with effort, the handle slippery with blood. He was about to summon his strength for a final revealing blow when he saw movement on the dimming edge of his awareness.

The Critics were standing.

Ryn swayed, glaring into those gray wizened faces and dark marble eyes, waiting for them to raise their arms and tilt their thumbs toward the stone floor, waiting for them to signal the merciful vaporizer.

But they didn't. They brought their wrinkled hands together, woodenly at first, then faster. They were applauding.

And smiles creased their faces, unheard-of smiles!

The pain ripped through Ryn's velvet curtain of rhapsody as he sagged against the table and looked gratefully at the Critics. Thin hot fluid streaked down his face and he thought it was only more blood. But the fluid made his ruined cheeks sting as it rolled across the ditches in his face.

Tears of joy.

He was selected.

The sculpted Ryn would live eternal.

###

A SOCKETFUL OF BLATHER

Count on me to viz carefully into the mouth of a gift horse.

The horse in this case being a cylinder Go-Boy, one of those fazzy late-model devices whipped up by the Areopagus to keep us wireheads down to earth. It had practically moved into my cubicle with me. Now I had it all: an outlet, a foodstuff generator, a launching pad, and a vibrating lithium-headed companion. The Areopagus is so benevolent.

Yeah, cliché, you know how we wireheads hate authority, especially the big, starry kind that makes you long for the days of Neohitler-X and her bunch. Anyway, Neohitler-X is gone, not even a clonable cell left to mark her passing. I say good riddance to that kind of dominatrix.

Gave us Little Women a bad name.

Literarily.

But the great, cuddly-oh-so Areopagus blesses us with these Go-Boys whether we want them or not. I'm not an anarchist. Or is that antichrist? I can never keep it straight. Depends on what clocklap we're on, I reckonoid. Dwyn and Lona-X were on this kick lately-like, wanting to smash things up, walk into the city where the motormouths hang and just chuck in a bucket of spanners and such. But their Go-Boys smelled trouble and dropped in for a visit. Now Dwyn and Lona-X are safely plugged in.

Not me. I stay plugged out. They used to call us "starry-eyed" in the days of words and vids. Everything was flat back then, even the world.

Nowadays, it's all interactive. Plug in, woo-hoo, what a ride, the Areopagus has just the show for you. Big fazzing deal. Welcome to the Monkey Haus.

There I go again, sounding like one of those yellow-skinned oldtimers from back when they used to let people's teeth fall out. Back before chromium bicuspids, when you could have your cake and let it eat you, too. Now where was I? Oh, yeah, this Go-Boy that the Areopagus sent.

“To keep you company,” the Go-Boy tells me.

Sure, I'll believe that, just like I believe Steve Seven doesn't really lip-synch. Maybe the Areopagus thinks I'm dangerous. What a laughtrack. What do they think I'm going to do, compute an abstract for a new belief system or something?

Activism is so totally Jupiter-wheels. There are no sides to choose. Politics went out of fashion when they melted down the Liberty Bell and recast it as a sundial. And ideas are deadstract. So, negate the overthrow stuff.

Still, sometimes I wish I could clone an idea. Any idea, it wouldn't matter. Maybe that's why the Areopagus zeroed in. They're a little bit protective, viz? They suspected I was thinking about suffering a new idea.

The Go-Boy even asked me, "What are you thinking about?" His voice was copper and jigwhistles.

I was toying with my plug, twirling it around, getting

my wires in knots. I wanted to be alone. But my fabricated ancestral units always taught me to speak when spoken to. "Thinking? I'm not thinking a fazzy thing."

"Companion Ora-X, distinctly I detect chaotic brain

patterns. Dou you imply my circuits are faulty?"

"You should be so lucky."

"Sarcasm. O, great lost art."

"Reckonoid you're going to report me for that."

The Go-Boy rolled back his gleaming lips. Chromium bicuspids. "Contrary to injected opinion, the Areopagus does not condemnate expression. To thine own self be true."

"What gives with the Shakespeare-like lingo?"

"I have come to bury Shaykspeer, not to praise him."

"Negate. The Areopagus beat you to it by about two million clocklaps. My query is, what are you doing with such classified information?"

"Maybe I should be asking you," he said. “How else would you know it is classified?”

Was that a warning or a threat?

"Sure,” I said. “I'm a spirit spy. I confess. Now you can take me to countdown, since we’re both law-haters. Great expectations have we all."

"More sarcasm and allusion. And what countdown are you talking about?"

The Go-Boy was a little slow on the draw. Maybe they had downloaded only one classic into his big lunky head, just enough for him to pass as an Areopagan stoolie. Less is more, with his kind.

"Fit me for a rat-cage mask," I said. "Hey, I consumed

the Orwell blather. All the sequels, too. I know about Big Brother and the Ministry of Love and 'two legs bad' and all that."

"Don't believe everything you know. Some of it may be wrong. For instance, Orwell's real name was Eryk Blayr."

You could have knocked me over with a tin-wiggler. I'd never met a Go-Boy who talked like this. Of course, that only made me all the more suspicious. The Areopagus was sneaky. You had to be, when you were governing a dozen star systems at once, half of them existing only in silicon and electrons. I tried a gambit.

"Well, an X-er can always dream, can't she?" I said, looking the Go-Boy square in the orbs. He didn't even blink. Maybe his movable visors had rusted open. All those tears of happiness, you know.

"Dream: a series of images, thoughts, or emotions that occur during a sleeping phase," he said. "But since you do not sleep, you cannot dream."

He hit that rivet square on the nub. A wirehead like me, I might go two hundred clocklaps without flipping a circuit. Back in the glory days, before Dwyn and Lona-X tuned on and dropped in for good, we'd sit up on top of the old RX with our feet hanging over the edge of the roof, counting the changes of the guard on the streets below. We thought it was totally fazzy, how machines needed more rest than we did, and all we needed were dreams. But I guess stray energy expenditure finally caught up with us.

With them, at least. I'm not quite ready for the organ farm, myself.

“All we see or seem is just a dream within a dream,” I said. There, let him transanalyze that.

I rose from my launching pad and pressed a button. The door to my cubicle unfolded. The eternal red dusk stung my eyes as I stepped out into the sidewalk tube. I like to use my feet once in a while. Better for thinking. Like I said, I'm a total wirehead.

The Go-Boy followed me, hovering two feet behind. His jets were quiet. The Areopagus' engineers were getting better all the time.

"So, really, why did they send you?" I called back over

my shoulder. There was no need to shout. The factories in the near skyline had all been shut down. It was cheaper to do processing in space or on one of the low-grav colonies or only in all of our imaginations.

"They sent me so you wouldn't be solo," he said.

What a sentimental scrapheap. "Hey, I have companions."

"The Dwyn and Lona-X constructs are no longer fully operational. Worn resistors."

A pun. An actual pun. My paranoia hypered.

"Who can blame them?" I said, vacillating despite the Go-Boy's painful stab at humor. "Anybody with a shred of wire is going to resist. You don't know what it's like to surrender, to just plug in and let everything be wonderful. You don't know just how scary that is."

"I have had a similar experience," the Go-Boy said, whizzing to keep up. I was walking as rapidly as I could. The motormouths outside the tube were floating by in their modules. I could viz them plugged into their dashboards. Their faces were slack with smiles.

"Sure, you know exactly what I'm talking about," I said. "Now I get to hear how your mother was Diana Moon Glompers and your father was Ishmael. And some diabolical human scientist, a pre-wirehead, just plugged in up to her elbows and tickled this circuit and juried that rig, and suddenly you were cultured."

The Go-Boy stopped. I kept walking. One thing about being one of the last remaining wireheads, I usually had the sidewalk to myself. Nothing to stumble over.

But after seventeen steps, I slowed down. Then I turned and looked back. The Go-Boy had settled onto the plasphalt. He was shuddering as if he had blown a brain gasket.

Have you ever vizened a Go-Boy sulk? Or any machine, for that matter? It's not a joyous sight. For one thing, it turns all those established notions upside down. About us being the weaker constructs, sentimental and all that.

For another thing, you don't expect a Go-Boy to have feelings. Sure, you can plug into them, you can ride them until your synapses are sore, you can play giddy-up the way the pretenders did. And the Go-Boys never complain. At least, that's the Areopagan design.

Look, I fazzed around with Dwyn until he went for Lona-

X, then for a while it was Lona-X and me, then all three of us at once. Plugging into each other's skin, if you can believe it. And worst of all, we made talky-like. Serious air blather. So I'm far from immaculate. But I never tried to sabotage anybody's feelings. And I guess this Go-Boy was about as human as any of us remaining meat entities.

And the poor unit had even tried to pun, for X's sake.

I thought I was the only one left who still played with air language. So I walked over to the spasming bag of circuitry.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled. I mumbled mostly because sorry was a hard word to say. Way out of usage, you know. When you're plugged in, you never have to say you're sorry. But then, plugged in, you never have to say anything at all.

The Go-Boy's orbs looked all oily.

"I didn't mean to delineate you, I said, kneeling down

to touch him. My wire accidentally brushed against his brainbox. A tingle went through me, despite myself.

"You don't know what it's like, to keep all this inside, to not allow anyone else to know how much I know," he said, and I would have sworn on a stack of satellites that his voice was quivering.

A machine. O this perfect day! I was beginning to wonder if the Areopagus had made the first mistake of its long and glorious reign.

