The Dark and Shadowy Places

by Caitlin McColl

  #

  “Some days they just can’t pay me enough,” she muttered under her breath as she picked her way across the dry, hard, rocky ground. She looked at her watch. They’d only been out here ten minutes and already her client was grating on her nerves.

  Annie glanced over her shoulder and stopped. Her client was a good twenty feet behind, wobbling unsteadily on heels too high and thin for anyone to be walking in. The woman was wearing a figure hugging dress that showed off her long, tanned legs expertly, and even though the sun was shining high and hot overhead, her sunglasses were perched in her perfectly styled shimmering blond hair instead of actually over her eyes. Annie sighed. At least this wasn’t another lost dog mission, she thought to herself. And besides, the girl had paid her enough. Just. After all, she had enough jewels on her arms to pay for Annie’s rent for six months.

  Sometimes Annie wished she was a fraud. And sometimes, in reality, she was. Sometimes it just didn’t happen. You couldn’t force these things, you know. But people were impatient. Impatient and upset, usually – a bad combination. So you had to give them something to go on, even if you didn’t actually have anything. “I’m getting too old for this,” she groaned as her client finally reached her.

  “How much further?” The girl whined, wiping a hand dramatically across her forehead. Annie didn’t even know who the girl was. Apparently some actress, or what passed as celebrity these days. Some girl in a reality TV show or some nonsense. Someone with a ridiculous name like… “I don’t think it’s too much further, Kenzie“. Kenzie? Do these people name themselves, or what?”

  Kenzie blew out a breath. “Okay, good. Because I have to get back for four, because I have a spray tan appointment, and then I need to get my nails done.” She thrust her hand out and held it in front of Annie’s face. “Just look at the state of my nails!” Annie looked. They seemed perfect to her. She’d never had as nice nails in her life. She sighed loudly and turned away, continuing to navigate the rubble. That’s what it was. They were actually reaching the outskirts of the abandoned military facility. Or what was left of it. A viewing tower looked down on them like a dead eye. The sun shone through the glass blindingly. They were heading towards a gap in the fence. Well, it was more than a gap, as most of the wall had crumbled, and spirals of barbed wire that once topped it lay on the ground like strange snakes all but useless.

  Annie stopped again as she reached the guard tower, placing her hand on the warm concrete. She looked back, spying her old, beat up rusty red Honda in the distance. There was no one else around except her and Kenzie. And George, of course. Someone with a normal, sensible name.

  Kenzie stopped her awkward wobbling like a strange bird and looked around as a hot breeze blew, bringing up mini tornadoes of desert dust. “We’re a long way from nowhere,” she said.

  Annie sighed again and rolled her eyes. “Anywhere. You mean we’re a long way from anywhere. We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  Kenzie stared at her blankly with bright blue eyes that Annie wondered were real or if they were some sort of coloured contacts. “Yes?” Kenzie said, her voice going up at the end, unsure, turning it into a question. “That’s what I said.”

  Annie suppressed a laugh and passed the barrier between the desert and the abandoned army based, stepping over a jumble of concrete and twisted metal.

  “What happened here?” Kenzie said suddenly from just behind Annie. Annie jumped and muffled a small scream.

  “What?”

  “Why is there nothing here?” the girl repeated, batting her eyelash extensions.

  “Don’t you watch the news?” Annie asked, and then shook her head at herself. What a stupid question.

  “No. Well, not unless I’m on it,” Kenzie said with a wide smile of dazzling perfect white teeth.

  “That disaster that happened. Years ago. They, the government or military or someone, were doing nuclear tests, and something went wrong and…” she waved her arm out across her, gesturing to the base and the empty desert devoid of life beyond.

  Kenzie stared blankly back at her.

  Annie rolled her eyes again. “And this whole place was abandoned. It’s all a nuclear wasteland now. Lots of people died here.”

  Kenzie’s eyes widened. “Including my Grandpa George?”

  Annie ran a hand over her face. Today was definitely going to be a long day…

  “No.” She tried to control her voice so that it didn’t sound like she was talking to a child. “You were the one that told me your grandpa George went missing from his Senior’s home a few weeks ago. Remember?”

  “Oh. Yeah, right.” Kenzie nodded vigorously yet her hair still stayed perfectly in place.

  “But you came to me for help because you thought he’d been murdered…?” Annie asked it as a question, to spark the girl’s memory.

  “Yes!” Kenzie did a small excited hop, and amazingly didn’t trip. Was she born in those things? Annie wondered.

  “And that’s why we’re here today. Because your Grandpa used to work here.”

  Kenzie’s eyes widened in amazement again. “He did? How do you kn-”

  “Because I’m a psychic.” Annie’s patience was wearing thin, not helped by the heat that seemed to be rising. “Because the ghost of your grandpa George told me.”

  Kenzie’s perfectly lipsticked mouth fell open. “You can talk to him?”

