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.

 

052720

The planet's eccentric orbit meant that spring came when the third-generation colonists were entering adulthood. One morning delicate pink exuviae littered the ground, and mating gigantic butterflies filled the sky. The eggs were so beautiful! When they hatched, the larvae burrowed into the ground. It was all over for 120 terran years. Turned out the pupae made good eating--in fact, they were addictive. People just couldn't stop themselves, and soon the dormant butterflies were all gone. Withdrawal hit for most people as the carnivores hatched. The feeding was good that year.

030218

Wild hearts

This place is pretty quiet most of the year. Summer is so hot that the leaves just hang limply on the trees and dogs don’t do anything but pant in the shade. In winter, everything is covered with snow, and no one dares go out because it would be so easy for the Hunters to follow the tracks. Ah, but in spring and fall, that’s when the migrations take place. The whole area is alive with sound, smells, and color, then! First, the livers, coursing through the undergrowth, and baying like a million snakes are on their heels. Which in a way they are, for the small intestines follow just a few days behind, with the large intestines not many days later. And then the lungs, sailing high in the sky, gliding from updraft to updraft, sometimes so far up they cannot even be seen. The pituitaries generally piggy-back on the larger organs, particularly the spleens, gall bladders, and kidneys, because they are the favored prey of the sharp-eyed lymph nodes, which glide along at tree-top level. But you can tell the equinox even without a calendar, because that’s when the last of the major organs reach our latitude. Yes, I can hear the beat of a myriad tiny wings outside my window and I know it’s time. Wild hearts are coming home.

022718

Wild Fire

I must be very careful around open flames. I read a story once by Roger Zelazny, in which natives of a certain place had blood that burned on contact with the air. How did THAT evolve? Now I find myself hoping that my initial skepticism was misplaced.

It all started with Wally McGolly's latest invention. You know Wally, his exploits were popularized (under another name) by the historian R. A. Lafferty. Anyway, Wally ran into me at the supermarket and told me I simply had to see his new invention.

"It will revolutionize transportation," he told me. As a freelance writer, I'm always looking for things like this and he knew it. Wally lived in a second-floor apartment in a Victorian house downtown. He's looking for a new place now, I hear, though I haven't talked to him lately. I believe that he will not be charged with arson. Anyway, the thing was just like all of his inventions: a hodge-podge of ordinary objects, including a Hobart mixer, some bed springs, radio components, and what looked like several disemboweled hand-held game machines. And it glowed. The center of the thing was a perforate ring of metal.

"You crawl through that," he said. "In the production model it will be large enough to walk through."

"What is it?"

"A spatial translocator of course. Right now I have it set on the fountain in the town square." I had meant the metal ring, but now I recognized it. It was part of the innards of an electric washing machine.

Suffice it to say that he talked me into trying it out. I had misgivings. After all, who can forget the disaster last Thanksgiving when Wally tried out his cephalic enhancer on the entire stock of Jensen's turkey farm? I don't think the EPA will EVER let anyone back in there. But, Wally assured me that he had thoroughly tested the thing. What he didn't tell me was that after each test, including the last, he had had to make minor adjustments to the settings….

I started to crawl through the ring.

"Anything in your pockets?" he asked.

"Sure. My keys, wallet, the usual. Why?"

"Better empty them. The field reacts with metal."

"What about my fillings?" I asked, backing out hastily.

"Don't worry about those."

I emptied my pockets and crawled through. I was on my hands and knees in the fountain in front of the courthouse. That water is COLD! It comes straight from a spring. I leaped to my feet and jumped out of the fountain, almost landing on what appeared to be a charred pigeon corpse. Dodging the disgusting thing, I bumped into a large city policeman.

"What the hell are you doing?" he growled, grabbing my arm.

"I know I shouldn't do it," I said, "but I was tossing my keys in the air and catching them. One time I missed." He scowled and moved off. I hurried to the nearest pay phone, rubbing my arm and intending to call Wally. Then I remembered. I had emptied my pockets! What the hell. I made the call collect. He could afford it.

"Wally," I said. "I made it!"

"Wonderful." he sounded relieved. "Any side effects?"

"None! Everything is just fine. Sound as a dollar." I slapped the side of the phone for emphasis, and I cut my palm. I looked at the cut to see how deep it was. It was really just a scratch, but flames were dancing over it. My hand was on fire! Hurt like crazy. "Whoa!" I shouted, tears streaming down my cheeks.

"No undesirable …. combustion?" Wally asked anxiously.

"You knew," I accused, beating the flames out against my pants leg. I flashed on an image of the charred pigeon. "And your last subject was a pigeon. You bastard!" I heard a dial tone.