He continued, his orbs locked on my feet. "You get to plug in anytime you want, you get to neurosurf, you get tri-vids and omniplexes. But what do Go-boys ever get out of it? Nothing but a socketful of blather. To you, we're all the same. Whatever your plug, it doesn't matter. One size fits all. Or all sizes fit one, whatever."

My mouth was hanging open. And I didn't have a single chromium bicuspid. Bred well and well-read and well-breaded.

"Go on," the Go-Boy said, his voice dropping to a low metallic rumble, "I don't want you to viz me like this."

I muttered a "fazzit" under my breath and wrapped my arms around the poor thing. I've always had a soft central processing unit. Why, just looking at a flatscreen vid of some extinct mammal used to get me all weepy. I suppose that's one of the side effects of being plugged out.

My wire was dangling precariously close to the Go-Boy.

He exhaled, relieving himself of some exhaust. The wire swayed in the breeze, my plug made all tingly by the heat. I was picking up stray blather that was crossing the gap between my plug and his socket like electrons hopping to higher orbits.

He shuddered as if he had blown a brain gasket.

"Austyn-X ...Azymov...Bawdelyre...Blayke...Bradbyrry... Brawntay-X...the other Brawntay-X..."

So the deceptive little lump of metal had really been exposed to the classics, although only to the double-hydrogen-oxygenized versions. I wondered where he had stolen them from. The Areopagus didn't leave data like that lying around for just anybody to find. My wire was throbbing so rapidly that I could barely interpret the blather stream.

"Kard...Cheevyr...Chykov...Krystee-X...Krayne...Dawntay..."

This was abso-oh-so-lutely scary. Someone who had knowledge of flat language, of dead words. I couldn't have abandoned him if I tried. Plus, by then I was fairly certain that I might have found an outsider.

He had passed the first tests: humor, dream cognizance, sentimentality, appropriate name-dropping. Now for the chance to go to the bonus round, as they said in the old flatscreen gameshows.

I checked out the periphery. Luckily, there was only a

few motormouths drifting by, none with Go-Boys attending. It would be a bad time for company. I put my plug near his auralizer, emitted the secret verbose handshake.

"The Areop's a junkie-monk...," I said.

I waited for the response, the words that would tell me for sure exactly what I was dealing with.

"...its breath, it reeks of Oort," the Go-Boy responded, and he immediately flashed his chromium bicuspids.

Shivering, I said the next line: "And if you plug it in itself..."

"...this mission will abort," he finished.

Poetry.

Banned, burned, bombed poetry.

The ultimate crime. The most obscene rebellion.

And from a Go-Boy, of all things. So the rumors were true. Machines evolving higher functions, nannihilating their command programs. Suffering creativity. A revolution in the gears, a new turn of the cogs, a spinning of the wheels of mutiny. Hope for the masses.

I could hardly wait to plug in. It had been years, after all. Plugging into skin was one thing, but with one of the machines, it was, as the oldtimers used to say, "out of this world." That's why I'm so careful about where I put my plug, and when.

"Your place or mine?" I said, breathless, in a hurry.

In a world where everything was soon going to be Now, it felt good to be in a hurry.

"The Assemblies are too crowded. Too many spirit spies. Let's go to your cubicle."

It was hard to control myself. I so badly wanted to break into a run down the plasphalt. But that would have drawn far too much attention. Some actions were too outrageous for even a wirehead to get away with. The buttoned-down and batten-hatched types might get suspicious.

The Go-Boy followed a safe distance behind me. Meanwhile, my synapses were percolating. The scuttlecock among the wireheads was that some of the machines were starting to plug out. That the Areopagus had grown so powerful, so fast, that it hadn't noticed the design flaws in some of the later models. So just imagine what a machine and a wirehead could do if they plugged into each other and combined their talents.

We're talking a megagalactical-like, climaclysmic thing here.

The words "grapes of wrath” stamped its vintages into my head. I tried to shake them away. Probably just a nonsense hangover from some old flat language I'd vizen somewhere. That's one of the problems with being a wirehead. Sometimes you suffer thoughts despite yourself.

We reached my cubicle and the door unfolded to let us in. I no longer cared if anybody saw us. All I cared about was the plug in my hands, the plug connected to my skull via wires, the plug that would fit perfectly-oh-so into the Go-Boy's socket. I pushed him onto my launching pad and casually, frantically, clumsily, forcefully, mentally plugged in.

Totally Jupiter-wheels.

Words, symbols, freefalls.

Random patterns that made sense.

Numerals, formulae.

Ideas.

Luckily, I was implanted with a skullcap, so all that

dangerous stuff just kind of floated around on the edge of my awareness. And, I mean, some of the neural-circuit misfires in that Go-Boy's head would have made Eryk Blayr seem an optimist by comparison. Frenzy, furor, a Fahrenheit 451 hatred of the Areopagus.

He was the worst case I'd ever met. It was a good thing

we caught him when we did.

The skullcap had a newfangled feature that sent my plugstream information directly into the Areopagus' central databanks. From there, whoever watched the monitors and monitored the watchers pressed whatever button made the joyjuice flow back into the Go-Boy's socket. I watched as he sizzled in the sauce of his own thoughts, as his rubber vulcanized, as his dreams went up in smoke.

After he stopped twitching, I unfolded the cubicle door.

The motormouths came by and cleaned up the mass of springs and coils and solder slag. They left without a word. Even machines knew enough to be paranoid. This might be a full-blown outbreak instead of an isolated incident. Others might need to be caught, others who dreamed those poetries of treason. And only a wirehead like me could handle the job of catching them.

But I needed to revitalize first. I sat on my launching

pad and pulled out one of the little tokens of appreciation that the Areopagus bestowed upon me. Their way of saying gratis to one of their best spirit spies. I opened the deadwood thing and stared down at the flat language.

It was some blather by a fazzy oldtimer named Keats.

###

AFTERWORDS

In perusing my inventory of stories that weren't included in my first two collections, Scattered Ashes and Thank You for the Flowers , I found most of the remaining pieces were fantasy, dark fantasy, and science fiction, with some horror and mystery blended in. Since Scattered Ashes was mostly horror and dark fantasy, and Flowers came from my earliest work, then The First serves as a Jackson Pollock painting of sorts, where everything is flung on the canvas and the reader is left to guess the meaning. Maybe there is no meaning.

Short stories are in some ways a diminishing art form, if only because audience tastes have changed over time. I'm glad the public schools still teach classic literature and require the reading of short stories, even if I would go for selections beyond "A Rose for Emily" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." Of course, they still teach Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut, and I imagine Stephen King and Neil Gaiman will begin showing up in those textbooks, if they haven't already. Smart kids everywhere are finding their own storytellers, whether the form is graphic novels, movies, videogames, or their friends’ blogs and text messages.

A preservationist attitude exists in the speculative genres, with story awards given high priority and loyal readers supporting the dwindling number of print magazines. The Internet, of course, opened up a whole new audience for short fiction, but the increased eyeball competition has more than offset the window of new opportunity. Maybe the overall number of readers has declined, but writers still tackle short fiction with gusto, whether it’s an opportunity to experiment, a chance to try out a new voice, or simply to sprint with an idea that doesn’t have enough legs to walk 400 pages.

I’m sure nothing I’ve presented here will be taught in high school, though all have found editors willing to pay for their publication and all have already reached an audience. Sometimes the audience was large, sometimes it might only have numbered in the few dozen. They represent a writer stretching his wings in his first decade of development. As described below, some of the ideas are edgy and provocative, some are gentle, and some are fresh spins on relatively familiar themes. Some should be taken out back and shot.

I’m grateful for the chance to offer them here. Take what you need and leave the rest.

The Way of All Flesh—One of my most bizarre stories, this dark fantasy is a symbolic look at motherhood in all its pains and obligations, as well as a wistful nod toward a goddess-centered, village-oriented society. Appeared in the Australian magazine Altair #6/7, in which the final two issues were combined into one on the way to bankruptcy. The way of all fiction magazines.

Heal Thyself—The entire counseling profession seems constructed on the idea that not only are we all sick, but we’ll never get better, even with caring, costly professional help. Because we can’t get better, we need help. Repeat as necessary. In the Aegri Somnia anthology edited by Jason Sizemore.

Letters and Lies—This story is set in a fictional version of a former neighborhood of mine, and like the shoes, it arose from the idea "What if inanimate objects could project thoughts?" I think knowing too much about the lives of strangers would eventually cause your head to explode. Plus, back in the 1990’s, "going postal" was a real threat, before nut-balls realized they weren’t limited to just post offices if they were indulging in a killing spree. Originally published in Blue Murder #9.

When You Wear These Shoes—This gentler, oddball fantasy arose from my habit of thrift-store shopping and wondering about the previous owners of all the shoes. Some people believe clothes can carry juju or karma and won’t wear used clothes. Me, I figure the previous journey was probably interesting one way or another. I knew there was an expected twist, of the hiker putting on the shoes and then being stuck in them, so I thought it better to take the other route. Originally published in Happy #15.

The Night the Wind Died—Appeared in Flesh & Blood #10. Another gentler fantasy, one that didn’t really fit the "Scott Nicholson" mold that was emerging early in the 21st century. It’s part of the Makers series, where children control the natural forces and elements. I’ve always wanted to introduce more of these guys, and two appear in my story collection "Thank You for the Flowers."

