

The Red Penny Papers

Vol. II Issue 4, Summer 2012

Copyright 2012 Red Penny Papers

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyright property of the authors, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com. Thank you for your support.

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Cover:

"She Who Lies in Secret"

Fernando Cortes/Shutterstock.com

Editorial Staff:

KV Taylor

John Cash

Blog Editor: Mark S. Deniz

Web Formatting by: Mark Baird
Table of Contents

"The Broken Juggler" by Danielle Ferries

Illustration: "She Who Lies in Secret" by Tim Stewart

"She Who Lies in Secret" by Steven R. Stewart

"Abomination of Desolation" by Milo James Fowler

"Mrs. Henderson's Cemetery Dance" by Carrie Cuinn
Introduction

Hello and welcome to our summer issue. We have all kinds of dark little treats to get you through the hottest days of a sickeningly hot summer. A big sister with a dark secret or four. Fascination with an underwater friend. Body-hopping hitmen–or something very like. A party for the dead, because hey, they deserve it. Read up, and let the authors know if you enjoy. We sure did, anyhow.

Because the eBook edition is late in coming, we've got some special bonus content for you: a bonus illustration for our cover story, "She Who Lies in Secret", by Tim Stewart. Fun fact: Tim is the brother of the author, Steven. Thanks, Tim and Steve!

-Katey

The Broken Juggler

by Danielle Ferries

Sapphira pulled on a pair of latex gloves and stared despairingly at the corpse laid out on a drop cloth. Death was a messy business.

Her sisters, bloodsucking leeches with voracious appetites for atrocities of the human flesh, had struck once more. Never had Sapphira known such ungratefulness. Ten years of her life she'd given to raising them, catering to their every whim; feeding, clothing, mothering.

And now she was left holding the corpse.

Again.

It's my duty. I'm the eldest.

Sapphira rubbed her forehead, her brain addled with fatigue. She sat alone in the drafty workroom to the side of their family home, shrouded by disappointment and echoes of the past.

Mama had named them after jewels, but the reality was that they were the ugliest girls in town. Surely she wouldn't have bothered with such pretty names if she'd had an inkling how they'd turn out. They were too tall—Sapphira, the shortest, was six foot six—they had awkward, long faces and were too pale and bony, with a tendency towards impropriety that had pretty much nailed the coffin lid shut on social invitations. Still, harsh treatment by the opposite sex didn't stop her sisters going in search of male company. In fact, it only made them more aggressive.

Sapphira knelt on the floor and struck the corpse just below the knee, cleaving the leg in half. For the better part of an hour she worked slavishly at carving the body into portions. Mama had always said she had a knack for the family business, and Sapphira hadn't disappointed her.

Lately though her work bore little resemblance to Mama's life work: the funeral business for people's beloved pets. Sapphira had taken over when she died, and although their little crematorium had suffered financially these last years, they were still in the black. Just.

Sapphira worked hard to keep the business afloat, but she lived in fear of her sisters' exposure. It was the thrill of the chase, deliciously followed by the satisfaction of revenge—isolate and trap the man, torment him as he'd done to them and finally, kill him. Sapphira covered their tracks, but it was only a matter of time before they were caught.

It's my duty. I'm the eldest.

She'd stand by them as she always did, but she was tired of being taken for granted. Disposing of human corpses was a lot more strenuous than cremating family pets.

She grunted as she leveraged her weight to cut through the bone, wishing she'd had the chain fixed on her electric saw. It would make life easier.

For now, though, she needed to keep moving. Tomorrow she was cremating the Fraziers' St. Bernard and Mrs. Moon's Bullmastiff and she needed to incinerate the corpse to disburse amongst the urns. The rest could go to the roses—they were sadly in need of a decent fertiliser. It was good fortune that two large dogs had passed away in the same week and Sapphira glanced in the direction of the cold room. Her sisters' dirty little secret would be safe once again.

Sapphira heard a car approaching and looked up from the corpse, brushed her bloody hand across her forehead. She went to the window and watched as a police car coasted along the dusty driveway. Her heart skipped a beat. Officer Bain.

Few men made her heart want to burst out of her chest like Bain did. He was godlike: dark curly hair, shining smile. And he was taller than she. Normally she looked forward to him visiting. But not today. Today was clean up day.

Sapphira ripped off her gloves. She'd never wash up in time.

As the car shuddered to a halt beside her old truck, she rinsed her hands and checked her reflection in the wall mirror. No obvious signs of her current chore. She stepped into the hall, closed and locked the door that connected the workroom to the house. Silently willing her heart to calm down, she headed for the front door. Maybe Bain had actually come to see her. It might have nothing to do with her sisters. Hadn't she covered their tracks well, provided concrete alibis? As long as she kept Bain out of the workroom everything would be fine.

She smiled and fluffed her hair, wishing she'd had more notice of his visit.

