Unmasked

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “Well! Worth the extra hour, I’d say,” Kaitlin crowed, peering at the tins within. Her hand darted forward, snatched up a square-shaped one. “Is that …?”

  “Paprika?” I shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Come on. I’ll escort you to the kitchens myself!”

  Later, much later, the tail-end of the very last dinner shift in fact, I sat alone as I used my half-slice of bread to mop my tray. The rationed tang of peppery spice hadn’t done much to hide the usual, dishwater taste, but it helped. Anything did. As had my brief shower, a rare mid-week luxury, but essential, once I’d explained what had happened, explained my lungful of gas, which had earned me a check-up with the medics as well. (“You’ll live,” was their blunt professional assessment.) All of which had delayed my grilling by the other girls; the five I’d gone out on my sortie with and a gaggle of younger ones—asking where I’d been, what I’d seen, and whether the cache I’d discovered was worked out.

  I kept my answers short, said that yes, alas, I’d cleaned out the store that I’d found hidden inside a buried refrigerator (hah!) and that I’d foolishly managed to get lost, wandered too far south and got a lungful of green gas for my troubles. But I didn’t tell them the rest, not then, and not ever. Not to the little girls who bunk beneath me, nor even to Kaitlin. I didn’t tell them I’d been rescued, and by whom, or any of my crazy theories about what, if anything, it meant. Even if I had, they’d probably just say the gas had addled my brains and warn me to quit scaring the young’uns.

  Most of all, I didn’t want my fragile bubble of hope burst by some casual comment or a pitying look. Hell, I knew the odds. We all did. People vanished on the battlefield all the time. They very rarely turned up again, and never after this long a gap.

  But while there was doubt, there was a sliver of possibility. A chance of a miracle. However unlikely.

  That’s why in this forever war, there were no ‘Missing in Action’ messages. Why my letters would never be returned unopened and marked undeliverable. Bad for morale, the Generals would claim.

  I don’t know if the man made out of green gas escaped back outside through the extractor fan, into the rain, into the night. What the whirring blades would do to him, I didn’t like to think. But I hope he’s out there, kitting himself in a new airtight uniform, a new gas mask. Doing whatever it is that he does. Despite the tiny spark I stubbornly cling to, I don’t even know if he is our gas, or theirs, or some sort of blend of the two. Whether he is, or was, the spirit of a dead soldier, perhaps even that of my brother, or something new and oddly wonderful, the result of years of battlefield experimentation, of evolution, I had no way of telling.

  I licked the last scraps of food from the tin plate, dog-tired now, eager for lights out.

  But I do know one thing, and it’s this:

  Life will always find a way.

  Liam Hogan is an award-winning short story writer, with stories in Best of British Science Fiction 2016 & 2019, and Best of British Fantasy 2018 (NewCon Press). He’s been published by Analog, Daily Science Fiction, and Flame Tree Press, among others. He helps host Liars’ League London, volunteers at the creative writing charity Ministry of Stories, and lives and avoids work in London. More details at:

  happyendingnotguaranteed.blogspot.co.uk.

  Death by Misadventure

  John M. Olsen

  Sometimes I choose to watch people all the way from birth to the grave. Other times, I show up at the last moment to escort their soul along to the next stop, but nobody avoids me. Not for long, anyway.

  Walter had lived a good, long life. I’d shadowed him on and off for years, keeping tabs on his job and family. He loved his beautiful grandkids, and I’d helped his wife, Daisy, move on two years before. She was a wonderful woman, full of love.

  It’s a perk of the job to choose how much time to spend tracking each person and to determine whether I show up from time to time in disguise along the way. Now, I sat across from Walter playing checkers in a hospital room surrounded by the smell of antiseptic and stage-four cancer as lights blinked on a wall of medical equipment.

  “King me,” Walter whispered. You would think a master of games like me would never lose to a mortal, but today I played to distract my friend from his overwhelming pain.