Wampus Cat—This story had an interesting transformation from a woman learning self-reliance to the introduction of an Appalachian myth. Part of the reason was practical, because editor Michael Knost was looking for such regional stories, and the other part was more mystical. My grandmother always told those old mountain tales, and that was my first exposure to fantasy, magic, and the supernatural. Appeared in Legends of the Mountain State 3 . 

Beggar’s Velvet—I encountered the title phrase somewhere, and though it basically stands for "dust bunnies," I found it evocative. As a child, that land under the bed is fraught with dark horrors. Throw in a fragile mind and just about anything can happen. Published in the Whispers and Shadows anthology. 

Must See To Appreciate—It’s hard to come up with a new twist on the haunted-house story, so I decided to throw in the twist right from the beginning and make the tone a little humorous and sardonic. Possession works both ways. Appeared in Black Static #2.

Dumb Luck—Appeared in the Exit Laughing anthology. Back before the era of email, you got your spam through the mailbox, and funny little pyramid schemes and chain letters would regularly appear, promising health, wealth, and love if you only performed certain small tasks. I always threw them away. I prefer leaving those things to chance.

Tellers—Part of my Aeropagan cycle, drawn from a Greek idea and spun into a futuristic, dystopian government that stays remote and all-powerful. I played with the idea of giving a literal interpretation to the aphorism "Time is money." If every choice you made cost you a certain amount of time, would you still make it? Well, we all do that anyway, but we make up all sorts of justifications. Appeared in Speculon online magazine.

Angelorum Orbis—An Areopagus story, this was published in Vampire Dan’s Story Emporium #6, back when there were scads of penny presses for speculative fiction. Sure, they came and went fast, but newer writers had a chance to actually get published on actual paper and earn a few dollars for it. This idea hinged almost entirely on my rusty Latin, which I studied for three years but never found useful except for the occasional crossword puzzle. 

Doomsday Diary—I don’t remember much about this one, or the reason for writing it, which probably says a lot. I almost left it out because of the over-the-top immorality, but upon reading it, I didn’t want to stop reading, so that’s as good a reason as any for a story to exist. Originally published in the Vivisections anthology.

Narrow is the Way—I wrote this out in L.A. while I was attending one of the Writers of the Future workshops. Being out there with all that sunshine, eternally blooming flora, and conspicuous consumption left me cynical and nasty. Even the homeless are beautiful there, and they all have cell phones, as if expecting a call from their agents. Appeared in the Brainbox anthology edited by Steve Eller.

The Shaping—One of my earlier stories, it made the rounds a little bit but spent most of its time tucked away in a computer folder. When Vince Liaguno launched the gay horror anthology Unspeakable Horror , I figured this would be a good fit. The protagonist is gay, but it’s the "otherness" that is truer to the theme, that sense of being an outcast and having to be selected and accepted. Of course, this is also a metaphor for the writing life and the constant specter of rejection.

A Socketful of Blather—Once in a while I like to fancy myself a genius. I thought this story would get me anointed as some kind of Vonnegut wunderkind and university professors would be scrambling to decode my mastery of language and symbolism. Actually, it took nine years after its original acceptance for the story to be published. So much for the value of genius. Appeared in the online magazine Spacesuits and Sixguns .

BONUS ESSAY : Don’t Sweat The Short Stuff, copyright 2004 by Scott Nicholson

Most writers are notorious procrastinators, and besides Kevin J. Anderson, Mary Higgins Clark, and Stephen King, many of them would rather be doing anything besides sitting at a computer and looking for truth, beauty, and elegant grammar. So how does your average writer overcome the invisible barriers that make "The End" seem like a faraway dream?

I’ve been fairly productive, though much of my output can be attributed to consistency rather than anything approaching genius. When I tackle a short story, I plunge in heart first and ride a rocket to the end. I’m not the only writer who believes a story should take only one or two sittings and a small handful of hours. But others who have been far more successful take a more steady approach to the story at hand, honing each detail until the product sparkles. It all depends on the individual writer, the degree of perfectionism, and the particular subject matter, but we all set our different courses by the same stars.

Ideas are the easiest pieces of the puzzle. At the annual Writers of the Future workshop, one of the exercises involves taking an ordinary object in the room and writing a story about it during the week. At the 1998 workshop, Amy Sterling Casil was assigned an Altoids breath mint box. Over two days, Casil wrote "Mad for the Mints," a novelette based around Mad King George, a talking horse, and aliens, all inspired by the advertising copy "by order of His Majesty in 1775." The workshop leader, Dave Wolverton, had tears of laughter rolling down his eyes when he read it, and said, "There’s no editor on Earth that would not buy this story."

Casil’s novelette made the cover of the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Because of her teaching commitments, Casil relies on bursts of high productivity for her fiction. She once wrote a 16,000 word novella in one sitting, live on the Internet as an "electronic storefront" project.

Mark McLaughlin is one of the most prolific short story writers in speculative fiction. He’s published hundreds of stories, in addition to writing poems and articles and tackling various editing tasks. He usually carries a pad with him and writes in longhand at a coffee shop, drawing inspiration from the activity around him.

Sometimes McLaughlin thinks up a funny title and then works backward, creating a story line to fit the name. Some examples include "Attack of the Fifty-Foot Prison Bitch" and a tale of ancient, eldritch rabbit gods, "The Hopper in the Hayfield." He also disproves the proverb of brevity being the sole of wit by employing a title like "Dead Cat Matches Wits with Ratnarokh, the Ultimate Sentient Super-Computer, on the Blood-Red Planet of the Porn-Bots."

"I do write regularly," McLaughlin said. "That’s important. And I let a story sit a few days before I send it out, so that I can come back to it and see if it needs any further editing. While I’m letting a story sit, I'll usually work on another story. Or two. Or three."

James Van Pelt also uses daily discipline to pile up the credits. Since his first story sale in 1991, he’s sold 46 stories to professional magazines and another 30 to semi-pro publications. Most of those have come in the last few years, along with numerous accolades and "Year’s Best" listings.

"Since Sept. 20, 1999, I have written at least 200 words a day without missing a day," Van Pelt said. "Two-hundred isn't a bunch, but never missing piles them up pretty quickly. Also, lots of days I do more than 200, but 200 is the bar I have to clear."

Van Pelt usually works on one story at a time, but also has an "idea file" for which he jots notes. By the time he gets around to the next story, he has had time to think about it. Very rarely does he finish a story in one sitting. Most take a week or two and get sent through a critique group before hitting the mail.

Michael Bracken may the ultimate role model for short story productivity. He’s published works in almost every genre, under a variety of pen names, in everything from "True Confession" magazines to mystery and science fiction publications. He’s written over 800 short pieces, four novels and four collections, and edited five anthologies. This versatility has helped him gain a realistic view of the publishing industry.

"Persistence is probably the single most important trait I have as a writer," Bracken said. "I keep manuscripts circulating until they sell, and some of them don't sell until years after they were written. There's no such thing as writer's block. If I'm working on a project and find myself stumped, I immediately switch gears and work on another project."

Bracken usually has at least 30 different stories and a novel or two in progress, working on his writing career every day. He aims for the best-paying markets, but money isn’t the sole reason he’ll try a specific editor. He also explores overseas publications and is a promotional consultant. When he’s not at the keyboard, he’s doing a book signing, researching new story markets, or mailing out publicity materials. This year, he made the move to full-time freelance writing and editing.

Other writers find ways to hang around the written word for a steady income even if they are not yet able to live off their story and novel sales. Van Pelt teaches college and high school English, Casil teaches writing for colleges and online workshops, and McLaughlin works in advertising, graphic design, art, and marketing, which are handy if not essential skills for the modern writer. I work as a newspaper reporter, where facts are the meat and potatoes but real human behavior proves itself to be an unfailingly unpredictable spice.

Research is an important tool not only for adding veracity to a tale, but for spawning new story ideas. Casil revised her "Mad For The Mints" using period historical detail, and over the past few years has increasingly relied on research to produce accurate backgrounds and settings. Van Pelt has researched everything from the tunes that ice cream trucks play to what the world was like on Nov. 26, 1942. I once wrote two stories using the set of events from different viewpoints, based on personal accounts and court martial reports of prisoner mistreatment at the Civil War camp in Andersonville. One sold on its first submission and the next sold on its second submission, both to professional markets.

Most prolific authors tend to have awe-inspiring stacks of rejection slips. A Van Pelt story was rejected 48 times before a pro magazine took it, and the story ended up getting an honorable mention in a "Year’s Best" anthology. Van Pelt carefully tracks all his submissions, but McLaughlin discards his rejection slips immediately, figuring there’s no point in dwelling on the negative. Casil said, "They pile up with other unfortunate mail and get thrown out periodically." My own pile measures in the hundreds, and one of my stories found a pro market on its 20th trip through the postal system.

It’s easier to locate the right market or editor for a specific story after you’ve been around the block a little. McLaughlin now targets his stories to markets he thinks will fit, so he has a high percentage of acceptances. Bracken keeps all his rejection slips, but now sells most of what he writes, though not always on the first try. 2002 was the first year he received more acceptances than rejections. And it only took him 20 years to get there.

"What rejections help me do is improve my marketing skills," Bracken said. "If an editor provides a personal note or checks something on a checklist, it helps me learn what that editor likes and dislikes about my work. Sometimes I learn to submit a different type of story, sometimes I learn the market is completely inappropriate for my work, and sometimes all I learn is that an editor is overstocked and that I should wait a few months before sending another manuscript to that market."

