The Future Is Short (10 page)
“Until now. They were right, you know.”
Still a step further away, Cassie knelt.
“What’s it feel like, Jas?”
He smiled. She could see it was different. Before, he’d seemed half dead. Now, he seemed to throb, like the penetrating tendril. Something underground made the air vibrate. And the air smelled
of. . . cinnamon.
“First I’ll talk about before.
Before I felt empty. All my life I felt it, like I was cut off from the flow of life in living people. We’re all in our own little vacuums, you know? Humans talk, so, like my mother said, we lost our ability to read minds.”
“Funny. My mother said the same thing.”
“Now, Cas, I feel … half full.”
“Not half empty?”
“I know. Everyone took me as a pessimist, before. I was, of course. No wonder. But now fullness is right here. The bond. Full-blooded unity. I’m looking at it.”
He smiled at her. The warmth of it struck under her ribs.
“I’m looking at her, Cas.”
He pointed at the vine again.
“So go on.”
She trembled, tickled by something.
“Make us whole?”
“You feel empty, don’t you?”
She hesitated, for a very long moment, and at last nodded.
“Always.
I … always thought marriage would make me whole, at last when it came. My stiff father said that.”
Jasper laughed. A band of lighter brown scarred the skin at the base of his left ring finger, mere centimeters from the tendril’s bite.
“Go on, Cas.”
Her sigh at that came out as deep as the star field. Then she nodded. She laid her left hand, palm up, beside the red cord. That stone’s throw off, the pod bloomed.
The tendril wriggled, tip rising, and dove home.
Amos Parker is a starving writer, graduate of the University of Vermont, and resident of the United State of Vermont. He knows his muse is bereft of protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals. And so, he does not cannibalize her.
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2
1.
J.F. Williams
It was only a few miles beyond the Foggy Oaks exit, then a right turn onto county route 3. Another few miles before he caught the crude wooden sign in his headlights. He turned onto the dirt road just ahead of it. Jesus, I’m late, he thought. Katy’s going to kill me
The cabin was hidden by tree cover as he pulled the car up, but Martin could see the porch bathed in the amber light of a “bug bulb.” Down from the porch, the land fell steeply to the edge of the lake, and he could just now see the full moon’s reflection, like a row of silvery worms floating on the lake’s surface.
Katy was sitting at a rough-hewn wooden table on the porch. “Finally,” she said. “Are you all done?”
“Yeah.
For two weeks. Where are the boys?” He pulled up a chair, bent down for a kiss, and laid out the evening paper on the table. She didn’t seem too upset, he thought.
“The boys are already in bed. Can you believe it?” she smiled and pulled a sweater around her shoulders. It was a cool evening for July. “They’re exhausted. I’m exhausted from watching them! They went swimming all day. I just stayed down there to watch. They were good. They didn’t even go near the buoys.”
“Tired them out, eh. Good.”
“It wasn’t just that.
The mosquitoes. They were eating them alive when they got out. Big fat ones. I killed a bunch.”
“Eww.
That must’ve been bloody.”
“Huh? No. There was no blood. I checked for bites and Tommy had a big one on the back of his neck.” She patted a spot at the base of her skull. “He was crying and digging at it. I used that cream, and I gave them a Benadryl.”
“Oh.” Martin was focused on the paper now and was starting to read the front page when he heard a buzzing. It grew louder and stopped, followed by the faintest humming. He noticed a bulbous mosquito crawling slowly along the far edge of the table. He folded his paper and slammed it fast as he could. “Good one!” shouted Katy.
When Martin lifted the paper, he saw a mess. Pieces of wing and leg and thorax were scattered across the headline: “NEW REVELATIONS ON LEAKER’S BACKGROUND.” He pulled off as much of the remains as he could, but it was viscous and sticky, though colorless. At least there wasn’t blood.
“This pisses me off,” he said, pointing at the headline. “They already convicted this guy in the press. I don’t know if he’s a good guy or a bad guy, but it looks like the press guys already decided and that makes me suspicious. And why’s the government after him if the secrets, the stuff he leaked, aren’t real?”
“I hear ya,” she answered. “I don’t trust the government not to do this stuff. I don’t care which government. What’s to stop them? The stuff about the micro drones spying on us. That’s scary stuff. Why would that guy make it up?”
“I dunno.” He shook his head. “Whatever they say about him, I think what he said is for real. I’m certainly not feeling any safer. Anything to eat?”
