Fantasy Scroll Magazine Issue #3

by Iulian Ionescu

  Nyata sighed and pulled on one of his plaits with a sardonic grin. Ralo snatched it away. All these years and her pulls still hurt. How could someone so skinny generate such power?

  "No one likes a pitiful man," Nyata lectured. Her grin became a smile. "I know you worry about your new role. You'll figure it out. You just have to contribute to the community. Like me with braiding." She brightened. "You should mention the prison idea at the council."

  "I… maybe…" he stuttered. Enemies had attacked. Helplessness ate at him like maggots on a corpse.

  "Brother, you're our Fire. If you burn weakly, how will we see in the darkness?"

  As they strolled toward the braiding hut, passers-by whispered behind their hands and scowled. Hunters pointed spears and glares at them. An old man spat in their direction. Ralo bit his lip and suppressed the anger.

  "Not everyone's happy there's a First Fire," Ralo whispered.

  Nyata nodded. "So few can use ma'at. And many hold to the old beliefs that ma'at is evil. But—"

  The old spitting man moved to enter his hut but slipped while sidestepping chickens that roamed his path. Before the man's body reached the grass, Ralo focused, eyes closed, fists clenched and body straining. Ma'at was unseeable, yet everywhere, like air. With great concentration Ralo's mind could feel and touch the invisible power around him. With care he pushed a small amount of power toward the man, who was caught mid-air then placed on his feet. The man stared, then ran inside and slammed his hut's wooden door. Witnesses pointed in wonder.

  Nyata clasped Ralo's shoulder. "Well done, First Fire."

  She kissed his cheek. Warmness spread in his chest. Despite her teasing, Nyata was the girl who raised him after their parents died. No foreboding or confusion could overpower his love for her.

  His sweaty legs folded beneath him on the dense straw floor. Ralo listened from behind the row of Mains as the hunter spoke, though he had trouble focusing through his nervousness. The council terrified him, and the hunter, who was the same age as Ralo, gazed down at Ralo like he was a dog allowed to dine with people.

  "Fortunately, I and a few other hunters were with Merchant Dakiembe's caravan when the slavers ambushed it," the hunter continued. Scars criss-crossed his bare chest and arms. "They circled us, but we overpowered them."

  Main Jye reached for his bowl of shea tea. It filled his hut with a wet flower fragrance. His spotted, wrinkled hands shook as they lifted the bowl. "This is the third time they've attacked us," he noted between sips.

  The other two Mains nodded at their elder's words.

  Main Jye asked, "These slavers, we know where their base is?"

  The hunter bowed to acknowledge his elder. "Yes, Main Jye. They move constantly, but our trackers can find them if given a few days."

  The youngest Main, a man with grey locked hair, spoke. "They will see our food and people stolen until we are weak enough to be broken, then attack our village."

  The hunter bowed. The other two Mains nodded. Fear and coldness gripped Ralo, as if he'd been dipped into the Filindi River at night.

  Main Jye crossed his arms. "Then we must go to war, or become slaves."

  The hunter bowed again. "Understood, Main Jye. I will not see my village enslaved."

  Ralo imagined Nyata in chains. Imagined the skinny girl who raised him enslaved for work and sex by foreigners like the prisoners. His coldness disappeared.

  He decided how to be First Fire.

  "I'll go with the hunting party," he announced.

  They stared at him.

  Then the hunter guffawed. "The plant lover fighting with hunters? How?"

  Ralo tried to ignore the insult. "I have power. Ma'at orderers are rare. They'll never expect warriors and an orderer."

  The hunter laughed, pointing at him as he would a dog trying to walk on its hind legs.

  Ralo concentrated, straining to feel the ma'at around him. Unlike with the old man, this time he pushed hard. Ralo screamed. The hunter crashed against the wall, then fell unconscious onto the floor.

  The Mains sat in shock as the room shuddered.

  "I can help," Ralo pleaded to Main Jye between gasps. "You gave me this title. Let me help my people."

  Main Jye glared at Ralo over his tea bowl. He sipped, then nodded.

  Grateful for his newfound clarity, Ralo bowed. The fire inside him comforted his terror at the days ahead.

