Weirdbook 31

by Doug Draa

  “I heard that joke.”

  “But you know what surprised me most of all? Satan’s only about two feet tall. No shit. Mean little bugger. Always mad about something. But it’s God he’s really mad at. Or that’s my theory. I’ve got considerable rank. Even earned some vacation time, so thought I’d drop by.”

  “Do you ever see Lumchuan?” I asked.

  That brought out the sad-eyed look. “I never do,” he said, adding wistfully, “She was a good woman.”

  I wanted to say, “Indeed she was. Always wondered why it was you of all her choices.” But unexpectedly I was in my Forester driving on a dirt road through a clear-cut. There were wild blueberry bushes springing up everywhere with dangly white bellflowers.

  I looked around to see if my dad was still with me, but I was alone. I suppose he was standing outside Starbucks with his cigarette lit finishing his coffee. I woke up in bed and immediately thought, “Dad has rank? Fuck me.”

  MISSED IT BY THAT MUCH, by Gregg Chamberlain

  He looked outside and for the first time in his heart, Martin now truly saw the world as it was, and now would forever be. And he wept.

  The End.

  Nelson’s fingers rested for a moment on the keyboard after typing in those final two words. He looked at them, clear, clean and comforting in Times New Roman 14-point solid black typeface on the white computer screen. He smiled.

  “I did it,” Nelson said, quietly. He did a quick save and closed the story file for Where Zombies Go to Die. “I did it,” he repeated, a little louder now.

  Nelson popped the storage flashdrive out of the USB port. He held it up in one hand and regarded it with wonder. “I did it!” He spun around in the chair at his cramped work station. “I honest to God did it!”

  He punched the air. “Just some Zane Grey-wannabe hack, am I, Mike? Can’t write anything but cheap western knockoffs, huh?” He held the flashdrive up towards the cheap tile ceiling. “In your face, man, ’cause this little breakout horror masterpiece will make me the next Stephen King, my dear doubting deadbeat brother-in-law.”

  Drive clutched tight in one hand, Nelson leaped up from the chair, bolted out of the tiny basement alcove that served as his writing room, and bounded up the stairs.

  “Janine!” he called. “Honey, I’ve done it! I’ve written the very best, the most absolutely PERFECT zombie apocalypse novel!”

  He burst out through the basement door into the kitchen. “Janine? Where are you?”

  No sign of his wife anywhere in the kitchen. There was a wonderful spaghetti sauce smell wafting from a crock pot on the counter. But no Janine.

  He heard a sound from the living room. “Janine?”

  Nelson stepped over to the living room entry way and stood there, staring in shock at the scene before him. His wife, Janine, lay sprawled in the centre of the room, her long red hair spread out in a crimson fan on the carpet, its fibres already stained dark from the blood pooling beneath her head. Crouched over her, gnawing on the top of her skull, was Mr. DelVecchio, the postman.

  Mr. DelVecchio looked up, bits of bone and bloody hair hanging from his black lips. “Brrrraaaaiiiinnnnssss?” Nelson heard the undead creature say.

  The moaning zombie lurched up and staggered, arms outstretched, towards Nelson, Right into the path of an ornamental art-deco ashtray stand that Janine had bought at a flea market. Nelson snatched up the ashtray stand where it stood beside the entryway, swung it in a looping overhand arc, and smashed the sharp pointed corner of the solid metal base deep into Mr. DelVecchio’s skull.

  The zombie collapsed, dead again. Janine’s body began to twitch. Nelson stepped over the dead zombie. He looked down as his wife’s now-dull eyes opened. He lifted up the ashtray stand and swung it down again onto her head.

  Nelson took a moment to bend down and pass a hand over Janine’s face, closing her eyes again. Then he walked in a daze to the open front door and looked outside at the chaos now ruling the once-quiet neighbourhood street of their Ladner home. He closed the door without a word, turned the door lock and set the deadbolt.

