Excessica Anthology BOX SET Winter (40 page)

—
Katsu, the quieter one, always tinkering with radios and electricity, destined
to become an engineer, sinking to the bottom of the Philippine Sea, his pale
rotting flesh feeding fish...

—Ten
year old Nikki, tall and coltishly awkward, never to break hearts with her
smile and laugh...

—Five
year old Ayame, a happy child, always following Yuki around, trying to be a big
girl by imitation...

—Her
parents, father who was stern and rarely spoke but loved his children, mother
talkative and comforting to them...

—All
incinerated in the fire from American bombs, waves of flame washing over them,
burning clothes into flesh, shrapnel piercing roasted bodies...

“Filthy
Jap whores,” the man was screaming. “You deserve to die. All of you!”

—The
two American sailors who had tried to rape her, leering as they forced her
against a wall, cold rough concrete against her face, the pain of violation and
the laughter.

—The
stream of Americans who came through her room, using her for a few minutes,
never seeing her as a person, just as a thing...

—The
sticky feeling between her legs, their seed running out from her, staining her
sheets and clothes, reminder of the violation...

Ikiryoh
grew stronger, began pushing back. The green monster inside her began
struggling. Yuki concentrated more...

—Americans
in uniform strutting about the country, shoving aside wounded Japanese soldiers
on the streets, leading Japanese women about as docile pets...

“Die
you fucking dirty cheap whore die goddamn you die” he babbled. The green
monster heaved against her, clutching for more of her...

NO
NO NO NO
Yuki’s mind screamed.
NO GET OUT GET OUT!!!
, futilely
pushing against it...

A
shriek sound in Yuki’s skull, so intense that she blacked out. She felt another
presence inside her mind.
GET OUT OF HER!!!
, Aki roared. The green
monster bellowed in surprise and pain. Aki flew into it insane with rage,
striking and beating it back. The green monster put up a bitter fight. In a
white fury, Yuki regrouped her mind and joined the assault. She hammered away
at the thing, and chased it from her body. She and left her body with a violent
jolt, and flew into the sailor’s body, and felt Aki beside her. Together, they
dived to the core of his being, found the life energy inside, and fell upon it.
It was a ball of pure malevolence, which they wolfed down, feeling the rage
strengthen them.

Yuki
came to consciousness, with no idea how long she’d been out. She was face up,
spread-eagled. Aki lay on top of her, head on her belly. Their customer lay on
the floor, on the chair broken from his convulsions. Yuki gently pushed Aki off
and crawled over to see the body.

It
was horrible. Blood poured from his eyes, nose, ears and mouth. The expression
was one Yuki had not thought humanly possible, contorted in agony; she felt his
jaw, and it was loose. He had dislocated it in his torment.

Aki
stirred behind her, moaning and clutching her head. Yuki crawled back over to
her, and cradled Aki in her arms.

“Thank
you so much, dearest Aki,” she whispered in Aki’s ear. “You saved my life. I
could never have fought him myself.”

Aki
held up her head and kissed Yuki. “Nothing is too much for my lover,” she
murmured.

They
lay there until dawn broke, in a small room with cracked plaster and dust on
the floor, smelling of shit from the dead sailor’s voided bowels. They rested
and gathered themselves, assimilating the energy they had taken. They awoke
with a new strength.

Yuki
surveyed the scene, shivering and holding her arms against her body. She could
hear Aki dressing behind her.

“Are
there any more like him out there?” she asked Aki, pulling on her brassiere.

“Maybe.
Get dressed,” Aki told her. “We must leave now.” Yuki pulled her dress over her
head. “We can’t stay here. In Tokyo. We have to go somewhere else.”

“Where?
The American bombs fell everywhere. It’s not better than here.”
And I don’t
want to leave Tokyo. I’ve never lived anywhere else
.

“Good,”
Aki smiled. “The whole country is destroyed. It’s easier for us to vanish and
start over. There are no rules, only opportunities.” She reached out and held
Yuki’s cheek in her hand.

“Shouldn’t
we stop after last night? What if it happens again?”

“Don’t
be afraid,” Aki soothed her. “We can handle it. Besides, what other choices do
we have? We can’t be just meek little housewives, or faceless office girls. This
is our life now. We have chosen it.”

Yuki
knew Aki was right. She had died the night her city was leveled and family
killed. There was nothing else for her to do. “As long as we have each other.”

