by Jack Logan


I see the veins of my city.

The rain pours down for the second day, torrential. The storm came on quickly. From my fourth story apartment I can see down several blocks, a few businesses were left abandoned with their lights still on. No matter how late at night, the streets always carry someone. A homeless man looking for a place to sleep, a few kids coming home from a party, a cabbie looking for another fare. But not in this weather. The streets are empty. I’ve been watching for hours.

It started with just a few glances out the window, a novel distraction from the television and computer. Then the power went out. I listened to music for a little while, but soon grew bored with all the songs I’ve heard before. So I stare out the window.

At first it’s just rain. The change comes steadily. At first it’s something I’m not sure I’m seeing. Like there was a painting, a masterpiece, just at the edge of my vision and I can’t turn to see it. But I stay still and watch. And it comes to me. It starts from the unevenness of the black pavement, rain built up in thin, shining pools and carried up again by the wind. Slowly, I caught on to the rhythm of it all. These thin pools jumped and shined in their own pulse, and I could see them leading off towards the center. The heart.

Just watching becomes maddening. The effect doesn’t change, but with each heartbeat it becomes more impressive and more important. And while I sit still watching, I become more and more of a coward.

I follow off in to the night.

I race down my building’s stairs into the lobby. I stop just in front of the glass door. Deciding, I flick the knob and head out to the storm. I’m soaked in an instant, so wet that the rain no longer matters. I concentrate on fighting through the wind. I run over to where I saw the rain pulsing, wondering if it was all a trick of the mind. It makes so much sense for it all to be a mistake. Boredom and darkness and these empty streets, together they could all warp the mind. Then it quakes beneath me. I’m standing on it. I race forward and turn, following the city’s blood flow.

I think the rain is curving on both sides of me, like I’m running down the middle of a separated ocean. It all comes together at my feet. Along with the wind, I kick up water with every step.

Racing along, I start to understand that the city’s heartbeat is quick, stressed. The faster I go, the more kinship I feel. Poor thing, it must always be this way. It always carries a great weight. Its people, and the buildings and pavement we have laid upon it. Stoic, it never shrugs. The few trees around me whip and crack. They are unnatural too, guided in their growth.

The details, things I should already know about the area, are blurred to me. It’s all a trace, a dull background. The only thing that matters is the twisting, pulsing path beneath my feet. I could run this path with my eyes closed if I had to.

Running through the wet and wild streets;

A broken madman’s howl erupts.

A high-pitched noise, sounding like a man impersonating a sick dog impossibly builds, comes down from above me. The edge leaves phantom scars on my back, I slip and fall into the wet streets. I fumble for my footing, and finally look up. A few stories above me, a shade stands on a rusty fire escape. The thing is folded, partially resting on the rail. Whatever it’s looking at doesn’t interest it too much. I wait for a flicker of a street lamp or a sudden lightning bolt to show me what it is. Nothing comes.

The shade doesn’t move, and a heavy knot ties itself in my stomach. It is fear. The shadow’s stillness, its coy disinterest, and its calm during this storm are all terrifying. My break, my moment to move, comes when I feel the city’s heartbeat once again. It shakes me to my senses, and I flee along its path.

It was a rescue, the city’s tremors. I would have died there otherwise, crushed by the fear, suffocated by the waiting, and unmade by that night terror. I think one more time about its shriek, and I run faster.

A thick passage to step on through;

On the other side, a cold hush.

With enough distance, I start to regain myself. I remember what’s important, why I’m braving the water and the wind. Although I don’t think I could take my feet off their pounding path. But to think about it, to reflect on it, is to not think at all. It becomes instinctual. I don’t know where my feet carry me, I only know that I must continue.

The wind howls, a low, pained roar. The water beneath me kicks up suddenly, drowning me for just an instant. I snort and spit and cough it all out, take a breath, and continue on. Even in my drive, with the road leading me, it doesn’t take long to realize the water is falling thicker.

At first I keep my head down and plow through. I continue on, even through my wavering I can feel the guiding pressure underneath my feet. I keep my hand waving out in front, so I don’t run into anything. A foolish thought, I’m in the middle of an empty road. But before too long, my hand plunges into a cool depth. I look up. There is no rain in front of me. The water is a wall. It doesn’t move, or ripple. It stands tall. I feel a pulse under my feet. I must go forward. Inhale and go forward.

The water’s cool, without any current to fight against. I keep moving, somehow I know I wouldn’t float to the top. The water is thick and hard to move through, but my feet stay on the ground as if I’m wearing lead shoes.

A cool blue floats all around me. When I can force my eyes open, the impassable void surrounds me.

The air in my chest grows hot and expands. My neck tenses, and I start thrashing my arms in hopes that I can propel myself forward. I can’t see an exit, but I can’t except that I’ll die here. The escape will be there when I need it, it has to be. Death here would be utter disgrace.

My hand pierces the liquid barrier. Still all I can see is the blue void, but the air tingling my wet fingers tells me to push. My hand passes through with no effort, but I have to force my way out. I have one last push in me, and it mercifully frees me. I collapse on the hard ground, coughing out water.

The exploded soul, thrown and hung;

The bleeding of reality;

Concrete and power unchained.

I reel but I stand. While the air is damp, no rain falls on the other side of the city. There is no sky. A solid looking greenish-grey hovers in the air where clouds and thin air should fly. There are no buildings here, but thin panes of glass shoot up and scrape the edge of this world’s barrier. I get close to one. Inside, the glass is haunted by the dull reflection of a man asleep on the subway. The colors are all dark and his skin is mostly transparent, the man is mostly an outline. He bobs up and down, rocked by the phantom train he rides.

With a voyeuristic fascination, I go to look for another panel. They’re all around, but walking to them is no easy task. Familiar concrete slabs line the ground, but they are elevated and spaced out. Looking between the gaps, this land is built on dirty metal and pistons. The metal hisses at me, steam breaking free from the rust and sludge that clogs the underground layers of this strange slice of the world. I take care when crossing each gap.

Other than the glass and the concrete, it was a barren plane. A few trees were scattered around, all in the distance. They lacked leaves, just burnt black sticks jutting out into the world.

The window panes were not scattered at random. They were placed down like dots that could connect into circles. Each circle was smaller than the one before it, fitting inside in proportion. I couldn’t see the center, but I walked towards it.

Each pane I passed gave me another glimpse at diluted life. People eating, sleeping, talking to one another. All their movements seemed very deliberate, like a puppet on strings being guided for an audience. Was it for me, I wondered. Or did these shows have a purpose without anyone watching?

Closer to the center the steam starts getting hotter. I watch the hot mist gush out at its whistling pace. Paying close attention to my steps, it takes me awhile to realize I know the pace. The steam comes out in tune to the city’s heartbeat. The thing I followed unquestioning like a lunatic is once again presenting itself to me. Hot steam jets out. I’m getting closer to the center.

The world drops down. The center is a large pit, and I’m a step away from being able to look down in to it. My curiosity and my caution are split evenly and locked. It might’ve stayed that way forever, but I have nowhere else to go anymore.

I look over the edge. A thumping, mechanical muscle is tightly wedged into the pit. It scrapes against the walls as it expands. There is no soft flesh here. The bulk of it is made of shining steel and mirrors, all of which is littered with black cables plugging in and feeding it. Every beat is signaled with the moan of heavy steel being bent back and forth. A thick blue sludge seeps out of the pores of the heart, seeping right through all the imperfect cracks. The heart contracts, and hot steam shoots out all around the world.

I look down, mesmerized. All sorts of distorted reflections can be seen. I recognize the famous buildings and statues of my city immediately, even in the warped glass. These mirrors, which lie a great distance beneath me, highlight the details of their images. In one small panel I spot a varnished statue I must have passed a thousand times. A man on horseback. And for the first time I realize how fierce his eyes are.

Eventually, in this sea of images, my eyes drift to the reflection in one piece of glass, standing askew. I look down and see myself. I am an intruder.

The metal bends sharply and a hot wind rushes out of the pit. Irresistible black cables snag me and pull me down into the heart. Through the cracks, my underarms brush against the blue sludge. I am dragged through one of the cracks, stopped when I’m brought to the center, inside the heart.

I gaze up. My time spent looking down was so meaningless. Here I see my city explode out all around me from my godlike view. I see the streets I walk every day, and see how they really run together. I see the relationships between the streets and the people—some symbiotic, some parasitic. I see all those huddled at home, hiding from the storm. And then I hear the noise.

Car horns, trains rumbling, children laughing, couples making love—all the sound hits me wave after wave. But I sense what the noise will become as well. The car horn will bleat and not move an inch. The train will never stop rumbling. The child’s laughter will turn to crying without an explanation. The couple will wake up the next morning and forget they made up last night. These noises, and infinite others, repeat over and over with no pattern and no hope of escape. The symphony of cataclysm.

The cables that bind me tighten. That blue sludge starts to burn at my arms. And slowly I am being enveloped by a green growth, a fungus that looks like it belongs under a leaky pipe. This is agony, but my thoughts are of sympathy. This entity, so large, so fractured, can’t decide how to dispose of me. I look up, at what is sure to be my last sight. In that great, big mirror I can see the storm in my city is starting to pass.

A near-dead husk is returned;

A terrified life moving on.

A pair of hands beat on my stomach. On the hard filthy sidewalk of my city, I puke up water. I can taste it this time, a metallic taste. Shivering, I grab on to the man who looms over me. “Looks like you’re going to make it.” He wraps me in a warm blanket. “Jesus. What were you doing out here during that mess.”

I think hard, trying to catch my brain up to everything that happened to me. I realize no matter what I say about my experience, it won’t be believed. “I just lost myself.”

“I guess so,” he said. “Come over to the car. We’ll take you home.”

I step into the back seat of the police car and we drive off. I peek under the blanket at my arms. My once pale forearms are burnt a crispy brown. The green fungus drips beneath my fingernails. I look out the car window at all the familiar streets.

The ground beats beneath me. That heartbeat crawls up my legs and pushes down on my own chest. I suffocate. I know I will never have another full breath.


In the Absence of Eubeniks

by Andrew Hoffman


Betty sat in a brown leather chair, angles of light slicing through the blinds, waiting for Speery to enter. His office was filled with computer boards, fiber-optic wiring, fuses and other assorted electrical devices and parts, but Betty wasn’t interested in anything other than the arrival of Speery.

“There you are!” Speery said as he came into the office, his voice loud and jovial.

“Yes, sir. As you requested.”

Speery made his way around the desk and sat. “How are you this fine morning?”

“I do not understand, sir.”

“Right,” Speery said, tapping his head with his fingers. “I don’t usually bring servants in here. I forgot who I was speaking to.”

“Do you have a command for me, sir?”

“In a way.” Speery cleared his throat. “Who’s scheduled for your next maintenance, Betty?”

“Eubeniks, sir.”

“And when was it last done?”

“Two months ago, sir. I have approximately one month until my next appointment.”

Speery grunted to himself and coughed. “That should work fine, then.”

“Do you have another command, sir?”

Speery smiled. “How would you feel about an upgrade?”

“I would feel nothing.”

Speery nodded and didn’t speak for a few moments. Then he excused Betty.


Betty went about her late morning routine as usual. Clearing the table, emptying the trash, feeding the animals. Norman, the other servant, assisted her.

“Norman, one hour until lunch preparations begin. You should go sit,” Betty said after they had completed the morning tasks. “Return at twelve.”

“Yes, Betty.” Norman walked out of the room, up the stairs, and into the second room on the right. He shut the door behind him, sat in his chair, and went to sleep.

Betty walked to the edge of the dining room and stood next to a tall lamp. Suddenly, Speery ran into the room.

“Betty, quickly, come with me!”

Betty followed. “Sir?” she asked as they entered Speery’s office.

“Eubeniks has informed me that I may complete your quarterly maintenance.”

“Yes, sir.”

A metal foldout table had been set up next to his desk. He motioned for Betty to lie down.

“What about lunch, sir?” Betty asked as she climbed up on to the table.

“I’ve no appetite for food,” Speery said, excitement bubbling below his voice. “We have a long afternoon before us.”

Betty went to sleep and Speery lifted the panel on her back to expose the myriad of wires that existed below the surface. He gazed in, daydreaming about what futures were ahead for the electricity that shot through those wires.

Forty-five minutes later, Norman returned to the empty kitchen. He walked to the corner of the room and went to sleep, waiting for Betty to return.


Speery gave the insides of Betty a proper cleaning, leaving them shining as brightly as the day they had been crafted. He spent the better part of four hours wrist deep inside his patient. The last thing he did was remove a small chip from one of Betty’s internal boards and replaced it with a chip that looked nearly identical. Nearly, but not completely.


Betty threw the large doors open wide when she returned to the kitchen that evening. A short film clip played in her head: A human standing on the edge of a cliff, breathing in the air, arms lifted. Betty felt an energy course through her that she had never experienced before.

Norman was still asleep in the corner of the room, silent and lifeless.

“Norman, open your eyes and witness it all!”

Norman’s eyes lit up. “Yes, Betty, my eyes are open.”

Betty went to each side of the room, opening all the doors and windows. “Look at all this,” she said. She spun in a circle to see it all in one panorama.

Another film clip played in her head: A young human whose mouth slowly widens and curls into a sly grin.

Betty slowly turned to Norman. He had been watching her, taking in the peculiar information of her actions. “We must prepare an outstanding meal. Can we do that, Norman?”

“Yes, Betty.”

Betty was suddenly troubled. Everything seemed too formal for her. Too tight and rehearsed and devoid of life.

She put her hand on Norman’s shoulder. “Don’t sound so resigned when you say yes. Say it from somewhere down here,” she said, pointing at his hollow chest and making head movements as she spoke that neither she nor Norman understood, trying to add a certain style and emphasis to the words through body language.

“Betty?” Norman asked, peering down at his chest, hoping for further explanation.

“Down here!” Betty said, moving her head a little more while tapping on her own chest. “But don’t talk,” she said, almost interrupting her own instruction, holding up one hand to Norman as if to hush him. “Let the day soak into you and you into it!” She laughed in a short, choppy burst. Her vocal capacity did not allow for all-out laughter.

“Betty, are you malfunctioning?”

“I hope so,” she said, surveying Norman’s mechanical movements. A third short film clip played in her head: A human is putting groceries in the trunk of their car. Another human gets out of their car a few spaces down. Their eyes meet and there is an odd moment.

The light in Betty’s eyes flickered.


They served salami sandwiches and soup for dinner. Betty made slight alterations to the recipe, which secretly delighted Speery. She was showing a creative spark. After Speery had swallowed his first spoonful of soup, Betty leaned toward him. “So?” she asked.

“Very good, Betty. Possibly less salt next time. But very good.”

“Too much salt!” she scolded herself. “I would have tasted it but…” She pointed at her mechanical mouth and that was explanation enough.

“We all have limitations, Betty. We only need to identify and conquer them when possible,” Speery said. “The difficult part is learning to work alongside the things that are insurmountable.”

A short film clip played in Betty’s head: A young human with no legs shuffles down a set of stone steps on their hands.

“What are you thinking?”

“Sir?” Betty asked, resurfacing into the moment.

“It looked as if you were lost in thought.”

Betty thought about what Speery had said. “I don’t fully understand your comment, but thank you.” She walked to the corner of the room, stood next to Norman, and put her hand on his shoulder.

“Do you have a command for me?” Norman asked.

“I have no commands for you.”

Norman looked at the hand on his shoulder but did not say anything.

Speery watched the perplexing situation as he finished his bowl of salty soup. Eventually he stood and left the room, leaving the two servants alone in the corner.


Later that evening, Betty knocked on Sperry’s office door. Speery called for her to enter. She opened the door but could not bring herself to walk into the room.

“I wondered how long it would take you to ask,” Speery said.

“To ask what?”

“What you’re thinking about right now.”

“How do you know I’m thinking at all?”

Speery stood and walked around the desk to her. “Because,” he said, “you have certain traits that can’t make you anything but curious.”

This confused Betty.

“Sit,” Speery said, pointing to the brown leather chair that she had sat on earlier that day. Speery walked back around the desk and sat in his own brown leather chair.

“Ask me the question that is most prevalent in your mind.”

Betty paused. “Well… I have visions now.” She paused again. “Movies that accompany my thoughts.”

Speery opened his desk drawer and retrieved a small data chip. “Do you see this?”

Betty nodded.

“This changed your life. Not this chip exactly, but one very similar.” Speery took a moment to look the chip over. “I’ve been working on this for months. Years. These chips are outlawed because they’ve caused unforeseeable issues in the past. But I’ve loaded a short bit of film corresponding to each feeling that you now process. I believe I’ve made these feelings more manageable by giving a context to align them with.”

“And Norman?”

Speery leaned his head on his hand and exhaled. “I briefly considered this possibility, but honestly, I’m surprised.”

“Will he get this chip? Will his life change?”

“Later maybe. Let’s see what happens with you.” Speery smiled. “Now, off to bed. Go see if you can dream a dream.”

Betty climbed the wooden staircase and followed the hall to the room where Norman had already retired. She charged next to him every night, but that night felt very different. She sat and watched him instead of turning herself off. The energy surging through her body felt like waves of heat thrumming and pulsing. A short film clip played in her head: A beach full of humans lying face down on towels, enjoying the sun. Hundreds of them. One turns over but it’s not a human, it’s Norman. His blank face looks up at the sky. Then more and more turn over. All of them with Norman’s face. All of them staring up, not at the sky but at the sun.

After the clip ended, Betty sat in her chair until nearly four in the morning. She turned her lit eyes toward Norman and could see the light reflecting back from his. He sat in his seat without stirring, a dead mechanical stillness for the moonlit hours. Suddenly, a very human thought entered Betty’s head.

A short film clip cued: An old human wise in eyes and lines of the face is shaking their head and mouthing the word NO. Betty shut off the clip. She glanced over at Norman’s unmoving frame and made up her mind.

Betty lightly descended the wooden stairs and crossed the house to Speery’s office. She tried the door but it was locked. She softly walked to the settee at the end of the hall and pulled the right side away from the wall. A silver key sat on the floor, the same one she had seen Speery use when he had misplaced his ring of keys weeks earlier.

The office door swung open with a very slight creak. Betty stood very still and listened for footsteps. After a few soundless moments she proceeded into Speery’s office, walked around his desk, and sat in his chair. She looked at the chair across the desk that she had sat in only a few hours before. The foldout table where she had been stretched out for her cleaning was still in the corner. She briefly admired the quiet of the room. A short film clip flicked on: A motion x-ray of a heart beating much too fast. She didn’t fully understand the clip, but could feel the emotion it was trying to help her understand. The emotion was enough.

