Short Story 10, Part 2

I was forced to ride shotgun.

And no one even gave me a gun.

The nameless driver had simply pulled up and told me to get in, beyond that he didn’t say a word. He was human, as far as I could tell, and was one of the Glut’s favorites – a henchman, plain and simple. I wasn’t sure if I qualified as a henchman at this point, but it was dawning on me that the glut had more of an idea about it than I did. I’d met the Glut dozens of times previously, but never in a hsate and never one on one. Thus my lack of sidearm.

She didn’t trust me yet.

The ride took us straight out of downtown, carrying along in silence. The radio dials looked like they had been last turned with a clawed hammer; I assumed the whole thing didn’t work. Even inf it did, the driver struck me as the kind of guy who still used cassette tapes. It was nothing in the way that he looked, it was just a sort of era and time that I felt he belonged to – late 1980s, hair bands and cocaine. These were the sort of things that got a guy into this line of work in the first place.

His appearance didn’t betray any of that, but it certainly said something else. His leather jacket was cracked and faded, but still whole with a working zipper. He picked me up wearing a Cleveland Indians baseball cap sporting a logo reminiscent of the franchise during their late 90s success – the days of Alomar, Ramirez and Vazquel. His salt and pepper scruff matched the hair peeking out beneath the cap and complimented his worn and splotched smoker’s skin.

At any moment I expected him to break the silence with the familiar crackle of a pack of smokes. His nails had that warm yellow tint at their edges and were gripping the wheel a little too tightly.

“Trying to quick smoking?” I adjusted my position in the sea, trying to get off the metal rails that were practically bursting through the cushions.

I could see his grip loosen on the wheel, but he said nothing.

“Yeah, I remember what that was like, no patch or anything. Cold turkey was cold. See, they just don’t make ‘em like they used to, damn doctors and their Hippocratic bullshit were making people like you and me suffer, because some whiney ne’er-do-wells wanted a cause for lung cancer. Let me tell you, all the “science” that was used to correlate smoking and cancer, you show that to Colonial Americans and see what those hard asses have to say”

I was beginning to wonder if any of my drivel was getting through, if I kept comparing him to me it was bound to get him irked, especially with me coming off as such a bitchy nut.

But it would prove much harder than that to draw some emotion out of my sulky chauffer of stone. The driver sat silent with his fingers working on the wheel.

“I bet you were a Malboro man back in the day, weren’t you? Beds too, I can see it. Those were the last of the flavor – real tobacco, real drag, filters that you can just snap off, fuck those things.”

We were rounding the corner into our industrial block, I was running out of time to work this guy. By the time I get out of the car I want to be expecting a blow to the face, but he’s keeping cool. Humans are so difficult sometimes.

“She’s expecting you.”

“Oh! There you are. Want a smoke?”

“Get out of the car.”

He stopped the sedan right infront of a loading dock, a produce packaging warehouse. The Glut kept eyes and hands on all sorts of businesses and produce was –strangely – one of them It was ironic in its own way, but n o one was going to laugh at it with the Glut around.

“Lets do this again sometime.” I hurry out of the car, leaving the guy red on the inside, I was sure. As soon as I cleared the doorframe he threw the car in reverse and tried to take me down. I don’t know what would have looked more foolish, allowing him to knock me down or what I actually did: throw myself onto the door and hang on like an exhausted beaver flailing down river.

I planted my feet and broke to the side, grinning as I made a dash for the loading dock. The driver turned his backward progress into a dirt-kicking turn and barely slowed as he cleared the small lot where he dropped me, letting the car’s momentum close the door. I would go on to see him quite frequently, whether during work or after and he picked up smoking again a few days after that meeting with the Glut.

It was important for me to get my laughs in when I could, short moments like that when I was not at risk of getting shot were rare. Car rides could not always be counted on to be low-stress. After that day I would throw men in trunks, car jack old women and be mopping up blood off of car mats – thankfully never my own.

Hopping onto the dock I made way into the dark warehouse. There was no regular business today, the packing machines and belts were all in stasis, the colored lights and sounds of industry were all absent, having gone home with the crew of twenty something.

The glut kept an office up a flight of stairs. Maybe “office’ is the wrong word. When I imagine an office it has a desk and chairs with maybe a filing cabinet or a table with a large print calendar. These are the offices for men. For humans. The Glut’s is something else.

