Excessica Anthology BOX SET Winter (94 page)

the
wind as it rushed over the land, through the draws and over the bluffs, whipping
the tall grass and wildflowers, so beautiful but also so lonely, knowing at an
early age that love of the land must give way to the need to leave it—

a
mother’s face, old before her time, drawn and sunken and wasted with disease, a
bony hand reaching out and a last whispered goodbye to the daughter –

the
father, quiet and hard by nature and now by loss, hiding his grief under a
veneer of roughness with the girl –

hours
in a lonely little room done in flowered wallpaper and very feminine, at a
small writing desk, first with a Bic pen and Big Chief tablet, then with an old
Smith-Corona portable typewriter bought with babysitting money, the keys
clacking away, the “s” key that stuck, forming words and pictures of worlds far
away, and then not –

excitement
as the time to leave drew near, a world opening up, a world with no more
predawn chores nor midnight bedtimes during harvest –

all
of it gone in an instant, the last thought in the mind that there would be no
college, no escape, she would be here forever buried under the dark soil and
wildflowers –

A
lithe willowy girl, in diaphanous silvery mist that might have been lace, was
there standing in the field. She walked towards me, slow and sensuous,
surrounded by a glow, held her arms out, lips parts, I embraced her and she was
real as could be. The mist dissipated, leaving her naked in my arms, and I felt
myself responding. Her lips on mine soft and warm, body against mine firm,
small breasts against my chest, the nipples hardening through the fabric of my
Cheap Trick concert shirt, lifting her legs up around my waist, and then I was
bare as well, entering her and grasping small firm buttocks, drawing me into
her, slow and steady thrusting and all too soon a release, a wave of dizziness
washing over me. A long, lasting kiss, and

I
came to a few minutes later, getting woozily to my feet. I panicked, thinking
that the record had run out and there was nothing but dead air on. I pushed the
button on my digital watch—three minutes gone. I hurried back to the
studio, and the Humble Pie track was ending. I grabbed a PSA from the cart
rack, slammed it in the machine, punched the button, and dug in the box of 45s.
I found the one I wanted, and cued it up.

“Here’s
a number to ease us along the starry summer night, the Beatles with ‘Let it
Be.’ This one’s for a special lady out there. I love you, Kyria. I hope this
gives you peace.”

* *
* *

That
was the last I heard from her. For two years, my heart jumped when the red
light on top of the left speaker flashed. I knew I’d pick it up, hear her
voice, “I’m so sorry I went away, I really am. I’m real now, and if you only
step outside I’ll be there, real as can be and yours forever.” But it was
always Hal’s voice, reminding me of a frequency check, or the odd request.
That’s the difference between fantasy and reality, between the fairy-tale happy
ending and the cold hollow reality we wake up to every morning.

After
a couple months, I worked up the nerve to go to her house and ask her father
about the boxes. The first time, he slammed the door in my face. The second
time, a few weeks, later, he eyed me suspiciously from behind a screen door. A
friend of hers, Becky Turlington, had always meant to come by and pick them up
but never had, I was a friend, so could he let me take them to Becky. A half
hour of talk, and I walked off with two cardboard liquor store boxes full of
Mead notebooks and Big Chief tablets.

I
left Red Bluff and WFY in the fall of ’81, for an afternoon/weekend slot in
Wichita. I enrolled at Wichita State, majoring in communication arts and
English. The schedules complimented each other nicely, and when I left Wichita
in the spring of ’85, I headed way out west to Colby, at a small FM station
needing a program director. Rock and roll, this time. Two years there, a few in
Hays, finally scoring big time, landing a job at a Kansas City station.

Kyria’s
boxes yielded some real treasures. They weren’t typical frothy juvenile works,
but showed a real insight into human nature. I proofed and retyped a few of
them, made minor changes, and sent them into literary magazines.
Prairie
Schooner
took one. Others went to literary magazines with low circulation
that paid in copies. The story about her best friend’s brother dying in Vietnam
sold to
North American Review
, a real coup for a beginning writer.
Another sold to the
New England Review
.

I
published them under a pseudonym. Using her name would have been ghoulish.
Publishing them under my name seemed like plagiarism.

My
own writing took off, too. After a pile or rejection letters, I began selling
to the SF pulps, by ’91 making the pages of
Analog
or
Asimov
’s. I
worked on a mainstream novel,
Kansas in the Rearview Mirror
, for years,
and sold it to Harper’s in ’94. Three more followed, to critical acclaim, and I
began to feel less like a fraud.