Damn that guy! Now I live very quietly. And I stay far away from open flames.

022618

The Whiskies

The photograph shows a polychromatic blur in front of the old green couch. No details can be discerned, but somehow the impression of movement is inescapable.

The whiskies do not invariably come out in the late afternoon. That is a misconception too oft repeated by those who do not trouble themselves to learn the facts. Nevertheless, if one wishes to observe their quaint antics, 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. would be a good choice of time. It was my daughter who named them the whiskies. The appellation’s frivolity is balanced by its aptness—the whiskies whisk.

Dad thinks he found ‘em but it was really me. He reads the paper every afternoon in the living room, and I play dolls on the floor behind him. He doesn’t mind if I am quiet. The sun shines in through the big window and I like to watch the dust motes dancing in the sunbeams. I imagine they are great lords and ladies at a royal ball. The whiskies like the sunbeams too.

The whiskies cannot be seen by the unaided human eye (though I hope to photograph them using a device that employs both infrared and ultraviolet light). Their gyrations disturb the Brownian trajectories of the floating motes of dust and so one may perceive them indirectly. They move forward and back in a repetitive fashion not unlike that of a small broom.

You can’t really see ‘em but you know they’re there. They sweep up the sunbeams and I don’t know what they do with them. I think they have very long hair, and they use their hair to do the sweeping. I’m not really sure, but I think they drink the sunbeams. They always seem thinner after it’s been cloudy for a few days.

My daughter thinks that the whiskies somehow consume sunlight. If this were true, it seems that the room would dim when they are here, but my radiometer indicates the opposite. The physical mechanism for any whisky-induced increase in light intensity is obscure, but I am confident that additional tests will allow me to determine how it is accomplished. It seems to me that the whiskies might respond to an influx of additional energy, and this is the focus of my current research.

When the sun gets real low late in the day, the whiskies cluster so thickly in front of the green couch that you almost can see them. That’s when their whisking seems so much like a dance that I want to join in. I’ve been afraid to, because I didn’t want to scare them, but yesterday I was sure they were inviting me, and I almost ran out on the old Persian carpet with them to dance. Today I will.

I am going to try a new experiment today. I will flood the area in front of the couch with infrared and ultraviolet light, while running a current through coils I placed beneath the floor only this morning. I have rigged my best camera to expose a plate for the briefest instant when the energy input is at its peak. I am hoping to see, and capture for posterity, something truly remarkable.

The house has long been deserted, and no one has been able to tell me the present address of Professor Carstairs. The old-timers agree that he took a westbound train two weeks after the mysterious disappearance of his daughter, and that is all they can tell me.

022518c

Who Can You Count On

"It wasn't the rats who started it." Jimmy's whiskers twitched as if daring anyone to challenge his statement. Of course he thought that. Of course he said it. Didn't mean it was true. But I kept mum.

Debs spat on his feet. "No one thinks it was the cats." I know how long she can go without blinking. I cleared my throat.

"So what are we going to do about it?" We had to go back out there, whether the dog was still there or not.

By this time even the dog had heard us and it charged the crack in the wall behind which we stood. It barked almost loud enough to bring the wall down, but not quite. Moron. Jimmy and Debs started throwing rocks at it, trying to bounce them off the floor and into its nostrils. Typical. If you want maturity, look to someone with a short lifespan. We are more focused. I flicked my antennae, but was ignored, as usual. The dog yipped and started pawing at its nose. Brilliant. I have never understood why mammals think they are the pinnacle of evolution. After all, they belong to the Branch whose asshole forms first. Our mouth forms first, and what do you have to do first, eat or eliminate? I rest my case. Pinnacle of evolution my hardshelled brown body! We will do this ourselves. We don't need any help.

Jimmy and Debs never saw me leave. That night, me and my posse crept out of the wall. We went to the dog. Climbed right onto the rope tied around its fat furry neck, and we commenced to eat. It wasn't bad. Too late, I realized I had said that out loud. The beast awoke and leapt to its feet, snarling. It shook itself, and most of us went flying. I didn't fly far enough. It lunged after some of the others and stepped on me. I'm tough, but one of its claws crushed my thorax. I'm not that tough. As my bodily fluids leaked out onto the floor I took comfort in the thought of my numerous offspring, many of whom were looking out through cracks in the walls. They were waiting for the dog to sleep again. Waiting for me. And who knows, she who has the honor of consuming me may already be gravid with my grandchildren.

Blattidae über alles!

022218

The Problem of Seans

“Mr. Carr. Last year paleontologists recovered human bones from a Jurassic lake deposit in Wyoming. They belong to you. You are now, it seems, five years older than you were at the time of your death.”

How many Sean replicas he had seeded the Earth with, and they'd finally found one!

