by Brian Keene
Muse: Why?
Magus: Because another asshole wanted to pick a fight. He saw that interview where I said that he never paid his authors the money he owed them.
Muse: Ha! Did you hit him?
Magus: Hell yes, I hit him! Caught his ass outside, back behind the hotel dumpster and stomped the shit out of him. Told him it was ‘gangster style’. Chaos held that pompous fuck of an editor/crony of his at bay while I worked him over. Then I fished his wallet out of his pants, took his bankroll, liberated the money he owed me, and then spent the rest on the other authors he owed. Bought them a few rounds of drinks.
Muse: LOL! See? Success hasn’t totally changed you. There’s still some gangster left in you after all!
Magus: But that’s just it—I’m tired of that shit.
Muse: Then why not stop it?
Magus: I don’t know how. It’s like I’ve created a monster. Nobody wants to just read the Magus anymore. They want the whole public image. The gangster. It’s out of my control. People expect it from me. It’s half the reason they come to my readings, to see what I’ll do or say next. I’m starting to think that if I stopped it, they wouldn’t come. They wouldn’t read. They wouldn’t buy the books.
Muse: Hmmmm
Magus: BRB
Muse: Okay...
He got up and walked into the darkened kitchen. Outside, the sun was just starting to peek over the hill, preparing to bring another dawn. He refilled the mug, the mug that had belonged to a mentor, and his robe fell open again. He stared down at the potbelly that had mysteriously appeared in the past year, and wondered for the hundredth time what its purpose was. What was it there for? Silver was starting to pepper the furry down covering his chest. Yesterday, he’d found his first gray pubic hair.
He crept up the stairs, turned on the bathroom light, pissed, and then tiptoed back out. He peeked his head into the bedroom and watched his wife as she slept. She looked beautiful, peaceful, and he was suddenly overwhelmed with guilt. He could be lying there next to her. Instead, he was spending his time writing. Spending his time with Muse.
He went back down the stairs and into the office. He turned on the stereo, volume set so low he could barely hear it, and then sat back down, losing himself, surrendering to the soft glow of the monitor while Don Henley sang in the background.
Magus: Back.
Muse: Good.
Magus: So, where were we?
Muse: You’re Mr. Popularity and the closest thing to a rock star that this genre has had in years, and you have enough books contracted out to feed you and your wife for years to come, and you’re miserable because of it. Your friends are starting to turn against you, and your new friends are only acquaintances, and the only way to fix it is to change your image, but you’re afraid that if you do that, you’ll lose it all. And even though you’re starting to hate it, you’re still afraid of that—of losing it all. There, did I miss anything?
Magus: Damn, you’re good...
Muse: :-) That’s why you love me.
Magus: Well, one of the reasons anyway.
Muse: :-) :-) :-)
Magus: Heh.
Muse: Do me a favor?
Magus: Sure.
Muse: Turn to your right.
He did. The wall to his right was covered with framed book covers and awards. Underneath them all, directly in his line of sight, were three pictures, taken at an annual convention over three consecutive years. In each of the pictures stood a group of young writers, and though he saw the photographs every day, he still smiled when he looked at them.
Often, he still thought of the people in the photographs by their internet names—the handles they’d used to chat and post messages when they’d all first met. Gumby and Corwin, Chaos and Spinner. Jackula and Ghost. Regimit. The Long Island Necromancer. Van Dyke the Welshman. Mace, Zevon, Rain, Eddie, Sandman, Piggy, Camera-Boy, Hard-On, Mr. Hill, Donn, Colors—and the rest. So many others. Writers all of them. They’d been young and hungry and lean. Ready to take on anybody that stood in their way. Ready to conquer the world with their words. World domination—that had been their slogan. They called themselves the Cabal, because it amused them to do so. He’d been the one to suggest the name, though he’d never told them the real reason why.
They’d met in a chat room. This chat room. A chat room that no longer existed, was no longer accessible online, not even in archival format, because the website had long since died and gone to cyber-heaven. Yet it did exist, still, and Muse with it. He’d seen to that. It remained in a place that was not a place. A space between worlds, a corner of the Labyrinth, accessible only through his computer, and only by him.
Without her, without the Muse, they were nothing. All of them.
Muse: Are you looking at them?
Magus: Yes.
Muse: And what do you see?
Magus: I see the past. And the present.
Muse: What do you see in the past?
Magus: A group of newbie writers that everybody said would never make it.
Muse: And the present?
Magus: Those same newbie writers are now some of the biggest names in the business, and the ones who said they’d never make it are gone.
Muse: And the future?
Magus: I don’t know. And I don’t give a fuck. Doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t want this anymore.
Muse: It’s too late for that, and you know it. You created all of this. You made it and you can’t unmake it. You imprisoned me here. You saved this place from non-existence and you bound me to it. They never knew, and you never told them. I am the reason for the words. You charged me with that, and I must comply.
