011522d

I have 2 poems in Weirdbook. This one is all about zombies. I know 8 of the 10 other poets represented, and you probably know most of them too. Most of the volume consists of short stories. It's THICK, has a very cool cover by Fotolia, and I can't wait to read it. There are several interior illos by the ubiquitous Allen K.

101821c

Flash story postcards, unused, printed in the 80s: Don Webb, Robert Frazier, Ted Carroll, Avram Davidson. 9x12" SASE while supplies last. With small illustrations by Sheila Kopaska-Merkel. Surplus Wyvern Press.

050221b

 

The Yellow Sign and other stories

Robert W. Chambers

ed. S. T. Joshi

Chaosium

 

Gotta read it again, although the horrific title story is by far the best.

120920

 

I've been sick with something enervating, but probably not Covid, and am more or less back up to speed now. Here are a few book covers, which you might have seen before.

120120b

 

I have belatedly realized that there is a portal for indie bookstores. This book of fantasy/horror flash fiction can be purchased that way:

https://bookshop.org/books/gods-and-monsters-9781519729446/9781519729446  

090720d

 

Change Can Be Good

The Robinsons stepped from their time machine. A pine forest greeted them: birds twittered, insects buzzed, a cool breeze blew pleasantly. Nothing moved.

“We can build a home here,” Father declared, “Earth has finally recovered.”

“Where's Will?” Mother asked worriedly.

“Mom! Dad!” Will ran into the clearing. “We have to go!”

“Why son? Listen: there are bees again!”

The buzzing got much louder. Soon, a bee squeezed into the clearing.

 

020420

In retrospect it seems inevitable that Bacchus would manifest after so long an absence at a frat party. Where else would drunks try so hard to reenact the traditional rituals? The party went on for a week. The University finally shut it down because of the loud singing, in Greek, that continued through Sunday morning. The basement was strewn with the inebriated, but the only remaining alcohol was in the bottom of a ceramic jar. All the students said about that was "He had the best wine," but analysis proved the residue to be a perfectly ordinary red.

102619e

Poetry and fiction books by David C. Kopaska Merkel

1. underfoot, the runaway spoon press, ISBN 0-926935-60-7, poetry, 1991
2. a round white hole, dbqp press, poetry, 1993
3. The Conspiracy Unmasked, Dark Regions Press, poetry, 1994
4. hunger, Preternatural Press, poetry, 1996
5. Results of a preliminary investigation of the electrochemical properties of some organic matrices , Eraserhead Press, poetry, 1999
6. Y2K survival kit, smoldering banyan press, poetry, 1999
7. The Ruined City, gnarled totem press, poetry, 2003
8. Shoggoths, Sam's Dot publishing, poetry, 2003
9. The Deadbolt Casebook, Sam's Dot publishing, fiction, 2004
10. the egg show, speakeasy press, ISBN 0-9762962-0-9 ($40, entirely handmade including the paper), poetry, 2005 http://www.speakeasypress.com/folded/foldedeggshow.html
11. I don't know what you're having, Sam's Dot, poetry, 2005
12. Separate Destinations (with Kendall Evans), D66 Press, ISBN 1-892958-02-3, poetry, 2005
13. Hasp Deadbolt, Private Eye, Sam's Dot, fiction, 2007
14. Drowning Atlantis, spechouseofpoetry.com, flash fiction, 2007
15. The memory of persistence, Naked Snake Press, poetry, 2007
16. Nursery Rhyme Noir, Sam's Dot, 978-09821068-3-9, fiction (incorporates 9 and 13), 2008
17. Night Ship to Never (with Kendall Evans), diminuendo press, 978-0-9821352-3-5, poetry, 2009

18. The Simian Transcript, Banana Oil books, flash fiction, 2010
19. Brushfires, Sam's Dot, poetry, 2010
20. The Tin Men (with Kendall Evans), Sam's Dot, poetry, 2011
21. The Edible Zoo, Sam's Dot, children's poetry, 2012--from author
22. On the Brink of Never (ed.), Sam’s Dot, ISBN 978-0-984692-04-0, poetry, 2012
23. Luminous Worlds, Dark Regions Press, ISBN 978-1-937128-92-0, poetry, 2013
24. SETI Hits Paydirt, Popcorn Press, poetry, 2014
25. Gods and Monsters, Popcorn Press, flash fiction, 2015, 9781519729446
26. Metastable Systems, diminuendo press, poetry, 2017, ISBN-13: 978-1-936021-57-4--in print
27. Entanglement (with Kendall Evans), diminuendo press, poetry, 2018, ISBN 13: 978-1-936021-56-7 (print)--in print

092819d

The Addled Egg

This job can affect one’s health. I remember one case that made me swear off breakfast for two months. And I have a pretty strong stomach. You have to, in this business. The name’s Deadbolt … Hasp Deadbolt. I’m a P.I.

It started pleasantly enough. Alma and I were dining al fresco at the Café Belgique. I like that place because the food is excellent, and I get a 25 percent discount whenever I eat there. The owner was quite grateful at the end of a job (the details of which I am not at liberty to divulge) that I like to call The Goose of Gold. At any rate, Alma and I were having breakfast out on the patio, the sun was coming up, and the geraniums in the window boxes were in full bloom. It was not yet hot. In short, a perfect morning to make a proposal of marriage. Yes, those of you who have been reading my little tales know that Alma and I have been an item for more than a year, and I had decided to propose something more formal.

“Alma,” I said, during a lull in our conversation, “I have a request.”

She looked sharply at me, sensing something in my tone. “If this is a proposal,” she began, but she was interrupted. At that very moment, a large object plummeted past us to shatter on the sidewalk not two feet from where we sat. We were both thoroughly drenched with raw egg. It was as though an egg six feet long had exploded. Which is exactly what had happened, I realized, standing and surveying the debris. I recognized Humpty Dumpty from a large shell fragment that, moments before, had been the back of his head.

Alma recognized him too. “Oh my God, it’s Humpty Dumpty!” she screamed, leaping to her feet and dabbing at her soaked dress with gooey hands. She was a sight. I blinked egg out of my eyes and grabbed some napkins off a nearby table. I handed them to Alma and sprinted into the restaurant. It seemed likely that Dumpty had fallen, or been pushed, from the roof. I squelched through the dining room, into the kitchen, and looked around. Everyone was staring at me like I had egg on my face.

“The stairs,” I demanded. “Where are the stairs to the roof?” One of the busboys pointed. “Thanks,” I said, and ran up two steps at a time. The roof was deserted. I searched for clues as best I could with Humpty’s guts all over me, but didn’t find anything. By the time I finished the sun was up, it was getting hot, and it felt like the egg on me was beginning to cook. I could hear egg sizzling on the roof where it had dripped off of me. I looked over the edge. A bunch of the Royal Mounted Guards were down there, trampling on the mess in the street and probably destroying evidence. I headed back to the stairwell just as Detective Poyrow and Sargeant Satyrday emerged.