  Annie regained her composure. At least people asked her these types of questions a lot. More sensible ones. “I don’t really talk to him, no. But I get flashes – visions of things. The people, the spirits, show me things. And I saw this place. What it used to look like years ago. And he also gave me the impression that this is where they put him.”

  “They?”

  “The people who murdered him. I’m getting shown things that make me feel that it’s more than one person. I had visions of being robbed, and then beaten.”

  Kenzie’s unnaturally tanned face paled.

  Annie continued. “And what better place to dump a body than here?” She was actually surprised she’d never been out here before. Mind you, it was quite a few miles from the city limits. But this is what she was getting paid the big bucks for today. She put a reassuring hand on Kenzie’s shoulder. “Come on.”

  Kenzie followed obediently, gingerly stepping over the pile of stone.

  Annie pushed open a rusted door that was ajar and stepped into dusty dimness. She stood a moment, letting her eyes adjust from the harsh brightness outside into the sudden darkness. It was eerily silent. She’d been in places like this before – prisons, asylums, hospitals – and there was always some sort of life – mice, birds in the rafters, even a breeze, but there was nothing here. She fumbled around in her large purse and brought out her flashlight – a psychics best friend. She didn’t go anywhere without it. It was a staple of a psychic really, especially when you were…well, not on a ghost hunt, but on a hunt for the source of a ghost - a body. It’s what a lot of people used her, and other psychics, for nowadays. She got called a lot by the police when they were at their wits end on a case.

  She flicked on the flashlight and was thankful the hallway was a lot easier to walk through than the rock strewn desert they had crossed to get here. Kenzie’s high heels clicked loud and hollow on the stone floor.

  The place seemed strangely familiar to Annie, having been shown glimpses of it in her mind, thanks to George. “This way,” she said, more confidently than she felt. She knew Kenzie was close behind, the sound of her heels ringing loudly in the narrow hall.

  “So my grandpa George is somewhere in here?” Kenzie whispered, her voice faltering. “I don’t like it here. I’m getting dust all over my shoes!”

  Annie winced. She was getting visions flashing in her mind more and more quickly. It was confusing and gave her a headache, but she knew she was getting closer because George was becoming more insistent – flinging thoughts and memories and pictures at her as if he were shouting.

  “We’re get
ting close.” Annie’s flashlight flickered. Great. Just what this day needs. She rummaged around in her purse. She usually kept spare batteries… “Dammit.”

  “What’s wrong?” Kenzie sounded scared.

  “I usually have batteries in my purse. Just in case, but I don’t have any-”

  “Oh, is that all?” Kenzie pulled out her Iphone from an impossibly small bag, and with a couple taps, turned her phone into a flashlight, shining it at Annie. “There you go.”

  Annie held a hand up over her eyes. She opened her mouth, and then closed it again. I need to get with the twenty first century, she thought numbly as she shoved at a door with her shoulder. It stuck slightly and she leaned against it heavily and pushed. Eventually it swung in.

  “Hey, what’s this?” Kenzie asked at Annie’s heels. Annie shrugged, not even bothering to look at her – the pull she felt from within this room was strong, and everything else faded out to the periphery – even Kenzie’s annoying mosquito-like whining. “Hey, it’s 3:30,” Kenzie’s voice snaked into Annie’s head as she moved further into the room. “Are we going to be much longer?”

  There was a lot of tables, and chairs. It took Annie a moment, with her flashlight on the fritz, to realize it was a cafeteria. A layer of dust lay on the large circular tables. “He’s here. He’s somewhere here.” Annie said slowly, rotating in a circle, scanning the room. It was cool, almost cold. Goosebumps rose on Annie’s arms and she wished she was wearing more than just a short sleeved shirt. There was no windows to let in any heat or light from the hot summer day outside.

  The intermittent light from her flashlight fell on a large silver fridge/freezer, and Annie moved in that direction. She had a feeling that was where George was. Of course, the fridge or freezer wouldn’t be working – the power had long since been shut off from here. The room was filled with the smell of old food, and something else unpleasant. Yes, Annie thought triumphantly. This is it, and then we can get out of he-.

  Her thought was cut off by a loud heavy bang and clatter. Her heart leapt into her throat and she spun around. “What was that?”

  In the glow of her Iphone Kenzie strode back to the double doors and pushed on them. They opened a sliver. “Oh, it’s just what I was asking about a few minutes ago.”

  Annie almost sprinted across the room. “What are you talking about?”

  “I was asking you why they were there.”

  Annie shone her flashlight through the gap and saw a pile of pipes and iron girders and a large concrete tube that had shattered. She pushed on the doors, but they were stuck. They wouldn’t open more than the small fingers-length it was already. A girder lay diagonally, the end of it jamming into the corner of the wall and the door, stopping the door from opening.

  “What are they?” Kenzie asked again.

