Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest #12

by Apex Authors

  Richard is standing quietly. He looks only eight years old, although by now he should be almost twenty. If he'd had a chance to live his life, that is. But what does a chimera rift care for time frames? What does a chimera rift care that my son never got to live his life?

  * * * *

  I stand there before the fence and stare back at Richard. He is dressed in three-quarter-length urban-camo shorts and a baggy t-shirt with a sports motif across the chest. His hair is close cropped, the way he used to prefer it. He had hated having a fringe or anything which might dangle in his eyes; he was always frightened he wouldn't see what was coming. I blame myself for that: he learned more from me about fear and cynicism than he did about how to fish or throw a curve ball.

  Richard grew up in a time when childhood was essentially a fiction. His two best friends died when he was seven, and after that he just stopped trying to make more. He never got to play a game of baseball, nor visit Disneyland, nor even see the ocean. Time moved too fast for all those things. He saw his first dead body at an age when I'd been crying over not getting the latest movie tie-in figurine.

  It bothers me somewhat that the Richard in the chimera rift has colours that seem wrong. He looks kind of stonewash faded, almost bleached, and then there's the insane bluish glow encapsulating him. But he's my son, and I can't seem to make those other things matter.

  What matters is the hurt. Confronting him like this hurts so badly. I shake a little, and place both my hands against the fence's mesh, lean up close and try and steady myself. The fence bows out a bit, but the slack quickly goes out of the mesh and I feel it draw tight against the steel posts sunk into the bedrock. They don't give an inch.

  "Richard?” I say.

  Richard doesn't answer. He grins slightly, though, and that melts me, because I never saw Richard smile enough in life. It also occurs to me that I never actually saw Richard die, and that no one living, absolutely no one, can definitely say what happened to those people who vanished in the rifts. A seditious voice whispers in the back of my head that now I'm sounding like a cultist. But I'm not in a mood to give the voice much attention. After all, Richard is still smiling at me. He's got some charm, that kid.

  "We never played baseball, you know,” I say. I feel stupid saying that. My mouth is dry—and it's not just the stinking heat.

  Richard keeps on smiling, and I see that there's something in his hand. I zero in on it and recognise a baseball. Richard tosses it lightly up and down in his palm as if testing its weight. I step back from the fence, moving to the base of the sand dune that I had earlier descended. I pop my right fist into my left palm as if I'm wearing a catcher's mitt, and signal him to throw. Crazy, yes, but the whole world's gone crazy, anyhow.

  Richard draws his hand back and lets fly. It's not the kind of throw a kid should be able to make. It's much too fast. But I don't think too closely about that; after all, I'm more intent on catching it, and it's got such a velocity that the exercise takes a fair bit of concentration. The ball slams into the blue sky and, as it does, I lose it for a moment and part of me thinks, hell, you know why—it's because that ball is blue like the chimera rift—but then the thought is severed as the ball comes careening down from heaven and I reach out my transformed hands and catch it squarely. In that moment I know it's dream stuff; I can feel it. Already the ball is turning a heavier, grey colour, isolated as it is from the reservoir of the rift. But I feel good regardless, this moment nourishing something desperate inside me. I laugh, wholeheartedly, sight Richard on the other side of the fence wearing his kid's grin, and I shoot the ball back towards him. The throw is bad, way off target, but somehow Richard's right there under it when it nears the ground, and I think, that's not right, I should be remembering the shark, the lion in the grass. What am I doing?

  But then Richard jiggles his feet in excitement and laughs, and it's my kid's laugh, which the world has robbed me of for so long; and I've been so lonely, all those long, hard days on the road out here, nothing but a crazy woman to hold in my arms back at that despairing place I call home. Richard draws his hand back and pitches hard. The ball has got some serious speed this time. It skips over the top of the fence and, as it grazes the top of the undreamt material, it uncoils a wisp of bluish gas. That's not right! a voice in my head screams.

  I try to get my hands up to catch it, but I know I'm too late. I know I've miss-timed it. The ball is a blue comet, angling straight towards my chest and behind it, through the fence mesh, I can see my son smiling.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Making Dynamite

  by Alethea Kontis

  * * * *

  Alethea Kontis's first publication was her essay in Apex Digest issue #3. She is now the author of AlphaOops: The Day Z Went First and the official Sherrilyn Kenyon Dark-Hunter Companion, as well as co-editor (with Steven Savile) of the SF all-star anthology Elemental. Find out more about Alethea's plans for world domination on her website: www.aletheakontis.com.

  * * * *

  I'm one of those organized people who always likes to start her story at the beginning ... but where's the beginning really?

  If you want to get technical, the beginning of everything is the Big Bang of the Universe (or the Big Bang of God, if that's your poison). For the purpose of telling a story, though, the teller has to know where to begin. It needs to be close enough to the action to keep the listener/reader engaged, but far enough back so that person has all the information they need to understand what's going on. The beginning is always the hardest part, because inevitably you have to leave something out.

  It's a toss up to say whether or not this little tale starts with the essays, or the events that caused the essays ... or my parents giving birth to a child who decided that writing down everything she saw and did was a good idea ... see where this could go?