She was straightening her dress when he knocked. Nervous fingers closed around the door knob, and she pulled it open, showering him with her brightest smile. "Hello, Bain."

"Hello, Miss..."

"Sapphira, please," she said in a throaty voice. Unable to resist, she stroked his arm with long fingernails, caressing his sun-tanned skin.

He took a step back, his mouth curved in a broken frown, then cleared his throat.

"What brings you out this way?" Sapphira attempted to flutter her eyelashes but only ended up blinking rapidly.

"I have a few questions for your sisters if they're around." Bain looked past her.

"My sisters." Sapphira's hand went to her stomach which was already twisted in knots. "What on earth do you want with them?"

"Just routine." He stepped forward, and Sapphira considered slamming the door in his face. If it had been anyone else she would, but Bain had such lovely features.

"They're not home." It came out coldly, and she followed it with a watery smile in the hope that he wouldn't read into it.

"I think I'll wait then, if you don't mind."

She did mind. She minded very much. But it was too late to slam the door, handsome face or not; Bain had edged around her and was already inside. Flicking her hair off her shoulders, Sapphira closed the door and followed him across the room to peer into the kitchen.

Had he noticed her earrings? One of her sisters had discarded them last week, bored with them already, and Sapphira had been happy to have something new. His look, so fleeting, had revealed nothing and Sapphira stared harder, willed him to say something charming. Mama would have wept at the sight of his long lashes framing pale, searching eyes.

"Your sisters spend a lot of time together, do they?"

"No...well...usually...yes...sometimes..."

"And they're together now?"

"Yes." Sapphira nodded, pleased that just one word had come out.

"There are four of them, aren't there?" He flipped open his notebook. "Ametrine, Opaline, Diamantina and Emeralda."

"Yes." Sapphira beamed with pride. It always made her smile to hear their pretty names from someone else's mouth. Especially Bain's.

He nodded as he wrote, and she noticed how he bit his bottom lip when he was concentrating. "You don't know when they'll be back?" He glanced up briefly.

"They might be gone all day. Sometimes they don't get home until after dark."

And who knows what they might bring.

He stared hard at her, and she began to perspire, great droplets that broke out across her forehead and top lip. She crossed her fingers behind her back, hoping he wouldn't see how nervous she was.

"Your mother died a few years back, didn't she?"

"That's right."

"And you took over the family business?"

Sapphira nodded.

"Do any of your sisters work?"

"No...Mama's insurance money...a little set aside..." Too many questions. Too invasive. Sapphira put a hand to her temple and closed her eyes.

Oh, why him?

Leave now, Bain.

She opened her eyes and her heart skidded to a halt as he turned, looked down the hall. What if he demanded to search the premises?

Bain finished writing in his notebook and snapped it shut. He scanned the room again and checked his watch. "You'll tell them I was looking for them and that I'll call again in the morning."

"I'll do that." Sapphira wrung her hands.

Leave now, Bain. Go and leave well alone.

He left through the front door, and she stood on the threshold, silently thanking the Gods. Suddenly he stopped, and a breath caught in her throat. He turned and cut across the lawn, strode past the statue of St Francis of Assisi. Sapphira froze, staring in horror as he opened the main door of the crematorium.

Had she locked the other door to the workroom after the Frazier showing this morning?

Sapphira rubbed her temple again, anger rising.

Can't remember.

She ran across the lawn, tripping in her haste. She righted herself and lunged drunkenly towards the door.

Have to stop him.

When she stumbled in, Bain stood in the middle of the showroom, hands on hips. He raised an eyebrow, and she realised how suspicious her behaviour must look. She smoothed her hair and smiled, then cleared her throat.

"There's an odd smell in here," Bain said.

"Oh, well, of course, Bain–officer, this isa crematorium. I do my best to cover the–"

"It's more than that. It's...I can't quite..." He stopped and sniffed the air. Then, as though his nose was leading him, he moved towards the workroom. Sapphira made to step in front of him but it was too late. Bain opened the door.

"What the hell?" He sputtered.

" _No!"_ Sapphira rushed forward.

Laid out on the drop cloth, like a shattered doll, was the corpse she'd been working on. Her sisters' latest kill; most likely Ametrine's work, if the ragged pattern of the knife wounds were anything to go by.

Bain turned, disgust and disbelief etched into his face. "What..."

Oh God. Oh God. Oh, Bain.

As if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing, he stumbled closer to the corpse.

Sapphira frantically searched the room until she spied the little axe resting provocatively on her workbench.

"What have they done?" He sounded far away. "Jesus...the rumours, the stories...but..."

While he fumbled to pull his phone from his pocket, Sapphira's brain ticked over. A burning rage filled her.

How dare he automatically blame them?

But he doesn't blame me. He doesn't think I'm a monster.

He'll arrest them. He'll take them away.

I can't let him do that.

