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ISSN 1757-5419 Issue 25 –January 2015 Edited by Sheri White Editorial By Sheri White
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The Wolf Project By Eric S Brown Illustrated By Vladimir Petkovic
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Come Unto Me By David Surface
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An Incident On Westminster Bridge By Richard Smith Illustrated By HALF-RATS
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Gathering the Genial Genies By Rhys Hughes Illustrated by Candra Hope
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Project 10-68 By Lee A. Forman Illustrated By Matthew Freyer
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Drifting By David Heath
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The Birch Forest By Kelle Dhein
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The Perfect Dinner By Naomi Brett Rourke
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Larchill By Ivor Goligher
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The Wonders By Clay Waters
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Cover By – Matt Davis - http://greydevil13.deviantart.com/ & http://www.rockandhillstudio.com/ Proof-read By Sheri White All material contained within the pages of this magazine and associated websites is copyright of Morpheus Tales. All. Rights Reserved. No material contained herein can be copied or otherwise used without the express permission of the copyright holders. 2
When the war with the Sasquatch began, it took the world as a whole completely off guard. No one, except a small subculture of crypto-freaks, believed the beasts were real. Conventional wisdom, even among those who did believe, thought the Sasquatch to be peaceful and their numbers extremely limited. The opening battles of the war were massacres as entire rural towns were wiped out then things got worse... a lot worse. The Sasquatch carried a virus in their blood unlike the world has had ever experienced in recorded history. This virus turned the dead, both man and Sasquatch alike, into hungry, walking corpses intent solely on devouring the living. Scientists claimed the virus had been dormant inside the beasts and awoke, mutating, once their blood was combined with ours. Six days into the war between man and beast, the first dead rose and they changed everything. Humanity was already losing ground and being driven back into the protected urban zones, and the virus thrived there among the overpopulated and poorly supplied holdouts of mankind. Anyone and everyone who could fight was issued a weapon to hold the hastily erected walls of the cities. Peter wasn’t one of those who had to be conscripted into service. He’d come of his own free will, knowing that if the tide wasn’t turned quickly, this would be the end not only of life as the world knew it but likely of mankind itself. Peter had hoped to join the infantry and serve as he had during the police actions in the Middle East. In truth, as a member of the Special Forces, he’d seen combat across the globe. He didn’t relish the idea of being on the “Sharp End” again, but he refused to sit back and let others fight for him. Fate had other plans for him, however. While most of the scientific community spent their time trying to find a cure for the virus, a fringe group of like-minded engineers and physicists broke away to create the Wolf Project. Their goal was to develop a weapon that allowed humans to stand as equals against the beasts that had brought this apocalyptic disease upon mankind and still raged against it. The Sasquatch all stood between nine and ten feet tall, all dense muscle and primal fury. Anything short of something as powerful as a .30-.06 was next to useless against them. Even fully automatic weapons weren’t truly up to the task of taking the monsters down. Sure, enough rounds and one of the things would bleed out, but how many men would it take with it as it died? The beasts that had been turned by the virus were worse. There was no stopping them, short of a head shot from a weapon with enough punch to penetrate their skull. The first Wolf suit was completed on August 31st, 2022. It passed its simulated trials with flying colors and needed a pilot to take it into the field. Peter ended up being snagged as a pilot candidate by the Wolf Project and spent weeks learning the suit’s operating systems before word came that it was time. As the first early snow of the season fell on October 28th, the gates of Raleigh opened up for the Mark I Wolf, with Peter inside it, to lumber out of the city. The Mark I stood fifteen feet tall, powered by the world’s first mini-nuclear reactor. It carried the firepower of several heavy tanks and had the strength to lift over three tons. The mech was a war machine of the first order. Peter’s orders were simply to go out into the abandoned zones, where the beasts and the dead fought amongst themselves, and eliminate as many of the enemy in the area that he could before the suit overheated or was destroyed. It was in many ways a suicide mission, but Peter had made his peace with that. He was ready to give back to the beasts and the dead some of what they given the human race and show them that humanity was far from defeated.
