by Tim Marquitz
“Don, what are you doing here?”
I looked at my watch. Fifteen minutes? Five? Ray hadn’t been specific about the announcement. “You’re going to have some company for a little while. Something really big is going on; there’s going to be trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“I’ll tell you as soon as I’ve parked and we’re inside.” I hung up. I pulled up behind her in the driveway, watched her in silhouette as her hair tangled in the phone when she snapped it shut. Such a klutz.
“Can you get your car in the garage?” I yelled out the window. She said yes and drove her car in. At least she was listening, not bugging me with a lot of stupid questions. I don’t know if I could have handled it at that point. I drove my car around back, crushing a lawn chair as I pulled in, the kids running behind me, screaming in pleasure at seeing the unexpected sight of Daddy driving his car into the back yard.
I spent just a few precious seconds saying hello to the kids, then sent them upstairs on a “special mission” to close and bolt all the windows on the second and third floors. As we walked around the house making sure the electric fence was on, I told her what I knew, what Ray had told me. The more I told her, the harder the sell got—as if I had something to gain by messing with her with this sort of ridiculous story—but then we heard boots and big motors, lots of them, and felt a rumble. The kids came running outside; they’d heard the noise. The excitement was there, but they knew something wasn’t right. Magdalene started crying as soon as she saw them and went to hold them. I gave her the moment, while the men in uniform ran down the streets.
I herded them all inside and we turned on the TV. Cartoon Channel default. Mindless entertainment. I switched to SAN News. The lead-in had already started. One of the newscasters was speaking rapidly in Xhosa to one of the astronomers from the SA Spaceguard program, with some unseen real-time hack interpreter furiously typing away, trying to keep up with the dialogue. I remembered the astronomer’s face. He’d come over to my place with Ray a few times to watch some games with us.
There was a knock on the door. I sat up in the sofa, making it a little easier to get at the pistol tucked into the holster in back of my pants. Maggie went to the door, opened it, and then went out to speak to a guy outside. She let the guy in.
“Donnie, this is Jules. He’s a friend from work, another teacher.”
She said it like it was supposed to explain something.
The anchor ended, and they cut to President Tutu on the Parliament floor in Cape Town. She told the story chronologically, leading to the big finish. Last of course, the admonition to not give up hope, that there were still discussions and plans, there was still research, possibilities. Meteor death or a bullet? In the end they didn’t have to worry about the suicides. In the midst of the rioting, murder, rape, looting, destruction, bombings, burnings, people offing themselves was the least of the worries. I slept on the sofa. Jules was upstairs.
#
The following few days went about as well as I’d expected. The military and police stopped the worst of it, but nothing could fully hold back this broad-scale level of panic, fear and rage. We had plenty of guns and ammo, we kept watch, and the idiots who came through the neighborhood looking to cause trouble found out quickly they’d picked the wrong place. The electricity went out on the third day. That’s when I really started to get nervous. But it came back on the following evening, intermittently. By noon the fifth day it was back on and steady, and there was another announcement on TV.
The astronomers were now saying something was happening to the asteroid, that the object had grown smaller. No one was declaring the earth was safe, not at first, but from the initial news there was an undertone. As the hours went by, more reports. More calculations. It was definitely getting smaller, they said. The calculations confirmed it would be almost completely gone by the time it crossed Earth’s path. Things became very quiet outside, and then a lot of people started celebrating. I watched the news; I watched their faces, the scientists’ faces, as they explained their calculations to everyone watching.
I reached for my whisky glass and it was almost empty, so I called Ray to get the truth instead. It took almost an hour to get through to him. I wasn’t sure if someone was listening in or not when we did connect, but figured I might get at least a yes or no before they cut us off, so I cut to the chase. “So Ray-Ray, really? Ice ball evaporates, humankind saved by amazing twist of fate, happy ending? Because I negotiate for a living, and you scientists are pretty straightforward folks, and none of those guys on TV are selling me what they’re saying.”