  © 2014 by Alexander Monteagudo

  * * *

  When not working out, playing video games, or missing Honolulu, Alexander Monteagudo can usually be found at the Baltimore Science Fiction Society.

  Missing Tessa

  Anna Yeatts

  Behind the local anchorwoman, Tessa's snapshot hung suspended in the corner of the screen.

  "Day two of search for missing woman," the ticker tape read.

  I switched off the set. I palmed my face and scrubbed the two day old stubble along my jaw.

  Curled on Tessa's side of the bed, I racked my brain as to where she might be, who she might be with.

  If she was even alive.

  I held the pillow against my mouth, trying to smell Tessa on it. But she was already fading.

  Something scratched in the far corner.

  My neck tightened. I strained to hear in the dark. The scratching continued.

  A mouse. Maybe a rat.

  "Hey." I sat up, flung a crumpled beer can. "Scat."

  The scratching stopped. I laughed. Tommy Sutherland, Rodent Intimidator.

  Loser , I imagined Tessa saying, grinning all the while.

  Maybe she up and left me. Police thought I did her in. Calling me a "person of interest."

  I slumped back and flattened the pillow over my head.

  The scratching started again. Rustled, more like something trying to squeeze through a space it didn't fit.

  "Damn it." I sat up and climbed out of bed. The pine boards were cold against my bare feet.

  Wood groaned. The lamp pull slipped between my fingers.

  "Who's there?"

  From across the room, wood broke with dry snap.

  A shape crouched in the corner. My heart knocked into my chest.

  "Tessa?" I asked.

  It hissed.

  My fingers caught the lamp pull and I yanked. The light clicked on, bathing the bedroom in soft yellow light.

  The room was empty. Tessa's knickknacks made scarecrow shadows on the walls.

  I checked the baseboards. No knot holes or broken boards.

  Beer washed away my lingering paranoia. I passed out on top of Tessa's missing person posters, sleep coming for me as quick and hard as a fastball.

  I dreamt of Tessa.

  She climbed out of the baseboards, cracking the corner boards apart with her nails like a squirrel opening a nut. I wasn't scared. This was Tessa with her turned up nose and freckled cheeks.

  She crawled to the bed with her leaf scented hair over her face. Naked as a jaybird, every curve as perfect as I remembered. Tessa climbed atop me and straddled my hips. I reached to touch her, but she pushed my hands away.

  Tessa grabbed the flesh of her chest with both hands. A gash opened over her breastbone. She dug her fingers into the raw, red space. The skin made a soft, sucking sound as it peeled away from her exposed flesh.

  I opened my mouth, but Tessa pressed her sticky finger to my lips. I shook. Tessa worked her right arm free of the rubbery skin, shedding it, the muscles and sinews glistening.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself out of the dream. Her lips touched mine and I shuddered at the smell of cadaverous rot.

  With a jolt, my lungs spasmed. The air in my chest was sucked out as forcefully as if I'd been kicked in the gut. I struggled to breathe, but her lips never left mine. My breath spun out… and out… and out…

  I woke at half past three in the afternoon, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. My lungs burned. I struggled upright, half falling when I tried to stand. Every joint in my body ached until I wondered if I'd aged
overnight like old Rip Van Winkle.

  A trail of translucent white flakes led away from the bedside. Crouching, I poked the flakes with my fingernail. They peeled up easily from the worn floorboards, reminding me of slime trails left behind by garden slugs. I rubbed my fingers together, held them to my nose, and sniffed.

  My stomach lurched with the smell of rot.

  My lips felt numb. I could almost feel the sticky wetness of Tessa's mouth sealed against mine.

  I stumbled from the bedroom, and grabbed my wallet and keys from the kitchen countertop, hands shaking. I could barely unlatch the security chain on the apartment door. The chain popped loose, and I swung the door open.

  The creature had taken Tessa, my Tessa, through its door.

  I stared into the empty hallway and my rational world crumbled.

  A sick pit opened in my reality.

  I stepped back inside, closed the apartment door and locked it, because the door to find Tessa wasn't going to open with a key.