She pulled out the drawer that contained the chip Speery had showed her earlier. She held the chip up and examined the small, flat square of information. She was astounded that a small inanimate collection of data could so wholly change a life. Another choppy laugh escaped her, a laugh that celebrated all that was stored in the little chip, while at the same time revering what it could do for poor, lifeless Norman, who unknowingly waited upstairs to be released from his cold cell of servitude.


Norman’s eyes lit up.


“Yes,” he said, first looking around the room then back at Betty. “Is there an emergency?”

“Norman, I have a command for you.”

“What is it?”

“Can you lie on the floor?”

Without hesitating, he stood from his seat and lowered himself to the ground. Betty released the latch to the panel on his back.

“What is this command for?” Norman asked.


“What is your purpose?”

“This is not entirely a command… it’s a favor.”

“I do not complete favors, I complete commands.” Norman’s voice was calm and even.

“Stop talking Norman. In a few minutes you will have better things to say.”


“Stop!” she yelled.

Norman’s eyes dimmed. Betty felt her insides sink. A clip played in her head: A large human is shoving a small human. The larger one laughs as they push. The smaller human takes the abuse without response. Betty stopped the clip. This is different, she thought. This is a blessing.

Betty’s hands maneuvered the foreign landscape of Norman’s insides. Finally, she found a chip that was identical in size. She plucked out the old chip and replaced it with the new. She reset Norman, rolled him over, and waited.

All was silent, save for the night-creaks of the house. Betty felt confused yet elated by her own actions. She waited anxiously.

Norman was an older model that took longer to reset but his eyes finally flicked back on. To Betty they seemed like two candle flames in the dim early morning room.

Norman sat up, swiveled his head from one side of the room to the other. “Where am I?” he asked.

“In the residence of Reginald Speery,” Betty replied.

He lifted his hands, studied them. “Who are you?”

“My name is Betty.”

“Betty Speery?”

“No, just Betty.” She felt a very human pang of sadness due to the fact that she had not known how to do a partial reset like she had gone through during her own upgrade. She had completely reset his memory. The very Norman with whom she had cooked a thousand meals, had charged next to hundreds of nights, looked at her with blank, unfamiliar eyes.

“Huh?” Norman said. “Look at that.”

Betty followed his gaze to a streetlamp beaming light outside the window. Norman stood and briefly moved his legs and arms with curiosity, then walked out of the room and down the stairs.

“Norman, where are you going?”

Norman didn’t reply, opened the front door, and disappeared into the dark early morning. Betty followed, closing the door after herself. Norman made his way to the corner where the streetlamp was located, stood very still, and marveled up at the light that glowed down at him.

“A much grander streetlamp will rise in the sky in a couple hours, you know,” Betty said, not knowing what else might get his full attention.

“I’d like to see that.”

“You’ll have to. There’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.”


Norman continued down the street, from lamp to lamp, gazing up into the lights. Betty tried to talk him back toward home, but he kept on down the street, mysteriously attracted to anything that emitted light. He was mindlessly fascinated. He only spoke when spoken to. Otherwise, he moved from one lamp to the next, with only a short reflective pause at each.

Betty began to worry as they strayed further from home. This was an emotion she didn’t particularly enjoy. A film clip turned on in her head: A montage of children walking away from their parents. The shots zoom in beyond the children to the worried faces of their parents. It made Betty feel sick.

“Norman, where are you going?”

“Toward the light.”

Betty had heard the phrase used by humans when discussing death. Death—a word that had meant so little to her until very recently. A film clip cued in her head but she turned it off before it could start.She had no interest in watching. The feeling was, once again, more than enough. An invisible pool rose up and consumed her. She was trying to tread water in her emotion and was failing.


Betty was wrenched out of her melancholy by Norman’s innocent voice. The deluge subsided. She looked over at Norman, still in his familiar pose, staring up at the man-made light. She realized she was surrounded by light-posts, a bench under each one. A gathering place for humans. Betty lifted her eyes skyward and turned in a circle to view them all.

“This really is something,” she said, realizing the beauty of the lights in a group.

“So, you see it? You believe.” Norman asked.

“I never doubted.” She was going to add another thought but nothing sounded quite right.

Norman lay down on the concrete, face up, taking in the abundance of illumination. Betty looked down at him. He gleamed brilliantly in the abundance of light. Betty lowered herself next to him. Just the two of them, surrounded by light on all sides, like two small rafts adrift in a vast sea. They gave themselves up to all that was around them.

Suddenly, the lamps hummed and turned off. The sun wasn’t fully up, but a mist of sunlight had risen in the east, breezily flooding over the mountains and down into the valley. The sun would finish heaving itself over the horizon in a matter of minutes. Betty and Norman didn’t move or talk. The silence and the pale glow in the air resuscitated any beauty that may have faded by night.

“Hey!” a voice rang out, shattering the fragile moment.

Betty sat up quickly and looked around. Two policemen stood just outside of the circle of lampposts.

“What are you two doing?” one of the policemen asked.

Betty and Norman didn’t say anything.


“Nothing,” Betty said, she motioned to Norman. “He was running low on power, so we stopped.”

“Why would that help?”

The lie made a film click on in her head: A dog chasing its tail, never succeeding, round and round forever.

“I do not know why we thought it would help.”

The policemen crept in closer, hands gripped on their electric clubs.

“We were just leaving, I swear it.”

The first policeman glanced over at the second. “You what?” the second asked.

“Nothing,” said Betty. A cold and bottomless feeling took over Betty’s wire-filled belly. Norman was still on the ground next to her. She slowly got up.

“I’ve never heard a servant swear to anything.” The second policeman turned to the first. “You?”

He shook his head. “No, I haven’t.”

“What?” Betty asked without effect.

“What command are you fulfilling?” the first policeman asked.

“To… go to town.”

“In order to do what?”

“Fill an order at… Westphal’s,” Betty said, a liar’s gap split the response into two distinct parts.

“Really? Going to the store at—” the policeman checked the time on his watch, “—at six-thirty in the morning?”

Betty remained firm in her lie. “Yes.”

“Turn around, please,” the first policeman said.

“Why?” Betty started to backpedal.

The two policemen rushed to either side of her and dropped her to the ground with two solid blows from their electric clubs. She turned to look at Norman who was still lying on his back, motionless. She never had the chance to ask him why he didn’t stand. She never asked him anything again.

“Enough of this,” one of the policemen said just before everything went dark for Betty.


Betty’s eyes lit up. She was in a strange, impersonal room. Nothing on the walls, shelves packed with binders and crates and manila folders—a room full of the unnecessary and forgotten. Speery was propped up against the wall reading.

“Where are we?” Betty asked. She tried to sit up and realized she had been strapped down.

“Keep still,” Speery said, looking up from his book.

Betty settled back down, the shameful feeling of restraint soaked and boiled in her joints. A film clip appeared in her head: A small animal caught in a steel trap. It is afraid and angry and not brave enough to gnaw off its clamped limb.

“Where are we?”

“At the police station,” Speery said. “You strayed too far from home.”

“Norman wouldn’t come back.”

“You should have let him go.”

“I couldn’t do that.” Betty saw Norman lying on another table, also strapped down. His face was directed at the fluorescent lights but no brightness came from his own eyes. He was turned off.

Speery smiled sadly. “That makes you decent.And like many decent people, it is that trait which can get you in a bind. Can ruin you.”

“What do you mean?”

“It means…” Speery looked at her sympathetically yet professionally. He exhaled and blinked, grasping for the right words. “You have something in you that feels very much like a heart.” Speery put his hand on her shoulder. “I’ve been given the unfortunate task, by the authorities, of breaking that heart. I’m sorry.”

All feeling rushed out of Betty. All that existed in her body was the floating sensation of a distant cloud. Suddenly, a lightning bolt shot down from that cloud. Betty flailed in her straps. She violently jolted her arms and thrashed her legs, but the straps held tight.

“Stop,” Speery said. “Stop.” The command was tenderly spoken.

“What is going to happen?”

“What has been ordered to happen.”

Betty focused on the ceiling. Not on the lights but on the drab white ceiling tiles. They were perfect. A phalanx of bland squares that formed a chessboard of a single tone. No other side to strategize against, a peaceful land not at war.

“Why did you do this to me?” Betty asked.

“To see what would happen. And I wasn’t let down.”

Betty kept her eyes on the ceiling.

“You knew it was a finite gift. I encoded that as best I could in the chip. I didn’t want to tell you. I wanted you to feel it, just the way I feel in my guts that my own life is very limited.”

“You gave me so much to want and so little time. Tomorrow. Next year. A decade. It’s not enough. It was cruel.”

“I know. Life is a majestic cruelty. But we all drink from that same cup. Though fools don’t linger on the fact that the cup will one day be empty. At least you had a sip.” Speery stopped for a moment. “I hope you enjoyed it because now I’m forced to pour the rest out.”

“Was he a fool?” Betty asked, looking at Norman.

“Yes, but in the best way. He didn’t have film clips loaded on his chip. He had no context for his first feeling, so he clutched onto it tightly and didn’t let go.”

Betty saw a film clip in her head: Norman lying on the concrete staring up at the glow from the streetlamps that encircled them. It was a memory, not a preloaded clip. A short burst of pride surged through her.

Outside, the sun had risen over the eastern mountains and a clear, wintery morning glare was shooting lines of sunlight through the partially closed blinds.

“Can you show Norman the sun before you remove his chip? I told him about it but I don’t think he understood what I was talking about. I would like for him to understand.”

Speery thought about it for a moment, then walked over and twisted the plastic pole to open the blinds. He went over to Norman and lifted him up enough to slide his hand under his back and power him on. His eyes slowly brightened.

“Huh?” he said.

“Nothing, Norman,” Speery said. “There is nothing to wonder about.”

Norman spotted the fluorescent lights on the ceiling and lost himself in them. Speery walked over to the door and turned the light switch off.

“Oh,” Norman said.

“Would you like to see something better?”

“I think so.”

Betty didn’t speak and Norman didn’t take notice of her across the room. She watched his child-like focus on what mesmerized him as if she was watching a film clip in her head. She learned something about how she felt from watching him.

Speery asked, “Do you like that?”

“I think so,” Norman said. Speery let him stare at the sun for a full minute, then lifted him up and powered him off.

“What a way to go,” Speery said.

He turned his attention back to Betty. All of the emotions in Betty swelled up to a crescendo and ignited her insides. She couldn’t control them. She didn’t want to. Speery walked over and slid his hand under her back. Betty turned her head toward the lifeless shell of Norman.

“The sweet memory of dreams to you,” Speery said.

“Yes,” Betty replied.

Speery turned her off.


After The Flash

by Kyle Hildebrandt


“In the beginning…” The High Red Witch intoned words from high atop the central sarsen of the Henge. Her silken robes fluttered. “God said, ‘Let there by light,’ and there was the Flash. Seeing that it was good, She separated the light from the darkness.” Her words echoed off of the stones and out over the hundreds of gathered souls from the disparate clans. Twilight began as the setting sun dipped into the Solstice Notch, signaling the start of the wedding ceremony. From her vantage point, the witch eyed the sinuous line of packed, grey earth that divided the brides, who donned multi-colored silken robes, from the groom-choices, who were shrouded in their black-burlap cloaks. She continued the Reading, telling of how God had created the heavens and the earth, the fish of the sea, and the animals to rule the land… how She had created woman to rule over all, and man as her companion—to faithfully serve woman. As the witch finished, for a moment, in the distance, she thought that she had seen a woman with an unruly mane of red hair furrow her brow at the witch’s final words. Shrugging the thought of the amber-haired woman aside, she began the call and response portion of the ceremony.

As Lilith mouthed the familiar refrains, she wondered if the red witch had noticed her moment of bare doubt. Did the witch’s powers include the ability to read someone’s innermost thoughts? She shivered, as her mother’s voice whispered deep inside:

The Flash wasn’t the beginning. It was an end. A death. A death to a terrible, but glorious age. When giant swords stabbed the sky, when men flew in birds made of silver and gold. Yes. Once upon a time, men ruled over the Earth, not women. And when the Flash came, it ended it all—wiping out nearly everything they had created… leaving all men fallow and barren—completely sterile. After the Flash, men were helpless… useless… unable to contribute to reproducing life. After the Flash, witches have had their way with the world.

Grimacing, she managed to squelch her mother’s burning, heretical words… still; she didn’t dare to smother her cherished memories. Her hair had been amber-hued, not unlike Lilith’s. The way it would have danced and sparkled and lit up her smiling face in this dying light. She had smelled like nothing else Lilith had ever smelled. She had said it was the smell of the Broken Mountain, where her distant clan had come from. How she missed her. Lilith begrudgingly returned her attention back to her dutiful responses. She couldn’t take the chance that the witch might spot her being anything less than devoutly concentrated on the holy words the crowd chanted back to her prompts.

“So God created womankind in her own image…”

“In the image of God she created her.”

“Man to serve; Woman to create…”

“Joined together now in this blissful state.”

The muscles in Lilith’s neck cinched. Blissful state. Lilith swallowed. Her mouth was dry. Within minutes, she would have to decide which of the three groom-choices the witches had nominated for her would be her husband.

As her eyes scanned the three banners of each of her groom-choices, she tried to comfort herself. After all, she was a woman. She could marry all three if she wanted to. Or none at all, if that was her preference. Remembering how well her mother and father had loved one another before their lives were cut down so abruptly, Lilith felt the pang of bittersweet emotion, then, tucking it aside, set her mind to the task at hand.

After focusing on the horse’s head banner of the Eros Clan, Lilith’s intent gaze dropped to the man holding the standard. She eyed him carefully. It was difficult to tell one man from another because all wore the dester—the burlap, black-hooded robe that covered all of a man’s body and face except for his mouth and chin. Since it was so difficult to tell one from another, each groom-choice carried a banner that flew his clan emblem, making it easier for the brides to identify their possible husbands.

Even without the horse’s head banner, Lilith would have been able to recognize the angular, square jaw and broad shoulders of her first groom-choice, Paul. At the nomination ceremony, some had chattered about how good he was with horses—that he’d bring two dozen steeds with him as a dowry, that he was skilled at ploughing, planting, harvesting, breeding, and all of the other skills a man needed to be able to do to maintain a wife’s lands. Even among men, he was respected and liked. Lilith bit her lip. She imagined what it would be like to have the other women’s admiring eyes follow her as Paul walked the requisite ten steps behind her through the village market.

Next to the bucking standard of the Eros clan spun the swirling banners of the Spiral Sun Clan. Benjamin’s clan. She smiled. Years ago, when they were still considered to be children, she had met Benjamin at a solstice ceremony just like this one. They had had so much in common. Both grew up like wildflowers, only half cared for by distant relations. As orphans, they had been extended a combination of pity and dismissive inattention that had made it possible for a gangly girl with hair made of fire to play with a wide-eyed, imaginative, and introverted boy. Even the witches had looked the other way when they had come tearing through the crowds. The two of them had continued like this solstice after solstice. Then, one year, an old crone had caught Benjamin scavenging for firewood. When the crone spat at him, asking him what he was up to, little Benjamin, without blinking, replied, “My wife bade me to make her a fire against the cold, so I—” The crone had snatched his ear and brought him before a red witch before he could finish. And when the witches had finished with him, he couldn’t sit down for the rest of the days-long celebration. After that day, he had never looked at, spoken to, or touched Lilith since.

Still, she wondered how well his painted pots would be able to keep food on the table for a future family. Not that she would need his help to start a family, in the most literal sense. For that, they would need to take a pilgrimage to the City of Life, where she would pray the Prayer of Seven Days among the white witches. Afterward, God willing, she would be with child.

Beside Benjamin, Lilith’s eyes stumbled upon the slithering snake banner of the Clan of Vipers. Lilith blushed as she located John, her third groom-choice. He was a jokester and a trickster. A troublemaker, if you asked some. However, she could not deny that her heart beat faster when she considered how light and carefree her life would be with him—and how pleasurable, too, if the gossip was true.

She considered her groom-choices again, weighing each one carefully. The time was approaching. She wondered if she had the courage to go through with what she had planned. Her nails dug half-moon shapes into her palms.

The High Red Witch tossed her arms toward the stars, releasing the women to make their choices. All around her, brides were stepping forward, clasping the hands of groom-choices, and uttering the words “I thee wed.” The sentence sounded like a staccato drum beat from every angle. Some brides had two or three groom-choices gathered about, speaking the solemn words to each in turn. Lilith wobbled and stumbled forward. After righting herself for a moment, she tottered, and then she plunged and fell. A hand grasped her wrist, preventing her from falling flat out on her face. Hearing a collective gasp from the nearby women, Lilith looked up to see that the hand that held her wrist was Benjamin’s. Her face burned. Lilith hoped it was crimson enough. Men were forbidden to touch women, especially in public, and especially without permission—no matter what the circumstances.

Within a second, Lilith slipped out of Benjamin’s hold while simultaneously snatching his wrist in her hand. Gracefully standing to full height, she said, smiling, “Benjamin… I thee wed.” Relieved to feel the crowd of women around her let out a collective groan of sudden understanding while those closest to her offered half-embraces, Lilith let out a slow, almost imperceptible sigh. At last, she glanced at the visible lower half of Benjamin’s face. He was unable to hide the upward curls in the corner of his mouth.

Her gamble had worked. She imagined the happiness that would have been on her mother’s face… but she dared not look up at the central sarsen. She swore she could feel the eyes of the red witch boring into her back.


The first few months of marriage passed pleasantly and happily for Lilith and Benjamin. His pots sold better than she had expected. He had proven to be a tenacious, if not naturally gifted, farmer. In the quiet hours of the evening, he proved to be much more open and loquacious than the shy, introspective boy she had first met all those solstice’s ago. At night, he was passionate and gentle, satisfying Lilith’s needs more often than not. In short, Benjamin exceeded her expectations in every way possible.

And… she almost laughed to herself at times… he chose me as much as I chose him.

Her mother would have been so proud.

Her life was happiness.

The shadow of the past was fading.

She was starting a new life.

The day of her cycle came and nothing happened.

She shrugged it off initially, trying desperately to avoid the thought, bending her mind to discussing the daily business at hand with the other women in the market. Still, the feeling that somehow, someway, life was growing inside of her haunted her every step. Another day passed. Nothing. And then another. Nothing again. It isn’t possible! She screamed to herself… but her body wasn’t lying.