“Donnie, I’m sorry man.”
Another fucking apology.
“The announcements have been true as far as they go. The asteroid is losing mass. But we’ve been observing it closely from when we first discovered it. This white stuff. There’s something on the asteroid. Covering it.”
“What, snow? What? You’re creeping me out Ray-Ray. Who gives a rip what’s on the asteroid?”
“We think it’s why it’s losing mass. We think this white mass on the asteroid is eating it.”
I had no answer to that. I had no frame of reference. So I waited, wordless.
“They think it’s a form of biomass, living creature or creatures. It moves.”
Living creatures that eat asteroids. OK. “And they’re doing us a favor by eating the asteroid, and then when they get here the bugs burn up in re-entry?”
Another silence. “We plotted the asteroid’s trajectory. Where it came from. We know these things have been through far more destructive conditions than an atmospheric re-entry. We don’t think they’ll burn up. That isn’t what they’ll do.”
#
It was a good ploy, I had to give Maggie that much. She got me outside, somehow. The night after Spaceguard SA and the international astronomy group had confirmed to an overjoyed, gullible planet that the asteroid would dissipate sometime around when it reached us, neglecting to mention that what was dissipating the asteroid was going to dissipate earth next, I went out to my car to fish out another bottle of Jameson’s from the trunk. I’d been going through bottles quick the past few days and nights, so it was lucky I’d brought the case. I swayed my way up the steps to the back door and worked the doorknob for a while before I realized it was locked. Drunk, much? I started banging on it. I know I’d been yelling inside the house, but couldn’t quite remember what it was about. Dizzy headed. A bit tipsy, as they say. I could hear Maggie on the other side, crying, yelling, telling me to go away. I could hear the children too, crying. And her friend from school, the teacher, talking in a low voice, too low for me to hear, talking to her. I couldn’t remember why she was crying. Was it because of what I’d told her, the truth about the end of it all? What we had to do? I tried to kick in the door. She started screaming. Then there was a splintering sound, face-level. I stared at the little hole for a few moments, until some part of me did the math and realized it’d come from a bullet. I focused a little at that point and backed away from the door. Another splinter, another hole, more screaming. She was screaming, telling Jules the teacher from work to stop shooting at me.
Who’d’ve expected Magdalene would ever go to bat for me? Idiot. She knew as well as I did nobody had any future. The big question in my mind was why she hadn’t just told her BFF Jules to shoot me in the head one night while I was sleeping, and end everyone’s misery that much sooner. As the rioting mobs outside had proven, all humans need to be pushed into brutality is a deadline.
A quick scramble to my car later, I jumped inside, turning on the engine. I saw a slip of light behind the curtains and then heard a crack as a hole appeared in my windshield. Fuck, again? Still? It didn’t take any more persuasion to get the hell out of the line of fire.
There wasn’t any reason to go back. The reason why she’d locked the door finally started to come back to me. I’d let Maggie drag me into an argument about the kids. Tempers were lost. It was a cheap shot to f
reak out about holding that rifle though. And I hadn’t pointed it at Jules, I’d gestured toward him with it, two different things, no matter what I’d been saying at the time. It was stupid of me to try and help her out in the first place. It was my kids I was thinking about anyway, fuck her.
I drove aimlessly for a time, one of very few out on the road that night. The bullet hole in the corner of the windshield irked me. I’d just had that windshield replaced because of the cracks from the shit South African roadways that turned to gravel every few kilometers. I wanted to be anywhere but in this dark, alien place. I sped up and drove through an intersection with oil barrels set in the middle, flames rising from them. Some blacks in dirty white undershirts rushed the car as I went by. I heard a loud, dull thud on the trunk. One of those heavy Iwisa clubs, I guessed. At least I’d carried one of my pistols with me when I’d gone outside. I still had some protection, no thanks to Magdalene and Jules. Thanks for stealing everything that meant anything to me and trying to shoot me with my own gun. Wish I could return the favor.