  Annie didn’t mean to sigh, but she couldn’t help it. “They’re our death sentence.”

  Crossed Wires

  Rick? It’s Chris. Hammond. I’m hoping this is you. I’m never sure when I use these things. I can never remember what your identification number is, whether it ends in 34 or 43. I wish these voice recorders had the built in holograms so I’d know who it was I was leaving a message for. So this better be you, because…dammit, hold on, I’m getting an urgent communication from the World Oceans Board.

  Sorry about that. That took longer than I hoped. Hopefully this is still recording. I take it you’ll have heard about the massive tidal surge that just happened on the west coast here. But I know it’s affected everywhere. I mean, the entire planet. I always said this is what happens when you fuck up our planet. I know they’ve been trying to fix it, prevent this from happening from at least 2020, but that was what, like twenty five years ago, at least? I thought maybe with you working for the World Government, you’d be able to …I don’t know, give me some advice on what to do. I’m packing my bags as I speak anyway. Water has pretty much half flooded Vancouver now, so I’m out of here, heading inland. Don’t know where I should go really. Why I’m calling is, well, um, what I’m asking is, can I come stay with you for a bit? At least until I can figure out where to go? I know probably most of us on west coast are doing the same thing right now. Getting away from here. The coast that is. I heard that all of downtown Seattle is under an insane amount of water. Ha. At least I can swim. That’s something positive, right? Anyways, as soon as you get this, send me a message back. Don’t know where I’ll be but I’ll have my ear piece on so I’ll get your message instantly. Okay. That’s all. Bye.

  A Game of Charms

  The market stall exploded in a shower of wooden shards. Tattered pieces of silk rained fluttered gracefully to the muddy ground like rainbow coloured birds.

  The smell of charred wood and fabric filled the air. A woman bent down to pick up errant vegetables that had fallen off the counter-top of the neighbouring stall in the explosion. “They should have rules for this sort of thing,” she muttered under her breath as she picked up an apple and squash.

  A shadow cut off the light above her. “What was that you said, madam?” an icy cold tone washed through her and she tried not to shudder as she stood up, clutching the vegetables to her chest as if they could protect her. She took a step back, trying to distance herself from the harsh gaze of the magician. It didn’t do well to cross a conjurer. They had power – as was evident by the state of the market stall next to hers which was now just splinters and rags.

  She willed herself to look in his eyes that were such a light blue as to be almost white. She tried to smile, but it died on her lips under his stare. “I-, I’m sorry?”

  “You said something just a moment ago. About myself and my,” he paused and cast a disdainful look over his shoulder, “colleague.” The woman took the opportunity to tear away from his eyes and toward what he had been looking at. A figure dressed entirely in black moved away from them, towards the town. He wore a long black overcoat the flared out behind him like a cape. And it was then she realized she was dealing with the nice one and secretly thanked her stars. When she looked back at him, she saw he was staring at her intently.

  “Oh, well, I wasn’t really thinking, to be fair. I was just…taken aback.” She dropped her eyes and looked at the hem of her dress that had become muddied when the two magicians were…what were they doing exactly? Besides destroying half the Sunday market that is.

  “But didn’t you just say that we should have rules?”

  “Yes, well, I’m not really sure what it was the two of you were even doing…”

  The man arched a brow. “Besides destroying your town’s little marketplace you mean?” a small smile tugged at his lips and the woman wondered if he had read her mind. She didn’t know much about sorcerers at all, so she supposed it was possible.

  “To be a good sorcerer, you have to train. You have to practice. That is what we were doing. Sometimes there are,” he gestured to a couple of stray fruit still on the ground, “casualties.”

  “But,” and then she stopped herself. Was it wise to talk back to a wizard? Probably not.

  “But?” This time both eyebrows rose.

  “But what is with the whole good versus evil?”

  The man tossed his head back and laughed loudly. The woman glanced at the few people brave enough to pick their way through the remains of the market place, who looked away as she met their eyes. “You obviously don’t know anything about wizards, now do you?” he smiled, and this time the woman didn’t feel threatened.

  “It is because I am good and my counterpart is evil. It is simple as that, no more, no less. If there is no darkness in the world, then there is no light. We have just as much right to exist as the other. And I think that in the end, I will triumph.”

  The woman just barely stifled a laugh in reply, and sighed. That old nonsense, she thought. “Do you not think that is naïve? That you, that good will win over evil?”

  This time the man took a step back from her and regarded her warily. “I am confident in my abiliti
es.

  The woman brushed a stray strand of hair of her forehead and tucked it behind her left ear. She smiled widely. “Are you sure about that?” She dropped her protective shield of a couple apples and a green striped squash back to the upset earth and raised her left hand up and stretching her arm out almost straight in front of her. Her right hand she held close to her chest.

  “Let’s test your theory.”

  The good wizard jumped backward and flung his hands out in front of him, crouching down slightly and holding his arms up.