Padding up the metal stairs, I made no attempt to hide my arrival. The steps were extra deep and were a grid-like cast that allowed for excellent grip. No one would slip on those stairs, but plenty have fallen down them. They had a water-resistant finish applied on the surface, a maroon coating that reminded me of dried blood.

Safety standards for factories and most work environments had been written with average humans in mind. The impregnation of the contemporary work force by non-humans happened in the early 1980s, almost paralleling an international recession that the western workforce took right in the gut. Obviously, speculation about the inclusion of non-humans in labor positions and the timing related to the economic downturn was widespread and proliferated until investors and entrepreneurs demanded action. Legislators refused to acknowledge non-humans under equal opportunity standards and safety requirements and user access for establishments only had to accommodate those with hands, feet, two arms and two legs.  Of course each business could redesign their facilities to welcome the newly accepted abject, but this was a fantastic challenge for places such as restaurants and stores as the variety within the non-human and their possession of animal qualities often risked contamination and violation of existing health codes. Really, the arrival of the non-humans into everyday society was a global dilemma in civil rights and the question of autonomy. It put even international giants such as McDonalds at the brink of collapse, in their case it was something so simple as “do we serve burgers to people with cow bodies, even though they have cold hard cash?”

The Glut was very much involved in this socioeconomic battle. She had clout – to say the least – and kept in good relations with a few dozen congressmen (all of which were human). I had heard stories before I met her in person that she was involved in politics in the early 40s, keeping her hands entangled in pre-war policy. At the time – nearly eighty years ago – non-humans were not acknowledged as sentient or aware, a sentiment  only comparable to the attitude toward black slaves in the 1700s. I’m still not sure of the truth behind these claims, simply based on the timeline, but people were discovering more and more about non-humans every day.

I came to the double-door frame that lead to the Glut’s office and leaned against it, not passing the threshold, but letting the room come to me.

The office was only possessive of a small circle of couches, a coffee table and a large padded platform – almost a stage – that oversaw the ocean of upholstery. The platform was riddled with pillows like the lounge of an Eastern king. If the Glut put some hookah pipes around the room it would make a seamless transformation.

Riding on couch number one was a lone man. I had never seen him before, but that didn’t mean anything. He dressed like a farmer and had the build of a football player (it should be noted that the NFL refused to draft non-human players), but his fear was evident on his face. His big brown eyes darted around the room and barely noticed my arrival. The Glut wasn’t there yet, she loved to make people wait; always arriving fashionably late and making it clear that people came to her not the other way around. The middle-age quarterback was tensed like a spring, wringing his hat between his nervously working hands.

I simply waited and watched, knowing that this was something I was meant to see. The Glut undoubtedly timed this so her earlier meeting overlapped into ours. There were other doors into the room and I had expected her to enter through them, but she snuck up behind me. I was either too lost in thought or she was getting very good at being stealthy. She didn’t acknowledge me, she simply brushed past me as she navigated through the open door frame.

The Glut always filled me with mixed emotions. I could understand the fear the couch-rider felt, she was a sight. She stood a head taller than me and could straight up to an east seven feet. Most people describe two things after they first meet the Glut, one is her lower body, the other is her upper. I could never decide which attribute was more shocking. Below her waist was as if her bottom started where a chicken’s head ended. The white feathered mass blossomed at her hips and contained the breast, wings and legs of the classic feathered foowl. While it maintained a poultry-esque referent it was as if such a critter were enlarged to a three and a half foot tall hen with talons as long as a grown human’s hand. Above the gargantuan bird the Glut had a stunning female torso; a flat-bodied, ample-chested, ivory skinned monument to sexuality which was never covered in clothing. This is not what was unusual , though, at the shoulder the Glut sprouted six additional arms, all of which were toned and sculpted to match her muscular form. This almost arachnidan mutation allowed her to multi-task like a machine and gave her speech and personality a monstrous animation. Two of her arms were always occupied. I didn’t know if the Glut was even aware of it, but she constantly was groping her own breasts. When I looked upon her I was always terrified and aroused. Only the potential for her to end my life kept me from pitching a very awkward tent.

She clicked past me, touching the door frame and letting her last-most hand brush my cheek. The multitude of limbs was always moving, touching whatever was in reach – cracking knuckles, fondling breasts…something. She let a small smile touch her lips, but what she was smiling at was hard to tell. The Glut kept a strange cap about her eyes and head. It may have been an additional segment of her anatomy, but regardless it was clearly identifiable as a Lily of the Valley, a pale white flower that crowned her head.

