Arcane II

by Nathan Shumate (Editor)

  “Oh my, oh dear, oh my,” Servia clucks, her eyes glinting red in the dark. “We really do need to have a heart-to-heart talk with dear Madelyn.”

  “We just had one!” Spark grouses. “Something tells me it didn’t sink in, though.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” I opine. “Seems to me it sank just fine.”

  “Hmph!” Servia huffs. “Well, if it didn’t, then something will just have to be done, that’s all. And by the by, just what precisely is a ‘new gig?’” She pronounces the last two words as though she were trying to spit out an unsavory mouthful of food.

  “Ah, Servia.” I shake my head at her in mock scolding. “I realize that it might require wearing clothes, but you really must get out more, you know, as Spark and I have done, and soak up a bit of the local color—not to mention parlance.”

  She snorted. “And learn to speak as our dear benighted Madelyn does? No, thank you. I don’t wish to ‘get out more.’ And I don’t want to move again. I like it here!”

  Servia seems to need rather frequent reminding of just where our priorities lie.

  “Now, now,” I admonish. “The locale scarcely matters, my dear. You know that. San Francisco is positively brimming with century-old houses replete with lovely dank cellars underneath them. So are most cities in the world, for all of that. What does it matter which one we’re in, so long as it’s dark and the food supply is there? Dark and food. Food and dark. All we’ve ever really needed. So long as those are constant, we’re fulfilled.”

  “That’s true enough,” Spark agrees. “But for that to happen, little Madelyn will have to remain constant, too. It’s an odd thing, though. Have you noticed that constancy and whores seldom seem to work well together?”

  I sneer at his sarcasm. “She’ll come around,” I insist. “You’ll see. I can be very persuasive.” My compatriots both look decidedly unconvinced, so I am compelled to add with a savage certainty, “Madelyn will not walk out on us!” I leave the rest of my thought unspoken: Not—and live.

  “Well,” Servia drawls, and with a lazy stretch she re-forms her nude human figure back into its rat shape. “We’ll know before too much longer, then, won’t we?”

  And true enough, we do. It isn’t even two full nights until Madelyn ushers another inebriated meal down the basement stairs. First late and now early. Well, the timing is a trifle odd, we admit, but we’ve never been three to turn down a tempting dinner invitation.

  Of course, as some wise mortal somewhere once said, there’s always a catch.

  One taste of him, and we know precisely what dear little Madelyn’s been up to. Not that it really matters. Her misguided intentions notwithstanding, we feast anyway and then gleefully harvest the john’s oh-so-ripe soul. Then, when we’re sprawled across the cellar floor snoozing it off, rat bellies bloated, ears and whiskers flexing in lazy, sated rhythms, Spark moans. It’s a long, guttural, rat-snorty sort of a moan, and he says, “Hell, Slash. You know how much I hate the taste of arsenic.”

  “She must have put rat poison in the john’s glass of booze, in order to taint his blood.” Servia hiccups loudly. “Not exactly subtle, is she?”

  “Mmrph,” I reply, not with my usual articulate aplomb. I am about to expound further when a sound from upstairs makes all our ears twitch up.

  “Just give me five minutes, okay?” Madelyn’s excited voice echoes from the entry hall overhead. “Believe me, babe, it won’t take me any longer than that to get all the stuff I need out of this stinking dump.”

  “No problem,” a male voice responds. “Take your time, girl. We got all night.”

  A great deal of thumping and banging ensues, undoubtedly Madelyn gathering together her few earthly treasures.

  “So much for the agreement, and for those much-vaunted powers of persuasion you’re so proud of,” Servia grumps. “The bitch is deserting us after all!”

  In a proverbial flash the three of us are nose-to-crack with the base of the cellar door. We can smell him out there, waiting in the hallway. Leather shoes, a crisp new suit, expensive aftershave lotion. Quite a fumacious find, this one. Madelyn’s highly-anticipated new “manager,” perhaps?

