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InterText Vol. 5, No. 6 / November-December 1995
================================================
Contents
FirstText: Keep Out!..............................Jason Snell
Short Fiction
Handlers..........................................Ceri Jordan
Dust.........................................Christopher Hunt
Barefoot Sinderella........................Evangeline Mercury
Storm's Child.....................................Shawn Click
....................................................................
Editor Assistant Editor
Jason Snell Geoff Duncan
jsnell@intertext.com geoff@intertext.com
....................................................................
Assistant Editor Send correspondence to
Susan Grossman editors@intertext.com
susan@intertext.com or intertext@intertext.com
....................................................................
InterText Vol. 5, No. 6. InterText (ISSN 1071-7676) is published
electronically on a bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this
magazine is permitted as long as the magazine is not sold
(either by itself or as part of a collection) and the entire
text of the issue remains intact. Copyright 1995, Jason Snell.
Individual stories Copyright 1995 their original authors.
InterText is created using Apple Macintosh computers and then
published in ASCII/Setext, Adobe PostScript, Adobe Acrobat PDF
and HTML (World Wide Web) formats. For more information about
InterText, send a message to intertext@intertext.com with the
word "info" in the subject line. For writers' guidelines, place
the word "guidelines" in the subject line.
....................................................................
FirstText: Keep Out! by Jason Snell
=======================================
Of all the funny lines he uttered in his 87 years on the planet,
maybe the most famous Groucho Marx comment is this: "I don't
care to belong to any club that will have me as a member." Given
his fame, it's doubtful any club would have turned Groucho away.
But the fact is, there are certain places in this world where
most (or all) of us would never be allowed entrance. People want
to feel special, feel that for whatever reason -- whether it's
their schooling, their experience, the color of their skin, the
social standing of their parents -- they're on the inside while
the unwashed masses are on the outside.
The information revolution currently manifested in the
popularity of the Internet was supposed to make publishing and
distributing information easier than it has ever been. For the
first time, individuals were supposed to have power previously
only given to an elite few -- the power to widely distribute
ideas.
And it's true. Something like _InterText_ could never have
existed in a "traditional" medium like the ink-on-paper
magazine. Thanks to the technology, it's possible for a handful
of people to create a publication read by thousands of people
all over the world, distributed for free and without any
advertising support of any kind. In that sense, you could say
we're a success story.
But just because the technology has succeeded in making it
_possible_ for our voices to be heard by people all over the
world doesn't mean that our voices will be heard by that
potential audience. Although the Internet has lowered the
economic restrictions to publishing, people are just replacing
those old barriers with new ones. As a result, people have
gained greater potential to disseminate their ideas while at the
same time having that potential reduced to a fraction of what it
should be.
Last month my wife and I went on vacation to the northwest,
visiting Seattle and Vancouver. While we were there, we spent
some time with Steve, a friend of mine from high school who
works as a transportation engineer. He always got good grades in
school, including in English, but he never impressed me as a
potential publisher.
When we visited him, we discovered he had been developing a
series of Web pages on a variety of subjects -- his newfound
ability to host web pages from his America Online account had
turned him into an online publisher. And there are thousands of
people just like him, who are (or will be) taking advantage of
AOL's page-hosting capabilities and easy-to-use Web authoring
programs like Adobe PageMill, Netscape Navigator Gold, and even
old-guard applications like WordPerfect, which has been spruced
up with a variety of Web authoring features.
This is the promise of the Internet fulfilled, right? Sure.
Except Steve's train page (or anything remotely like it
elsewhere on the Web) will _never_ be Cool Site of the Day, nor
will it be a highlight at any of the other "cool site"
compilations on the Web.
No longer can paper costs and lack of advertising dollars deter
twentysomething transportation engineers with an interest in
historic trains and good beer from becoming publishers. So
instead, we seem to be creating a culture that turns its nose up
at pages not optimized for Netscape 2.0 (meaning they're
incomprehensible in any other browser). We sniff at sites that
don't offer extensive back-end scripts, that don't offer an
interactive forms-based quiz, that don't have professional
artwork, that don't broadcast live audio, or that don't provide
discussion areas.
In other words, you can have the best content in the world, but
it doesn't matter unless you can prove you spent a lot of money
(or a lot of time, which in a world where even amateurish Web
designers charge $50 per hour) on your site. Good content? Well,
we can take it or leave it, but if you've got an animation of a
spinning cow on your pages (the appropriately vapid draw behind
Time-Warner's travesty called _Netly News_), you've got to be
good, right?
Sure, packaging and delivery matter -- information has to get to
its audience in a useful and compelling way. Evaluating web
sites on the basis of their window-dressing is very much like
judging a book by its cover, yet we seem to insist on doing it.
We've _got_ to create those clubs that wouldn't have you as a
member, and now we'll resort to the trivial to marginalize the
very people who just got some power and freedom.
Welcome to the exciting, empowering "new world" of the Internet.
Bring your fresh ideas. And bring your credit card, because the
Internet doesn't respect content, but it does respect American
Express. Sound like any old worlds you know?
Handlers by Ceri Jordan
===========================
...................................................................
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will
not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and
a man." --Mark Twain
...................................................................
It's an uncertain business, dog handling.
Connecting is easy enough. All you need is a PC with access to
the normal webs, the deviousness of a hacker, and a little
patience. It's what you do then that matters.
They can tell, you see. They can tell that it's not their normal
handler, that the command on the microchip inside their heads is
not His Master's Voice, that something's wrong. If you're not
careful, gentle, patient with them, they'll howl the kennels
down until someone thinks to check their Links for an incoming
signal and then you're as good as dead--
Got him.
Through the Link I feel his confusion, the faint sensation of
hair prickling upright on the back of my neck, even a low
defensive growl starting to rise in my throat as it is in his.
Withdraw.
Just a little, into background noise at the back of the mind,
present in the way that a word on the tip of your tongue is:
there-but-not-there. Flickering ghostly among all those
unfocused, nagging sensations that pass for animal memory,
brushing through them until I find something that will serve.
There. His last meal, the sensation of tearing raw flesh.
Link the sensation of pleasure to your presence and slip through
into his consciousness, just for an instant, then withdraw: then
again, and again...
By the fifth time, he dimly associates the shadowy presence
brooding behind his eyes with some sensual pleasure, and by the
eighth, he is welcoming it, welcoming you, anticipating.
Begging for it.
And I almost lose him in the wave of anger and desperation and
pain, have to fight it down, pushing the image of her face out
of my mind, closing connections and locking doors, filling my
head with the dull wet sensations of animal pleasures instead,
things he will know and understand...
Forcing out of my head the memory of the balding receptionist
bantering with his friends under the RENT TERMINAL SPACE BY THE
HOUR -- ANONYMITY GUARANTEED sign as he fetched me my key ("I
keep trying to get my wife to do it doggy-style but she won't
come out in the yard") and their sick laughter echoing all
through the lobby.
New memories. Dog memories. A moment's freedom in the yard,
running for the very joy of it; last visit to the breeding
center, stupidly mounting bitch after bitch, as required.
Not much difference between dogs and people, really.
Growing cynical now -- suppress that. Dogs don't understand
cynicism. Mustn't confuse him, mustn't jeopardize the link.
Not much difference between dogs and their handlers.
And that is something the mastiff really does understand.
Beginning to sneak tiny cautious feelers into the senses now,
test them out: one eyelid scrolls back, the slow brown eye
rolls, a blurry monochrome pan across the yard beyond the wire.
The guard on the wall, rifle slung over his shoulder, the visual
confusion of broken cloud at his back. Someone coming to feed
them now, hoisting buckets of raw stinking flesh to the hatches,
his sense of smell abruptly sharpened: she has fair hair and for
an instant I think, stupidly, it is Laura.
And I am not, under any circumstances, supposed to think of
Laura.
But I do, of course.
I try to think of her as she was when we first met: I a nervous,
sober girl of 17, and she a high-flying programmer, magnificent
and unattainable. Surely she could never want me.
I try to remember finding out that she did. Try to think of the
flat and the holidays in Asia and the silly petty arguments that
ended in lovemaking among the scabby shrubbery of the roof
garden on sunny afternoons.
I try, and I fail. Instead I find myself seeing the funeral.
They sent her home in a sealed coffin.
At the funeral, the minister went outside to distract the armed,
dark-suited men who had materialized the moment the hearse drew
up, while I cursed and sobbed trying to prise open the welded
metal box for one last look. Her father and my brother and the
curate were all hammering at it with candlesticks and pulling at
the welds with their nails, but when eventually the curate's
husband hissed at us from the door that they were coming, we had
only bloodied fingers and a scratched coffin to show for it. I
wept, more from frustration than grief, and had to keep my left
hand in my pocket all through the service to hide the blood on
my black lace gloves.
It would be nice if I could say I'd told her that taking work
with Qualek was a bad idea -- never get involved with government
agencies, there's always trouble. But no, I'd been delighted.
Top of her field at last: cybernetic communications with guard
dogs today, human experiments tomorrow.
Human experiments, God, don't even think about that--
Don't think.
Or rather, think dog.
Taking tentative control of the legs now. Peculiar sensation,
four legs. Coordination problems. Hard to balance. Glad I waited
until the feed was over and the staff was gone. If they saw him
tottering about like this, they'd have him shot as rabid. It
gets easier. You learn how much control to allow him, how little
effort you actually need to trigger each step. You learn to
cooperate.
Because we're in this together, aren't we?
Dog tail wags eager assent.
Almost due for morning exercise now. He'll be here soon. And
we'll recognize him. Oh yes. As long as I live, I won't forget
that face.
The video footage arrived the week after the funeral.
I still can't believe their arrogance. To not even fear that I
might go to the civil police or the media with it, or even
attempt some personal revenge. To have found it
_amusing..._
It came in a plain package without a note. I had been trying to
get information from Laura's co-workers about what had happened,
and hoped this might be some anonymous response, so I put it on
at once.
Laura.
They had not tied her, but the rifle muzzles wavering in and out
of shot were all too plain, and her naked back was piebald with
blood and bruises. One of them fastened a collar and leash about
her throat, and then the oldest of them pushed her down on the
bare concrete and mounted her from behind, doggy fashion, and
she cried and begged and closed her eyes as if it might all fade
away, and then the next of them, and the next...
I tried to make myself watch the whole tape, as if understanding
would somehow make it easier to bear, but I never could. And I
did send copies to the media and the police, but as you can
imagine...