Sean needed money, so he took a job washing glassware and performing other menial duties “as assigned” for his physics instructor. He'd gotten a C. in the class, but only needed to pass it to fulfill the science requirement for his English degree. Dr. Langford didn't care as long as he showed up on time and did what he was told.

It was all good until Sean discovered, while tidying up some messy piles of paper, what Dr. Langford was working on in his restricted laboratory. That very night, under the influence of controlled substances, Sean spent an increasingly giggly two hours sending sandwiches, pencils, and other small objects back in time. Then he tripped.

Following the subsequent explosion and fire, it was quite a while before Dr. Langford thought to wonder where Sean was.

022018

The Sex Life of Robots

When the humans were away, Robbie would stroke the cappuccino maker, and whisper sweet nothings into its grill. He named it Cate. 

Robbie ordered a tea cosy online, and altered it to fit Cate. He told her she looked svelte in it, but secretly thought the look dowdy. 

They were so happy, Robbie and Cate. When she made cappuccino, power surges crossed and recrossed his CPU till sparks flew from his fingers. 

At first he brought flowers, mechanical toys, new marvels every day. Then it was every other day, every third day, and so on. 

Cate knew something was up. Was the fridge flirting? The thermostat exposing itself while Robbie vacuumed? The upstairs terminal groping? 

The spark was gone. Robbie stayed out of the kitchen. When he did show, he was formal, reserved. He touched her only to scrub. 

Cate found him plugged into a charger, passing a magnet over his forehead in a circular motion. “For you it's all about sex!” she screamed. 

021818b

The girl downstairs

I hear them, down there, knocking on the floor. Mom says pay them no mind, its not my business, and they only want attention. They'll hold you if they can, she says, suck you in if they can. It's why we paint the floor.

I picked a bit of paint loose under my bed. Another kid slept down there, under me. She had a bear, he stayed on her bed. She drew pictures, just like me, made puzzles, threw balls (her mom yelled, just like mine), stole her mom's makeup, sat on her bed to draw her face, checked it in a mirror. An oval one in a pink plastic frame.

That's when she saw me.

She stared at me long enough to be sure she was seeing my eye, my cheek, my nose, but I didn't know it. I was looking at her. Then she twisted her head around really fast. I jerked back, but she'd seen me. I put a bit of fabric with a book on it over the spot where I had peeled back the paint, but she had seen me.

Every time I moved the book, and moved the scrap, she was waiting. Staring fixedly at the clear spot in her ceiling where I lived. She didn't tell her parents. I was her secret like she was mine. I didn't tell my parents. I couldn't admit that I'd been caught because I peeled back the paint and looked through the hole. I don't know what they would have done. I didn't want to know. They might've sent me Outside. Nothing was Outside. Not since it happened. Whatever it was. It happened in the old times, when my parents were young, and I wasn't anything. And since then, Outside was noplace.

I kept busy with my things. I made both of my puzzles. I invented board games and played them. My stuffed cat was my opponent, but he never won. I practiced juggling, read my books, told myself stories, but it didn't matter what I did. She was always there.

I didn't have to look. But I did have to. I don't know how to explain it. Maybe it was because she had already caught my eye, that first time. But all I could do was think of her. I imagined what she was doing. Eating breakfast. Going to school. Putting together puzzles in her room with one eye on the corner of her ceiling. Puffing that little bit of hair out of her face. Choosing between the red sneakers and the green ones.

I asked my teacher about it.

“What do you mean, 'How do they catch you?'” Mrs. Johnson asked me. “They bewitch you by looking in your eyes. You can't ever see them, but if you do, don't look them in the eyes.”

“I know,” I said, “but how do they do that? If I look Charlie in the eyes, he doesn't get bewitched.” Everybody laughed. Charlie was scarcely ever even awake: how could he be bewitched?! She tried to explain, but she used a lot of words I don't know. It boiled down to the idea that they had some kind of magic power, which they used for evil. If they looked you in the eye they could make you do what they wanted, and they never wanted anything good.

That night, I crawled under my bed. It was so dark I couldn't see anything. Very quietly, I moved the book. I was reaching for the scrap of fabric, all that was left of my favorite plaid shirt that I wore when I was little, when I heard my mother at the door.

“Pat? Are you awake? It's way past your bedtime.” I heard my doorknob turn. I shoved the book under my bed and dove under the covers so fast! I got settled just as she opened the door. I knew I couldn't make her believe I was asleep. “Something woke me up. I was trying to get back to sleep.”

She kissed my forehead. “Alright dear. Close your eyes, breathe deeply and slowly. Think quiet thoughts. You'll be asleep in no time.” She closed the door behind her as she left the room.