“You’re a mess, Deadbeat,” smirked Poyrow, “even worse than usual.”

“People just cling to me,” I said, “especially if they’re my clients.” Dumpty wasn’t my client, of course, but I wanted to solve this one. No one splashes egg innards on Alma and gets away with it. If Detective Poyrow and Sargeant Satyrday thought I’d been working for the victim, they might be more forthcoming with information.

“You were employed by the deceased?” Sargeant Satyrday asked, consulting a small black notebook. “We haven’t heard that from anyone else, including Miss, ah …”

“Alma isn’t involved in my business,” I interjected, “and the egg kept his cards close to his shell. Do you have any leads to who murdered him?”

“What makes you think it was murder? Did he have any enemies?”

“It just doesn’t make sense that he would be this careless,” I said, “given his delicate condition. I believe it was murder.” Actually, I had no idea. But I sure wasn’t going to score any juicy tidbits calling it an accident.

“Well, you know best, I suppose,” Satyrday said, “but I know one thing. You better go home and get cleaned up before you start to stink even worse than you do right now.”

I did that thing and then I hit the streets. If the egg had had enemies, I needed to know who they were.

I searched all night in the lowest and darkest parts of the city, to no avail. Anyone who’d harbored ill feeling toward Humpty Dumpty had kept it to him- or herself. There remained one possibility—it could have been a family affair. The low lifes and scum I’d spent the night with couldn’t help me there. I needed to pay a visit to the farm where Dumpty had been laid.

At Squawking Rooster Farm I spoke to the head rooster. He was not very informative, unless you can glean a lot more from cock-a-doodle-doo than I can. Next, I interviewed the chief hen.

“Yes, I remember him. Kinda hard to forget an egg that size, whether it hatches or no. No, you can’t speak to the hen that laid it. Laying Humpty darn near killed her, and she retired soon after. Don’t rightly know where you could find her now. Nice old biddy, but a bit dim. Kinda ironic that she had such a brilliant (and eccentric) son.

“Enemies? Not around here. He was a good egg. He came in for a lot of teasing, though, and I often wondered if it was making him suicidal. Now I hear he’s killed himself. Poor boy! It’s my belief that he had “issues” about being an overgrown baby, if you will, in a grown-up world.”

Well, I could have done without the pop psychology, but at least I had made a start. I talked to other animals on the farm, and got pretty much the same answer from all of those that remembered Humpty.

I decided I needed to track down Mrs. Dumpty, so I started visiting all the farms in the area. Pretty soon I met an old goat on a dairy farm who directed me to Feathered Acres, a combined retirement home and dude ranch on the other side of the valley. Feathered Acres had one of those impressive archways over the entrance with the name of the place picked out in fancy lettering. On either side of the arch was a topiary shrub: a sow, rampant, on the left, and a hen scratching in the dirt on the right. A gravel drive began at the arch and wound up a hill through a manicured lawn dotted with fruit trees. When I reached the top of the hill I found some neat little farm buildings arrayed before me. On the left a white clapboard house bore the legend “Office” over the front door, so I parked there and went in.

There was no one behind the reception desk. In fact, there was no one in the whole place. I went back out and searched the other buildings. Empty as a sailor’s wallet on Sunday. Finally, just as I was about to get in my car, a fox drove up in a BMW convertible. A lawyer, of course.

“Sir,” he said, “I’m going to have to ask you to leave. This is private property.”

“I want to visit a resident, a Mrs. Dumpty. She’s a chicken.” I replied.

The fox shook his head. “No residents here. This place has been sold to the company I represent.”

I asked where the residents had gone, but the fox shook his head. That was private information, he told me. I copied the company name off of his car: Consolidated Real Assets Partnership. I was going to do some digging, and I didn’t care how high the pile got, I was going to get to the bottom of things.

CRAP, Inc. was headquartered on the west side of town in a pretty ritzy neighborhood, but they had a branch office up north. I decided to try there first. It turned out that the northside office was out in the country. Northside is a pretty area: rolling hills, farmland, oak woods, some small lakes. The only problem is the smell.

“It’s that damn slaughterhouse,” one old geezer told me when I stopped for gas and directions. “Ever since they went in, this place just stinks. And trucks coming in at all hours of the night, bringin’ the latest victims to their doom. I would sell out and move in a New York minute, but who would buy a place out here?

“What’s that? CRAP, Inc.? Well I don’t know, but I can tell you you’re headed in the right direction. It must be up near the slaughterhouse, matter of fact. I can’t see why anyone would want to live up there, or work either, if they didn’t have to.”

The old guy was right. CRAP’s office was very close to the slaughterhouse. In fact, the office WAS the slaughterhouse. As I sat in my car, parked across the highway from the noisome place, I had a funny feeling that this was where Mrs. Dumpty had ended up, along with the rest of the former residents of Feathered Acres. And if that was the case, and Humpty had known about it, well, Robert E. Howard killed himself when his mother died.

“I still don’t believe it,” Alma repeated, as she rearranged the roses I’d brought her. “Humpty and I went way back. He wasn’t a quitter. Something else is going on here.” As she busied herself at the kitchen counter I mused on what she’d said. I kind of agreed with her. But if we were right, what had happened on the roof of the Café B? I put in a call to the police department. I left a message for Satyrday to call me at Alma’s when he got a chance. I had some information to trade.

Satyrday called back while we were eating. I excused myself for a minute so I could talk to him. I told him all about how Humpty’s mom had gone to slaughterhouse, and what CRAP, Inc. seemed to have done to the retired chicken home. He was interested. That’s when I asked him about the autopsy data.

“What autopsy?” he asked.

“Come on, Satyrday,” I said. “Don’t play coy with me. You ordered an autopsy on the egg. I know the way your mind works. You didn’t believe it was murder, but just in case…” It took a little more cajoling, but he gave it to me.

“Humpty had ergot alkaloids in his system,” he told me. “Maybe he ate some spoiled biscuits and gravy for breakfast.”

“Ergot?”

“You know, a fungus. Causes hallucinations, even death. Some people think it was responsible for the insanity that led to the Salem witch trials, not to mention the erratic behavior of Goldilocks.”

“That wasn’t drugs,” I replied absently, “she was just mean. Can you get ergot if you want it?”
“Sure, it still affects grain crops when the weather’s wet. It’s easy to find if you want it badly enough. But what are you thinking? Who’s the poisoner?”

I told him I didn’t know yet and said goodbye. After dinner I stuck around at Alma’s for a while. Then I went back out to the slaughterhouse. There was one light on, in a small building off to one side. A fat man in a three-piece suit was in there doing some paperwork. I went in and locked the door behind me.