”We
have forever,” Aki said, taking Yuki’s hands and kissing her. “That should be
long enough.”

ABOUT
SAM KEPFIELD

By
day, Sam Kepfield is an attorney. By night, he is a writer of science fiction
and horror. His work has appeared in the 2006 Apodis Press anthology “Goodbye,
Darwin,” Revolutions SF,
Science Fiction Trails
, and the Eternal Press
site, with pieces upcoming in
Jupiter SF
and an
Aoife’s Kiss
anthology.

He
is a product of the Great Plains. He grew up in Larned, Kansas, received his
B.A. from Kansas State University in 1986, and received his law degree from the
University of Nebraska in 1989. He currently lives and works in Hutchinson,
Kansas.

Equal Rites

By
Jack Osprey

It
had been a beautiful late August day, full of sunshine. The perfect day for a
march. In a hurry, Evangeline Finche adjusted the lenses on her sunshade
goggles to a darker setting, and scurried towards the sound of the crowd.
Thumping her pasteboard placard against her shoulder like a trudging soldier's
weapon, she hiked up her hobble skirt to an ankle-topping height guaranteed to
give her mother the vapors, spied a familiar blond head, and charged into the
thick of the parade marching down Main Street.

"Well,
will you look at who finally showed up! Where have you been, Eve? Our march is
almost over! You missed all the fun."

One
look at the sticky smear of splattered egg riding Phoebe Fox's shoulder
convinced Eve, she was glad she'd been late and missed the 'fun'.

"Nice
to see you too, Phoeb. Sorry I'm late. Mum and father almost didn't let me come
at all, but then I reminded Da I'm eighteen, and a full grown woman. Father
still didn't approve–saying proper young ladies don't make a public
display of their personal views, but mum convinced him to let me come. She says
it's high time women were treated as equals and got the vote."

"Oh
dear–we're coming up to Fort Street. Look at that crowd of men from the
mill. Some of them look pretty angry. Hold your poster high, Eve. Stick your
chin up. March proud, sister!"

* *
* *

Evangeline
looked out of place parading through the rough and raw mill workers of
Brigham's Textile factory, but then all the women were. Though she looked too
well-dressed and refined with her fragile looking beauty, she proudly wore her
purple, gold and white sash, and held her placard as high as anyone else
marching with the other iron-jawed angels. She wore her long red gold hair pinned
in a Gibson girl under her straw boater hat with the sprig of yellow roses and
tri-color ribbon. Behind her goggles, large blue eyes leaked mist in the
blinding sun, dewy lashes fluttering in a pale face so typical of redheads. She
seemed to hold her heavy pasteboard placard as much for a sunshade as to demand
women’s’ rights. They marched arm in arm down Fort Street, these women warriors
out to do battle for what they believed in; wealthy matrons for once in step
with illiterate shop girls, and brazen soiled doves strutting amidst the
heckling, jeers and rotten eggs. They looked like tiny determined birds of
paradise winging directly through the towering mob of jeering ravens; large men
in their somber work clothes, uniformly covered in sweaty dirt and dust. Most
of the mill workers cat calls were loud and full of bravado, though one or two
of the men seemed to single out individual eye-catching ladies to heckle.

"Hey,
lady, I've got your equality right here!"

"You'll
get the vote, sister, when you grow one of these," shouted a beefy
red-faced loom foreman from County Cork, grinning suggestively as he hefted the
obvious bulge beneath his striped trousers.

Several
of the younger men and one or two of the few women by-standers stood quietly
watching the parade, neither heckling the marchers or cheering them on. One
dark-haired Portuguese girl, obviously an office worker, judging by her prim
Sears and Roebuck shirtwaist, broke away from the cluster of sympathetic
onlookers, and moved towards the marching suffragettes as though she had
decided to join their cause. At the last second though, she caught the glaring
stare of her employer, and sheepishly froze in place, suddenly fascinated by
the tips of her cheap shoes. The parade of women finally inched beyond the
borders of the textile mill, and company managers quickly herded their rowdy
employees back inside for another seven hours work.

The
tide of united sisters demanding women's' rights surged ahead without further
incident until they reached the corner of Fort Street and Avalon Lane. Once
there, the fifty-three women stopped, collected their wits, and began cleansing
away the crud thrown at them as their militant leaders moved among them,
grouping them in some sort of respectful cluster so their leader, Agnes
Snodgrass could address them before the march broke up.