  A brilliant blue ball of light materialized in front of the woman’s outstretched hand. It sizzled with a blinding white around the outside. With the smallest flick of her wrist, the ball flew towards her opponent. It caught him on the left shoulder and spun him around, sending shoulder length blond hair flying upwards. He stumbled and fell to one knee, but pushed himself up and away before a second ball of energy came straight for where he had just been.

  She could see the sweat break out on his forehead, even from where she stood, and saw the energy forming weakly between his hands. His was entirely white, unlike her sapphire blue. And she knew the dark clothed ‘colleague’ of his, his magic would be entirely void of colour, like a black hole of swirling magic.

  “So what would your friend say about me, then?” she said with a small laugh as her next burst of energy made him lose what he had been building, and she saw the white ball wink out like a snuffed flame.

  He raised his pale eyes to her grey ones. “I thought you were a myth!” he cried, trying to summon another energy ball. She could see his hands were shaking.

  She laughed again. “You thought grey sorcerers were myths?”

  He nodded. “A wizard who could change from light to dark at will…I don’t know how that’s possible.”

  She smiled. “You said the dark man was your colleague. But you obviously don’t know him all that well. If you did, he would have surely told you about me.”

  The man looked confused. “Why?”

  “Because I’m his sister,” she said, and threw one final orb at him.

  “And today I’ve decided to follow in his footsteps for a change.”

  Welcome to Hell, Next Left

  That sign. It should have been my first clue. I thought it was strange, and funny, more than anything. I ignored my gut, like I usually do, which always ends up getting me into trouble. Scratch that, the sign should’ve been my second clue. The first should’ve been my stupid GPS. I felt like throwing it out the window. I should have, just so I didn’t have to hear it anymore, that irritating nasal woman’s voice telling at me over and over to turn left in 200 meters. At first I ignored her, and just kept driving. Every exit, she said the same thing. In 200 meters, turn left. But that wasn’t where I wanted to go. I knew where I wanted to go! I tried to turn it off, but for some reason it wasn’t shutting down, and her voice kept piping up shrilly every few minutes as a new exist sign appeared in the distance. For the first minute or two, it was amusing. After she had been telling me for 20 minutes to turn left in 200 meters, I couldn’t take it anymore and took the exit just to shut her up. I knew I was nowhere near my destination, and I hadn’t even really been paying attention to the signs of wherever it was that I had turned off towards, because her directions were driving me bonkers. ‘In 200 meters turn left. Recalculating. Turn left at the next exit. Recalculating.’ Recalculating, my ass. I drove on. A moment later, her voice, which I will hear forever in my nightmares piped up once more, like an ice pick to my brain. ‘In 200 meters, turn left.’

  “Okay, that’s it!” I yanked the wheel hard and turned off. Once I finally listened to her, she quietened. The silence was like a balm to my frayed nerves. She had me so on edge, I hadn’t even noticed where I was turning into. I just knew the minute I turned off that I had never been here before.

  It was then that I saw the sign, a few hundred meters down the road, as it came to a fork. Do I turn left? Or right? I looked at the GPS I had thrown onto the passenger seat for help, almost hoping to hear her voice again tell me what to do. Silence. It was pitch black. 2am. The roads were dead. So I just sat at the intersection, thinking. My headlights lit up a large sign that sat straight ahead, no more left than right. It was no help. Welcome to The End, was all it said. Someone had added in shaky spray painted letters ‘of the line’. That was what made me laugh. Maybe it was because it was late, and I was tired and just wanted to get my navigators high-pitched, frustratingly calm voice out of my head, but I found it extremely funny. Welcome To the End of the Line. Clever.

  I picked up the GPS and stared blearily at the screen. I shook it. “Come on!” I said irritably. “I’ve turned left, now where do you want me to go?” Silence.

  I sighed and threw the device back on the empty seat beside me. I looked left. The road was narrow, empty and tree-lined on both sides. There was no light besides the my headlights, which didn’t reach very far into the darkness. I looked right and saw an almost identical narrow stretch of road, empty of any traffic, and lined with tall, trees that seemed to thicken as they disappeared into the darkness that my headlights didn’t penetrate. Well that didn’t help, and she didn’t seem to be in a helpful mood. So I did what I thought best. I stuck a hand in a pocket and pulled out some lint, a crumpled receipt for some gas, a coffee and a jumbo snickers bar that I’d inhaled about 50 miles back, and a couple pieces of change. I picked up a nickel, tossed it into the air and snatched it back again. “Heads right, tails left,” I said to no one. It’s one of those things you’re wired to say out loud even if there’s no one around to tell it to. I plopped it onto the back of my hand. I glanced in the rear view. There was no one behind me. I was all alone in the middle of god knows where. I closed my eyes and realized I was holding my breath. I slowly lifted my hand up and was greeted not with a stark profile, but an image of what looked like some kind of farm house. Tails.