The fat guy didn’t look up till I cocked my gun.

“Who are you?!” he demanded.

“I’ll ask the questions here,” I said, talking tough, “what happened to all the residents of Feathered Acres?”

“Feathered Acres? Never heard of it. You’ve got the wrong…”

I blew apart his coffee mug. He flinched and then cowered in his chair.

“Give!” I said. “I know all about the rest home to slaughterhouse scheme.” I pointed the pistol at his knee.

“Oh! Now I remember,” he said. It wasn’t his idea. He’d just gone along with everybody else. Besides, they were “just a bunch of talking animals.” I nearly blew him away right then. As many people know, I have a fondness for animals that goes pretty deep. I called Sargeant Satyrday and told him I had someone who wanted to turn state’s evidence.

“So they just took all those retired hens and turned them into breasts and thighs and barbequed wings?” Alma was horrified.

“And pork chops, bacon, mutton, etcetera. It was profitable, but not profitable enough, so they cleaned Feathered Acres out. They were going to turn the place into tract housing.”

Alma shook her head in disbelief. “They thought they could get away with this?”

“They might have done just that if Humpty hadn’t gone out there to visit his mother and seen some goats being hustled into a van.” She snuggled in closer and I put my arm around her. “He kept asking questions, and they knew it was just a matter of time before he went to the authorities. The fox slipped him some ergot and then arranged a breakfast meeting on the roof. The fox did not, of course, show up, but he was nearby in case Humpty didn’t fall on his own. They figured that if anyone did any digging they’d find out about his mother and just chalk him up as a suicide.”

“But killing the animals was already illegal!”

“No, that was the crazy part of the whole thing. As far as I can tell, although they behaved reprehensibly from the start, they didn’t break the law until they murdered Humpty, because he was a storybook character, and not just some anonymous egg.”

092219d

In His House in Suburbia

That is not idle, which can eternal strive,

And in new seasons, strange broods may thrive.

--Jaaq al Coustou

One morning a Vespa was parked in the carport of the old Wilson place. I caught a glimpse of my new neighbor the next day. He was mowing and I was on my roof replacing some shingles. His face was a mass of tentacles, with a huge eye on each side. That seemed a little strange, even for SoCal.

I saw him again while raising money for the orphanage down the street. He had finally put his name on the mailbox. Instead of Wilson it now read "Phnglui." When I got to the door I thought I heard chanting inside, but it stopped as soon as I knocked. A few minutes later the door opened. Mr. P. stood there blinking. He was wearing a Miskatonic University T-shirt and jeans with holes in the knees. I couldn't help noticing that his bare feet had webbing between the toes.

"Hey man," I said, "I'm selling raffle tickets for the orphanage. They're a dollar. You could win, like, a big screen TV, or dinner for two at Steamers." After I mentioned that one I wished I hadn't. He might be a little uncomfortable with the idea of seafood, being a sort of human calamari.

"Oh, uh, sure. Hold on." He went to a little table that was covered with papers held down by a green soapstone statuette. He picked up his wallet. "I'll take five."

"Thanks man. Say, could I borrow your mower? Mine quit working last time I used it and it's still in the shop. This time of year they're so busy it takes forever."

"No problem. I already mowed."

I saw Mr. P pretty regularly after that. I got the feeling he'd been keeping a low profile until he found out how the neighbors would react to his appearance. I even saw him jogging in the park, and ran into him at the grocery store. He was buying shrimp, so I guess my seafood restaurant gaffe hadn't been a problem. When it came time for the neighborhood's annual Fourth of July picnic, I made sure to invite him.

"You may not be American, but you're welcome to party with us. Plus, we're going to do the drawing. For the raffle." I couldn't place his accent.

"I'm from Massachusetts," he said. "A little town near Arkham. Innsmouth; you probably haven't heard of it. Got kin up that way. And I'll definitely see you Saturday. I'll bring some crabcakes."

*

Everyone agreed the crabcakes were awesome. A couple of people asked for the recipe, and he promised to e-mail them. I don't know why, but for some reason I hadn't expected him to use e-mail. He noticed my expression.

"I can't afford to call my relatives long distance; I use Skype. I have some cousins near Ponape. Aquaculturalists."

About then, Missy Langston sat down next to Mr. P. She was wearing a very brief bikini, and she draped her arm across his shoulders. This made him a little uncomfortable, if the frenetic writhing of his tentacles was anything to go by.

"Oh Mr. P," she said. "I hear you have all kinds antique statuary in your house. I would love to see it." She leaned over and whispered in his ear. He turned bright red. I got up to get another beer. It was a while later when I noticed the two of them had gone. I also didn't see Missy's sometime boyfriend Chuck. Seemed like Missy had been fighting with him a few hours earlier, before she started talking to Mr. P.

About then Missy came running out of the darkness, screaming that Chuck was killing Mr. P and we needed to make them stop. She had lost her bikini top. A couple of us ran back the way she had come, to find Mr. P on the ground. About a third of the tentacles were missing from around his mouth and he was bleeding from a cut above his eye. There was no sign of Chuck. We got Mr. P upright and half dragged him to his house. I asked if he wanted to go to the hospital, but he shook his head. At the front door he waved us away, and closed and locked it behind him.

The next morning I checked on him. He didn't answer until I shouted that I was going to call 911. I heard a faint whisper from just on the other side of the door.

"I'll regenerate. Just go away. Please."

That night I took him some chowder. He didn't answer the door, so I left it in a cooler. The next morning the cooler was empty. A week later he was out trimming his hedge, sporting a set of bright pink stubby tentacles that replaced the ones Chuck had torn out.

In the meantime, no one had seen Chuck at all. Missy tossed her head and said "I'm glad! All he ever gave me was a black eye."

A few days after that Chuck turned up... floating face down in a canal, partially eaten by fish and crabs. He had been in the water for days, and his face was completely gone.

I was one of the few who showed up at the funeral. Missy arrived right before he was lowered into the ground, riding behind Mr. P. on his bright yellow Vespa.

It was about a month later that Missy started to show. Mr. P bought a used Accord. Missy announced that she was carrying quadruplets, and I bought them one of those fancy four-seat strollers. A couple of humorists down the street chipped in and bought a 100 gallon fish tank. I didn't think it was funny.

A few defunct zines I've been published in

La zine est morte, vive la zine!