“Good afternoon, gentleman. Thank you for waiting, Bill.” So I learned the man’s name was bill.

Bill came to his feet, nearly tripping on his own shoes, “’Afternoon, what’s this all about, Glut?”

“In time, Bill. I want to show you something first.” She glided on her claws to the stage and smoothly hopped onto its raised surface. From somewhere unseen she drew two ears of husked and cleaned yellow corn, juggling them amongst her many grasps. “These were both taken from your many acres of land, Bill. Do you know what the difference between these two is? No? Of course not. It isn’t something so visible. However, it is a vital difference. One difference that brings us to the purpose of our meeting. Any guess? Still no?

“Well I’ll tell you. This one is yours. And this one is mine.”

Bill’s mouth stammered along silently, unable to make the words that we were both thinking: What?

“This ear,” in one of her right hands, “is from seed you’ve gathered through seven generations of your family. Corn whose diversity is natural and derived through careful hoarding of raw materials. This other,” dancing in her left set, “is a genetically modified ear, scientifically perfect and resistant to disease and most insect life. What has happened is that somehow – some unfortunate accident I’m sure – you’ve collected a sampling of my seeds and unfortunately let them grow alongside your own. So one has to wonder: how much of that crop is your seed and how much is mine?

“See, Bill, you’ve stolen this corn – “

“Whoa now! I have done no such thing!”

“- and consequently infringed on a copyright and patents I have on this produce. My attorney tells me I can bring suit against you and force you to stop harvest for years during litigation. Now, tell me Bill, How much did you net last year?”

Bill was stuttering and pressing his palms into his temples, struggling to wrap his mind around this turn of events.

“Bill.”

Nothing.

“Bill!” The Glut’s arms tensed and cocked as if going to throw the corn.

“Se-seven-seventy.”

“Okay, Bill, that’s not bad. You’ve carved out a decent living there and I’m sure with your wife’s wages you clear one-twenty on a decent year. So, I’ll tell you what, I’ll make you a deal. If we should pursue the proper legal course here you make nothing per year and most of your wife’s income would go into lawyer’s fees and I don’t want to do that to you.”

The relief on Bill’s face was like the sun coming out of the clouds and just as bright.

“What I think we can do is compromise. I think, since you’re such a gentleman, that you can go on using my seeds and – for now – I won’t lose a feather over it. In exchange for my niceties – essentially y allowing your farm to limp on – I’ll be expecting to receive 40% of your profits. Annually.”

The crashing disappointment hammered Bill’s face again, “That’s almost half of my income! How can I….How…”

I continued to stand by, unmoving.

“Bill, Bill, think about how much of your money you would lose if you had no harvest per year.”

The Glut had just added nearly thirty thousand dollars to her annual salary.

The farmer known as Bill weighted his losses and potential disasters and signed on with the Glut. He walked out and forgot his hat.

She and I stood in silence for a few moments after his departure.

Eventually she broken the silence, “Have a seat.”

I did.

“How long have you been under my employ?”

“Thirteen months.”

“I’m sorry I missed our anniversary.” She slowly got off the platform and came to stand before me, “Has it been as good for you as it has for me?” She gently ran a single hand along my knee.

“It’s been a thrill,” I don’t want to betray my discomfort,” Honestly, I’m surprised you called me here.”

 She sighed and took her hand off of me.

“I had heard you were fun, you don’t seem fun.”

“I’m a walking thrill ride after a few shots.”

“We’ll have to test that out some time.”

“Name the time and place.”

“One day. In the meantime, I brought you here to tell you who your new partner is. It’s been a few weeks since we lost Gene and we need to get you back in the swing of things. When you get your next job, you’ll be working with Levi.”

“Oh, no, come on, Glut”

“Don’t whine. Levi is an excellent partner, you’ll learn to love her. Trust me, Atticus.”

Short Story 10 (Untitled)

Levi sat across from me, stabbing herself in the gut.

“What the fuck is that?” A classy inquiry if there ever was one.

She managed to cram an additional slice of pie into her maw, “Its medicine, dick, it keeps my heart in check. Ya know, ba-bump-ba-bump?”

“There are better ways of doing that, ya know?” Dragging out the last word, I glared into her swine eyes, trying to burn some semblance of respect into her tiny, tiny brain.