  He walked out of the living room, stepping over both of the bodies on the floor, and crossed back through the kitchen. Still carrying the ashtray stand, he went down the basement stairs and into his writing alcove. He sat down in front of the computer and let the ashtray stand drop to the floor beside the chair.

  Nelson looked at the flashdrive still clutched in his other hand. He sighed. Tossed it onto the desk.

  Well, crap, he thought. That market’s tapped out now.

  For a long moment after that non sequitur thought, Nelson sat staring at the black screen. Then he straightened. He woke up the computer, and inserted an empty drive. Opening a file, he started tapping on the keyboard.

  APACHE JUSTICE

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Write what you know,” muttered Nelson. “Write what you know. He continued tapping on the keyboard.

  High noon and the dusty main street of Laredo was empty, and quiet. Too quiet…

  A CLOCKWORK MUSE, by Erica Ruppert

  Clumsy with pain, she is borne down by the weight of her own fractured thoughts. Light glares. Unformed, unfocused, she cannot link one perception to another. Minutiae pick her apart. She is trapped in the details, present and past transparencies overlaid to create a cloudy mass where there is no yesterday, no before, only now, and now, and now, neverending. She clings to what she can.

  Eventually the pain eases, resolves itself into the stretching of her muscles, the beating of her hollow heart. Sensation, inexplicable. She believes she knows what it is. Her mind locks it into its place. There, now. It is real.

  She is aware of a childhood, but she cannot hold it. The memory slips. Automata have no past. She knows she is a construct, an imitation of a life cobbled together from borrowed memories. They are all true. She remembers sitting in a field in the July sun, waiting for her mother to spread the picnic blanket. She remembers the slow ache of arthritis in her hands when she shoveled the winter’s first heavy snow. She is fragmentary and erratic in her recollections but convinced of them all the same. They are in her, loose as fallen leaves, and each is real.

  But she is not. Her eyes are green glass, windows into the illusion of her soul. The man standing in front of her sees what he wants in them. He has imagined her into being, shaped her and done the fine work of her machinery. What rare elements did he use to assemble her, his Galatea, his Eve: platinum wires, slick titanium joints, silicon, smooth pale lab-grown skin through which the shadow of her composite skeleton can be seen. She is breathtaking, inhuman, flesh over plastic bones. She breathes.

  “Delia,” he says. “Come here.”

  She walks gracefully, as if she had always stood erect on her narrow feet, balanced her mass against gravity’s subtle pull.

  His name is Stephen. She already knows it.

  His hands on her shoulders, running lightly down her arms. She feels it. She trembles, gooseflesh rising, alive.

  He assesses her. She stands still, unsure, expectant.

  “Fine,” he says. “You are fine.”

  Feminine, she reaches up to smooth her hair.

  Szmenski steps around Stephen, leans close to her and places his hand over hers, following her motion. “Yes,” he says. “You are fine.” She knows his name as well. She glances at Stephen, the need to do so innate.

  Stephen’s mouth twitches but he stands aside to let Szmenski scrutinize her.

  Her hands are restless. She picks at her nails, running her fingers around the edge of them over and again.

  “Stop it,” Stephen says. “You’ll ruin them.”

  Szmenski gently pulls her fingers apart. “Relax, Delia. There is no need to fret,” he says.

  He guides her hands to her sides, poses her like a demure mannequin.

  “You are quite talented, Stephen. D
elia, thank you.”

  Szmenski steps back to allow Stephen close to her again. His breath moves loose strands of her dark hair. She has no sense of him.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Stephen says, never looking away from her. Just past his ear Delia sees Szmenski slide open a panel and leave them to themselves. She remembers.

  * * * *

  Beside Stephen in the quiet darkness, she wonders. Synapses fire, electricity jumps the gaps, makes its circuit. She thinks time may be passing. She remembers sunrise. Her head is full of stars.

  * * * *

  He leads her to a seat before the window, positions her at an angle to the light. He tilts her chin up and away from him. She looks over her shoulder at the clear blue sky.

