Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 19

by Kelly Link Gavin J. Grant

  "But this isn't the females, even though they'll go wild and tear you apart if you come near their young. They're strong, and they have the capacity for violence. But they don't go after snakes. They don't hunt monsters.

  "This is separate from fighting and fucking, another job just for us drones: Killing monsters."

  The Club-Footed Janitor took another sip of tea, then took several long, awkward strides back to his desk. He opened the drawer, and brought out a dull grey revolver, placed it heavily on the desk before his brother.

  "In case it doesn't go without saying,” the Club-Footed brother said, settling back into his chair, “I believe you."

  "This is ludicrous."

  The Club-Footed Janitor smiled broadly. “You know that ludicrous comes from Latin, right? From ludere: to play. So it may be ludicrous, Bro, but it's still the world. Some hate the player, some hate the game, but it's still the world."

  And so the Famous and Talented Horror Author walked out of the somber, now-darkened office building, and drove home, the gun awkward and heavy in his pocket.

  * * * *

  His wife was already in bed, asleep, peaceful and beautiful. The Author peeked in on her, and took a walk around the block. He knew that as long as he stayed awake she would be peaceful and beautiful, her skin would be smooth and warm and soft, the way that it always was, and she would move over, in her sleep, when he crawled into bed. And the man also knew, after almost a year of thin-sleep nights, that as soon as he fell asleep she would, like every other night, be a vicious, sucking, hideous beast that would hurt him and make him scream until he woke up sweating and sick to his stomach. She had always slept lightly, but now it had become his job to hear the alarm clock's chirps, to shake or kiss her awake. He wondered if he really did scream in his sleep. The dryness was there, the whisper at the edge of his speech. He wondered why his shoes would wake her on the hardwood and his screams could not.

  As he had turned to leave the office, his brother had told him that we are all monsters, under the surface, and whatever this is—the Janitor had gestured around the dusty office, at the table made of a door atop saw horses, at the broken fans and shelves of grimy, anonymous parts to anonymous, colossal machines—the waking part or the dreaming part, it's the part where we try our hardest not to be monsters, to shove back whatever is evil and wicked about ourselves, and do the best we can to hide our monstrous selves. Hearing that, the man had known what he had to do about his wife.

  The gun was heavy in his pocket.

  * * * *

  As he walked, the man thought through all of the stories he'd written, post-apocalyptic zombie worlds, vampire morality plays, houses bent on revenge, and the ghosts of cut-throats cast out of air-locks in the Great Nothing between the stars. He could imagine solutions for all of those imaginary people, those old school teachers and outcast teens and lonely widows. He could imagine a solution to this.

  The Famous and Talented Horror Author closed his eyes, letting his feet and habit guide him over jagged sidewalk and irregular curbs, and he imagined himself and his wife, in bed, the shades gently shuffling in the breeze, the moon etching the curves of their sleeping backs beneath the sheet. He saw them breathe together, slower and slower, more and more shallowly, and then both relax liquidly, like quicksilver, into each other, flatten and bulge and quicken into the rolling wolfsquid that burst up to pace frantically across their hardwood floor, throwing sheets asunder and wadding the rag rug beneath their tentacular paws, building momentum for their leap through the window. Outside, he could see their silvered night lawn, and beyond that the tree line, and in the cut-felt shadows of the trees he saw the slither and tense, the whirl and lurch of everyone else, all of the other mate-monsters out in the midnight world, tearing through trees, running down lone joggers and lost cats and stoned teenagers out past curfew.