Sapphira snatched up the axe and swung it high, sinking it into his back. Blood spurted and splattered her dress as Bain went down. He landed heavily on his stomach, a groan gushing from his mouth. His head hit the floor with a crack.

She stepped back, scrubbed at herself, horrified at the sight of so much blood. She swayed when the strong metallic smell filled her nostrils and made her dizzy. She forced herself to concentrate, planted a foot on his lower back, and grunted as she pulled the axe out.

Bain screamed and tried to move but she brought the axe down again, slicing deeply into his neck. He spluttered, his legs and arms jerking desperately. She waited, satisfied only when he was still, then wiped her brow and stared down at his corpse.

Oh God. What have I done?

His head was turned to the side, his once-handsome face pale and silent, void of expression. On a stained drop cloth beside him lay the remains of the corpse she'd been breaking down.

And then there were two.

Oh, lordy, I have some careful planning ahead of me.

Another voice, a darker voice, taunted her.

Leave. Walk away. Let your sisters sort it out. It's their fault anyway.

I can't. It's my duty. I'm the eldest.

Sapphira began to weep, her brain sluggish, refusing to cooperate. Why this? Why me? Bain's colleagues would know he'd come out here. His car was parked out front. How would she dispose of it? And his notebook, filled with unanswered questions about her sisters.

So little time.

She needed to think. She would have to be extra careful with Bain, couldn't afford mistakes.

The door opened and her sisters rushed in on a cloud of cheap perfume. Their eyes were wide and animated, and they were all dressed in black on black. Sapphira slid the notebook into her pocket.

"There you are," Ametrine snapped. "You weren't in the house. What are you doing out here?"

"Working." Sapphira scrubbed the tears from her face.

"Did you sharpen my knives?" Opaline demanded. "They're blunt. I've been asking you for weeks."

"Mine too." Ametrine smirked. "It makes my job harder."

"Did you finish my dress yet?" Emeralda whined. "I'm sick of wearing the same thing. You said it would be finished by now."

Sapphira looked up from the floor. Did they not see that she was busy? Did they not see what they had caused?

What have I done?

I did this.

It was me this time.

But they had caused it with their unquenchable thirsts.

"Sapphy, are you listening?" Emeralda pouted.

"Of course she's not listening," Ametrine said. "She's off in her own world again."

"What?" Sapphira asked.

"I'm hungry," Diamantina whined. "What's for lunch?"

"I don't have time for lunch," Sapphira snapped. "Look around you."

"What's with you?" Opaline stared. "All we did was ask if lunch was ready. Can you hurry it up, we're going out again this afternoon."

"No." Sapphira looked up. "Not today. I need your help."

"No you don't," Ametrine said. "Looks like you have everything under control."

"Nothing is under control." Sapphira shook with long suppressed rage. "I hope you're satisfied."

"Of course we are." Diamantina smirked. "We're always satisfied."

The fire in Sapphira's belly flamed higher.

"You've made a mess here." Emeralda turned her nose up. "Who's he?"

"This mess..." Sapphira took a second to calm down. "This mess happened because Bain saw the fallout from your handiwork. He saw..." Sapphira stopped, took a deep breath and said quietly, "I need you to help me lift him."

"I can't." Ametrine held up her hands. "Just had my nails done." She turned and walked out of the room. The others followed, four peas in a pod, their boots clop-clopping on the floor.

Sapphira stared at the corpses—one partially cut up, the other bent at an odd angle, the axe still embedded in his neck. Her sisters' laughter filtered through from the other room.

Ungrateful bitches.

Hadn't she rescued them from their stupid messes, solved their problems, cleaned up after them?

Should she let them suffer for their sins?

No. I have to protect them.

It's my duty. I'm the eldest.

Resigned to her fate, she searched through her keys for one to the basement padlock . She hadn't been down there in years, hated the thought of it, but it wouldn't do to keep Bain up here.

She sighed and set about her work. It was difficult to open the trapdoor and she hunched over it. The disused hinges refused to give at first, so it took several attempts before she yanked it open. Musty, stale air assaulted her nose as she dragged Bain's corpse to the top of the stairs. She was about to lift him when she tripped over his foot.

There was nothing to grab onto and she fell backwards, her arms flapping desperately. A few quick, terrifying seconds of freefalling, only air beneath her, then her shoulder connected with the stairs. She hit the timber hard and spun over and over like a ragdoll, her head knocking on each step as she fell closer to the basement floor, swallowed by the darkness.

Time slammed to a halt as she lay immobile, pain shrieking through her body. Only the light at the top of the stairs gave her comfort. She opened her mouth to scream for help but the words stubbornly refused to come.

Hear me. Please hear me.

Nothing.

Her sisters' voices, near but so far away, laughing, arguing. They'd miss her soon. They'd need something. They'd come looking.

Or will they?

She clawed frantically at the floor, her nails breaking. Fresh pain, dark and harassing. Stuck. In the basement. In the dark.

Their voices again, louder. Were they were coming into the workroom? Sapphira opened her mouth and found her voice.