Tommy crouched inside the cabin, just under the screen window, stone-faced, taking it all in. He was getting mad. He didn’t know why, but what his mom and dad said was making him mad. “Government” and “secrets” were making him mad, and “leak” made him repress a growl. He wanted to make them stop
that talking but he held back. He felt the tension of it; his hands clenched air, his arms and thighs trembled with the urge to pounce. But he held back. Minutes passed, and his parents continued to speak. He remained still, sometimes absentmindedly touching the tiny, hair-like structure that rose exactly five millimeters from the spot where the mosquito bit him. But mostly, he just listened, and tried to keep himself from killing them, because he knew he should be listening now.
J.F. Williams has been working in Information Technology for the past quarter-century but started out as a proofreader and spent years writing synopses of movies and TV programs for newspaper TV listings, placing him among the most widely read anonymous writers in the U.S. and Canada of that time. He published his first novel, an epic science-fiction adventure called The Brickweavers, in August 2012.
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22.
Andy McKell
They moved into the new house in the midsummer heat, when the lake mirrored the sky's longing for the breath of a breeze and the forest trees hung their heads in exhaustion. Bobby thought it the most wonderful summer ever, and when it came to a close, he would become twelve—the perfect age! He just wished and wished for his last, lingering baby tooth to fall before he started his new school.
The creatures of the
lakeland forest filled the air with sound—buzzing, cricketing, chirruping, wailing, hooting. He heard foxes coughing, distant deer barking, badgers snuffling close to the house, and other, unknown things scuffling the parchment-dry leaves underfoot or uttering their own calls, challenges, and complaints. It was a sweet relief after the horrid, inconsiderate, machine-driven noise of the city.
He bravely explored his new territory. He heard soft rustlings, spotted tiny movements
…. But he was twelve—almost. He was unafraid. He had grown out of magic and monsters, except for that last, lingering affection for the tooth-fairy, that sweet, gentle spirit who loves children. Yes, the tooth fairy loved children.
He sought secret paths and places; waterfalls and pools; slippery, moss-covered rocks. He sought dark caves to explore with the brave gang he would recruit.
So it was in the woods that he fell, bashed his face, and ripped loose that last, lingering baby tooth and watched as the precious token skittered away. Ignoring his bleeding knee and ripped pants, he scrabbled in the dirt for his trophy. And there it was; but alongside it, another thing, a bigger thing, a handfilling thing; a second tooth, a huge tooth, a giant's tooth, a monster's tooth, yellowed and curved, wickedly pointed; a tooth for ripping and tearing flesh. He grabbed both teeth, hugged them to his chest. Joyously, he raced and stumbled home, ignoring the risk of another fall, caring not a jot.
Mom celebrated with him this symbol of a boyhood's ending, and admired his find. She grinned when he begged for an early night, to give the tooth fairy enough time to handle the double donation. Mom kissed him goodnight and gave him a special hug.
Of course, Bobby couldn't sleep. He could feel the curve of the monster tooth through his pillow. Excitement prodded him to toss and to turn. Excitement made his thoughts churn, made him wonder if the “people” tooth fairy could handle this load, or if the owner had its own tooth fairy; and if so, what the tooth fairy for such a monster would be like. Excitement finally exhausted him, drained him, overfilled his swirling thoughts until his brain closed down and the sleep required by the magical exchange of tooth and coin overtook him.
Until midnight.
The noise came to him through his sleep. It was not a natural sound, not a scuffling or a barking or a hooting or a chirruping. It was a thud-thud-thud, it was a roar, it was a splintering of trees. Worst of all, it was approaching, and approaching fast.
Bobby screamed and leaped from his bed, sweating, trembling. Noise, stench and heat—not of these human lands—embraced, enveloped, engulfed him. Light filled his room, a bright, horrid, sickly-green light; a light that wrapped around his body, rendering him as immobile as if in the grip of vast, powerful jaws.
His entire being was gripped, shaken, and examined to its very core. He felt his body twisting, turning,
turning.
And with the monster’s tooth fairy came boyhood's end.
Andy McKell is a new writer of speculative fiction, whose short stories are starting to appear in various
anthologies. He retired early from the IT world and enjoys acting when he gets the chance. Married with three daughters, all pursuing careers in the visual arts, he currently lives in Luxembourg, Europe.
[email protected]
http://www.andymckell.com