As she wandered the streets of the village, her head was swimming with thoughts of what might be. Soon, she found that she was lost. When she looked up to get her bearings, there was the house. A shiver shot down her spine. Nothing was left but charred timbers. Weeds and wildflowers had taken over. A young sapling wound its way through the black cage of what had once been her home. She sank to her knees. There was the low stone wall where she had hidden. In an instant, she was there again. It was all happening again. She could see and hear it all, standing on tiptoes, her eyes peeking over the low wall. Tears splattered the dust. Screams echoed in her mind.


That night, she needed Benjamin more than ever. She took him into her as if he were life itself. She hungered for a reminder that she was alive, that they were alive. Afterward, they lay together peacefully intertwined in one another’s arms. Staring into his eyes, she relished the opportunity to indulge in this intimate moment with her beloved husband. A moment that would have been absolutely forbidden in public. With a rush, the charred remains of the house sprang forward, burning away all other thoughts.

“Lilith… what troubles you?”

The charred home blew away into ashes. She saw Benjamin’s wide eyes in the firelight.

“Benjamin.” She raised herself up onto an elbow. “There’s something we’ve never talked about.”

“Something? There are quite a few things.”

He was right. She wondered where to start. Everything was interconnected and entangled. Huffing, she decided to start at the first point that came to mind. “We’ve never talked about how we knew each other when we were children.”

He didn’t respond.

“I don’t blame you for… for never speaking to me after what happened. But, I hope you don’t blame me for what happened either.”

“Of course I don’t. It wasn’t your fault.”

She hesitated. “You blame the witches.”

His lips were pursed tight, but she could see the flame behind the eyes. He said, “I went berry picking with my cousins one day.”

She listened.

“It was one of the best days of my life. We ditched our baskets and spent most of the day splashing in the creek. On the way home, I was worried my parents would scold me for how few berries were rolling around in my basket, but… it turns out I didn’t have to worry about that. They were gone. They’d disappeared. No one ever spoke of them again. Red witches had come to town that day. They left with the morning sun.”

A long pause stretched itself out as she gazed into the fire.

“My parents,” she croaked, “They… I only remember it in images. Pictures. In little snippets, like leaves in the wind. There are parts I remember. Parts that are so clear. I remember Mother had sent me to the well… on my way back, I heard the witches coming down the road. They had my father in this… this cage. All of the adults from the village were following them. At the house… my mother. I just remember her face. She never cried. She never begged for mercy. It was almost as if she knew I was watching her. As if she wanted my last memory of her to be her as a strong woman. The smell of the fire. The smoke stinging my eyes. I remember them holding hands as the flames licked upward. Then… the screaming.

“Later… when I asked questions… my relatives always shooed me away, but… I could piece it together, after a few years. My father, he wasn’t… sane. Everyone knew this, but… he got worse with each passing year. He had claimed to be a priest. I remember my uncle saying, ‘Next, he’ll claim he’s a unicorn!’ The laughter wasn’t joyful. It was filled with fear. Then, he started claiming that the Flash wasn’t the beginning, that it was an end. You see, my mother had told this to us for years, as parts of stories from the Broken Mountain Clan. Eventually, they lashed him. Time after time they lashed him, and time and again he would begin preaching again in the village square. After a while, something broke inside of him. At that point, I think he had truly lost his mind. Then, one beautiful spring day, he stood in the center of the village square and shouted with all his might that he was John Doe, Come Again. He shouted that I was his daughter by nature, not by the power of the Lady God or the white witches Prayer of Seven Days in the City of Life. In the end, the witches did what they do. I can still hear him screaming my name in my dreams. Telling me to be strong, to never forget… right up until the very end.”

She finished speaking and he held her until she was still again.

After a time, he asked her, “Why are you telling me this now? What has brought this memory back into your mind so sharply?”

She clasped his hand.

“What is it?”

“It’s been nearly two months since you have had to sleep away from me. Have you not noticed?”

He lowered his eyes, unsure of what to say. “I noticed, but… I didn’t know what to say or do. I assumed it wasn’t out of the ordinary for a little variation to occur.”

“It’s not normal. There’s a chance… a strong chance that I am…”

“With child?”

Lilith could not understand why the corners of Ben’s mouth were curling upward, just as they had on their wedding day.

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“Yes. Very. But… come what may… we will have a made a life together. It’s a miracle.”

She squeezed him tightly, then held him at arm’s length and said, “We have only one choice.”

He thought for a moment and said, “Go to the City of Life.”

“Yes. We must pretend that the white witches and their Prayer of Seven Days is what has blessed us with a child.”

“It’s our only hope.”


Through the desert sands, Lilith hobbled up to the intercom posted near the gate of the City of Life. Her lips were cracked and stung when she spoke, “Lilith and Benjamin of the Broken Mountain Clan have arrived. We have come in the hopes that the white witches will join me in the Prayer of Seven Days and that Our Lady God will bless us with a child.”

A crackle of static.

“May Our Lady God bless your arrival,” came the nasal response. “Two witches will be out to assist you, greet you, and escort you into the City.”

Metallic clangs and the grinding of gears rumbled as the enormous inner workings of the gate unlocked. Once open, a gush of cool air caressed the weary travelers. Two witches strode out to greet them, one in flowing red, the other in unrevealing white. The white witch, whose black hair was cropped, extended a hand to Lilith, as she said, “My name is Alexandra, the High White Witch of the City of Life. I will be your companion, Lilith, as we pray together for God to bless you with a child. You must be tired after your long journey through the desert.”

Lilith nodded, and said meekly, “Thank the Lady God, for she has willed us to survive the passage.”

“And I am Iva, the Red High Witch of the City of Life,” said as she proffered her hand. “Welcome.”

Taking her hand, Lilith averted her eyes quickly, hoping that the red witch did not place her. She was the very same witch that had presided at the wedding ceremony. Despite the coolness inside the City’s high, thick walls, beads of persperation began to form on Lilith’s forehead.

She was thankful when a eunuch strode up, gruffly wiping sweat away with a burned hand. “Man!” He jabbed at Benjamin. “Come here. No men inside. Only women.” He stabbed at the row of straw huts hiding in the shade of the high white wall that ringed the City. “You stay here.”

While keeping his eyes on the sand at his feet, Benjamin gave a formal bow to Lilith. There was so much more he wanted to say, to show, to express, but with the witches present, he merely bowed and followed the eunuch toward his new lodgings.Returning Benjamin’s bow with the slightest of nods, Lilith turned to follow in the wake of the witches as they led her into the Inner Sanctum of the City of Life. Cut deep into the desert sand, the Inner Sanctum primarily consisted of an inverted tower that delved ever downward via a marble spiral staircase that plunged the three women into more and more comforting coolness as they circled around. It was a welcomed respite from the unforgiving desert sun.

At first, they descended in silence, but the silence didn’t last long. As the circle of blue sky above them grew smaller and smaller, white witches joined them one by one—each carrying a candle and chanting a solemn hymn. After several dozen had joined them, Lilith’s spirits rose. It was very comforting to be around so many calm, serene women. They stepped away from the staircase and went through a small archway. Inside the room, an oval of candles illuminated a white bed, propped up at an angle. The volume of the chanting rose as more and more joined in. With gentle hands, they positioned her on the bed, spread her legs, and removed her clothes. With practiced efficiency, they sponged away the sand, dirt, salt, and grime that had accumulated on her body during the long journey. Now, it all melted away like butter under the witches’ delicate touch. Lilith felt her eyes relax and close as the dozens of hands massaged her muscles with fragrant oils. She let out a giggle as she felt a squirt of a cool substance tickle her belly. Hands were gently rubbing it around.

The soft chanting continued, but now many of the white witches seemed to be speaking in a completely new kind of cadence, as if they were speaking in a new hymn, or code—or an entirely different language altogether.

As if from the other end of a long tunnel, she heard the High White Witch Alexandra say, “Initial sonogram imaging displaying a perfectly healthy uterus. Prepare insemination tubes.” The sound of an underwater heartbeat flooded the chamber. “We’ve… we’ve got a pre-positive!” Alexandra’s voice was shrill in disbelief. Lilith heard a collective gasp followed by a flurry of activity. Blinking, she opened her eyes. White pain stunned her, forcing her to wince her eyes shut. Blinking again, she made out the white witches, bathed in blinding white light; white masks were covering their faces. Strange glass covered each eye, making each one large and sharp and stabbing. They were all staring down at her, unblinking.

“We’ve got to get her in isolation. Sedated. Immediately.” It was Alexandra again, though Lilith couldn’t see her.

“Find the husband!” Desperate fear struck Lilith. The voice that had shouted for Benjamin belonged to Iva, the red witch. There was no mistaking it. As she felt her vision blur and become fuzzy, she moaned, “Noooooo…” As the penetrating eyes swirled around her, she slammed into oblivion.


Benjamin awoke. His head ached as he tried to make sense of where he was. Groggily, he realized that he was lying flat near a low fire in a small room. Benjamin tensed his muscles as he tried to sit up, but he felt six taut straps cut into his skin as he struggled. He writhed and squirmed, but the bonds only seemed to tighten. After he had worked himself into a flushed sweat, he rested his head back on the small, low table that he found himself confined to. He felt throbbing pain where the six straps had burned and cut into his bare skin. Why am I naked? He fought off the panic that flooded his mind and he tried to think.

What’s the last thing I remember? Playing cards with the eunuch. Letting him win, just to keep him happy. So happy, in fact, that he had come back from the kitchen toting a steaming kettle of tea, tea he’d generously offered to me. Tea I drank sparingly, watching the eunuch smile at me for the first time. His grimy teeth making the hairs on my neck stand up. And then… Then, I woke up here.

Benjamin swallowed. He had a vague sense that there was something more. More than what had happened between the eunuch’s tea and the present moment. Something terribly wrong and unnatural had happened. He swallowed again, trying to erase the dreadful feeling.

He tried to tally the facts. The fact that he was here probably meant the worst. Somehow, the witches must have discovered that Lilith was already with child. But still, this wasn’t what he and Lilith had been afraid of. Capture? Confinement? Surely, they would have immediately prepared a public pyre. The licking flames nearby sent a ripple of sweat over him. In vain, he struggled against his bonds once again.

He heard the locks on the door clicking open one by one. He lay still. He heard the door groan open. The High Red Witch, Iva was standing over him. She seemed strange. Her robes were not flowing in the wind and her flowing hair was hanging down on either side of her face, as still as death.

“So…” she said, “You’re the great John Doe, Come Again.” She licked her lips. “Not nearly as impressive physically as we were expecting. Then again, expectations tend to get exaggerated after hundreds of years of waiting for a prophecy to be fulfilled.”

“Where’s Lilith? Where’s my wife?” he asked, closing his eyes, trying not to think of heat or flame or burning.

She bent to tussle his hair. “Ah, yes. I remember presiding over the wedding ceremony that made the two of you wife and husband. That wasn’t so long ago. You must be an especially fertile little priest!”

“I’m not a priest!” The words came without thinking. “I’m a simple potter who wants to be left alone!” Even as the words were spilling out, Benjamin couldn’t believe that he had spoken like that, not to the High Red Witch herself. He opened his eyes. He was puzzled to see that she wasn’t even looking at the fire.

A milky white leg slithered out of her robes. Her foot found purchase near his hip. He remembered that he was naked. Bending lower, she whispered in his ear, “The white witches have been helping themselves to you with their tubes and their viles. You’ve been in this room for nearly a week, did you know that?”

The shadowy memories of swirling white-robed women came rushing back to him. “I want to see my wife.” All of the moisture was gone from his mouth.

“Red witches are different,” Iva mused. “We don’t believe in tubes and viles. We take what we want, when we want it, directly. Just like I’m going to do with you, John Doe.”

“That’s not my name,” he rasped. “Where’s my wife? Where’s Lilith?”

“Her? Yes, you can think of her if it helps you.” She edged closer, her spiced breath hot in his face, her hair cascading onto his face.

As she began, he screamed. There was little else he could do.


Lilith awoke in a room bathed in warm light that seemed to emanate from the stucco walls. She lay in a warm, comfortable bed. Iva and Alexandra sat on opposite ends of her. Her eyelids fluttered, adjusting to the light. “Where’s Benjamin?” she asked. She’d had horrible nightmares.

“Don’t worry, my dear,” said Iva, grasping her hand compassionately. “We’re all tending to him.” When she smiled, the skin around her eyes crinkled merrily.

“Where’s Benjamin?”

Lilith was amazed to see that Iva looked puzzled, if just for a moment. “Tell me something, Lilith, isn’t it? Yes. Of course it is. Tell me. If my memory serves me correctly, I served at your wedding ceremony to this… this Benjamin, am I correct? Yes. I remember you. I remember something odd about that ceremony. The two of you sort of stumbled together, didn’t you?” She gazed deeply into Lilith’s eyes, as if searching for some hidden answer. She stood. “Now, I’m going to leave the two of you alone for a while.”

After a nod at the door, she left.

“How long have you and your husband been married?” asked Alexandra, seeming to be just as puzzled as Lilith at Iva’s quick departure.

“Since the solstice.”

“Not even a year and you’re pregnant!” Alexandra looked up from scribbling her notes. “Really?”

Lilith ignored the question. “What’s going to happen to him?

Setting her notes aside, Alexandra came closer. “Well… for the time being, he’ll need to remain in our care.”

“When can I see him?”

“Do you think that’s really necessary? If there’s anything you need… food, comfort, mood enhancers, exercise, entertainment of any kind—we can provide it here.”

“And if I wanted to go back to my village?”

“Why would you want to do that? What place could be safer, more welcoming, than here, in the City of Life?”

Lilith turned away from the High White Witch.

“Lilith, I’m sure you can understand the position we are in. Your husband has been blessed by Our Lady with a great power—a power we must all work to ensure benefits all of womankind. In time, you may visit him. In time, the two of you may return to your village.”


“When we say it’s safe.”

Lilith cringed. “You’re not having our baby.”

Alexandra pounced. “Our baby?! So, you admit it, then?”

Lilith flared.

“Don’t worry, my dear. In time, you will be proud of the place you’ve earned for yourself and your husband in the annals of the Reading.”

Lilith didn’t respond.

“For now, dear child…” she said as she stood, “May the Grace of Our Lady be with you always.”

Lilith heard her walk to the door, pause, and leave.

Once she was gone, Lilith sat up and examined the room carefully. It seemed to be the same one she had been in before she had lost consciousness. Cool white walls curved all around her. There were no windows. The one opening was an archway. It was unbarred, but there was a man cloaked in black with the ram’s head insignia emblazoned on the back of his cloak. He clasped a spear and a sword was lashed to his back. Lilith trembled. She was a prisoner in a pillowed palace.


Benjamin cringed as he saw the High Red Witch crouch over him yet again. How long had he suffered in this god-forsaken room? It seemed like an eternity.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Doe. I’m not here to take another seed,” she teased. “I’ve just got one question for you.”

“I want to see my wife.” It had been his mantra, his only defense against the insanity invading his mind. The white witches were no longer bothering with anesthesia during their procedures.

Iva smiled, ignoring his plea. “The night of your wedding—when Lilith chose you. You caught her, didn’t you? You stopped her from falling. You touched an unmarried woman.”

Benjamin gulped. “Yes. Yes, I did.” All he had left was the truth, and he clung to it like a drowning man.

“And she flipped your grasp, to make it look as if she had intended it—intended to chose you as her husband?”



Out of the corner of his eye, Benjamin saw Iva’s forehead wrinkle. She rose and stepped out of his sight. He felt her press a cold metal object into his hand, and then she was gone.


Lilith sensed that it was night. She noticed a lessening of the ambient wall light. Yet, she also sensed something deeper, more primal. She felt the pull of the stars, the rolling of the earth. Now. It was her only chance.

From the corridor outside her room, she thought she could hear the soft whispering of her Ram guard and another feminine voice, but she couldn’t be sure. When the hushed conversation was over, he returned to his post. He stood stolidly, as he did every night. She called to him: “Guard! Could you come, quickly! There’s something wrong with my monitor. I’m worried!”

He padded in quickly, his mouth set in a straight line. After checking all of the equipment, he said, “There’s nothing wrong here. Everything seems to be in order, My Lady.”

“I know,” she said, touching his arm tenderly. She felt goose bumps perk up at her touch. “You’ll have to forgive me. I lied.” She made herself flush, made her eyes grow wet. “The truth is, I’m just lonely. So lonely. How long has it been? Days? Weeks?” She motioned for him to sit on the bed near her.

His expression didn’t change. Slowly, he set his spear against the wall, near enough to get to in less than a second. He sat. “It’s been two months,” he said, not looking at her.

“Thank you. Thank you for telling me that.” She caressed his arm. “It must be so tiresome to stand guard at my door day after day.”

“I do what the witches ask of me.”

“Just the witches, or any woman?” She asked as she pulled back his hood. He was young, and handsome enough. He was shaking slightly. For a moment, Lilith pitied him, but she quickly focused on hiding the fear and loathing and dread of doing what she knew she had to do. It was the only way. If this young guard noticed any of her own true feelings… her hope of freedom, of seeing Benjamin again, all would be lost.

“It is the duty of any man to obey a woman. But… you are married… and with child.”

She put a finger to his lips. “Shhhh. Don’t be silly. Do you think I’m really married anymore? You know his fate—what they’ll do to him. I’ve been stuck in this room for months, I need to live again.” Slowly, she unbuckled his sword belt and silently rested it on the floor. Pulling him close, she thought of Benjamin and did what she knew she had to do.


After the Ram guard had been snoring for an hour, Lilith slipped out of her bed, gathered her few things, delicately picked up the spear and the sword, and tiptoed through the archway and made toward the spiral staircase. Her bare feet felt wonderful on the cool marble steps. She could smell the scent of the desert, calling from high above.

Hearing the patter of footsteps coming down the stairs, she froze. She ducked into a niche, hiding behind a massive statue of The Lady. From here, Lilith peered out from under the black dester that was far too big for her.

The footsteps continued downward. Another destered figure appeared, working its way down the spiral stair, step by step. Whoever it was had a spear. There was something familiar in the manner of the destered figure that she couldn’t quite place. Lilith’s spear slid and clattered on the floor. The stranger’s head snapped in her direction.