The
final notes of the Star Spangled Banner burst forth from the WFY transmitter
into outer space sometime late in the summer of ’88. The station had been on a
downhill slide for years. After Jerry Hibbert died in October ’87, the station
was put up for sale. There were no local buyers, so finally the license was
auctioned off to a conglomerate out of Denver that set up a tower fifty miles
away. The nighttime ether around Red Bluff was again silent. Kyria must have
been lonely, if she were still around.

I
got married along the way. I met Donna in Kansas City, at a bookstore where I
was doing a signing. She reminded me of Kyria in a way, that same quiet beauty
that rested on brains rather than looks.

I
saw WKY one last time. In a summer occupied with talk of DNA and blue dresses
and the definition of “is,” I headed out to Denver for a bookseller’s
convention. My second was out, doing well on the amazon.com list, if not the
New York
Times
list. I sped west on I-70, the long lonely stretches of
asphalt cutting through the Flinthills of northeast Kansas, the flat plains
around Salina, and then the High Plains around Hays. I saw an exit sign,
“Russell 1 mile.” On a lark, I took the exit, pointed the Explorer south, and
immediately spied another road sign. RED BLUFF 31 it read. I looked at my
watch. Half past eleven. Denver was six hours away. I had nothing tonight but a
dull cocktail reception, which I could skip. A short detour couldn’t hurt. I
gunned the engine and got there in twenty minutes.

The
town was virtually unchanged. I went through the traffic light, turned on
Fifth, and drove four miles west. I could see the tower halfway there, poking
up, a sentinel, or grave marker, on the plains.

The
building was there, much worse for wear. More paint had peeled off. Plywood
covered most of the windows, including the control booth window. The concrete
slab was cracked, weeds growing waist high from it. Grass was reclaiming the
parking lot and road; in fifty years, I mused, this would be back to nature.

I
parked the Explorer and got out, walked around the building. The window to
Hal’s office was broken out; from the dullness of the glass, it hadn’t been
recent. I squeezed through, found myself in darkness. The office was totally
empty; not a chair or cardboard box in sight. Animal droppings—probably
raccoons—told me the place wasn’t going entirely unused. The rest of it
was the same. The carpet exuded a rotting, mildewy odor. The paint on the walls
inside was peeling, the paneling split and hanging down in a few places. The
bathroom fixtures were gone, all the furniture gone. The control booth was also
sadly empty. The record library stood bare, not even the shelves left. I
imagined—hoped—that the vinyl had found a good home, and not been
tossed out uncaringly into some metal dumpster. Though I suspected the latter
was the case.

I
closed my eyes once outside again, feeling the sun beat down on me, heard to
meadowlarks and the locusts, felt the hot wind on my face cool the sweat, and
tried to make it happen. Surely she would come to me again, lonely after all
those years, starved for companionship.

Nothing.
I squinted my eyes and tried harder. Still nothing.

Where
are you
, I moaned inside.
It’s supposed to end differently
.
Something, anything, a sign, a clue, anything.

The
tallgrass waved indifferently, the wind swished through the tower, dust stirred
without a care. And that was all, as I opened the door and got inside the
Explorer, but I imagined something else, shook my head, it wasn’t going to
happen, I was the victim of wishful thinking—just a smile and laughter on
the wind as it moaned let it be.

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.

Fireflies: Immaculate Conception

By
Amicus

I
was happy when my daughter called: "Hey..."

"Hey...!"
I answered, recognizing her voice.

"What
are you doin'?

"Not
much," I answered, "what's up?"

"Can
you watch the kids for a while?"

"Sure...when...?

"Pick
you up on Friday...we wanna go out Saturday night and not worry about
things..."

"Sure,
no problem..."

"You
need anything?"

"Nope,
I'm good."

"Okay,
see you Friday...love you..."

"Love
you too babe...see you then..."

They
waited until the baby, eight months old, was asleep and the two older children,
a boy and a girl, eight and four were locked into a Harry Potter DVD before
they left.

"Hey...you
get bored...take a look through these..." She handed me a string tied file
case and flipped through several tagged Manila folders inside.

I
raised my eyebrows with a question on my face. "Oh?"

"Yeah,
you might find it interesting; I got assigned to it....out in your area, kinda
weird."

"Okay...hey...you
guys have a good time...and don't worry...I haven't lost a kid in thirty
years."

She
gave me a quick hug and her husband nodded as they left, closing the door
behind them.

It
was an easy night; the little girl cuddled up next to me on the couch under her
'blanky' and was asleep before the movie was over, the boy made his own popcorn
and snuck one of his mama's Cokes. I pretended not to notice.