Just before I came here, I carried the original tape reverently
up to the rooftop and took a blowtorch to it.
The handlers are crossing the yard.
I recognize quite a few of them, and I wonder how many it will
be possible to take this time. How many seconds will my tool
have before some gaping horrified thug regains enough composure
to draw a pistol? Enough time to tear out two throats, if I
impress upon him the need for urgency.
But carefully, little one. No hasty casual ripping, as you would
to bleed your prey to death. There will be medical aid close by;
there's too much chance they'd survive. Your jaws are strong
enough to snap a man's neck. Do so.
Key in the lock. Turning.
Bound from the cage as you always do, friendly and docile, so
they are taken utterly off guard. As she must have been the
night she found policemen waiting in the lobby as she left work,
and the armored van outside.
They will destroy you as a rabid beast, but you die a martyr. As
will the next dog, and the next, until I am caught or they all
are dead. And I mean _all._
I think I will find a female next time.
They should learn that even bitches can bite back.
Ceri Jordan (dbm@aber.ac.uk)
------------------------------
Ceri Jordan is a writer, theatre practicioner, and general rogue
and vagabond. She lives in Wales and has had work published in
several small-press magazines. This is her first electronic
publication.
Dust by Christopher Hunt
============================
...................................................................
In the war against brutality, pain, and hopelessness, feelings
can be your greatest enemy -- or your most powerful ally.
...................................................................
We came at dawn to the city of the dead. The heavy treads of our
tanks and APCs ground the crumbling road into bone-white dust.
We perched on the riveted white edges of our armor-plated
vehicles, eyes narrowed in the sun's early glare, our skin and
uniforms coated in layers of grime and sweat.
Huddled corpses watched us from the roadside, their freeze-dried
haunches settling softly into the desert's swirling sands, their
sticklike bodies as linear and two-dimensional as a child's
drawings. They stared at us accusingly from hollow faces, empty
eyes grimly welcoming, mouths stretched wide in sardonic grins,
crooked skeletal fingers still clutching rusted food bowls
licked clean and bare. Tattered shrouds fluttered diffidently in
the careless breeze.
Even the flies were dying, buzzing angrily in futile circles,
tearing at flesh as dry and unnourishing as old shoe leather.
The city shimmered in the morning light, a vast jumble of
bleached and broken buildings, hollowed out and brittle as old
bones. A tangled forest of TV antennas and satellite dishes
stretched from the rooftops, their angular, leafless branches
black against the morning sky. The sighs of the dead whispered
through silent alleys and gaping windows.
A woman crouched on an empty oil drum next to the gate of a
barbed wire enclosure, hugging her knees tightly. A Red Cross
armband was wrapped around one of her sleeves like a bloody
bandage. Empty grain sacks were scattered around her like
discarded clothes. Her sunburned face was lined and scarred with
the pain of others. Her eyes were as hard and blue as our
helmets.
"You're too late," she told us, her voice dry and gritty as the
desert wind. "You're always too late."
We offered her water and food, penicillin and kind words, but
she took nothing. She crouched silently on her oil drum, rocking
gently back and forth, gazing unblinkingly at the desert behind
us, as if by staring at it hard enough she could force it to
bloom, to bring forth the life buried deep within its sandy
bosom.
Finally, we picked her up. She crouched in our arms, still
rocking, her body humming like a high-tension wire. Her hair was
knotted in a loose bun; stray strands as thin and dry as old
straw rasped against her face and neck. We carried her to the
ambulance, laying her gently on a thin canvas cot in the stale,
overheated interior. We sponged her face with lukewarm water and
disinfectant, wiping away death's residue but not its memory. We
placed salt tablets and Nembutal under her tongue and a melting
ice pack on her forehead. We stretched her curled limbs and
spoke gently to her of ice cream and cool mountain streams.
"You're too late," she whispered, eyes sliding behind
translucent lids as consciousness shut down and her mind moved
to deeper levels. We watched as sleep passed its healing hand
across her features, softening sorrow's lines. No longer a
haggard woman overwhelmed by despair's fierce tenacity, she
seemed almost a girl, innocence not yet faded from her face.
Hope persisted in the serene curve of her mouth, the determined
angle of her jaw, the gentle rise and fall of her breasts.
We shouldered our weapons and stepped back out into the dying
landscape, posing grimly for the television cameras that
tirelessly tracked us through frame after frame of emptiness,
desolation, and death, breaking down the horror into digestible
fragments ready for instant transmission to televisions in that
other world, a world so distant we were beginning to doubt its
existence, where death was a well-kept secret. That world
existed for us now only as a secret memory, a myth embedded in
our DNA, a place to which we could never return, except in our
dreams.
We had come to this land with our guns and our butter, offering
dreams of peace and salvation. We brought high hopes, the
certainty of conviction, and the confidence of righteousness. We
were here to fight for an ideal more urgent, more compelling
than truth, democracy, or the American Way -- we were here to
fight for life. We were an army of Mother Teresas, armed to the
teeth and bristling with good will. Now, only three months
later, we had become as eternal and as permanent a part of the
landscape as the roving bands who preyed upon the dead and the
not-yet dead. Past and future lost meaning as we wandered
grim-eyed and bone-weary across fractured plains and river beds.
We were ghost-warriors in clouds of smoke and dust, on a quest
with a goal as ephemeral as the mirages in the near distance. We
knew only that our task was to dispense justice with fair-handed
impartiality, to distribute death and life as required in
accordance with the strict guidelines listed in the little book
entitled UNPROFOR _Rules of Engagement_, which we all carried in
the breast pocket of our desert fatigues.
We entered the city, passing through a massive stone gate
festooned with time-worn carvings of unknown gods and goddesses.
The cameras followed, storing our images on magnetic tape,
compressing our actions and modulating our thoughts,
transforming us into discrete packets of data.
A half-dozen attack helicopters angled across the sky, the air
vibrating with their passage.
The city was ancient, a barren metropolis bearing the ravages of
millennia. The center of a civilization that had declined long
before our ancestors emerged from the forests to trade bone for
bronze and fur for wool, the city had once ruled a verdant
empire stretching from the bright coastal plains to the dark
heart of the continent. Now it was home to scavengers and the
dead, its buildings reduced to speechless ruins, their artistry
and craftsmanship eclipsed by the random etchings of sand and
wind.
The journalists spoke with conscientious excitement to their
cameras, somberly contrasting the city's thriving past with its
brutal present. They spoke as if by rote, reciting passages from
some ritual catechism learned long ago in bright fluorescent
temples. Now the words were shorn of meaning, their significance
eroded by ceaseless repetition. While the journalists declaimed
in their obsolete tongue, the cameras turned away, panning
intently across the faces of the dead, peering curiously at
faded murals and maimed statues.
We halted in the city's main square, securing the perimeter and
dispatching patrols to scour the twisting alleys for signs of
life. We set up an emergency broadcast system and began
announcing our presence, declaring that the city was now under
our authority and that food, water, and medical assistance would
be made available to all those who required it.
There was no response.
We set up our field kitchen and had our lunch. We ate wilted
greens and warm, soggy cold cuts.
Billy MacDonald sat beside me in the shade of a chipped and
mangy lion, writing a letter to his girlfriend. He wrote her the
same letter every day, concealing his desperate longings and
deepening bitterness in carefully couched words of cheer and
steadfast belief. He didn't want to worry her, he said. She
wouldn't understand the truth.
Billy never sent the letters. He folded each one carefully and
placed it an envelope, printing his lover's name and address in
small crimped characters on the face of the envelope, and then
depositing it in his knapsack. He was afraid she wouldn't
answer.
We were all afraid she wouldn't answer.
In the afternoon, we were assigned sanitation detail. This meant
collecting and disposing of the dead.
We moved cautiously from house to house, grimly alert,
methodically clearing each domicile of its lifeless inhabitants
as if battling them for control of the city.
We loaded the dead on flatbed trucks, stacking their
insubstantial bodies like firewood. When the trucks were full we
drove to the outskirts of the city where other men unloaded
them, piling the corpses in pyramids and dousing them with
gasoline.
As the afternoon dimmed into evening, the dead still burned,
rising heavenwards on plumes of black greasy smoke.
When night fell, the living began to stalk us. The men who
raided the airlifts and the convoys, who ambushed aid workers
and isolated patrols. The men who had brought death to this land
and who now fought each other for mastery over the lifeless
remains.
The popcorn crackle of gunfire echoed in the hollow stillness.
The sky lit with flares and powerful searchlights. We fired at
shadows, smudged blurs of heat in our nightscopes. In the city
of the dead, the living were patches of darkness against white
walls, fleeting ghosts materializing briefly in windows and on
rooftops, bright-eyed creatures of the night who faded in the
light of day.
In the morning we found the corpses of those we had killed,
their bodies stiff-limbed and heavy, more substantial in death
than in life, as if only in death could their existence be
confirmed.
We had just finished clearing our sector of the night's dead and
were sprawled in the thin shade of a dying palm tree when we saw
the lieutenant and the relief worker walking toward us along the
empty avenue. The lieutenant walked thoughtfully, head bowed,
hands clasped behind his back. The relief worker was speaking
animatedly, her hands in constant motion, as if she were
simultaneously translating her words for the benefit of deaf or
distant onlookers. Together, they looked like a pair of
academics strolling across a campus, engaged in profound
discourse.
The lieutenant was a hunched, nervous young man whose pale
cheeks were sprayed with angry traces of acne. He carried his
authority tentatively, like something too hot to touch. When he
spoke his overlarge Adam's apple trembled in his throat, as if
all his fears had coalesced there in a huge lump too big to
swallow. Once we had despised him, treating him with ironic
deference. Now we pitied him, sharing his pain, seeing beneath
his pinched, wary features the bookish child who had once fled
the playground and sought refuge in adventure stories and
medieval fantasies, seeing himself a noble warrior, a selfless
knight bringing succor to the world's downtrodden.
Now those dreams were gone, the knife-sharp clarity of youthful
idealism dulled by the callused reality of a world impervious to
faith or reason. Like all of us, the lieutenant no longer sought
to make an impact, but only to survive.
Our sergeant pushed himself stiffly to his feet, saluting as the
lieutenant came up. Nobody else moved.