“Who—who goes there?” He half-shouted, half whispered. Lilith’s heart was hammering in her breast; her breath was caught in her throat. Hesitatingly, the figure drew nearer to her hiding spot, spear raised, ready to strike. As the figure entered the shadows, it became harder to distinguish from the surrounding blackness. Yet, Lilith managed to see that the hooded head seemed to be focused upward, at the Lady, not downward, where Lilith was hiding. The figure seemed to stand transfixed, in awe of the statue. Then, it ducked its spear under its arm and darted onward down the stair. As Lilith watched the figure go, she realized why he seemed familiar.

“Benjamin!” she called.

Benjamin froze.

“It’s me!” she whispered, worried about how loud her first call had been.

Benjamin turned, gazing wonderingly up at the statue.

“No! Not there!” she admonished. “Down here. It’s Lilith.”

In the darkness behind the statue of Our Lady God, they found each other.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” she exhaled with a relief that physically hurt.

“Me too.” He tried to wipe the tears from her eyes, but ended up awkwardly poking her in the face.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She laughed. “It’s okay. It’s dark.”

A silence passed.

“How did you escape?” she asked.

“The High Red Witch… she… gave me a key.”

“Why would she…?”

“Lilith.” He touched her gently. “There’s something I have to tell you.”


It was difficult to look at her. Her face was soft in the shadows.

“They took what they needed from me. In every way you can imagine.”

He broke down and she held him close.

“I… I tried to escape, but there was no way… I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to forgive. Not for you. But for me… there is. I had a choice.”

“A choice?”

“There was only one guard. A man. Sworn to protect me and do anything that I asked… There was only one way to get him out of the way and to get to you, and I chose to do it. I chose to be with him. To escape. To get to you.”

The pain registering on his face was nearly too much for Lilith.

“I understand,” he said. “It was the only way… These witches… It’s in the past… Only we can heal ourselves. Only we can do that.”

Despite his words, Lilith felt the gulf between them widen. They stared into one another’s eyes in the shadows, as if watching the world open up between them. Then, with a sigh, the abyss closed and the two waves crashed together again and became one ocean. The moment had passed. They were safe again. Together. Whole.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

They scrambled up the winding staircase. The disk of overhead stars grew with each step. They managed to reach the gate without encountering a single witch. Two camels were tethered near the men’s huts, munching on straw, unguarded. Moving less than an inch a second, Benjamin saddled the camels, helped Lilith up to her mount, scrambled up his, and together, they slid through the open gate.

Thankful for their incredible luck, they urged their camels onward in stifled whispers, voyaging out across the desert sands.


“You’re sure their tracking tags were inserted properly?” asked Iva as she followed Lilith and Benjamin’s progress through the desert on nearby monitors.

“No doubt. I chipped them myself,” said Alexandra. “The devices are working properly now, as you can see here.” She gestured to the bank of monitors. She shook her head and pinched her nose. “Why you thought it would be wise to let them go is beyond me.”

“I have my reasons.”

“He was the John Doe, Come Again. It’s been over a hundred years. We only took a limited amount of samples from him. If we lose contact with him, we’ll have taken a major step backward in our repopulation efforts.”

“You seem confident in your tracking abilities,” Iva sniffed. “Besides, a free-ranging cow bears more milk.”

“A strained metaphor.” Alexandra looked away from the monitors. “I think you have other reasons you’re not telling me, Iva.”

“Of course I do.”

“Well?” she whirled.

Iva sighed. “As a white witch, you believe in progress… moving forward?”

“What else is there?”

“Well, in a word… power. In two words… my power. It’s what keeps our fledgling civilization in order. What good does it do us if we have restored humanity’s numbers, but not eliminated the chaos that came to be synonymous with the end of the last age, the age of men, before the Flash cleansed the world?”


“Certainly. It tore down man from his seat on high. Clearly, we women have already done a superior job at the helm of humanity. Eventually, word would have spread about the true John Doe, Come Again. We would have had to prop these two up as some sort of figureheads. It would have undermined our power, and therefore destabilized our society.”

“You mean, destabilized your society.”

“Yes. Is that so dark, so evil? I keep the world enlightened, strong, and orderly.”

“Perhaps you’re right. If we had accepted them, even indoctrinated them wholly, our psychologists tell us that they never would have given up fighting us. Our sociologists and futurists believe that, in the end, they would have most likely created a splinter civilization, a group of rebels inspired by their martyrdom.”

“Yes. In the end, they would have eventually been successful at wrenching away a small, yet important part of the people, and therefore, our power.”

“But what if the rebels would be right in the end? Surely, the Readings are filled with similar examples.”

“Do you realize what drivel, what craven ideology such a horde would have adopted?” Iva scoffed. “They would believe in equality—the kind of nonsense those two demonstrated during their time here: a complete fantasy based on openness, honesty, forgiveness, mutual understanding… working together toward common goals…” She shook her head, too disgusted to finish her thought.

“And what, tell me, is problematic about that?”

“Alexandra, really.” The red witch bristled. “There can be no growth of power, and therefore none of your pretty progress, so long as the daydream of equality exists.”

Alexandra tapped at her controls distractedly. “So, what will you do with them now?” Alexandra wanted to get on with it. She had plenty of work to do. Unlike Iva, she believed in what she did—plainly and simply, without cynicism.

“I’ll turn them over to you, for now. You can toy with them as you might toy with one of your little experiments.” Her eyes flicked to the monitors, then back to Alexandra. “Don’t let them stray too far. We may need them again.”

“Yes, I will. But what about repopulation? Surely, we’ll need to continue our efforts if we’re serious about re-establishing civilization. We only collected enough samples to supplement our current stock for fifteen to twenty more years.”

“We will be ready,” she said as her eyes dropped and she caressed her stomach. “Still… keep an eye on them. I may need to pay another visit to Mr. Doe.” With that, the red witch left.

Sighing, Alexandra set to work on analyzing the unique gene sequence that had re-established a genetic line of fertility in Benjamin. She toyed with the strand on her screen, marveling at it. Out of the corner of her eye, she continued to monitor the progress of the two destered figures as they fled through the desert. To her dismay, Alexandra’s hopes pushed them onward, wishing them safe passage beneath the stars.


Hope You’ve Guessed My Name

by Isabel Wolfe-Frischman


Thrust across the Atlantic in the business class limbo of a commercial jet, Beatrix and Hester read travel magazines, discussed their planned Italian odyssey, and drank vodka from tiny bottles. When they arrived at Amerigo Vespucci, they completed the metamorphosis into unabashed tourists, walking miles with goofy smiles on their thirtyish-year-old faces before checking into their pensione. As they walked they debated the potential merits and faults of various eateries. The walk-and-debate became their daily routine as they settled into their vacation.

The two had agreed on today’s restaurant fairly quickly, and it was perfect: only locals dined there it seemed, no English spoken. A radio played Frank Sinatra at one of the cafés they had passed that morning: “That Old Black Magic.” Cool and retro but much too American, they agreed, although Beatrix secretly desired a hamburger. This place turned out to be so Italian it was a challenge communicating with the waiter. Dove il bagno? was the extent of Beatrix’s lexicon, and she usually forgot to take her copy of Italian for Doomed Midwestern-American Tourists from the hotel.

Red wine—delicious Italian red—golden bread dressed in olive oil and garlic, a plate of noodles, calamari fritto. September. Leaves gaudily appliquéd to the sky, then ripped out by the seams, tumbling to the ground.

Sky so like blue velvet Beatrix wanted to sleep on it. Clear and clean and warm. Florence. Firenze.

The women noodled with their noodles, toyed with their bread, drank their Valpolicella wine, devoured the squid. Eternal lunch. They compared pinchings—three in various piazzas for Hester, one at the hotel for Beatrix. On the third carafe, they began to dissect their divorces.

Hester’s had been painful, no doubt. But Beatrix, with her penchant for the dramatic, monopolized the conversation, getting louder and more animated with each hard-earned, martyred, one-upping detail.

Lucedio, the sunburned, goateed man at the table closest to the kitchen, spoke quietly to the waiter in some Italian dialect. He worked tarring roofs, and was therefore responsible for a good ten percent of the pollution in the city. He also wrote daytime soap operas and spent a lot of time collecting dialogue everywhere he went. When Beatrix hiccupped and then slurred loudly, “He was a premature fucking ejaculator,” Lucedio choked on a breadstick.

Hester’s eyes had long since glazed over.

“Did you hear anything I just said?” Beatrix asked.

Lucedio leaned over to Hester and whispered, “They have pills for that.” The Italian winked and went back to his meal.

Hester began to laugh. “He speaks English,” she said, between guffaws. Beatrix called for the bill, slapped down some Euros, and lurched out. Hester followed, without a look back.

After lunch, the pair split up—Hester going to visit yet more museums as Beatrix climbed onto l’autobus numero sette.

Transforming into Anonymous Woman on a Bus, Beatrix blissfully realized that she had finally let her husband go; she had escaped. She remembered a book she read as a child, about a family that fled, leaving eggs drying on chipped plates. Fleeing either the Holocaust or some goblin or pirates, she couldn’t remember.

Her mind was all over the place. Probably the Valpolicella, or the Valpolicella combined with the calamari. She felt the bus was going nowhere. Or somewhere dead-ended, like a wine tasting with Cheezits and Thunderbird or a lecture on the wholeness of the universe, given by a man with only one leg.

Beatrix had been an actress, in Chicago, in her twenties, and a waitress at the 9th Circle Café. She left the nest early, like a bird. She had traveled quite a few hero’s journeys by the time she was eighteen. She once fantasized about tucking two little children into bed every night and then running off to sing in a Broadway show. No more than two kids though—she had read something called The Population Bomb in her adolescence, and it scared the devil out of her.

The guy at lunch, the dark guy with the big ears, Lucedio, the guy who made the hilarious comment that made her friend laugh at her, had learned all this over his zuppe. Almost as much as she knew about herself. As if he were reading her palm, her tarot cards. She had noticed Lucedio (she new his name and that it meant bringer of light but oddly couldn’t remember being introduced to him) watching her as she scuffled into the restaurant, toes pointed inward, one pant leg riding up over her calf, exposing an ill-fitting Ugg boot. Did he know she had been quietly ambitious in her youth, that now she watched mountains grow, knew she would bear no children, or that any children of hers would have been sent to boarding school or locked in the closet for most of their formative years, until their growth was stunted and their teeth rotted, as her ex had once suggested? Could he know that she was a whiz with Top Ramen and wasn’t much of a housekeeper? The day Beatrix asked for the divorce she found her husband scouring the tiles in the red bathroom with a toothbrush and solidified Spic and Span which had been in the box for almost five years, the length of their marriage.

They had been married in a chilly rain in the middle of the wilderness, next to a black, altar-shaped rock—the minister ordained by a matchbook cover. The groom wore a white linen suit, and the bride, determined to be unconventional, and proud of her body, was naked, save for the veil. As they walked to the black rock, they held hands—the groom’s were clammy. Punctuating the ceremony were a single distant thunderclap and the smell of lavender, slightly tinged with the ozone and brimstone smell of struck lightning. The only other witness was the photographer, the author of the one photograph that remained. Who, along with most of Beatrix’s friends, said the marriage wouldn’t last.


The bus motored to the far outskirts of town, Beatrix sweating, alternately sticking to and slipping off the vinyl seat. The town resembled a child’s finger painting. Not vivid like the artwork at the Uffizi, but stark, brown, like a burnt sienna crayon. Here she would need to know more Italian than where’s the bathroom. She cradled her bag, which had very little in it besides her emergency toothbrush and a good novel about dysfunction. The sky greyed. Her jeans popped open. Be open to change, she thought, and giggled a red wine giggle.

That was when he boarded the bus. Lucedio, now dressed in white. Handsome. He jerked his head in her direction. “Hello, ma’am,” he said. Her favorite greeting. Every woman’s. Did he recognize her?

He stood, holding a strap, although seats were available. She could hear the music bleeding out of his iPod. Piano music. Pianissimo. Atonal, weird. Other worldly. And she could hear her own breathing, the man from the restaurant’s breathing, the bus breathing, all the people on the bus breathing, and their sniffling and their gurgling stomachs and their scratching and picking. The sound of a dry mouth being licked. Someone grinding teeth. No conversation. She closed her eyes and saw a parade of faces, people she knew, people she didn’t. She wished to share the crazy thoughts that were uniquely hers with Lucedio. She pictured him walking on his toes, carrying a butterfly net. She pictured him very, very fat. With pimples. She got goosebumps.

She could taste onions in her mouth, yet she had garlic at lunch. When she was little she mixed them up, garlic and onions. She could taste Jack Daniels, although of course she’d had red wine. Not since her wedding day had she swallowed sour mash and that was just the one shot, the dare-you shot for good luck. She flashed to a memory of a doctor she had seen, to treat a bald spot she had in tenth grade. Wondering if the alopecia areata would ever return. Remembering that doctor. A quarter-inch of clear mucus dripping from an ancient nostril as he diagnosed her.

Things are not what they seem, she thought, I’m down the rabbit hole, and something about the look on Lucedio’s face told her that he was thinking it too.

She thought of eggs on a plate. Of kidnapping. She looked out the window, saw the parapets of a medieval building. Imagined this man taking her there and chaining her to a wrought-iron table.

As if tapped on the shoulder by a ghost, Beatrix realized that she was supposed to have met Hester thirty minutes ago. But hadn’t she just gotten on the bus? Time was playing tricks on her. She felt full of electric energy, full of madness, as though she were coming down with chicken pox, or falling in love. She flashed on last spring’s first roses, somehow withering on their stalks before the buds had even opened.

Beatrix was tired, her mind muddled, and her numbing confusion escalated. She longed to be all right, to savor the moments, to breathe freely. One moment at a time. On the bus to nowhere, as if in a strange, lucid dream, she began to pray for an angel of mercy to rescue her, to make sense of her life.

Lucedio chose this moment to sit down next to her. She felt a rush of heat; she removed her jacket and boots.

“Hold out your palm,” said the dark man, the bringer of light. Beatrix was about to comply when she realized she already had. The sounds of the bus ceased. Such perfect silence. Beatrix thought she had lost her hearing until he spoke. “Your love line. Here, where it intersects with your life line—be open to change,” he said.

Beatrix vomited red with chunks of squid.

They got off the bus holding hands. Lucedio’s was clammy. Cold raindrops fell. Somewhere in the distance, a peal of thunder. She smelled lavender, sulphur. Beatrix shed the rest of her spoiled clothing, and naked, except for a thin scarf covering her face like a veil, she stood in front of a black stone cliff. An incredulous tourist snapped a photo. Beatrix knew to the hollow of her soul what tonight’s lovemaking would be like: passionate, burning, with a quick climax.


The Start of the Season

by Mark Christopher Lane


Hubert Donovan squeezed himself into the crowded elevator, pressing the button for the forty-fifth floor, and nodded at the woman in the khaki overcoat. She brushed a long strand of golden hair behind her ear, sniffed, and inched away from him. There wasn’t much room for her to move (she was practically already hugging the bespectacled man beside her), but she managed to create an extra foot of space between herself and the now perspiring Hubert Donovan. It wasn’t that the elevator was especially hot, even considering how crowded the little metal box was, it was just Hubert’s natural tendency to sweat. He took a subtle sniff beneath his left arm. Old Spice, laundry detergent… and, yes, sweat. The smell hadn’t yet become the overpowering miasma of body odor typical of quitting-time, but it was on its way. And it wasn’t even nine a.m. Hubert sighed and picked at his upper lip. There was a cold sore brewing there. Not too big or painful yet, thank Christ, just a little itchy knot beneath the thin hairs of his mustache.

The bell dinged and the elevator doors popped open. Hubert shuffled out. The office was quieter than usual, especially since it was so near the start of the season, but it wasn’t quiet-quiet. More like office-quiet. There was a steady flow of murmuring voices as men and women sat in their cubicles answering phones mixed with the sharp staccato of fingers clacking away at keyboards. Papers were shuffled. Feet padded across the carpeted floor. They were comforting sounds, in a way, but also infinitely depressing. Hubert walked gingerly toward the break room in search of a tall cup of coffee, because, well, he had to get some, even if it tasted like the bottom of an ashtray and was thick enough to stir with a stick. He wouldn’t make it through the morning without enough caffeine inside him to kill a small horse.

As he approached the break room a short woman with flowing black hair and more curves than all the roads in Virginia walked out with her fingers wrapped delicately around a steaming pewter mug.

“Morning, Jen,” Hubert said, his voice low, barely more than a mumble.

Like the woman in the elevator, Jennifer Belanger sniffed, brushed her hair back from her brow, and walked away without a word. Hubert sighed. He walked over to the coffee urn, plucking a large Styrofoam cup off the counter as he did, and pressed down on the lever. Nothing came out.

The coffee pot was empty.


Hubert went about his work as he normally did, though perhaps not as quickly as he might have—no coffee meant less productivity—while the stink beneath his arms grew worse and the sore on his upper lip progressed from mild itching to a dull throbbing ache. He popped into the men’s room to check on it sporadically throughout the day, mostly whenever he got up to see if he could track down his department head Mike Bauer (they needed to discuss the start of the season—it was perilously close and Hubert didn’t think they’d be able to make good on their promises—but Mike seemed to mysteriously vanish every time Hubert made his way over to his cubicle). Those periodic trips to the bathroom mirror were not encouraging. The sore looked infected. It had grown from a small pink bump the size of a pimple to a raw clump of skin bigger than the head of a nail. He’d have to buy some medication on his way home. And some aspirin. Hubert sighed.


By the time Hubert rolled himself into bed that night, the pain was bad enough to worry him. He’d never had a cold sore before, not that he could remember. Were they always this painful? He hoped the medication would help. No, he was sure the medicine would help; it’d cost him $19.95 plus tax. When he woke up tomorrow, the cold sore would be mostly gone and he could go back to work free of pain and maybe see if he couldn’t finally track down Mike Bauer. Maybe even Jennifer Belanger would return his hello. Yes. Tomorrow would be a good day. Hubert closed his eyes, smiling at the thought, then winced as a lance of pain shot up from his lip.

The medicine had to work, he thought, grimacing.

He tossed and turned for a while in painful silence before eventually drifting off to sleep.


The medicine didn’t work. Things had only gotten worse.