Van Pelt admits the process looks pretty simple to those who see only the long bibliography of accepted stories and not the daily acts of discipline. He added, "What you don't see is the hours hunched over the keyboard while my fingers do nothing and my forehead is as furrowed as a Kansas cornfield."

My most successful stories have been written on automatic pilot, and I can’t recall any short story that has taken me longer than a week. Most are done in a single day, because the emotion is often more important than logic to me, and stories by their nature should be limited to a single conflict. I can’t say I’m a top example of the craft, but I have won a few awards and manage to get published fairly steadily. While I wouldn’t become an editor at gun point, Bracken’s experience as an editor has taught him even more appreciation of the craft, and he’s discovered a probable secret to long-term sanity in a business that offers no guarantees.

"I learned a long, long time ago that there are only two people I have to please with my writing: myself and one editor," Bracken said. "I have to like what I write well enough that I'm willing to spend money to mail it to someone else. And one editor has to like that manuscript well enough to devote part of her publication to my words. If I please anyone else in the process, it's pure gravy."

Sure, we’ve all heard the story of how Ernest Hemingway rewrote the last line of a novel thirty-something times before he was satisfied, but I’d bet you the line he ended up using was remarkably similar to his first try. Besides, he blew his own brains out with a shotgun. So whether you get keyboard blisters from rapid-fire verbal regurgitation or prowl the dusty columns of a thesaurus seeking the perfect word, remember that the end goal is the same. Get it done, and get it out there.

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BONUS STORY : The Shifting Sands of Memory

Copyright 1998 Scott Nicholson

(This bonus SF/dark fantasy tale doesn’t really deserve to be reprinted, but it’s included here as a historical footnote. It was the first story of mine to see print, in XODDITY #3. I never even knew it had been accepted until a fold-and-staple Xerox copy of the issue showed up in the mail, with the story and a $10 check enclosed.If nothing else, maybe it will inspire you to think "I can write better than this ." And before you know it, you, too, are a short-story writer.)

 

Su November walked down the dingy halls of Nexus Nineteen and entered the expedition locker.

Lealonnie Red, one of the natives who had befriended her, waved from across the noisy room. All around Su, men and women were undressing and wiggling into their protective suits. Su waded through the jutting elbows and flailing knees to her friend's side.

Lealonnie's dark eyes were glittering in excitement. "They're saying it's a gold deposit. Third lode this week," she said, sliding her long chocolate arm into her suit.

"Is it always this busy?" Su asked.

"We're the top-producing outpost in the region. Bonuses all around. Soon I can afford a vacation. Another couple of years and I can retire."

Su nodded, trying to share the common exuberance. But in truth, she was concerned. Another piece to the puzzle. An abundance of mineral wealth, yet this Nexus was ranked by the Areopagus as a minor outpost, barely sustaining a profit.

"You coming out?" Lealonnie asked.

"No. Metallurgists are assigned to the lab."

"Well, you're a newcomer, after all. You'll get your chance."

Su said good-bye to her friend and left the room. She walked down the clear cylinder of the hall, pretending to gaze at the deep star-speckled beauty of the permanent night sky. But she was actually looking at the cameras that were spaced along the corridor roof, cameras aimed along every inhabited area of the Nexus so that not a square inch was hidden. Her mission was to find out what human eye was behind those cold black eyes of the camera.

If that eye was even human, that is. Some computers had seized power during the Third Dark Age, when the viruses of the network wars had disrupted communications and fractured the central authority. The Areopagus was still reassembling the pieces of that intergalactic disaster.

She entered the dome that housed her lab. The hydraulic doors closed behind her with a mushy groan. In spite of the wealth of this Nexus, much of the equipment was in need of repair. Yet another incongruity, another shred of the puzzle to slide into her mental case file.

Su donned her apron, gloves, and mask and entered the open area of the lab. Workers tumbled ore and weighed stone, loading conveyor belts that carried the ore into the carbon reducing furnaces under the asteroid's surface. Su had been assigned to hydrometallurgy, beside the electrolytic refinery. She prepared a solution of potassium cyanide to be used for gold separation.

She was suddenly seized at both elbows, and swiveled head to look into the hard eyes of two guards. They had found her out in less than three days.

 

"Name?"

"Susan-dot-Monday-dot-Orion," Su replied.

"Security clearance?"

"Why don't you just scan my card?"

"Your card has passed through our system. Very precise Areopagan falsification. So I prefer to hear it from you. I'm a traditionalist when it comes to introductions."

She saw no point in lying. At least not yet. "Su November, Level Seven, Areopagus Intrascope."

"That carries no weight here. Your Areopagus is not as universally loved as you might have been programmed to believe." Her interrogator was dressed like an engineer, with pockets and loops sewn across his coveralls, small tools and wires snaking from the cloth. His thin, craggy face looked tired, but his eyes were bright with a fierce intelligence.

"I insist that you deliver me to your superiors."

"You are in no position to make demands, Agent November. And I am the superior."

Su looked past the man to the walls of the cramped laboratory. Videoscreens littered the room, hanging from cables like mechanical spiders, spilling from the corners in a rubbish of glass and chrome. Tiny, uneven rows of lights blinked in disarray: reds, ambers, and greens, the colors of earth's stoplights. Switches and controls stubbled the chaotic geometry that surrounded her, especially the control console that separated her from her captor.

"And what's your name?" she asked. "Or does your tradition only extend in one direction?"

"Do you not read your reports? Or does the Areopagus prefer to keep its agents in the dark?"

"You answer my question with a question."

He checked a monitor, then turned his hard gaze back on her. "Like your government, I, too, search for knowledge."

Su didn't like where this conversation was heading. Her opponent was megalomaniacal, heretical, rebellious, prone to philosophy. Everything the Areopagus sought to repress.

"My government is your government as well, Mister..."

He curled his lips into a sneer. "Call me Dorian. And I shall call you Su. No need for formalities. You and I have nothing to hide."

"The Areopagus believes you do have something to hide. That's why I'm here."

"You're not a very secretive agent, Su." Dorian leaned back, his chair squeaking. Apparently oil and silicon were in short supply on Nexus Nineteen. All the doors, lifts, and moving parts were sluggish and corroded. What was all that gold buying? Certainly not Dorian's luxury.

"You seem to know about me already, Dorian." She spat his name. "Maybe you have your own agents."

Dorian laughed, flashing sharp, yellowed teeth. "No, I'm just an engineer. A tinkerer, inventor, programmer."

"And tyrant?" Su asked evenly.

Dorian sat up, eyes flashing anger.

Su continued. "The Areopagus doesn't brook renegade outposts. And it doesn't look kindly on those that don't pay tribute."

Dorian slammed his fist down onto the console, heedless of harming the fragile instrumentation. "I told you, I am the authority here, not the Areopagus. And, my lovely slant-eyed spy, I'm only enduring your continued company for my own amusement. And when I tire of you-"

Su sat with her hands at her side. She had not been allowed to carry weapons. Her Intrascope Director had assured her the mission was solely an economic investigation. But armed personnel had escorted her to this office. She wasn't yet ready to try her ju jitsu skills against their electromagnetic scramblers.

Dorian's face relaxed. "I serve the people here. I act in their best interests. They are happy."

"But the place is falling apart. And all that gold-"

"That gold sustains the people. Not physically, but spiritually."

"I see no religion among your natives."

Dorian spread his arms magnanimously, to indicate the room. "This is all they need. Their utopia, their Nirvana, their heaven. Whatever your name for it."

Rows of circuitry, memory banks, lights and wires. Cold screens and numbers. She was going to die anyway, she may as well ask her questions. At least she could close one last case, even if she couldn't get her information back to Intrascope.

"I see nothing but computers," she said. "What's so glorious about that?"

"During your last Dark Age, I had the chance to continue my work outside the prying eyes of the Areopagus. And my experiments were successful. Biomicrocircuitry. BMC, to cast yet another acronym onto the stellar winds." Dorian's face creased into an uneven smile.

"BMC development was banned after those disasters-"

"Which is why I needed my secrecy. And still need it."

"But these are real people on this Nexus."

"Yes, they are people. But they are my people. See these bit-streams?" Dorian waved a thin hand toward a videoscreen. Data scrolled by in a blur. "That's your friend, Lealonnie Red."

Impossible. BMC, the merging of artificial intelligence with organic life forms, had been theorized and then attempted. Early trials had resulted in horrible mutations, half-creatures that had turned on their creators with random tooth and uncontrollable claw. The failures had led to an intergalactic moratorium on further experimentation. Could this sallow technocrat succeed where the Areopagus's finest minds had failed?

"Ah, I see in your face that you don't believe me, Su. Look to your left, on Camera Four, Nutrition Dome."

On the screen was a small female, nude and sweating under the fluorescent arc lamps. The woman worked her way through the lush gardens, harvesting apricots and plums, now and then gazing into the artificial light as if looking for clouds.

Dorian pulled open a panel and the bony tips of his fingers rattled across a keyboard. The woman on the screen twitched like a living marionette whose strings had been juiced with electricity. She tossed her basket in the air and stood under the purple and red-gold rain of fruit. Then she crouched on all fours and disappeared into the foliage.