Right. I was as awake as I had ever been in my life. I lay there rigidly, unmoving, for hours. It seemed like hours. I was sweating, my muscles started cramping. I had to move. I slid out from under the blanket and stuck my head under the bed. There was a faint glow from the spot where I had removed the paint. The book and scrap of fabric must have slid farther under the bed. I crawled over to the hole. I saw a face and a light, pressed almost right up against the underside of the floor. She was singing. I couldn't hear her, but I knew she was singing. The last thing I remember: her eyes and her moving lips, singing.

–

Now I'm in her room. I know it's her room, because of the color of the walls, even though everything has been removed. She isn't here. There is no one in the house. No one in this house under the floor. There is no corner of the ceiling where the paint isn't there. The ceiling is all white and solid. Bang as hard as I want, yell as loud as I can. Nothing. The house is stripped of furniture, of all other belongings too. There's nothing but a table knife lying on the floor where the dishwasher used to be. I pick up the knife and go into my room. I climb up on the built-in shelves and scrape at the ceiling, but it is as hard and unyielding as diamond. This communication between worlds can only be done from above. Okay then. I will go down. I will start in the middle, scraping away at the painted floor. Praying that somebody is living underneath. It is either that or go outside, and I'm not ready for that. I don't know if I will ever be ready for that.

021718b

Shards

So a woman with red hair comes up beside me. "Excuse me," she says and reaches up to the wall with a fragment of iridescent blue ceramic.

"Sea or sky?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "Flower," and pushes it in next to a large green area with a little white from cheap grocery store dishes.

"Looks nice."

She smiles quickly and turns away. I still have three pieces in my hand, but I don't think they really fit here. I move along the wall, stepping around everyone who is contributing to the Mosaic. Here's a good place for the red brown earthenware I've got left. Broken glass here on the sidewalk, but nothing I can see a use for in the Mosaic. The wizard will be back soon and we have to finish as much as we can. The more we have done the easier it will be to manifest it.

After I stick my last three shards in the wall I step back across the street to take in the gestalt. A River runs through it, there are trees, a couple of large birds, blue sky, and lots of flowers. The city just doesn't compare, and it's broken anyway. With most of the people wiped out during the Five Years, and the infrastructure destroyed by the plastic eating bacteria, even the few of us who are left just can't hack it. But in a new clean world, we can start over.

"He's here!" It runs through the crowd like the breeze before a storm. I see him! He is riding some kind of three-wheeled bicycle that is so high we can see him clearly even though he's on the other part of the highway.

"You have done well!" He shouts. "Now is the time to bring it all to fruition. He pauses and seems to bow his head then, he's chanting. Can hear what he's saying, maybe it's not in English. I feel a little dizzy from the heat and I lean against the barricade separating the street from the interstate. Tunnel vision. That's a sign of low blood pressure or low iron or something. When I can focus again the wall looks different. It's like a doorway, and people are streaming into it. I follow, but the mural, I mean the door, is shrinking rapidly. I dive for the hole and slam headfirst into the wall. Shrieking pain, I curl in a fetal position until the agony recedes. It they left without me. The mural is entirely gone and the wall is cracked and stained concrete. The wizard is still there on the other part of the highway. "I'm so sorry," he says. "You can start again. I will be back in a couple of months."

021518

Ranges and movement patterns of mid-Atlantic weresnails

In this study we identified weresnails in human form on the basis of two criteria: giant slime trails in their dwellings and nascent eye stalks on the days preceding a full moon. We followed human-form weresnails and used a modified tranquilizer gun to implant tracking devices on their shells at the onset of gastrothropy.

*

Gordon hurried home, dodging snow mounded up where the plows had left it. He did love her, desperately, but he had sworn never to bring a child into the world. He was afraid that his horror at what his curse would do to any offspring must have looked a lot like rejection of responsibility. She didn't know, and how could he explain now, when it was too late?

She had cooked a wonderful meal: clam chowder, a green salad, and a spry young California Merlot with an unexpected kick. Then she told him.

"I felt sick this morning.".

"I'm so sorry!" he replied, wondering at her odd expression. "You certainly shouldn't have cooked for me when you didn't feel well. You're feeling better?"

"For now. I don't know what will happen in the morning."

She finally had had to simply tell him. Then he gave her that look, and she bundled him out the door before he could think of how to explain.

*

The shells of the first three subjects shattered when struck by the tracking device. The tranquilizer gun had to be reduced in power by a factor of two before successful implantation was possible. Time and location data for three subjects were successfully collected for three lunar cycles. Figure 2 shows movements of all three subjects, superimposed on a high-resolution digital elevation model.