  How about we start with the announcement: yesterday, Apex Publications formally announced that they will be releasing a book of my essays this fall, to be entitled Beauty and Dynamite. Cool, huh?

  Yes. Very cool ... and very unsettling.

  I've kept journals all my life. (Harriet the Spy was one of my childhood heroes.) I've got a box of them up in the attic: spiral-bound notebooks, artsy-fartsy blank books, chunky little Diaries with locks on them that anyone with a straight pin can open, hardcover lined books, sketchbooks, loose paper ... even a Beezus & Ramona fill-in-the-blanks journal. Postcards, flyers, envelopes, receipts—nothing with a blank space on it has ever been sacred in my house. And yes, I have even been known to write on walls occasionally ... but a very rare occasion.

  I never thought it odd (and still don't) that I carry on a constant running dialogue with myself. To be honest, I find myself fairly clever, amusing, even supportive at times, and I am never bored.

  The odd part was when I discovered that other people apparently found this dialogue ridiculously entertaining.

  Until the ripe-old age of twenty-six, most of my thoughts and poems and essays were private, and none of them published. In 2003 I started writing a book review column every two weeks for a local free press—you know, one of those papers you pick up outside the Kroger when you're looking for a yard sale or used workout equipment. High-quality stuff, I assure you.

  Sometime around the third article I thought, “No one is reading this crap, so screw it. I'm going to have fun with it."

  (I maintain that everyone in their life needs to have a “Screw It” moment—this was my first. What an epiphany!)

  I wasn't being paid, so it's not like losing the job would have been a big deal. The next book review I submitted was less of a review and more about what was going on in my life when I read the book in question. A sort-of blog entry, if you will. I think the editors were just so happy to have someone who produced to deadline, they printed it. And the next one. The entries got more and more personal, but they just kept printing them ... and kept on for the next two years.

  Every once in a while, one of my co-workers would come
up to me and tell me they had read one of my reviews ... and I'd thank them and hoped they were happy with their new-used lawnmower or sofa. I was honored when one of my co-workers’ daughters took one of my reviews to school and read it out loud to her class ... but I didn't think much of it. I went to Orson Scott Card's Boot Camp, I sold AlphaOops to Candlewick, and eventually—like most folks in this day and age—I graduated to blogging.

  I was okay with saying “Screw It” and putting my life out there on the internet, mostly because I was sure that 1.) no one would be reading this either, and 2.) those friends and family who did were people I would have told anyway, and whose comments and wisdom I always welcomed. It was good to be able to get things out—writing has always been my therapy—and I was up to the challenges of a.) making it obscure enough to mask real people and events and z.) making it sensible enough that accidental passers-by didn't write me off as a raving lunatic. And as my life became more and more insane and incredible, I was able to share the magic and misery of my world with others. No matter what I went through, I wasn't alone.

  It was nice.

  And then along came Jason.

  After Hypericon's inaugural convention in 2005, Jason asked me to write an essay for Apex, based on my experiences in the science-fiction and horror genres. He said he had read some of my blog posts, and was impressed with my writing style. I said sure, no problem. He gave me a deadline.

  And then he wouldn't tell me what it was he wanted me to write about.

  He said some editorial mumbo-jumbo about giving his contributing writers free reign (bet he's regretting that now) and how what they came up with on their own was usually better than anything he could make up.

  This shouldn't have been a problem. I had had free reign in my universe for years: I was the Red Queen, and all the ways around here belonged to me. The only problem was, I couldn't exactly say “Screw It, No One Reads This Crap” because they DID. He had subscribers to prove it, and distribution in bookstores all around the country.

  Aw, hell.

  At that point, however, it was far too late to save me from being ME, so I said “Screw It” and wrote the essay. I even turned it in early, so that Jason would have ample time to mull over how to politely turn it down and a nice window in which he could find advertisers to fill the four-page gap in his fall issue.

  The essay was called “Keeping Your Friends Close and Your Fears Closer.” It was about my inevitable, damning relationship to the horror genre and how I reluctantly embraced it, fell in love with it, dated it, helped make a movie or two in it, and finally ended up writing in it. Sure, it had the word “horror” in the title, but it wasn't about horror. It was about me.

  He told me he loved it (I didn't believe him), and he printed it anyway. And the next one. The entries got more and more personal, but Jason just kept printing them ... and has continued for the last two years.

  In that time a few people have asked if I was ever going to put together a collection of these essays and make it available, á la Brian Keene and his Best of Hail Saten series. I was flattered by the suggestion, but—much like my co-workers’ previous comments—I didn't think much of it. Until someone posed that same question at the Apex table at Hypericon 3, in front of both Jason and Geoffrey Girard.

  That started that ball rolling.

  But, while incredibly honored, there were a few problems I could see inherent in my assembling a book of ... well, of myself. Did I have enough material? One long, curious evening at the computer proved that the answer was an emphatic yes. But what about the other issues? What about the people who hadn't been living with me in my head for four years? Won't they feel left out? There are some basic things they need to know! Like for instance:

  * * * *

  Who's Lee?