  “You’re gonna like it in my stable, Maddy,” he says, and now I’m sure he must be the “Sergei” she spoke of three days ago. “Good pay, better hours, a hell of a lot better neighborhood. There are plenty of johns up there with plenty of loose money, lemme tell ya. And best of all, no more of these twenty-dollar-trick gutter rats for clients. Hm-mm. Not for you, babe. No more rats at all.” At the crack below the door, three rat noses wrinkle in indignation at his choice of words. “From now on,” he says, “you are strictly uptown, babe. First class all the way.”

  “Grmph,” Spark mutters, being oh-so-articulate again. “Slash, have I told you lately that I’ve always liked the way these uptown ‘managers’ taste? Something about all that first-class living, I guess. Sweetens the blood.”

  “Now, let’s not be too hasty,” I caution, though I must admit that his proposition is more than a little tempting. “It occurs to me that this could just possibly lead to more than a tasty repast for the night.” My rat ears flutter in anticipation, and my eager companions crowd closer, their whiskers trembling.

  “What are you thinking?” Servia wants to know.

  “That this could mean a comfortable, new long-term arrangement for us—uptown. A new location. Some new blood. And since Madelyn seems so terribly anxious to leave us, perhaps a new host as well. I do rather like the stench of him. Don’t you?”

  “Mmmm.” Servia’s earlier objections to moving now appear to have evaporated altogether. “He said he has a stable. Does he really keep horses, here in the city?”

  Spark snickers at her with his huge front teeth. “Nah,” he grunts. “That means he keeps lots of whores. And lots of johns, too.”

  “Dozens,” I concur, imagining the ecstasy of a steady, inexhaustible food source. “What say we opt for a change of cellars, then?”

  Servia’s naked pink tail lashes twice back and forth. “Not much time,” she says. “They’ll be going soon. And we haven’t cleaned up after this night’s meal yet.”

  I smile at her; a rat’s smile is a wonderful thing to behold. “That will be dear Madelyn’s problem, won’t it?”

  “But she meant to kill us,” Spark points out. “Won’t she have plans to dispose of the meal herself if she thinks we won’t be here to do it?”

  “Perhaps,” I admit, though privately I doubt Madelyn possesses such foresight. “But before she can do that, a little black bird—or perhaps a mysterious stranger making an anonymous telephone call—may just whisper its location to the local gendarmes. Tsk. Poor Madelyn. Such a messy business to explain, a body in the basement of your former dwelling.”

  “Fine by me,” Spark finally agrees, and he sniffs again at Mr. Uptown still standing just beyond the door. “But I still want a taste of him. Just a nip. One for the ro-o-o-o-oad.”

  His last word fades to a faint squeal as his rat form begins to fold in upon itself. Tail, paws and whiskered snout shrivel into a tiny black speck with multiple legs, and this new form promptly scuttles under the door.

  Spark’s crab louse has always been exemplary.

  Servia’s spider—black widow, of course—is equally exquisite. She follows Spark just before I, re-shaped as a splendid brown cockroach, follow her in turn out into the hall.

  Spark is already mounting the pimp’s leather shoes, making his way up toward a tasty sample of our newfound host. Servia spies the pasteboard box into which Madelyn has tossed all her worldly possessions and hurries up the chair it rests upon to crawl aboard.

  I choose yet another transport: Madelyn’s silly little gold-sequined purse that hangs on a peg by the door. Its clasp never has closed tightly, and once I’ve scurried up the wall and across its metal rim, there’s plenty of space for me to squeeze through and drop inside. I fall into safe, welcome dark amid the lovely, oily odors of face powder, lipstick and
cheap perfume. The latter reeks from a wrinkled dime-store handkerchief with cheap lace edging. I crawl in between its smudgy white folds and settle in for a cozy ride.

  “Can’t say I’ll ever miss this old roach trap, for sure,” I hear Madelyn’s shrill voice announce, and my conveyance is suddenly pulled free of its peg, faux gold chain clattering. “It really does have roaches, you know. And rats. Really ugly rats.”

  “Never mind,” the new manager says dismissively. “From now on, babe, you won’t have to live with rats or roaches ever again.”

  “I wouldn’t bet my uptown rent on that if I were you,” I hiss. They can’t hear a cockroach voice, of course. Just as well.