More than 50 Periodicals

Poems and stories published 1982-2019 in the pages of

2AM
Alpha Drive
Bare Bone
Chaos Butterfly
Contortions
The Cult of Hamstur e-newsletter
CWM (co-edited by me)
Decompositions
Devilfish Review
Doorways
Doppelganger
Dragon Dreaming
E-Genra News
The Earwig Flesh Factory
Eclectica
Eldritch Tales (the original)
Electric Velocipede
Electric Wine
Ered Nimrais (published by me)
Eternity online
Freezer Burn
Frisson
Full-Unit Hookup
Grue
Helix
Ibn Qirtaiba
Icarus Ascending
Ideomancer
Intermix
Lan's Lantern
Lone Star Stories
The Magazine of Speculative Poetry (a final issue is in the works)
The Martian Wave (apparently being revived)
Midnight Zoo
Night Cry
Paper Crow
Pierna Tierna
Prelude to Fantasy
Scavenger's Newsletter
Shadows Of...
The Shantytown Anomaly
Sidereality
Sloth Jockey
Space and Time (has been revived)
Speculon
Sybil's Garage
Sycophant
Tales of the Talisman
Thaumatrope
The Daily Cabal (a collaborative webzine)
Tin Wreath
Tractor
Trajectories
Transversions
Twisted
Wicked Hollows
Xenophilia
xyz
Z Miscellaneous


Corrections welcome.

061719b

This Story

deleted by time agents

the end

again

061519c

King Me

Patricia scowled, slamming the black checker down on top of its twin as hard as she could without jumping any of the others out of place. The room heaved, and her face paled. She took another sip of warm cola. Her brother bared his teeth, hand hovering over a front-line piece. She was thinking not that one not that one not that one, but for the life of him he couldn't see the move she was afraid of. He moved his hand and pretended to reach for another piece that seemed promising. No reaction. Who needed telepathy with these tells? It had to be the first piece, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out which move she was worried about. In the end he just guessed.

The walls were cheap paneling, the floor wood planks. Outside the small window, storm clouds and rain. On the floor around three sides of the room were nonperishable foods, clothing and blankets, and a miscellany of salvage. The fourth wall held the stove and sink, both heaped with junk and clearly not in use.

The room jerked and tilted; a tree branch shattered the window and tore out half of the wooden frame. Then it was gone. The room filled with a rushing sound and a spray of water. Water bubbled up between the floorboards behind Benny, wetting the seat of his pants.

"God dammit!" The boy leaped to his feet, slapping his butt. His sister was upchucking into a bucket. He staggered to the door and ripped it open. Patricia screamed. Outside, choppy water stretched as far as the eye could see. Waves broke against a ragged platform, all that remained of the floor of their house, and fountained out of the rectangular cutout that had once been the top of the basement stairs. A gull laughed from a sky in flood.

Night was dark, the moon and stars hidden by clouds, and they were out of fuel. Patricia spooned room-temperature beef stew from a can by feel and licked drops from her chin. She had spent the whole day inside. Couldn't stand to go outside, couldn't stand to look at the water. She'd lost count of the bodies on Sunday, shark bit, bloated, face up, face down. Face up was the worst.

Patricia was dreaming, she knew she was. Even when she was small, she had always known.

Benny was shaking her. "Wake up! Something's out there!"

It was a giant squid. Floating, it had bumped against, tangled with, the raft. One arm must have been 100 feet long. She knew these creatures lived only deep in the ocean. The leaf-shaped pad on the arm's tip was nearly the size of her body. The suckers looked like the bottoms of paper cups. The eye was a milky saucer. The eye... blinked. Arms unfurled, rose above her head.

The squid spoke to her. "Worship me. Give yourself to me, be my queen." Its huge eye was blue, as blue as a scallop's. "The ocean will be your domain, all that swims your servants." Colors ran in its gleaming wet skin, a semaphore, an incantation she thought she couldn't read. Her head felt hot, her whole body, hot. So it was like this.

There was a quiet splash.

"Benny?"

A long arm curled around her back and belly. She felt the suckers, as large as hands, cold and wet, pulled tight against her skin. The squid lifted her into the sky. Rain and wind forced her to shut her eyes, turn her head. Beneath her, the great beak opened, clacked shut. The arm held her up high. She felt like the torch of the Statue of Liberty. It would be good to be Queen.

060219

A River's Tale

Many lands feel the river's touch. In the land of the Noceri the river sheds its load of post-apocalyptic debris and takes on a new name. Upstream the river is called Rougerin; after its passage through Nocerland it is the Ouestry. The Noceri are fisherfolk. This has been their bane. They have a saying that what you eat you become, and certainly what they pull out of the river with their long-handled hooks and what they strain out with their fantastical nets, is stranger than any tale can tell. Once, struggling man shapes came floating down each spring. They could not have been men, for as the Noceri put it, a river produces fish, and fish is dinner. Nevertheless they were noisy fish, and their lamentations have become some of the best folk songs of the Noceri. The Noceri waste nothing. It is well known that the Noceri speak only truth. The man shapes are gone now, and from July through January the Noceri must live on salt fish, dried fish, pickled fish, hard fish cakes, slippery fish candy, and fish preserves.

It may be the cleansing action of the fisherfolk, or simply the distance from its source, but the river leaves Nocerland in a rarified state, fit for swimming, and those who live where the lazy river winds across the plains of rushes, reeds, horsetails, cattails, lizardtails, goattails, and mare's tails do just that on a daily basis. They do so, that is, until the river reaches the Plain of Ghoz. Ghoz was a foolish God. Ghoz angered the river, or so the tale relates, and the river departed his homeland, never to return.

One spring the floods rose until they lapped at the very sill of the hut of Ghoz. On the plains, even a God dwells in a humble hut woven of the strong purple grasses. Ghoz surveyed the devastation wrought on the plain, as even a small god should, and when he returned home his hut was gone, and with it his wife and child. Ghoz was consumed with grief and fury. He tore out his hair, he stabbed himself repeatedly with the sharpened willow stick that was his token, and he cursed the river, forcing it to depart. Some claim that the purification of the river engendered by the fisherfolk of Nocer permits the Ouestry's spirit to leave its body, and they label the tale of Ghoz a falsity. Whatever the case, the river is sundered where it enters Ghozland. The false river remains in the plain, bereft of that life-giving property common to all rivers. Thus the Ghozlings have turned their back on the river, because it is soulless, providing no sustenance, and they graze their cattle far from its desolate banks.

The spirit river rises perilous into the air, and none have dared it, or if they have, they have not returned. Where the two rivers that should be one go after they pass the Land of Ghoz I cannot say. Perhaps one or both still reach the distant sea. Would that our story could tell of the spirit river, its nature, purpose, and destination. If this was a campfire tale of the Noceri, the spirit river's tale would be one of the most truthful. Alas, the Noceri do not know the spirit river. However, one thing is known: the separation between Ouestry above and Ouestry below moves steadily upstream. One day, perhaps, the unravelling of the two rivers will reach Nocerland, and when it does, the Noceri may make tales of its days, its nights, its beginning, and its end. Until then, we must make do with the lies we have.