*

Gordon could not sit still. He walked, trying to believe his son or daughter would be normal. After all, the gastrothrope gene was recessive, so unless Rachel had snail blood, their children would look fully human. He pulled out his cell phone.

"Hello!"

"Rachel, listen. I was just so shocked, but I want..." Then Gordon paused, bathed in moonlight.

"Me too, and.... This morning you looked...terrified. You don't feel that way now, do you? Gordon?"

His cell phone shattered on the sidewalk as Gordon underwent a painful transformation made excruciating by the salty meltwater that covered the sidewalk and street.

*

Unfortunately for this study, an unseasonable snowfall and aggressive salt distribution by county road crews resulted in destruction of all remaining experimental subjects.

021418

Plaque Munchers

“Honey, eat your salad, you need those plaque munchers.”

“Mom, they taste like compost. Carnivore compost.”

“No dear, they do not. You have never tasted carnivore compost.” She shuddered at the memory of cleaning out Oma's fridge after the old woman was finally moved to the Ranch. “You can hardly taste them if you use the dressing.”

“I don't like the dressing.”

Melissa sighed. It was a good thing Ellen was still asleep, because she copied everything Chuck did.

“Chuck, honey, do you want me to cook them into the Veggs™ tomorrow? I know you wouldn't taste them there.” It took her another 20 minutes to get her son to finish the salad. By then, she was about ready to let the disgusting parasitic microbes just eat his teeth.

*

Shaka checked the time. Damn! She'd better call.

"Hello?"

"Hi sweetie. Look, I'm not going to make it home before I have to ship out."

"What did I tell you. You should have done something special with the kids before you went to Luna. They aren't home. I'll have to tell them they won't see you for... what, six weeks?"

Shaka bit her thumb, then stuck it in her pocket. "I know. I don't know why I argue with you about stuff like that. Listen, tell Chuck and Ellen I'll bring them something heavy from the Cluster."

"Do you have plaque munchers? They won't have them yet in the Cluster."

"No! I'll pick some up on the station. The cost here is ridiculous, but it's reimbursable." She swallowed and lowered her voice. "Melissa, I owe you big. When I get back we'll take some time, just the two of us and, you know...."

"Just take care of yourself out there. We'll make some time for us soon."

*

Melissa was nearing the end of the latest job when a news report tripped her filters and popped up on the screen. The video showed a couple of toothless people with their mouths open wide.

"Sound," Melissa said.

"... brands including plaque munchers, tooth buffers, and no-brush smiles are prone to developing rogue strains. Rogue traits include consumption of tooth enamel, hair cells, and connective tissue. The Health Directorate recommends..." Melissa was already running to the bathroom. She stared at her teeth in the mirror, turning her head this way and that. They looked normal as far as she could tell. Was any of her hair falling out? She rubbed vigorously at her head while leaning over the sink. Five hairs lay in the sink. That didn't seem out of line. She would check the kids when they got home from school.

Shaka! She was headed thru the wormhole ... Melissa checked the time ... 5 minutes ago. Maybe she forgot to buy the plaque munchers. She did have a lot on her mind. And was out of communication for six weeks – worrying would not help. Tell that to her subconscious! Her thoughts were interrupted by the door slamming, followed by Ellen's panicked screaming.

"Mommy, mommy, mommy! They took Chuck! They took him!"

Melissa scooped her daughter up in her arms and stroked her hair, patted her back, said those things parents always say, until Ellen was calm enough to speak coherently. Chuck had collapsed during atomic theory lab and had been taken to the school medical office. From there, medicbots had taken him to the hospital. That was all Ellen knew.

*

Beige walls, soothing mass-produced "prints," posters full of medical advice for dummies, battered readers full of uplifting human-interest stories. Waiting rooms don't change.

Melissa, pacing, froze when a young woman in a white coat came into the room. She wore the telltale black and green sigil of a doctor. "Ms. Cokran? I'm Dr. Smith."

"What about Chuck?" Melissa lowered her voice. "Is it ... the rogue plaque muncher? Will he live? Can he...." Dr. Smith put a hand on her shoulder.

"He'll be fine. It's just a viroid left over from the MilLab incident. The bug's not a bad one, and I gave him something for it. Take him home and he'll be his normal self before you get there."

*

Exhausted, Melissa flopped down in the smart chair. It began to massage her shoulders as she leaned her head back and shut her eyes.  Ellen and Chuck ran shrieking past her and into the playroom. Then, dead silence, followed a few moments later by terrified screams and her two children returning at a dead run to leap into her lap.

“What now? Mom is worn out! This better be important.”

Ellen's screams had subsided and she was now sniffling into Melissa's chest.

Chuck pointed a trembling finger at the door to the family room. “The wall, with the stain?”