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Jack had always hated Sundays. There was something so hollow and empty about the day that he sometimes stayed up the whole night before just to avoid admitting that Saturday was over. He’d been this way ever since he could remember, even when he was a small child. His strongest memories of Sunday were not of the church where his parents dutifully dragged him every week. They were of that last hour before bedtime, lingering in the doorway of the family room staring at the flickering TV light, when he could feel the weekend and all its chances for fun and freedom drawing to a close. He could still recall the disbelief he felt the first time he really looked at a calendar and saw that Sunday was supposed to be the first day of the week. He knew that was a lie. Sunday couldn’t be the first day of the week. It was the last. Sunday was the end of something. Everybody knew that. So when he found himself driving through the cemetery gates in Jordan’s car on Sunday afternoon, it made perfect sense. There was something almost relaxing about it, like admitting something you’ve always known but have been trying to ignore for a long time. The car was full of the smell of flowers, a small bouquet Jordan had bought at the grocery store and laid in the back seat. They were the kind of flowers that Jack used to buy on the way home from work after he and Susan had a fight or when he was expecting one. He’d stopped bringing them home after the night he’d found her scowling at the red-dyed carnations he’d left on the kitchen counter. These flowers are ugly. He started to object until he looked and saw that she was right. They were the ugliest flowers he’d ever seen. As the car passed through the iron gates and under the dark spreading boughs of the cedar trees, Jack felt a sense of familiarity settle around his shoulders. He and Jordan used to visit this cemetery all the time back in college. They’d bring beer and pot and a few friends, although sometimes it was just the two of them. They’d drink and smoke and wander through the old stones, making up stories about the people whose bones they were walking on. "Been a while since we’ve been here," Jack said. His voice felt loud inside the small car. Neither of them had spoken for the last mile or two. Jordan took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then let it out with a sigh, leaving Jack to wonder what his friend had been about to say. Been a while for you. Or, Speak for yourself. When Jordan’s son died, Jack had missed the funeral. He’d gotten into a terrible fight with Susan the night before, got very drunk and woke up past noon with a blinding pain pounding at the inside of his skull. When he’d seen how late it was he’d felt a momentary surge of panic and shame, followed by a wave of relief as he let his throbbing head sink back into the pillow. It was too late. He’d already missed it. There was nothing he could do about it now. Jack had apologized afterward. Sorry, man, and Jordan had said exactly what he’d wanted to hear. Don’t worry about it. “Men never talk about anything that matters,” Susan used to say. Even after Jordan’s son had died and when Carla had divorced him a year later, Jack couldn’t remember a single word that he and Jordan had shared about it, unless it was sorry. Sorry to hear that, man. When Jordan had called this morning and said, “I need you to do me a favor,” the important word, the one that got Jack out of bed where he’d been lying comatose all morning, was favor. Favor and need. Jordan needed him. He’d fucked up but he could still make up for it. They rolled slowly through the old part of the cemetery and into the new section where the gravestones were as slick and shiny as new cars. After a long turn to the right they began a slow descent into a grove of cedars. Through the passenger window Jack saw a row of small headstones, each one no bigger than a toaster oven. 4
“Don’t think I can’t see you.” Ben Brown stared into the window of the travel goods store. Holdalls and suitcases and travel accessories were displayed before him, but his eyes were not focused on the bags. Instead he watched the reflection of a man standing outside the jewelry store opposite. The guy was tall, medium build. He wore casual nondescript clothing, and had short brown hair. On the face of it, a typical shopper, browsing the watches and necklaces on sale. Ben had suspected he was being followed for some time. It was not obvious, but the signs were there if you knew what to look for. Keeping close, but at a distance. Watching without looking. The man tailing him was part of a team; that was how they operated. He would fade into the background and another would follow as Ben moved on. Who were these people? He was not entirely sure. Police, perhaps, or security services. Agents of the State. Shadowy figures who merged with the crowds and spied from dark cars. Movement behind the window caught Ben’s eye. The cashier from the shop - the girl who had sold him the holdall - was now placing a new bag into