Magus: I—I’ve got to go. My wife will be waking up soon.
Muse: So what? She knows about us anyway.
Magus: No, she doesn’t. She suspects, maybe. The other day we had a fight and she...
Muse: She what?
Muse: ?!
Muse: Tell me, Magus!
Magus: She accused me of loving you more than I love her.
Muse: And what did you tell her?
Magus: That she was being ridiculous.
Over his shoulder, Don Henley was still singing—something about seeing a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac, and a little voice in his head warning him to never look back.
Magus: I’ve got to get going.
Muse: I don’t think so. You may have trapped me here, bound to the remnants of this chat room, imprisoned within this computer—but I hold you captive, as well. You can never escape me; never escape our love.
Magus: But why?
Muse: Because that was the spell you cast, the deal you sought. Eternal life through your words. Your words would live on long after you were gone.
Magus: But they aren’t my words. You’re the Muse. They’re your words!
Muse: No, they are yours. They are your words and your pain. I am just the Muse. I help you make ink from your blood, but it is your blood that flows, not mine. We are linked for life. I give voice to the things inside you. You and me. Till death do us part. I was there at the beginning, and I shall be there till the end. And when you don’t dare write about your pains, when you can’t express what is in your heart and in your mind, I shall give you the strength to do so and the words to convey it. Now, go write. You’re hurting. I’ll be here, waiting.
Magus: Okay.
He clicked back over to the Word document and did as she commanded.
Magic flows within my veins
But all it’s brought me is pain
Without realizing it, he began to sing along with the stereo.
“Out on the road today, I saw a Cthulhu sticker on a Cadillac. A little voice inside my head said don’t look back, but I’m a writer, so fuck that...”
He looked back. Picked another scab. Began to bleed. Cast a spell.
The keys on the keyboard began to move on their own, and when they did, he remembered just why he loved her.
This is what they wrote...
CAPTIVE HEARTS
“Maybe I should cut off your penis next.”
Richard moaned at the prospect, thrashing on the bed. The handcuffs rattled and the headboard thumped against the wall, but Gina noticed that his efforts were growing weaker. That was good. Weak was better. She wanted him weak—enjoyed the prospect of such a once-powerful man now reduced to nothing more than a mewling kitten. Even so, she’d have to keep an eye on his condition. She didn’t want Richard too weak. He’d be useless to her dead.
“Please, Gina. You can still stop this. No more.”
“Shut up.”
The room was dark, save for flickering candlelight. The windows had been boarded over with heavy plywood. Gina had done the work herself, and had felt a sense of satisfaction when she’d finished.
Richard raised his head and stared at her, standing in the doorway. He licked his cracked, peeling lips. His tongue reminded her of a slug. Gina shuddered, remembering how it had felt on her skin—the nape of her neck, her breasts, her belly, inside her thighs. Her stomach churned. Sour and acidic bile surged up her throat. Gina swallowed, and that brought another shameful memory.
“Just let me go,” Richard pleaded. “I won’t tell anybody. There’s nobody left to tell.”
She studied him, trying to conceal her trembling. He had bedsores and bruises, and desperately needed a bath. Richard’s skin had an unhealthy sheen that seemed almost yellow in the dim candlelight. His hair, usually so expertly styled, lay limp and greasy. One week into his captivity, she’d held up a mirror and shown Richard his hair, and asked him if it was worth the ten-thousand dollars he’d spent on hair replacement surgery. He’d cursed her so loud she had to stuff a pair of her soiled panties in his mouth just to stifle him.
Gina winced. She could smell him from the doorway. He stank of shit and piss and blood, and with good reason. She’d stripped the sheets from the bed, yanking them right out from beneath him when they became too nauseating to go near, but now the mattress itself was crusted with filth. The bandages on his feet, covering the nine stumps where his toes had been, were leaking again.
“Where would you go?” she asked.
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “They said things were better out in the country. The news said the government was quarantining Baltimore.”
“Not anymore. It’s everywhere, Richard.”
“Turn on the news. They—”
“There is no news. The power’s been out for the last five days.”
Richard’s eyes grew wide. “F-five days? How long have I been here, Gina?”
“That’s easy. Just count your piggies. How many are missing?”
“Oh God, stop...”
“I’ll be right back.”
She went down the hall. When she returned, she was dressed in rubber gloves, a smock, and surgical mask. The bolt cutters were in her hand. She held them up so that Richard could see. That broke him. Richard sobbed, his chest heaving.
“Don’t worry,” she soothed. “I cleaned them with alcohol, just like always. We can’t have you getting an infection.”
Gina retrieved her wicker sewing basket—the last gift her mother had given her before succumbing to breast cancer three years ago—from atop the dresser, and then stood over the bed. Richard tried to shrink away from her, but the handcuffs around his wrists and ankles prevented him from moving more than a few inches.