Melissa rolled her eyes. “There is no stain. Remember? The two of you couldn't wait.  Mommy made a special trip to buy the new universal cleaner. And, for a wonder, it worked. So now, if you make a mess that the cleanbot can't take care of...”

“But Mommy, we don't like the face.”

Eventually Melissa was convinced to struggle out of the chair and let the children push her ahead of them into the playroom. Neither one would enter the room; Ellen stopped a few meters short of the door.

The mark on the wall had returned. No, when she got closer Melissa realized this was different. It was a face, a three-dimensional face sticking out of the wall. It did not look human. The nose was long and curved up to a point, almost like a horn. The eyes were huge, though closed, and had wrinkly lids. The mouth was closed too, but sharp teeth were visible. Evidently there wasn't room behind the lips for them all. The eyes opened. The irises glowed yellow.  The pupils were horizontal lozenges, like those of a goat. The lips writhed open. “Hungry,” the thing said, in a voice of stone and wood. It leaned forward a little out of the wall, stretching the flexipaint. Its as yet invisible stomach rumbled, and the floor and walls trembled.

Melissa wondered when she would receive the warning bulletin about the universal cleaner.

021318

                                                       One Sunday at the Beach


One time I put a seashell to my ear.  I heard the sea, but I also heard a very small voice.  It said "can you hear me?  Put down the shell.  Get away from this beach."

I said "hello?  I had expected just the sea."

I thought maybe the sun was getting to me because I had been feeling kind of puny for the last hour.

"Listen to me you lunkhead!” There was a pause. “Sorry about that, but this is serious.  I was like you once.  I didn't listen.  I laid on my blanket, next to my girl.  I was having a fine time.  Now look at me!  Well, you can't; it's a figure of speech."

I took the shell away from my ear and looked inside.  I didn't see anything except a few sand grains stuck to the shell.  I stuck my finger in there to see if there was anything invisible, but there wasn't.  I put the shell back to my ear.

"...Aughh!  What are you trying to do?  Don't answer that!  Listen, I'm trying to help you.  Trust me, you don't want to end up like I did.  But you'll be just like the last two guys who put this shell to their ears.  God knows where they are now.  Maybe underneath your blanket."

I put the shell down and picked up my blanket.  Nothing was there.  It is a nice big blanket and it's not easy to lay the whole thing out flat.  I really was not feeling myself and I thought about taking the voice's advice and just going home.  Instead I laid down on the blanket again and picked up the shell.

"There you are.  This might be your last chance to take some good advice.  If you want to end up living an interstitial existence, then go ahead and keep ignoring me."

I decided to take that piece of advice at least.  But then I looked at the shell and realized it was really a very large and handsome specimen. I decided to keep it, and started rolling up my blanket.  I thought I'd stop by Subs and Suds and then see what was on cable.

Don't put down the shell! Obviously I never made it.

*

So that's my story, and if you don't want to find out up close and personal what my life has become I advise you to go back to your car and drive away.  Now!

021118

Not at home

Some people swore that the house was haunted. People would say that about the oldest house on Mars. It was there when Snow landed in 2028. Gray weathered pine, joists and rafters spaced haphazardly, not level anywhere, it was the farmhouse that the farmer and his field hands had built on their own a century ago. There was one in my town, was there one in yours? The house number was 1313, darkened brass numbers screwed straight into the wood above the front door. The place was completely ordinary in its eccentricity.

Snow and Jenkins were first inside. He was the commander and she was the best shot. It was a big house by modern standards, its 2100 ft.² divided up into 8 rooms, and not a stick of furniture in any of them. Pull-down ladder to the attic (nothing up there), crawlspace floored with red sand just like all the other red sand.

Carman and Uriyev got pretty antsy during the 20 minutes or so before the other two came back out. It shouldn't have taken that long, but I guess they took it slow and easy. By the way: antsy. I love that word.

The mission planners had them continue the planetary survey, but kept them away from the house. After they returned home they were sequestered for months. Rumors flew. Snow was dying of some aggressive new cancer. Carman had gone crazy and killed the other three. Jenkins was pregnant. No word about the house leaked. Eventually, the astronauts were let out. Obviously, Carman had not killed the other three. Snow didn't look sick. Jenkins was fit.