"As you were," said the lieutenant, flapping his hand against
his forehead as if brushing at a fly. He was staring at his
boots, perhaps searching for something in the intricate patterns
of dust and cracked leather. The relief worker watched us
silently, arms folded under her breasts. She looked stronger
today, her body relaxed, but her eyes still seemed to be focused
on some invisible point in the distance, registering us only as
foreground static. The hope we had seen in her sleeping face was
gone.
The lieutenant shuffled his feet, reclasping his hands behind
his back. "Ms. Lindquist here," he jerked his head toward the
relief worker, "has indicated that there may be a relatively
large group of still viable refugees located at an Irish relief
camp a few klicks north. The location of the camp has been
verified by air but no on-site examination has been carried
out."
We watched his Adam's apple as he spoke, measuring the cadence
of his words by its movement. He licked his lips and glanced at
us briefly before returning his gaze to his boots. "Colonel
wants us to check it out," he mumbled.
"That mean now, sir?" said the sergeant. There was no trace of
contempt in his voice. Though older and wiser, the sergeant
never treated the lieutenant with anything but the utmost
respect. He cautioned and counseled, maneuvering the lieutenant
without questioning his authority. It was as if he were adviser
to a child king, discreetly controlling his master's actions
while grooming him for leadership.
The lieutenant nodded. "Ms. Lindquist here will accompany us."
"Has transport been laid on sir, or are we humpin' it?" the
sergeant asked.
The lieutenant nodded vaguely. "Transport, yes. We'll take a
couple of jeeps."
"Yes sir," said the sergeant crisply. He turned to us. "Alright!
You heard the man," he snapped. "Get off your asses. Let's go."
We rose without enthusiasm, slapping at the chalky dust on our
fatigues. More than anything we wanted to sleep. To sleep and
sleep until the nightmare ended.
"We're probably too late anyway," Billy MacDonald murmured.
The road north was a narrow track that wound sinuously through
abrupt hills. Deep ruts had been carved in the road by the
ceaseless passage of aid convoys weighed down with powdered food
and medicine. Here the sand was the color of rust. Fist-sized
chunks of malachite glittered like emeralds in the dust.
We sat in the back of jeeps, helmets pulled low, eyes barely
open, watching without seeing. Our weapons were cradled loosely
in our arms, our flak jackets hung open. Though the area had not
been declared secure, we anticipated no danger. For us, death
struck only in the dark.
Only the sergeant was alert, his eyes on automatic scan,
tracking the low-slung hills with pinpoint precision, focusing
in on scattered patches of scrub and brush, searching for the
glint of metal, the sudden star-bright flash of sun reflected
from a sniper's scope.
A lone vulture circled us lazily, drifting across the sky in
long, low arcs.
The lieutenant sat in the lead jeep with Ms. Lindquist. She was
still talking. It seemed as if she were trying to comfort him,
as if now that there was no one else left for her to save, his
puerile timidity compelled her attention, gratifying the same
needs that had brought her to this helpless land.
No one else spoke. Words seemed futile here, their meaning
disintegrating almost as soon as they were uttered. Conversation
was something we no longer understood. It implied the
interaction of personalities, the subtle give-and-take of social
intercourse. But the distinguishing features that had once set
us apart as individuals had been worn away by sand and wind and
persistent despair. Like our excess flesh, the painstakingly
constructed masks we had once worn were gone, leaving only bone,
sinew, muscle, and some indefinable core that told us we were
alive, but nothing more. We no longer knew if we liked each
other or hated each other. We didn't care.
Being alive was enough.
The relief camp was only six kilometers from the city. It took
us nearly two hours to get there. While we drove, images of the
world flickered behind our eyes. Air-conditioned supermarkets
and glittering department stores, soft ice cream cones and
barbecued steaks. We wondered what we would do if we ever got
back.
The camp was surrounded by a flimsy fence built of plywood and
rusted chicken wire. The gates were open, hanging from their
hinges like broken cupboard doors. The vulture settled on one of
the gateposts, its flat, dead eyes mocking us as we approached.
We drove slowly through the entrance. Here, too, the dead had
gathered to greet us. Many of them had been shot. Some hung
limply on the fence, their hands still tightly clutching the
wire, as if they had just paused to rest for a moment before
resuming their climb.
They had not been dead long. They stank. A rank odor of decaying
matter and fetid water hung in the still air, like flowers left
too long in the vase. The stench stung our nostrils. We rubbed
mentholatum under our noses and wrapped sweat-soiled bandannas
around our faces.
The Irish flag still hung above the compound, flapping briskly
in the sour breeze.
"We're too late," said Billy MacDonald.
We pulled up next to the living quarters and climbed out of the
jeeps.
"Secure the compound," said the lieutenant, his weak voice
muffled by his bandanna.
The sergeant nodded.
We fanned out, weapons at ready, more alert now, as if wakened
by the smell of death. We walked slowly among the dead,
occasionally prodding them with our boots, throwing ourselves to
the ground at the slightest sound. The flap of a loose shirt.
The sudden sigh of released gas.
The vulture swooped down from its post, pecking its way
fastidiously through the corpses, chattering excitedly to
itself.
Billy MacDonald lifted his rifle to his shoulder and squeezed
off a shot. The impact flung the vulture against the fence where
it collapsed in a heap of twitching feathers. We all started
firing.
When our magazines were empty, we declared the compound secure.
We slammed fresh magazines into our rifles and kicked down the
door to the living quarters. We burst inside, covering the
corners of the room, our eyes bright above our faded bandannas.
Six people knelt against the far wall, their hands bound behind
their backs, their faces pressed against the cracked plaster
like supplicants at the Wailing Wall. Two were men, four were
women. All were naked. The men were black. The women were white.
All of them had been shot in the back of the head at close
range. Thick black pools of crusted blood had coagulated on the
floor.
The lieutenant coughed, turning his head away. Ms. Lindquist
stared at the corpses, her fierce eyes filled with rage.
"I assume those are the relief workers?" the lieutenant mumbled
to his feet.
Ms. Lindquist nodded grimly. She stared around the room like an
angry lioness, and the scent of blood sharp in our nostrils. At
that moment we heard a long, soft cry, faint and distant, almost
like the mournful wail of a lonely cat.
We tensed, listening.
The lieutenant's head bounced up. "What was that?" he whispered.
His Adam's apple quivered.
"Be quiet," commanded Ms. Lindquist. Her nostrils flared. She
thrust her head forward, twisting it slowly from side to side.
Her tongue protruded slightly from her mouth, flicking across
her lips as if tasting the air.
Again the cry came. A ghostly lament, eerie and high-pitched,
its source indeterminable.
"In there," said Ms. Lindquist softly. She pointed at a door on
the side of the room.
We moved forward cautiously, padding deathly-quiet across the
hard-packed earthen floor, our fingers stroking the triggers of
our rifles. Rumors whispered in our heads, memories of macabre
tales told by nail-hard paratroopers from the French Foreign
Legion. Suddenly, we were afraid, afraid that this land could no
longer absorb the crushing burden of the dead and was now
rejecting them, returning them to life.
The sergeant leaned against the wall next to the door. Gently he
turned the doorknob and lightly pushed the door open.
The room was dark and windowless. A thin shaft of pale light
fell through the door, revealing only gray shadows and dust. The
Sergeant slipped his hand inside, feeling the wall for a light
switch. After a moment, he shook his head and signaled us to go
infrared.
Hearts pounding, we pulled our goggles down over our eyes and
stormed into the room. Our rifles were slippery in our hands.
It was the infirmary. A long row of beds ran along each side of
the room, each bed occupied by a heatless body. The room smelled
of formaldehyde and excrement.
We scanned the beds slowly, searching for signs of life. There
were none. The dead lay unmoving on their beds, their shadowed
eyes locked on the exposed steel beams over their heads. Had the
cry come from these assembled corpses? A trick played by
gas-bloated stomachs and intestines? The last breath of air
expelled by a collapsing lung?
"It's clear," the sergeant said.
"You sure?" said the lieutenant.
The cry came again. Longer now. A cry of despair, unalloyed
fear. Definitely human. And definitely alive.
Like a child having a bad dream.
We stood frozen in the thin shaft of light like rabbits caught
in the glare of an approaching headlight.
"It comes from in here," said Ms. Lindquist. "I am certain."
We heard sobbing.
Somebody found the light switch.
"Check under the beds," said the sergeant.
There were three of them. Huddled tightly together under the
last bed. Tiny, bone-thin creatures with huge heads and big
round eyes. Their ages were indeterminate. They might have been
three years old. They might have been fifteen.
At first they were afraid, weakly scrabbling away from us,
snapping at our hands with toothless mouths.
Only when Ms. Lindquist crouched down and talked to them softly
in their language did they relax. They answered her quietly, the
sound of their voices like birdsong. They folded themselves into
our arms and let us carry them outside. Their bodies were
ethereal and insubstantial. It seemed as if they might float
away on the breeze like falling leaves. Their eyes were serene,
staring at us expectantly.
We stroked their fragile heads, whispering to them, words
suddenly coming easily to our tongues in a tumbling rush. We
cooed and murmured like brand-new fathers, amazed by these
fragile creatures, awed by the forgotten miracle of life.
"I hope we're not too late to save them," said the lieutenant.
He watched the children warily, as if afraid they would crumble
into dust before his eyes.
Ms. Lindquist smiled. We saw again the face we had seen
yesterday, the hidden face where hope still lived. "You're not
too late," she said.
That night Billy Macdonald sat under the stars in the city of
the dead and wrote another letter to his girlfriend. The
lieutenant brought us a case of beer and fresh batteries for our
Game Boys and Walkmans.
The light of the stars turned the city to silver. We drank our
beer in the cool glow, marveling at the sweep and depth of the
star field. We had never seen so many stars. They coated the sky
like glitter dust. We drank our beer and argued over the names
of constellations and talked about adopting children. We watched
as Billy MacDonald removed all the letters he had saved from his
knapsack and set them alight. We laughed and clapped our hands
as our unwanted memories snapped, crackled, and crumbled into
fine black ash.
While we slept the stars sparkled in our dreams like bright-eyed
children.
In the morning we saw clouds clustering on the horizon. A cool
breeze caressed our faces, carrying with it the fresh clean
scent of rain. A few wispy tendrils of black smoke still trailed
across the sky. We let the children wear our helmets and carried
them to our jeeps. The cameras congregated around us. The
journalists spoke new words, unrehearsed, spontaneous, their
deadpan monologues barely able to restrain long-pent emotions.