  He knew then, knew in his heart of hearts, that Aristophanes had been completely right in the most completely wrong way possible: in Plato's Symposium Aristophanes had suggested, puckishly, that once upon a time everyone had been four-armed, four-legged, two-faced wagon wheels of love—some male, some female and some hermaphroditic—that these beasts were too content in their perfectly-partnered bliss and had thus been cleaved in twain. Henceforward, each half-a-being had spent his or her days looking for his other half, his better half. Gay men were the two half-a-males seeking their whole, and lesbians were two half-a-females seeking their whole, and straight folks—with their strange hunger for imperfect difference, for the unity that is unending strife and friction—they were the cleaved descendants of those strange, rolling hermaphrodites. The Author had always taken this bit of the Symposium to be metaphorical, fantastical, and convenient in its encapsulation of Greek sexuality and secular, homosocial morals. He had never taken it for what it was: the kernel of truth at the heart of the world. He saw that now, finally, saw that beneath the skin of the world there was nothing but gristle and savagery, and was afraid, was awed; for just a moment it was as though he had slipped the surly bonds of earth and touched the face of God.

  In his walking dream the Famous and Talented Horror Author became live to the fact that he was not being attacked by his wife, but embraced by her, devoured by her. Ensconced in her he became her, and they together coursed out through the night: a wolf and a squid, vicious and hungry, supple and strong, pale and invisible in the darkness, velvet-eyed and noxious and strange and far more terrible than any image that had ever accosted Lovecraft from some dreamless sleep in a dimension beyond time. A World Eater. They tore through the fabric of the night and sewed themselves in; they were the terror embroidered into the velvet between the stars, the dim, rusted razor-wire at neck-height across decrepit cellar steps. There is little lovely about love.

  The Famous and Talented Horror Author came back in silently, to his home, to his wife. She was cozy in bed, naked, sleeping, and he slid out of his clothes quickly, eager to be naked with her, to join together and go out into their night. Dropping his rumpled khakis to the boards he heard the revolver clunk dully, and didn't like the idea of it there, on the floor in his pocket or in a drawer. If his wife happened on it, it would worry her. A lot. That seemed cruel, so he dressed again, quiet as a church mouse, and headed back into the night alone.

  * * * *

  The Famous and Talented Horror Author felt fortunate to catch his brother stumping across the office building parking lot. His brother lived far out of town, and driving to his cabin was time-consuming and dangerous this time of the year, with the bucks reckless to rut and heedless of the dark road's passages through their forest.

  "Hey Jess,” he called, “Jess."

  His brother stopped, turned. “Fancy seeing you twice in one night. Your biggest fans must envy me."

  "Yeah. Well, the ... uh, thing you lent me? I don't need it after all.” The Author looked over first one shoulder, then the other, and then did his best to slyly palm the bulky revolver to his brother, who remained unmoving, hands cradled in his denim jacket's pockets.

  The Author stood there, lamely, hand out.

  "You sure about that? Wife feeling better?"

  "Naw. It's just, well, I rethought all of that. All of everything we talked about. I figured some things out, is all."

  "But she's still a monster, right? A soul-sucking, murderous inhuman thing."

  "I'm fine with that."

  There was no pause; the Janitor shook his head. “I'm not."

  The Author let his arm drop. “What?"

  "Don't worry. Not everyone has the guts for this sorta thing.” The Janitor reached out, eased the gun from his brother's hand. “I'll make the calls tomorrow morning,” he said as he ejected the cylinder and checked the rounds, then snapped the gun shut and pocketed it. “There's proper folks for resolving this kinda thing, anyway; I just thought you'd want a shot at it first, maybe. On account of your line of work."

  And the Famous and Talented Horror Author thought about lines, the lines between Cain and A
bel, and swings and soccer, the twisted line of a deformed leg. It occurred to the Author that maybe he and his brother had never been that close, anyways.

  The Janitor smiled broadly, “Shot. Get it, take a shot at it. It's a pun, bro.” He slapped the Author's shoulder and turned to go.

  Despite himself, the Author was dimly aware of his brother's real job and associations in some low and reptilian corner of his own capacious haunted mansion of a mind. If drones are only for fucking, fighting and monster hunting, then it doubtless behooves them to, in some dim way, truly know what is in the world.

  "I don't want anyone to kill my wife,” the Author said lamely, softly.

  "Don't worry,” the brother called over his shoulder, unlocking his rusted Honda's driver's side door, “We've got it covered.” And the Janitor climbed in and drove away.

