“Sure,” I said. I didn’t want to insult the thing, considering the fact that it was three times my size. “Loki. Isn’t that the Norse god of pranks or something?”
“I believe so. I am a god of time, and certainly time has been known to play some nasty tricks, as you well know. Follow me.” Loki turned and glided through the kaleidoscopic imagery of the river.
I swam right behind, though the action was more like floating than actual swimming.
In a few minutes—or maybe a few days—we were floating in front of a group of five other patchwork monstrosities, all with flapping wings and writhing tentacles and glistening insect eyes.
“Is this the larva?” the largest of the creatures said.
“Who are you calling a larva?” I shouted.
“My dear, you are a larva,” the big monster said. “A larval time god. In fifteen thousand years, you will be one of us.”
“Yeah, that’s what Loki was saying,” I said. “So who are you?”
“We use names that the humans have given us,” the thing said. “I am Aphrodite, and my friends here are Kali, Thoth, Vishnu, and Grok. Actually, Grok is you in the future.”
I turned to Grok. “You’re me? How does that work?”
Grok twirled around about thirty times. “Yes, I’m from the future, dude. You’re going to like being me once you get that far.”
“Can I touch you?” I said. “Or is that breaking some kind of cosmic law?”
Grok swept forward and gently gathered me up in his tentacles. “Wow, I forgot how stupid I used to be. And how small.” He then tossed me to Aphrodite.
She caught me with a laugh that sounded like a million sweet church bells. “We’ve been watching over you because you are one of us. There are powers that do not like the fact that we rule time and space, and they’ve been picking on you because you are the youngest. Haven’t you ever wondered why your life has been so different from those around you? Why you never forget anything anyone ever says to you? Why no matter what happens to you, you always manage to survive? Your life has not been an easy one, but in fifteen thousand years you will be Grok. You will be worshipped as a god, and your life will be one of joy and harmony forever and ever and ever.” She laughed again. “Maybe even longer.” She pulled my head closer to her mouth and whispered, “This life is bliss. Trust me.”
I had a question and was afraid to ask it. But I did anyway. “What happens next? Are you going to send me back to Kansas, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz?
“That’s a good idea,” Loki said. “Of course, we’ll put you in your proper body. The one you’re in now doesn’t really suit you.”
“I think young Grok deserves a happier childhood.” Aphrodite touched my cheek gently with one of her claws. “Let’s take you back to before all your miseries started and give you a fresh start.”
“Yes, I’d like that,” Grok said.
“Don’t I have any say in this?” I said.
“Yes, of course I do,” Grok replied.
Aphrodite tapped my eyelids shut with the soft tip of a tentacle. “Sleep now, little one, and remember . . . there’s no place like home.”
PART SEVEN
THAT NEW CAR SMELL
A BUMPER STICKER OFF A
HAUNTED HEARSE
There once was a haunted hearse
That drove around with no one
behind the wheel, running over folks
and killing them. Then the bodies
would just float into the back
of the hearse, so it could drive them
straight to hell.
This is a bumper sticker
off that haunted hearse:
Honk If You’re Horrified.
Nice to know there are some
with a sense of humor.
—Jeremy Carmichael, poem for English composition
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
GHOST CHILD
So now I’m back at Grandma’s house in Minnesota.
I’m ten years old and my mother is still alive. She wasn’t hit by Frank Edmondson; the gods of time saw fit to wipe him from existence. Frank never was and never will be. He’s lost in some never-world void, and the only ones who even remember him are the gods of time. And that includes me.
And because Frank never existed, Maddy didn’t go to the carnival, and I didn’t fall on her from my rickety seat on the Ferris wheel. In fact, I didn’t even ride the Ferris wheel this time. I refused to get on.
I’ve been spending a lot of time in the attic. That’s where my grandma set me up to stay. There’s a bed, a desk, and I have three toys: my action figure Captain Bravo, a red toy sports car, and a black plastic horse called Dr. Midnight.
But I’m bored with toys. I have the mind of the adult I was, trapped in the body of the child I currently am.
In a way, I feel like a ghost child. A haunting presence, different from all the rest. And in a way, I am. I’m going to be a god of time someday. I’m not a ghost from the past. I’m a being from beyond time. And I’m haunted by events that have been undone. That never really happened.
The currents of the River of Time are constantly changing. Mom isn’t dead, Dad isn’t going to get remarried, and Caitlin will never be my stepsister. I’ll never sleep with Connie, and as for my poor car—it fell to pieces in the River of Time.
The parts are all broken up and scattered throughout the ages.
Monster, I’ll miss you most of all.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Michael McCarty has been a professional writer since 1983 and is the author of numerous books of fiction and nonfiction, as well as hundreds of articles, short stories, and poems. In 2009, he was named as a finalist, along with collaborator Mark McLaughlin, in two different Bram Stoker Award categories: Best First Novel of 2008 for Monster Behind the Wheel (Corrosion Press/Delirium Books) and Best Poetry Collection of 2008 for Attack of the Two-Headed Poetry Monster (Skullvines Press). He also received the 2008 David R. Collins Literary Achievement Award from the Midwest Writing Center. In 2005, he was a Bram Stoker Award finalist in the nonfiction category for More Giants of the Genre.