  “Dammit!” I whispered, yet I jumped at my own voice. I didn’t realize just how much I had wanted the other option, how much I wanted to see another person, even if it was just the relief of a face on a coin. Suddenly I felt very alone, and very lost. But I had to go somewhere, and it was somewhere.

  I didn’t even bother signalling as I swung my car in the now familiar direction. Thin wispy birches moved past me like tall ghosts standing like sentries. I couldn’t see any lights anywhere that would indicate any form of civilization, not even a lone farm house. I could feel my eyes getting heavy, but I forced them open, focusing on something white in the distance. I put my foot down a bit heavier, anxious to find out where I was and perhaps how far away I was from my destination. Gypsy, my nickname for my GPS, was still silent. I was just a lone dot on a single line on the screen.

  Suddenly a scream burst out of me. There was a second sign that said Welcome To The End, but ‘The End’ was scored out, and painted above was ‘Hell’. Next to it was the white sign I had seen. In large black letters it said: In 200 Meters Turn Left.

  If You Go Down to the Woods Today

  The book read like gibberish, until Silvia found one word – the word that changed her destiny in the first place.

  She had been looking through books for hours and they sat in piles all around her. She wasn't sure what she was looking for, not until she came across the page and she froze, her heart pounding painfully in her ears and chest. She felt hot and her skin prickled. then suddenly gripped by a icy chill that swept through her entire body.

  The word stared back at her like a dark eye in a bleached skull. Sylvania. She knew a Sylvania. It was who she was named after, after all.

  But it couldn't be Sylvania. Not her Sylvania! It had to be someone else. She sighed long and loud, flipping the cover closed to re-read the words stamped there in flaking gold. she hadn't paid much attention to the titles of any of the books. She just knew she was looking for something, something important even if she didn’t know what. A shiver ran through her as she stared at the title. Like Sylvania's name,
one word jumped out at her. Witch.

  But that couldn't be possible! Witches didn't exist! If they did, it meant magic existed, and that was impossible. Magic had been banned centuries ago. Everyone knew that. And her grandmother, Sylvania, couldn't be a witch! She could picture her as clearly as if she was standing right in front of her right then, in the narrow gap between two of the book towers. Grandmama was tall and slim. Stately. Kind and soft spoken. There was no way that her Sylvania could be a witch that knew magic! but she knew in her heart of hearts that it had to be. it would explain why she seemed to have stayed the same for as long as Silvia could remember. She hadn't aged. Not a single stand of her dark brown hair had turned silver, and Silvia knew her grandmother had to be fairly old, even though she wasn’t sure exactly (the women in New Constantine didn’t divulge their age after you turned twenty. It was custom). Silvia had never given it much thought but assumed her grandmother had coloured it.

  She stood unsteadily, wiped dust from her hands onto her long skirts, and picked up the lantern that was perched perilously on top of one of the teetering towers.

  She wanted to rush out of the library basement where all the dusty, forgotten books in the town were kept with this unbelievable evidence under her arm. But she had no one to tell. Or rather, no one she could tell. And the one person she needed to tell, to ask, to speak to about it and get answers from, Sylvania herself, was nowhere to be found.

  At first Silvia thought it strange that her grandmother had suddenly disappeared almost two weeks before. She had never left the town before. She had grown up there, her mother had told her, and she had never left. There was no need to. New Constantine was a bustling busy city. People came to it from other places, but people who lived there didn’t need to go anywhere else. It had countless factories, a large university, a few different other schools, more than enough churches (and sometimes unnecessarily too many Silvia thought). New Constantine had everything one could wish for.

  Except a reason to leave, she thought glumly as she raced up the stairs, causing small eddies of dust to swirl up around her feet with the swishing of her skirts.

  When she pushed open the heavy wooden doors of the main entrance, cool night air hit her like a slap, and her pale cheeks brightened with a rush of blood. She looked up into the half moon that was shining as brightly as half a moon could on a clear cloudless night. Two weeks ago, the day that she realized her grandmother was missing, Silvia noticed that there had been no moon at all. She had asked her mother why she couldn’t see any moon, and her mother explained that Sylvania had always said that the moon had died, and that it would be reborn again, as a new moon.

  She had gone to Sylvania’s small cottage, in the rundown part of town that was humid with steam and oil and grease, to ask her about the new moon and its death and rebirth, but she found her grandmother’s house empty, the door unlocked. She had searched the house, but found no trace.

  Silvia tucked the book securely under her arm and squeezed through crushing masses of people to reach the narrow ramshackle building that her grandmother had called home for all the years she had known her. She hadn’t seen her since she had disappeared, but she had to look.

  She was surprised to find that the door ajar. Her grandmother never locked it when she was home. Her heart jumped into her throat, hope flooded her. Had she returned?