Within
a few minutes, a tall steel-haired woman, gaunt to the point of being
cadaverous, smoothed down the mauve skirt to her ill-fitting dress, and stepped
to the center of the clustered women.

"A
fine showing today, ladies. I think we're finally starting to rattle the cages
of those blockheaded men and our scared-sheep sisters. Now that we've got the
momentum going, this is no time to sit back and tend to our knitting. We need
to move forward–burst to the front, and insist these men take us
seriously. Monday morning, Kathleen Sullivan, Rebecca Goldstein, Laura
Blackpoole, and myself are going down to city hall and chaining ourselves to
the wrought iron fence outside the mayor's office. Any of you ladies brave
enough to join us will be more than welcome. Remember, if we maintain a united
front, they'll never stop us! There's strength in numbers!"

Agnes
stopped for a minute, catching her breath, and consulting the new-fangled,
multi-function watch dangling from a gold chain around her well hidden turkey
throat.
What would they come up with next? Pretty soon, they'd create a
devise so she'd be able to write directions home for Sydney using just her
fingertips!
She waited a full three minutes for several of the timid
rabbits to find their courage, and when three or four inched forward, she
cleared her throat and launched into the final portion of her demands.

* *
* *

A
small portion of Eve wanted to volunteer to join the chained gang; in fact, for
a few seconds she almost forced her booted feet to take a giant stride forward.
However, there were limits! City Hall sat on newly renovated Main Street,
surrounded by the five-foot, spear-topped black iron fence in question, and
only partly shaded by newly planted half-grown Maple trees. There were no trees
anywhere near the City Hall entrance leading to the mayor's office, and unless
their hatchet-faced leader and her martyrs wanted to make no impression at all,
they'd be chaining themselves right there, beneath the blistering August sun.
If today's march was any example of what they might expect, Eve would've found
the heat unbearable.

Maeve
Kelly approached her, a look of jealous distain hammered across her pudgy
potato-white face. Her beady eyes moved up and down Eve, almost sneering as she
stared at Eve's dainty shirtwaist. Snorting down her significant pointed nose,
Maeve huffed in indignation, and placed her massive two-hundred fifty pound
frame directly in front of the much smaller teenager.

"Late
again, eh, Finche? Why do yer even come?" Maeve snorted again, and bent
her florid face to the neat and orderly list of names she held in one beefy
paw. "Evangeline Finche. Lucky you. You done yer door ta door pounding
last time. No assignments for ya this time. Get outta here!"

Groaning,
Maeve stared at her list again, screwing up her doughy face like she'd never
seen any of the names before, then abruptly waddled down the line until she
planted her size eleven boots in front of Eve's friend, Phoebe.

* *
* *

As
Eve began to move away from the crowd and think about the wisdom in taking a
public trolley home, Phoebe Fox caught up with her.

"Eve!
Eve, wait for me–please!"

Eve
stopped, fiddling with her long double strand of jet beads as she waited for
her friend, already half sure she knew what was coming. Phoebe never seemed to
have time to do any of the neighborhood soliciting, or handing out pamphlets
necessary for their cause. More often than not, Eve did it for the both of
them.

"I
wonder if you might do me a huge favor, Eve?"

Here
it comes
, thought Phoebe's wiser friend, not really minding the extra
chance to explore their ancient rambling city, and stay out of Father's grasp a
mite longer.

"Sure,
Phoeb. Where am I going?"

"I
wouldn't ask–really I wouldn't, but I just got a transatlantic telegram
from my cousin, Penelope Fox. You remember me telling you about her, don't you.
Eve?"

"Sure.
Isn't she the one who had a Hindu mother, and her father got killed in
Afghanistan or something?"

"Kandahar.
She's half-caste, and pretty as one of those actresses in the magic lantern
pictures I keep hearing about.
Anyway
–she was supposed to be
conducting a séance at Lord and Lady Almsley's estate.
Now
I hear, she's
met some dashing naval officer, and run off to India with him! Honestly, Eve,
she's the one ought to be marching with us. Definitely the family's
adventuress!"

"Phoeb–how
does this affect your doing your assignment for Spinster Snodgrass. I honestly
don't mind, but you do know she is eventually going to catch on. You know how
she is about
all
of us contributing."

"I
know–the old battleaxe! Here's the thing. Penny needs me to wire her some
money so she can buy some new frocks once she and the gentleman hit land. I
asked daddy, and he's agreed to forward the cash–I just need to get to
the telegraph office and cable it overseas before they close. Could you–
will
you–please be a dear?"