050219b

I just found out yesterday that I have a story in this book ("The Tindalos Cycle") that was published nine years ago. The story was written 40 years ago. The original publisher apparently lost my address. Hippocampus Press took it over sometime ago and they are sending me a copy. The lineup of authors looks very good. Until yesterday, the last I heard was that the book was not going to be published after all. A pleasant surprise to find out that it exists.


https://www.hippocampuspress.com/mythos-and-other-authors/fiction/the-tindalos-cycle-edited-by-robert-m.-price?zenid=846udc771125l6l1pefe9v9636

010119

Five Little Piggies

Folks call me Deadbolt, Hasp Deadbolt. They do that because it's my name. I'm a PI. Some free advice? Never get involved with quintuplets. Mothers of twins say the kids double-team them from infancy. I've never raised children so I wouldn't know, but it might be like having quints for clients. Four of them anyway. This is how it started.

Alma and I were cuddling on the couch. Or rather, she was talking about how to decorate the nursery, should we ever need one, and I was cuddling her. My cell phone rang. I let it go to voicemail, but later I listened to the message. It was from someone with a squeaky voice.

"Help me, Mr. Deadbolt, you're my only hope. My brother went shopping this morning and never returned. The police will do nothing. My brothers and I are frantic!"

I called him back. He said his name was Long Borsson.

"The police don't consider a person officially missing until they've been gone for 48 hours, Mr. Borsson. Why do you think your brother is in trouble?"

"Sir, he was planning to cook lunch, and now he's missed a fabulous roast-beef dinner. This is not like him, not like him at all. Food is very important to my family. Plus, a big scary-looking wolf has been hanging around and slavering. I suspect fowl play."

"Wolves are not birds," I said absently. I hadn't seen BB since an incident involving Mother Hubbard and a set of triplets*, a few years back. The wolf had escaped, and I wasn't happy to hear that he might be operating in my town again.

"Lemme let you talk to my brother," Mr. Borsson said, and I heard a new voice on the phone.

"Mr. Deadbolt. This is Forthright 'Veggie' Borsson. My brother might not have made clear the gravity of our situation." He went over the whole thing again, but I knew nothing more when he finally ran down than I had when he started.

"Mr. Borsson. 'Veggie.' If the Big Bad Wolf was stalking your brother, the police would have taken it seriously. Did you tell them about that part of it?"

"I'll give the phone to my brother. Maybe he can explain it better."

I started to ask how many of them there were, but a new voice, even higher and squeakier than the other two, started in. "Mr. Deadbolt. I am Squeaky Borsson. Perhaps my brothers did not make themselves clear. My brother, Opposable Borsson, has been kidnapped and eaten by a wolf. I want you to do something. Save him!"

"I am as opposed... err, against cannibalism as the next guy, but how can I save someone who has already been eaten?" His logic wagon had lost a wheel somewhere.

"Mr. Deadbolt. You don't understand. My brother isn't dead. He's standing right here."

"Let me talk to your brother." Maybe the next one would be a better listener.

"Which one?" he asked.

*

I decided that I needed to speak to these guys face-to-face. Maybe that way they'd make more sense. At nine o'clock the next morning I knocked on the door of a large brick ranch house. Closely shaved geometric topiary filled beds between the windows on either side of the door. I didn't know what to expect, so I wasn't surprised when a pig wearing overalls and a clean white T-shirt opened the door.

"Mr. Deadbolt, I presume."

I nodded.

"I'm Homer Borsson," he squeaked, shaking my hand, "please come in."

The foyer contained a small table under a mirror in a large gilt frame. On the table was a framed family photograph: five brothers, arms linked in front of the house. Down the hall I could see heavy dark furniture, and more photographs hanging on the wall. The first room on the right was the den. Three other pigs stood in front of a massive brick fireplace. Above the fireplace hung a gigantic painting of an elderly swinish couple, dressed conservatively and with not a trace of a smile. The three brothers who stood below the painting wore identical overalls, but with different colors and vintages of T-shirts. OMFG.

"Your missing brother, Opposable, he's identical too, right?" They nodded in unison.

They started to tell me the story again. The first one had been home all day, and hadn't seen or heard a thing. He wanted to make sure I understood this, and impressed it upon me vigorously, to the tune of 30 minutes plus. The next was the fellow who had enjoyed dinner. He had _really_ enjoyed it. By the time he was through I could have drawn you a timeline of each bite. Roast beef, medium rare, the tip of an asparagus spear (lemon butter), potatoes (not much gravy, but it had been made with oysters), etc.. The third didn't eat meat at all, he explained, but his vegetarian meal had been more than adequate, I gathered. The last was a timid sort, emphasizing how terrified his missing brother must be, and how much more terrified he would be if he was in the same situation. Don't think this story came across as coherently as it appears in the summary I just gave you! Two hours after I got there, I knew less of importance than I had when I walked in the door. I _did_ know the complete grocery shopping list that Opposable had taken with him to the market, but I wasn't sure how that was going to help me find him. In the end, I took the case in self-defense. I could discount the cacophony of his overprotective brothers, but something didn't smell right about Opposable's disappearance. I thought he was in trouble.

*

I decided to start by tackling the problem from the wolf angle. At first I couldn't find a thing. www.circleoflife.com didn't list him under "Predation Forecast," and the Carnivory Service (www.cs.gov) had not issued a Wolf Watch, much less a Warning. Then, taking a break with the Citynews.com, I spotted a notice about the neighborhood watch program in Heritage Hills beefing up its security patrols. The Hills weren't far from where the five little pigs lived.

The gatehouse at Heritage Hills was staffed by a goose.

"Petunia! I'm surprised to see you working for The Man."**

"A girl's gotta eat. Don't worry. I put in my time for the workers when I'm not on duty. Not to mention raising my goslings as responsible global citizens. What brings you here, Mr. Deadbolt?" I explained about the wolf, and she told me where to find the security chief. It's a small world. This is the kind of town where you can't go any place without running into somebody you know. That's why I'm always amazed when people seem to think they can keep their affairs secret. If I was going to cheat on Alma, I'd have to go to the next county to do it. Gas ain't cheap.

The chief of security I hadn't met, but Mr. al Rashri had heard of me.

"Mr. Deadbolt!" he exclaimed. "So good to meet you." He shook my hand vigorously. "I follow your adventures assiduously. The Humpty Dumpty case?*** Brilliant! What brings you to HH? Thinking of moving up?" He laughed. Picture Santa Claus, but with a louder voice.

"No sir, although you have a wonderful place here. I want to talk about wolves." He lost his smile then.

Al Rashri motioned me to a seat and offered me some coffee. He waited until we were both settled before he said anything else.

"I'll tell you, Mr. Deadbolt, in this business you hear things."

"Like what?" I said, taking a sip. I shuddered, ever so slightly, and set the cup down on his desk, far enough away so that I wouldn't absentmindedly pick it up again.