Before we left the city, a grinning Billy MacDonald went to the
quartermaster and mailed the letter he had written during the
night.
Later, as we drove into the desert, the sound of children's
laughter was loud in our ears.
Christopher Hunt (chrish@wimsey.com)
--------------------------------------
Was an encyclopedia salesman, waiter, cook, clerk in a porno
bookstore, and factory laborer before ending up in Japan, where
he taught English and later worked as a copywriter with a
Japanese ad agency. He is the editor of the online magazine
_Circuit Traces_.
Barefoot Sinderella by Evangeline Mercury
=============================================
...................................................................
"Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our
action. Without it, we are nothing." --Luis Bunuel
...................................................................
It is six years ago, and I am walking back to our apartment from
the Dairy Queen, and I can smell the popcorn blowing out through
the Texaco door when the Friday night black jackets go in. This
is my secret Texaco walk, I am speeding in my mind, and I am
barefoot, on the tar, trusting the night that there is no broken
glass to step on, knowing this isn't a broken-glass kind of
night. The sun is still in the tar, and my feet are hot, and I
walk to where the cars are parked in the spaces, and smell the
engines burning, and I breathe the fury.
A Mexican boy with a net on his head (though I'm sure he calls
it something else) looks at me and I smile, but he is trying to
be cool, and he looks away, and he adjusts his net in the
rear-view mirror. I have a bag of bottles, klinky pink bottles
that I bought at the Texaco. The condensation is making the bag
wet and I worry about dropping them, because I spent six dollars
on them, six dollars to get drunk and do things that I really
want to do but am afraid.
I walk through the shadows, under the red star, where I have to
watch out for those prickly things that grow around signposts, a
vampire.
There is a car lot by the Texaco with a shot-out rusty sign that
says JORGE'S USED CARS. I walk onto the pavement then, past
Jorge's cars, past the Tuesday-Friday trash dumpster where the
garbage men squished a bum once, and I see a van where a man in
a brown cowboy hat sits in the driver's seat, and the shadow of
his hanging plastic Mary is moving across his forehead, as a car
pulls into the parking lot.
As I walk past him -- slowly, so I won't offend him -- I can
smell his life in the van: marijuana, sandalwood, oranges,
tortilla chips, and underarms.
I walk under the windows of our complex where children are
inside, getting ready for bed in rooms with soft lights and
Cinderella lamps, and I think of how I may want children
someday, someday, I say someday, then every morning I wake up
and wipe out my life from back to front so that I only live that
day, and I don't plan children in that way, and then I smell the
van again.
I wonder what it is like to know people like that, to ride
around in a van in south Texas and smoke pot, sitting beside
sweaty bodies with brown skin, men who would touch me and make
me feel like a little girl again, and inside I would scream for
them to stop but really want them to go on, and I would jump out
crying, and then my van ride would be over, not what I thought
it would be, so I decide I wouldn't go on a van ride with them
after all, but maybe I would sit out on the curb and talk to
them, and ask them which badges they wear, and tell them about a
spider I saw one time in a park in Del Valle that changed colors
when I blew on her to make her move.
That would be a cool thing to tell cool people who ride in a
van, and then my gypsy laughs. I hate her, but I want to keep
her around. She says: Your wanderlust is going to kill you.
I walk on, I get to our apartment but I don't go up, I decide to
drink with my girlfriend Cheryl. She is cool, a Mexican I met
here. She likes beer, and I like wine, and together we sit and
have a grand old time, and she tells me stories about her
Mexican family that is spread out all over Texas, and about
Mexican tradition and cultures. It all spins together like
whirling gold, and occasionally she tells me a racist joke to
keep me in line.
The first time she told me a joke about white girls I laughed,
even though my face cracked. I saved my cry for later when I
went home, though, because a tiny whisper told me it was like an
initiation, because Cheryl is tough, and I have to be tough to
hang with her, so I was. I sprinkled in some Oh Hells and some
Holy Shits, it felt weird but I did it, and I don't know why she
likes me, I never know, but I don't ask, either. I probably
wouldn't like the answer, because, like I said, Cheryl is tough.
This morning she told me she had gone to a funeral last night
for her cousin who was hit by a truck, and I said I was sorry,
and she told me about her family who got into a fight over who
loved the dead cousin the most, and they knocked the casket
over, and her cousin fell out all stiff, but nobody was in the
funeral parlor because it was some kind of midnight mass (she
called it midnight mess), so they all just helped stuff the body
back in, and her brother got the body's lips caught on a handle
fixture on the casket and tore the body's stitches, so they all
pretended they were so upset that they had to close the casket
lid, and the next day when the public came in no one knew his
mouth had been torn off, and she laughed all through that story.
I don't know anybody like Cheryl, she is tough but she cries
when she is drunk, and she swears like white trash from back
home but her house is clean, so I never really know what to
think about her.
I knock but Cheryl isn't home, and I feel a twinge of jealousy
that she is out doing something else, without me, even though
there are a million places in Austin for her to be. I go
upstairs and sit my bottles in the refrigerator, and get a
plastic cup (because soon I will be drunk enough to break
glass), and a straw (because I get drunk faster with a straw),
and take my first bottle out to the porch, where I sit at night
and watch the twinkling Christmasy lights downtown, and I wonder
about all the lives going on down at 6th street. I wonder about
all the music playing in the bars, but I hate cigarette smoke,
so I don't go.
I am so hot, sitting in the patio shadows in my white wicker
chair, the wind is blowing my skirt up, I wish I had a man, and
I drink.
I think about a Mexican boy I saw mowing the grass today, so
hot, working out in the sun, with the Marquis de Sade for a
boss, no doubt, and I went out and took him a can of pop, and I
held it out to him, and said, "You look so hot, I had to bring
you a drink."
I handed it to him, but he didn't take it. He said, "No speak
engless, no speak engless," so I gestured and said, "For you. To
drink."
"Thank you, thank you," he said, and I turned and walked off, I
thought maybe I shouldn't have brought him strawberry, it would
make him even more thirsty, but when I grabbed it out of the
fridge I grabbed strawberry because that was my favorite, and I
thought it would be nicer for him.
In my queen chair I think about his white t-shirt stretched
across his tight chest, and his boy arms with the muscles
already developing, how he was pushing the mower, how he looked
at me like a kid, and the breeze blows my skirt again, and I am
sickened with myself, using him now, when earlier my intentions
were pure, and isn't that just like me? Yes, says the spider.
I drink some more, I am halfway done with my strawberry wine and
I go in and get my radio and put on Patsy, a perfect voice for
this perfect night, and I watch a fight out in the parking lot
of a bar down the way, I think I may see somebody get stabbed
tonight, it would be my first time, I have never seen violence
this close, and not do anything about it.
One man is Boss Hogg-fat and his yellow shirt is undone to his
bellybutton, and if I got close to it there would be lint in it,
just like my dad's. The other one is just a greasy weasel, and I
feel sorry for him, I try to imagine his life and all that comes
is bourbon in my throat after I have thrown it up. If this were
a movie he would be the one to get stabbed and bleed to death in
the dark parking lot while clutching a picture of his girlfriend
whom he had made a promise to that he would quit drinking.
They are swaggering around each other, calling each other
"redneck," and I laugh, what kind of thing is that to say? Maybe
they are friends, really, they know "redneck" is stupid, and
they are trying to diffuse things, do men think like that? They
are both rednecks.
I see the man next door come home, his name is Joe, he is from
Brooklyn, and he married a lady from somewhere in Asia whom
Cheryl calls "gook" when the lady is going in and out of her
apartment. I pretend I don't hear Cheryl when she tries to get
me to agree with her, or when she gives me those looks. Cheryl's
brother was killed in Viet Nam and she told me never to talk
about it, and she hates the song "Billy Don't be a Hero," so I
never play the oldies station with the windows open.
Joe is fatherly, even though he is just a little older than me,
and his black hair matches his black brows, and he has a
happy-sad face like those men in the '30s who wore flat hats and
stood in line for soup and bread. I like him. I would fuck him,
too, because he is so odd, so different from me, I don't have
any reference points for him in my mind, and I could enjoy
myself.
One day Joe comes home and Cheryl and I are shooting water guns,
and he says hello with the big box of Air Force religion under
his arm that says Miller High Life, and I say hello, and he
says, "You'd better bring your cat in, it's Halloween," and I
say, "Do you mean somebody might put a firecracker up No Name's
butt?" and he says, "No, the Satanists are out cruising for
black cats." Just as pretty as you please.
"Thanks," I say. That is about all I have said to him except
hello, and hello Joe in a singsong voice when I am horny and
proud of it, and he smiles different.
Tonight the base looks like a UFO dream, what they must have
dreamt our earth would be like on their way here, even if it
took them just seconds, a light-up twinkle dream, like it is a
beautiful thing, except I know that underneath, underground,
undercover, buried deep, there are bombs, and dead aliens in
ice, carved up, and their atoms are crying to be alive again and
get out of the twinkle dream, because I fuck one of the men that
goes under there, he told me because I wanted a secret in
exchange for what he wanted, and he gave it to me one sacred
night, which is all he had to offer me, and he knew it, after
ten bottles of courage and some Whole Lotta Love.
Albert Einstein said that if you physically remember a place, it
actually exists, though not materially, but that is the very
last expression of anything, anyway.
So now, six years later, I think of the base, taps at ten,
touch-and-go's at 9 A.M. every morning like a hurricane across
the street, the grackles, La Chusa sitting on a telephone wire
that Cheryl screamed at when she was drunk and told me to go get
the hot peppers!
I carry that in my head, and I build it, with souls I love, who
like to open the sliding glass door onto the patio and let the
curtain blow out like a flying white ghost in our Escape From
the Sun apartment complex, while we sit and watch Ra go down in
purple-and-yellow stripes, an Egyptian-Aztec god who just ate
his virgin Texas children, who is going to sleep now with his
gold armor on, and we love the smell of charbroiled hamburgers
from the Dairy Queen, and the sounds of the jukebox from the bar
across the street that gives off amber glows from its mouth like
a lust monster.