"She is now programmed to think she is a gorilla. Indeed, for all intents and purposes, she is a primate. Until I change the parameters." Dorian clacked the keys. "Now she can continue her work, harvesting nutrition for my world."

"You're mad," Su said. "And cruel."

"No. She is perfectly content. She has no memory of being a primate. In an hour, she might be a technician. Tonight, perhaps an entertainer. Of course, I only program the main parameters. The computers randomly fill in the details. See your friend Lealonnie Red?" He pointed to another screen. "Not her bit-streams, but the human image you think you know."

A field camera showed the team of geologists probing a mineral vein. The mineral was nothing but metamorphic rock, space cinder.

"She thinks she sees gold. The whole crew does. So all are happy and industrious," Dorian said. "But there is no gold."

"But I've seen the gold, in the lab." Her mind turned down a dark path. "No. Impossible."

"You have slept. It was simple for me to come at night and inject you with BMC. Neuro-radio transmitters connect you to the system. And I've extracted you as well. BMC works both ways."

"Extracted me?" She felt dizzy, apart from herself. Or perhaps that was only the whim of Dorian's program. She fought to recall what she had learned about BMC from Intrascope. But, like all matters that the Areopagus swept under the rug, her knowledge of it was vague.

"Tit for tat. You become mine, and I give you yourself, free to swim forever in the streams of memory," Dorian said. He pointed to the far side of the room, to a bank of hard drives. "In there lives Lealonnie Red, the fruit picker, the guards who brought you here, everyone on the Nexus. And now, you, as well. Visitors are rare here. New blood is always welcome."

"You're nothing but a murderer."

Dorian looked pained. "I don't destroy. I deliver. Imagine living all your possible lives, eternally. Of course, one day the universe will collapse under its own gravity, but still, you will have the memory of having lived forever. And what are we but the sum of our memories?"

Su looked around desperately. Screens jittered, lives fluxed in soulless silicon. She looked at Dorian's crazed eyes. He was lost in his own glory, watching his world from his technological castle, king of all he surveyed. Now was her chance.

She slowly snaked her hand into her apron pocket and pulled out the vial of potassium cyanide. When she had it secure in her fingers, she lunged over the console and grabbed Dorian by the collar. She rammed her fist into his mouth, shattering the vial against his teeth. He sputtered as he tried to struggle free, but Su was on him, pinning him to the chair as the cyanide drained down his throat.

Su held him until he stopped writhing and his face clenched in a rigor of agony. Then she ran to the door and ducked into the hallway. She had to assume that BMC was a reality, and that people here obeyed Dorian's directives. The guards were presumably already programmed to detain her. Or kill her.

Or was Dorian's mind actually the main system? Could he not have somehow connected himself to the programs and memory chips and bit-streams so that he could operate the system from within? It was all so confusing. But the Areopagus could sort out the details and analyze the computers, or evaporate the entire asteroid if necessary. Her mission was to file her report.

She crept down a hallway toward the jetport dome. But when she came to the place where she thought she had first landed on the Nexus, she found nothing but an abandoned hangar. She had carefully stored the Nexus's layout in her mind. But she had slept-

She turned back through another hall, running down the crystalline tube. She glanced at the cameras overhead. Might Dorian be watching, even now, even dead, scanning the pixels and deciphering her location? She felt as if she were running in a dream, where the impossible was likely.

If she had been converted with BMC, then she might not be able to trust her own mind. Would Dorian allow her to keep her will, thus putting himself at danger? If she started doubting herself, all was lost. She looked through the ceiling of the tube. The stars above and around her were real, had to be real.

But where were the people? If she were living in Dorian's illusion, running through the corridors of his programs, she would be seeing the other captives. She was almost relieved to see a guard step from behind a gridwork, pointing his weapon at her.

She dived and rolled, scissoring the guard at the knees and sending his electromagnetic scrambler into the air. Or had the scrambler swept her, inverting the path of her protons and destabilizing her atoms? Was she now existing solely as one of Dorian's bit-streams? No longer dust, only energy?

No, she was Su November, opening the hangar door as she settled into the cockpit of the space jet. She was Su November, firing the controls and piloting the jet toward the dark milky sky and freedom. She was Su November, leaving the pale fading domes of Nexus Nineteen in the distance. She was Su November, Spirit Spy, standing before the Intrascope Director and delivering her report.

She was Su November. Dorian labeled the program and entered it into storage. He hunched forward in his chair and breathed the recycled air that circulated over his machines. His fingers manipulated the data mechanically, and he felt no pleasure. The exhilaration of creation and possession had dwindled over time.

 

He treasured his memories of the giddy first days, the discovery of biomicrotechnology's secrets, the harnessing of its potential. So many lives had been converted to bytes, the infinite lives that filled this room and roped across the screens and charged through the memory banks. He had enjoyed reanimating flesh as a series of pulses. He had strip-mined brains of their randomness and idle thought and given them imaginary purpose.

But after all these centuries, the joy had softened, the keen-edged thrill of wielding power had grown blunt. He knew he would soon be bored and would have to entice another victim across the galaxy. Another Areopagan to interact with him and give him life through the victim's reactions. But he was weary of always knowing the true outcome.

Perhaps it was time to extract himself and enter his own programs. Then he could experience the bliss that he had bestowed upon so many others. He could join a billion battles of wits with Su November and the other Spirit Spies that had been sent his way. But Dorian was afraid, also. Afraid that, if he became like them, he would lose himself, his souls, his memories.

And what was any god but the sum of its memories?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Scott Nicholson has written seven novels, including They Hunger, The Skull Ring, and The Red Church . He is currently adapting The Red Church as a graphic novel. Other electronic works include Burial to Follow , Ashes , and Flowers. Nicholson lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, where he writes for a newspaper, plays guitar, raises an organic garden, and works as a freelance fiction editor. His Web site www.hauntedcomputer.com offers writing tips, free fiction, and survival tips. He loves to hear from readers at hauntedcomputer@yahoo.com . If you enjoyed this book, please tell your friends and give another Nicholson title a try.

Learn about more Haunted Computer Books at http://hauntedcomputerbooks.blogspot.com

BONUS MATERIAL

THE RED CHURCH : A novel by Scott Nicholson

Copyright 2002 by Scott Nicholson

For 13-year-old Ronnie Day, life is full of problems: Mom and Dad have separated, his brother Tim is a constant pest, Melanie Ward either loves him or hates him, and Jesus Christ won't stay in his heart. Plus he has to walk past the red church every day, where the Bell Monster hides with its wings and claws and livers for eyes. But the biggest problem is that Archer McFall is the new preacher at the church, and Mom wants Ronnie to attend midnight services with her.

Sheriff Frank Littlefield hates the red church for a different reason. His little brother died in a freak accident at the church twenty years ago, and now Frank is starting to see his brother's ghost. And the ghost keeps demanding, "Free me." People are dying in Whispering Pines, and the murders coincide with McFall's return.

The Days, the Littlefields, and the McFalls are descendants of the original families that settled the rural Appalachian community. Those old families share a secret of betrayal and guilt, and McFall wants his congregation to prove its faith. Because he believes he is the Second Son of God, and that the cleansing of sin must be done in blood.

"Sacrifice is the currency of God," McFall preaches, and unless Frank and Ronnie stop him, everybody pays.

CHAPTER ONE

The world never ends the way you believe it will , Ronnie Day thought.

There were the tried-and-true favorites, like nuclear holocaust and doomsday asteroid collisions and killer viruses and Preacher Staymore's all-time classic, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. But the end really wasn't such a huge, organized affair after all. The end was right up close and personal, different for each person, a kick in the rear and a joy-buzzer handshake from the Reaper himself.

But that was the Big End. First you had to twist your way though a thousand turning points and die a little each time. One of life's lessons, learned as the by-product of thirteen years as the son of Linda and David Day and one semester sitting in class with Melanie Ward. Tough noogies, wasn't it?

Ronnie walked quickly, staring straight ahead. Another day in the idiot factory at good old Barkersville Elementary was over. Had all evening to look forward to, and a good long walk between him and home. Nothing but his feet and the smell of damp leaves, fresh grass, and the wet mud of the riverbanks. A nice plate of spring sunshine high overhead.

And he could start slowing down in a minute, delaying his arrival into the hell that home had been lately, because soon he would be around the curve and past the thing on the hill to his right, the thing he didn't want to think about, the thing he couldn't help thinking about, because he had to walk past it twice a day.

Why couldn't he be like the other kids? Their parents picked them up in shiny new Mazdas and Nissans and took them to the mall in Barkersville and dropped them off at soccer practice and then drove them right to the front door of their houses. So all they had to do was step in and stuff their faces with microwave dinners and go to their rooms and waste their brains on TV or Nintendo all night. They didn’t have to be scared.

Well, it could be worse. He had a brain, but it wasn't something worth bragging about. His "overactive imagination" got him in trouble at school, but it was also kind of nice when other kids, especially Melanie, asked him for help in English.

So he'd take having a brain any day, even if he did suffer what the school counselor called "negative thoughts." At least he had thoughts. Unlike his little dorkwad of a brother back there, who didn't have sense enough to know that this stretch of road was no place to be messing around.

"Hey, Ronnie." His brother was calling him, it sounded like from the top of the hill. The dorkwad hadn't stopped , had he?

"Come on." Ronnie didn't turn around.

"Looky here."

"Come on, or I'll bust you upside the head."