"Things like howls in the night. Heard something last night. I'm not sure what it was, but it wasn't no coyote." He leaned forward. "Can I trust you to be discreet? I don't want to hurt sales over something that's probably nothing, really. The owners don't like anything that hurts sales"

I nodded. "Mum's the word." And it is, if you're buying flowers for Mother's Day.

He was whispering now, and I had to lean forward myself. My hearing hasn't been so good since the little drummer boy moved in next door. "Pets have been disappearing. Dogs, cats, chickens, a couple of hedgehogs. I can't keep it quiet much longer. I've doubled my patrols, but half the herbivores quit, and I haven't been able to hire enough tough guys to fill the shifts. Some of the residents are threatening to move out, and the owners are on my case. I don't know what to do!"

I gulped my coffee. Gah! It was all I could to keep from hurling it across the room. I set the cup down and clasped my hands together.

"Let me handle it. Give me a security pass."

*

That's how I found myself out in the woods at midnight with a taser and a pair of night vision goggles. I've been on some stakeouts in my time, but out there, with the owls hooting, and the stars peeping between the leaves above my head, peepers peeping down by a woodland pond, was one of the most pleasant I have ever experienced. That is, it was until I felt something touch the back of my neck, and all of my muscles contracted violently and simultaneously. The next thing I knew I was lying on my back. A huge wolf had his jaws around my neck, teeth gently indenting the skin of my throat.

Been there before, but I can't say I care for it.

"Hey there, BB, long time no see." I smiled weakly. "Since when did you start using a taser?"

He growled, and bit down slightly.

"I know you're not supposed to talk with your mouth full. I promise not to try to get away."

He let go and backed up a pace. He knew I wasn't going anywhere.

"I'm a predator, Deadbolt. Kung Pao Tofu just doesn't do it for me. Besides, if your meal doesn't try to escape before you pour the barbecue sauce on, it's not worth eating."

He had a point. Not a good one, but he had it.

"I hear where you're coming from," I said, "but in this multicultural and multi-species civilization of ours, you can't just go devouring citizens willy-nilly. I suggest you get your kicks virtually, or, here's a thought. Why not check out paintball? It can be a pretty challenging sport. I have the bruises to prove it." I could feel the strength seeping back into my limbs, so when he lunged for my throat, I grabbed his paw and jammed his own taser right into his mouth. He was something else. Oh, he had it all right. He was smoking. And by the time the judge got through with him he'd be making license plates until the end of time. At least.

I found the missing pig bound and gagged in a hollow under some brush. The wolf had been using the place as a den. The little guy was starving, dehydrated, and filthy, but as soon as I untied him and took off the gag, he ran screaming all the way home. As for me, I'm relieved to see the wolf behind bars at last.

And one more thing. Alma and I are going with a barnyard theme for the nursery, in pastel pink and blue, if you're thinking of purchasing a gift. Don't spend a lot, and think spring.

The end

* "Give Your Dog a Bone," _Nursery Rhyme Noir_, Sam's Dot, 2008.

** "Encounter in St. Ives," _Nursery Rhyme Noir_, Sam's Dot, 2008.

*** "The Addled Egg," _Nursery Rhyme Noir_, Sam's Dot, 2008.

Nursery Rhyme Noir: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/42875 

123118

A Price Beyond Pearls

My feet were up and my socks were white. I wiggled my big toe and considered whether it was time to get new shoes. Maybe this week the check would come in on the blackbird case I'd solved for the Royal School of Culinary Arts. Maybe. And maybe Lunar Cheese Corp. would crawl back out of bankruptcy and I could sell my 10 shares. My name is Hasp Deadbolt. I'm a P.I.

The door slammed open, glass rattling. A 2-meter lobster stormed into my office. He slapped a newspaper down on my desk and clacked his chelae in my face. The ceiling fan, a little off kilter, broke the ensuing silence with its wobbly click click click.

The lobster tapped the paper, leaned forward. “Whadda ya call this, Deadbolt? Keepin' a lid on it?” Clack! My gooseneck lamp was a spark-spraying stub.

My feet hit the floor. So did my ass. My wife Alma likes my nose and I want to keep it, for her sake.

“Cool it, Red,” I replied, scrambling to my feet and straightening my shirt. “Keep your shell on. I haven't seen the paper.”

He flipped it around. The headline read “Homarus-on-Homarus Violence: Bay Cannibal Slays SCUBA Instructor.”

I shrugged. “They didn't get this from me. Maxillipeds and eyestalks floating by Pier 13. No way to keep that quiet. But see that forest-green stain in the photo? Some of that blood is the killer's. And he's missing a right maxilla. I'll find him.” Before he regenerates, I added silently.

“You'd better.”

He was down the stairs and out the door before I saw the chunks missing from the front of my desk. “Son of a witch!” That was going on his bill.

Chester Homarus had hired me to find the infamous Decapod Destroyer. The cops were hopeless, and the Lethal Lobster was giving all Decapoda a bad name. Like “Ten-foot” wasn't bad enough already.

I put on a worn suede jacket and hit the street. Coffee shop on the corner still closed. This whole part of town was too full of for-rent dumps. Crumbling brick apartment buildings abandoned and occupied only by skittering vermin, unglazed windows whistling into the wind, garbage strewn about and piled up in windrows. Precisely why I could afford to keep my office here.

The downtown police station was an ugly brick, built in the decade before I was born. The wiring was in disrepair and the place smelled like an abandoned swimming pool. Lynne was at her desk in cubicle city. She was a friendly blonde about my age. She'd liked me since I changed her baby sister's flat tire for her at 3 in the morning.

“What can I do you for, Hotcakes?” She blew at a lock of hair hanging in front of her face. I poured some sludge into her “visitor” mug.

“What've you got on those two right maxillas fished out of the harbor yesterday? “I asked.

“Maxillae. Not a damn thing. Two-month backlog at the DNA lab.” She waved to the battered wooden chair beside me.

I sank into it like a third strike hitting a catcher's glove. “Come on. I know those tests have gotten fast and cheap.” I took a sip, shuddered, and poured the coffee into the trash.

Lynne shook her head. “Not for us. Not yet. City's still using a vintage tester bigger than my apartment.”

“Not even for the Horrid Homarid?” Not even.

On my way out I passed a room containing a cluttered white board. The door was open, and the room was empty. Naturally, I ducked inside. I thought the board might contain some new information about the Deadly Decapod. But this was about a completely different case. A whole school full of Crassostrea virginica youngsters (oysters, to those who don't dig the Latin tongue) had been abducted a couple of weeks ago. I remembered reading about it. Now, their empty shells had been found. The kids had all been murdered. Devoured.