  “Stay like that,” he says, retreating across the room. He picks up paper and charcoal, sketches her outline quickly before going back to fill in details. There are many portraits of her in the house, the bulk of them with her face tilted away, as though Stephen is wary of capturing all of her.

  She is curious. She lingers over the sensation of her neck extended, the pull of the muscles. Outside, leaves rustle in the wind.

  There is a flicker in her memory, in her vision. She can see herself sitting there. She remembers seeing it. She feels as if she is falling. Her limbs do not match her perception. She loses her pose, turning back to Stephen with her lips parted, already asking.

  “What is it now, Delia? I told you to stay still.” He is angry with her. She is finite, she is lacking. She is not what he wants, right now.

  * * * *

  Szmenski comes and goes. Sometimes he speaks to them, genial small talk about the day that reveals nothing; other times he watches quietly from a seat in the studio as Stephen paints. Delia has the feeling that she remembers him from before, but she has no before. His presence slots in among all the other pinpoints of memory.

  * * * *

  Stephen poses her again, this time standing with her hands pressed together palm to palm, fingers brushing her chin. She remembers praying, fervently. Clean tears spring up in her eyes. She does not know why. The mood fades. She dislikes modeling for Stephen, is subtly shamed by the multiple versions he makes of her. He has not yet begun this repetition, is still preparing his palette. She searches for other distractions.

  There is a fine tear in her skin along the edge of her thumbnail. She picks at it until she can pinch it up and pull it back. She peels her hand like an orange. She is vaguely expecting pain, and blood, but it does not hurt. She is not surprised by the lacework of wires and slim rods revealed by her picking. She keeps going, stripping the skin from her arm in a long sleeve.

  “Delia!” Stephen cries.

  He reaches for her, crushing the metal bones of her hand in a hard grip as he stops her.

  Without the skin to conduct sensation, she is only aware of pressure. She pulls her hand away, watching the slide and flex of her machinery.

  “Don’t touch anything. We have to fix this,” Stephen says.

  “I don’t want it fixed. Not yet,” she says.

  “You can’t stay like this,” he says, already moving away.

  * * * *

  She remembers leaping from the cliff’s edge into the cold deep pool. She landed badly, slamming into the water’s surface before it gave in to her weight and let her sink. This stings like that did, like a raw electric current across her chest and belly. She jumps away from it, fearing the drowning that will follow.

  “It’s okay,” Szmenski says, calm as air.

  The needle glints and sparkles as it threads her skin back together. There is pain, but it is not hers. Still, she flinches.

  “Be still, Delia,” says Szmenski.

  Her body relaxes. His hands are familiar, the slow process of reconstruction has happened before. She watches his hands move across hers, the delicate stitches he leaves behind. It will heal into scars so pale they will lay like lace on her skin. Ghosts of what will be. She remembers it.

  Szmenski is always the one to put her back together. He has never allowed Stephen that privilege. Sometimes he reconfigures her, changes her into something slyly different. All the iterations echo in her, dissonant and interchangeable. Memories fade and bloom. Once he had called her Adele.

  * * * *

  She lays close beside Stephen as clear morning floods through the windows. She has not slept, it is not part of her. She studies him in the new light, the length of his nose, the texture of his skin, evaluating, comparing it to her own. A bird shrills outside the window and he opens his eyes at the sudden sound. From her angle she can see the glass arc of his cornea where it floats on his eye. A scrim of sunlight traces its curve. She watches the spark and scroll of data flow across it as he comes awake.

  She blinks twice, reading her own scroll. She is made in his image.

  “Stephen,” she says. “We are the same.”

  He turns his head toward her, his fine hair rustling on the crisp sheets.

  “No,” he says, calm as an empty sky. “I am your maker.”

  He is peaceful, certain.

  She turns away. There is no response to such a statement.