In late 2008, Lachesis Publishing released Michael’s second novel, Out of Time, cowritten with Connie Corcoran Wilson. Other recent books are the satirical vampire novel Liquid Diet (Black Death/Demonic Clown Books, 2009) and the nonfiction collections Esoteria-Land (Bear Manor Media, 2009) and Masters of Imagination (Bear Manor Media, 2010).
Michael’s fiction collections include Dark Duets (Wildside Press, 2005), All Things Dark & Hideous, cowritten with Mark McLaughlin (Rainfall Books, UK, 2008), Little Creatures (Sam’s Dot Publishing, 2008), A Little Help from My Fiends (Sam’s Dot Publishing, 2009), and Partners in Slime, cowritten with Mark McLaughlin (Damnation Books, 2011).
His nonfiction books include Giants of the Genre (Wildside Press, 2003), Modern Mythmakers (McFarland & Company, 2008), and Ghostly Tales of Route 66, cowritten with Connie Corcoran Wilson (Quixote Press, 2008).
In 2009, Darkside Digital released Professor LaGungo’s Delirious Download of Digital Deviltry & Doom, an electronic chapbook by Mark McLaughlin and Michael McCarty. In 2011, Bucket o’ Guts Press released McLaughlin and McCarty’s print chapbook, Professor LaGungo’s Classroom of Horrors.
In early 2010, Sam’s Dot Publishing released Rusty the Robot’s Holiday Adventures, a children’s book by McCarty and Sherry Decker.
McCarty invites readers to visit him on Facebook and at www.myspace.com/monsterbook. He can be contacted at P.O. Box 4441, Rock Island, IL 61201, or by e-mail at [email protected].
Mark McLaughlin’s fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in almost one thousand magazines, newspapers, websites, and anthologies, including Flesh & Blood,Black Gate,Galaxy,Writer’s Digest,Talebones, Midnight Premiere, Dark Arts, and two volumes each of The Best of the Rest,The Best of HorrorFind, and The Year’s Best Horror Stories (DAW Books).
Collections of McLaughlin’s fiction include Motivational Shr
ieker, Slime After Slime, and Pickman’s Motel from Delirium Books; At the Foothills of Frenzy (with coauthors Shane Ryan Staley and Brian Knight) from Solitude Publications; Twisted Tales for Sick Puppies (Skullvines Press); and Raising Demons for Fun and Profit from Sam’s Dot Publishing.
HorrorGarage.com features his online column, Four-Letter Word Beginning with ‘F’ (the word in question is Fear). GravesideTales.com is the home of his blog, Time Machine of Terror. An expert on B movies, he was recently interviewed by an AOL columnist about Gamera’s place in cinematic history.
Also, McLaughlin is the coauthor, with Rain Graves and David Niall Wilson, of The Gossamer Eye, which won the 2002 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Poetry.
With regular collaborator Michael McCarty, he has written Monster Behind the Wheel; Attack of the Two-Headed Poetry Monster (Skullvines Press); All Things Dark & Hideous (Rainfall Books, England); Professor LaGungo’s Delirious Download of Digital Deviltry & Doom (Darkside Digital); Professor LaGungo’s Classroom of Horrors (Bucket o’ Guts Press); andPartners in Slime (Damnation Books).
He is also a successful marketing and public relations executive who regularly writes articles for business journals, newspapers, trade publications, and websites.
McLaughlin is an active member of the Horror Writers Association. To find out more about his work, visit www.facebook.com/MarkMcLaughlinMedia, www.myspace.com/monsterbook, and www.myspace.com/phantasmapedia.
PERMISSIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The following poems appear in this book with the permission of their authors.
“Friends Don’t Let Friends” by Mark McLaughlin, Talebones No. 15, Spring 1999.
“Terror of the Heart” by Teri Jacobs, previously unpublished.
“Carnival of Souls” by Michael McCarty and R.L. Fox, Requiem No. 1, 1998.
“Hostile Takeover” by Jacie Ragan, previously unpublished.
“Road Flashes” by Charlee Jacob, Stygian Articles No. 8, 1996.
“The Road to Hell” by Michael McCarty, previously unpublished.
“Condition Red” by Michael McCarty, previously unpublished.
“Custom Car Parade” by Laura Winton, from The Bruitists by Laura Winton and Danielle Billington, audio CD, 2005.
“A Bumper Sticker off a Haunted Hearse” by Mark McLaughlin, from Professor LaGungo’s Exotic Artifacts & Assorted Mystic Collectibles by Mark McLaughlin, Flesh & Blood Press, 2002.
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