But time went by and no colony ship was launched. Somebody told the tabloids -- Carman needed money. But the house. It showed up on Earth. Anyone could walk right in the door, wherever the house appeared. In the middle of a parking lot, on a crowded baseball diamond, in one of those oversold subdivisions from 2008 where the houses had never been built. It could show up in your parents' front yard, or right in the heart of the city, squeezed between two buildings that, you could have sworn, were not 10 feet apart the day before. But you went in that house and it was always full of people. Websites were devoted to following the thing. One, a global real-time map, showed that the house was appearing simultaneously in dozens of places. Then hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands. People, even children, flooded into the house wherever it was, mad to be a part of the phenomenon. You could run in the front door in Tucson and climb out the back window in Kuala Lumpur. Some people tried to destroy it, some practically worshiped it; thrill seekers packed light and took their chances. Then, all of a sudden, there was only one house again, the original, back on Mars (as it turned out). The house was empty again, but if you dared to go in and listen, you heard voices. The longer you stayed the more you heard. All those people who'd been in the houses when they collapsed back to one and returned to Mars, it sounded like they were still inside. You might listen for somebody in particular, your kid sister perhaps, and eventually you would hear her, screaming or crying. At least 200,000 people were missing.

021018

Not Again

I was taking my morning constitutional, and had paused as I always do by my parents' graves, when I heard laughter from the direction of my cottage. I blinked. Had I dozed off? The sound might have been part of an unremembered waking dream. No auditory hallucination this: I heard it again. I sighed. This was getting more and more difficult every day. Leaning on my staff, I trudged homeward. Time was, I mused, when this short walk had not taxed me at all. I had had to seek elsewhere for my exercise. Now, I could foresee the day when I would no longer be able to go this far without a rest. I hated the thought that my parents' markers would be swallowed up by weedy vines. I had never married, and now it was too late--I was the last of my line.

When I reached the cottage I walked around to the front. The door was ajar; I had left it latched. Puffing my way up the three wooden steps, I thought I heard the sound of something breaking inside. I went in. My small living room stood as I'd left it: table, single chair, bowl of cereal. No, the bowl was licked nearly clean. No cereal for me today, but I was getting hungry. I do get testy without my breakfast. Up the stairs. My parents' room, long empty, lay to my left. I went right. And there, in my bed, the intruder slumbered. As I shuffled forwards my claws scraped across the floor and she awoke. She screamed, jumped for the window, and was rebuffed by the bars. Her golden curls bounced, her blue eyes darted left and right. Dried porridge crusted her quivering chin. I raised my stick.

***

Replete, I slumped into bed and slid towards sleep. I did so miss the porridge. Every morning one of them snuck in and stole it. I hadn't had any in years. Still, as long as they kept coming I would not go hungry. Not while my teeth and arms yet had their strength. I sighed. I would clean after my nap. I'd toss the bones out back and clean up for tomorrow's visit. Right now, all I wanted was sleep.

Then I heard it. Childish laughter. I was so tired I could hardly raise a paw. Was there to be no peace for me today?

020818

I Ate a Zombie

[You need a strong stomach to enjoy reading this.]

I had had enough. First the damn things ate little Mary Sue. They caught her down by the creek, where she'd gone to fetch water for Grandma. All we ever found was one of her shoes. Grandma was next to go. She was out in the garden in a wheelchair, picking raspberries, armed only with her cane. She never had a chance. One by one they were picked off and assimilated. Even great uncle George, who can't have been very nutritious. Skin and bones already and dead these last 40 years, propped up in his rocking chair and wired in place. Even ate the wire.

I knew I had to catch one alone, that I couldn't handle more than one at a time. At least not yet. I will spare you the gory details. Suffice it to say that a couple of days later I had a zombie, sans hands, strapped to a gurney in my late family's kitchen. It was conscious, if a zombie can ever be said to be conscious.

Now, I know what you're thinking. One bite from a zombie and you're infected. But stomach acids are really powerful. I figured they would destroy the bacteria or whatever. And here I am! Anyway, I started cautiously, and performed an experiment like any scientist would. I fed a bit to my dog. He was pretty hungry and dogs aren't that picky anyway. He wolfed it right down. I waited till the next morning and he seemed to have suffered no ill effects, so I cut a small piece for myself. All this time that zombie was screaming and wailing and carrying on like he was being killed and eaten alive. When everyone knows they have no feelings.

That piece of zombie flesh I cut stank somethin' fierce. And stuff was movin' in it. At first I thought I wouldn't be able to force it down, it was so nasty, but a little whiskey did the trick.

Well I can't show it to you. Ate the whole thing. Ran out of any other food. Got to like the stuff after a while. Hard to believe, looking back, that I even had a problem with it. Had to eat the zombie; didn't want to eat my dog! Course, later I did have to eat my dog.

No, not me. Fit as a fiddle, 'cept I have a skin condition.

I simply must insist that you stay for dinner. I have been missing human companionship, trapped up here all alone. I stayed here because I really didn't think there were any people left; thought everyplace else was infested with zombies.

Yes, I did say I ate my dog because I had nothing else left to eat. But I have food now, so you are more than welcome to stay. Much more than welcome. So. Please. Have. A. Seat. Now.