" _Ametrine._ " It came out as a strangled whisper. "Opaline. Diamantina. Emeralda."

Nothing.

"Anyone? Hear me?"

Her voice was strangely low, like someone had turned the volume down. She tried to breathe deeper but it hurt so much, like something sharp digging into her lungs.

Minutes, maybe hours passed while she sweated in agony on the dusty floor, tried in vain to edge closer to the stairs.

Then finally, voices close by.

"Sapphy, are you down there? Did you iron my new dress? I can't find it."

"Is she down there? Sapphy?"

They wouldn't come down. They were frightened of the basement, of the dark.

"Help," she croaked. Saliva collected in the corner of her mouth, spilled onto her lip and dripped onto the floor.

They didn't answer, but she saw shadows on the workroom ceiling through the trapdoor, the movements lazy, unhurried.

"Help me." Her voice grew weaker. Surely they'd do something.

Gradually, the shadows receded, the voices became distant until only patches of words were audible. Sapphira tried to listen. Focus.

"Not going down..."

"...she'll come up..."

"...hungry..."

"...how long?"

"...hurt?"

"...serves her right..."

"...all her fault anyway..."

"...she'll fix it..."

How could they leave her? She closed her eyes as another wave of pain washed over her. She tried to move again, get to the base of the stairs, but it was futile. So cold, but drenched with sweat. Why weren't they coming?

They won't come.

They'd left her alone and broken.

I'll die.

Oh God, the pain.

They can't leave me here. They won't survive without me. Who will keep their secret?

What if I get the blame?

Dirty little vultures.

They won't come.

They'd all be exposed. Her sisters wouldn't have a clue how to clean up. Their terrible secret would be discovered.

And me. Down here.

It didn't matter. She still gripped Bain's notebook, filled with details. She almost smiled.

Then a sudden, darker thought occurred—a long buried memory, pushed to the deepest recesses of her mind. Five little girls watching, terrified, as their mother had hacked their father into pieces, ending his sorry existence. Five little girls huddled together silently as their mother triumphed over their father after years of abuse.

As her eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, Sapphira's watery gaze settled on a pile of bones a few feet away. A fractured image resurfaced: Mama dumping Papa's broken body in the cellar. Sapphira remembered her voice, barely above a whisper as she'd told people he'd deserted them, when all these years he'd lain undiscovered beneath the trapdoor.

Oh God.

Oh Mama.

I tried to keep your secret.

Danielle Ferries resides in tropical Queensland, Australia, but prefers dark and dreary weather. She loves Gothic horror, collecting creepy dolls and Hitchcock. By day, she works at a law firm and by night she's working on a Gothic suspense novel. You can find her at: www.danielleferries.com

© 2012 All rights reserved Danielle Ferries.

Illustration © 2012 Tim Stewart

She Who Lies in Secret

by Steven R. Stewart

Derek stared at the house. His body was half out of the van, one foot resting on the gravel driveway. "It looks fake."

His mother shut the driver's side door and stood eyeing the old mansion. "Oh, it's real. The dirt's real. The rat poop's real. The boxes of moldy crap—"

"I just can't believe anyone actually lives like this."

"Well, he doesn't, not anymore."

Derek crossed himself, and his mother slugged him in the arm.

The house loomed like a storm cloud. The porch was stacked with old appliances, motorcycles, and lawn mowers. There were dozens of dirty windows covered by towels or blankets. Birds' nests drooped from overhangs. Grasshoppers jumped back and forth in the waist-high lawn. Behind the house, a sheer cliff dropped fifty feet to jagged rocks and the endless expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

"You could never raise kids here without developing an ulcer," Derek's mother said. She tried her key in the front door, and it opened without a fuss.

Derek stared at the interior of the house and sighed. No way was this worth ten bucks an hour. "This is going to take forever."

His mother walked inside and pulled out her notepad. "We'll have this baby back on the market in a week. Okay, two."

Derek took a few steps into the living room. The table was piled high with magazines with titles like "Hydroelectric Co-op Bi-Monthly." But what really caught Derek's eye was the sound system. Speakers covered one entire wall. Cords ran every which way, each one leading back to an old combination record/tape player. Derek ran his hands over the silver and wood surface. He smiled appreciatively.

"What are they going to do with all this stuff?"

Derek's mother peeked around a corner, notepad in hand. "We're supposed to pack anything that looks salvageable into boxes. Somebody is coming with a U-Haul on Monday."

"So what happened to this guy?"

"He drank himself to death," she said. "I'll do the upstairs and the attic. You take the ground floor and the basement. Just get an idea of what needs doing, and let's get out of here. I'm not dressed for this."

Derek made his way from room to room, making mental notes. In the bathroom he found a black leather glasses case with gold letters on it: "C. L. Shunt." No wonder the guy drank himself to death. In another room, Derek found a framed photo of a twin engine bomber and its crew. He assumed one of the smiling young men was Mr. Shunt.