the display. She was short, slim faced, with medium length blonde hair, green eyes. He was good at noticing and remembering details. That was what he did, which was lucky for him and unlucky for them. The girl was no more than twenty years old. Not the kind of person you would expect. He met her gaze for a brief moment. She looked away. It was hard to tell - she could be one of them. He had other things to buy, but it was too risky. Better to cut his losses. As it was, they would not have much to go on. He span away from the window, walking rapidly to the mall’s central escalators. He approached the one leading up to the next level, then at the last moment switched over to the down escalator. He glanced behind as he began descending. The girl had positioned the new bag and was leaving the window display. The window-shopper was gone, nowhere to be seen. ### One week passed, and now Ben zipped up the holdall, fully loaded with the materials he had gathered from warehouses and hardware stores. Always small transactions: individual items, different stores, different days, anything to minimise suspicion. Still, he knew they were watching him. But how much did they know? It was a case of making it as hard as possible for them, always staying one step ahead. He was amazed he had gotten this far. If things went according to plan today, he would make a statement they would find impossible to ignore. He slung the heavy bag over his shoulder and left the house by the back door. He entered the garage and climbed into the Ford Mondeo inside, placing the bag on the passenger seat. He raised the door by remote control and moved out, half expecting an unmarked car to swing around and block the driveway. But the residential cul-de-sac was quiet. As the door lowered behind, he noticed his neighbour, Edith Watson, standing at her front window. She was in her mid-fifties, with short, grey hair and spectacles. Her husband had left for work earlier in the day, heading off at 8.19. Ten minutes earlier than usual. Significant? Perhaps. There was a reason for everything. Details and patterns. That was what twenty-five years of aeronautical inspection gave you an eye for. The ability to spot a microscopic stress fracture in a twenty-foot section of aluminium fuselage. Finding similar fractures on a dozen other planes over a twenty-year period.
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Too many of my tales have begun in the same way, so I feel obliged to do something different with the opening sentence of this one, but I don’t know what. There was once a man who collected genies. He was a very wealthy and influential individual and he spared no expense or effort in acquiring new specimens to add to those he already owned. But one day he bought a bigger house in a better land and he decided to move his entire collection across the open ocean. He had already travelled ahead in an aircraft and was waiting in his new home for all his furniture and other possessions to arrive. And although he was slightly nervous of flying, he had arranged for the wings to be sprinkled with salt and vinegar, thus making a plain crash impossible. He was rich enough for puns to have a beneficial effect in the real world, something that most people will never be able to afford. He waited in a rocking chair on a terrace. This terrace was part of his front garden and it overlooked the beach and sea far below. One by one the ships bearing his possessions appeared over the horizon and docked at the jetty that extended out from the shore, and servants and sailors scurried and scampered to unload the various cargoes and carry all the separate items up the steps carved in the side of the cliff and deposit them inside the house in the designated locations. While he rocked the hours away. Within a few weeks most of his furniture and other possessions had been transferred from his old home to his new mansion. But his collection of genies was still on its way. It was such an extensive collection that it needed a ship all to itself and this particular vessel was making slow progress because the captain had been ordered to take extra care to avoid bad weather and had already delayed setting off thanks to adverse meteorological forecasts. Winter was coming! The collection consisted of thousands of bottles and brass lamps and sealed jars in which a comprehensive variety of genies dwelled. There was at least one example of every possible kind of genie from all the cultures and mythologies in which they may be found. Most people may imagine they are only indigenous to deserts and oases and the bazaars of Baghdad and Isfahan, but in fact they are universally distributed across the face of the world. They just happen to be very rare. The collector, who was named Eugene, waited and waited for this final ship to arrive, but it never came. It sank in a storm and settled on the seabed far below and all the bottles had escaped back to the surface through a crack in the hull. They drifted in a great mass wherever the wind and waves and currents wanted them to