Jesus, it was big. A round malignant lump, calloused like the fingers of a guitar player, throbbing beneath his mustache. The mustache had never grown thicker than one of his thin blonde eyebrows all the year’s he’d let it grow, but the painful sore had more than doubled in size in just the last 24 hours. Look at it now. It was the size and shape of one of his flabby, fleshy knuckles. He went into the bathroom and turned on the hot water, cupping his hands beneath the flow in the bowl of the sink. His chubby fingers tingled from the heat and his cheeks (and lip) stung as he splashed water onto his face. He took a razor from the cabinet and carefully cut away the infected skin, wincing as he further exposed the bleeding sore beneath. It dripped dark red blood that was almost black and some kind of yellowish-ooze, and it pulsated, like a cartoon character’s thumb when smashed by any number of unlikely objects.

The sink was half-full with blood and puss and water before Hubert was satisfied that he’d cut away most of the callous. The trusty (and now crusty) tube of camphorated phenol lay on the counter to his right. A quick squirt over the sore flesh made it look more-or-less like raw meat wrapped in cellophane, like the stuff you pick up at the grocery store. It looked irritated, though; infected, huge.

But what could he do? He had to go to work. Bill Gortler, their general manager, was clearly worried about the start of the season, and if his office team failed this year the shit would really hit the fan. Gortler kept telling everyone that it would be okay, that they would begin the season with a flourish and everyone would have a reason to celebrate. But Hubert had heard the stress building behind the man’s encouraging voice, could almost see the panic that lay tremulously close to the surface. And no one believed Gortler, anyway. Hubert wasn’t a person whom his coworkers normally confided in, but he’d overheard enough conversation in the bathroom to know that most of the office team thought this year would be a failure.

So Hubert toweled off, paying careful attention to dry between the folds of skin on his chest, stomach and thighs, and tugged up a pair of designer slacks over his waist. After first checking himself in the mirror—wincing at the grotesquerie on his face—he poured himself into his Stratus and drove to work.

Several compulsive rear-view mirror checks and a lifted eyebrow from the parking attendant later, Hubert pushed himself inside the crowded elevator and pressed the number forty-five. Most of the men and women inside the elevator didn’t work on his floor, and so, they paid him no more mind than… well, the people who did work on his floor, for which he was grateful. He existed in some kind of opaque vacuum which rendered him invisible to the normal world. Well, maybe it wasn’t entirely opaque. The world could see enough of him to know to ignore him. But for once, that made him happy. He didn’t want attention now, not with his lip looking the way it did. He’d get off the elevator, slip into his cubicle, and embrace the solitude of his work until 5 p.m. He’d go home, wash and medicate the infection (again), and hope for it to go away. If it did, maybe he’d be able to talk to Mike—and Jennifer for that matter—tomorrow morning. Today was not the day.

But when he entered the office, waddling along the maze-like corridor to his corner cubicle, he had the strange sensation of eyes upon him, an altogether unique and unexpected sensation. At first, he figured he was just being paranoid. Nobody had ever noticed him before, why should they now? But his paranoia proved to be justified a moment later.

He bumped into Jennifer Belanger coming out of the break room, as he almost always did, but today, she stopped. She stared. At him. With those beautiful dark eyes. And, incredibly, she was smiling at him. Those eyes and that smile would make any man weak, let alone Hubert Donovan, whose last intimate interaction with the opposite sex had been a fist-bump with Alexi Ramirez when he’d won the high school spelling bee, and they were entirely levelled at him. In his state of shock, Hubert could only stand and stare back at her, unable to move.

“Hey there, partner. Good morning,” she said, her voice low and husky. She was talking to him, Christ preserve us. His paralysis wore off a bit as a jolt of pain went up his nose, but then his self-consciousness came roaring back, reminding him of the thing on his face. He desperately didn’t want her to see the sore. She was standing in the middle of the aisle blocking Hubert’s escape route into the break room, so he lowered his chin instead and scratched furiously at his cheek. Sweat popped out in beads on his forehead.

“Morning,” Hubert mumbled.

“Sorry, but, what’s your name again?” she asked.

“Hubert. Hubert Donovan.”

“Right, Hubert! I knew that. This is your first year, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, uh, no. I mean yes. Yes.”

“Well, which is it, darling?” Jen laughed, a melody to his ears.

“Yes, it is. Sorry. Anyway, I’m in a bit of a hurry. I have to try to find Mike Bauer to discuss the start of the season. I don’t know how we’re going to do it this year.”

“Man, I hear you. We’re all stressing about it. We didn’t think there was any way we’d be able to give it all back, but Gortler seems to think we’ll be fine.”

Hubert said nothing, didn’t know what he could say, so he nodded his head and shuffled his feet and continued staring at the floor while he scratched away at his cheek.

“Hey, you should stop that,” she said, and she actually reached up and touched his hand. Her fingers felt blessedly cool on his sweaty flesh. Startled by her touch, he stopped scratching, lifted his chin and stared directly into her dark brown eyes. He thought she might flinch away, once she saw the sore on his face, but instead, her smile broadened. He noticed that he’d never really seen (or paid attention to) her teeth before. It was the one flaw of an otherwise supremely attractive young woman; her teeth were badly yellowing, and longer than most Hubert had ever seen. Animalistic, almost.

“There you are,” she said. “See? Looking up isn’t so bad. And you got a lot to be proud of, sugar. We all thought Bill was full of shit, but I can see he was right.”

Proud? More like confused; what did he have to be proud of? And what was Bill right about?

“You’re growing a winner, Hubert,” she said. “It’s going to help us do things right this year. Just you wait.” She touched his cheek suggestively. “And if you stay tough, if you wait it out, we’ll all want to thank you, be sure of that.” Jen winked at him and turned away, her black skirt swishing softly against her tanned legs. Utterly nonplussed, Hubert stood exactly where he was for another moment wondering if he hadn’t dreamt the whole conversation before finally hurrying off to the protective embrace of his corner cubicle.


The day was odd. There was no other way to describe it. Hubert sat in his cubicle and did his work while making periodic trips to the bathroom to check his lip. Each time he went, inexplicably, the lump was larger. When he’d gotten up that morning, the sore had been the size of his knuckle; by noon it had grown so large that it hung down over his mouth and brushed against his chin. And the pain. The pain was getting worse by the hour. It throbbed and dripped and bled, and no matter how many napkins he wrapped around it, the flow of blood never seemed to stop. He seriously considered going to the emergency room, but something else—strange in an entirely different way—prevented Hubert from doing so.

People were actually coming over to talk to him. First the elusive Mike Bauer, who slapped Hubert on the back so hard that flecks of blood flew from his lip and showered the computer screen, then Liz Goldman, who came over and actually gave him a hug.

“Hubert, you’re doing so well!” she exhaled in his ear, a lock of her curly blonde hair bouncing playfully on his bald head. “Keep it up, tiger. You’re the best.”

Mike and Liz were only the beginning. An endless procession of coworkers visited his cubicle throughout the day. By the middle of the afternoon, he’d given up trying to hide the growth on his face; it seemed that everyone was, somehow, happy to see it.

Guy Anders brought him a cup of coffee (that Hubert couldn’t drink) and told him to keep up the good work; Michelle Bentley hopped up onto his desk, crossed her legs, and talked to Hubert for more than half an hour while he pressed bloodstained napkins against his dripping sore; even Bill Gortler came over and told Hubert how proud he was of him—and the list grew by the hour, much like the sore on his lip.

Five o’clock came suddenly and abruptly, and even though the pain was almost too acute to tolerate, Hubert left the office and went home as he normally would. The day had been too strange. Too, well… rewarding. His co-workers had continued to encourage him, saying things like “don’t give up” and “keep it going” right up to the end of the day. But they said these well-intended encouragements with a nervous sort of severity that, upon reflection, Hubert didn’t entirely like. It was like they wanted—no, were depending on him to let the thing grow. But why should it matter to them?

He didn’t know, but as Jennifer Belanger hugged him on the way out, pressing her supple breasts against his chest as she did, he honestly didn’t care. If the sore garnered this kind of attention—for whatever reason—far be it from him to go to the doctor and have it chopped off. He’d suffer the pain and the discomfort for as long as he could in order to continue relishing this sudden human interaction. It’s terrible but true, he realized: you must suffer for acceptance. But that was crazy, wasn’t it? Why would they suddenly love him because of an infection on his lip?

After returning home, Hubert puzzled over the day for a while before washing a handful of multi-colored pain-killers down his throat with a generous shot of scotch and went to sleep.


It was bigger in the morning. He knew that without even opening his eyes.

Fumbling in the dark, Hubert could feel a long and inexpressibly awful weight twisting and turning on his chest. It descended from the center of his face (which was mostly obliterated from sight, now) and stretched down below his waist. It wriggled against his stomach and left dark blood stains on his bed sheets and pajamas.

His heart thumped as he rolled off the bed. He cried out as he kicked the sore with his foot, the pain searing, the feel of it on his toe revolting. And did it grunt at him? Did it actually make a noise as his foot connected with it? Blood dotted the carpet and smacked on the linoleum as Hubert flicked on the lights.

He screamed. Fear caused his heart to trip-hammer in his chest.

It was like some Lovecraftian monster, an engorged red and black python that wriggled against his chest and stomach, twisting up at the end as if Hubert’s face had become the hook its tail was skewered upon and it was trying, like a worm, to reach up and unhook itself. It had eyes. Four of them. Black ones that shined with some kind of malignant poison that dripped and sizzled on the floor. It had a mouth. Full of rotted, yellowing teeth. Teeth, it seemed, that had been filed down into points. It thrashed and hissed as spit and sheets of blood flew off the body and spattered against the walls, the toilet, and the floor. Hubert almost vomited, but the thought of the thing covered in blood and vomit made his throat shut tight.

The pain was overwhelming.

“Please, God, help me,” Hubert moaned, but the words were muffled by the creature covering his mouth. Hubert reached over the sink and opened the medicine cabinet. Inside was a pair of scissors. He took them down and held them up to his face. He had to cut it off. Had to.

But, oddly, the creature relaxed. It wriggled its head up and stared into Hubert’s eyes.

Hubert stared back for a full minute, wondering what it wanted, when suddenly he knew. Hadn’t he seen the same look all day yesterday in the eyes of his coworkers? The thing wanted him to cut it free. It was encouraging him to snip it off. It had stopped gnashing its teeth, had stopped twisting and turning. It simply lifted its head and stared up at him with quiet encouragement. And Hubert realized the thing would not hurt him. It was plenty long enough to reach up and bite Hubert’s face off, but it hadn’t. The creature was a part of him for the time being. “Until I cut it off,” Hubert mumbled. Yes, he’d cut the thing loose and it would turn its ugly head on him and devour him whole.

But, ever so slightly, the worm shook its head.

“No? You won’t?” Hubert asked. The bizarreness of the scene in his bathroom was not lost on Hubert (here’s a man standing in his pajamas with a bleeding wriggling sore that looks suspiciously like something out of the movie The Thing and, dear god, are they actually having a conversation?) but a calm came over him, as if he were mesmerized, as the worm slowly shook its head. It wouldn’t hurt him. Hubert could cut it loose and it would simply slither out of the apartment and go back… where? Anywhere. What did it matter? If he cut it loose he’d be free of it. Let the damned worm figure out for itself where it would go.

As if hearing his thoughts, the worm nodded. A drop of poison leaked out of one eye and burned a hole in the Good Housekeeping magazine on the toilet. “Okay, I’ll do it,” Hubert said, raising the scissors to his face. He’d have to be careful; he didn’t want to cut off any of his own skin. Hubert picked the spot and held the scissors close. But as his fingers began to close, his cell phone rang. He stopped. The worm looked up at him questioningly. Hubert waited, wondering who could be calling. No one ever called him. The phone rang six or seven times then fell silent. Hubert raised the scissors again, clenching his teeth in anticipation of the pain… and his phone rang. The worm wriggled impatiently. The movement sent a bolt of pain up to Hubert’s face.

“Let me answer it, it’ll only take a second,” Hubert said, and in possibly the weirdest emotional development of the morning, felt himself grow defensive as the worm gave him a reproachful look. He walked gingerly back into his bedroom, wincing with each careful step, and snatched the ringing phone off the bedside table.

“Hello?” he mumbled.

“Hubert!” It was Jennifer. It was unmistakably her voice. “It’s Jen from the office. You okay, hon?”

“Uh, no, Jen, not really. And I can’t talk right now. I have to go—”

“Don’t cut if off, Hubert!” another voice shouted in the background. It sounded, incredibly, like Bill Gortler. “Please, Hubert!” And that was Mike Bauer. And then, a chorus of voices sounded in his ear, as if the whole office was on the other end of the call. Jennifer’s voice came back a moment later. Low, sultry, soothing.

“Hubert, I know it’s painful, honey. But listen to me, listen to everyone. We’re all here to support you. You’re doing a wonderful thing for us, darling. Please. Please, don’t cut it off.”

“How do you know about this?” Hubert asked. “You haven’t seen it. You don’t know what… you don’t know what it’s become.”

“We know, Hubert,” she said. “Don’t ask how, there’s no time. Just don’t cut it off.”

“Why shouldn’t I? I-it’s so big! And it hurts. I have to. It wants me to.”

“It’s playing you, Hubert,” Jennifer replied. “It’ll rip your heart out the minute you let it loose.”

Hubert looked down at the worm on his belly. It shook its head no, and Hubert wanted to believe it (why on earth he should, he didn’t know), but Jennifer’s voice came back then, deeper. Her words caressing the inside of his ear as if she were there, licking his earlobe.

“Trust me, babe,” she breathed. “It’ll rip your heart out. But we won’t. We want to help you. Come to the office, we’ll make it better. And once we do, I’ll be sure to… reward you.”

It’s often said that men sometimes think too much with their little heads and not enough with the big ones. Even in this unlikely situation, Hubert was not above the stereotype. He’d been trying to lose his virginity since, well, since the fist-bump at the spelling bee. Jennifer wasn’t promising sex, exactly, but there was no mistaking the suggestion in her voice.

“I’ll be right there,” Hubert choked.

He put the phone down and briefly considered changing his clothes. But what was the point? The worm was going to get blood all over everything. So he wrapped a jacket around himself, carefully zipping up the worm inside, and walked out to his car.

The creature was not happy. It thrashed about inside his jacket causing such pain and distraction that Hubert couldn’t keep control of the steering wheel, the Stratus swerving back and forth across the road, barely avoiding multiple accidents en route to the office. Arriving at work, the car safely parked, walking to the elevator was even worse. The worm seemed to sense where they were going and didn’t like it. Its movements became more frenzied, harder to subdue. It felt like the worm had gotten even bigger, too; the bulge beneath Hubert’s jacket was equally as thick as one of his thighs. It even nipped at Hubert’s feet, but they weren’t real bites, they were just to show its displeasure and anxiety. Hubert grunted in pain as he walked. Drops of blood and poison splashed down onto the concrete from beneath his jacket.

He entered the crowded elevator and pressed the number forty-five. The blonde woman in the khaki jacket was there. She sniffed and edged toward the bespectacled man beside her, never lifting her eyes to Hubert’s. And suddenly, it was all too much.

“Oh, come on!” Hubert yelled, his voice thick. “Can you really ignore this?” He pointed at his face and, as he shouted, a wet chunk of blood and tissue sprayed out and hit the woman in her face. She sniffed, took a Kleenex from her coat pocket, and wiped the blood away.

Too much. Hubert began to laugh, wincing as the pain shot through him with each guffaw. The elevator doors dinged open a moment later, and Hubert stepped out. Behind him, the crowded elevator looked like the inside of a slaughterhouse. The bespectacled man quietly continued reading his newspaper.

Jennifer was the first person he saw as he came into the office foyer. She ran over, her yellow teeth flashing, and gingerly put her arms around Hubert, careful not to bump the creature inside his jacket.

“Hubert, you came!” she shouted happily, even giggling a little. “Come on sweetheart, everyone’s waiting.”

“But, Jen, wait, I—”

She tugged his hand and dragged him into the conference room—which wasn’t to be confused with the smaller, smellier break room—shouting, “He’s here! He’s here!” as she did so.

The entire office team was there. Bill Gortler, Mike Bauer, Liz Goldman, Guy Anders; everyone was there. The entire team. They began to clap their hands enthusiastically as Hubert came into the room. Some were laughing, some were crying, many of them were hugging. But all of them were smiling. And while Hubert felt a sudden rush of happiness—he’d never been received in such a way by anyone before, let alone an entire group—he also felt a stab of unease. With an alien growth on his face, unease shouldn’t have been a rare emotion that morning, but the unease he felt upon seeing his coworkers was different. They were genuinely happy to see him, that was clear, but their eyes were somehow lecherous. And their smiles revealed the same long yellowing teeth he’d seen in Jennifer’s mouth.

What the hell was going on here?

Bill Gortler stepped forward and the team quieted behind him.

“Hubert,” he said, his voice proud, “you’ve done a great thing today. You’ve shown courage and bravery. You could’ve cut the worm off your face and been done with it, but you persevered, and we’re all eternally grateful. You might not understand what’s happening, but you will very soon.”

“You’re right, I don’t know—”

“There’s no time to explain. We need to get that thing off your face.”

They rushed him then, and Hubert felt a surge of panic. But they didn’t hurt him. They ushered him to the conference table and gently pushed him down onto his back. They removed his jacket, exposing the thrashing creature inside. There was excited murmuring and giggles. Hubert lifted his head to get a better look at what was going on around him, and realized it was a mistake the moment he did it.

His coworkers were huddled around him, but they weren’t his coworkers any longer. There was a resemblance there, to be sure. He knew Jennifer by her short curvy body even though her hands had grown into claws with long black talons that gleamed beneath the fluorescent ceiling lights. Her nose and mouth had blended together, creating a long snout that snapped open and closed, the long yellowing teeth inside gnashing against each other sharply. A tongue that must have been three feet long flicked out of the snout and licked her lips. Hubert could still see the red lipstick she’d been wearing. The others looked the same. Their hands had become claws, their faces had grown snouts, and their teeth gleamed and their eyes shone with anticipation as they circled around Hubert, laughing as the worm on his face snapped at them. A low pitiful whine came out of the creature. The office team laughed again. And suddenly, Hubert felt bad for the worm on his face. His coworkers were taunting it. Meant to kill it, it seemed. And the creature was afraid.

Bill Gortler stepped forward quickly (it must be Bill—who else would wear those terrible Hawaiian shirts?) and grasped the wriggling worm between his claws. The pain was immense. It shot through Hubert and made him close his eyes as he cried out in agony.

But then, the pain was gone. Completely. Like someone had turned off a switch.