  “You got it, Walter. So is your son still sore about the World Series?” I tried every trick I knew to divert his attention from his condition as I dropped a checker on top of his. I sat back in the utilitarian chair, idly playing with my scythe, which was transformed to look like a butterfly knife as a part of my current mask. For the record, I don’t appear as a flaming skeleton wrapped in black robes unless I’m particularly annoyed at someone when I come for them. Today I wore jeans and a polo shirt, dark wavy hair graying at the temples, and a nondescript face.

  Walter whispered again, the best he could manage. “It took a week or two, but I calmed him down. Can you help me up? I want to look out the window for a bit to watch the city lights.”

  It wasn’t time yet, so I set my knife/scythe to the side of the checker board. He was barely more than a hundred pounds soaking wet, so I picked him up gently and carried him to the window with his arm around my shoulder, careful not to tangle the lines connecting him to medical equipment.

  A weak smile crossed Walter’s lips. “Lights eventually flicker and die, like me. Everyone has to burn out sometime.”

  “That’s dark for you, Walter. And a touch poetic.” He was right. Everyone has to die eventually, and I handled them in order based on their appointed time. I show up when a person is born, then I can skip forward in time to keep tabs on them during their mortal sojourn. Whether as a ghost or in physical form, I spend time with those who deserve it, like Walter. A few even become dear friends. I’m required to be there to formalize each exit, and I can’t skip back in time again until my current charge moves on. It gets weird when I see a future version of myself following someone who may not die for decades.

  A quirk of divine creation made me both infinite and highly parallel.

  I’ve lived through the Cubs winning the 2016 World Series millions of times, and I’m not done yet. You can see why I skip forward to the important parts. The novelty wears off quickly.

  And people wonder why I’m so good at gambling. Never bet against Death.

  Someone pushed the door open and bumped around behind us for a few moments, but left without a word. More medical tests were useless at this point.

  “It’s a shame your son couldn’t be here tonight. You don’t have long.”

  “I told him my grandkid’s musical was more important than counting my breaths,” Walter said. “He’ll be back in the morning.”

  After a long while, I eased him back into his bed, where I made him as comfortable as I could. It was time.

  “You know, it’s funny how I’ve kept a secret from you all these years,” I told him. “I’m glad I got to know you. You inspire me, and I’m better for it.”

  I reached for my butterfly knife, my scythe, and found only an empty table.

  Bad words came to mind in no less than thirty languages. “Hold on a minute, Walter. I’ll be right back.”

  “Promises, promises.”

  The last time I’d lost my scythe was more than a hundred years earlier on the calendar, but hundreds of millions of lives ago, the way I counted. A fellow named Grigori Rasputin played a joke on me by sneaking it from a dagger sheath on my belt. He sold it to a wandering tinker after he somehow figured out what it was.

  It was a tool with power over life and death, bearing symbolism recognized around the world, and I’d lost it again. I was two years late escorting Rasputin to the next step and caught no end of grief for all the stories spawned by his idiotic death-defying antics while I hunted for my disguised scythe. Stabbings, gunshots, poison—nothing worked on him because the symbol of my office had gone missing. I got it back only because a future version of me assigned to the tinker finally returned it to me. The Boss was not amused
. I’m not supposed to talk to other versions of myself.

  This time, I didn’t have months or years. Walter would be in terrible pain every moment until I came back with my scythe in hand. I left the room to hunt down the cretin who took it.

  “Nurse, can you tell me who came by Walter’s room about five minutes ago?”

  She looked up from her desk, her rosy cheeks dimpled by what seemed to be a permanent smile. “Sure thing.”

  She prodded her computer and looked up at me after a moment. “Nobody in the past hour. Is something wrong?”

  “I’m missing a butterfly knife. About six inches long with black handles and a Damascus steel blade. Very sharp.”

  She raised an eyebrow, and I discovered her smile wasn’t permanent.

  “It has a lot of sentimental value. I wanted to show it to Walter.” How is it some mortals can make me feel so defensive?