  I'd inherited a crowbar when my old man died. It was buried in the hall closet beneath a pile of coats, so I dug it out.

  I wedged the iron crowbar beneath the baseboard. Throwing my weight behind it, I popped the corner board loose. The crowbar splintered through the floorboards at the corner's base. Shards pelted my face and eyes. The last layer of floorboard, big enough for the creature to have climbed through, broke free in a gust of stale air.

  I stared down into a deep tunnel dug out of the red clay. Grooves marked the edges. It seemed to have been scooped out with bare fingers.

  I squatted. Clicked on my flashlight and shone it as far as it'd go. The tunnel dropped about six feet then curved off to the left, away from the apartment building's main foundation.

  "Tessa?" I whispered.

  I swear the tunnel sucked up my voice the same way her lips had sucked my breath.

  I tried again, louder. "Tessa?"

  Nothing.

  "Crap." I swung my feet into the hole, and before I could lose my nerve, I dropped.

  I hollered as I fell, landing in a crouch. The tunnel was barely wide enough for my shoulders. The damp clay smelled of earthworms and taproots and upturned stumps, all the things I used to love. Now they made my guts churn.

  Wriggling onto my belly, I shoved the flashlight in front, and crawled on my elbows into the tunnel. The best I could tell, it extended fifteen feet or so more to the left, slanting downward before curving out of sight.

  The tunnel narrowed; I shimmied my way through. My hips dragged, legs wedged together so tight I had to push on my toes in spots.

  I don't know how long I crawled. By the fourth or fifth switchback, the flashlight started to flicker so I switched it off and slid it in my jeans to save the battery. The tunnel got colder the deeper I went, the clay tighter packed, broken up by flat chunks of rock that scraped the skin off my arms and shredded my jeans.

  The quiet plink-plink of water droplets made me pause. A breath of warm air stirred against my cheek.

  "Tessa?" My whisper rasped against the darkness.

  A rustle came from ahead as if some nocturnal creature had shaken itself awake.

  I dug at my waistband to pull the flashlight free. My hand closed around the aluminum grip and I slid it up my back.

  I imagined the creature slithering toward me, obscene limbs dragging behind it. My pulse spiked in my ears. I jabbed the flashlight forward, snapped it on.

  A mewling creature squirmed away from the cone of yellow light. Skinless arms wrapped over its scalped head. Its legs curled, fetus-like into its sinewy belly, muscles coated in grime.

  I gagged.

  It cowered, pressing itself deeper into the tunnel wall.

  My jaw shook.

  "What…" I started.

  The creature lifted its head, and my words choked in my throat.

  Some flash of recognition passed over its face. It lunged for me. Both skinless arms reached out. I tried to crawl backward. It slithered forward on its belly. Its fingers groped at my face, touching my eyes, prodding my mouth.

  My yells echoed off the walls and drowned out all thought but to knock the creature away.

  "Tommy." It seized my face between muscled fingers.

  I slapped its hands away.

  "It's me." Its fingers wrapped in my hair, made me look in its eyes.

  Eyes I knew.

  I stared at the ghoul gripping me.

  I shook my head, squeezed my eyes tight, the raw meat stench festered in my nose.

  "Lost," it said.

  The air left my lungs in a rush. I opened my eyes, but I could hardly look. "Tessa?"

  "I hurt." Her voice was weak. "Stole my skin."

  "What did?" I couldn't wrap my brain around it. No one stole human skins. "You need a hospital." I wriggled back the way I'd come and motioned for her to follow.

  Tessa curled her legs into her chest, the yellow line of her shins showing between the strips of muscle. "The hag's wearing my skin."

  "That's crazy talk."

  "Look."

  Tessa was a monstrosity. A horror. Skinless. By all rights she should have been dead.

  "Go," Tessa said.

  I shook my head. "You're having some kind of delusion."

  A hiss echoed from further down the tunnel.

  "She rode you. Stole your breath," Tessa whispered.

  "The creature in the night, the one I thought was you, who I…" My spine locked tight.

  "Hide," Tessa said.

  I turned off the flashlight and gripped it two-handed. "I'm not leaving you alone with it."