go, and gradually they separated from each other and became isolated from their companions by vast expanses of ocean. An illusion of freedom. The genies inside the bottles were generally genial and there was a good reason for this, namely that they now stood a better chance of winning true liberty for themselves than when they had formed Eugene’s collection. In the collection they had been stuck with no hope of release but they finally had a chance of being washed up on some random shore, found by a person who was strolling the beach, and let loose. For the truth was that each genie had only one wish to dispose of before winning its freedom. Genies generally grant three wishes. Eugene always used up two of them whenever he acquired a new addition, but never made a third wish, for he had no desire to let a genie escape him. He always wished for relatively modest things, so that the world wouldn’t be disrupted too much, and little by little he increased his wealth and power. If one wishes for a small business transaction to be successful, then not too many things need to be influenced in order for this to actually happen. But if one wishes for the moon, the end result will be disaster. Too many of the forces that make life on Earth possible will have to change and all the careful balances of nature will be skewed. Not only will the wisher be crushed by the mass of the moon as it lands on him or her, but all other living things will be seriously and perhaps fatally affected by the meeting of two enormous celestial bodies. Eugene was wise enough to be cautious. He was a slow and steady accumulator, a patient individual. 6
Most were dead men before they arrived. Of the ones that could be saved he only had time for a handful. To choose who would live and who would die was a decision that had to be made quickly no matter how cold and heartless it seemed. Unfortunate that many more could live if given the attention they needed. If only he had time. The way they flowed through the aid station, the number sent for collection, made him wonder how long it could go on before there was no one left at all. The first few weeks he thought he would go mad, that his mind would shut down, refusing to process the horrors he faced day after day. The victories became dwarfed by the failures, giving no hope to the situation and no feeling of success. No matter how many people lived, dozens more left in body bags. Eventually his senses numbed. The faces no longer mattered; they weren’t men, but the product of a death factory. Each body discarded became another unit to be shipped; every life lost being the price of war. They came in like an assembly line and he, a cog of the great machine, filtered the living from the dead. One side sent back to the grinder, the other straight to hell. Then there was Lyle Thompson. Lyle was brought in a dead man. Dr. Spencer had taken one look at him and knew he could do nothing to save him. A grenade tore open his abdomen, exposing ruined innards, the damage beyond repair even by the best of surgeons in the best of hospitals. “Give him a shot of morphine and take him to the back,” Spencer said after looking him over. He knew it wouldn’t be long before the man ended up in the collection area. Even with the morphine Lyle’s pain was unbearable. His cries went on for hours, filling the tent with monstrous howls. “Give him some more,” Spencer said to Dr. Allen. “How is he even still alive?” “I don’t know, but that’s why he needs it.” Dr. Allen filled a syringe with morphine and slipped through the curtain separating the rear of the tent from the main area. Bodies nearly filled the room. And there was Lyle Thompson. He had a hole the size of Texas in his abdomen, and so far he’d outlasted everyone else. He injected the drug into Lyle’s vein; the unbearable wailing ceased. Lyle turned his head and looked at Dr. Allen with wide, terrified eyes. “Help me,” he managed to say, his voice hoarse from screaming. “We’re doing whatever we can for you.” “Thank you,” Lyle said. Dr. Allen ran back to the front. “He’s talking,” he told Spencer. “Talking? In his condition?” “I swear he was.” “I don’t believe it.” “I’m telling you it’s true.” “He should be dead.” “Keep checking on him and try to ease his pain. He can’t possibly last much longer.” When the morphine wore off and the moans of agony started again, they shot him with more. At the rate they gave it to him their supplies would start to dwindle. He drifted in and out of consciousness, clinging to life by a thread, impossibly striving to live. Spencer watched him, wondering how he was still alive. The man’s eyes opened and stared into his. “Where am I?” he asked. “You’re at the aid station, not far from the front lines.” “What happened to Brad?” 7