A hand landed on my shoulder like a sack of cement on a loading dock floor. “What gives, Deadbolt,” someone said in a voice like a truckload of gravel. I turned around, and looked up. And up. Detective Sergeant Wilson must've gotten human growth hormone in his mother's milk. That's the only explanation I can come up with. He isn't skinny, either. He gets asked to play Santa Claus more than pickup basketball. “I wasn't aware you were working with us on this case.” He shooed me out of the room and closed the door behind us.

“Looking for the facilities,” I replied, moving towards the stairs, “have you renovated since the last time I was here?”

“Have you been here before?” He was reaching for my arm when a couple of patrol officers stepped out of a side hall between us. I strode off quickly and hit the stairwell.

Back out on the street, I wasn't sure what to do next. The oyster shells had been discovered in a heap out behind an abandoned boat-building shop a few miles north of the city. But of course, that wasn't my case. I needed to find that injured lobster. It was about lunchtime, and I headed down to chelicerate city. This is an area along the waterfront where a lot of crustaceans hang out, and I thought I might be able to find out something about the murder. I ducked into Pinch's, and took a table in the corner. The area away from the bar wasn't too crowded yet, because this place was not known for the quality of its food. Or of the clientele. When the waitress stopped by I ordered a beer, and I mentioned that I was looking for information. I gave her a tip for her trouble.

“There will be more if I learn anything useful,” I said. She shrugged all of her shoulders and sashayed away. I wasn't sure she was going to pass my request along, but a few minutes later a blue crab sidled up to my table. “Have a seat,” I said. His claws snapped together nervously, and I was afraid he was going to run. I passed him a couple of bills and offered to buy him a drink, but he said he couldn't stay. He did sit down, and fiddled with the graffiti carved into the stained wooden table. “Who killed the lobster?” I asked, but he just blinked. “I know he lost a limb, have you seen him?” Nothing. I asked him every way I could think of, but he just kept on messing with the table and he didn't say a word. When he finished his beer, he left. I stood up to leave myself, and that's when I noticed the fresh scratches across the table. A crude drawing of a saber toothed mermaid. What the hell? It had to mean something. I took out a pocket knife and defaced the drawing quickly. It was time to go.

There were some other people I would like to talk to about dead decapods, but I wouldn't be able to get to them for hours, so I decided to take a drive up the coast. Alma wasn't busy, so she went with me. I rolled down the windows to make a poor man's convertible and soon we were flying up the highway, the wind in our hair and the sun on our shades. For most of the way I took the inland road, because there was less traffic. Rolling hills dotted with the white puffs of sheep, windmills, weatherbeaten old farmhouses, and clusters of trees in the stream valleys. Not like the shining white mansions lined up along the sea cliffs on the “A”. When we got close I turned left on a shell road called Carpenter Bay Road. It wasn't named for a woodworker, at least not directly. The Carpenter family had lived at the end of the road for generations. Gradually they dwindled, and no one lives on the property now, but they still won't sell the land to developers. The road dead ended on Carpenter Bay, a small and shallow water body whose waves lapped against the rotten pilings of Carpenter Boatbuilding Inc.

Nothing left standing besides the swaybacked boathouse, and a couple of small shacks that looked like they had been used for storage. In a previous century.

“Are you sure you're up for this,” I asked again, as we picked our way through thorny scrub toward the back of the boathouse,”might be kind of gruesome.”

“For God's sake,” Alma snapped, “we had raw oysters for dinner just last week!”

“Okay, okay.” We continued on our way in silence, but as we did so a somber mood took hold of me, and Alma put her arm through mine just before we turned the corner and beheld the site where the shells had been found.

There wasn't much to see anymore. The investigators had picked up all the shells. There was a scattering of reflective bits that could've been flecks of mica if we didn't know better. I wasn't interested in the children's remains, anyway. I was hoping for some information about the killer or killers that might have been missed by the local police.

“What do you think this is?” I pointed to some areas where the ground looked like it had been swept by some heavy object. “It's almost like a footprint, but not a human one,” I said.

“What could have caused it?”

“I don't know, but I may know someone who does.” I took pictures from several different directions and distances. We found plenty of human footprints, but we couldn't tell which had been made by police investigators and whether the large creature whose tracks we'd found had butchered the oysters alone.. “Too bad there were no eyewitnesses.”

“What about the gulls?” Alma asked.

“Birdbrains!,” I said. “Everything's a joke to them.” These were laughing gulls; they're the worst. You never get anything useful from them.

Professor Dani Martini is a marine biologist at the Institute of Marine Sciences. She studies tracks. You would know at first glance that she had tenure, because anyone with that much facial hardware isn't trying to suck up to old guys. Her small office was crowded with books, computer hardware, skulls of marine creatures, framed photos, and other bric-a-brac. I'd had to shift a half-meter stack of papers just to find a place to sit.

“What do you think?” She had been scrutinizing my photos for 15 minutes.

“Hmm. At least a ton, I'd say. Something more at home in the water than on land. See? This is the mark of a flipper.” She tapped a pencil against one of her monitors.

“Sooo, can you identify individuals?”

“Heck no, Hasp. I can't even tell a walrus from an elephant seal. It's very rare to be able to recognize individuals from tracks. Some kind of unique deformity is about the only way.”

I should be so lucky. Still, I knew something I hadn't known before. I was looking for a large pinniped. And then I remembered the crab's carving. A saber-toothed mermaid? A walrus! And how many of them frequented the waterfront?

One, as it turned out. Doug Pinni worked for cash under the table, doing whatever called for a strong flipper and tight lips. As far as I could tell he had only one friend: an unemployed busboy named Lewis Carpenter with a soft spot for oysters on the half shell. Carpenter! How very interesting. Alma offered to find out how he was connected to the boatbuilding Carpenters. I decided to pay a visit to Doug the walrus. Then I really needed to do something to keep Chester pacified.

Doug lived in a one-room shack at the south end of the bay. Not much there but an industrial size freezer, a well-appointed kitchen, and a pool that communicated directly with the bay. This seemed to be where he slept. I knocked on the gray-plank wall.

“Come,” I thought I heard, so I did. Doug was wallowing in his pool, sucking on a hand-rolled smoke more than an inch in diameter.

“Damn, you ain't Lew!”

“We can be distinguished with the naked eye. The name's Dead-”

The walrus surged out of the pool and pinned me to the wall. “I know who you are,” it growled, one yard-long tusk pressing into my ribcage. “What are you doin' here?”

“Doug Pinni?”

“Duh. I am the walrus!”

“I can place you at the mass-oystering site on Carpenter Bay when those kids were shucked. Tell me you didn't kill and eat any of those children.” With a wordless bellow the walrus picked me up and threw me through the wall.

When I came to I made a mental note: don't barge in on a 2-ton walrus and throw your weight around. It was pitch dark by the time I limped up to the streetcar stop at Oysterers Wharf, and nearly midnight when I got home.

