IGMS Issue 9 (27 page)

"Man, this doesn't make any sense," I said. "I've got better things to do than to make all these calls. Maybe I should just put it back where I found it."

"Yeah," Max said. "Or you can toss it in the trash."

I looked at the can. And I thought about the messages. I wrote them down.

I can't come to the phone right now.

Need a new roof?

To leave a message for John, press one.

Be back soon -- leave a message if you want.

Buried under a ton of work?

As I stared at them and saw the pattern, I felt my blood freeze in my body. My hand fell open and the beeper clattered to the floor.

"What's wrong?" Max asked.

"Look." I pointed to the messages with my pencil. "Read the first word of each one," I said.

Max took the sheet from me. "I need to be buried." He stood there for a moment. I guess it took that long for the meaning to sink in. Then he said, "Whoa," and dropped the paper.

I stepped back from the beeper.

"Too weird," Max said. "It has to be a coincidence."

"Has to," I said.

The beeper beeped.

I looked at the beeper. Then I looked at Max. Max looked at me. "Guess we have to find out," he said.

"We can't stop now." I picked up the beeper. The plastic felt oddly cold. I dialed, listened to the recording, and wrote down the first word.

There was no mistake. A message was forming. When it was done, the beeper stopped. I read the whole message aloud. "I need to be buried. Look under bridge on river. Thank you."

"Spooky," Max said.

"Yeah. Too spooky." This wasn't like a scary movie or a Halloween haunted house that you knew wasn't real. This was flat out creepy.

"Now what?" Max asked.

"I'm not looking for a body," I said.

"No way," Max agreed.

"We have to tell someone." If I called the police, they'd want to know how I knew. They'd never believe the truth. I realized I had to go to the bridge first. Max didn't want to go, but I talked him into it.

"I don't see anything," he said, when we reached the bridge.

I searched the rippling surface. There had to be something in the water. For the second time that day, I felt my blood freeze. I could barely make out the shape deep below me. I knew it wasn't a tree branch or anything like that.

"Come on," I told Max. We walked off the bridge and went to find a policeman.

That evening, the police recovered a skeleton from the river. I heard them say whoever it was must have been there for at least seventy years.

"Funny thing," the policeman told me when it was over. "You'd think the rescue workers would have spotted something when they pulled that car out last week.

"What car?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Some guy was more interested in talking on his cell phone than on watching the road. He went right into the water." He pointed over to the guardrail.

I could see that a spot looked newer, like it had just been replaced. "Was he hurt?"

The policeman shook his head. "Nope. Just wet. But even after we rescued him, all he could do was complain that he'd lost his phone. It's probably still sitting on the bottom. If you ask me, that's the best place for it. Those things will get you killed if you're not careful." He shrugged and walked back to his patrol car.

Max and I stood for a while and watched the water running beneath the bridge. When we were ready to leave, I reached into my pocket and took out the beeper. It beeped once. Then it was silent. It never beeped again. But I kept it. I'm not sure, but I think it brings me luck.

Turk was in a mood to do some harm. He was hanging out at the corner of 4
^th
Sreet, where the movies used to be. The place was boarded and shut, like almost everything else on the block. Gray was with him, along with Mackler, Johnny, and a couple of others. Across the street, an old guy came around the corner, pushing a shopping cart stuffed with junk. Bad timing.

Turk stepped away from the wall. "Let's go shopping."

He strolled across the street, angling to end up ahead of the old man. Gray and the others followed. There was no need to rush. The old guy couldn't run with the cart, and Turk knew there was no way he'd leave it behind.

The one flickering streetlight behind Turk jabbed his shadow like a spear at the old man. The rest of the lights had been shot out long ago.

"Hey man," Turk said as the old man got close. "Mind if I look?"

The old man stopped walking, but didn't speak. As Turk stepped toward the side of the cart, the old man reached under the blanket that draped the shapeless mound of possessions. Turk froze, ready to dodge if the guy pulled a knife. He'd seen street people could go crazy without warning, slashing out with a surprising fierceness. Turk knew how easy it was to end up sprawled across the curb in a puddle of blood and intestines.

The man removed something soft and small from beneath the blanket.

"A gift." As he rasped the words in a low voice, he flicked his arm. "From all of us."

"Hey!" Johnny shouted.

Turk turned and looked. Johnny was clutching whatever the man had thrown.

"Gloves?" Johnny held them up. "This is crap. There's a finger missing." He threw the gloves down.

Turk grabbed the edge of the cart. "You giving us junk?"

"Gifts," the man said. He barked out some sound between a laugh and a cough.

Turk shoved him with both hands. The guy had no more mass that a stack of paper bags. He tumbled, and stayed curled against the sidewalk. It was too easy to be much fun.

"Come on," Turk said. He led them away, in search of something more amusing. He found it soon enough.