  * * * *

  The Famous and Talented Author raced home, quickly and quietly came into his bedroom, slithered from his clothes and slid between the body-warm sheets. He lay himself down, breathed deep,

  breathed deep, and willed himself to

  calm

  willed himself to

  sleep

  and shockingly he dozed off, slipped the surly bonds of earth, slipped deep into his bed and sheets and wife and life and then, and then...

  ...and then he and his beautiful wife, they bloomed into the full snarling wheel of themselves, of their more perfect union, bloomed like the bloodgold blossom of fire blooming from a plane-struck tower, like the gout of blood from the leaping stag's heart, like the lick of flame from the sniper's barrel.

  Out from their bed

  Out into the night

  Out through the crisp Autumn forest

  They had to roll fast to beat their brother, their Club-Footed Janitor, their bloodmate back to his home, to his phone, to the copper lifeline that silently binds the web of his own dark family, spread thin over the surface of the earth, the political crust of arbitrary lines and colors that's the veneer of every school room's globe.

  They tumbled and roared and tore and, of course, their arrival was in just the nick of time, catching the brother crossing from detached garage to lonely little clapboard cottage, half-way across his muddy lawn, out in the middle of woods deep and dark.

  The face of the brother remained unchanged as they bore down on him—perhaps nothing could surprise him anymore, much like the Famous and Talented Horror Author himself. Perhaps he too had seen too much, had supped full of horrors, and this final serving was no affront, but just more of the same.

  It is a tiring world for we fuckers, we fighters, we monster hunting drones, that look might say. Alright it might say, This is what we do, it might say, Let's roll, it might say.

  Maybe Cain rose up because he'd found himself a girlfriend and there was no room in that tiny half-past-Eden world for a warped stray, not in the land of pairs two-by-two.

  Maybe Abel wasn't so favored by God, as much as he was an aberrant freak, a half that could never find its better half because it had been born malformed, half-formed, quasi-modo, twisted and stunted at birth.

  Maybe all of our stories are really about love, are really warnings echoing down the library halls of human history, saying “Beware: This is the terror that is love. Here there be monsters."

  Maybe every little boy who thinks girls are gross and icky is more right than any man might ever expect.

  And maybe the handfasted squidwolf of the Author and his wife, maybe that's not the real monster here.

  The Club-Footed Janitor brought up his good right arm, the solid sanity of his gun, and coolly breathed in, relaxed, aimed, took up the slack of the trigger and squeezed, squeezed, squeezed, squeezed, squeezed, squeezed.

  But what hope had those little lead bullets, each no bigger than a toddlers’ severed toe? What could those tiny full-metal jackets do to love's twin hearts? A thousand waters cannot drown love, nor fires destroy love. If a man were to offer all of the riches of his house for love, he would be utterly scorned. A dollop of lead? A mushrooming of metal? The pathetic crack of air collapsing back into its vortex? What hope had it against the awful abomination that tore out of that night set to nsolved its only problem?

  There was never any hope for the brother, and the final mercy of his life was that, seeing this, and being who and what he was, the Club-Footed Janitor was able to slam every door to every room in his labyrinthine mind and walk away before the beast had even brought to bear the most glancing blow of the least of their razored tentacles, and long before their fangs sank mortally deep, before they shook their sleek head in a spine-snapping nicker, before the feeding began in earnest.

  But, even with all of that, even with the body little more than a vacant lot just going fallow, it was far from a clean kill, and the Author and his wife—the feculent wax monster that tore—felt obliged to press the brother's face in the mud and hold it long, to tear at his corpse until it was far beyond utterly unmade: to be sure. And then to feed.

  * * * *

  The next day the Famous and Talented Horror Author awoke next to his soft, sleep-sighing wife, their sheets mud draggled and the warm blood still tacky on their body, and for the first instant in his life he was truly alive to what love is.