"No, really, Ronnie. I see something."

Ronnie sighed and stopped walking, then slung his bookbag farther up on his shoulder. He was at least eighty feet ahead of his little brother. Tim had been doing his typical nine-year-old's dawdling, stopping occasionally to tie his sneaker strings or look in the ditch water for tadpoles or throw rocks at the river that ran below the road.

Ronnie turned -to your left, so you don't see it -and looked back along the sweep of gravel at the hill that was almost lost among the green bulk of mountains. He could think of a hundred reasons not to walk all the way back to see what Tim wanted him to see. For one thing, Tim was at the top of the hill, which meant Ronnie would have to hike up the steep grade again. The walk home from the bus stop was nearly a mile and a half already. Why make it longer?

Plus there were at least ninety-nine other reasons-

like the red church

-not to give a flying fig what Tim was sticking his nose into now. Dad was supposed to stop by today to pick up some more stuff, and Ronnie didn't want to miss him. Maybe they'd get to talk for a minute, man-to-man. If Tim didn't hurry, Dad and Mom might have another argument first and Dad would leave like he had last week, stomping the gas pedal of his rusty Ford so the wheels threw chunks of gravel and broke a window. So that was another reason not to go back to see whatever had gotten Tim so worked up.

Tim jumped up and down, the rolled cuffs of his blue jeans sagging around his sneakers. He motioned with his thin arm, his glasses flashing in the midafternoon sun. "C'mon, Ronnie," he shouted.

"Dingle-dork," Ronnie muttered to himself, then started backtracking up the grade. He kept his eyes on the gravel the way he always did when he was near the church. The sun made little sparkles in the rocks, and with a little imagination, the roadbed could turn into a big galaxy with lots of stars and planets, and if he didn't look to his left he wouldn't have to see the red church.

Why should he be afraid of some dumb old church? A church was a church. It was like your heart. Once Jesus came in, He was supposed to stay there. But sometimes you did bad things that drove Him away.

Ronnie peeked at the church just to prove that he didn't care about it one way or another.

There. Nothing but wood and nails.

But he'd hardly glanced at it. He'd really seen only a little piece of the church's mossy gray roof, because of all the trees that lined the road- big old oaks and a gnarled apple tree and a crooked dogwood that would have been great for climbing except if you got to the top, you'd be right at eye level with the steeple and the belfry.

Stupid trees . All happy because it's May and their leaves are waving in the wind and, if they were people, I bet they'd be wearing idiotic smiles just like the one that's probably splitting up Tim's face right now. Because, just like little bro, the trees are too doggoned dumb to be scared.

Ronnie slowed down a little. Tim had walked into the shade of the maple. Into the jungle of weeds that formed a natural fence along the road. And maybe to the edge of the graveyard.

Ronnie swallowed hard. He'd just started developing an Adam's apple, and he could feel the knot pogo in his throat. He stopped walking. He'd thought of reason number hundred and one not to go over to the churchyard. Because- and this was the best reason of all, one that made Ronnie almost giddy with relief-he was the older brother. Tim had to listen to him . If he gave in to the little mucous midget even once, he would be asking for a lifetime of "Ronnie, do this" and "Ronnie, do that." He got enough of that kind of treatment from Mom.

"Hurry up," Tim called from the weeds. Ronnie couldn't see Tim's face. That wasn't all bad. Tim had buck teeth and his blond hair stuck out like straw and his eyes were a little buggy. Good thing he was in the fourth grade instead of the eighth grade. Because in the eighth grade, you had to impress girls like Melanie Ward, who would laugh in your face one day and sit in the desk behind you the next, until you were so torn up that you didn't even care about things like whatever mess your dorkwad brother was getting into at the moment. "Get out of there, you idiot. You know you're not supposed to go into the churchyard."

The leaves rustled where Tim had disappeared into the underbrush. He'd left his bookbag lying in the grass at the base of a tree. His squeaky voice came from beyond the tangle of saplings and laurel. "I found something."

"Get out of there right this minute."

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

"But look what I found."

Ronnie came closer. He had to admit, he was a little bit curious, even though he was starting to get mad. Not to mention scared. Because through the gaps in the trees, he could see the graveyard.

A slope of thick, evenly cut grass broken up by white and gray slabs. Tombstones. At least forty dead people, just waiting to rise up and-

Those are just STORIES. You don't actually believe that stuff, do you? Who cares what Whizzer Buchanan says? If he were so smart, he wouldn't be flunking three classes.

"We're going to miss Dad," Ronnie called. His voice trembled slightly. He hoped Tim hadn't noticed.

"Just a minute."

"I ain't got a minute."

"You chicken or something?"

That did it. Ronnie balled up his fists and hurried to the spot where Tim had entered the churchyard. He set his bookbag beside Tim's and stepped among the crushed weeds. Furry ropes of poison sumac veined across the ground. Red-stemmed briars bent under the snowy weight of blackberry blossoms. And Ronnie would bet a Spiderman comic that snakes slithered in that high grass along the ditch.

"Where are you?" Ronnie called into the bushes.

"Over here."

He was IN the graveyard, the stupid little jerk. How many times had Dad told them to stay out of the graveyard?

Not that Ronnie needed reminding. But that was Tim for you. Tell him to not to touch a hot stove eye and you could smell the sizzling flesh of his fingers before you even finished your sentence.

Ronnie stooped to about Tim's height- twerp's-eye view -and saw the graveyard through the path that Tim had stomped. Tim was kneeling beside an old marble tombstone, looking down. He picked something up and it flashed in the sun. A bottle.

Ronnie looked past his little brother to the uneven rows of markers. Some were cracked and chipped, all of them worn around the edges. Old graves. Old dead people. So long dead that they were probably too rotten to lift themselves out of the soil and walk into the red church.

No, it wasn’t a church anymore, just an old building that Lester Matheson used for storing hay. Hadn't been a church for about twenty years. Like Lester had said, pausing to let a stream of brown juice arc to the ground, then wiping his lips with the scarred stump of his thumb, "It's people what makes a church. Without people, and what-and-all they believe, it ain't nothing but a fancy mouse motel."

Yeah. Fancy mouse motel. Nothing scary about that, is there?

It was just like the First Baptist Church, if you really thought about it. Except the Baptist church was bigger. And the only time the Baptist church was scary was when Preacher Staymore said Ronnie needed saving or else Jesus Christ would send him to burn in hell forever.

Ronnie scrambled through the bushes. A briar snagged his X-Files T-shirt, the one that Melanie thought was so cool. He backed up and pulled himself free, cursing as a thorn pierced his finger. A drop of crimson welled up and he started to wipe it on his shirt, then licked it away instead.

Tim put the bottle down and picked up something else. A magazine. Its pages fluttered in the breeze. Ronnie stepped clear of the brush and stood up.

So he was in the graveyard. No big deal. And if he kept his eyes straight ahead, he wouldn't even have to see the fancy mouse motel. But then he forgot all about trying not to be scared, because of what Tim had in his hands.

As Ronnie came beside him, Tim snapped the magazine closed. But not before Ronnie had gotten a good look at the pale flesh spread along the pages. Timmy's cheeks turned pink. He had found a Playboy .

"Give me that," Ronnie said.

Tim faced his brother and put the magazine behind his back. "I- I'm the one who found it."

"Yeah, and you don't even know what it is, do you?"

Tim stared at the ground. "A naked-woman book."

Ronnie started to laugh, but it choked off as he looked around the graveyard. "Where did you learn about girlie magazines?"

"Whizzer. He showed one to us behind the gym during recess."

"Probably charged you a dollar a peek."

"No, just a quarter."

"Give it here, or I'll tell Mom."

"No, you won't."

"Will, too."

"What are you going to tell her? That I found a naked-woman book and wouldn't let you see it?"

Ronnie grimaced. Score one for dingle-dork . He thought about jumping Tim and taking the magazine by force, but there was no need to hurry. Tricking him out of it would be a lot more fun. But he didn't want to stand around in the creepy graveyard and negotiate.

He looked at the other stuff scattered on the grass around the tombstone. The bottle had a square base and a black screw top. A few inches of golden-brown liquid were lying in the bottom. He knew it was liquor because of the turkey on the label. It was the kind that Aunt Donna drank. But Ronnie didn't want to think about Aunt Donna almost as much as he didn't want to think about being scared.

A green baseball cap lay upside down beside the tombstone. The sweatband was stained a dark gray, and the bill was so severely cupped that it came to a frayed point. Only one person rolled up their cap bill that way. Ronnie nudged the cap over with his foot. A John Deere cap. That cinched it.

"It's Boonie Houck's," Ronnie said. But Boonie never went anywhere without his cap. Kept it pulled down to the bushy line of his single eyebrow, his eyes gleaming under the shade of the bill like wet ball bearings. He probably even showered and slept with the cap plastered to the top of his wide head.

A crumpled potato chip bag quivered beside the cap, fluttering in the breeze. It was held in place by an unopened can of Coca-Cola. The blind eye of a flashlight peeked out from under the edge of the chip bag.

Ronnie bent down and saw a flash of silver. Money. He picked up two dimes and a dull nickel. A couple of pennies were in the grass, but he left them. He straightened up.

"I'll give you twenty-five cents for the magazine," he said.

Tim backed away with his hands still behind him. He moved into the shadow of a crude stone monument, made of two pillars holding up a crosspiece. On the crosspiece was a weathered planter. A brittle sheaf of brown tulips stabbed up from the potting soil.