  The scuttling grew louder. I remembered the creature in Tessa's skin crawling toward my bedside, long hair swishing back and forth. I imagined it now, brown hair sweeping the tunnel's floor, spine arched against the clay ceiling, swollen with my breath.

  The hag clucked to herself as she drew near, nattering in a sing song voice that sent ice down my spine. She stank of rain-slicked rot and the three day dead.

  The hag stopped. "I smell man."

  I held my breath, lungs burning.

  "It's me," my Tessa said.

  "Lie." The hag crawled closer.

  I waited, flashlight clutched tight.

  The hag grew still. "Two hearts," she said at last.

  Her breath brushed my face, hot and foul. "There's the man."

  I flipped on the flashlight. The beam blazed into the hag's watery eyes. She howled and flung her arms around Tessa's stolen face.

  I cracked the flashlight into her forehead. The hag screeched. Tessa squirmed herself around the hag's waist and pinned her down. I smashed the flashlight above the hag's ear and she crumpled.

  Tessa and I half lay, half sat in the cramped tunnel, panting. My flashlight was still raised to strike. A clump of long brown hair hung from the its glass cover.

  Tessa reached out a knobby finger and twisted the hair.

  I wrapped my hand around hers, the tendons thick and strong as piano wire.

  "Can we put your skin back?" I asked.

  Tessa smiled weakly.

  I shone the light on the hag who sprawled in Tessa's skin. Blotches were already forming around the head and neck. I winced.

  Tessa didn't hesitate.

  "Here." She pointed to a faint pink line running vertically down the hag's breastbone.

  Tessa dug her fingers into her stolen skin. It peeled back with the same grisly sucking sound. She yanked and tugged. Together we rolled the hag over and peeled the skin completely off.

  Tessa shook her skin out gently. Her abandoned arms and legs swayed in the flashlight's beam. Tessa was exhausted. I could see it in her eyes.

  I smiled as she unrolled the creamy flesh of her calf and began slowly putting herself to rights.

  I didn't flinch when I touched her skinless arm. "I love you."

  "You better," she said.

  © 2014 by Anna Yeatts

  * * *

  Anna Yeatts is a dark fantasy and horror writer living in P
inehurst, NC. Her short fiction has appeared in Suddenly Lost in Words, Mslexia, and Spark: A Creative Anthology, among others. Anna is the publisher of Flash Fiction Online (flashfictiononline.com). Follow her at annayeatts.com or on Twitter @AnnaYeatts.

  The Perfect Book

  Alex Shvartsman

  Benjamin Bengfort was a much better scientist than he was a writer. He was the world's foremost authority on artificial intelligence with an alphabet soup of degrees listed by his name, a corner office, and tenure. He was the big fish in the small, stale pond of academia. By all rights he should've been happy, reaping the rewards of his success. But every time I ran into him at the faculty cafeteria, the man was miserable.

  "Hello, Jacquelyn." He perked up a little when he saw me approach. "How's life in the English department?"

  "Oh, the usual. You haven't lived until you've tried to make a gaggle of bored freshmen appreciate Longfellow."

  Benjamin nodded.

  Here was a man who could write a scientific paper in his sleep and have the editors of Nature and Science fight it out in a mud-wrestling cage match for a chance to publish it. But all he wanted was to write fiction. He was always eager to chat up anyone with an MFA, as if he could somehow absorb their creative writing skills by osmosis.

  He was a pleasant enough guy, so I didn't mind hanging out with him at lunch—so long as I could dodge reading another one of his manuscripts.

  Benjamin sighed, stirring the contents of his bowl with a plastic spoon.

  "Another rejection?" I didn't really have to ask, but I'm a glutton for punishment. Not in Benjamin's league, of course, but still.

  "They bounced 'No Quarter' without so much as a personal comment," he said.

  I racked my brain. "Is that the epic fantasy retelling the War of the Ring story from the point of view of the Ents?"

  "No. I sent that one to Colossal Fiction just the other week. 'No Quarter' is an existential literary prose poem about the narrator's inability to pay at a parking meter. Would you like me to print you out a copy?"