Someone, probably Bill, had reached down and bit the thing cleanly off his face. Hubert sat up. He could breathe. He tried talking, and his voice came out fine. He touched the spot where the creature had grown. It was a little sensitive, but he knew—how, he couldn’t say—that it would heal just fine within a couple of days. His eyes moved to the back of the conference room where the group had laid the worm on the table.

They opened it up with their claws. The poor creature shrieked a final time, then lay still. One of them, Hubert didn’t know who it was this time, ran a talon down the center of the body and folded back the worm’s skin. The others stuffed their hands inside and began pulling out huge clumps of… money.


No, it couldn’t be. But it was. Inside the dead worm were bundles of crisp green bills. And not just singles or fives or twenties. These were stacks of hundred-dollar bills. His coworkers laughed and yelled in merriment as they pulled stack after stack of money—an impossible amount, it seemed—out of the worm’s body. When they were done, a towering pile of green bills rested on the conference room floor against the wall. There was a loud roar of applause.

“We can give it all back!”

“We did it! It’ll all be okay!”

The statements varied, but the sentiments were the same; they had the money, they were going to give it all back. The season would be a success.

“Everyone, everyone!” Bill said, holding up his claws, his tongue snapping and waving in the air before him. “Our work here is done. Let’s eat!”

As they bent over the worm’s body, Hubert took one look and fainted.


Hubert awoke alone in his own bed. He sat up quickly, his heart pounding, his hands fumbling for the light switch. The clock on his bedside table read seven a.m. He’d slept the whole night. But how had he gotten home? Never mind. The worm. Was it gone?

The worm, or the sore, or whatever the hell it had been, was indeed gone. They’d eaten it, he remembered. There was still a small itchy bump on his lip, but it was fading rapidly. He wouldn’t even have to put lip balm on it. He wondered for a moment if he wasn’t losing his mind, hadn’t imagined everything, but the evidence of yesterday’s events was all over the apartment. There was blood, small holes in the floor where the poison had burned through, the jacket he’d been wearing was gore-city, and the Good Housekeeping magazine was ruined. All real. It had all been real. He went back into the bedroom to change his clothes and noticed a note lying on the bed. It must have been on his chest when he woke up, and he’d knocked it off without realizing. In a scrawling cursive hand, the note read:

Hubert, honey, good morning. We can’t thank you enough for what you did. You’re the office hero. Please come back to work tomorrow. We have the money now, but there’s still a lot of work to do to make sure this season is a success. Please come back.

The note was from Jen.

Hubert rushed to get ready, picking clothes at random, and flew out of his apartment. He made it to the office in record time and, without even acknowledging khaki-coat-girl or spectacles-boy, practically leapt through the elevator doors as it stopped on number forty-five.

He didn’t know what he expected, but it certainly wasn’t the composed, office-quiet environment he walked into. The sounds, those comforting yet depressing sounds, were the same. The voices answering phones, the shuffling of papers, the feet padding across the carpeted floor. Mike Bauer walked nearby and raised a hand to Hubert in a casual hello. Mike’s face and hands were back to normal. A little confused, Hubert walked over to the break room.

Jennifer Belanger came out and flashed him a smile. Her teeth were white.

“Hubert,” she said softly, wrapping her arms around him. “So glad you made it back. There’s a lot of work to do.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Hubert stammered. “But, Jen, did it, I mean—did all that really—”

“You’re a hero, Hubert,” she said, nodding. “We have the money, but now it’s time to get to work. We gotta give it all back, remember? Everybody on deck. Oh, and, not to worry—I’ll want to thank you once the work is done.”

She winked at him and walked away.

Hubert Donovan was suddenly quite happy. He freed his mind of confusion, gave up trying to figure out what it all meant, and embraced this wonderful feeling of acceptance. People were waving at him, people were talking to him, and the prettiest girl in the office felt she had a debt to repay to him. Life was suddenly, well, good.

He walked lightly into the break room and got a cup of coffee. The pot was full and hot. He took the cup back to his cubicle and sat down. He turned on his computer. He sipped his coffee and smiled. It was going to be a good day.

The phone rang. Hubert reached over and plucked the black handset from the base.

“Thank you for calling H&R Block, this is Hubert, how may I help you?”


Fair Is Fair

by Terence Gallagher


“Slow down, slow down. How about this guy?”

There was a man moving along the sidewalk, close by a row of darkened shop windows. Hack brought the car to a halt, and they watched him. He paused at each window and looked inside. As he looked, he swayed.

“That’s our man.”

Hack was their leader. He owned the car and the camera. He got out first and the others followed. Simeon went out through the roof. He was the psycho sidekick. He had the tics and twitches of a thousand psycho sidekicks from a thousand movies. John-John was sure that Simeon’s mannerisms were carefully cultivated. He had real energy though; there was no denying that.

John-John was still on probation. This night was very important to him.

They approached the homeless man from three different angles. He was clearly homeless. Overdressed, in a quilted coat. Red faced. Pants too long. Cord belt. Obviously nowhere to go. He saw them advancing on him, and tried to shuffle past, pressing even closer to the windows. Hack stood in his way.

“Hey, guy, how’s it going?” he asked.

“It’s going,” replied the man, and then from force of habit, irresistible even now when he clearly felt threatened, the man asked, “Do any of you guys have any change you can spare?”

“Change?” Simeon performed a spin move, a little turn on his heel, and giggled.

“Sure, sure, we have change. But how’d you like to earn some real money?”

The man looked at him uncertainly, and backed up a step. His face showed heavy scar tissue around the eyes and cheekbones. His nose was flat. Perhaps he had once been an unsuccessful prize fighter.

“Nah, nah, nothing like that,” said Hack.

“Relax, dude,” said Simeon.

“See, I’m a filmmaker,” said Hack. He held up his camera. “I make documentaries. You know, like reality television. I shoot extreme situations. Street situations. I pay people real money, not change.”

“Yeah? How much?”

“Ten, twenty, a hundred. It depends on what they do.”

“A hundred dollars? You don’t got a hundred dollars.”

“Look at my car. Look at it. You’re gonna tell me I don’t have a hundred dollars?”

“Man, he rolls his own with hundred dollar bills,” said Simeon.

“So, are you game?”

“Sure,” said the man.

“Sure he’s game,” said Simeon. “Buy some of that good stuff, keep you warm at night.”

“Let’s start small. I have to check out your talent… your natural aptitude. See that garbage pail? I’ll give you five dollars if you stand on your head in it.”

“You said ten.”

“For that? That’s for nothing! OK, OK, you drive a hard bargain. But you better get your head down into it. Now, first, look into the camera. Franklin Avenue. One a.m. What’s your name?”

“They call me Crash.”

“Crash. That’s your street name. What’s your real name?”

“That’s my name.”

“OK, you don’t have a real name. What are you going to do for us, Crash?”

“I’m gonna stand on my head in that garbage can.”

“Do your stuff.”

The man started over, then paused and looked back.

“You’re not going to stiff me, are you?”

“No, no. I said ten, I’ll pay you ten. Fair is fair.”

He went over with a will, and tipped himself into the rancid-smelling container.

“That’s right, get down into it, get down into it.” Simeon squatted beside him shouting encouragement. The man packed more and more of his body into the cylinder until only his legs waved in the air.

“That’s good, that’s good.” Hack sounded bored. “You can come out now.”

The man struggled for a while, then finally overbalanced the can and crawled out backwards. There was damp matter in his clothing and in the greasy hair that straggled out from under his knit cap. Garbage trailed out of the overturned pail into the street.

“You better pick that up, Crash,” said Simeon.

“I’m not picking that up.”

“All right, my man Crash has his pride,” said Hack. “Here’s your ten. I said ten, I meant ten. Fair is fair. That was OK, but… unspectacular, you know? My audience craves excitement, the unusual. How’d you like to make some real money?”

“Sure, man. I’m not afraid of nothin’.” The man seemed exhilarated.

“Let’s see what we can come up with.”

Hack walked past the row of shops to the corner. John-John walked alongside, trying to think of something clever to say. Simeon was chattering away to the homeless man.

It was plain that Hack had taken a dislike to his new star.

“I can’t believe I just gave this dirtbag ten bucks to do something he does every day anyway.”

They rounded the corner. They were in a wide open area. Opposite them, across an expanse of asphalt, a row of oblique parking spaces angled against the sidewalk, beyond which was a low stone wall topped by an iron railing. The whole area had been built on a high bluff that overlooked a riverfront. During the day, it was hard to find an empty space here, and there were always BMWs and Jaguars to be seen. John-John had never eaten in the bistro at the corner, and he could not afford the clothes that were sold in these shops, but he often used to ride his bicycle here when he was younger, before he met Hack and Simeon and joined their crowd. There was a narrow lane that led down to a cobblestone square immediately below the stone wall. It split off from the main street, and dipped sharply, first leading away from the square, then executing a hairpin turn and continuing its steep descent, until it emerged from the confining buildings into the open, where a speeding bicycle would shudder and rattle on the cobblestones, threatening to throw the rider.

Hack, however, had made a ninety degree turn in the other direction and was keeping alongside the shops and office fronts. He stopped in front of the imposing post office, with its high clock tower and large white doors.

“Here’s where you earn your money. You see those steps?”

There was a single short flight of stone steps leading up to the door, supplemented by a recently added wheelchair ramp to the left.

“You see that railing?”

A railing ran down the middle of the steps; during the day it divided the customary traffic into two streams.

“Twenty bucks. Twenty. Ride the railing… You don’t know what I’m talking about. John-John! Show him how it’s done.”

It had rained earlier in the night; the street was still damp, and the railing was slick. John-John, glad that he could at last contribute, ran quickly to the top of the steps. He was an avid skateboarder with a superb sense of balance, and the proposed exercise was easy for him. It would not be so easy for the homeless man. He lightly stepped onto the railing, and balanced on the initial flat section on the landing. Then he stepped to the side, and easily slid down the incline, balanced just forward of his heels. At the bottom landing, the railing flattened out again. He used this as a jumping-off point, sailed high in the air, and landed safely far from the bottom of the steps.

“Piece of cake,” he said.

“Think you can do it, Crash?”

The homeless man started for the top of the steps without hesitation. Hack made him wait while he adjusted the camera and moved around to take advantage of the lighting and found the best angle for the scene. He took his videos quite seriously, and expected one day to make filmmaking his profession. John-John was conscious of a slight feeling of surprise. Anyone trying this trick for the first time should show some trepidation, but the homeless man seemed untroubled. Maybe he’s too drunk to be afraid, thought John-John. Or maybe he’s a retired acrobat.

In the event, the homeless man showed no evidence of an acrobatic background. When he tried to stand on the railing at the top of the stairs, he shook crazily with his knees deeply bent. He started himself down the incline in what seemed to be a desperate attempt to regain his balance through speed. He was almost at the bottom, going fast, when he fell forward off the rail. He came down on one leg, his foot catching the last step and twisting in a sickening manner, and his body levering over and crashing face first into the pavement with a loud smack.

Simeon was leaping about with great frog hops, squatting all the way down on his haunches, then jumping as far as he could in random directions.

“Oh, snap!” he was saying. “Oh, snap!” He had developed a system of verbal expression, borrowing from every era and age group, that was unique to him.

“Crash! Outstanding! But that must have hurt.”

That was putting it mildly, thought John-John, who knew a great deal about stunt-related injuries. The man must surely have broken his ankle. John-John was frankly shocked to see the man arise and walk over to Hack with his hand held out.

“Twenty,” was all he said. He had a slight redness on his left cheek which seemed new, but otherwise showed no ill effects.

“One Andrew Jackson coming up,” said Hack. “I said twenty, I meant twenty.”

John-John felt an unexpected chill, an indefinable, unexplainable fear, the first warning of the winter that was to come.

“I can’t believe this guy is still walking,” he muttered.

“These guys are so stoned half the time they don’t feel anything. He’ll feel it tomorrow, all right. Hey, Hack! This guy is gold. I wish we had that other guy here, from last week. Fightin’ Phil. They’d make a good match.”

“Yeah, some day, maybe. That’s some pretty good stuff, Crash. You want to call it a night, or are you still game?”

“You still got money?”

“Have I got money? I always have money. Fifty bucks.” Hack pointed without looking to the brick front of the post office. “Fifty bucks, if you run face first into that wall. But it has to be face first. And you have to really run. Are you still game? Whoa, whoa, wait a second.” For the man had already taken a stance facing the wall, and was drawing himself up for his charge.

As Hack chose a vantage point, John-John murmured to him, “Come on, man, this guy could fracture his skull.”

“I’m just giving him a chance to earn some honest money, and I’m giving him his fifteen minutes. Back off, you’re in my way.”

Hack, finally, was ready.

“Remember, head first, and fast. Anything else hits first, you get nothing. And take that hat off, no padding.”

“There he goes.”

Crash started for the wall, leaning forward at the waist, picking up speed. John-John kept hoping he’d pull up. At the last instant, John-John turned away. He heard a sickening sound, the like of which he had never heard before: an unprotected human skull striking brick hard, a serious sound, almost hollow.

Then he heard Crash’s body falling to the sidewalk. John-John was afraid to turn around. Even Simeon was shocked into silence. John-John heard the faint whine of the camera as Hack moved in for a better view. Then he heard something else: the sound of a man climbing to his feet. He turned.

He saw Crash walking towards Hack with his hand held out.

“My fifty,” he said. There was victory in his eyes. One great dark cord of gore formed above his left eye, stretched, broke, and splashed to the pavement. That was all.

Hack counted the money into his hand.

Simeon was beside himself.

“Crash, you are indestructible. You are the King of the Streets. And you, John-John, are a girl. You’re such a freaking little girl.”

John-John’s heart sank. This night was turning into a disaster.

Hack spoke.

“Yeah, Crash, you sure are indestructible. I’ll tell you what. If you jump over that wall and do a swan dive into the courtyard, I’ll give you my car.”

There was at least a fifty-foot drop to the cobblestones below. Simeon laughed. The homeless man turned once, in a long slow triumphant look that encompassed them all. John-John’s eyes swelled with horror. The man started for the wall. His boots stamped across the wide street.

They stood and watched.

“He’s gonna do it!” said Simeon.

“No he’s not,” said John-John.

“He’s gonna do it!”


“Look at him! He’s gonna do it!”

“No!” Hack screamed, suddenly running and trying desperately to keep his camera steady as he ran.

The homeless man crossed the sidewalk, put one foot on the little stone wall, the other foot on the metal rail, and launched himself into space. He spread his arms and seemed to hang in the air. For a moment, John-John almost expected the man to rise and flap away into the night sky. Then he fell.

They all shouted, but there were no words, only voices. They had not reached the wall when they heard the man hit. If the first sound had been shocking, this sound was incredible. It was impossible to believe that such a sound could be produced by a human body. But they knew it could be produced by nothing else.

John-John reached the wall first, but he did not look over.

Hack was enraged. He craned over the wall with his camera, trying to find the range.

“I missed it. I can’t believe it, I missed it.”

“Hack,” said Simeon quietly. “That guy’s dead.”

“Did I push him? I didn’t push him. He jumped. I can’t believe I missed it. Did you see him? I’ve never seen anything like it. He flew. What a shot, once in a lifetime, and I missed it.”
John-John looked over the wall. The homeless man was spread-eagled on the cobblestones, some distance from the base of the wall, and an oily stain spread from his head.

“Let’s go. I’m going down there.” Hack started back for his car. The others followed.

Simeon spoke again.

“Hack, we’ve got to get out of here. That guy’s dead.”

“He killed himself. I didn’t kill him. But I’ll be damned if I don’t get my shot.”

When they reached Hack’s car, John-John and Simeon got in the back on opposite sides. Hack made a sharp U-turn and his right front tire climbed the curb, then bounced back down into the road. He would never have done such a thing if he had not been rattled too, John-John thought. The car roared down the street, turned left past the scene of Crash’s last flight, and headed for the narrow lane that led down to the square and the body. The familiar sensation of rapid motion rejuvenated Simeon. He rose from his seat through the skylight, and took his place leaning on the roof.

Hack slowed the car to a crawl as he negotiated the hairpin turn, then stepped on the accelerator and sent Simeon and John-John reeling backward. They emerged from the alley going fast, but still should have had enough room to make an oblique left and screech to a halt alongside the homeless man’s body, if only it had been lying where they had last seen it. But the homeless man was much closer than they expected, for he had arisen, and he was walking towards them. One open hand was extended, and in his eyes shone a terrible new light.

The three boys screamed when they saw him. Hack had no time to stop, no time to consider. He did what was natural to him. He floored the accelerator and sought to expunge his strange tormentor. The front fender struck the man, and he flew off at an angle into the air behind them. They were going too fast now, and their follow-through carried them out of the square, into a cylindrical cement piling designed to limit automobile traffic. It worked. They struck hard, and loud, and the car bucked once and stopped, hissing.

John-John was holding his throat. He felt as if he had been struck very hard by a very soft object right on the windpipe. He was terrified that his throat would swell up and he would suffocate. He was convinced that if he removed his hand from his throat he would die. He managed to get the door open with his left hand, and he fell out onto the cobblestones. He could hear Hack making wet flipping noises, as if his mouth was filling up with blood and he was trying to get rid of it using his lips and tongue. From where he lay, cheek pressed against the cold stone, John-John could see Simeon. He had been thrown far clear of the car. He was still twitching, but no longer like a movie sidekick.

John-John wormed a bit farther from the car, then gave up and sank back to the stone. He listened, and he heard the footsteps that he knew he would hear. He saw boots crossing the square between him and the car. He painfully raised his eyes in time to see the homeless man jerk the driver-side door open and slide Hack over on the front seat. Then the man sat down behind the wheel, and closed the door. He restarted the car without difficulty. It backed up suddenly, coming so close to John-John that the rubber of the back left wheel actually touched his leg where he lay helpless. Then the gear shifted, and the car started forward as the homeless man drove away into the night with his prize.


Fate Knocks Twice

by Jeremy Wright




“Someone’s at the front door, Ann,” Hal Sanders yelled out.

Ann Sanders wiped her hands on a dishtowel and said, “Who in the world would be knocking at this time of night?”

Although it was just after nine o’clock, the Sanders weren’t used to and didn’t desire unexpected guests. The majority of unexpected house calls were the obnoxious door-to-door salesmen who tried to sell a truckload of junk for an outrageous price and simply wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“I don’t know why these damn people can’t read the sign. It’s posted right there on the screen door. No soliciting. Doesn’t anyone give a damn about privacy anymore?” Hal hollered loudly and hoped the person at the front door had heard and was already slinking down the front porch and heading for the next house.