When he finished with the first floor, Derek stood in the doorway that led into the basement. The blackness below was total. He could see only the first step of a wooden flight of stairs. A smell like rust and water damage wafted up.

He clicked on his little LED keychain and started down the steps. The ceiling was low as he descended, and the walls hung with cracked cords and cables.

Derek stood in utter darkness at the foot of the stairs, shining his dim light back and forth. There were some homemade shelves full of mechanical equipment along one wall. Another wall covered in tools. A large, empty aquarium. Dozens of boxes. In short, lots of work ahead.

He was turning to leave when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye: a quick flash of red through a crack in the wood paneling. He walked slowly up to the crack and peered into it. There was a room beyond, lit only by occasional red flashes. He shined his light upward and saw that the paneling hung from a track that ran along the ceiling and into a slit in the concrete foundation. A door.

Derek slid it open.

The walls of the hidden room were covered in levers and nozzles and indicator lights. One light was blinking. Dust had settled in a peculiar pattern on the concrete floor, rings of concentric circles growing larger and larger as they moved outward toward the walls. Inside these circles, Derek spotted the hatch. It bulged up from the concrete floor like an enormous eye, as big around as his dining room table.

Derek moved slowly toward the hatch. He lifted and lowered his feet carefully, reluctant to scuff up the pattern in the dust. In the center of the hatch was a small, rectangular window, and below it, dark water. Bubbles swirled against the glass, joining together, splitting apart. He leaned over and shined his flashlight straight down into the water. The way the beam disappeared into the dark depths made his stomach turn.

Before he could think about what he was doing or why, he walked over to the control panel and pulled the lever next to the blinking red light. The light went out, and there was a loud, airy "whump." It reminded him of the noise canisters at the bank made when sucked through the overhead tube to the teller.

Something splashed against the window of the hatch. Derek whirled and ran to it. Some kind of brick floated lazily into the darkness, dissolving into a brown and pink cloud. Derek watched it disappear, leaving the water cloudy with debris in the beam of the flashlight.

"Let's go!" came his mother's voice from the top of the stairs. "We're burning daylight!"

Derek ran out of the room and up the stairs. His mother had lost her jacket somewhere, and sweat soaked through her shirt.

"I take it all back," she said. "This is going to take a month. At least."

That was fine by him. In the light of the late morning, the room with the hatch already seemed like a dream. The fear had faded into a strange, distant longing.

Everything in Derek's life made sense, even the painful things. His life was one long string of mundane disappointments. Middle-class white kid's parents get a divorce. Middle-class white kid enrolls in an out-of-state school to get away from family issues. Middle-class white kid drops out, moves in with his mom, and works for her cleaning business. Derek couldn't even feel bad for himself without growing bored of his own complaints.

Against the dull, gray backdrop of his life, the room with the hatch seemed strangely bright. In a day or two, he would have all the time in the world to explore the room properly. He looked forward to it.

#

"Um, thanks."

It was not the response Derek had hoped for. It had taken a full hour talking with the clerk in the bookstore before Derek could decide what to get Sophie for her birthday. He settled on a vintage copy of Pride and Prejudice with a worn leather cover. He wrapped the book in old newspapers and tied it with an aged yellow bow. It should have been a perfect gift, but Sophie didn't look impressed.

"Do you like it?" he asked.

Sophie's eyebrows pinched together. She was probably trying to look emphatic, but it looked more like she was staring into the sun. "Yeah. Of course I like it. It's a really great book. Thank you."

"I just thought, you know, you like to read. So."

"Yep, love to read. Thanks again. Thank you."

Now or never, Derek. "Hey." Gulp. "Do you have plans this weekend? Because I'd really like to take you out for your birthday."

"Out? Like to eat?"

Derek tried to smile confidently. "Yeah. Food, for your birthday. A celebration kind of date...thing."

Sophie's expression fell from confusion into weary sympathy. "Derek. I'm sorry—"

"Yeah, I know." He stared at his hands. "I've got this part down. 'Just friends.' Right?"

Sophie dropped into the booth across from him and leaned in close. Her eyes were intense behind her black-rimmed glasses. When she spoke, her voice was an angry whisper. "I do not have time for this right now. If you're not going to order, then I need to get to my other tables."

"Uh, chicken fried steak?"

"I'm serious, Derek. I'm in the middle of a double-shift. My feet hurt. My sister is watching Jaren. I've barely seen him in a week—he probably thinks she's his mother. I am many, many thousands of dollars in debt, and the only job I can find right now is this one. So if you're really here for a chicken fried steak, that's fine. Otherwise, I don't have the time or the energy to worry about your self-esteem."

Derek shook his head. "I'm sorry." He didn't know she had been feeling this way.

"And now you make that face, and suddenly, on top of it all, I'm a huge bitch who can't even get a present without freaking out. Happy birthday to me."