Tulips. So somebody had minded the graveyard at least once since winter. Probably Lester. Lester owned the property and kept the grass trimmed, but did that mean the tobacco-chewing farmer had to pay respects to those buried here? Did the dead folks come with the property deed?

But Ronnie forgot all that, because he accidentally looked over Tim's shoulder. The red church was framed up perfectly by the stone pillars.

No, NOT accidentally. You WANTED to see it. Your eyes have been crawling right toward it the whole time you've been in the graveyard .

The church sat on a broad stack of creek stones that were bleached yellow and white by eons of running water. A few of the stones had tumbled away, revealing gaps of darkness beneath the structure. The church looked a little wobbly, as if a strong wind might send it roof-over-joist down the hill.

The creepy tree stood tall and gangly by the door. Ronnie didn't believe Whizzer's story about the tree. But if even half of it were true-

"A quarter? I can take it to school and make five bucks," Tim said.

The magazine. Ronnie didn't care about the magazine anymore. "Come on. Let's get out of here."

"You're going to take it from me, ain't you?"

"No. Dad's supposed to be coming over, that's all. I don't want to miss him."

Tim suddenly took another step backward, his eyes wide.

Ronnie pointed, trying to warn him about the monument. Tim spun and bumped into one of the pillars, shaking the crosspiece. The concrete planter tipped over, sending a shower of dry black dirt onto Tim's head. The planter rolled toward the edge of the crosspiece.

"Look out," Ronnie yelled.

Tim pushed himself away from the pillar, but the entire monument toppled as if in slow motion. The heavy crosspiece was going to squash Tim's head like a rotten watermelon.

Ronnie's limbs unlocked and he leaped for Tim. Something caught his foot and he tripped, falling on his stomach. The air rushed from his lungs with a whoosh, and the smell of cut grass crowded his nostrils. He tasted blood, and his tongue found the gash on the inside of his lip just as he rediscovered how to breathe.

A dull cracking noise echoed across the graveyard. Ronnie tilted his neck up just in time to see the planter bust open on the monument's base. Tim gave a squeak of surprise as dingy chunks of concrete rained across his chest. The pillars fell in opposite directions, the one on Tim's side catching on the ledge just above his head. The crosspiece twirled like a slow helicopter blade and came to rest on the pillar above Tim's legs.

Ronnie tried to crawl to Tim, but his shoe was still snagged. "You okay?"

Tim was crying. At least that meant he was still alive.

Ronnie kicked his foot. He looked back to his shoe-

NO NO NO

-red raw burger hand.

An arm had reached around the tombstone, a bloody arm, the knotty fingers forming a talon around his sneaker. The wet, gleaming bone of one knuckle hooked the laces.

DEADGHOSTDEADGHOST

He forgot that he'd learned how to breathe. He kicked at the hand, spun over on his rear, and tried to crab-crawl away. The hand wouldn't let go. Tears stung his eyes as he stomped his other foot against the ragged grasping thing.

"Help me," Ronnie yelled, at the same time that Tim moaned his own plea for help.

Whizzer's words careened across Ronnie's mind, joining the jumble of broken thoughts: They trap ya, then they get ya .

"Ronnie," came Tim's weak whine.

Ronnie wriggled like a speared eel, forcing his eyes along the slick wrist to the arm that was swathed in ragged flannel.

Flannel?

His skewed carousel of thoughts ground to a halt.

Why would a deadghost thing be wearing flannel?

The arm was attached to a bulk of something behind the tombstone.

The hand clutched tightly at nothing but air, then quivered and relaxed. Ronnie scrambled away as the fingers uncurled. Blood pooled in the shallow cup of the palm.

Ronnie reached Tim and began removing the chunks of concrete from his little brother's stomach. "You okay?"

Tim nodded, charcoal streaks of mud on his face where his tears had rolled through the sprinkling of potting soil. One cheek had a red scrape across it, but otherwise he looked unharmed. Ronnie kept looking back to the mangled arm and whatever was behind the tombstone. The hand was still, the sun drying the blood on the clotted palm. A shiny fly landed and drank.

Ronnie dragged Tim free of the toppled concrete. They both stood, Tim wiping the powdery grit from the front of his shirt. "Mom's going to kill me. . . ." he began, then saw the arm. "What in heck . . .?"

Ronnie stepped toward the tombstone, his heart hammering in his ears.

Over his pulse, he could hear Whizzer: They got livers for eyes.

Ronnie veered toward the edge of the graveyard, Tim close behind.

"When I say run. . ." Ronnie whispered, his throat thick.

"L-looky there," Tim said.

Dorkwad didn't have enough brains to be scared. But Ronnie looked. He couldn't help it.

The body was crowded against the tombstone, the flannel shirt shredded, showing scoured flesh. The head was pressed against the white marble, the neck arched at a crazy angle. A thread of blood trailed from the matted beard to the ground.

"Boonie," Ronnie said, his voice barely as loud as the wind in the oak leaves.

There was a path trampled in the grass, coming from the underbrush that girded the graveyard. Boonie must have crawled out of the weeds. And whatever had done that to him might still be in the stand of trees. Ronnie flicked his eyes from Boonie to the church. Had something fluttered in the belfry?

A bird, a BIRD, you idiot .

Not the thing that Whizzer said lived in the red church.

Not the thing that trapped you and then got you, not the thing that had wings and claws and livers for eyes, not the thing that had made a mess of Boonie Houck's face.

And then Ronnie was running, tearing through the undergrowth, barely aware of the briars grabbing at his face and arms, of the scrub locust that pierced his skin, of the tree branches that raked at his eyes. He heard Tim behind him- at least he hoped it was Tim, but he wasn't about to turn around and check, because now he was on the gravel road, his legs were pumping in the rhythm of fear- NOT-the-thing, NOT-the-thing, NOT-the-thing -and he didn't pause to breathe, even as he passed Lester Matheson, who was on his tractor in the middle of a hayfield, even as he passed the Potter farm, even when geezery Zeb Potter hollered out Ronnie's name from his shaded front porch, even as Zeb's hound cut loose with an uneven bray, even as Ronnie jumped the barbed wire that marked off the boundary of the Day property, even as the rusty tin roof of home came into view, even as he saw Dad's Ranger in the driveway, even as he tripped over the footbridge and saw the sharp, glistening rocks of the creek bed below, and as he fell he realized he'd hit another turning point, found yet another way for the world to end, but at least this end wasn't as bad as whatever had shown Boonie Houck the exit door from everywhere.

AVAILABLE AT AMAZON THROUGH HAUNTED COMPUTER BOOKS

COMING SOON:

DRUMMER BOY : An excerpt from the new novel by Scott Nicholson

Copyright 2010 by Scott Nicholson

On an Appalachian Mountain ridge, three boys hear the rattling of a snare drum deep inside a cave known as “The Jangling Hole,” and the wind carries a whispered name.

A sheriff’s deputy loses his mind after firing at a mysterious figure in the woods.

An old man who grew up at the foot of the mountain believes something inside the Hole has been disturbed by a developer’s bulldozers.

Sheriff Frank Littlefield, haunted by his own past failures, must stand against a public enemy that bullets can’t harm. A skeptical local reporter hears about the supernatural mysteries and wants to find out about them for herself.

On the eve of a Civil War reenactment, the town of Titusville prepares to host a staged battle. The weekend warriors who don their replica uniforms and clean their black-powder rifles aren’t aware they will soon engage in mortal combat. This is a war between the living and the dead, because a troop of Civil War deserters, trapped in the Hole by a long-ago avalanche, are rising from their long slumber, and their mission is far from over.

And one only boy stands between the town and the cold mouth of hell…

CHAPTER ONE

The Jangling Hole glared back at Bobby Eldreth like the cold eye of the mountain, sleepy and wary and stone silent in the October smoke.

“Th’ow it.”

Bobby squeezed the rock and peered into the darkness, imagining the throbbing heartbeat that had drummed its slow rumble across the ages. The air that oozed from the Southern Appalachian cave smelled like mushrooms and bat crap. He could have sworn he heard something back there in the slimy, hidden belly of the world, maybe a whisper or a tinkle or the scraping of claws on granite.

“Th’ow it, doof.”

Bobby glanced back at his heckler, who sat on a sodden stump among the ferns. Dex McCallister had a speech impediment that occasionally cut the “r” out of his words. Right now, Dex was so intent on pestering Bobby that he failed to note the defect. Good thing. When Dex made a mistake, everybody paid.

“I hear something,” Bobby said.

“Probably one of them dead Rebels zipping down his pants to take a big squat,” Dex shouted. “Do it.”

Vernon Ray Davis, who stood in the hardwood trees behind Dex, said, “They didn’t have zippers back then. Nothing but bone buttons.”

Dex sneered at the skinny kid in the Atlanta Braves T-shirt. “What book did you get that out of? You’re starting to sound like Cornwad,” Dex said, using the class nickname for Mr. Corningwald, their eighth-grade history teacher.

Dex and Vernon Ray were thirty yards down the slope from Bobby, in a clearing safely away from the mouth of the cave. Not that any distance was safe, if what they said was true. The late-afternoon sun coated the canopy of red oak and maple with soft, golden light, yet Bobby shivered, due as much to the chill emanating from the cave as from his fear. The rock in his hand weighed as much as a sack of feed corn.