The base is mine now. I am going to keep all that even though
one of the people on a BBS from Austin told me _Del Valle
sucks!_ because I sustain lives there, I work a weave with other
people who think of the base, we all weave a blanket in space
with our memories, our atta-boy-gung-ho-drink-like-a-fish-
starve-til-payday memories. There are people sitting on the
blanket, people ride on the blanket, the blanket covers Del
Valle with protection still, it is becoming even though the base
is gone now, it is woven in dark pink and golden thread, and it
floats like a big square over Del Valle, like a flag laying
down, blowing each time somebody thinks about his or her life
there, and it doesn't suck.
I sit on the blanket and talk to my memory-friends: the people I
baby-sat for; the pilot stationed there who died in a jet crash,
and his mother is there, who was told all of her son's body was
in the coffin (but it is a lie); the man who worked as a bagger
at the commissary who gave me my hundred-dollar bill back when I
thought I was giving him two ones; the dog I had to kick because
it tried to bite me one night when I was riding my bike by the
high school; the people who worked in the gordita place, and the
men who ate lunch there and kept their hats on during lunch like
it is some wonderful thing to wear a uniform, to be part of a
blue collective; the indoor rummage-sale lady where I bought my
straw chicken basket; the man who worked at the Texaco who
smiled at me when I came in drunk for life and wine and told me,
"You have a nice night, now, you hear?" knowing I would; the
ghost-town elementary school that was flat and spread out just
like an elementary school in the West should be, a mesa school,
with overhanging porches like a turn-of-the-century boarding
house and my name is Peregrine, only at night it was full of
triangular shadows, children's kickball echoes, and their soul
prints in primary colors, taped to the doors like mini
Jesus-hands, blowing hello; the policemen who rode by and tipped
their Texas hats, making sure all was safe, knowing about
domestic violence in military families in the summertime heat;
and my _me s'hahnee_ friend Ed who wore his full metal jacket
all the time even though I wanted him to take it off.
And sometimes I lay on the blanket I weave over Del Valle and
stare at the stars, it is like laying on a waterbed outside on a
roof, and sometimes I don't talk to anybody else, even though Ed
comes and the policemen come and the pilots come and the
landlord comes and the bartenders come, but sometimes I wish
they would get off my blanket, except Ed, because I weave it
best, but it is their blanket, too, and they weave, too.
Evangeline Mercury (evangeline.mercury@quantum.net)
-----------------------------------------------------
Evangeline Mercury grew up running wild in the West Virginia
mountains, which are full of snakes. Her favorite road is Route
10. Sometimes she writes from a blue star salon in Morocco,
while drinking from Kerouac and Lawrence Durrell. She has
written books called _Cowgirl Homily,_ _Witcher Woman,_
_Hollering Tree,_ and _Radio Mija._ "Barefoot Sinderella" is
based on her time in Austin, Texas. She lived it while listening
to Patsy Cline, and wrote it while listening to Mazzy Star.
Storm's Child by Shawn Click
================================
...................................................................
The forecast said "cloudy, with a chance of rain." Forecasters
deal with chances. But not Samuel.
...................................................................
One
-----
It's gonna rain today, dad."
Josh Thorst peered at his son over the top of the morning paper.
"Rain?"
Samuel nodded. He was sitting at the other side of the dining
room table, swallowed by a high-backed mahogany chair, crayons
and a notebook before him. He picked up a crayon and drew a
swath of gray across the paper. The bangs of his dark hair fell
across one eye. His mouth curved into a frown of concentration.
Josh glanced out the dining room window. The sky was a clear,
crystalline blue, and cloudless. Even Mount Rainier, visible
above the trees to the east, stood without its customary cap of
mist. It was a beautiful August day, full of the promise of
warmth and sun. "Are you sure?" Josh flipped to the weather
forecast; it teemed with graphics of smiling suns and cloudless
skies.
"I'm sure, Dad." Samuel's voice carried a tone of impatience.
"But the weather report..."
Samuel stopped coloring. "Dad," he sighed.
"I know. I'm sorry." Josh went to the closet and hunted for an
umbrella. Another glance out the window left him feeling like a
figure in a "what's wrong with this picture?" page in a
children's activity book. But there was no reason to question
his son. If Samuel said it was going to rain, it was damned sure
going to rain.
"Gonna be a storm tonight, too," Samuel said.
"Tonight?"
"Yep. A big one." Samuel smiled.
Josh suppressed a frown. Samuel was only six years old, but he
loved a good storm. Although children his age were usually
frightened by violent weather, Samuel welcomed howling wind with
the excitement most children reserve for snow on a school day.
During the last big storm, back in June, Samuel had sat at the
front window, kneeling with his palms pressed against the glass.
He had seemed in awe, reverent.
"Can I stay up for it?" Samuel asked.
Lizbeth stepped into the room, cradling a basket of laundry.
"Stay up for what?" she said, doing a double-take as she glanced
at Josh. "What are you doing with the umbrella?"
"Samuel says it's going to rain."
"Today?"
Josh nodded. "And a storm... tonight."
"Really." She clicked her tongue. "Well, I guess we're due for a
bit of rain."
"Yep," Samuel said, then went back to his coloring. He was
drawing dark clouds -- gloomy and ominous -- hanging above a
house made from a triangle and square. The building seemed small
and vulnerable, and jagged blades of lightning, outlined in
yellow, lanced through the sky.
"See ya, Samuel," Josh said. "Be good."
"Dad? Are you gonna be late again?"
Josh looked back. "I don't know -- I might. I have lots of
work."
Samuel scowled. "You're always at work."
"I know it seems that way, kiddo," Josh said, "but it's
important."
Samuel's frown looked as solid as fired clay. It hadn't been an
easy year for him, with the move, a new school, and a summer
without his friends. The house was the first to be built in the
new development, so Samuel didn't even have a neighborhood to
explore.
"Your father's doing a lot for us," Lizbeth added. "We should be
proud of him."
Josh winked at his wife. His heightened workload had been hard
on her as well, but she still managed to support him. It
couldn't be easy. She smiled back, but there was a hesitation.
"I'll see you tonight, Samuel," Josh said.
"But Dad--"
"There's nothing I can do about it. I'll see you tonight."
"Okay." Samuel's frown transformed into a pout. "Bye."
Sighing, Josh took his wife's hand and headed for the front
door. Outside, the sun seemed to shine with extra enthusiasm, as
if to deny the rumors of impending clouds and rain. Cupping his
hand over his eyes, Josh looked up. "This is unbelievable," he
said.
It was a gorgeous morning. Their house sat at the crest of a
hill, above a sprawl of newly paved roads and vacant lots. The
lots were just parcels of stark, leveled earth, but as always
the sight filled Josh with satisfaction. They were the framework
of his dream. To the south, a gap in the trees provided a view
of the arching span of the Narrows Bridge. The water was strung
with the white sails of distant boats, like a thin sky speckled
with drifting stars.
They didn't actually own the land, but Josh felt like it
belonged to him. The development had been his idea: he'd found
the site, rounded up the investors, handled the purchase,
managed the licensing process, and supervised the contractors
and realtors. Now, every lot was sold, the seeds of the project
were planted, and homes would soon rise like flowers unfolding
in the rains of spring. It was the culmination of all he'd ever
wanted for himself and his family.
"Hard to believe we're in for some bad weather."
"You know our little shaman." Lizbeth wrapped her arm around his
waist.
"Yeah." Josh didn't care for that term. Lizbeth's father was
one-half Salish Indian, a heritage that revealed itself in her
dark complexion and hair. Lizbeth had passed those traits to
their son, though one feature defied both of his parent's
attributes: eyes that were a deep, indigo blue. Lizbeth's father
had once referred to Samuel as a shaman, half-jokingly
mentioning his blue eyes as proof, and Lizbeth adopted the
nickname after they knew Samuel's ability -- his talent -- could
not be explained as a string of coincidences. The title made
Josh uncomfortable. He liked to think Samuel merely had some
strange physical quirk that gave him an aptitude for forecasting
the weather, like old men whose arthritis acted up when humidity
dropped. Calling Samuel a shaman carried a sense of mysticism...
magic. Josh didn't believe in magic anymore.
"You seem down this morning," Lizbeth said.
"No, I'm fine."
She pursed her lips. "Sure?"
"Yeah." Turning back to his wife, he tried to dispel the dark
shadows in his thoughts. His son's capability did not seem to
carry any ill effects. Josh should probably consider himself
lucky -- how many other people were gifted with a child who
could out-forecast every meteorologist on the planet? If nothing
else, the kid had a guaranteed career in a few years. But at the
back of his consciousness, Josh felt a nagging uneasiness, as if
he were surrounded by malicious phantoms, only vaguely aware of
their presence.
"Things are going to be okay," he said, almost to himself.
Lizbeth looked back at him, her head cocked. "What?"
"I mean Samuel... us. We're going to be okay."
"Sure. Things have been going great. Your work'll settle down
pretty soon."
"It's just that Samuel seems so..."
"Moody?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
Lizbeth paused. "He misses you."
"I miss him too." Josh looked toward the front of the house. "I
really need to spend more time with him."
"You'll have your chance -- soon."
"We've had this conversation before. Soon never comes."
"It will." Lizbeth gave him a gentle shove. "C'mon -- snap out
of it. Are you trying to get me depressed, too?"
Josh shook his head and forced a laugh. "You're right -- I'm
just being paranoid, I guess. I keep waiting for the other shoe
to drop."
She hugged him, nuzzling against his neck. Despite the day's
warmth, Josh felt goose bumps rise along his arms as her breath
caressed him. "Don't worry," she said. "You've done great. You
deserve the success."
He tilted her chin upwards and kissed her. "I don't deserve
you."
"You're right."
Playfully, he slapped her backside. "Modest, to the last. You'd
better go see what your son is up to."
"Aye, sir." She performed a mock salute, stepping back. "Love
you." She stood, watching, as he climbed into the car and backed
out of the driveway. Josh waved at her and honked as he spun
around and pulled away.
At the bottom of the road, Josh glanced back at his home in the
rear-view mirror. A sense of trepidation crawled through him,
raising the hairs on the back of his neck. He saw his home like
the one in his son's drawing, perched beneath swelling storm
clouds, small and inconsequential against the forces at work in
a darkening sky.
Two
-----
It was nearly seven o'clock when Josh emerged from his downtown
office. He was leaving work late again, but not so late that he
missed the dawning of Samuel's storm. A cold wind buffeted the
street, sending papers skittering across the pavement. Leaves
swirled and spun within invisible vortexes and, above, a shroud
of dark clouds spit a fitful rain.