Sophie turned and walked crying through the double doors into the kitchen of the diner. Derek sat in silence for a moment before pulling out a pen and writing, "I didn't mean to upset you. I'm sorry," on a napkin. He folded his menu and tucked it in the box by the door on his way out.

#

The first day back at the old house, Derek's mother kept him busy packing boxes. It was exhausting. Physically, because the boxes were numerous and heavy. Emotionally, because Sophie's brutal rejection was still so fresh in his mind. And mentally, because only a few feet below him, the hatch waited in the dark basement.

Halfway through the work, a friend's air conditioner froze over and dripped gallons of condensation all over their new carpet. It was an emergency, and his mother had to go.

"You can finish up in here and then head home," she said. "I'll see you there."

Derek finished up in the bedroom he'd been packing—C. L. Shunt had covered this room in speakers as well—but instead of going home, he headed downstairs.

He found the hatch as he'd left it. The red light was blinking again, and Derek let it. He walked the circumference of the room. None of the levers were labeled; whoever used this place must have had every button and crank memorized. Derek began to deflate. Maybe this was just a custom septic system. Maybe the brick he'd released into the water was just a cleaning tablet.

He was almost ready to give up when he noticed a dial between two of the control panels. When he brushed the cobwebs away, he could just make out the outline of a thin safe nestled inconspicuously between the panels. He touched the little combination dial. The water beneath the hatch stirred, a single, frantic splash against the glass.

Derek pulled his hand away and froze. Slowly, he craned his neck to look behind him. The water was settling, the bubbles quieting themselves beneath the little window. He looked back at the lever. The little red light was still blinking.

"Go on," a female voice said. "Pull the lever."

Derek turned toward the exit. There was no one there.

"I'm not behind you. I'm right in front of you."

Derek's head swam. He shined his light around frantically, looking for an overhead speaker.

"Over here, silly." The voice was girlish and cheery, yet warm, sincere. There was not a drop of malice or mockery in it. "I'm under the hatch."

A single thought repeated in Derek's mind over and over: this is really happening. He couldn't disbelieve the voice. It was too brilliant, too vivid to be anything short of absolutely real.

"I can hear you so clearly," he said.

The voice giggled. "Has no one ever spoken into your heart before? What's your name?"

"Derek. What's yours?"

"Uh-rai-ee," the voice said. "You spell it A-R-A-I-E. Can you see my name now?"

"Araie," he said. "Araie?" The word felt strange in his mouth.

"Nice job! And you spell your name D-E-R-E-K." Araie sounded proud of herself.

"That's right." Derek chuckled in spite of himself. "First try. Not bad."

"Pretty good, eh?" Araie's laugh almost made Derek want to cry. Her voice was his by-gone childhood. It was gentleness. It was beauty.

"Will you pull the lever, Derek?" Araie asked. "If you do, I'll tell you a secret."

Derek glanced over at the lever. "A secret?"

"That's what I do. I tell secrets. It's what my name means."

"What? 'Secret?'"

"More like, 'She Who Lies in Secret.' Or 'Secret Girl.' Something like that."

Derek walked over to the hatch and shined his light into the water. It was too murky to make anything out. "Where are you?"

"At the bottom." Her voice was sad now. "I can't swim up to the top anymore. I'm too weak. I'm hungry, and it's hard to breathe in here. I'm so glad you found me, Derek."

"Who put you in here?"

"Clyde did," Araie said.

"You mean C. L. Shunt?"

"Yeah. He caught me and put me in this tank."

Derek's mind swam with questions. "He caught you? How? Where did you come from?"

"Pull the lever, Derek, and I'll tell you my secret."

He walked over to the console, took hold of the lever, and pulled it. Another bank canister sound. Another splash. Derek watched a brick disappear into the depths of the tank. Amidst the cloud of pink and brown that came from the brick, Derek caught a glimpse of something in the tank, a string of unearthly blue lights that danced rhythmically for a moment, then disappeared.

"What did I just do?" Derek asked.

"You fed me. Thank you."

"Yeah, but what did I just feed you?

"Dried fish pieces."

"That sounds kind of gross, Araie."

She giggled again. "Telling you my secret will clear some things up for you. But you have to promise never to tell anyone. It complicates things too much, and I can't change that for anyone, not even you, Derek. Is that okay?"

"Yes," he said. "I agree. Tell me your secret."

Araie's voice lowered. "My story begins, like all things, in the sea."

#

As Araie spoke, Derek lost himself in her story, letting her perfect voice wash over him. In time, even her voice dropped away, and Derek found himself standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier. The change was so subtle, he might have been standing there all along. The hot sun beat down on his neck, the cool air blew up from the surf. The ocean stretched for miles in every direction. There were bodies in the water, and the wreckage of airplanes. Fish and sharks churned the waters, drawn by the blood. Gulls perched on the floating bodies, sharp beaks tearing away bits of flesh.