But she was having none of it. She swung her arms over the plastic table between us, grappling me in her talons. Levi was stationary nearly twenty-four-seven, but had no problem calling on her speed. Her arms were twice as long as a human’s and were covered in a thick, abundant fur. The Glut once told me she had the arms of a sloth, but never having seen one I wouldn’t know. The three nails on each paw wrapped my throat like a ribbon, pulling in around my chin and drawing a string of blood from my Adam’s apple.

“What the fuck?” I choke out, I don’t resist or raise a hand against her, even though I have a sem-automatic on my hip. I might act panicky, but I know she’s just flexing – peacocking , so to speak – and trying to scare me. I know Levi a hell of a lot better than she knows me, I watched and listened long before I came on as her partner.

Our work together was brutal and she didn’t make it any better nor did my not being like her. She was one of Them and I would never be.

I stood five foot ten, pale skin – skin all over – and looked the perfect part as a human specimen. Ten fingers, toes, two arms, legs and eyes. I would never find out if Levi resented these qualities or simply prejudiced against me for it. It really didn’t matter, her pig-faced scowl was enough to make regular pigs choke and die. In fact, I believe she harvested the bacon for the pie she was now enjoying. I don’t know if that’s sick or twisted, as a self-classified omnivore I –of course- enjoy the occasional ovine, but I certainly don’t eat my fellow man, I wouldn’t even entertain the thought of eating one of Them, considering how close to human they appear. I’m no cannibal.

“Don’t talk shit, flanges! Doc says it’s genetic. We can’t all walk around with our bones sticking out of our stomachs, okay, skinny? If you want to see what medicine can do for you just say the word. I’ll give you a bit of something that’ll take you years to flush out.”

Bitch. “Got it, got it.”

Levi got right back to chomping down the pie, one slice in one bite. She placed her hand back on the syringe, pushing down the plunger and sending whatever it contained deep into her thick and cold blood. Her black solid eyes now ran up and down my face, looking for my fear and trying to register its validity, seeing if her weight was enough to push me around or get me on the back foot. Fuck her, she can bully all day and it won’t matter, I can pretend until my face is blue but when push comes to shove I’ll be the one with hands covered in pig blood.

“Whatever, Levi. How’s your pie?” The flow of blood kept running down my neck, I pushed aside thoughts of dabbing at it. Let her see it, lick her lips at it, be a fucking….pig. I knew Levi was a sadist, she had to curb it when we were working otherwise she could fuck up whole jobs by sending people through windows or something else ridiculous, but I’d seen her left unchecked.

Two weeks before this small luncheon Levi went out to get payment from a family in the burrows - protection money to keep them under the Glut’s wing – and when she shows up the mom sends out her youngest son to break the bad news: they don’t have the money This really doesn’t surprise me, it’s a fairly common event considering the type of people the Glut keeps in his wallet. So, Levi gets down on her stubby little knees and puts a paw on the kids head. The whole thing looks gentle and innocent from the car where I sat and watched, but Levi started drooling. This almost black sort of ichor ran from the corners of her floppy jowls nearly dripping onto the kid’s shoulders, threatening to drape him in a black shroud.

The driver of our four-door watched with me. He leans back in the car and mumbles, “Ya know how they say not to shoot the messenger? Watch and learn.”

Levi turned the kid so he could be seen from the windows of their pitiful shack and whirled her arms around like she was showing off a prize to a game show. “One last chance!” she called out, drawing the boy in closer. No reply and rip, Levi dragged her claws down the kid’s face. Three fat gashes opened up down the right side of his head and sprayed blood like a hose. Her other hand was clasping his skull like a vice and his struggling and wriggling were futile. Mom came out, she screamed, she gave up some money. Lovely.

“Pie’s fine, flanges,” what a stupid nickname, “I’d offer to share, but I don’t really like you.”

“I’m aware of that, any dessert following your pie? Or are outta here?”

“Don’t be pushy or you might get pushed back.”

Short Story 9

(Be) Patient
Inkjet Print
28"x 85"

Bear was perched outside the shower, vigilant and silent as always. The black Bombay was a sleek, shiny and unappreciated guardian, especially by the one called James. He was in the shower, throwing around the filthy water as if it were a plaything and rubbing himself up and down.