  She shook her head in place of the lecture we both knew she wanted to deliver. Her frown made me feel like a child caught with a hand in the cookie jar. “You can report it at the safety desk down at the entrance if you like. That’s where it will go if someone finds a large unattended knife.” She stared at me, her gaze boring holes through my eternal soul.

  I’m sure the two of us will laugh about our conversation over the knife when her turn comes around. Sure as anything, she’ll still make me feel like a wayward child even then.

  I thanked her and headed for the elevator as she muttered something about the wrong kind of knife for a hospital. In my hands, it was a tool to separate spirits from their dying bodies without harming either. In the wrong hands, it could lop off body parts without pausing at the bones.

  I still had a trick up my sleeve, something I prepared after the Rasputin incident. I could turn it back into a scythe without touching it. All I needed was to go incorporeal and send it a command. But transforming could turn into a new problem since the scythe would remain physical until I touched it. It would be hard for nearby mortals to miss, so I would wait and transform it later.

  Nothing showed up in the trashcans along the way to the front lobby, so I strolled to the security desk parked between two fake potted ficus trees.

  As I approached, one of my future ghosts sat in the nearby waiting area. He grinned at me, despite the strict no-contact rule. On a busy day, there could be several of me at any given hospital, but we’re not supposed to notice. At least it meant I would eventually find my scythe. It also meant I was in for a horrible day if I went out of my way to watch myself blunder around for amusement. Sometimes I’m a jerk.

  My trip to the lobby was a bust. Nothing in lost-and-found, nothing in the trash, and no leads.

  My future ghost stood and walked out the main doors toward the parking lot west of the hospital.

  He hadn’t made contact, except maybe to show me where to go next. I bent the no-contact rule into a pretzel as I followed him. I tailed my shadow to the nearby subway entrance where I paid for a pass and got on the northbound line into town.

  One odd thing about escorting everyone from their mortal coil is that I meet nearly everyone in passing, and I have a perfect memory.

  I sat down next to a kid named Ricky whose Nana had passed a year before. My future ghost followed Ricky off the train a few stops later, so I followed. I ended up in a park filled with old sycamore trees surrounding a central area smelling of fresh-trimmed grass. Apartment buildings surrounded the park.

  I followed as my ghost marched in step next to Ricky. Was Ricky going to die soon? Maybe future me was just being a jerk again. It’s happened before, and it’s hilarious when I’m on the giving end.

  The gap increased as Ricky dodged into the lobby of an apartment building ahead of me. When I got there, Ricky was gone. I couldn’t tell if he’d taken the elevator or sneaked out another door. My future ghost laughed as he faded away.

  I sat in the lobby to plan my search. As I sat, a teenager wearing an old baseball cap entered the lobby. His jeans hid the tops of his cowboy boots. Oddly enough, I didn’t know him. He’d never been near death. It happens, but not often.

  He drawled at me, “You need help with somethin’?”

  The way he talked revealed that he was a recent import, new to the area. His accent placed him from upper east Tennessee, probably a farm back in the hills near Johnson City.

  I nodded and dropped into an accent not too far from his, closer to Oak Ridge. “I lost my favorite knife. Someone from this here building might have carried it off.”

  “Huh. That’s a lot of doors to bang on,” the teen said. “What’s it look like?”

  “Butterfly knife. ’Bout five inches. Sharp as all get out. Don’t want a little kid to cut a finger off.”

  He pulled a folding knife from his pocket and flipped the blade out with practiced ease. He held it out toward me, handle first. “You keep it sharp, huh? See how I did on this.”

  Angels protect fools and children, and this was one reason why. Pulling out a knife in a big city, then offering it to a stranger? It was a miracle I’d never bumped into this kid in the past.

  I grasped the handle and waited a moment until he let go. Good training.

  “This town don’t deserve your trust so easy,” I said. “You should watch yourself and be more careful.”