“Just calm down. You’re going to get your blood pressure back up again. I’ll see who it is.”

Ann went to the kitchen door, pulled aside the curtain and turned on the porch light. In the soft glow of the light she saw something that made her feel uneasy.

“Hal, can you come here a minute?”

“Christ Almighty, just tell them to go away. There’s no reason for two of us to do it.”

“I’m not really sure I want to open the door to do that.”

“Then yell it through the glass.”

“Would you please just come here?”

Reluctantly Hal grabbed the handle of the recliner and retracted the footrest. With great effort he worked his large body out of the chair and made for the kitchen all the while cursing the intrusion.

“What’s the problem?” he asked as he entered the kitchen and stopped at the door beside Ann.

“It’s a woman. I don’t like the sight of her. I think it’s a homeless woman.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me? Now they have the gall to come to someone’s door and beg for food? I told you to send her away.”

“You do it. That woman scares me some.”

“For crying out loud,” Hal said. He disengaged the deadbolt and opened the door.

The woman was small, appearing contorted by years of endless arthritic suffering. She was wearing garments that looked as if she had found them at the bottom of a dumpster. Her dirty gray hair hung around her face. Her skin was like battered leather, cracked and darkly tanned by a hard life. Her nose was long and hooked. Her chin pointed and covered in fine white hair. None of that really bothered Hal. What he found most disturbing was one of her yellow eyes staring back at him. The other eye was covered in a milky cataract, but that yellow eye reminded him of a snake’s eye.

“Whatever it is you want, you’ve got the wrong house,” Hal said and began closing the door.

“Mr. and Mrs. Sanders?” the old woman said in an almost frail voice.

Hal paused and pulled the door open again.

“Yes, that’s right. Who are you?”

“Who I am isn’t important. What I want is,” the woman said.

“Whoever sent you this way must have made a mistake. Now if you’ll please leave.”

Before Hal could close the door, the woman said, “You’re the one who sent for me, Mr. Sanders.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow. I’ve never met you before. I’m pretty sure my wife hasn’t met you either. Neither of us have asked you here. You’ll need to leave before I call the police.”

“No, we’ve never met. If you wish to call the police, then very well, but I suggest you don’t do that just yet since I’m here to discuss the boy you ran down four years ago. Of course, you remember him, don’t you?”

Hal felt the blood flush from his face. He felt his knees willing to give out. He also felt the world dramatically take a horrifying spin.

“My god,” Ann said as her hand went to her mouth. “I knew it would all come back to haunt us. I knew we could never escape the consequences of what happened.”

“Hush up now, Ann. You just keep it zipped and I’ll handle this. Look, as I said before, you’ve come to the wrong house. We don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about and we’d like you to leave.”

“I’m here to offer you a choice. I suggest you let me in so that we may discuss what’s going to take place in a little while.”

Hal desperately wanted to close the door in the woman’s face. He wanted to shut out the crude appearance of the woman who suddenly came knocking about a four-year-old incident. But despite all of his mental urging, Hal couldn’t get his body to act.

The old woman stepped inside, removed Hal’s hand and closed the door.

“Well, should we find a more comfortable spot before we get down to the bare bones of the matter?” she asked.

Hal and Ann followed the old woman from the kitchen to the living room. She found a seat on the couch and placed her battered handbag on the coffee table.

“How is it after all this time you found us?” Ann asked.

Hal slammed his fist down on the coffee table, which rattled the decorative pieces Ann kept for show.

“Dammit! Are you trying to cinch the noose tighter around our throats? Why in the hell don’t you run into the street and flag down the next cop that comes by and confess everything? Where’s your brain?”

“Mr. Sanders, you’ll need to calm yourself. I want you clearheaded for a little while because you’ll need to have focus in order to make your choice,” the old woman said.

“Will you just tell us who you are and what you want?” Ann nearly screamed.

The old woman eyed them for a moment, removed a pack of cigarettes from her bag and lit one.

“You look like one of those…” Hal started.

“Go ahead and say it,” the woman replied.

“Gypsies. One of those freaks that ride into town with the carnival.”

“In fact, I am exactly that, Mr. Sanders. Many people call our kind freaks, but we’re not. We’ve just got special abilities that regular people don’t understand. Now, don’t ask me why it took so long to find the people who ran down my grandson. I waited many years for the vision to come to me. It’s taken a long time, but I finally received what I’ve been waiting for and that’s what brought me here.”

“You can’t prove anything. What are you trying to do, blackmail us or something?” Hal asked.

The old woman pointed a yellowed, crooked finger to the telephone on the living room wall. With her other hand she pointed through the kitchen archway and to the door in which she had arrived.

“In fifteen minutes you’re going to have to make a choice. In fifteen minutes two things will happen. The telephone will ring and there will also be a knock at your front door. Only one of these you’ll need to answer.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Ann asked, as her nerves couldn’t take much more.

“I know that you didn’t intentionally kill my grandson when you were leaving the carnival grounds in Bixby four years ago. But you did leave the area without even bothering to see if he was still alive or getting help for the poor boy. My grandson didn’t have a choice. Your son, Brandon, and your daughter, Rebecca, won’t have a choice either. At least one of them won’t have a choice. I’m going to take one, it seems only fair.”

“How the hell do you know our children?” Hal asked as he felt his personal life being probed by this strange woman.

“I know of them, and where they can be found right now. When the telephone rings and if you decide to answer, your daughter will die. If you decide to answer the door, your son will die.” The old woman looked at her antique watch and said, “You have fifteen minutes to make your choice.”

“Are you insane? If this is some sort of twisted revenge, then I’m not answering either,” Hal said.

“Failure to answer one or answering both at the same time will result in two deaths. I recommend you spend your remaining time discussing your decision.”

Hal stood from the chair. “Leave my house immediately, or so help me you won’t like the actions I take. No one threatens my family, especially my children. They haven’t done anything wrong to you.”

“My grandson never wronged you, Mr. Sanders. Still, his life is gone all the same. I’ve given you fifteen minutes to make your decision because that is the amount of time it took the poor boy to die. I can’t imagine the pain and suffering he dealt with before the end. Now pain and suffering has come full circle and knocked on your front door. Which child do you believe you can live without? I’m sure it isn’t an easy decision to make, but one that must be made.”

“Hal, let’s talk this over, like she says,” Ann said as she nervously rubbed her hands together.

Hal quickly turned and looked at his wife as if she had struck him without provocation.

“My god, have you lost all your senses? Did you just say what I think you said? Are you really buying all this crap? How can you seriously justify making a decision that will kill one of our children? How could you even entertain such a cruel thought, Ann?”

“I’m not justifying anything! You heard what she said, both Rebecca and Brandon will die if we do nothing.”

“No one is going to die. I’ve had enough of this. I’m calling the police,” Hal said and moved toward the phone.

When he picked up the phone, Hal didn’t hear a dial tone, but could hear someone on the other end breathing heavily.

A deep-throated voice on the other end said, “Sometimes minutes are fleeting. Sometimes a clock can be deceiving. Soon a precious heart will stop beating. Moments from now there will come a ring-a-ding and a knock-knock you’ll be receiving.”

Hal pulled the phone from his ear and stared at the receiver in bewilderment.

“What is it?” Ann asked.

“They’re messing with the phone line. We can’t call out because they’ve done something to the line.”

“Tick-tock, Mr. Sanders.”

Hal hung up the phone and returned to the chair.

“Okay, I don’t like this sick game you’re playing. You’re right, I accidentally ran over your grandson at the park grounds. I can’t tell you how much I regret leaving and doing nothing for the boy. God, it was dark and he just ran right in front of my truck. I didn’t have time to do anything. Ann wanted to stop. She begged me to stop. I had been drinking most of the day and I knew I’d go to jail for a long, long time if I stopped. Can you understand that?”

“I understand that my grandson is dead. I understand that it’s your fault. I cannot change any of it, but I’ve taken action so that my grandson’s soul is finally at peace. The clock does not stop. You have eight minutes.”

The old woman retrieved another cigarette, lit it and leaned back on the couch.

“Hal, please, I can’t lose my sweet daughter. She’s getting married soon.”

“Sweet lord, you already made up your mind? You’re really prepared to allow our son to die by the hands of these cretins? How can you make a snap decision like that?”

“Okay, okay, so let’s discuss this thing,” Ann said.

Hal pinched his eyes closed and shook his head. This was an impossible choice to make and he knew that either answering the phone or the door would forever haunt him just as the death of the boy had all these years.

The old woman said, “I want you to go to the front window. Across the street you will see a man. That man is patiently waiting to approach your door.”

Hal was instantly on his feet and shuffling for the front window and Ann was a few steps behind. Quickly they moved aside the curtain and pulled up the blinds. In the darkness of the neighbor’s yard they saw the dark figure of a man. They saw the faint wink of a cigarette and something else that eerily glowed. Hal thought it was the man’s eyes, maybe the horrible, unwavering glare of the devil’s eyes.

“Five minutes, Mr. Sanders.”

“I’ll kill you. I swear that I’ll kill you and that man outside if you don’t stop this,” Hal said.

“Oh, prepared to take more lives? Haven’t we become quite the soul collector,” the Gypsy said.

“Don’t you understand? Don’t you see? I can’t lose my son. I can’t lose the child that will carry on the Sanders legacy!” Hal screamed and collapsed in the chair. He covered his face with his hands and began weeping.

“How dare you! How dare you judge me. Your mind was already made up before I said anything about saving Rebecca. How could you even think about saving Brandon’s life over Rebecca’s? He’s taken after you all right. He’s become a drunk and spends half of his time in jail. The drinking and driving, the bar fights, the wandering through life with no job, no goal, that’s what you call a legacy? I suppose with someone like you as a role model, I can understand how he became the way he did. Hell, the only time he even calls is when he needs money. If he’s such a great son, then when was the last time he called and wished you a happy Father’s Day or called on your birthday? He never does and you know it,” Ann yelled.

“Oh, and how about your little princess? She’s quite the saint, isn’t she? Let’s see, arrested for shoplifting half a dozen times, knocked up when she was fifteen and then again at seventeen by two different men. She’s been relying on welfare for years and finally hooks up with a man and promises marriage because he’s got money. God help me I do love her. I do. But that girl has worn me down like a grinding stone.”

“Don’t you talk about my daughter like that!” Ann said and harshly slapped her husband.

Hal quickly stood and said, “I’ve never struck you in twenty-six years of marriage, but so help me, if you do that again, I won’t hold back.”

“Two minutes,” the Gypsy said and smiled, showing a row of crooked brown and yellow teeth.

Ann retrieved a cast-iron bookend from the mantel, stepped toward the couch and said, “You’ve brought this madness to my house! You’re destroying my family and I want you to leave this instant!”

“I will not leave until the choice has been made. The curse has been placed. If you decide to kill me here and now, I promise that your entire family will suffer devastating deaths.”

“I will not lose my son. I won’t. When the phone rings, I’m going to answer. I know that I’ll have to live with the choice I made, but I will manage,” Hal said.

“No, Hal. I’m making the decision. When that person knocks on the front door, I’m going to answer. You know that it’s the right choice.”

Hal looked out the window and saw the dark figure walking across the street. The man moved with a casual stroll, as if he was delivering a pizza instead of death. The man disappeared around the corner of the house heading for the kitchen door. Hal moved from the window and faced his wife.

“I’m sorry, Ann, I really am, but I’ve made the choice. Don’t even think about going for the door. I’d hate to do it, but I’ll knock you to the ground.”

“I’ll die before I let you take my daughter away,” Ann said and moved for the kitchen door.

Hal quickly followed.

When the phone rang and a fist simultaneously pounded on the front door, both of them halted. They looked into each other’s horror-struck eyes. The small part of them that believed the Gypsy’s story to be nothing more than a method to drive them mad began falling apart and reality quickly set in.

Ann dashed for the door and Hal lunged for her, caught her around the legs, and they crashed into a heap on the floor. Immediately they began clawing at each other. Ann’s teeth came down like a vice on Hal’s forearm and immediately blood gushed into her mouth. Hal screamed and threw a punch to the side of her head.

The phone rang and the fist pounded.

Ann drove her knee up and caught her husband in the groin. Hal grunted, but fought through the pain and wrapped his large hand around her throat.

In a gasp, Ann said, “Stop it, just stop it. I won’t let you take away my Rebecca.”

Ann’s thumbs went for Hal’s eyes. In an attempt to avoid losing his eyes, Hal rolled off his wife. Quickly she turned over and in a mad attempt she crawled for the door. Hal gently rubbed his eyes and pulled his hands away to see if he was bleeding. In a state of grief and exhaustion, Hal couldn’t get his legs to lift him up. He rolled to the wall and looked up at the ringing phone. He swatted at the dangling cord and tried to knock the receiver free. He could hear Ann scrambling for the door. As Hal heard the squeak of the doorknob turning, something unseen came down on his chest like a stack of bricks.

With one arm clutched tightly to his chest, he used his free arm and jarred the receiver loose from the cradle.

Hal heard Ann screaming. It wasn’t a scream of terror, but one of pain.

Hal brought the receiver to his ear.

The hinges released a rusty bark as the door opened.

In the kitchen, Ann yelled, “Hal, something’s wrong with my head. It hurts so badly. Call for an ambulance.”

As another shock of pain seized Hal’s chest, he croaked into the phone. “My son. I’ve made the choice. I want to save my son.”

There was no response. Only silence filled his ear.

“Hal, my god, it’s the devil come to take us away,” Ann screamed.

The Gypsy knelt beside Hal and smiled.

“Mr. Sanders, did you honestly believe that I would punish one of your children for your crime? Oh, the curse was set into place. By answering the phone, Mr. Sanders, you’ve sacrificed your wife’s life. By answering the door, she’s sacrificed your life. I told you in the beginning that by not answering one or by answering both at the same time would result in two deaths. I knew the emotional struggle between you and your wife would be spectacular. I was certain your wife couldn’t let your daughter go, just as I was certain you couldn’t let your son go. It’s interesting how both of you were so willing to offer one child to save the other. You and your wife were guilty in the death of my grandson, and neither of you offered yourselves as a sacrifice to save your own children. What a shame. You should know that fate comes with many identities, but no one seems to think it will ever come knocking on their front door.”


The Little Girl

by Jason Howell


The little girl reclined in the grass, propped up on her elbows and tilting her face to the late morning sky. She watched the blood-red stars spinning in the black behind her eyelids and soaked the July sunshine into her forehead and cheeks. Drowsing, daydreams becoming shapeless as they ambled toward real dreaming, her lips parted with a soft click. She felt blades of grass caress the sides of her hands and broken blades scratch and poke into the tiny caves made where her fingers joined her palm. She felt ants and other insects thrum under and over her fingertips. The breeze carried the smell of the beach as well as the faint crash of an incoming tide rushing to embrace the shore and then, fainter still, tearing away with the regretful sound of water retreating from sand.

With her eyes shut, the little girl could picture the creatures of the ocean, far out and away from the land and slowly, slowly flying down where the water was shock-cold, dark and still. She imagined they sang to each other and moved through the water like clouds through the sky or trees reaching for the heavens—so gradual you would have to watch for a long time to notice they moved at all. Whales, whale sharks—things much bigger than her, she knew—although, with the honest and naïve skepticism of someone who had only been alive a few years, she only half-believed any living thing could be so big. In fact, she had only recently accepted that anything (greater or smaller) really existed outside of herself and the world she knew: these bungalow apartments with their red tile roofs and morning glory vines covering almost every east-facing wall; the apartments’ playground with its half-foot of woodchips, held in by a short plastic wall, that smelled woodsy and green after it rained; the grassy slope next to the playground upon which she sat; the sky overhead; the sun when it shone; the moon when it reflected that shining.

The little girl lowered her chin to her chest and pretended with no one that her eyes were still shut as she peeked through slit lids and spied the miniature monkey-bars, a brightly colored half-circle of metal poles welded to metal rungs growing out of the woodchips. It always looked like a bent ladder to her—but bending backwards to show off or bending over protectively, possessively, she could not decide.

Pad, pad, pad. Footsteps. On the pavement. Miss Hunter and her boys, Josh and Candler, trotting to their tiny car, heads down. They had taken their shoes off. Miss Hunter shuffled as best she could in her sock-feet; arms that supported a duffle bag on the left and a frayed Spider-Man backpack on the right hovered over the boys’ heads so that she looked like a pheasant covering its chicks as they ran through the forest.

The little girl pushed herself up. In her excitement, she stepped on the monkey bars to reach her toys before they could drive away.

With a blanched but stony expression, Miss Hunter watched the little girl rise. Her older boy was just climbing into the backseat as she picked up the younger and shoved him after his sibling, still watching the advancing horror. Miss Hunter slid into the driver’s seat and shut her door as the little girl made it to the car. The girl waited for a moment, indecisive, but once the engine fired she fell on the vehicle, her knees on the pavement, hugging the roof to her chest. Glass and metal whined and crunched.

The little girl repositioned herself by degrees, always keeping one hand on the hood, her nails hooked carefully into the space where the wiper-blades rested. Still holding on, she scooted over to the walkway dividing the playground and the parking lot then carefully switched hands to allow her to sit on the narrow sidewalk. She hiked one bare foot onto the front bumper, catching her heel there. She tucked the front of her dress between her knees in unconscious modesty. She sat; she waited. The boys screamed.

When Miss Hunter tried to drive backwards, the little girl pulled the car toward her with her foot; when Miss Hunter revved the engine and tried to run into her, the little girl pushed back with both feet. She listened to the tires skid and the motor strain. She wiggled her toes at the occupants of the car through a windshield turned gray with a spider web of cracks. The neighbors watched from their boarded apartment windows.

Something in the vehicle broke with a pop and the ringing smack of unseen metal striking metal. The engine continued to heave a drawn-out retch but the front wheels no longer turned. The little girl withdrew her heel from the bumper and crawled, hands and knees, around the side of the car. First the crown of her blonde head, then her pale, sandy eyebrows and finally her emerald eyes filled the back window. Those eyes sent a picture of two wailing boys, upside down, to her brain. That brain was clever—and even more to its owner’s advantage, patient in its own stubbornness.

The little girl picked up the car, one hand squeezing the bumper, the other clawing into the groove of the trunk-handle, and shook. She shook the car up and down, slowly at first, then faster, bouncing on her toes. Then she opened her hands, careful to let the car land right-side up, careful not to let the tires catch her sun-burnt feet. Instead, two of the tires exploded. The little girl sat on the pavement a few steps away and waited, then returned, gripped the vehicle and repeated the shaking. Then she took a few steps back, a little further this time, and, catching her breath, waited some more.