Some fool had parked a new Taurus on 3
^rd
Street. Turk hadn't expected to stumble across such a generous gift that night, so he wasn't prepared to make the most of it, but he figured there'd at least be time to snatch the stereo and a couple tires. Like a pit crew, they went to work at their usual tasks. Turk yanked the stereo while Gray popped the trunk and pulled out the jack.

It went fine until Johnny grabbed the right rear tire. The car slipped off the jack. The rim slammed down on Johnny's hand.

They left the tires, but Turk kept the stereo under his jacket when they dropped Johnny off at the emergency room. There was no point waiting for him. It would be hours. And the screams were getting on Turk's nerves.

Gray kept babbling about it the rest of the night.

"It wasn't my fault."

"I didn't make it slip."

"Johnny should have been more careful."

And on and on until Turk felt like hitting him in the face with a brick. It was as bad as the screaming.

The next night, Turk saw the old man again. As Turk crossed the street, the man was already reaching into his cart. He pulled something out and threw it towards the group.

Gray caught it. "One sneaker? This is useless." He threw it at the old man, nailing him in the shoulder.

"Yeah," Turk said. "What's wrong with you? You think we want junk?" He pushed the old man down. Then he grinned. It might not be any fun to push the guy once, but it could become an enjoyable part of his nightly routine. He gave the guy a kick in the ribs, but not too hard. He didn't want to break him just yet.

"Let's go get Johnny."

When Johnny came to the door, his hand was wrapped in a huge wad of bandages.

"Freakin' mummy," Turk said.

"I lost a finger," Johnny told them.

Turk's gut rippled. He didn't like the idea of losing body parts. "You coming?" he asked.

"Yeah." Johnny joined them.

They walked ten blocks to the closest subway stop. Turk hoped there'd be something interesting under ground. Something to play with. Or someone. But nothing exciting was happening.

Until Gray slipped on a piece of a meatball sandwich someone had dropped near the edge of the platform.

He fell at a bad time. There was an express train coming. He almost managed to scramble clear, but he got clipped. His left foot was mangled so badly, even Turk didn't have the stomach to look at it. At least Gray passed out, so they didn't have to listen to any screams as they carried him up the steps.

"One foot," Turk said aloud after they dropped Gray at the hospital. "One sneaker." He realized a person with one foot would only need one sneaker. And a person with a missing finger would need gloves with the same finger missing.

"Let's find that old man," he said. It was time to stop this. Whatever was happening, Turk knew how to end it.

They didn't find him that night. When Turk spotted him the next evening, two blocks from the subway, a chill ran through him. But he didn't back off. Fear was a sign of weakness. Weakness got you killed.

"Hey, you!" He jogged toward the old man. Turk expected him to keep walking, or to turn and run.

The old man did the unexpected. He shoved the cart toward Turk. Then he scurried for the corner. Turk didn't bother to chase him. He knew he could catch up with the guy after he checked out the cart.

"What's this crap?" Mackler asked, pulling aside the blanket.

The cart was filled with scraps of cloth. As far as Turk could tell, they were all the same. Turk reached in and lifted out a piece of knitted wool. The others all reached in and grabbed one. The shape seemed familiar, but incomplete. Turk noticed a label.
Size 7½
.

A hat?
Turk thought.

"Half a hat," Mackler said, completing his thought.

Turk looked up. The old man was gone. He looked back in the cart just as Mackler pushed aside the mutilated hats, revealing an object underneath -- something made of wires, batteries, a mouse trap, and several dark sticks the size of road flares.

Snap.

Turk's brain screamed for him to turn away, but the bright flash erupted too quickly for his body to obey. The explosive force struck him and the others full in the face.

When the rain of flesh and bone was finished, any of the singed and smoking half hats scattered across the sidewalk would have fit nicely on what was left of Turk's head. Though Turk and his gang were beyond caring what they wore or how they looked.

Around the corner, the old man hadn't flinch at the sound of the explosion. He had other things on his mind. It was time to look for a new cart.

Esther Friesner is undeniably a very funny lady and the Queen of Comedy in contemporary fantasy. Her books include
Mustapha and His Wise Dog, Harpy High, Hooray for Hellywood, Gnome Man's Land, Majyk by Hook or Crook, The Sherwood Game,
and many others, including
The Sword of Mary
and
The Psalms of Herod
which are not funny, all of which remind us that Friesner is actually a writer of considerable range and versatility. She has won the Nebula Award twice, for serious stories, not comedies. Recently she has been writing a series of Young Adult fantasy novels on themes taken from Greek mythology. This interview was done on at Lunacon on Sunday, March 16, 2008. That weekend Esther also sponsored a decidedly mythological promotional event, in which several Greek deities and the Oracle of Delphi were present.