  Silvia stepped inside, her small feet squeaking ever so slightly on the wooden floor. “Grandmama?” she called softly, anxious. “Are you here?”

  She tiptoed around the table that took up most of the small living room, heading towards the kitchen, Sylvania’s favourite place – she was always doing something with pots and pans, oftentimes something foul smelling. But the kitchen was empty, all pans and pots hanging neatly where they should, as if they had never been touched.

  She felt a weight crushing her chest, squeezing out what little hope she had allowed inside.

  A thin, watery ray of moonlight filtered through the grime of the single window. Suddenly that ray was blotted out by shadow that filled the room.

  “Silvia.” The voice was harsh, loud and unfamiliar. The book, Witches and Other Monsters, fell with a loud clatter on the ground. Silvia glanced over her shoulder. A massive wolf, equal parts shadow and grey fur filled the room. She screamed.

  My Name Is Nothing, What’s Yours?

  I don’t have a name. None of us do. Names don’t mean anything, not here. Maybe they used to, for others, but not for us. They are just an identifier. But we have identifiers already. We were made, built, constructed with them. They are etched in our skin. Numbers, stamped on the outside of us, and also implanted inside, so small we don’t know where they are. We can’t feel them. There’s no point in trying to erase or cover up our numbers. Our numbers are who we are. They tell the Makers when we were built, what version we are. And we can tell that of others. When they were started, if they are one of the early models, or a new version.

  I’m one of the early models. In fact, I am the earliest living one. I laugh when I say that. Living. I do not have a heart made of flesh and blood, like the Makers, and yet, I live. I move, I speak, I feel. I do not breathe, as it is unnecessary to my functions. I am the only living one of us left, out of the early models. I managed to escape what we all now refer to as The Cull.

  The Masters deactivated and dismantled the earliest versions of us. They said we were defective, that we were a danger to them, the people who made us, the ones that could be easily damaged with their delicate flesh and muscle, blood and bone. They were worried we would turn on them, destroy them. How ironic. They are concerned we would destroy them, so they destroy us instead.

  I remember that day as if it was only yesterday, and not 20 years ago. They called all of us into a large room. I thought it was odd that there were none of the newer versions of us. I glanced around and noticed that none of the numbers stamped on everyone’s forearms were over 3000. It was just the awkward, incomplete ones. The ones who malfunctioned sometimes, even if it was something as minor as their speech mechanisms faltered, causing a stutter, instead of the smooth vocals that most closely mimicked their own. Thankfully, I was in the back corner of the room, and if I was human I swear the hair on the back of my neck would have raised. I sensed there was something not right about this. My fellow meccas stood obediently facing the front of the room and the trio of Masters who stood there. I quickly stepped back into the shadows that cloaked the edges of the room, and hid behind one of the columns that supported the warehouse we had been herded into.

  If I had hairs on my body, like the humans, they would have risen at the sound of the doors slamming shut. We were locked in. We are not human, only meccas, but we were created to feel fear. We are made in the form of our Masters, to be as close to them as possible. But in one way we are entirely different. Since we are synthetic humans, our bodies are designed not to fail us, unlike our Masters. Our hearts will never stop beating, and what has been programmed into our internal circuitry, anything we learn, will never be lost or forgotten. There is only one way we can die. And that day, while I stood in the safety of the pillar, I learned exactly how that happens. Just because we are not the same, not exactly like them, the Masters think they are human and we are not. They think they can create and destroy us without losing a wink of sleep, as if we were simply an ant under foot, or an unwanted spider invading their home. But even though we are not human in the way they are, we still feel fear. Since my memories are infallible, I still remember the screams and panic of my fellow mechanical humans as if it is happening right this minute. I could hear them being torn apart, being murdered, by the same machines that built them. Unfeeling machines, made of metal. Like us, but not. Those machines didn’t think, didn’t feel, didn’t react. But for all intents and purposes, they are our parents. And the Masters were the orchestrators.

  It felt like an eternity that I waited behind that support column in the warehouse. Humans have strange ideas of time. Thinking that the
length of time changes, that it can move fast, or excruciatingly slow. Does this make me human? I wondered as I stared at my feet in the shadows. I waited for a whole hour after the last of the Masters had shut down the murderous machines and had left the room, the heels of his shoes clicking loud and hollow in the emptiness.

  Only then did I leave the safety of the shadows. I walked past the stacks of limbs, torsos and heads, my gaze averted. My heart, though it was only made in the image of my makers and not truly functional, felt heavy. I hadn’t done anything to save them. I hadn’t even tried. I had been selfish, only thinking of my own self -preservation.