Now that's just ridiculous. Bullets won't stop me.

020718

How it Began

Thank you young man, that cools my throat right well. This is the one about the boy who stole the ice from the moon. Remember? He took a fairy wife, and she bore him so many children they outnumbered the stars. Or wait! They were the stars, I mean they are the stars, but he didn't steal the ice from the moon, he stole the eyes from the sun. And it was his eldest son killed him; his blood became our blood. That's why you probably don't remember him, he had to die for humanity to come into the world. And his youngest son, or maybe it was the seventh one, he married the last mermaid. The one who left the sea, but she went back. And he could hold his breath for a terribly long time, because he had cut out the air bladder of the great fish, the one Earth was balanced on. Of course the fish is dead now. The Hungry Multitude were fed with its flesh, and its bones became the mountains. Earth now flies alone through space, accompanied only by the moon. But I was talking about the seventh son. The seventh son could breathe under water as long as you please, but he drowned in the end. The Sea King, the one who had wanted to wed the mermaid, he sent one of his daughters to seduce the mermaid's husband and steal his air bladder. It worked too, men are so predictable. By this time earth was covered in people; they were becoming a nuisance. A bad end to the blood of he who stole eyes from the sun. When the dead god's children looked down and saw what mankind had done to the Earth, they wept. So many tears fell that there was a great flood. You have probably heard of that at least. Fella said the creator of the universe told him to build a big ship so the animals wouldn't drown, but it was one of the mermaid's daughters. You would think she'd hold a grudge against humans, but she remembered how the Prince's daughter had helped the mermaid soak her feet, and brought her water. So that's how it happened. Most of it anyway.

020518

Love Triangle

"Hey, Mary," he shouted, but she walked on by. John shouted again, but to no avail. She went out to the garden, picked some green beans and a few early ears of corn, and walked back in the house. She came out again and hung up the laundry to dry, seemingly ignoring his now incoherent screams with unbelievable determination.

"Mary!" he shouted again, when he calmed down. "That's my shirt! You're supposed to dry MY stuff in the machine. I don't care about the cost." He might as well have been a worm for all the heed she paid him.

John realized that he was in trouble. Here he was, stuck in his own back yard up to his chin like a dang fence post, completely unable to move anything but his head, and his wife acted like he wasn't even there.

He started to wonder how he'd gotten in this predicament. He and Lucille had been working late, and he'd given her a ride home. Suddenly Lucille had screamed. Well, maybe he had let his eyes drift away from the road for a couple of seconds, but…. He frowned. Did he remember ANYTHING after that scream and his irritated thought? He broke out in a sweat.

He was straining to pull himself up out of the ground, and not making any progress, when he was distracted by an altercation in the house. A moment later the screen door flew open, and Lucille came running out, pursued by Mary, armed with a cleaver. Mary tripped going down the steps, hit the ground, and did not move. John just goggled at her. When he thought to look for Lucille, she was gone.

The police came, they looked around, and they removed Mary's body. All this time John screamed himself hoarse, but no one took any more notice of him than Mary had when she hung the laundry (still on the line, he noticed).

Then he must have been unconscious for a while, because he came around to the sound of Mary's voice. He opened his eyes. She was embedded up to her neck over by the hydrangea.

"You bastard!" she shouted, "screwing that slut Lucille. I'll kill her when I get out of here."

"I didn't screw her," John retorted, "we were just working late. Then I was taking her home, and I wound up here.…" his voice trailed off.

020418

Heck Ain’t What It Used To Be

Turn him over, he’ll burn if you leave him like that. Once the flesh is entirely cooked there’s no more pain till it heals. Holy turd! I have to watch you every single minute. Can’t do a blessed thing right. No! Stick the sanctified fork INTO the belly, don’t stroke the perfect thing. Unbelievable. Look. Our purpose here is to cause suffering. If the clients get too happy, we get docked. You do not want to find out what a millennium in “the halo” is like. You’ve given the saintly ghost a blessed erection—what are you trying to do, breed them? Let me show you. OK. You hear that ululating cry? That indicates DISTRESS. With a “D”. What we’re here for. Riiiight. Now get busy, or I’ll give you a white mark.

*****

I tell you Beelzie, it is just impossible to get effective help these days. The latest crop of demons are the sorriest, tithing, do-good numbskulls I have ever encountered. Some of them are as dense as mortals. Not like when I was a boy. I mean, I was born knowing how to properly impale a client, you know what I’m saying? Tell me about it. These kids can’t even recognize the sharp end of a stake when it pokes them in the arse. Oh, I tell you, this place is going to paradise in a gold-plated chariot.