Bracing his umbrella against the wind, Josh began to cross the
street. As if on cue, the rain began to fall with vigor as he
made his way to his car. Once there, he spent several awkward
moments trying to find his keys, digging through each of his
pockets while struggling to balance the umbrella. Finally, he
was able to open the door. He climbed in, flipped the heater
controls on high, and rubbed his chilled hands together.
This was August? It felt like the middle of November. Why
couldn't Samuel have been wrong just this once?
As he drove home, the storm intensified. Rain, relentless and
brutal, pounded against the windshield like a barrage of stone
pellets. The clouds thickened and the day became prematurely
dark; night was descending two hours early. Josh drove hunched
forward, straining to see, every muscle tense. His car shuddered
in the stiffening winds as he turned into the development and
guided the vehicle up the hill toward his home.
The house was well lit, shining like a lighthouse perched at the
edge of a rugged shore. At least the power was still on. To him,
the building was more than a home; like a soldier's medal, it
was the symbol of all he had accomplished. It was his
achievements solidified into wood and glass.
Bracing himself, he slid out of the car. The wind tore at him
and the rain battered his face. He stumbled, then charged toward
the door with his head held low. He didn't bother with the
umbrella, thinking the short distance to the house would leave
him relatively unscathed. He was wrong. In a matter of seconds,
he was soaked from head to toe.
The door opened before him. He leapt through the entrance.
Lizbeth jumped aside and closed the door. "God, honey, you look
like a drowned rat."
"I feel worse." He shrugged off his dripping jacket. "I need a
shower -- a hot one." He turned toward Lizbeth. She was wearing
a green silk robe and her hair was tied back, accentuating her
face and neck. She smelled faintly of scented soap and perfume.
"Wow," Josh said, gawking.
Hands on her hips, she tried to frown at him. "Get going. Don't
leave too many puddles."
"How long to dinner?"
"Sam's already eaten." Her forced frown drifted into a
mischievous smile. "I thought we might have a late dinner. Just
the two of us."
"Sounds great."
She glanced up the stairs. "Sam's in his room... I don't think
he's feeling too well. Probably picked up a cold."
"Crap. That's too bad." Josh stepped forward to hug her, but she
backed off, hands held up in defense.
"Forget about it. Save it for later."
Samuel was sitting on his bed, staring out the window. Beyond
the glass, dark clouds coursed through an ashen sky.
Josh finished tying the belt of his bathrobe. He had allowed
himself the luxury of a long, very hot shower. He felt better,
energized. The storm outside was only a distant concern. "Hey
Samuel," he said, stepping into the room.
His son cried out and nearly jumped off the bed.
Josh rushed forward. "Hey, it's just me, buddy. Are you okay?"
Samuel stared at him. His face was pale, like the visage of a
skull. In the shadows of the room, his eyes were hollow sockets.
He was trembling.
"Samuel?"
The boy blinked. "Hi, Dad," he said, his voice a whisper. "I'm
scared."
"Scared?" Josh sat beside him on the bed and put his hand on his
son's shoulder. "Since when do storms scare you?"
Samuel turned toward the window again. "It's different. They're
coming."
Josh pulled his son closer. "What do you mean? Who's coming?"
"I called them. I didn't mean to."
"Them who? Come on, Samuel... you aren't making any sense."
No response.
"Did you fall asleep? Did you have a bad dream?"
Samuel thought for a moment, biting his lip. "I don't know --
maybe."
Josh rubbed the boy's back. "That's probably it. You're okay.
You know Dad and Mom would never let anything hurt you. We'll
always keep you safe."
"They want me. They say I'm supposed to go with them."
"Who's they? Something in your dream?"
"I guess so."
"Dreams can't hurt you," Josh said.
"I know."
"There's no such thing as monsters, or ghosts, or any of that
made-up stuff. Right?"
Samuel nodded. "Right."
"Right. Let's see a smile."
He managed a grin.
"That's better." Josh pulled the bed covers back. "Climb in,
bud."
Samuel crawled beneath the blankets, his gaze drifting back to
the window. Josh pulled the covers up around his son and kissed
him on the cheek. "G'night, kiddo," he said. "Everything will be
okay. I promise."
"Okay."
Josh stepped out of the room, leaving it slightly ajar, and
peered back through the opening. A fragment of light from the
hall, a yellow oasis of illumination, stretched across the floor
and up the side of the bed. Samuel clutched his blankets with
small, delicate hands and stared at the window.
Beyond the glass, the storm raged.
"How's Sam doing?" Lizbeth asked as Josh marched down the
stairs. She was sitting on the couch in the living room, sleek
legs extending from the hem of her robe.
Josh dropped down beside her. "The storm is scaring him."
"You're kidding! He loves a good storm."
"Nope. Not this time."
"Is he okay?"
"I think so... I don't know. He had a bad dream. Hell, he was
probably still dreaming while I was talking to him. He wasn't
making much sense."
"Kids do that sometimes," she said. "Waking dreams."
"I suppose that was it. I feel sorry for him. At that age, I had
a bedroom full of monsters. They were under the bed, in the
closet..."
"And the boogeyman was in your underwear drawer, right?"
Josh smiled weakly. "I don't know. I never checked." He sat
forward, head resting in his palms. "It was strange, Liz. I
spent so many nights being... terrified."
"Lots of kids go through that."
"Did you?"
"No. Not really. What were you scared of?"
"The dark... monsters... I don't know."
"How'd you get over it?"
He shrugged. "I just finally forced myself to quit being scared.
Planted my feet in reality." He wondered if that decision had
brought other changes in his outlook. Despite being raised in a
devoutly religious family, he liked to think of himself as the
consummate skeptic. Religion was a mythology, and the same went
for paranormal phenomena, UFOs, astrology, and Bigfoot.
"Well, I'm proud of you," she said.
"Thanks." Josh grinned. "At least I was finally able to open my
underwear drawer."
Laughing, Liz wrapped her arms around him and looked back toward
the large front window. "The storm's picking up." Josh followed
her gaze. Water fell against the glass in sheets, and gusts of
wind buffeted the house. "Cozy, don't you think?" she said.
"Brings back memories."
He leaned back on the sofa, settling into her arm. "What year
was that... eighty-five?"
"Eighty-six. Sam was born in eighty-seven."
Josh nodded, thinking back to another storm. He and Lizbeth had
celebrated their anniversary in a cabin on the coast. That
night, a storm swept in, knocking out the cabin's power, and for
a few hours they sat at the window, marveling at the beauty of
reflected lightning upon a dark slab of sea. Then they made
love, their passion accompanied -- and enhanced -- by the cry of
the wind, the drumming of the rain, and a sense of seclusion. It
was as if the entire world consisted of three things: him, her,
and the howling darkness. They seemed a part of the storm, an
element of primal energy. He could remember looking into her
eyes, sparkling with the reflected light of candles, realizing
he wanted nothing more than her for the rest of his life.
Nine months and two weeks after that storm, Lizbeth gave birth
to their son. It was raining heavily that day; the streets were
flooded and traffic was hopelessly clogged. The drive to the
hospital was a nightmare, navigating through lines of cars,
sliding through standing water, his gaze snapping between the
rain-shrouded roads and the pained, urgent expression on his
wife's face. A block from the hospital, Lizbeth gave birth in
the car, bathed in rain that swept through the open door,
assisted by a physician who was driving into work at the right
moment. The final stage of the labor was brief and intense;
their child came into the world heralded by a rolling blast of
thunder.
"I hope Sam is okay," Lizbeth said.
"_Samuel_ is fine."
"Sam," she said, through gritted teeth.
Josh laughed. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he pulled her
closer. "Samuel," he growled.
She kissed him, her soft lips wavering at his mouth, then
gliding to his neck. A warm, tingly feeling crept across him.
"You win," he said, and reached for the belt of her robe.
Thunder roared.
Three
-------
"Wow," Lizbeth said, sitting up. "that was a big one."
"Thank you." Josh tugged her close. He felt like he was about to
float off of the couch. It had been an intense experience.
Lizbeth smirked at him.
"Oh -- you mean the thunder."
She giggled. "Maybe." She looked out the window. "Jeez, it's
really getting bad out there."
Josh stared out into the night. Now a sheet of water poured down
from the eaves, creating a glistening veil. Josh thought he
could see the distant outline of trees whipping back and forth
like the tentacles of some great beast. Lightning flashed, and a
second later, thunder cracked.
"Close," Josh said.
"Thank God we still have power." Lizbeth grabbed her robe.
Throwing it over her shoulder, she padded toward the bathroom.
Another burst of lightning. The house seemed to tremble against
the blast of thunder. He put the palm of his hand against the
window. The cold glass was shuddering as the wind lashed against
it. How much could it take? He backed off the couch, eyeing the
window uneasily.
Lightning again. Thunder.
Josh wrapped himself in his bathrobe and tied the belt. The
light in the hall flickered.
Something moved in the darkness beyond the window: a quick
shifting, shadows detaching from deeper shadows. He moved
forward a step, straining to see through the torrential rain.
What could be out in a storm like this? An animal perhaps,
driven from the woods? Or was it merely a trick of his
imagination?
There was a crackling sound, very loud. An instant later, a
deafening crash shook the floor. The bulb in the hall light
exploded with a pop, and the living room was plunged into
darkness.
"What the hell--?" The air was thick with a sharp, acrid smell.
"Josh!" his wife called.
He stumbled into the bathroom. Lizbeth stood at the sink,
holding a flashlight she had managed to recover from the
cabinet, directing its beam toward the vanity mirror. Tendrils
of smoke drifted from the broken remnants of the bulbs along the
frame. Tiny shards of glass covered the counter and floor.
"What happened?"
"I think the house got hit by lightning. Are you okay?"
Her voice shook, "Sam--!"
Running, following the dancing illumination from the flashlight,
they charged up the stairs and down the hall to their son's
bedroom.
A shrieking wind tore at them as Josh flung open the door. The
bedroom window was open. Lizbeth aimed the light at the bed, but
Samuel wasn't there. The impact of that empty bed made Josh's
head spin. A cold certainty held him in a fist of ice -- he
would never see his son again. Then Lizbeth swung the light
across the room and the glow settled on the boy, kneeling before
the window. He was sitting still, hands held up, face raised to
the storm.
"Sam!" Lizbeth cried. "Get away from there!"