I found myself aimed toward home, music turned up to drown out all sound. A couple of miles from my neighborhood, flashing lights brought me to a halt. Busily engaged in meaningless activities like stopping random drivers the day before the world ends. Not that the cop knew that. I kept forgetting, everyone else still thought we’d been saved. I hit the button on the window to let the cop say his piece. Why not, I’m a generous guy that way.
He looked at me a moment, squinting, then looked in the direction I was going. Then he looked back to me again. One of those unspoken comments they made that drove me up a frickin’ wall every time. Like he couldn’t take the trouble just to say what he wanted to say?
Finally he leaned in a little and said, “Hey man, can’t you see with your own eyes? How do you think you are going to travel in there?” He jabbed his thumb behind him, pink on the underside, brown on the outside, like he had only washed his palms. I followed his thumb, unwillingly, to the disaster I didn’t want to see behind him. But it was there anyway, a huge plume of black soot rising in the distance, flecked with red and orange on the inside. I finally heard the sirens in the background. It had been so quiet inside the car, the direction I was headed so right.
“What is wrong with you? You must turn this vehicle around immediately.” He straightened up.
“That’s where I live. My house is right in there, in those flames.”
#
I’m not sure how I ended up at Ray’s house. I’d only been to his place twice before. When those things started falling it was going to be a white Christmas in Africa, and I was out in the cold until I knocked on Ray’s door. Nothing in particular brought me there, just an idea that I might still be useful. He knew what was coming, and that helped.
He stood in the glare of the porch light. We talked.
“Donnie, why don’t you stay here? It doesn’t seem right, tonight of all nights, for anyone to be alone.” He glanced behind him. His wife nodded, silent in shadow behind him. There was nothing left to say but “Finis,” but even when there was no longer any need for it, they still had compassion.
“That’s a generous sentiment, Ray. I will take you up on your offer.”
I took my remaining change of clothes out of the car, along with the pistol and ammunition. After volunteering to help with dinner, I followed Dear up the stairs to the guest room: beige, yellow and green pastel. Colorful. I asked where the bathroom was and went in to clean up. I took a look in the cabinets. Sleeping pills, aspirin, band-aids, razor, deodorant. I helped myself and washed down two aspirin, hoping they’d help with the headache. Ray and Dear were generous to give so much. I wondered if Ray had thought about his kids. I had thought about my kids. What else was there to do? Take care of those who couldn’t take care of themselves.
#
I turned Ray’s TV on at about 4 a.m. Some anchor was talking about amateur astronomer photos. I put the TV on mute. Sure, I wanted to see how the cable networks would handle the surprise apocalypse, and yeah, I could tolerate the faces of all of the blind, determined, naive hopefulness, but the whining urgency in the voices pissed me off. All the talking in the world wasn’t going to change what was happening, what was really about to happen. So I left the TV on, for the faces and the countdown. Nothing really momentous ever happened without a countdown, did it?
The numbers reached zero, and of course nothing happened. The people of our dead world celebrated their salvation. I admit, I was happy to find a bottle of champagne in the refrigerator, and I opened it. A few minutes passed without any hint. I hit the volume when I noticed graphics of snow falling from space. Just what Ray had forecast. The astronomers were holding their cards till the end; they said only that remnants of the asteroid would be seen falling from the sky as small white balls. The cloud hit Europe first, and we watched as news reports started, then ended abruptly, the stations reporting the news going silent almost as quickly as they could say it had started.