Derek felt himself drawn to the edge of the deck. Down below, in the water, he saw a lifeboat. There were five men in it, passing around a bottle with a Japanese character on its label. They wore United States Navy uniforms. Fishing poles dangled and nets hung over the side of the boat, and they already had a good catch. One man smoked a cigar and rested his feet on a dead shark in the bottom of the boat. A long, serrated knife stuck up from the shark's head.

Suddenly, the men began to struggle with one of the nets. When they wrestled the net to the deck and examined their catch, the men fell silent.

Lying in the boat was the strangest, most beautiful creature Derek had ever seen. Blue veins and pale muscles, visible through the creature's translucent skin, flexed and shifted with mesmerizing grace as she struggled to right herself in the boat. Thin, silver membranes stretched between her delicate fingers. Wild, black hair flowed down from her head and pooled in the bottom of the lifeboat. The hair grew finer and lighter toward the ends, as if it had never been cut.

When she finally struggled free of the net, Derek fell to his knees at the edge of the ship and gasped. Below her waist was a long, frilled, eel-like tail that coiled around itself. Lights dotted the length of it, glowing a surreal shade of blue that he'd seen only once before. In another life. In an old house. Swirling gracefully down in the water of the hatch.

When she lifted her head to peer through the strands of hair covering her face, Derek caught his first glimpse of her eyes; almond-shaped, too large to be human, and the color of sea ice.

When Derek finally blinked, he was standing in the house again, but upstairs. Everything was decades newer, but there was still plenty of clutter. Metal panels, boxes of bolts, tubes of sealant lay on tables and counters and chairs. A young, blonde man from the lifeboat —Clyde Shunt, Derek thought—came into the living room carrying another box. Black letters on the side read "Bomb Shelter Components 3h-3w." Derek followed Clyde into the basement.

A large aquarium hummed silently against one wall. Araie's pressed her hands to the glass, her large eyes watching Clyde sadly. Clyde stormed past her and set the boxes on a pile of broken bricks and dirt. He picked up one of the heavy digging tools resting nearby and walked into the room where Derek had found the hatch. Derek turned to look at Araie, sadly staring out from her prison. When he tried to move toward her, he was pulled along behind Clyde as if on a leash.

The hatch was completed. The floor was clean, the panels shiny and in working order. Clyde looked many years older now, his face creased with frown lines, and dark circles shadowed his eyes. Derek wondered how much time had passed as he stepped from one room to the next.

Araie's aquarium had moved to the floor in front of the hatch. She looked like she was crying, but underwater it was hard to tell. Clyde opened the hatch and roughly took hold of one end of the aquarium. His hands shook as he tipped it over. Araie slid down one side, scrambled to keep her hold on the slick glass, then fell awkwardly through the open hatch, bashing her ribs on the lip. Clyde slammed the lid shut, and the locks hissed closed. Derek ran to the hatch and pressed his hand to the glass. Araie reached up from the bottom and pressed her hand to his. Under the water, her terrified eyes had no shine. Her pale lips formed words:

"Help me."

#

Derek jolted upright. The hatch was there, but the room had aged again. He pressed his hand to the glass, but the murky water was empty. He was back. Araie was at the bottom of the tank, he knew, too weak to swim to the top. His tears dotted the window of the hatch.

"I will," Derek said. "I will help you.."

Blue lights swirled in the bottom of the tank. "I wish it were as simple as grabbing me and carrying me to the ocean. I'd never make it that far in the open air, not in the shape I'm in, and I can't swim up to the top anyway. This tank is deeper than it looks, and I'm too heavy for you to carry. It's the tail."

Derek laughed. "What do we do then?"

"Clyde built this tank out of bomb shelter parts. He was a brilliant engineer. Every week or so, the water in my tank is supposed to be cycled out and replaced with water from the ocean. The water comes in from a pipe at the bottom of my cage, but the pipe is covered, and it's too small for me to fit through anyway. I won't get back to the ocean that way."

"Are you sure?"

"We can worry about that later. The motor that cycles the water is broken. I need you to fix it. When I'm healthy again, we can figure out a way to get me down to the shore."

"Just tell me what to do."

"First, go to the safe on the wall and open it." Araie told him the combination, and he entered it. Long rolls of paper fell out of the safe into Derek's hands. He unrolled one part way. It was a blue pencil sketch of a long cylinder, divided into sections and labeled with various notes and snippets of arithmetic. Plans for the tank.

Derek shook his head. "I can't read these."

"I'll help you with that, no sweat," Araie said. "You get to do the hard part. It'll be exhausting work, but I'll pay you for your help."

"Pay me?" Derek laughed. "What, you have a seashell purse down there?"

Araie giggled. "No, silly. I'll pay you with the only thing I have: secrets."

"Secrets? Like what?"

"Like anything! Everything you could ever want to know. Secrets are better than money. Even better than fish!"