  He reaches for her, brushes her hip, her belly, but she rolls away from him. The sheets are cool under her. She rises. At a distance she knows who she is, but she cannot separate herself from the tangled threads of the other lives she has impossibly lived. He did as well as he could. He is not capable of perfection. She throws open the window, grips its frame so tightly her fingers ache, closes her eyes against the sun.

  Light like a downpour washes over her, through her eyelids, through her skin. She is alive, she is warm with it. She is something else than her own machinery. The facets click together, slotting into place. She is everyone within her, mosaic and whole.

  “Come back to bed, Delia,” Stephen says.

  “No,” she says. “I am leaving this.”

  She is surprised by his speed, how fast he leaps up and spins her away from the window.

  Stephen slaps her across the face, hard and fast. Pain flickers across her skin, prickles like fragments of sulphur burning.

  “You do not get to leave,” he says. “I made you. You stay with me.”

  She lashes out like a cat, responding from some other life. His skin rips under her nails. Silver mesh glistens, revealed. There is no blood.

  For a moment they are both caught in staring at his machinery, and she remembers that he does not remember. Then he looks up at her and snarls. She feels his scentless breath on her face. She braces herself to shove him back, but he grabs her arms. She throws herself backward against the window and feels the glass splinter behind her, hears the crack of the wooden frame. The sutures at her shoulders tear loose and she is falling. Stephen clutches empty sleeves.

  The air seems to hold her, for a moment. She hears Szmenski shout inside the room, but she cannot see him. She has closed her eyes. This has happened before. The sudden light is overwhelming.

  Out of her skin, she is free.

  THE SHRINE, by Wade German

  The elders of our clan believe the shrine

  Has stood here since before the dawn of man;

  It broods there blackly, palpably malign—

  A place forbidden by a tribal ban.

  To whom the shrine was raised remains unknown—

  To god or demon, or some nameless saint;

  An aura of the darkly sacrosanct

  Ensures the eerie shrine is left alone.

  In darker ages, there were chosen few

  Who therein sought the mystery enshrined;

  But only one of them to us returned,

  To preach a gospel alien and new…

  And he and all his acolytes were burned

  For knowing things not meant for human minds.

  THE ROOKERY, by Kurt Newton


  “How’s your fingers, son?”

  Poppa made sure to wear his gloves. I left mine at home.

  “Fine, sir, I guess.”

  My teeth chattered. The gun felt like ice in my hands. I slid my grip and held it by the wood stock.

  Poppa didn’t have much patience with forgetting things. Poppa had been in the wars. In the wars if you forgot something it could be your death. Poppa called it a life lesson. I didn’t understand how dying could be a life lesson.

  Poppa stopped ahead of me. I was watching the leaves and sticks blur under my feet and nearly walked into him.

  “Do you hear that, son?”

  I turned my ear to the cold air. All I heard was the rustle of my jacket and my breathing. But then I heard something else. A strange kind of noise like a hundred different murmurs sounding at once.

  “That’s them. We’re close,” Poppa said. The look in his eyes told me to keep quiet. He led the way.

  We moved slow from tree to tree. The noises grew louder but all I saw ahead was bare woods. It all looked the same until Poppa pointed. And there they were, just as he’d said. The ones that had been eating all the crops and carrying all that disease. Poppa said why wait to kill them when they’re grown. It was best to kill them before they left the nest. Or better yet before they were even born.

  Poppa got as close as he could without being seen. We didn’t worry about being heard because the noise was so loud. It was the strangest noise, all high and low and swirling around. There were all kinds of movements too, as if they were one beast churning like a storm cloud inside their house of sticks.

  Poppa cocked his gun. He nodded for me to do the same. My fingers were so cold they hurt. On the count of three we moved in.

  Poppa fired first. It was loud and shook the trees. The sound must have made me jump because my gun went off. I saw a puff of sticks and what looked like feathers. Poppa fired again. Sticks splintered everywhere and what was behind them made a horrible sound. They raced round and round but there was nowhere for them to go. Poppa and I just kept firing until their movements stopped and there was nothing left but a strange gurgling noise and something between a whistle and a whisper.