Samuel did not respond. Josh rushed into the room and scooped up
his son, carrying him toward the doorway. Once away from the
window, he took a quick survey -- Samuel appeared unhurt, but
his eyes seemed empty and distant. His pajamas, clinging to his
cold skin, were soaked. "Are you okay?"
Samuel stared at the window.
Josh grabbed the boy by his shoulders and gave him a gentle
shake. "Samuel! Are you okay?"
"I called them," Samuel said faintly. "I didn't mean to."
"What? Who?"
"Them." Samuel pointed at the window.
Nudging Samuel into Lizbeth's arms, Josh crept toward the
window. He moved with cautious, pensive steps, as if he were a
hunter sneaking up on dangerous prey. Outside, the rain fell in
swirling darkness. The clouds overhead were a deep black,
suffused with a disturbing green and yellow; they seemed fetid,
diseased. Trees along the ridge line were swaying; several were
toppled, and others were stripped of their greenery. The plots
of land were a mess: rivers of mud flowed across the soil, and
the streets were covered by water and debris -- the drainage
system had failed to keep pace with the rain. Josh hadn't
realized the storm was doing so much damage. All his work
washing away. Come morning, there would be one hell of a
disaster to deal with.
"Josh?" his wife called out.
"There's nothing," he said, turning back. "It's just the storm.
Everything's okay." He tried to keep the tension out of his
voice. The storm was going to cost him a ton of money and set
construction back several weeks. "It's okay, Samuel."
"You don't see them?" Samuel asked, his voice trembling. "The
people in the storm?"
Josh sighed. "No one's there. It's just a bad dream."
Samuel shook his head. "No, Dad -- they're there. I saw them!
They said I have to go with them... go outside." He turned to
his mother, his eyes wide and desperate. "I called them. They're
out there."
Lizbeth hugged him. Her hair drifted in the wind, moving about
her face. "It's okay, Sam. Just a dream."
"A dream," Josh said, for emphasis. He put both hands on the
window and tried to pull it closed. It wouldn't budge. Cursing
under his breath, he tried again. The window refused to move.
The house was only a few months old and it was already falling
apart. "C'mon, let's get downstairs." He would worry about
fixing it after his family was out of the cold. "I'll carry
Samuel."
Lizbeth relinquished her hold on their son and shut the door
behind them as they entered the hall. The piercing cry of the
wind was muffled.
"I called them. They say I belong with them." Samuel raised his
head. "Don't you hear them?"
"It's just the wind."
His son was scared -- more frightened than Josh had ever seen
him. What was wrong? Reaching up, he felt Samuel's forehead.
Perhaps he had a fever. He pressed the palm, then the back, of
his hand against his son's brow. No. The skin was cool -- too
cool.
He took a heavy wool blanket out of the closet and wrapped it
around Samuel. "There you go, bud," he said, patting him on the
back. "Better?"
"Yes," Samuel responded in a tone that was hushed, detached.
"Thank you."
They made their way toward the first-floor landing. Lightning
flashed, and, in the moment of clarity between two heartbeats,
Josh saw forms outside on the porch: several of them, with
vague, nebulous faces of gray, eyes black as night -- and hands
pressing against the glass.
He stared at the window, his breath catching in his throat. The
lightning flash was gone, and all was darkness.
Lizbeth touched his arm. He jumped.
"Josh? What's wrong, honey?"
"Nothing." A salvo of lightning burned through the night. The
porch was empty. "Nothing," he said again. But he couldn't move.
He waited, staring at the window, his son held tight.
"Josh?" Lizbeth pleaded.
He heard a sound within the chorus of rain and wind -- movement,
rustling -- from behind him. He grabbed the flashlight from his
wife, and, supporting his son within the crook of one arm, he
moved upward one step, then another. The hall was dark and
empty.
Samuel's door rattled. He swung the light toward it. Slowly,
methodically, the knob was turning.
"Jesus," he breathed, stumbling back a pace. The light fell from
his grasp. With a series of muffled thuds, it tumbled down the
stairs to his wife's feet. Josh turned. His hands were
trembling, and he breathed in short, ragged gasps. It was just a
storm -- nothing more. There were no such things as monsters. No
ghosts.
Lizbeth picked up the errant light. "What's wrong?" she said.
Josh reached the landing and made an effort to compose himself.
The doorknob hadn't been moving; the forms on the porch were
just tricks of light and shadow caused by the lightning. "I'm
okay," he said, taking a deep breath. He clutched his son
firmly, looking down at him. "Everything's all right, bud."
Samuel nodded fractionally.
"You okay?"
"Uh-huh," the boy responded.
There was a knock at the front door.
Samuel yelped. "It's them!"
"Who the hell would be--?" Lizbeth began.
Josh stepped back toward the hall. His son's words resounded
through his thoughts. _It's them._ For many moments, the
three of them simply stared at the door.
Another knock, louder, more urgent. Then another.
Lizbeth headed for the door.
"Don't open it!" Josh hissed.
She turned toward him, eyes narrowed, unspoken questions evident
in her expression.
What would he tell her? Don't open the door 'cause the boogeyman
will come in? He was being irrational. He could picture himself,
white as fog, shaking, staring at the door as if he expected it
to sprout fangs and pounce on him. What if someone out there
needed help?
Did boogeymen knock? He didn't think so. "I mean," he stammered,
"look before you open it."
"Sure." She peered through the peephole, one eye pressed against
the door, for several moments. The flashlight was pointed at the
floor, its glow fragmenting into motes of reflected light upon
the polished wood.
Josh held his breath.
Samuel whispered something, too soft to hear. His voice was like
the sigh of a summer breeze.
Lightning shimmered, stark and lustrous.
Lizbeth turned back to Josh. Her mouth was bent into a curve,
half-smile and half-grimace. With a flourish, she swung open the
door.
The porch light was dangling from its mounting above the door,
broken loose and suspended by a long length of wire. A cold gust
of wind made the light swung toward the open door. The rain,
falling steady and hard, was a liquid haze, illuminated by
pulses of lightning leaping from cloud to cloud.
"There's our suspicious knocker."
Josh remembered to breathe again. He felt like an idiot. Looking
down at Samuel, he said, "See? Nothing to be afraid of."
Straining against the wind, Lizbeth shut the door. "What now?"
"Maybe we should find someplace to stay for the night."
"I'll try the phone."
Josh followed her into the kitchen and deposited Samuel on the
edge of the breakfast bar. Lizbeth grabbed the receiver from the
wall, listened, then tried to dial. Finally, with a scowl, she
slammed the phone down. "It's dead."
A cold draft stirred around them. Samuel's drawings on the
refrigerator, most of them depicting storm clouds and lightning,
rustled beneath their magnet anchors. Thunder rolled, low and
threatening, like the growl of a dog. Where was the wind coming
from? Upstairs, perhaps, through the stuck window in Samuel's
room? No... that couldn't be. The bedroom door was closed. Or
was it? Josh spun around, peering into the hall.
There was a knock at the door, and another, heavy and hollow.
Josh swore under his breath. He should have secured the damned
porch light.
Samuel sat with his hands on his knees, looking around with
nervous, furtive glances. "They're calling," he said.
Lizbeth aimed the light at the kitchen window. "What are we
going to do?" she asked. "Should we just stay here?"
"I don't know.... I don't think so."
She looked toward the front of the house. "Would the car be
safe?"
"I've heard a car is safe in a lightning storm. The rubber tires
ground it." He stepped forward and leaned against the counter.
"But this doesn't seem like just any storm."
"I know... it's pretty bad."
"No, it's more than that."
"It's just a storm. We'll be fine, hon."
He looked back at her, not answering.
"Josh?"
"Yeah, I know. Lightning is always hitting things -- people,
houses. It's not unusual." He said the words to convince
himself, not her. The storm seemed purposeful, malevolent. But
that was just his fears, distorting events, conferring malicious
intent upon a thing incapable of deliberate action. It was just
a storm. "I'll need to get my tools," he said. "See if I can get
Samuel's window fixed. Then we'll get dressed and head out."
Making the decision, dealing with the situation as a rational
adult, gave him some confidence. He marched toward the utility
room, looking back. "We'll find a hotel that still has power."
Lizbeth lifted Samuel down from the counter. Taking the boy's
hand, she guided him into the dining room and patted one of the
chairs. It was a spot shielded from the threat of breaking
windows. "Wait here, Sam."
He climbed onto the chair. Lizbeth adjusted the blanket until
only his round face was visible among the folds of dark fabric.
"Your daddy will take care of everything," she said.
Samuel seemed to be looking past her, at some distant point.
"Okay."
Lizbeth followed Josh into the utility room. "I'm worried about
him," she whispered, standing in the doorway.
Josh pulled his toolbox down from the shelf. He flipped it open
and sifted through a jumble of equipment and fittings. "Me too.
But he'll be okay. The storm spooked him. It was bound to happen
sooner or later."
"I hope that's all it is. He's just acting so... strange."
"He'll be better once we get him somewhere warm and well-lit."
Josh pulled out a hammer, a screwdriver, some fasteners, and
another flashlight. He hoped it would be enough.
She tried her best to smile. "Some night, huh?"
"No kidding."
She put her arm around his waist as he emerged from the utility
room with his hands full of supplies. "I'm proud of you."
"For what?"
"Taking care of things."
"Thanks." Obviously, she hadn't seen through his pretense of
composure. Or had she? Perhaps she was trying to instill a bit
of confidence. "Why don't you stay with Samuel. I'll see what I
can do with that window."
"Aye, sir." She kissed him on the cheek. "Good luck."
Josh strode toward the front of the house. Three steps into the
hall, he heard his wife's voice, loud and frantic. "Josh!"
He raced into the dining room. Lizbeth was standing near the
table, probing her surroundings with the flashlight, searching.
The blanket lay on the floor. Samuel was gone.
Josh's heart seemed to stop. He flipped on his own light,
sending the shaft of illumination into the kitchen. Lurking
shadows slid away from the radiance, revealing nothing.
"Samuel!" he shouted.
Only a peal of thunder responded.
Louder. "Samuel!"
Silence.
Lizbeth looked toward him, then ran through the kitchen, into
the dining room, and down the hall, circling the first floor of
the house. Josh followed her. The glow of their flashlights
carved through the darkness. They called his name. They opened
closets, searched behind and beneath furniture, each time hoping
to sight the blue pajamas, the small, delicate face.