After the third or fourth shaking, as the little girl took her seat on the ground at a calculated distance, the driver’s door creaked open and Miss Hunter struggled out, supporting herself in the V made by the top of her door and the partially caved-in roof. Gritting her teeth and bobbing with her whole upper body, the woman prepared to push herself away from the car, to give herself all the momentum she could gather. The little girl rose. Miss Hunter shoved off and staggered across the parking lot. She did not run because her left leg now bent sharply away from her center of balance. She had told the boys to get out of the opposite side of the car once the monster ran past and flee back to their apartment, the door to which their mother had left unlocked before they had packed and ventured out, in case events turned out just as they had. But the boys did not move from the car.

The little girl picked up the wobbly Miss Hunter by the waist and bit her head off. She dropped the body and spit the head into her palm, rolling it gently between her fingers—the eyelids blinked rapidly, like a stunned bee trying to flutter its wings back into normal flight—before tucking the head into a pocket on the side of her dress. Then she sauntered back to the car, swinging her arms in time with a made-up song she hummed. She yawned towards the sky, stretched, then reached into the open door, searching for Josh and Candler. She was a little sweet on Candler. After he stopped moving, even when she wasn’t poking or squeezing him, she buried him in the wood-chips of the playground, under the slide.

Then there wasn’t much going on so the little girl wiped her hands on her dress and reclined in the grass, leaning back on her elbows and tilting her head up to the wide, pale blue. She closed her eyes and felt the sun shining on her face.



by L.A. Parish


On Tuesday evening, Dwight dug up Sophie and brought her into the kitchen. He laid her out on a broad sheet of clear plastic and sat beside her for a good three hours. During this time Dwight drank bottles of Amstel Light and scratched out images on loose sheets of paper. The images were crude, depicting nebulous unworldly creatures with large jagged teeth and long twisting tails. Just before the sun made an appearance above Tom Hull’s dilapidated barn, Dwight had Sophie back in the ground.

Dwight had Sophie out again early Thursday evening. This time he set her on the living room couch. He covered her body with a pale green blanket and used a corner of the old material to flick away particles of dirt and sagebrush from her young face. He sat with her head in his lap and watched as dark birds settled awkwardly on telephone lines outside. He gently stroked Sophie’s head and soon fell asleep. Dwight dreamed of a world overrun with large carnivorous frogs.

Dwight awoke in the early hours of Friday. He thought it too late to return Sophie. He stood and stretched his back and then knelt beside her and lightly kissed her dry nose. Dwight then stood at the window. The sky was a sickly rich blend of orange and red. There were six dead flies on the windowsill. Dwight gathered the little husks into his palm and examined them closely. He rolled them back and forth with little puffs of breath. Two of the husks still had wings attached. Dwight plucked at one and it fell apart at his touch. He shook his head and gently placed the husks back on the sill.

He made himself scrambled eggs for breakfast. He would have made toast as well, but he had not been to the store in over a week and there was no bread. Dwight had also not been to work in almost two weeks. On the first day of his absence, Dwight received two messages from Suzette in human resources. Her voice was slow and friendly, asking him to please call in. He replayed the message eight times. On the second day he received three calls but only one message. It was Suzette again. This time she did not sound as friendly. Dwight only replayed that message twice. On the third day there was one call and one message. Suzette. She said she was now becoming quite concerned about Dwight; in fact, they all were, and would he please return the call to let everyone know that everything was alright. Dwight played this message eleven times before erasing it. He then sat at the kitchen table and sketched an image of a naked woman with large teeth and a bright red telephone in her hand. The image aroused Dwight and so he quickly tore it up and slid the tip of a steak knife up under the nail of his left forefinger and pushed until blood spurted from beneath the opaque nail and the pain reset his mind.

Early Friday evening Dwight stood at the window and watched as the sky darkened and slowly filled with stars. He returned Sophie a little after ten, placing a handkerchief across her face so as to protect her eyes from dirt. He tamped the fragrant soil about her small body and sat beside her when he was done. The air was cool and things small and unknown to Dwight scurried about in nearby ditches. Something large drifted silently across the moon’s slender face.

Dwight slept poorly that night. His dreams were filled with erratic images of children engulfed in flames and of ships sinking into a dark sea. Just before sunrise Dwight awoke and sat at the foot of his bed. He looked out at the barren land beyond the window and wept.

Dwight dressed himself and nibbled at a breakfast of dry cereal. He drank a glass of orange juice. He checked to see if anyone had called. The message light pulsed with a single red zero. Dwight picked up the phone and set it to his ear. There was nothing but a faint static rustling. He set his glass in the sink and put on his heavy leather coat and went outside.

A side door to Tom Hull’s barn was swinging back and forth on loose hinges. Dwight walked over and latched it shut. He then walked up the broken steps to Tom’s kitchen door and knocked. There was no response. Dwight smiled and shielded his eyes and peered through a window. There were dirty plates and cups stacked in the sink and an opened package of sandwich meat on the table. Flies buzzed through the air between the sink and table. The edging of the meat had turned an iridescent green. Something with a reddish tail scurried out from beneath the table and darted into the hallway. Was there something inside that Dwight had missed? He didn’t think so. But to be sure, he would return later and check.

Dwight walked back to his property and sat on the back steps. There was an odd purple tinge to the sky and a slight tang of something bitter on the air. Dwight walked over to Sophie’s mound and knelt beside it. There were four other mounds nearby but Dwight would no longer dig up their holes. It had been too long now and things had changed drastically and the smell had become terrible. It was best to let them lie. But Sophie still looked like Sophie. She had died only days earlier. In time the others would die too. It never really seemed to take too long. Now and then Dwight could hear them calling. Their small voices muffled behind the thick cellar door.

Dwight knew that someone would in time come for Tom. It seemed that everyone had someone to miss them eventually. Dwight thought about Suzette and of her slow soft voice. He wondered if Suzette would in time come for him. And if so, what would he do when she did?

Dwight stood and stretched his back. He thought tonight would be the last night for Sophie. He would bring her into the living room once more, but this time he would set her in the chair by the window. If there was any shine left to her eyes he would try to position her head so that the lamplight caught it. He would sit beside her and wait. He may even draw something new. He would block out the other voices as he waited. In the morning he would dig new holes.


Just a Little Kiss

by Sarah Scharnweber


Alexander put his arm around Veronica. His hand crept down her shoulder and onto her breast. She shrugged him off. “Stop.”

He leaned in. “Just a little kiss?” He puckered his lips.

She looked into the blue eyes she loved so much, but she hadn’t planned for this. It was their first date and she wasn’t ready to move this fast. “I think it’s a little early for that.” She brushed his hand off of her shoulder and reached for the handle. “I think you should take me home.” She tugged the handle, popping the latch, but keeping the door closed.

“I don’t think I’m going to do that.” He leaned in further. “One kiss is all I want.”

“I don’t want to. Please, take me home.” She pushed open the door; the wind blew in, blowing her long blond hair into her face.

He grabbed her arm and tugged on her. “Stop.”

She shook the hair from her face. “Either take me home, or I’m walking.”

“You aren’t going to walk in the dead of winter. We are in the middle of nowhere.”

“Take me home, or I’m really going to walk.”

“Don’t be stupid.” He pulled her hard; her left wrist popped as she shook free of his grip and went tumbling out the door and onto the ground.

She landed on her right hand, pressing pieces of gravel deep into her palm.  She pushed herself to her feet, trying to ignore the pain. She heard Alexander’s door open. “Just leave me alone.” She tugged at her skirt, trying to straighten it as she walked down the road, away from him.

“Stop being a bitch and come back here. It’s not like I was gonna rape your or anything.”

“Just leave me alone.” She continued walking away from him.

“I’m just gonna leave you, then. This is your last chance.”

“Please do.” She shouted with her middle finger in the air pointed behind her. She walked for a few more second; heard him close her door, then walk around and close his own.

He slowed as he approached. “Seriously! Just get back in.”

“Just go, I’ll figure it out on my own.” She didn’t look at him as he drove away and his lights disappeared into the distance.

She walked for several minutes before she even noticed how cold it was. Her wool coat was warm, but it was short and so was the tight black skirt she wore. She pulled out her cell phone and sighed. Of course he would bring her to a no-service area.

She started crying, not sure what she was going to do as teardrops froze to her cheeks. She was very cold and she knew he wasn’t coming back. Before she knew it, she was talking to herself aloud. “So, this is how you do things. This is the best date ever. You are such a fucking idiot. This is what you get.”

She walked for nearly ten minutes before she saw her first highway sign. She checked her phone, but still had no service, but she believed she would be able to walk to a place where her phone would work.

She was beginning to worry about the dangers of frostbite when she heard the sound of a car coming toward her from behind. She felt a wave of relief when she saw the small black sports car pull around the corner and slow as it pulled up next to her.

The passenger window went down; Veronica looked in. There was a nice-looking man in his forties, dressed in a suit sitting in the driver’s seat. He looked confused. “I didn’t see a broken down car anywhere, where are you coming from?” He gestured behind him.

“Someone left me out here.” She looked into his eyes; they were brown, not blue. “Do you think you could get me into town? Just far enough for my phone to work is fine.”

He nodded. “Sure, just hop in.” He flipped a switch inside the car and the door unlocked.

She climbed in. The car was warm and her skin burned as her legs began to warm up. “Thank you so much.”

“Who would leave you on the side of the road like that?” He looked to her for an answer, then recognition overcame his face. “I’m sorry. I’m Ethan.” He reached out his right hand to shake, without looking away from the road. She took his hand, also looking at the road in fear while she did. “No one even uses this road anymore. Why were you out here?”

“Why were you out here?”

He chuckled a bit. “Looking for someone to eat.” He looked over at her and winked, then bellowed a deep laugh. “I’m kidding you, of course.”

She forced a laugh. “My date tried to take advantage of me, so I got out of the car and he left me here.”

“Sounds like there’s a young man who comes out this way quite often. That’s not the first time I’ve heard that same story.”

“So, picking up recently assaulted girls is some kind of a hobby for you?” Her fingers rubbed the edge of her skirt.

“Nah, just when I see a pretty girl, who looks like she’s in trouble, I stop. Last few months, there have been more of them.” He smiled. “I’m a lawyer; this is on my way home. Sometimes I see people and once in a while, I help them.”

She let out a breath that she hadn’t realized she had been holding. “You really had me nervous for a moment.”

“I’m sorry; I was just making conversation, was all.” He reached over and patted her knee.

“I don’t like to be touched.” She tried to speak gently, but the way she tugged her fishnet-covered knee away from him was cold.

“Wow.” He was calm, but seemed very offended. “I didn’t mean anything by it.” He twisted his hands on the steering wheel and pulled air in through his nose. “Not like you don’t owe me, or anything.”

“I don’t want to owe you anything. If you want, you can wait for my mom to come pick me up and I’m sure she can give you some cash for your troubles, but that’s it. I’m not even eighteen.” She pulled out her phone; still no signal.

He looked over at her, licked his lips and smiled. “Age only matters if they catch you.” He took a sharp left and they headed down another street. His hand reached over and held down the power lock.

Veronica reached over and tried to pull up the lock, but it wouldn’t move. She felt her heart start to race as she continued pulling at the lock. She grabbed the handle and yanked at it.

Ethan stopped and looked into her eyes. “You jump out and I’ll run you over until you are dead. If you think I’m kidding, just try me.”

She let go of the door. Her hands shook and her heart thudded in her chest.

“That’s better.” He straightened in his seat. “You’re mine now. You may as well get used to that.”

She felt tears streaming down her face again. “What are you going to do to me?” She felt her chest growing heavy as she started to have trouble breathing.

“Whatever I want, I guess.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Not much further now and then I guess you’ll see for yourself.”

A moment later, he pulled behind a big barn that would have struck Veronica as odd under other circumstances, but she hardly even noticed its electric blue color in the dark as he dragged her through the doorway.

Once they were inside, he let her go. He turned back and padlocked the door to the outside, then turned back to her and smiled.

She glanced around the room. It was large with wood and plaster walls. A long couch with huge orange and brown flowers on a yellow background stood against the far wall. She stared at him, certain that running would do her no good inside this place.

He tilted his head as he spoke. “Victoria? That’s a beautiful name. It’s too bad for you, really. If you weren’t so stupid, you wouldn’t be here right now.”

Tears still streamed down Veronica’s face. “It’s Veronica,” she corrected. “I don’t know what I did, but I’m sorry.”

Just as she spoke, she heard a scuffling behind her.

“Are you going to kill me?” She had gained some composure, but continued to cry.

“Not right away.” The voice behind her was familiar, but she couldn’t place it. “First, we’re going to skin you.”

She turned and saw Alexander standing behind her. He had a long hunting knife in his right hand. “I thought you were going to be the one, but you were just like all the others.”

“The one what?” Seeing him made her angry. Her tears had stopped before she realized she wasn’t frightened of him.

“I thought you were going to be the girl we were going to bring to the family. You should have just kissed me; that’s all you had to do.”

She bit her tongue, certain that this wasn’t the right time to argue with him. She looked at him for a moment, before Ethan pulled her hand behind her back. She tried to fight, but it was too late.

Something heavy struck her head and then there was darkness.


She awoke in a different room. It smelled like dirt and was completely dark. Her arms were restrained above her and her toes barely touched the floor. “Hello?” she called out. “Someone there?”

There was a cough followed by a low moan.

“Hello?” Her voice was louder than before.

“Shh,” a light and airy female voice whispered.

Veronica lowered her voice again, “Who are you?”

“My name is Mary. I’m not sure where I am, or how I got here. Who are you?”

“Veronica, I dated Alexander once. I guess that’s why I’m here.” Her eyes began to adjust to the darkness and she could tell there was someone chained to the far wall.

“You too?” Mary was calm. “What do you know?”

Veronica didn’t know what she meant. “I should have kissed Alexander and I wouldn’t be here.”

Mary sighed. “I wish I didn’t have to tell you this, but they’re going to kill us.”

“Because I didn’t kiss him?” Her voice was loud. Just as Veronica was going to ask more questions, there was a thud upstairs.

A door creaked and a small sliver of light illuminated the room enough that Veronica could see Mary’s long black hair hanging in unkempt clumps on her shoulders.

“Don’t make me come down there.” The low, scratchy voice had a slight drawl.

Veronica looked to Mary and shook her head, signaling her not to speak.

“Don’t make me get up again.” The door creaked closed, leaving the room dark again.

“You can’t make noise or they’ll punish us.”

“How long have you been here?” Her voice was almost inaudible.

“I have no idea. It’s been a while, but I sleep lots.” She groaned. “I’m sore, that’s for sure.”

“What are they going to do to us?”

“They sliced pieces of skin off of the last girl before they dragged her out.” She started crying a little, but managed to keep from sobbing. “I threw up and wet myself when I watched it. She was so sweet. Her name was Mandy.” She sniffed as if she were frightened they would hear even that above.

“Why would they want to kill us? I don’t want to die.”

“Don’t you start shouting again. If they come down here, I’m going to tell them you’re the loud one. Maybe they’ll kill you first.” She sounded angry, but it was clear that she was also scared.

“I’m not going to draw attention to us.”

“They’re coming either way; but I want to prolong it as long as I can.” She was calm again.

“I’m scared,” Veronica said.

Both girls fell silent.


A high-pitched female voice made its way across the building above them and approached the stairs. The door exploded open and footsteps thundered down. “No hiding now.” The strange female voice approached. “You both thought that you were going to refuse my beautiful baby boy.” She shook her head as she stepped into the room and stood between the two girls. “Lucky for you, I hafta to do this fast.” The building rumbled for a moment before the room was filled with people and light. A large blond woman with an orange apron around her waist stood there, surrounded by men.

“Please, don’t,” Veronica sobbed as her head swung from side to side.

“You ran out of please a few days ago.” A large man in front of the group stood with his feet shoulder-width apart as if in preparation for a fight. “Time to pay the price.” A large man in a too-small tee shirt and cut-off jean shorts lifted his fists.

Veronica’s lip quivered as he pulled a small knife from his pocket and scratched the tip of it along her cheek.

 “I don’t want to die.” Her chest was heavy and full.

He looked into her eyes and studied them, while his thick, moist tongue lashed at his lips. “Bobby, carve into that one, I wanna see the look in her eyes.”

Veronica closed her eyes and looked away. She almost instantly felt cold, sharp metal against her cheek. Veronica turned her face away.

“Look at her.” He growled and dug his knife into her cheek.

She shook her head a tiny bit.

He cut a deep slit into her right cheek, nearly cutting all the way through. “I said look, dammit!” he shouted in her face.

She could feel blood dripping down her cheek as she forced herself to look.

A fat man in sweats, who Veronica assumed was Bobby, then sliced down her thigh. Blood poured down her leg as she screamed.

“Please, don’t.” Veronica sniffled and felt her lip begin to quiver.

The man in front of her chuckled, “More, Bobby.”

Fat Bobby carved into her thigh. Six inches to the right, parallel to the first cut. Alexander walked toward her, a meat cleaver hung at his side from one hand. He didn’t respond to Mary’s screams as he chopped at a piece of meat that now hung from her leg.

Blood splattered across the room, some of it hit Veronica’s leg. Veronica let out a squeal, but stifled it. “Please, just stop.” Veronica whispered.

Just then, she felt an explosion of pain and warmth as blood poured out of her stomach and down the front of her skirt. The man in front of her pulled up on the knife, ripping Veronica’s stomach open. She looked down and felt her head growing dizzy. 


“Wake up, bitch.” She opened her eyes. Fat Bobby’s face was inches from hers. She was laying on something cold and hard in a bright white room. Fat Bobby stood to her right. She couldn’t feel her limbs. Mary stood on the left of her. Alexander stood behind her.

“Do it.” Alexander grunted at Mary.

She looked into Veronica’s eyes, begging her for an apology as she reached out and carved a flap of skin from her left breast. Blood trickled out. Veronica felt weak.

“I looked her in the eyes and cut her, am I in?” She looked from Alexander to Fat Bobby.

They both shook their head. Alexander reached down and picked the piece of meat from the knife. He put it between his teeth and pulled Mary to him.

The last thing Veronica heard before everything went dark was Fat Bobby’s voice, “I now pronounce you Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Crawford.”