  I settle in as the purse finds its customary place under Madelyn’s arm, the chain slung over her shoulder. I can feel her warmth through the thin rayon lining, hear her heartbeat, smell her blood.

  The box that is Servia’s transport rattles as it’s lifted from the chair. The front door opens, creaks shut, latches. And we’re on our way uptown to a new life.

  It will be a delicious life, too, filled with plenty of meals, a new host, and most important of all, comfort.

  I wriggle deeper into my perfume-stenching nest and twitch my roach’s antennae in delicious anticipation.

  We do love comfort.

  Once we arrive, though, we have to endure a lengthy wait until Sergei has finished giving Madelyn the tour, presumably introducing her to his “stable.” When at last she’s alone in her lovely new room, we happily crawl from our respective concealments, morph back into our favorite rat shapes, and form a handsome rodent trio on the satin-covered king-sized bed.

  She emerges from the bathroom with a huge white towel wrapped round her head, stops, stares and blinks at us. Her mouth hangs open.

  “Hello, Madelyn,” we chorus.

  “Nice digs,” I add.

  She shrieks, and the towel becomes an instant flailing weapon. But we’re far too quick for it to touch us. We scurry out of the room, chittering ratty laughter, and quickly make our way down to our own new “digs” in Sergei’s roomy, upscale cellar.

  We can still hear Madelyn upstairs, though.

  Screaming.

  In the Paint

  Michael Haynes

  The paint monster was awake when I went downstairs to play this morning. I tried to tell my sister Regan about it but she didn’t understand what I was saying. Little kids don’t know much. I’m six and go to school; I know a monster when I see one.

  I wish we didn’t live in this stupid house. Daddy got a job in San Diego, so we moved here. The house smells old like Grandma’s house back in Portland. The floor of my bedroom creaks. And there’s a monster in the paint.

  Several of my best pirates were all chewed up on the floor by where the paint monster lives. I think it must have tried to eat them. Daddy yelled at me for ruining my toys and I tried to tell him that it wasn’t me. He said that everyone was tired of hearing about the face I saw in the paint on the wall.

  Mommy and Daddy didn’t let me go out to the park with them and Regan because of the toys getting messed up. Nanny was here today, helping Mommy watch us kids so they gave her a little extra money and asked her to stay with me. She looked kind of mad. Nanny’s okay, even if she talks a little strange. Mommy says it’s just her accent; Daddy usually makes a funny noise when Mommy says that.

  I got bored watching cartoons, so Nanny said I should play in the toy room. I didn’t really want to, but I saw that the monster was asleep, so I went in. I started to get out the pirates that weren’t all chewed up so I could have them fight.

  I was getting ready for the big sea battle when I looked up and saw the monster’s eyes were open. I yelled and ran out into the hall. Nanny came to see what had happened. I told her the monster was awake.

  Nanny said she’d stop this for good. She came back into the room with some of that scratchy paper Daddy uses when he’s building something. Nanny started rubbing it on the walls by the paint monster’s face. I saw that the monster looked mad and I screamed. Nanny wouldn’t stop. The scratch-scratch of her work was hurting my ears. I cried, but she kept rubbing and rubbing.

  When Nanny took the paper near the monster’s eyes, it opened its mouth. It ate her other arm first, the one she leaned on the wall with. Nanny looked weird. One hand still scraped at the wall as the other one vanished into the monster. She saw what had happened and tried to pull away but she was stuck.

  Nanny took the paper and tried rubbing it around where her arm was going into the wall. The paper hurt her, too. I saw a little bit of blood oozing from her arm. Then the monster ate the hand holding the paper.

  She started screaming. She asked me to get the phone and call for help. I didn’t want to. I sat down with my pirates and had them fight instead.

  The last thing it ate was her head. After that, it was quiet in the house.

  When Daddy and Mommy came home they were really mad. Mommy said something about calling the police. Daddy said there was no point; he said Nanny was probably heading back over the border already.

  Mommy said how good I’d been not getting into anything after Nanny left me alone. Daddy said he was proud of me, too. He’s going to take me to the toy store so we can buy more pirates, but I had to promise not to chew them up again. I knew better than to blame it on the monster.