They
were abed and sound asleep and I had watched the late news, smoked on the back
porch and found a half a glass of a tart 'Blue Nun' wine to sip on before I
picked up the file case, blinked tired eyes and started to read.

At
the third folder in the file case I sat up straight in the chair before the
computer and then walked to the kitchen and fired up the coffee pot.

They
got home late...very late...late enough to worry me for a while, but all was
well. It was past noon when they seemed well enough to take the parental reins
again. I changed a couple diapers, fed rice and baby food and cold cereal, put
one back to bed and sent the other two out to play and fixed a lunch; Mac and
Cheese, PB&J's and chocolate milk...you can't lose with that combination,
not with kids anyway.

She
was hung over but happy and appreciative for the first night out in over a
year. It's tough raising kids and working and going to college and having a
husband in the Marines who is also going to college.

She
graduated with a degree in Psychology just about year ago and had landed a job
with a Social Services agency in the County Seat a twenty minute drive away.
She had shared a few folders of her case assignments before as we both had an
interest in human behavior; but what she shared this time was different.

She
was fuzzy around the edges and did not ask if I had read the material. I chose
not to say anything. I did surprise her by asking that they run me back out to
my cottage before the day was done. I just said I was tired...that the kids had
worn me out.

Her
husband drove me back; he's a good kid, loves the hell out of my daughter and
that makes me happy. We talked about a lot of things, a good talk, and too soon
we were there and I watched him back out of the driveway.

I
always take a little overnight bag...the usual things...but also, always, a
note pad and something to write with. I took a lot of notes the night before.
Things were as I had left them in my solitaire abode, what else would they be
even though I never locked the door? I checked my liquor supplies and the still
half full carton of menthol light 100's, turned the computer and the television
on and fixed a drink. It would be a long night.

Let
me begin by saying that I am not a great fan of modern psychology. Somewhere
along the line from celebrity psychiatrists to pop art, 'shrinks', in books and
the movies, the field took on a somewhat surreal aura that seemed to have
little to do with average people. Not that I am totally ignorant of the
profession, Freud, Jung and Adler still echo in my brain cage from my college
days, Margaret Mead along with B.F. Skinner and his Behavioristic cohorts. But
now there is a whole different tack; somewhere along the line Ritalin and
Seratosin and Valium and Prozac and Zanax, found their way into the dictionary
and suddenly drugs are the answer to all the mental problems of mankind.

Well,
that may be, but I really have my doubts that Soma is the answer to all our
ills. But...that has nothing to do with what I discovered in those folders.

The
night before I had just scanned the first few files; faith healing, strange
glowing lights inside houses, ghosts, apparitions, people long dead suddenly
appearing before frightened observers. Then the similarity of the descriptions
piqued my curiosity and I went back and started over again with file number
one.

About
halfway through the files I began seeing notations in acronyms; 'file copied to
NSA & NSC...' when I saw FBI and NASA, I sat back and began taking notes,
scanning the files and emailing them to myself on her computer. I later thought
that was probably not a good idea.

I
spent the entire night and the next day until noon being intimate with Google
and Yahoo search engines. Then I got fuzzy and turned everything off and
collapsed into my single bed.

I
found a county map at the library and bought a road map from a convenience
store on the corner a few blocks from my apartment. I didn't have a plan but I
had an idea of how to proceed.

It
was the Saturday following, before we hooked up on the computer. I leave my
'instant message' feature on at all times so I can always 'be there', if
someone needs something. She said, 'thanks' again for watching the kids and
wanted to know if I had read the files she left for me.

I
lied.

"Sorry,
babe, I got all wrapped up in a movie and kept checking to see if the kids were
covered and then I just conked out and went to sleep, sorry..."

"No
biggie, dad, it was just...well...some really strange things, I'm not sure how
to deal with it."

"Just
follow procedure, I would guess. They just want you to fill out the files,
visits and all that..."

"That's
the problem," she interrupted, "I can't get anyone to talk to me
about it. They won't let me interview them, I really don't understand."

"Hmmm,"
I said, "dunno what to say about that. Hey, I need to go shopping in the
big city, can you spare a couple hours? Maybe Monday?"

"Well..."
I could hear the hesitation in her voice.

"It's
a little important. Something I need to get done."

"Well...okay...can
my husband pick you up?"

"I
would rather you did...if you can manage..."

The
messenger window remained inactive for over a minute. "I guess...I can
drive out there maybe in the afternoon. Ah, it's really important? You need to
do something?"

"Sorry,
but yes...I need to go into town next week; can you manage?"

"Yeah,
okay, sure, dad...see you about one thirty or so; that be all right?"