I smelled chowder. I tried to sneak into the bathroom to clean up before Alma saw me, but I guess she'd gotten pretty hungry waiting. She stepped into the hall, did a double-take, and screamed.

“You shoulda seen the other guy,” I mumbled. Then she hugged me and I screamed myself.

“Oh H.D.,” she moaned, “what am I gonna do with you?!”

“Bath, dinner, strong drink?” I suggested. But I must've dropped off before the bath was ready and that was all she wrote until morning.

The next day I hurt all over and I stayed in. I probably wouldn't have gotten far. A day of recuperation meant that I couldn't put the screws to Lewis Carpenter. I really should have tracked him down before tackling the walrus. Now, they had time to get together, come up with consistent stories, and tie up loose ends. There was little I could do from home, so I took a nap.

About 3 in the afternoon I got a visit from Lynne. I was lying on the couch, aching, and trying to make a to-do list.

“Deadbolt! You look terrible!” she cried. Her arms twitched.

“No hugs!” I whispered.

“You'll never guess!” she said. I just shook my head. “Carpenter's been found dead!” I blinked.

“Murdered, probably.”

“Makes sense,” I replied. Now what. That worm could have been my best witness against the walrus. “How did he die?” I asked.

“Beaten to death and thrown in the bay,” she said. Talk about loose ends! I was back to square one on the oysters, and hadn't made even that much progress on the lobster killing. But hold on, the crab had suggested that the two crimes were connected. Maybe the walrus knew who was killing lobsters. This time I wouldn't go unprepared.

Walruses are pretty nearly blind, so I went at night. I wore black and carried a flashlight with a dim red bulb. I walked softly.

The shack was dark and quiet. A light breeze carried the scent of the sea. A few of the brighter stars twinkled through a thin haze. I slipped through the open door.

The light came on. Pinni was staring right at me. “You want some more?” he growled. His muscles tensed.

“I want to talk,” I said. “I think you can help me.”

“Why should I?” He didn't sound inclined to do me any favors, but he was no longer poised to charge.

“Someone's been murdering decapods,” I said, leaning against the wall and crossing my legs at the ankle.

“Not me, I can't stand 'em. An oyster, now, or a quahog: yum! But lobsters? I'd have to be starving!”

I shook my head. “I know you wouldn't eat a lobster. But you might know who did. I've been hired to find out who killed the SCUBA teacher. Only that. I have no reason to bother the police with anything else.” I disgusted myself by saying it, a little. Does knowing that oyster parents never even know their spawn, that oysters lack the tiniest shred of empathy, salve the conscience? A little.

The walrus galumphed toward me. I tensed, ready to dive for the door if it charged. It might already be too close.

“Won't do you any good,” the walrus said, “what I have to tell you, but I'll hold you to your promise.” It opened its mouth wide, raising yellowed tusks. I nodded.

“It's not some crazed serial killer,” Pinni continued. I raised one eyebrow. “Two killers. The second death was revenge for the first killing. So there won't be any more. Do nothing and the furore will die down soon enough.”

“The one that's out there needs to be brought to justice,” I retorted angrily, then jumped back at the walrus' bark. He barked again and I realized he was laughing.

”You poor sap, you won't get paid. You were set up from the beginning.” The walrus dove into the pool and was gone.

This was bullshit. I'd seen Chester almost right after the second killing. He hadn't been maimed. But what else could Pinni have meant? Did the walrus mean that Chester had paid another lobster to kill and eat the SCUBA instructor? That seemed … implausible. Chester didn't have the kind of money that would require. The walrus had said “revenge,” which implied a connection between Chester and the first victim. I hurried back towards home. First thing in the morning I'd check out the back numbers of the paper at the library.

I walked up to the house and saw that the door was open a crack. No way Alma was going to let that happen. Something was wrong. I took the alley, more like a brick tunnel, narrow as it was, and glanced in the windows on my way. Living room, nothing; den: nothing; kitchen. Nothing. Back door hallway, nothing. Second floor bathroom window doesn't lock. I had long since figured out how to break in silently. My ribs wouldn't thank me, but I thought I'd make it. I climbed the wall, digging in to the toe holds, till I was within reach of the window. I stepped up a bit more, avoiding the loose brick, and gently pushed up the sash. I leaned in and the sash dropped. Tears came to my eyes. I felt like an icepick had come through the top of my head. I bit my tongue, waited while the pain subsided to a pounding that kept time with my pulse. I didn't hear anything stir inside the house. After a minute I climbed over the sink (ouch!) and went to the door. Listened. Out in the hall. I could hear the ticking of the bedroom clock. I went that way. The bed was made, nothing out of place. I searched the whole house: spare room (empty, but it hadn't been for long), Alma's work room, the other bathroom, the 5 rooms on the first floor. My home office looked like someone had rummaged through it, as usual. On the kitchen table I found a note, propped against the salt shaker. In Alma's hand it read “Your office. Hurry!” I was working blind, not knowing what Chester wanted, how he related to the killer's two victims, or what I'd find at the office. I needed time to make sense of it all, and time had just run out.

*

I parked right in front of my building, locked the car, and walked in the front door. I took the stairs. I haven't trusted the elevator since I found out what the maintenance schedule was: the mechanism gets a lube job every time hell freezes over, need it or not. When I got to the 4^th floor I paused to catch my breath. Outside my office I paused again. Were they here? Yes! I didn't hear the ceiling fan, which I never turned off. I knocked. Hard!

Some quiet muttering. I knocked again. After the third time, Alma said “Who is it?”

I didn't say anything, just gave 'em the old shave-and-a-haircut one more time. Someone ripped the door open. Chester stuck his head out. “Deadboooooolt!!” he screamed. I reached out, grabbed his right maxilla, and tore it off. Then I waved it in his face. The real new maxilla, growing from the stub the diver had left him with a few days ago, curled involuntarily as he glared and flexed his chelae.

“Was the first victim your son? Your brother?” I tossed him the plastic maxilla. “Look, it doesn't matter. No matter your justification, you have to pay your debt.” He opened his mouth, but it was Alma who spoke.

“Hasp! What if Chester had killed me? Would you have turned him over to the custodians of justice?”

“Heck no. I'd have torn out his limbs one by one. And fed them to him. But that's--”

She turned to the lobster. “Run. You have 15 minutes.” He didn't move. “GO!!” she screamed. He went.

The cops didn't hesitate when I told them Chester had overpowered me and skedaddled. They boiled out of the station like a nest of stomped fire ants, but they never found him.

Later, I mailed a photo of the walrus drag marks I'd found behind the Carpenter's boathouse to Lynne. I hoped the cops would figure that one out on their own. Since I had promised not to tell.

End

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walrus_and_the_Carpenter

More Hasp Deadbolt: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/42875