by Jeff Wheeler
She shoved me away and, in front of everyone, slapped me twice. She said, “Stomme meid. I didn’t choose you. I chose Broos. He was my best child, and you’re disgracing his taking.” Then she started weeping and ran back home. She was supposed to ask me what I saw. I was supposed to tell her for everyone to hear so they could know the manner and price of our protection. She never did ask. I broke that night, Broos, and I don’t know if it was because of what I saw or because I didn’t get to share it.
To this day, I can’t stop seeing Gerd leap out of the brush at you. I can’t stop hearing you scream or the sound of something snapping inside your chest, then something else, then you collapsing to the ground. I can’t stop smelling Gerd as she squatted over your hips, bony and pale, filthy and naked and no bigger than you, no more than a girl herself. I can’t stop feeling those terrible claws scrape your chin, your lips, your pudgy cheek, then pinch off a bloody chunk and pop it into her mouth. And I can’t forget how I just stood there, amazed that Gerd really couldn’t see things that are green and that I would live, when I should have been defending my beautiful little brother, Old Sam’s bargain be d—med.
Old Sam and Moe went outside. He’s speaking to a crowd of neighbors, furiously calm while Moe is calmly furious. It won’t be long now. I could sneak out the back, but where would I go? All roads lead to the mountain, Moe says.
I can only pray that she’ll tell our neighbors a dozen times over all the terrible details of my taking, and they might be so appalled that they refuse to let Old Sam send one of us up afterward, which is why I’ve been trying to scare off the Reubens in the first place. It’s a poor bargain for me, a cheat, really, but no better than a sinner like me deserves.
Considering my state, I’m sorry if this letter is less graceful in the reading than I imagine it to be in the writing, and if it is my last to you, please remember me affectionately as, forever,
Your loving sister,
Suzanne Vanderberg
* * *
Please deliver or mail, postage due, to
Mr. Wykoff Zenger, No. 181 East 65th St, NY City
West of Hurley, NY
Mar. 20th 1863
Dear Father,
I hope we’re reading this letter together over a glass of whisky in the library. If not, don’t be alarmed. The expedition has gone awry, but in such an extraordinary way that Mr. Harper will surely pay handsomely for my true account. Indeed, you might copy out the beginning below and submit it as an advertisement for the rest:
Instead of going through Hurley, where I would have been recognized, I approached the Vanderberg settlement from the west on the old trail. A few hundred yards away, I happened upon a hunter watering the underbrush. As I waited to hail him, a pale arm punched through the loam, its long hand unfurling even longer claws, and before I could shout, it clutched the man’s ankles, yanked him off his feet, and dragged him into the earth.
I dove at the hole only to hear the man thudding down a deep shaft. My bullseye’s light couldn’t reach the bottom. The walls had been gouged by dozens of desperate fingers. The stench of rot and excrement rose into my mouth. Nonetheless, I thought I heard the man scream, so I knotted my ropes together and secured one end to a black oak, doffed my pack, and slid after him.
Forty yards down, the shaft became a limestone chimney. Had the Vanderbergs dug the shaft as a well or latrine, I wondered, accidentally freeing the creature from a cavern below? Or had the creature dug its own way out? Was it a pech? A wight? A native demon? Had I improbably discovered another hidden creature relegated to legend?
Fifteen yards farther, my bullseye found the hunter. His legs splayed unnaturally at the bottom as if he’d been dropped the way turtles are by eagles. His trousers had been violently torn open, his legs tentatively so. His torso had slipped into a space beyond the shaft, and I didn’t want to imagine what the creature was doing to it. Then the rope jerked above me.
From a niche I hadn’t noticed, two claws were deftly shredding my rope. I all but released it, needing just seconds to reach what safety the bottom might bring, but the rope snapped. I tumbled, my head smacked the limestone, and darkness took me.