 Bear wanted nothing to do with it, of course. He simply did his best to be where he was needed. The bathroom only had one door and Bear thought this was a marvelous innovation of room construction - not that he would tell anyone - because it allowed him to focus on one door and only one door, keeping himself between James and the nightfallen shroud in the room beyond.

The others were in the house somewhere, perhaps calling for Bear, wanting to rub his face and tempt him with various strings, but he was busy. This was not a service Bear took lightly, watching over the James, he had been keeping watch for years and was unknowingly proud of himself for a job well done – so far. The James, master of the house and keeper of the keys was worth saving and worth forgiving, even if he made more mistakes than he should. Bear held no reservations about the way humans treated each other, but this was about his own survival as well: the longer James was around, the easier Bear’s life was. It had been this way as long as Bear could remember and it did not strike him in any way but normal.

The man called James would never know of the shadow hanging over him, he would never know about how hard Bear had been fighting, but he was only Human and Bear did his best to understand. They all made mistakes. It was part of their nature.

Maybe it was the time of year, early December, but Bear felt especially compassionate for the James, he had no word for “love” but he felt it anyway. His duty to keep the family safe was not obligatory or assigned, but simply coincidental, or perhaps serendipitous. Christmas season always made the Humans put on smiles, but Bear never smiled. He kept a chill gaze over the world, looking for the shadow to reappear, waiting to swat at the things unseen and never to be seen. He would remain stoic in the face of changing seasons and changing times, keeping his warm feelings behind the enigmatic mask of his feline face.

James only ever picked up Bear to ask him what he was thinking, “What’s behind those eyes of yours, Bear?” He would mumble, holding Bear aloft by the soft parts under his forelegs, “Do you know what I’m saying to you?” Bear did, he always did, but he said nothing. James would stare into Bear’s yellow eyes for a long time, sometimes holding his breath and squinting, like Bear were an illusionary puzzle that would reveal its true nature in time. However, he was not. He would remain a simple family cat. James would put him down then, dragging his rough hands along Bear’s spine, smoothing out the now-frazzled fur from their awkward embrace, “Go find a mouse and kill it,” an instruction not worth following.

But sometimes the James did not understand and he would put Bear outside, these were bad nights for Bear. Of course he was ready - claws out and ears down - but he desperately wanted to go back inside, to keep watch and keep ready. The darkness was outside with him, but the Darkness was inside and the Humans could not see it. When these nights came, it was a battle of wills and this was a war of attrition. Bear would patrol and circle, looking for the opportunity to get back inside, but could he out-wait the Darkness? Was he more patient than the will of the night? He thought so, but he was not so sure anymore.

More and more often the James would put Bear outside, whether he was exiled out of frustration or simply because they thought he was better off outdoors, Bear did not know, but the ever-increasing frequency in which he was apart from the James was a sign of the end. In the way that strong winds brought the storm, Bear’s absence invited the bad times.

A Freak (Short Story 8) Part 8

Worker [In Progree]

Ross Halimer stood in the doorway that led to Yves’ room. He’d been staring at her small and defeated frame for a handful of minutes and was not sure why. Of course he’d had his way with her, that was the only purpose she was going to serve, but it wasn’t anything he’d gab about later. She was a fucking mess, Jenny – oh Jenny you dumb bastard – had beaten the shitting life out of her and just looking at her while he lay on top was like having sex with someone who wore a hamburger mask, meaning it was unpleasant.

Beyond that, she wouldn’t stop crying. Ross wasn’t going to beat or threaten her like Jenny did, but did this girl have energy. Did this girl have tears. This was another of his conundrums: the girl had been down here for four days without food or water and she still was crying, she was still struggling and fighting without so much as asking for a crumb. How could she put up such a fight? Ross was no stranger to hunger – no one out this far was – but after four days without water he would be down and dying.

So he watched her bloody face, mused at her broken wrist and grimaced every time she cried out. He couldn’t keep Jenny from his mind either and this was at the top of Mt. Distraction, here. Jenny was dead. He shot himself. The man Yves called Faceless had brought her back here and worked her over on day one. Day two they left her alone, knowing that Jenny took it farther than he should have. Day three is when he started to freak. Jenny had been complaining of groin pain, of feeling like he was kicked in his zone. Ross brushed it off, calling him a little girl and the usual that went between them. Normally Jenny would have gotten flustered and given as good as he got, but he absolutely flipped. He about slugged Ross in the nose and went off on a screaming fit the likes of which Ross had never seen. Before he could calm Jenny down, he pulled out his .38 and put it to his melted face. Boom. Gone.