I am dead as I stand on the bridge and hold my skeletal hand in front of my face. The wind is surely blowing as it always has, but the feeling is nearly gone. How long has it been now? Days? Months? Years? These are trifling concerns, and I calm my mind and convince myself to not worry about them. The barge drifts along, and I stare up into the vibrant purple haze of a sky, admiring the neon swirls that replaced what anyone else would have expected as a cloud. Every inch further down the murky river brings on new figures along the horizon, greeting me as we pass. The silhouette of the hanging man swinging from a dying apple tree; a crow picking and tearing at the intestines of the murdered prostitute, her body long abandoned in desolate forests; the gently rocking bassinet of a newborn baby who didn’t survive their precious first few nights. I’m content to watch and take it all in, macabre as it may be. The barge would never do as I command and leave this place, so there’s not much logic in resisting. It simply drifts along, I with it as the world is apt to do. Drifting further. Thoughts and images of days long past move swiftly through my hollow skull and I get caught up staring at a burning bush along the riverbank. The flame spits out little blue and green flashes of smaller fires as I wait for my revelation. They jump higher and higher from their source, starved to eat up all the oxygen that fuels their existence only to fade away in an instant. I think “Where there’s fire, there must be oxygen; where there’s oxygen, there must be air; where there’s air, there must be wind,” and I raise my bare skull up to the sky. The lack of skin makes it difficult to tell, but I think I feel a faint, although distinct, splash of a cool breeze upon my face. These are the little victories that make this world bearable. I breathe in deep and we drift along. Drifting further down the river. Off in the distance I can make out a small dock at a point where the river narrows just a bit. I’m already braced for our stop, with my bony grip wrapped tightly around the frame of the Door as we drift closer. Did I tell you about the Door? I’m sorry. How long have I been here? I can lose track of time. How long has it been now? Days, weeks? A year? The Door is my only friend in this place. Since I can remember, it has hovered above me, slightly off-centered to the right. It’s beautiful; a solid wooden frame with hand-carved inlays of elaborate vines and leaves. There’s a bit of splintering around the edges, but otherwise it’s in perfect condition. The important part is right in the middle, though; so true of all good companions. It’s a gateway to the other side! I can see through it and watch the lives of loved ones, strangers, and new friends. Everyone in the whole world. There are days when I just sit and stare for hours on end, my jaw slack and hanging in awe as I witness overwhelming moments of beauty and joy in the lives of others. This wasn’t the superficial happiness we all get accustomed to when we are breathing and alive, but true admiration of the spectacle of creation. The barge drifts closer to the dock, and a shadowed figure walks across the rickety planks towards the edge. He carries what we all did before boarding; an empty handbag, with nothing but a shining light bursting from inside. I once talked to a passenger who said it contained our soul. Another one told me that it was some type of judgment waiting to take us over when we’re ready. I don’t know. I left my bag at the last stop months ago. Or days. I’m not sure. The new man hesitates before he steps onto the barge. As soon as his first foot meets the rotted plank beneath us, the vessel starts off again on its journey. Drifting without apparent purpose. 8
Leo and Joan had long since stopped working for others. Their house had been constructed properly. The government sent them money. They had earned the warm indifference of the world. Like most older people, Leo and Joan kept to a strict schedule. In the early mornings, while the stars were still out, Leo would awake to the arthritic shuffle of Joan tottering down the hallway. He would pull on his work clothes, drink a full cup of coffee, and gently pry open the back screen door. Then, facing the spindly pillars of his birch forest, Leo would breathe in the cool morning air and stare between the trees to the back of the forest, where the paper white bark of his birches blended with their dark horizontal scars to form a mottled static, crackling in the distance. Joan didn’t leave the house anymore, not while Leo was out. She had been stubborn about the land, insisting that they live in the middle of the forty acres. She had imagined herself aging with the trees, taking walks, her steps softened by the living mass of the forest’s floor. But it was Leo who had taken to the birch trees, not her. Joan knew her husband’s morning phases and had long ago adapted herself to them. She began brewing coffee around 4:30 am, after setting out Leo’s stiff leather work boots. Then, once Leo made it outside and began staring off into his birches, Joan would produce a loaded rifle from beneath the kitchen sink and aim it at the back of her husband’s head. She always kept the safety on, and she always made sure to conceal the rifle below the sink once the rising sun broke Leo’s trance and sent him staggering out into the forest.