I woke on my side. Pain hammered my skull. I swallowed my vomit. I faced a long, bone-strewn gallery, lit by my bullseye, that doubled and tripled until I squinted. Past my feet I saw the shaft, which met the cavern like a dumbwaiter’s would, ten yards away. The creature must have dragged me away from the hunter to save me for later. To ensure later never came, I reached for my dirk, and toes scraped the rock behind my head.
My body clenched. I doubt I breathed. The creature leaned in, stinking of sweat and vinegar. It drew its claws over my cheek, pinching, prodding, at one point, cooing. I’d have wailed like a soul in hell had another’s wail, a woman’s, not echoed down the shaft.
The creature bounded off to listen. In the light reflected by the cavern walls, it took shape: short and slight with overlong arms, bony, pale as the grave, female. Was it a feral human, lost for ages as the dragons had been? Whatever the danger to me, I couldn’t kill the creature. It was no dumb beast. I could, however, capture it. I reached for the rope dangling from my waist.
The creature turned to me. It had a doll’s face, the picture of a proper young lady, until the creature smiled with shards of teeth, growled, and scuttled toward the surface.
I left my bullseye as a decoy and waited beside the shaft. The woman, I hoped, would make the trip more safely than the hunter had. He stared at me from the bloodstained floor with empty sockets and smiled with a lipless mouth. Oddly, his torso and arms remained untouched, though his jacket was no thicker than his trousers.
The woman shrieked. Leaves and needles rained down the shaft. I made a loop with my rope. I’d get the creature around the neck, pin its arms to its sides, and bind it before what strength I had ran out. The women yelled, “No, please!” A moment later she bounced into the gallery in a cloud of gin, miraculously unhurt.
Had the woman been sober, she’d have broken every bone. Instead, drink had stuffed her with rags. She rolled and moaned, which drew me instinctively to her side and gave the creature its chance. It sprang onto my back.
We danced around the cavern. I tried to throw the creature down by its hair, while the creature twisted my head like the stuck lid of a mason jar. Our baffling echoes, the uneven floor, the bullseye flashing while we reeled, all disoriented me. For a moment the bullseye went out, and I stumbled to one knee, thinking I might never rise again, then the light returned like a locomotive’s, roaring past my face to slam into the creature’s head. It groaned and loosened its grip. The light slammed again, and something in the creature snapped. A third slam snapped something else. The creature fell off me, staggered two steps, and collapsed, dead.
The woman, bent and heaving, set one hand on my shoulder to steady herself. The other held my freshly dented bullseye. She’d donned the hunter’s jacket, which hung to her knees and with the collar up, nearly enveloped her head. At my look, she said, “Gerd can’t see green,” and collapsed herself, exhausted by drink and exertion. She’s still asleep, dreaming with the smile of a child.
Although the creature bears no ritual marks and carried no crafted objects, I suspect it belonged to a tribe. A breeze and brief foray suggested the gallery connects to a complex that could rival Howe’s, and unless my mind was playing tricks, I heard queer sounds coming from it, and I felt watched. So I’ve opened the bullseye as wide as possible, which does my headache no good, but at least makes it easier to write.
What I can’t make easier is knowing that, since I was a boy, I’ve been chasing a phantom. The legend of the Catskill dragon was probably stitched together from accounts of this creature. Was it originally called Gerd before the name migrated to that of the surviving girl, if such a girl ever existed, with the dragon then invented to take the role of creature? Or did the girl’s name migrate to the creature? Were it possible for anything to live so long, I’d think the creature and girl we
re one, the latter turned over time into a regional bugbear like the Jersey Devil. That this bugbear was real is small consolation for a dragon that isn’t.
As soon as the woman awakens, we’ll head into the complex in search of an exit. We can’t climb the shaft, and I left my pack with my provisions above. We do have water, my canteen and the hunter’s, so we could survive for a week unmolested. I’m not excited about having to eat bugs again.
In case we don’t make it, I’m sealing this letter inside the detached cover of my diary and leaving it at the bottom of the shaft where, with luck, it’ll be found only by someone who can see the color green. I’ve also chalked warnings on the walls that the finder should turn back. I won’t have anyone follow me into danger.