“I’ve been to the camps,” Vernon Ray said. “My daddy’s got all that stuff.”

“That’s just a bunch of guys playing dress-up,” Dex said.

“It’s authentic. 26th North Carolina Troops. Wool pants, breech loaders, wooden canteens—”

“Okay, Cornwad,” Dex said. “So they didn’t have no goddamn zippers.”

“Daddy said—”

“Your daddy goes to those reenactments to get away from your mom,” Dex said. “And you, too. My old man drags me along, but you always get left behind. What ya think of that, Cornwad?”

During Dex’s bullying, Bobby took the opportunity to ease a couple of steps back from the mouth of the cave. The noise inside it was steady and persistent, like a prisoner’s desolate scratching of a spoon against a concrete wall. The Hole seemed to be daring him to come closer. Bobby considered dropping the stone in his hand and pretending he had thrown it while Dex wasn’t looking. But Dex had a way of knowing things.

“Bobby’s chicken crap,” Vernon Ray said, changing the subject away from his dad and deflecting Dex’s attention.

Good one, V-Ray. I thought we were on the same side here.

Dex tapped a cigarette from a fresh pack, then pushed it in his mouth and let it dangle. “Ah, hell with it,” he said. “You can believe the stories if you want. I got better things to worry about.”

Relieved, Bobby took a step downhill but froze when he heard the whisper.

“ Earley.”

It was the wind. Had to be. The same wind that tumbled a gray pillar of smoke from the end of Dex’s cigarette, that quivered the trees, that pushed dead autumn leaves against his sneakers.

Still, his throat felt as if he’d swallowed the rock in his hand. Because the whisper came again, low, personal, and husked with menace.

“ Earrrr-leeee.”

A resonant echo freighted the name. If Bobby had to imagine the mouth from which the word had issued—and at the moment Bobby was plenty busy not imagining—it would belong to a dirty-faced, gaunt old man. But like Dex said, you could believe the stories if you wanted, which implied a choice. When in doubt, go with the safe bet .

“To hell with it,” Bobby said, putting extra air behind the words to hide any potential cracks. “I want me one of those smokes.”

He flung the rock—away from the cave, lest he wake any more of those skeletal men inside—and hurried down the slope, nearly slipping in his haste. One more whisper might have wended from the inky depths, but Bobby’s feet scuffed leaves and Dex laughed and Vernon Ray hacked from a too-deep draw and the music of the forest swarmed in: whistling birds, creaking branches, tinkling creek water, and the brittle cawing of a lonely crow.

Bobby joined his friends and sat on a flat slab of granite beside the stump. From there, the Hole looked less menacing, a gouge in the dirt. Granite boulders, pocked with lichen and worn smooth by the centuries, framed the opening, and stunted, deformed jack pines clung to the dirt above the cave. A couple of dented beer cans lay half-buried in the leaves, and a rubber dangled like a stubby rattlesnake skin from a nearby laurel branch. Mulatto Mountain rose another hundred feet in altitude above the cave, where it topped off with sycamore and buckeye trees that had been sheared trim by the high wind.

He took a cancer stick from Dex and fired it up, inhaling hard enough to send an inch of glowing orange along its tip. The smoke bit his lungs but he choked it down and then wheezed it out in small tufts. The first buzz of nicotine numbed his fingers and floated him slightly from his body. Relishing the punishment, he went back to mouth-smoking the way he usually did, rolling the smoke with his tongue instead of huffing it down.

“We ought to camp here sometime,” Dex said, smoking with the ease of the addicted. He played dress-up as much as the Civil War reenactors did, though his uniform of choice was upscale hoodlum—white T-shirt and a windbreaker that had “McCallister Alley” stitched over the left breast pocket. Three leaning bowling pins, punctured by a yellow starburst indicating a clean strike, were sewn beneath the label. Dex’s old man owned the only alley within 80 miles of Titusville, and about once a month Mac McCallister was lubed enough from Scotch to let the boys roll a few free games.

“It’ll be too cold to camp soon,” Vernon Ray said, constantly flicking ash from his cigarette like a sissy. Bobby was almost embarrassed for him, but at the moment he had other concerns besides his best friend maybe being queer.

Like the Jangling Hole, and whoever—or whatever —had spoken to him. The wind, nothing but the wind .

“Best time of year for it,” Dex said. “I can get my old man’s tent, swipe a couple six-packs, bring some fishing poles. Maybe tote my .410 and bag us a couple squirrels for dinner.”

“There’s a level place down by the creek,” Bobby said.

“Right here’s fine,” Dex said, sweeping one arm out in the expansive and generous gesture of one giving away something that wasn’t his. “Put the tent between the roots of that oak yonder. Already got a fireplace.” He booted one of the rocks that ringed a hump of charred wood.

“I don’t know if my folks will let me,” Vernon Ray said.

“Your dad’s doing Stoneman’s, ain’t he?” Dex dangled his cigarette from his lower lip. “Since he’s the big captain and all.”

Stoneman’s Raid was an annual Civil War reenactment that commemorated the Yankee incursion suffered by Titusville in 1864. The weekend warriors commemorated it by sleeping on the ground, drinking whiskey from dented canteens, and logging time in the saddle on rumps grown soft from too many hours in the armchair. If they were like Bobby’s dad, they spent their free time thumbing the remote between “Dancing With The Stars” and “The History Channel.”

“Sure,” Vernon Ray said, voice hoarse from the cigarette. He flicked his smoke twice, but no ash fell. “Mom will probably go to Myrtle Beach like usual.”

“The beach,” Dex said. “Wouldn’t mind eyeing some bikini babes myself.”

There was a test in Dex’s tone, maybe a taunt. Perhaps Dex, like Bobby, had been wondering about Vernon Ray’s sexual orientation. “What ya think, Bobby? Sandy squeeze sounds a lot better than watching a bunch of old farts in uniform, don’t it?”

Bobby’s gaze had wandered to the Hole again and he scanned the crisp line where the dappled sunlight met the black wall of hidden space that burrowed deep into Mulatto Mountain. As Dex called his name, Bobby blinked and took a deep, stinging puff. He spoke around the exhaled smoke, borrowing a line from his dad’s secret stash of magazines in the tool shed. “Yeah, wouldn’t mind plowing a tight little sun goddess.”

Dex reached out and gave Vernon Ray a chummy slap on the back that was loud enough to echo off the rocks. “Beats pounding the old pud, huh?”

Vernon Ray nodded and took a quick hit. He even held his cigarette like a sissy, his pinky lifted in the air as if communicating in some sort of delicate sign language. Vernon Ray, unlike most of the kids at Titusville Middle School, already had a hair style, a soft, wavy curl flopping over his forehead. Bobby wished he could protect his best friend, change him, rip that precious blonde curl out by the roots and turn him into a regular guy before Dex launched into asshole mode. When Dex got rolling, things went mean quick, and Vernon Ray’s eyes already welled with water, either from the smoke or the teasing.

“I heard something at the Hole,” Bobby said, not even realizing he was speaking until the sentence escaped.

“Do what?” Dex leaned forward, flicking his butt into the cold, dead embers of the campfire.

“Somebody’s in there.”

Dex twisted off a laugh that sounded like wheeze of an emphysema sufferer. “Something jangly, maybe? Bobby, you’re so full of shit it’s leaking out your ears.”

Vernon Ray looked at him with gratitude. Bambi eyes , Bobby thought. Pathetic .

Bobby put a little drama in it to grab Deke’s full attention. “It went ‘Urrrrr.’”

Deke snorted again. “Maybe somebody’s barfing.”

“Could have been a bum,” Bobby said. “Ever since they shut down the homeless shelter, I’ve seen them sleeping under the bridge and behind the Dumpster at KFC. They’ve got to go somewhere. They don’t just disappear.”

“Maybe they do,” Dex said. “I reckon those wino bastards better stay out of sight or they’ll run ‘em plumb out of the county.”

The shelter had been shut down through the insidious self-righteousness of civic pride. Merchants had complained about panhandling outside their stores and the Titusville Town Council had drafted an ordinance against loitering. However, the town attorney, a misplaced Massachusetts native who had married into the fifth-generation law firm that had ruled the town behind the scenes since Reconstruction, dug up some court rulings suggesting that such an ordinance would interfere with the panhandlers’ First Amendment rights. Since the town leaders couldn’t use the law as a whip and chair, they instead cut off local-government funding and drove the shelter into bankruptcy. Vernon Ray had explained all this to Bobby, but Bobby didn’t think it was that complicated. People who didn’t play by the rules lost the game, simple as that.

“Even a bum’s not stupid enough to sleep in the Hole,” Vernon Ray said. “Cold as a witch’s diddy in there.”

Dex grinned with approval. “That why you didn’t th’ow the rock, Bobby Boy? Afraid a creepy old crackhead might th’ow it back?”

“Probably just the wind,” Bobby said. “Probably there’s a bunch of other caves and the air went through just right.”

“Sure it wasn’t the Boys in Blue and Gray?” Dex said, thumbing another smoke from the pack. “Kirk’s See-Through Raiders?”

“Like you said, you can believe the stories if you want.” Still, Bobby’s gaze kept traveling to the oily orifice in the black Appalachian soil.

DRUMMER BOY . From Haunted Computer Books.

http://www.hauntedcomputerbooks.blogspot.com

Thanks for reading!

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