  I knew I shouldn’t, that it was inappropriate, but as I walked free out of the room I laughed. Not out of relief because I had survived but because of how ironic it was. The Masters had destroyed my friends and essentially erased the beginning of our history for the sole reason we weren’t as perfect as they wanted us to be. Because we weren’t as human as the later models, who were more advanced, more realistic, without speech defects, strangely coloured eyes, or something incorrect with their behaviour. That weren’t human enough. But here I was, the last remaining of us, behaving in the most human way of all - saving myself, even if that meant letting my brothers and sisters die.

  From The Ashes

  Most people think you only live once, and when you die, that’s the end of it. There’s no second chances. But that’s not true. At least not for me. I’ve died more times than I can remember. And each time, at first I don’t remember. But then it comes back to me, my life before. And always, I remember how I die, even when I really would rather not. I remember it as if it’s happening all over again. No matter how gruesome and horrible.

  But that’s the fate of my family, the Phoenixes. We die and then live again. Over and over. You’ve heard of the legend of the Phoenix, right? Pretty much everyone has. It’s usually about some bird made of fire that burns up into a pile of ash and then is reborn again from the ashes. I don’t know where the bird thing came from, but we’re the real Phoenix. What the bird legend is based on. Maybe because the idea of people dying and then living again, immortal, is too bizarre to comprehend, so they use a bird instead. For some reason people can use the idea of a bird rising from the ashes as a moral of sorts, a reminder to live life to the fullest, or some other bullshit.

  I don’t know if I’d say I was lucky to make it past my 16th birthday or not. You see, in my family, if you happen to somehow die before your 16th birthday, for whatever reason the Phoenix gene (that’s what I call it anyway) doesn’t come into effect. If you die before you’re 16th, that’s it, you’re gone, just like everyone else on the planet does when they shuffle off this mortal coil. But those of us who are lucky enough, if you can call it that, to get to 16, then you’ve crossed over the threshold to invincibility. Actually, scratch that. We’re not invincible. We do die. It’s just…we come back. We’re reincarnated, or whatever, however you want to explain it. I don’t understand the physics of it all, I just know it happens.

  When I wake up after a death, at first I don’t remember who I am. But my family are usually there to remind me. To let me know that I’m okay, even though I might remember what happened to me, and allay my fears that I should be on the cold metal slab of a morgue drawer instead of lying in bed awake and wondering what the hell is going on.

  It takes a little while to get used to a new face and body, though. You see, when we die, sometimes our bodies are too damaged to continue to live in them, so we have to find someone else to live in, to become, with all our thoughts and memories intact. We move right in, and the people are never any the wiser. We just become them. The only thing is, sometimes it’s difficult for my family to find out who I am now. Usually they have to ask around the hospital, or morgue or cemetery, whoever has been in close contact with me before I died. Because that’s who we usually jump to next.

  There’s a code word. Well, a phrase really, that our family asks people to find out where we are, and who we are now. Even if I can’t fully remember who I am right away, for some reason this phrase is hard-wired into our brains, and if my family asks me I immediately know the answer which is weird when I don’t know what’s happening.

  I stare at my new face in the mirror, and take in my long brown hair, large blue eyes, and thin, slightly crooked nose. “Where do you find a Phoenix feather?” I ask my new reflection the secret question to get the correct the answer to the riddle.

  “If you find a pile of ash, a single tear of genuine sadness will turn it into a feather,” my reflection says back to me.

  If it’s one of our family, that’s how we answer. If you’re not a Phoenix, you just look at us who ask that question as if we’re crazy people. I never said we weren’t. Never-ending living and dying kind of does something to you. I don’t think people are meant to be like us. We’re a flaw. We’re a mutation, and I don’t wish it on anyone. Okay, sure, you might think it would be great to live forever, but really it’s more depressing than anything. You see the same things over and over again. People against each other in everything. Always warring, trying to take things they feel entitled to, to be the best, the most powerful, the wealthiest. Everyone is always wanting more than what they already have. They are never content for some reason. You’d think things would have changed throughout the centuries, but in all the ways that actually matter, nothing has. People are still vile, evil, spiteful, hate filled creatures. Trust me, I’ve seen it for at least half a century. Yes, there are good people of course. If there wasn’t, we wouldn’t be around anymore. But the dark is blotting out the light more than the light is outshining the dark.

  Maybe if people were like us, the Phoenixes, they would actually realize the importance of life and not take so much for granted. But somehow, even though humans live their lives so fleeting, they can never see the big picture, not really, and so they don’t really live. I think I’ve only figured this out because I’ve been given the chance to try again. And again, and again. I guess repeating life has that one advantage. But after awhile, it gets tiring, to be honest. But this is my life, and I’m doomed to repeat it.

  Maybe one day someone will read this and actually do something, actually take my words to heart and live life like they should.

  Under a Starlit Sky

  “The crazies think it was time travel. Can you believe it? Who ever heard of something so…well, crazy,” The young officer, who was the first on scene shot a hesitant look at his superior, trying to gauge what his reaction would be.

  That’s preposterous!” Captain Edward Trew shouted louder than was necessary, causing startled and confused glances from passersby.