  In my travels on this planet, I have been known by many names: Allie, Harry, Alf, Lee Lee, Leafy, The Incredible Whirlwind of Beauty and Dynamite (thus the book's title)—those of you who have one of these names for me, you know exactly who you are, exactly what that is, and exactly how you've come by it (proving there really is a story behind everything).

  Lee, however, is the most common of these, derived by yours truly in the sixth grade when I decided at the ripe old age of ten that I needed a nickname. After a long, creative, and arduous selection process, I settled upon “Lee” (because the correct American pronunciation of my full name is “a-LEE-thee-a", for those of you who might not know). It's what my family calls me, what my close friends call me, and what I call myself when I'm having one of those myriad inner dialogues. You're welcome to call me Lee too. It's just easier to say.

  * * * *

  Who's Max?

  Due to the very bizarre nature of our slightly backwards relationship (I am also known as “Backwards Girl” by more than a few), Steven Savile and I obscured the details of our movie-plot romance by me referring to him as “Max” when I began writing the blog. Our close friends knew his identity, but to everyone else it remained a mystery.

  Over the months, I enjoyed mentioning Max, fell in love with him a little bit, and Steve would even post comments on the blog under Max's name. I didn't want to let go of Max—he was the free spirit I fell in love with, the arrogant bastard who said what he thought and partied till dawn. All of us have a little Max inside us, I think ... and I didn't want to let that go. Even after we officially became an item, I still referred to him as such when I wasn't discussing him as a fellow author. For the purpose of continuity, I decided to leave “Max” in the details. My readers are smart enough to figure it out.

  As to the origin of the name “Max", those of you fortunate enough to have one of those rare editions of Steve's Angel Road (still possibly my favorite work of his), the answer is at the bottom of page 5.

  * * * *

  The Black Hole

  Almost every author has one of these stories, and unfortunately I'm one of them. The majority of my blog essays from when I started it in the summer of 2004 to roughly August 2005 got lost on a friend's server and were sacrificed to the Black Hole of the Internet. I still mourn the loss of those stories and so many of them have stayed with me—the story behind my grandmother's diamond, finding the true meaning of Cinderella, finding faith in a couple of rainbows the morning after the longest night, and the soul-searching scariness I went through before (and just after) flying 4000 miles to meet Max for the first time.

  Yes, I've learned my lesson, and now I write (and save) my essays in a Word document before pasting them into the blog. What few I had the foresight to save during that time, I've included. To the memory of the rest I raise my glass in remembrance.

  * * * *

  Who gives a crap?

  You and I know the answer to this: no one. Nobody gives a crap about me and my silly life and my silly stories, and what crazy kind of egomaniacal person am I to think that I can just throw my soul out to the general populace? Nevermind that a lot of these have been posted and printed before, nevermind that I have no secrets and tell everybody pretty much everything, nevermind that I am friends with the world ... who on earth gives a crap? I can't do this! To which Brian Keene, Masterblogger Saten himself responded: Yes, you can. You're a great writer. Just shut up and do it. Actually, it might have been more along the lines of: Those really are great boots. Are you sure I can't get you anything stronger than water? Which brings me to:

  * * * *

  No one is going to believe any of this.

  Life imitates art, and vice-versa. I do lead a bit of a strange life. And the more I write about it, the stranger it gets. Truth is definitely stranger than fiction. (I don't suppose my mama was considering that when she named her daughter “Truth", but as far as curses go it's worked out pretty well.) So to prove I wasn't making this all up, I asked some of my friends and family to contribute essays corroborating certain events. They all emphatically said yes and sent me their two, five, and sometimes ten cents.

  Now that I have them, I'm not exactly sure they're going to con
vince anyone. But I'm including them anyway, because they're a lot of fun.

  Screw it.

  But it made me realize, as I have suspected for a while now, that I do live in a fantasy world. I always have. I made it up when I was young, named myself the heroine, and let it go along its merry way, growing wild and thriving in the fertile ground of my imagination.

  Only ... by surrounding myself with storytellers and immersing myself in a world of books, the lines between fiction and fact, truth and tale, story and memory, have become fantastically blurred. It's not that I can't tell reality from fantasy, it's just that I don't want to.

  Come on, with a life like mine ... would you?

  Best of all, I brought my friends with me.

  And how am I supposed to explain all these things? I asked. Nobody's going to know all this! So write an introduction, said Geoffrey, and explain it.

  Okay ... here you go.

  I am Alice, and Beauty and Dynamite is a doorway to my Wonderland.

  Welcome.

  Brush off the Looking Glass. Sit back. Have a spot of tea. Move down one and make room for the Doormouse. Ignore the smiling cat. If you buy the book, enjoy it. If you don't, spend the day indulging in something else that's just for you. You deserve it.

  Be happy.

  Be Max.

  Have fun.

  Say “Screw It."

  After all, no one's going to read this anyway ... right?

  * * * *

  You have just read the introduction to Beauty & Dynamite, a book of essays and madness from Alethea Kontis.

  Contributors include Brian Keene,

  Tom Piccirilli, and John Ringo.

  Look for it this summer at

  www.ApexBookCompany.com

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Artist Bios

  Cover Art—I Can't Look at the City—Osvaldo González