  This is a love story, he decided. That made all the difference.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Things That Make One's Heart Beat Faster

  (after Sei Shonagon)

  Katharine Beutner

  The glory of running down a snowy hill. To see a distant face float closer and resolve into a shape one knows and loves. To tread on a dead mouse's tail in a dark hallway (this will also make one curse the cat). To hear fright flatten another's voice. The delivery of a letter one has been awaiting, and the uneven way the flap of the white envelope tears when one's fingers shake. To drop a knife when one is barefoot—and catch its handle. The bray of the telephone in the room where one's sick father has just fallen asleep. To put one's hand to one's throat and find that a necklace clasp has silently come undone.

  To hear one's name called, unexpectedly, from behind.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  The Bride

  Kara Kellar Bell

  "How much do you love me?” It was the question she always asked.

  It's not her fault, he told himself as she stood at the end of the bed swathed in white. Bloody parents. Not that he knew anything about her family. The subject was off limits, taboo. He had drawn his own conclusions.

  "How much?” Neve had see-through curtains wrapped around her naked body. Her face was veiled too. Plucking fresh flowers from the vase, she walked slowly towards him. “How much?” Her tone was less playful this time.

  He caught hold of her hand and the flowers fell to the floor as he pulled her to the bed. “This much."

  * * * *

  There was no sound except for the clicking of teacups on saucers. When his father gulped down a mouthful, his mother shot a look across before turning to Neve.

  "Church of Scotland is it?"

  "I beg your pardon?” Neve had been toying with a slice of Victoria sponge.

  "You. Church of Scotland. Only, I asked the minister to call seeing as you're here. That's all right, isn't it?"

  "Well, as a matter of fact...” Neve began.

  "Mother,” he interrupted hastily, “we were thinking of something less formal."

  "Less formal?” She fixed her gaze on him. “Well, you can have it as formal or informal as you like. As long as it's done right,” she said firmly. “In church. Here. In the village."

  * * * *

  Neve was silent as they took some air in the back garden. His father waved to them from the kitchen window.

  "What difference does it make where we get married?"

  "I don't want to marry in a church. I don't want all these people around.” She turned away, looking towards the hill that rose up behind the church.

  "Look, I'm her only child. You can't blame her for wantin
g to do things properly."

  She sighed then turned, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. She had a way of doing it that made his knees shake, something in the way she moved her tongue. He shoved her away when he realised his parents were watching. Neve sprawled in the dirt. She looked up at him in disbelief.

  "They were watching,” he explained. “Oh, hell, give me your hand."

  Her long skirt clung to her in damp, muddy patches. He wondered how he could make it up to her.

  "I can't imagine your mother having sex,” Neve said, as the woman came up behind them. “Much less fucking."

  * * * *

  He must have broken the speed limit all the way home. He seethed, jerking viciously on the gear stick every chance he got. Neve sat next to him, fast asleep, her face as peaceful and unlined as a child's. She'd been on her best behaviour after the minister's arrival.

  "I suppose your own mother will want to be in on the arrangements,” the minister, an elderly man, had said jovially. “Her daughter's big day, and everything."

  "My parents won't be attending,” Neve said quietly.

  "Oh dear, I'm sorry to hear that,” the minister blustered. “So, have you thought about where you're going on your honeymoon?"

  "The Western Isles."

  "Most young folk seem dead set on going abroad."

  "I prefer Scotland,” Neve said.

  "How did you meet, if I may ask?"

  "At a life class,” Neve said.

  "Still life was it?” his mother asked. “He used to do pictures of fruit and flowers when he was a boy."

  "Nudes."

  "Nudes?"

  "I was nude. He was clothed, obviously.” Neve bit into her Digestive biscuit.

  That first time at the life class, she had walked in wearing a long green coat, shaking her umbrella before going into a side room to change. When she reappeared, she wore a dressing gown. She looked bored, accepted a mug of coffee from the female tutor, listened to the woman's chatter before everyone was settled, and then she stripped off and took up the pose indicated to her. Not once during that session or the next did she so much as glance his way.