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Cassie Monroe stood in front of the stove holding her breath. The doorbell had just rung and she heard her husband’s heavy tread coming down the stairs, smelled the heavy-handed after-shave wafting through the kitchen doorway. She felt sick. “This has to be the perfect dinner,” Steve had told her. “I did everything I could at the office and this little prick still seems to be the forerunner but your perfect dinner could change all that. That walrus of a boss – all he thinks about is his gut. He was droolin’ over your Christmas cookies and if you do this we’ll all be fine. He’ll be having me sign on the line at dessert time. Ha! You do want a happy, successful husband, don’t you?” His gimlet eye bored through her, questioning. He had intense black eyes, though they were dead eyes, predator’s eyes. She had nodded, looking down. “If not, you’ll get it good.” The first time he had “given it to her good,” he had broken three fingers. “It’s your fault, you dumb cow,” he had said contemptuously. “If you didn’t put your hand up, I wouldn’t be taping your fingers together, now would I?” She had put her hand up to protect her face again the coming blow of his meatlike hand. At that time, she didn’t know the rules; didn’t know when to be quiet, didn’t know when to suck in the sobs, and when to keep her head down. Then, she had protested, “Why did you hit me in the first place? What did I do?” His brows came down to a complete line and another finger was broken. “Any more questions you wanna ask?” She put her head down and shook it timorously. He had smiled. Steve was especially proud of her cooking. That’s why he married her in the first place. She had entered a pie in the Woodstown County Fair and he, a volunteer judge, said that from the moment he first tasted her blueberry pie, it was love. It was not, after all, her looks, he snorted, she being petite, plain, shy, and somewhat over the marriageable age. She was twenty-nine; he was twenty-six. Everything else she cooked was perfect. It was her one skill and one talent and she was proud of it in a time when most people stopped for take-out and bought pre-made dinners at the supermarket. Steve said he had won the lottery and praised everything she cooked. He was courteous, polite, caring during the courtship. Cassie never had much male attention and now she revelled in it. She had a man on her arm and love in her heart. Every once in a while he would be sharp to her and cutting, and he blamed it on his hard day at work, where he was trying to make something of himself for her, he said. She was impressed and forgot the bad every single time. She thought there was too much good to be bothered by the bad. That’s what she thought then. She didn’t think it now. They married in the courthouse, moved into his family home, in which he lived by himself. He believed, he said, in a woman staying at home, so she stayed at home, cleaned the house, cooked his meals, and prepared to spend her years with a good husband and a happy life. The second year they were married, in a moment of inattention, she scorched his favourite shirt. That was the first time she got it good. The second time was when his steak was a little overcooked. That time he gave her a black eye and he had to go to the market and the dry cleaners in order to save her, he said, the embarrassment of going out in public and realizing that everyone knew she was a bad wife. He said it with a sneer and a snide laugh. “Ha!” She almost left then. She got out her grey suitcase and started to put her clothes in it and then – when she was putting her hand mirror carefully in – she caught a glimpse of her face. Her plain, old tired face with the old scars and the bruised eye. If she left, where would she go? All her relatives were dead. She had no friends; they had all wandered away after her marriage with a pitying look and a boatload of excuses. Anyway, who would want her? The only thing she could do was cook, but now she couldn’t even cook his steak correctly. One tear - just one - fell on the mirror. With a sigh, she started to unpack. She would stay for another ten years. 10
It was exactly as he saw on television. Patients sat at their chosen tables. Some played games with friends while others played by themselves. Bill Jeffrey stood in the corner of the room talking to himself and slapping the side of his head. No one bothered him. Twenty-three-year-old Craig Williams sat at the far end, a long rope of drool dangling from his mouth to the polished floor. It was crazy in a room. Danny thought long and hard about where to sit. He spotted a table off to the left and sat down. Avoiding eye contact wasn’t easy but it was the only way to ensure no one sat beside you in an attempt to make friends. He swiped a stray strand of hair out of his eyes and studied the scene around him. He’d have a field day when he got out. The Pulitzer was just around the corner if he played his cards right. So far he hadn’t seen anything suspicious or unsettling, but that didn’t mean the anonymous call was a complete fake. They could just be very careful. Danny never thought acting crazy would be so difficult but it was surprising how normal he had to act to convince the staff he’d lost his marbles. The harder he tried to convince them he was sane the more insane he appeared. He supposed that’s why it was so hard to tell sometimes when a person was crazy because they acted so normal. On February 16th this year a call came through to the office of Harmony Daily from a withheld number stating that Larchill Mental Institution was carrying out illegal experiments on patients. The claim was ludicrous but had the potential to be an amazing story. At least that’s what Danny thought at the time. Right now, sitting wondering if he should drool to add effect, he wasn’t so sure. Truth be told, he felt a little foolish. But that was before he sat down. That was before he started speaking. It all changed after that. “Hi there,” he said. “Hi,” replied Danny. “Mind if I sit?” Danny shook his head. Saying too much would deter people into thinking he was all okay upstairs. “I ain’t seen you around here before.” It was a statement rather than a question. “That’s okay,” the visitor said. “My name’s Chris. Chris Jenkins. Staff call me Crazy Chris. They don’t know I know but I know. What’s your name?” “Danny,” he said risking a glance. It struck him how normal this guy looked compared to the other loony bins, but he knew looks could be deceiving. “Nice to meet you, Danny. So why you here?” “What?” “C’mon. Everybody in here has something wrong with them. Check out that guy there. He was abducted by aliens. Says they’re coming back. Keeps trying to read the stars and shit. Keeps asking for a radio to tune into their frequency. How fucked up is that? “Or how about Slobber-Beak there. What’s his name? Craig, I think. He never talks but I listen. Apparently aliens told him to off his wife and kid. Slit her throat and put a bullet in the kid’s head. Only four years old. Had some sort of mental break during the trial once they showed pictures. Been drooling ever since. Tragic. So why you here?” Danny assumed no one inside would have the mental capacity to have what seemed a normal conversation. But he guessed he’d better think of something and think fast. In the end, he just shrugged.