Whether I’m gone for a week, a month, or more, I’m sorry for your worries—and for a letter less buoyant than I’d originally intended. At least my absence will heighten interest in my full account, which will include what the woman can tell, if she’s willing to, about the creature. As always, I’ll share my discoveries with you first over whisky in the library. That day can’t come soon enough. Until then, I have the honor to be, sir,
Your devoted son,
Cassaway Zenger
P.S. Father, this is for you alone:
You said you didn’t regret taking me to van Buren’s exhibition because my passions might cost me my life, but they also made my life worth living. You’ve never been more right than now. Standing at the edge of an abyss, I haven’t felt this alive since heading up the Hudson to find the Blue.
At the same time, I’m terribly ashamed. By promoting the Green as real, how many people have I lured into the creature’s clutches? So many have disappeared during the last three decades. That, I can’t live with. After this expedition, after I tell the world what the dragon really is, I’ve decided to put away my childish passions and take up a new pursuit. In fact, I’ve already thought of one:
What would Blackstone say about the rights of American dragons? The zoo has done excellent work taking care of mine, but I suspect they’ll soon be confiscated in order to put them to a monstrous use. I must protect them.
—WAY
Stephen S. Power
Stephen S. Power's novel "The Dragon Round" was just published by Simon & Schuster. His has recently appeared at "AE," Daily Science Fiction" and "Flash Fiction Online," and he has stories forthcoming in "Amazing Stories" and “Lightspeed.” He tweets at @stephenspower, his site is stephenspower.com, and he lives in Maplewood, NJ.
Her Glimmering Facade
By Eleanor R. Wood | 6,000 words
My aunt Toshiko disappeared two days after my wedding. She was beaming at the ceremony, seated beside my parents at the banquet, hugging my beautiful bride and welcoming her to the family. She waved us off on our honeymoon, cheeks flushed with champagne, her glossy black hair trailing from its bun. It was the last time I saw her.
Gia and I spent ten days basking in the glow of love and warm pearlescent beaches. Until I saw the lavender seas of Pathos 5 for myself, I didn’t believe the brochures. We stayed in a beachfront chalet overlooking a bay ringed by teal-forested mountains. Bright parrot lizards perched in the trees, lending their colour to the vista’s rainbow palette. We ate spicy fruits and fresh seafood and watched psychedelic sunsets. Gia taught me yoga; I taught her to surf.
Dad picked us up from the spaceport. He smiled and hugged us, but with quiet tension. He let us tell him about our holiday before he brought us fully back to Earth with his news.
“I hate to spoil your mood so soon, Carlos.” He threw me a sad glance from the driver’s seat. “Ma and I didn’t want to worry you on your honeymoon. But it’s Toshiko. She’s missing.”
“What do you mean, ‘missing’?” Gia asked over my perplexed silence.
“No one’s seen her in over a week. She’s not home. Her car’s outside. Her purse and phone are still in the house.”
I found my tongue. “Are you saying she’s been abducted or something?”
Gia squeezed my hand, in fear or reassurance.
“We just don’t know. The police haven’t found anything unusual. They’ve traced her last known movements, and nothing seems out of the ordinary. We’re just waiting for news. Any news.”
The honeymoon glow was already a fading memory. While my wife and I had been on an exotic planet, captivated by each other and its surreal beauty, tragedy had befallen my family. Toshiko wasn’t my aunt by blood. She was my mother’s dearest friend, and I’d called her “Aunt” my whole life. She’d always been there for me, in her warm, levelheaded way. She used to take me to basketball practice, let me hang out at her place after school, listen to my woes about unrequited crushes. She’d encouraged me to study engineering. She’d introduced me to Gia.
“How’s Ma?” I could imagine her anxiety.
“Much as we’ve all been. Searching. Alerting missing persons sites. Uploading posters. Worrying for her friend. But she can’t wait to see you.” He smiled at me in the rearview mirror, but I couldn’t smile back.