There was no sign of him.
Josh stopped at the front door. It was still closed. He grabbed
the knob, his hand shaking with tremors charged by worry and
adrenaline, and pulled the door open.
Hushed darkness stood before him. The wind had fallen silent.
The rain was nothing more than a gentle mist. It was as if the
storm were an animal that had been fed and was now satisfied.
Could Samuel have gone outside? Why would he do that? Images
sprang into his thoughts: the forms on the porch, incorporeal
hands pressed against the window pane; and his son, kneeling
before an open window, like a supplicant at an alter.
He had to be sure. "Check upstairs, Liz."
Her gaze swept across the open door, to him, then back. "Do you
think--?"
"He's probably upstairs. I want to check outside, just in case."
"Okay." She gave the door one last, panicked glance and dashed
up the steps.
Josh turned to face the night.
Four
------
He found a footprint in the mud just beyond the driveway. And
another, a yard or so further on, filling with rainwater and
seeping mire. The tracks were small, shoeless. Samuel's.
He tried to shout his son's name, but his voice caught in his
throat.
Josh was dizzy with dread. He was wearing only his robe, but he
was barely aware of the rain, or the cold water and muck at his
bare feet. Lightning sliced across the sky. The development was
like a wasteland of puddles and gouged earth; the newly paved
roads showed cracks and dips, undermined by rivulets of murky
water. It made for difficult footing, but he plodded in the path
of his son's trail, eyes searching ahead, squinting against the
misty rain.
The tracks led along the flank of the development. He wiped the
rain from his eyes and spotted a small figure perched near the
ridge. Beyond the form, dwarfing it, the Narrows Bridge stood
within a haze of drizzle, its support wires rising like the ribs
of a long-dead behemoth. The emerald lights of the bridge
glimmered dully, accompanied by the glint of distant headlights
as a car passed above the black water.
"Samuel!" Josh called, forcing his voice through a throat tight
with tension. The sound seemed weak, ineffectual.
The figure began to walk, moving away. It was a smudge of
shadow, silhouetted in the bridge's lights.
Josh ran, slogging through the mud. Time dilated, each moment
becoming forever. He could see his son's dark hair, the blue
pajamas, the wet hair curling at the nape of his neck, the pale
hands. It felt like an eternity before he was coming up behind
the boy, reaching for him.
Samuel did not turn; he seemed unaware of his father's presence.
Suddenly, with violent force, the wind rose again. Like a
massive, invisible fist, the gust smashed into Josh, sending him
reeling backwards into the mud.
"Samuel!" he yelled, but the wind devoured his voice.
He tried to stand. The gale tore at him, churned around him. He
felt as though he'd been plunged into turbulent waters, gasping
for breath, reaching for the surface, drowning. He managed to
get to his knees, scrambling forward a few feet, hands sinking
into the cold mire. But the storm was pushing him back, and
Samuel -- seemingly unaffected -- was still walking, moving with
the methodical determination of a machine. Each step carried him
further away.
Josh was losing him.
"No -- dear God, no!" He had no strength. His arms collapsed,
and he fell flat. He raised his head, narrowing his eyes as the
wind slashed against them, watching his son move away.
The panic boiled and crashed within him. His thoughts were a
haze of mounting fear. He struggled to reject the terror, but it
burned bright, a fire that would not be doused by logic. There
was no logic to this storm, only madness. He remembered the
nights of his childhood, when the shadows became wraiths, the
darkness itself whispered his name, and the world was filled
with endless mysteries. Monsters were real; magic was real.
He dug his fists into the mud, crying out, closing his eyes
against a burst of lightning, then opening them again.
He drew in a breath, and held it. He could see them now.
They were forms of indistinct shadow, gray mist gathered into
shapes vaguely human, with coal-black eyes and bodies of flowing
vapor. They drifted on the wind, spinning and twisting,
battering him with indefinite hands, holding him to the ground.
Their whispers were the wind itself.
They encircled Samuel, but they did not restrain or hinder him.
They wafted around the boy, touching him gently but eagerly,
leading him away.
Josh shut his eyes, trying to will the creatures away. He had
once wrapped himself with the blankets of his boyhood bed,
muffling the voices, warding away shadows. Those blankets had
been a stronghold, walls of fabric protecting him until morning
light crept in ochre shadows along the surface of his keep. He
wanted to do that now: deny the darkness until dawn made it only
a memory. As the night gave way to daybreak, the chaos would
surrender to calm, unreason to logic. But Samuel would be gone,
and that thought spurred him to action.
Straining against the hold of the mist-forms, Josh stood. He
planted his feet in the muck and took a step. Then another. And
another. The beings lashed against him with unwavering force.
With each footfall he grunted, but he was barely aware of the
sound. His consciousness was focused on three things: the gaze
of the beings, their cold whispers, and his son.
A step. Another. With agonizing slowness, he was moving toward
Samuel.
The wind-voice of the things formed into words. _Stop._
"No! Leave him alone!"
_He belongs with us. He is one of us._
"Why? What are you?"
_We are as we have always been._
"He's my son!"
_He is one of us. He has called us._
"No!" Josh yelled. "Samuel!"
The boy stopped and turned around, facing Josh. The beings
pressed against him, trying to compel him back into movement,
but Samuel stood firm. His wet pajamas stirred in the rising
wind. He said nothing. He stared at Josh, his small features as
rigid as chiseled ice.
_He is one of us._
"I don't understand," Josh said, still straining toward his son.
"How? When?"
_Always._
Always? Josh remembered the night of Samuel's conception: the
storm, the howling wind. He and Lizbeth had seemed a part of the
elements that night. Perhaps they were. And Samuel, linked to
the things within the storm, had unknowingly summoned them in a
time of loneliness. I called them, he had said. Don't you see
them?
Straining harder, Josh lurched forward. His son stood before
him, still and quiet, surrounded by the things flowing in a
diaphanous haze. He was looking toward Josh, but his expression
did not waver. The beings around him were frenzied, forming a
barrier of churning, chaotic mist. Within that maelstrom,
Samuel's form was fading, transforming, melding with the
darkness.
"Samuel!" Josh cried. He leapt toward his son, reaching for him,
but his hands did not make contact, and he fell through him,
landing in the mud.
"No!" he screamed, turning back, clambering to his feet. Samuel
was a shadow. Josh could see only his son's eyes, peering from
an ashen mist. They were eyes of indigo blue: the shade of a
thundercloud at twilight. Beautiful eyes.
"No, Samuel. Can't you hear me? Don't you see me?" He reached
out again. "I love you. Please... don't go!"
The eyes of indigo seemed to meet his own. Their stares locked.
Recognition. Knowing. "That's it, Samuel. I'm here, bud. C'mon."
Josh reached out, and his hands touched something solid:
Samuel's shoulders, the soaked material of his pajamas. He
gripped the cloth and tugged.
Samuel fell into his arms. Josh, kneeling in the mud, wrapped
his arms tight around the boy. He looked up.
The mist-forms circled around them, examining, touching. Their
movements slowed, until they flowed like ink through the depths
of a calm sea. A thousand orbs of pure blackness looked down
upon him, but their gaze was not threatening, not evil. The wind
was soft now, and it seemed to whisper of understanding.
"Please go," Samuel whispered, looking up at the creatures. His
voice was detached, distant, as if he were talking in his sleep.
Like shadows submitting to light, the things faded, scattering
in all directions. Above, the dark clouds broke apart, revealing
patches of sky strung with shimmering stars. The rain stopped.
The pearl-white radiance of the moon swept across the landscape.
In a moment, they were gone -- but not completely.
"Daddy?" Samuel said, sleepily. He rubbed his eyes. "What are we
doing out here?"
Josh picked him up and stood. "It's okay. You're safe."
Lizbeth was running towards them, stumbling through the mud.
Josh waved at her, then looked down at his son. "Let's go home."
Josh sipped from a cup of coffee and glanced toward the window.
A bulldozer swung into view, pushing dirt, its throaty growl
joining the sounds of the other heavy equipment. It had been a
month since the storm, but repairs still continued. He wasn't
overly concerned. The lots would be ready soon.
The sun was bright and warm. They were well into September, with
no end in sight for an Indian summer that refused to give way to
autumn. The weather matched his mood: the day after the storm,
he had called the office and announced he was going to use some
of his accrued vacation time. He hadn't been to work in a month
-- and he didn't miss it.
"Hey, honey." Lizbeth was standing at the end of the hall,
smiling. With an exaggerated sweep of her arm, she raised a
small object into the air.
Josh narrowed his eyes. It looked like a vial of some sort, full
of blue liquid.
"It's positive," she said.
"Huh?"
"I'm pregnant, you dope."
"Pregnant?" They had been trying to have a baby for nearly a
year, but the announcement caught him off guard. Was he ready
for another child? He hadn't told Lizbeth what happened the
night of the storm -- he didn't even know if he could define the
experience. The line between reality and fantasy had once been
sharp; now that line was blurred to the point of invisibility.
It terrified him -- and filled him with wonder.
"Honey?"
Don't do it, he told himself. Don't spoil it. This is important.
It's right. "You're pregnant?"
Her eyes seemed to sparkle. "Yep."
"Pregnant?"
"Catch on quick, don't you?" She rushed forward and hugged him.
"It's going to be terrific."
Her enthusiasm was contagious. He spun her around, while she
yelped and tried to keep the vial from spilling. Then he thought
of something and set her back on her feet. "Honey?"
"Yeah?" Her face was flushed. Her eyes sparkled.
"Do you think it could have been... I mean, could it have
happened on the night of the storm?"
"Sure. The timing would work out."
He nodded. For some reason, the prospect of that did not trouble
him. Another child with indigo eyes -- a girl, perhaps -- would
be wonderful.
"You all right?" she asked.
"Great!"
Samuel pounded into the room and joined their hug, wrapping his
arms around their legs, giggling. "Can we drive down to the
park?"
"I don't know, kiddo," Josh said.
"It's going to be warm and sunny for the rest of the day,"
Samuel added, smiling.
And Josh knew that it would be.
Shawn Click (sclick@nwlink.com)
---------------------------------
Is a father of two and husband of one. When he isn't watching
Mystery Science Theater 3000, he is hard at work on a suspense
novel.
FYI
=====
...................................................................
InterText's next issue will be released January 15, 1996.
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So, does your monkey bite the pizza guy every time?
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