  I tested the edge and whistled. “That’s a sweet edge. My name’s Mort.” At least that was my name for today. Names mean a lot more to people than they do to me, since I have so many. I folded the knife closed and handed it back.

  He grinned and sat across from me. “I’m Beau. Pa says I should be careful, but most everybody’s nice here if you give ’em a chance. Y’all could put up a flier on the board to find your knife.”

  He stood and honest-to-goodness moseyed over to a cork board. I liked this kid.

  “Folks post all sort of things here. Lost cats, parties, game groups, that kind of stuff.”

  One paper on the board caught my eye. My picture graced the flier. Well, it had a cloaked figure holding a scythe, anyway.

  It turned out to be an ad for a fantasy convention starting the following morning. I’ve attended geeky conventions before on assignment. It’s one of the few places I can pull out all the stops in public and not get a second look. I once lost a costume contest to a little girl with a black bathrobe and a sugar-skull design painted on her face. She charmed the judges with her cuteness, an attribute I lack.

  I didn’t have time to goof off at a con. I nodded at the board and said, “Thanks for the suggestion. Take care of yourself, Beau.”

  He headed to the elevator and gave me a final wave as the door closed to whisk him home. Yes, I’d be sure to check on him when his number came around.

  I didn’t see any choice but to go incorporeal and turn my butterfly knife back into a scythe, then ghost my way through the whole building one room at a time. I changed and sent the command to transform the scythe.

  Skipping any nook or cranny meant I might as well start over, so I took as much time as I could afford.

  Like a growing ache behind the eyes, Walter’s pain echoed in me as I searched. Sharing the pain was my cost when I granted any reprieve, intentional or not.

  Pain is a great motivator and teacher, and a suitable reward for stupidity, but I despise pain with no purpose. My sympathetic pain was well-deserved, but Walter’s was not.

  Dozens of weapons showed up as I progressed through the building, and I even found two guys painting medieval armor, most likely for the con. A gauzy robe with a ghostly mask was draped nearby on the couch. I looked under the couch, and my heart leaped. It was a scythe! Then the crinkly tinfoil blade caught my eye, and I let out a dejected sigh.

  At least I’d have a fan at the convention.

  The pressure behind my eyes built along with my guilt as the evening progressed through to early morning. Finally, I finished the last room of the last apartment. It was a nondescript kitchenette with a high-carbon cleaver stored beside a nice end-grain cutting board.

/>   I lofted down to the park to sit and think. With luck, my future ghost would wander past to laugh or mock me, and if I was lucky, give me another clue.

  Walter’s son would show up at the hospital soon, and the nurses would want to give him stronger pain medication. The stubborn mule would turn them down to be as clear-headed as possible, despite the soul-searing pain.

  I became corporeal once more and sat on a log to think as the sun rose. My future self never reappeared. I’d obviously missed something important.

  I slapped the log and stood, ready to continue my search.

  Log? There were no logs last night. Only trees. I bent down to examine the sycamore limb on the ground.

  I passed my hand over the log’s mirror-smooth cuts. There was only one blade capable of such a cut. Some idiot took my scythe out for a test drive while I was searching.

  The ground near the log and the tree showed no blood. At least the thief wasn’t maimed yet.

  I trudged back toward the apartment building. I’d look again, starting with the costumers.

  People streamed out of the apartment buildings and toward the subway entrance in the morning light as the sun found its way between the buildings to sparkle on the dewy park grass.

  I snapped into ghost form without caring who I confused and jumped to the living room where I’d seen the cardboard scythe.

  The costumes were gone when I got there, all except for the fake scythe still under the couch. I was, once again, a fool. While I’d searched last night, someone had left the building with the real blade. How they explained away its appearance didn’t much matter, but I suspected alcohol was involved.

  I became physical, grabbed the dummy scythe, and headed to the lobby to find the flier for the con.

  It didn’t open for a couple of hours, but people always lined up early. I stayed physical to carry the fake scythe. My growing urgency and throbbing head kept Walter’s plight in my thoughts.