It was no more than ten minutes or so after that the first flakes of our quick and final winter began to fall on South Africa. There were a few people outside, standing or sitting on porches. We looked up, into the sky. I watched as the points of white fell. Pure, tiny suns in the sunlight. A dark old man went out into the street and stood there as the points settled earthward. Then he sat down, cross-legged, and watched the drops settle on and around him. Everything they touched seemed to indent, then drip outward in white. One dot fell at the corner of Ray’s front porch. I went closer and watched. I had expected mouths. It seemed to be whirling at high speed. As it spun, it dissolved into two smaller versions that quickly became larger, that also spun and dissolved into two, repeating the process as I watched. The edge of the porch crumbled away within a minute. After that came a large cracking sound from above and behind me. The top of Ray’s roof, whitening, had partially given way. There goes the second floor. That kind of stuff’s a bitch to repair too, and pricey, and that’s assuming you can even find a decent contractor anywhere in this whole fucking country.
The man sitting in the street swiveled, staring around at the people standing in their doorways. He motioned with his arms, the white spreading across his black skin.
“I don’t know what’s going on, man, but they don’t hurt at all,” he said.
After a moment’s consideration, I walked out.
The Worm of Edo
C. L. Werner
Previously Unreleased
“Your forgiveness, but it is not permitted.”
The words were inoffensive and meek, but there was an undercurrent of insolence in the tone that struck at Shoichi Taniguchi like a blade. Everything about the short, fat, grubby man was offensive. His skin was flabby and discoloured; his hair was oily and clung to his flattened skull like a clump of damp weeds. His eyes were mismatched, one set disconcertingly higher on his face than its partner across the squashed nub of nose. His mouth was wide, his grin toothy. Shoichi had passed eta and hinin many times in the streets of Edo and even those social pariahs and outcasts had failed to evoke the intense loathing the fat little doorman did.
The samurai glared at the little toad. The impertinence! Of course Shoichi knew it was forbidden – by order of the Shogun, no less – for warriors to attend the theatre. Such corrupting influences as theater were fit only for merchants and townsfolk, not noble samurai. Just the same, Shoichi knew that no performance went on in Edo without several samurai in attendance. It was something the authorities usually chose to overlook.
Usually. It had been by mere chance that Shoichi had been in the same tea house as two doshin grumbling about their commanding magistrate. It seemed the magistrate was drawing upon all of his constables for a raid upon one of Edo’s theatres. For reasons the two lowly doshin didn’t know, the chief magistrate of Edo had decided to enforce the Shogun’s prohibition against the theatres.
Shoichi hadn’t lingered to hear which theatre it was that the constables would be targeting. T
here was a bit of philosophy he’d adopted long ago that had never failed him: always prepare for the worst.
For himself, he had no use for no and kabuki. As far as Shoichi was concerned, the Shogun could ban them entirely. However, there were others who enjoyed such performances and rarely missed an opportunity to see a new play performed or watch one of their favourite actors portraying a new role. It was his misfortune that one such enthusiast was Yokokawa Mitsuhashi.
Family honour and obligations made Shoichi responsible for the young samurai. Yokokawa’s father had accepted the blame for an incident that should have obligated Shoichi’s father to commit seppuku. Since that time, the Taniguchi had been bound to look after the Mitsuhashi. Shoichi had made Yokokawa his particular duty, even if the biggest thing the samurai needed protection from were his own excesses. Many were the times Shoichi had dragged Yokokawa away from a brothel or gambling den before he could bring disgrace on his name. Indeed, beside some of the incidents in Edo’s notorious Yoshiwara district, these illegal excursions to the theatre were tame.
At least until the magistrate decided to be serious about the laws he was supposed to be enforcing. Shoichi didn’t know what the doshin would do to any samurai they caught, but he did know he intended to spare Yokokawa such humiliation.
Which was why when the fat-faced theatre-rat tried to prevent him from going inside, Shoichi’s hand dropped to one of the swords thrust through the sash of his kimono. ‘I won’t stay to see the performance,’ Shoichi growled. ‘I only want to see if a friend is among your audience.’ Every second that this oaf delayed him gave the magistrate’s men that much longer to slink into the neighbourhood and form a cordon around the theatre. It was a big building, but if the magistrate was calling in all the doshin he commanded, and all the non-samurai assistants under each doshin, there could be several hundred men closing on the theatre.