It
was closer to three when she finally pulled into the parking space. I could see
she was not all that happy. She was even less happy when I put a finger over my
lips, got into her car and directed her where to drive. I had her stop at a
baseball field behind the elementary school and walked her to the center of the
diamond. It was hot, North Carolina hot, and humid in deep summer and there was
no shade in the center of the field.

"I
lied to you, kid, I read the files you left for me."

"Files?
What files?

"Your
Case Action Files, the case history, the diagnostic compilations, and the
recommended treatment procedures, you know; those people around here."

She
shook her head and frowned. "You read them?

"Yeah,
I did."

"You
brought me out here to tell me that? You don't need to go do something in
town?"

"No,
I need to talk to you."

"About
those files?"

"Yes."

"I
don't understand."

"I
guess we could go sit in the bleachers, I don't see any shade anywhere."

She
turned and looked at me with an almost, 'in your face' look. "It's hot and
I don't have time for this and I don't understand. Why did you have me drive
all the way out here?"

I
didn't speak, but led the way to the meager shade of a concession stand between
two little league baseball fields. There was a large blue plastic soft drink
case lying on its side, I picked it up and stood it one end and gestured for
her to sit.

"Did
you notice that several Federal agencies, including the Nuclear Regulatory
Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and
NASA, were sent copies of the files you left for me to read?"

She
pulled the soft drink case alongside the wall, sat, and leaned back against the
building. "You're kidding!"

"I
copied those files and emailed them to myself. I want you to go back and delete
your 'sent' files and erase your 'history' of the web-sites your computer has
visited."

"Dad?
Have you gone round the bend? I have no idea what you are talking about, I
don't have a clue. There are just some weirdos living around here that I
thought might interest you. It's not a big thing."

"It
is more than that, girl...way more than that."

She
angrily shook her head. "I'm starting to worry about you. Drove all the
way out here and I have a ton of other things to do and you tell me all this
bullshit? Crap!"

"I'm
sorry. I wish I had more to tell you. But...please delete the stuff I
mentioned, humor an old man and don't be so grumpy. I think something big is
going on out here and I didn't want to tell you over the phone or online."

"You
think my phone is bugged?" She glared at me over her shoulder as she
hurried back to her car. "You're only a mile away; enjoy the walk!"

She
was pissed.

She
spun her wheels and threw dust into the sultry afternoon as she fish-tailed
down the dirt road and across the grass onto the paved road. I did not see her
look back.

All
of my kids, all eight of them, have a stubborn streak; I hope they didn't get
it from me, but I rather suspect they did. I don't know what I expected her to
say. Maybe I was being irrational, overly concerned...maybe.

It
took the better part of an hour up out of the school property, across the
railroad tracks and along the tree lined residential street with upper middle
class homes surrounded by ample yard space and manicured lawns on each side.
One of the houses, a three story old white structure with southern styled
pillars, had four gracefully guarding the entrance. It was one of the houses
that had remained empty for a year; one of the houses that was said to be
'haunted'. The only one in the town proper; all the others were rural and all
within one to two miles from the center of town.

I
stopped at the small family-owned market I always shopped at, nodded hello to
the several acquaintances I had made and picked up six cold ones, big
ones...sixteen ouncer's.

Then
I drank and smoked and thought until the alcohol dulled me to sleep.

I
was in this small town, this State...far from my old stomping grounds in Oregon
and Washington to be near kids and grandkids. I quit working a couple years ago
but took a job as an all purpose reporter for the local newspaper. It wasn't
the pay but the chance to get out and around and besides, I enjoyed covering
high school sports and school events. I had my fill of local politics and
avoided any efforts by the editor to get me to cover city and county meetings.

It
also gave me transportation and a list of contacts with local people and I used
that list to track down the scarce information in my daughters files. The first
was a woman in her seventies who had given me a history and some old
photographs of the town that dated back to the 1920's. I did a piece that ran
in three parts in three consecutive weekly editions of the small paper. She
cocked her head to the left as I hedged my way around to asking about strange
events in the town and surrounding countryside.

"Lot
or rumors been going 'round, Mr. Dean." Her round wrinkled face grinned up
at me and her blue eyes twinkled in the bright sunlight.

"Well,"
I answered, "it's probably nothing but I got an anonymous note left at the
newspaper office about a mysterious healing of a blind man. Do you know
anything about that?"

"That'd
be Mr. Jennings...Billy...went to school with him. He went blind nigh on...oh,
my, twenty years ago."

"And
now...?" I asked her.

"He
was in here this morning; bought a pair of sun glasses."