"Of
course. You go wire your cousin her money, and tell her to be careful. Now,
where's the neighborhood?"

"Actually,
it's a special assignment. Seems there's actual a group of
gentlemen–three hundred strong–who've all agreed to sign our
petitions and flood our coffers with gold if we'll just send someone to pick up
the signatures and donations."

"Where,
Phoeb?
Where
?"

The
Drowned Mariners Temple on All Souls Lane. Please say you'll still go!"

"Phoeb–that's
on the other side of the city! On the waterfront. Father will crush me like a
bug if he finds out I'm going down there!" Eve dropped her face and
paraded her most sultry pout, making damned sure Phoebe saw what a supreme
sacrifice she'd be making. "Father would be so infuriated–I'll do
it!"

"Thanks!
Oh God, thanks. You don't know what a life-saver you are, Eve."

* *
* *

 Eve's
target was on the seedy old waterfront, dug in like a bloated louse between two
abandoned warehouses, and backed firmly against the inward boulders of the
ancient south-facing sea wall. It was a good twenty-five minute trolley ride on
the Zephyr Line, with at least two changes to different cars. Walking the
distance in her new high-heeled boots didn't bear pondering.

Eve
had never actually ventured into that part of the old city, though of course,
she'd heard the whispered rumors and legends since she was twelve. Father would
be livid–a young lady of her social station and good breeding simply did
not go anywhere near that part of town.

He
would just as soon keep her confined at home, completely bored and friendless;
knowing nothing of life, or the world outside their manor house
door–forever.
Protection
, he'd call it.
Brutal unfair bondage
,
she thought.

Removing
her sunshade goggles, and checking her small tasseled reticule, she made sure
she had enough coin to pay her fee on the various trolley fares from Main
Street to Gravesend, and then on to the temple itself. She'd humor Father by
taking a solitary seat directly behind the busman himself. That should satisfy
Father as to her safety.

She'd
only a vague, naive idea of what awaited her at the ancient
waterfront–brooding, half-abandoned shops and warehouses, and dilapidated
fishing shacks all crowded around reeking fish docks. Maybe an neglected
fishing boat or merchant lugger, half sunk at its mooring. Really, it wasn't a
big deal. All she had to do was find the temple of Drowned Mariners, pound on
its gilded doors, collect the signed petition along with a fat donation, and
scoot back to the first trolley headed home. Piece of cake.

At
least, that's the way Agnes Snodgrass saw it when she forced Eve to admit she
was taking over for Phoebe again.

The
old battleaxe surprised her when she casually excused Phoebe's chronic shirking
of responsibility, but vehemently condemned her half-caste cousin for not
knowing her place, and daring to breach proper society. Apparently, Spinster
Snodgrass's quest for equality had certain restrictions.

Faint
from the heat, Eve wilted further under Agnes’s blistering stare. Fixing her
glare on the pale volunteer, and having seen something of the fearful doe in
Eve's blue eyes, Agnes asked if she felt comfortable with the assignment, or
required a replacement. Remembering the scarlet blush of embarrassment when
she’d overheard some rough mill workers referring to her as “that spoilt little
rich girl", Eve resolved to be as strong in her determination as any
hunger-striking suffragette. She assured Agnes she was not only up to the task,
but eager to get started. Agnes snickered, flashed a grimace of horse teeth,
then stalked away, shaking her hatchet-faced head.

* *
* *

Eve
Finche might be just eighteen, sheltered and pretty, but she wasn't a fool.
Dressed in her long skirt and high-heeled boots, she'd already decided not to
walk fifteen city blocks in the afternoon sun with nothing but her suffragette
sign and silly little hat to protect her pale skin from the burning rays. As
planned, she hopped aboard the first southbound tram she found headed towards
the waterfront, rode seated directly behind the busman, and at the appropriate
stop, switched over to another trolley. In all, she changed trolleys three
times as she wove her way across the bustling city, dodging the hot August
sunbeams. Somewhere along the way, she forgot to recover her sign. Probably
when a red-faced brute fresh from the steam boiler factory jostled her,
knocking her straw boater askew, as he groped himself a quick feel. Shocked at
his barbaric behavior, yet too flustered to protest, he was off the trolley and
strolling away whistling a bawdy sea shanty before she thought of a caustic
reply to his vulgar effrontery.