  Nanny wasn’t that bad. But I think I’m glad she’s gone. I’m going to get some new pirates and maybe the paint monster won’t be hungry again soon.

  Beneath the Surface

  Milo James Fowler

  We’ll die if we don’t find another way out.

  “Any sight of ’em?” Tucker comes up alongside me at the bunker door and leans against the airlock’s steel frame. He’s got his O2 mask on and the same government-issued jumpsuits we’re all wearing. I hope they’re enough to keep out the dust if another freak sandstorm appears on the horizon.

  Fortunately, the door mechanisms still function well enough, thanks to our tender loving care. Any swirling dust devils amble our way, we’ll shut it up tight. I don’t care who’s still out there.

  “They take much longer, they’ll be running on reserve power.” I gesture toward the sinking sun. “Give ’em half an hour, then we lock up for the night.”

  Tucker gazes across the barren plain, a sickly rust in the fading light. “We still have the other jeep down below. They went south this time. I could track ’em easy enough.”

  “It was her idea to go. She can find her own way back.”

  He nods. “I’m sure she will.”

  Silence. The whole world is dead out there.

  Our nourishment and air supply weren’t intended to last forever, despite rationing both; but if we could make it work, I wouldn’t mind spending a few more years below. It’s had all we’ve needed for twenty years now: food, water, entertainment. Plenty to keep us busy. And unlike those poor bastards in Sector 51, we weren’t segregated by sex. Sure, they sterilized us for obvious reasons—a limited food supply doesn’t allow for babes in arms—but that didn’t interfere with our coital recreation. It kept us busy.

  That was before.

  It’s been twelve days since I noticed the change. Something isn’t right. The women—they’re not exactly human anymore. As far as I can tell, I’m the only one who’s noticed, but I won’t say anything, not until I know for sure. The last thing we need in confined quarters is a panic breaking out. I’m the fearless leader, after all, and I’ve got to keep a level head.

  It’s nothing you can see just by looking at them, but it’s there, festering under the surface like some kind of alien disease. If I was more of a religious man, I might say they looked possessed. But I don’t believe in evil spirits.

  I believe in staying alive.

  “You think they found anybody out there?” Tucker sounds hopeful.

  Survivors, like us. Would they have the presence of mind not to come into contact with the sand and dust or breathe the air? Judging by the maps left for
us on the bunker’s computer system, there should be enclaves to the southwest, but who’s to know? Nothing looks right. The mountains, the terrain—none of it’s what we expected to find. There should also be ruins surrounding us, some sign that this was once a major city sprawl. But the desert has claimed everything that used to be ours with sand and ash as far as the eye can see, like some wasteland from an ancient Dali painting.

  Tucker clears his throat. “She said they found an old InterSector out to the east, dust ten centimeters thick all over what’s left of the vehicles, frozen like statues. But all we need is to find some blown-out buildings or remains or some such, and we could make ’em right again.”

  “Silk purses from sows’ ears, eh?” I give Tucker a half-hearted grin.

  He’s right, of course. It’s what we do. We have all the tools, materials, manpower and know-how. It’s why we were preserved, sealed deep in our bunker in the first place. The government knew they’d be needing our special services once the nuclear winters finally ended.

  Where’s the government now? I’ve been sure for a while that we’re on our own. But I keep that to myself, too.

  We can’t live out there on the surface. It isn’t safe; I don’t care about the All Clear, or that our computers were programmed to release the airlocks on a certain date at a certain time. How the hell could programmers have known twenty years ago that it would be perfectly fine for us to breathe the air outside?

  They couldn’t have known about the sand and the dust, how it’s changed the women, messed with their genetic makeup somehow, altering it, turning them into something unnatural. I can’t wrap my head around it, but it’s happening, I know it, and we’ve got to act before it’s too late. Before we’re just like them.

  We have to stay underground, find another way out of the bunker, maybe travel down some abandoned groundwater tunnels that weave mazes under the surface. It’s the only way we’ll survive. And we sure as hell have to survive, if we’re all that’s left of humankind.