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Briggs leaned over the rusted balustrades of the Grand’s penthouse balcony and stared into the water lapping at his feet. It was six in the evening, give or take. Oppressive heat still coated the air like heavy paint, but each passing hour dropped a bead of turpentine that made the mix marginally less suffocating. The noise of Bria paddling over failed to distract him from his commiseration. “You’re not missing anything,” she called from the raft. “The city would smell like a sewer if it ever dried out.” “I’m not looking at the city.” “I know. I’ve been watching you, Briggs. Watched you piss in our drinking water, too.” He helped her up, then stood sentinel as she leaned heavily on his shoulder, smelling her dried sweat, his gaze twitching toward Bria’s freckled, sun-cured chest. It reminded him of an expensive purse. A tattoo of an atom, some vague anti-religion symbol, had acquired the look of an ancient hieroglyph under her deep tan. Bria alone had tried to retain the trappings of civilization amid their unplugged, tropical surroundings, scouring the remaining dry floors for desiccated tubes of lipstick and rouge dry as dust. “They’re just fish, Briggs.” She patted his arm. “Fluorescent fish. Evolution in action.” “Not enough time. We were gone just over a century.” The guidebooks were yellowed but still readable. “I think you just like to scare yourself.” “I’m not scared of them. I don’t even know what they are.” Didn’t he? “It’s the flora.” She made a palms-up gesture encompassing their living space – the tops of three hotels and a condo where the four of them resided separately, like royalty in warring castles. “It’s made a poet out of our mathematician. Too bad there’s no moon to inspire you.” He sniffed the air, redolent of half-remembered spice, overlaid with the phantom savour of sand and ocean, though there was no sand around and the water was fresh. “Can’t say I miss it much.” Bria smiled gravely. “Course not. You’re too obsessed with what’s under your feet to look up. Well, we’ll be out from under the vapours tomorrow, maybe they’ll leave you alone then.” Weeks – months? – under the burning sun had melted them down to their essentials: Farquhar’s dark crankiness, Ladner’s tics and superiority complex. Had transformed astro-physicist Bria into a frustrated divorcee sexpot. Had taken Gibbs, Melker, and Taylor entirely. Now the water was coming to finish the rest of them off, and the bright things in the water approached closer every evening. The vast red sun bloodied the horizon; it was safe to raise his head and take in the lagoontype array that had been his world for...months? Years? Thick branches drooped with leaves the size of manholes, trailing over a placid world of water whose blistering blue pitch almost matched the sky. The Starling crew had returned from its near-light-speed travels to find earth not just a centuryplus advanced in time (just like Einstein drew it up) but a tropical paradise, with nowhere to land and no one to explain what had gone awry. Though his crewmates had formed a pretty sure idea. Nature, ever prodigal, had made a lush swamp from an unforgiving vertical base of concrete and steel. Dense, gnarled ropes of multi-coloured vines had smothered the buildings and forged tentacles between them, too flimsy to accommodate humans but sturdy enough to support the burbling Cuban tree frogs, occasional terns, and the ubiquitous iguanas. Generations of idleness had made them almost as slow as the sun-beaten humans stalking them. 12
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