Jenny had never been pretty to begin with, compete facial scarring due to burns may have made him look better than he had, but all of it was angelic compared to the way his mug was punched in by the bullet. His head practically imploded and spewed out the back, a messy red splatter on the concrete walls.

The light flickered over Ross’ head, plunging him into the darkness for a thin moment. One light, not so much of a gift after all. He remembered being given the light, being shown the bunker and nearly wetting his pants with excitement. Having such a secure place, especially with the kind of business he and Jenny tracked – had tracked – in would be a godsend. The man who showed them the light had given no instructions on how to turn it off, on or repair it. Ross knew that one day it would go off and that would be the end of it. It was amazing how having the single electric bulb made the rest of the day seem so dark, even when he had a torch or campfire it was always a candle to the flame of the pale white fluorescent.

The girl moaned again, “Please! Someone! Let me go!”

Ross turned to leave and rolled his eyes so hard that he almost fell over, shut up, freak.   

He stopped mid-stride as if hitting a wall, was the girl a Freak? Was that why she could go without food or water for so long? What could she do? Was she dangerous?

He didn’t think she was dangerous, if she could have harmed him she would have, but if she was a Freak…

I would not have fucked a Freak, no way, no how. I would have known. Like the way home or where north is. Right?  No one answered.

“Let me go!”

The shrill cry partnered up with Ross’ panic. What had she done to him? He patted himself up and down, making sure all his parts were still intact. Ten fingers. Toes. Running his digits through his hair, none of it came out in clumps. His hands met over his crotch and he suffered a stunned paralysis again. Jenny.

Fucking Jenny, talking about his junk. Shit. Was he in pain? Was his discomfort entirely in his head or had he been feeling sick all along? He definitely wanted to throw up now, though. Ross undid the button at his crotch and pulled his pants down, turning his body to face the light. What he saw was horrifying. Ross’ genitals were monstrous and engorged versions of themselves. His entire crotch was covered in boils and sores, it looked like it was melting from the inside. A dark bruise was spreading out from the base of his penis and when his pants opened a dead smell rose up from beneath the buttons.

Oh my god, I’m rotting. My dick is rotting off! “Fuck.”  He paced back and forth, staring at his Lifelong Friend and neglected to pull his pants up off the ground. He waddled like a penguin to and fro the lit room then into the darkness and back. What was happening?

Jenny. Right. He pulled his pants up, not bothering to button them again, he simply hung on. Ross stumbled down the hall to where he and Jenny had their final debate and found the gas lantern that hung securely in the darkness. After fiddling with some matches, Ross set the blazing cylinder down aside Jenny’s feet, casting a tall shadow from his boots up over his head. Never having thought this was something he would be doing, Ross opened up Jenny’s faded denim pants.

The odor that leapt out was like a brick to the face. Ross fell backwards and nearly knocked over the lantern. Not only did it seem that Jenny had soiled himself when he went, but his Combat Zone was just that, it was a bloody and horrid mess. Ross didn’t look for long, but he could have studied it for hours and not been able to identify what had been what.

He sat against the wall, tangled in the darkness, his breathing ragged and fast, heart pounding like a drum. Rational thought was drifting away, Looks like Jenny knew what was up. Ross scrambled for Jenny’s .38.

A Freak (Short Story 8) Part 7

This is what the Stick is for. A swift grip and a single knock on a glass pane set into the door, Cale could reach his arm in and find the stubborn lock. Ignoring the slicing of the remaining glass, he twisted the ancient lock and maneuvered around the opening door.

The men who controlled this sat here, he knew this even in the dark. One or two men at a time, he thought, and even under such careful care they would still let them crash. Gently riding metal trains would take curves too fast and collide into smoldering twists of metal that ended hundreds of lives at a time. How easy was it to pilot these machines? Certainly if one or two men could handle the job it wasn’t something so complicated that they should be willing to sacrifice men and women on a whim. Every reminder of the Old Ones’ blunders is a blessing – teach us not their ways.