“You okay, bear?” Gia asked me, caressing my palm the way she did when she was worried. Sorrow had replaced the joy in her green eyes.
I put my arm around her shoulders. “I don’t know.”
Dad took the skyway route—more traffic than the road, but faster. When he pulled up at home, Ma was sitting on the front porch, book in her hand as ever, beside a jug of blackberry wine and a tray of snacks to welcome us. She threw her arms around Gia and me in turn.
“How was your honeymoon, my loves?”
We smiled and told her of the wonders we’d seen, but I was distracted. Gia sensed my impatience and took Dad aside to show him our photos so I could sit with Ma.
“Dad told us about Aunt Toshiko.”
Ma’s face fell, and she reached for my hand. “There’s been nothing, Carlos. No news at all. Not even a hint as to where she’s gone. It’s as if she vanished into thin air.” I heard the hitch in her voice.
“Have the police spoken to her family?” She had few relatives, but her elderly uncle lived nearby and she had a brother in Japan.
“They haven’t heard from her. Her poor uncle’s fraught with worry. I feel so helpless. I can’t think of anything else to do ...” She broke down in tears and I held her, feeling numb.
I visited Toshiko’s house the next day. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Her hanging baskets decorated the cottage with clusters of colour and bustling aromas, while her roses bloomed red, pink, and orange in their beds below. I stood before her front door and had to believe it was all a mistake. Surely she was inside, preparing food or weaving on her loom or designing some miraculous technology to be shared only when she’d got it just right?
But when I let myself in, the house was silent. Only the ticking of her clocks broke the stillness, like tiny ripples on a pond. I walked through the rooms, watering her neglected bonsai and picking up fallen petals from an orchid. Her rear garden was as lush and bright as the front, but she wasn’t sitting at her patio table calculating ratios or pruning potted trees. Her absence rang loud in the silence. I opened her patio doors and let in the sounds of birdsong she couldn’t hear, and I finally knew that she was gone.
I let the dread wash over me. Every memory I had of Toshiko assailed me at that moment. I longed for her to breeze through the door and laugh at our foolish worries. After a while, I longed for her to appear so I could chastise her for terrifying us all. But I knew she would never do that to us, and my tears flowed with fear that she might never come back.
My phone chimed. When I answered, Gia looked up at me from the screen and halted whatever she’d been about to say.
“Oh, bear. Don’t do this to yourself. Come home?”
I wiped my face with one hand. “I’m coming back now.”
“Good. I love you.” She smiled sadly and hung up.
As I locked the front door, a wave of dizziness hit me. I stumbled against the porch frame and struggled to get my be
arings as the world whirled about my head. It passed after a moment, leaving me light-headed. By the time I got home, I was ravenous.
“It’s just the shock and worry,” Gia assured me as she cleared away the supper dishes. “Have an early night and see how you feel tomorrow.”
I kissed her and apologised for not helping clean up. Sleep sounded great. I dozed off wondering why I still felt as though I hadn’t eaten in days.
* * *
“Sorry to hear you’re not feeling too good, sport.” Dad looked concerned.
“Probably just something I picked up on the trip home. Space flights are basically germ dispensaries, right?”
“Plenty of bed rest!” I heard Ma’s voice from the background. Dad pointed his phone at her, and I had a glimpse of her shaking a finger at me before he came back on screen. I had to smile.
“The police want to speak to Gia and me. Apparently, we’re the only ones from the wedding they haven’t interviewed yet.”
“Well, it was the last occasion Toshiko attended. They’re trying any lead available.”
“I know. It makes sense. They might come by today, although I’ve told them I’m not feeling great. I’m sure we’ve got nothing new to tell them, but everything helps, I guess.”
“You bet. Heard you went by her house yesterday.”
“Yeah.” I closed my eyes against a new onslaught of vertigo. “Yeah, that was tough. Had to see for myself, though, you know?”
“I know. Listen, bud, you look pale. Get some rest. We’ll talk again later.”