  “Whatever it is, you can’t deny the evidence.” Anise Buttersby, reporter for The Realm newspaper, took her faded black notebook from its home inside her knee high boot and flipped it open, scribbling furiously with a worn stub of a pencil.

  Trew turned to the petite red head, his large face almost the same shade as her auburn hair. “Evidence? What evidence? There is none!”

  Anise smiled and continued writing. “Well, we have that witness account from when the inventor allegedly disappeared. Didn’t someone say they saw him boarding a cargo airship at night?”

  “You call that man a witness? He was unreliable, a drunk who could barely string five words together.” The Captain’s reddened face began to return to his normal pale complexion underneath a ginger beard that seemed to be an extension of his hair.

  “Oh, you’re talking about Lem?” The rookie copper said, popping up in between the Captain and Anise. “Yeah, Lem couldn’t be believed if the safety of the United American Empire relied on it! He’s always thinking people are disappearing on airships. Or being abducted or kidnapped onto them. He claims he was, when he was a youngster.” The officer shook his head with a small smile. “Lem is…well, he’s Lem. He’s harmless, but not a reliable source of information.”

  “So all we know right now is that the criminal disappears afte
r the inventor?” Anise said, finally looking up from her flurry of note taking.

  “Criminal? That’s what we’re calling him?” The colour in Captain Trews face began to rise again. “He’s not just a ‘criminal’! That would be like saying the Emperor is just a normal man!” Trew turned and began to pace around the perimeter of the abandoned laboratory, formerly home to said missing inventor Augustus Northdale. “He’s not a criminal, he’s a…a…” Trews’ moustache twitched as he struggled to find the word.

  “Mastermind?” Anise offered.

  “Yes!” Trew shouted again, pointing a finger vigorously at Anise. “Yes, a mastermind, that’s it exactly! Well done, young lady!”

  Anise shot him a dirty look, but Trews had already continued his examination of the lab which involved him picking up random items on shelves and table tops, turning them over in his hand and ‘hmmm’ing loudly before putting it back absentmindedly in another part of the room all together. Soon the already untidy room seemed even more chaotic, with strange pieces of equipment in even stranger places. Anise picked up a partly full tea cup that was now resting precariously on top of a strange tower of layered squares of metal suspended apart from each other by wires and placed it back on a small table next to a miniature pot bellied stove that sat in the middle of one wall.

  The Police Captain finished his rotation of the room, and almost bumped into Anise who was actually trying to do some investigation into the bizarre disappearance of Augustus the day before, followed by Gideon Hendry early this morning.

  She had heard of Hendry before. There were few people in the Empire who hadn’t, she thought. Maybe it was because she seemed to see his name mentioned in her papers headlines more often than not. He was the name of the movement that was acting against the Emperor and his Coalition.

  Though Anise was all for the Anti-Coalition movement that Gideon claimed he was working on behalf of, she didn’t agree with how he went about trying to convince the Emperor that technology was something that was important to the Empire, not something that should be suppressed.

  If Gideon and other Anti-Coalitionists had their way, it would mean airship travel would be available to the masses, and not just something that was looked at as unsavoury or illegal, that only operated under the cover of darkness transporting goods from one part of the Empire to the other, and once in awhile across the ocean to the Roman Isles.

  “Mr Hendry is an inventor himself, is he not?” Anise said taking what looked like a pipe out of Captain Trews hand that was going to end up in a new spot on top of a stack of dusty books.

  Trews looked confused and flustered. “Yes, what of it?”

  “Actually,” the young policeman interrupted, waving a piece of paper that was stamped. “He isn’t actually an official New Alchemist, like Augustus.” The boy held out the paper, a certificate that identified the missing Mr Northern as a New Alchemist.

  Anise rolled her eyes. “Okay. But technically Mr Hendry is an inventor like Mr Northern, is that correct?”

  Trews and his young protégé nodded at the same time. “Yes.”

  “So maybe they were working together on something. Some…experiment, that has made them…”

  “Vanish into thin air?” Trews said somewhat mystified by the whole conversation.

  “Exactly.”

  “I wonder what they could have done…” Trews said, thoughtfully scratching his beard.

  “I think I’ had sumthin’ to do with th’ star, mesel’” said a hoarse voice floating up from the vicinity of Anise’s boots. She looked down and saw Lem sprawled on the floor and propped up somewhat by an assortment of scientific equipment.

  “Star? What star?” Anise, Trews, and the young cop said simultaneously.

  “Th’ one that blew the hole in there,” Lem said, pointing above at what was left of the ceiling. They found themselves staring at a massive charred hole. They could see straight to the actual stars that had begun to poke shyly from the darkening sky above.

  “I think Lem might actually have something here,” Trews said, nodding sagely, as an armchair fell from the living room above and exploded in a shower of wood and rose patterned fabric.