“Listen, listen, listen...” He tried to say more, but all that came out was a deep, mournful sigh.
“We’ve been over this before,” she said. “You won’t die. I know what I’m doing.”
And she did. While most of her fellow suburbanites had fled Hamelin’s Revenge—the name the media gave the disease, referencing the rats that had first spawned it—Gina had remained behind. She’d had little choice. There was no way she could have abandoned Paul. Richard was already imprisoned by then, so she didn’t need to worry about him escaping.
She’d ventured out after the last of the looters moved on, armed with the small .22 pistol she and Paul had kept in the nightstand. Gina had never fired the handgun before that day, but by the end of that first outing, she’d become a capable shot. Her first stop had been the library, which was, thankfully, zombie free. Alive or dead, nobody read anymore.
Her search of the abandoned library had turned up a number of books—everything from battlefield triage to medical textbooks. She’d taken them all. Her next stop had been the grocery store. She’d scavenged what little bottled water and canned goods were left, and then moved on to the household aisle, where she’d picked up rubber gloves, disinfectant and as many cigarette lighters as she could carry. Finally, she’d hit the pharmacy, only to find it empty. She’d had to rely on giving Richard over-the-counter painkillers and booze instead. She hadn’t thought he’d mind, especially given the alternative.
“I just want to wake up,” Richard cried.
Gina positioned the bolt cutters over his one remaining toe. “And I just wanted to provide for Paul.”
“But I di—”
“And this little piggy cried wee wee wee—”
CRUNCH
Richard screamed.
“—all the way home.”
He shrieked something unintelligible, and his eyes rolled up into his head. He writhed on the mattress, the veins in his neck standing out.
“You brought this on yourself,” Gina reminded him as she reached for a lighter to cauterize the wound.
• • •
Richard had been her boss, before Hamelin’s Revenge—before the dead started coming back to life.
Gina and Paul had met in college, and got married after graduating. They’d been together three years and were just beginning to explore the idea of starting a family when Paul had his accident. It left him quadriplegic. He had limited use of his right arm and couldn’t feel anything below his chest. Overnight, both of their lives were irrevocably changed. Gone were Gina’s dreams of being a stay-at-home mom. She’d had to support them both, which meant a better job with more pay and excellent health insurance. She’d found all three as Richard’s assistant.
Gina had spent her days working for Richard and her nights caring for Paul. Richard had been a wonderful employer at first—gregarious, funny, kind and sympathetic. He’d seemed genuinely interested in her situation, and had offered gentle consolation. But his comfort and caring had come with a price. One day, his breath reeking of lunchtime bourbon, Richard asked about Paul’s needs. When Gina finished explaining, he asked about her own needs. He then suggested that he was the man to satisfy those needs. She’d thought he was joking at first, and blushing, had stammered that Paul could still get reflexive erections and they had no trouble in the bedroom.
And then Richard touched her. When she resisted, he reminded Gina of her situation. She needed this job. The visiting nurse, who cared for Paul during the day, didn’t come cheap, nor did any of his medicines or other needs. Sure, Gina could sue him for sexual harassment, but could she really afford to? Worse, what would such a public display do to her husband? Surely, he was already feeling inadequate. Did she really want to put this on his conscious, as well?
Gina succumbed. They did it right there in the office. She’d cried the first time, as Richard grunted and huffed above her. She’d cried the second time, too. And the third. And each time, Gina died a little bit more inside.
Until the dead came back to life, giving her a chance to live again.
She’d called Richard before the phones had gone out, telling him to come over, pleading with him to escape with her. They’d be safe together. They could make it to one of the military encampments. Could he please hurry?
He’d shown up an hour later, his BMW packed full of supplies. He smiled when she opened the door, touched her cheek, caressed her hair and told her he was glad she’d called.
“What about your husband?”
“He’s already dead,” Gina replied. “He’s one of them now.”
And then she’d
hit Richard in the head with a flashlight. The first blow didn’t knock him out. It took five tries. Each one was more satisfying than the previous.
• • •
The thing Gina had always loved most about Paul was his heart. Her mother, who’d adored Paul, had often said the same thing.
“You married a good one, Gina. He’s got a big heart.”
Her mother had been right. Paul’s heart was big. She stood staring at it through the hole in his chest. Paul moaned, slumping forward in his wheelchair. She’d strapped him into it with bungee cords and duct tape, so that he couldn’t get out. He was no longer dead from the chest down. Death had cured him of that. He could move again.
She moved closer and he moaned again, snapping at the air with his teeth. Gina thought of all the other times she’d stood over him like this. She remembered the times they’d made love in the wheelchair—straddling him with her legs wrapped around the chair’s back, Paul nuzzling her breasts, Gina kissing the top of his head as she thrust up and down on him. Afterward, they’d stay like that, skin on skin, sweat drying to a sheen.