Cale had seen Old One machinery before, most of those alive today could name and describe cars and televisions, but had no idea about the extent of the Old Ones’ power. Every time a man or woman was born who knew how to turn on the machines Cale saw the world change. Their coming usually heralded a blackened age, where thousands would perish and the face of society scarred. These people were not Freaks, not quite, but were almost always up to no good. Cale had witnessed the rise of emperors on the backs of the dead machinery and was always caught in the middle of the disasters. He did not want to call himself an assassin, but these people did have to be dealt with by someone. But then there were others, often women, who had the affinity that traded in humanism and dealt good fates to others. The last child to turn on power was a small girl.

The girl, her name had been Paige, lived along the ocean on Manh Island, a narrow landmass in the northern regions of the East.  She was fortunate in that her family lived on the outskirts of the Sleepless City, so she could be hidden from the populace of the area. Even the rumors of such children were enough to unify the frightened and panicky into small mobs that wanted to punish these little ones for crimes they had not yet committed. They were simply scared. Paige, while sheltered from the outside, scavenged anything that was still in working order, any of the trinkets left behind.  Her family could wash clothes in solar-powered machines, they could keep in touch with hand-held radio devices and they could stay safe with stun guns. Paige kept searching though, knowing that none of these things were helping anyone aside from her family. It was always harder for her, looking in places that were ever more and more overgrown. Places shrouded in a recovering woodland and unrelenting forest.

Paige found a crumbling building, darkened by a canopy from species of trees that hadn’t lived on the island for centuries. She couldn’t read it, but the fading signs marked it as South Hampton Hospital. Within the hospital was very little hope, most of the hallways and rooms were crushed and collapsing under the weight of time, but in the basement is where Paige found a treasure trove. There were devices that could restart a stopped heart, machines that could see a man’s insides and almost all of them were portable. Paige had the ability to set up a makeshift hospital in the heart of her small town.

She was a saint to those who came to her for help, a girl of ten who could practically bring back the dead or reverse the spread of ever-present cancers. Paige, though, encountered the same problem that every other child in her shoes did: she couldn’t teach the others. Even when she spoke in the clearest of instructions and made pamphlets and booklets on how to turn things on – how to keep them running – it always came out like gibberish, mandates spoken in tongues to a directionless flock. So she was the only one who could help. Aside from basic first-aid, her nurses were of little value.

So, when men finally came for her, there was no one to help. Every good deed she performed was not enough to convince these gangsters that she would not become a tyrant, that she would not find a cache of bombs and bring Manh Island to its knees. They shot her and while she lay bleeding and dying on a crisp white paper-covered table her heart stopped and no one could bring it back. She died at twelve years old.

Cale could not turn on machines, his knowing what the train did and how it functioned was simply something bestowed upon him for a purpose yet unforeseen.

The skeletons persisted. Bang. Louder now, as if they were being thrown by a great fist instead of charging in on their own. He was running out of time. Cale stretched his hand out and tapped on the glass that he knew was at the nose of the train, it was of average thickness and was done no favors by time. Glass like this always slipped downward like an extremely viscous honey, so the top of the pane was marginally thinner than its base. Bang. Bang. Faster now too.

Moving back to his original car, Cale brought the matches out and struck two sticks with a fast flick of his wrist. Both sulfur heads flared to life and hung on against the wind of his movement. Not needing the small orange glow they provided, he threw the matches down onto the pile of defeated undead. Like before, the pile of ashes and bone blazed into life, battling between the natural orange of the fire and the lime green that breathed out of the risen dead.

Suddenly the train car was fully lit, the smoke beginning to crowd the ceiling, desperate to find a way into the open air. Cale turned from the fire, he moved to the front car. His back against the wall, he grasped the metal cylinder in his right hand, ready to let it go.

Bang.

Bang. Bang. Bangbang. Bangbangbang.

The metal doors flew inwards, shards of bone and skull perforating the air, small whistles that fell onto the green fire. Cale was ready. He pulled the pin and threw the -

(Grenade!)

 -around the corner. It struck the ground and bounced once, flying into the empty space of the train car. Through the doors came a black flood, a living oil spill that spread through the air. “JOHHH-“

Cale crouched and covered his ears as the grenade exploded.  It was a deafening fireball that devoured the living darkness of the speaker and wrapped him in the soft glove of a blacksmith, a warm and rough embrace. The windshield of his train car blew outwards from the pressure spraying tiny glass knives out onto the empty track – no monsters outside, not yet. In the fractured seconds after the explosion, Cale leapt out the window, never looking back to see if the fire would be enough.