"That good, huh?"

"You betcha! Isn't there anything you want? Anything you've been working toward? I can give you the edge you need to do your best."

Derek smiled. "You sound like an infomercial."

"What's an infomercial?"

"You're supposed to know all these mysterious secrets about anything and everything, but you don't even know what an infomercial is?"

Araie laughed. "Just playing with you, Derek. Come on, give me a little credit."

Derek stared down at the hatch with his mouth open. Every time he thought he had Araie figured out, she took him by surprise.

"I'll give you one secret today," Araie said. "And I'll give you another one for each day after that. But remember, we have to work quickly."

"Just tell me what to do, and I'll do it."

"We'll be a great team, I know it!" Araie said."So what do you want to know for today?"

Derek's mouth moved without his permission, like the word had been pulled out of him. "Sophie."

"What?"

"Nothing," Derek said. "Never mind."

"You said 'Sophie.'"

Derek walked over to one of the walls and slid down it. He rested his arms on his knees and sighed. "This girl I went to high school with. She's still in town. I've been, I don't know, trying to get close to her, but it's complicated, and she's really smart, and I'm—"

"You want some help?" Araie asked. "Just say the word."

"Don't you have a rule against this? 'No interfering in matters of love and free will?' Something like that?"

Araie was silent. Derek imagined her looking at him and smiling, blinking her large eyes as if to say, "Nope. Why would I?"

"All right, Secret Girl," Derek said. "Let's get this show on the road."

#

That evening, Derek drove his mother's van to visit Sophie. He set the large package he was carrying on the step and knocked. Sophie came to the door and smiled sadly when she saw him.

"I'm glad you're here," she said. "I owe you an apology."

Derek put up a hand to stop her. "Say no more. Totally my fault. I should have given you your real present first."

"Derek, you don't need to—"

"Sorry," he said, picking up the large package. "This isn't negotiable. You are required by law to open this present. If you hate it, I'll even burst into your house and track down the book I gave you. I'll take them both back, and I'll buy myself a big, manly ice cream cone."

Sophie laughed cautiously.

"Just open it." Derek held the large, rectangular package out to her.

Sophie set the package back on the step. She began slowly unfastening the tape.

"What are you, my grandmother?" he said. "Come on, rip it apart."

Sophie laughed. She took a handful of wrapping paper and tore it free—with more than a little satisfaction, Derek thought.

"No way." Sophie lifted a massive water gun out of the shredded wrapping paper. "This is the biggest water gun I've ever seen in my life."

"Mine's in the van," Derek said. "Yours is a little bigger, but I'll have speed on you. And mine's already full, so you have until I get back to prepare to defend yourself."

Sophie's face lit up with childlike excitement, but immediately, as if someone had thrown a switch, the look vanished. "Jaren will be getting home in a few minutes. So I can't really—"

He reached into his back pocket and produced a small water pistol. "Let's hope he's a good shot."

Sophie laughed. "Derek, he's three."

"Then it's time he began his training."

Sophie sat on the step and laughed.

"Laugh all you want," he said. "But I'll be back inside of fifteen seconds. There's a freezing cold gallon of water with your name on it."

Derek turned and ran toward the van. Sophie scrambled for the hose in the flower bed, cranked on the water, and began filling the tank on the water gun. Derek reached into the back of the van for his own gun.

It was all out war. When Sophie's sister arrived a half-hour later with Jaren, Derek and Sophie were drenched and filthy. The hose had gotten involved early on, and both of the combatants had taken a spill in the wet grass a time or two. Jaren looked confused when he first arrived, but joined in enthusiastically when Sophie handed him his own gun. Sophie's sister politely declined to participate, and when Sophie shot her in the butt as she was walking away, the game escalated to a whole new level.

When it was dark, Sophie and her sister took turns in the shower while Derek changed his clothes in the van. Sophie's sister didn't say anything, but she smiled at him on her way out the door. Sophie emerged from the shower smelling wonderful and looking cute in her pajamas. She brought Derek a cup of chai tea. Jaren came out of his bedroom once to tell him thank you for the water gun, and Sophie gently led him back to bed with a smile. When she came back out, she plopped down on the couch next to Derek.

"Thank you," she said. "This is the best birthday I've had since I was fifteen."

Derek smiled. "I was going to make a cake, but you really don't want me to make a cake."

She laughed.

A comfortable silence passed between them. Sophie's expression was softer than Derek had ever seen it.

"I didn't deserve this," she said.

"I wanted to make you happy."

Sophie smiled. "You did. You really did. You want to see something pathetic?"

Derek nodded without hesitation, which made Sophie laugh again. She stood up and went back to her bedroom. She returned with a stack of books. Derek looked at them, one after the other.

"Pride and Prejudice," he said.

"And those are just the ones I still have," she said. "People have been giving me classic literature since I was twelve, back when all I wanted was to read R.L. Stine and V.C. Andrews."

"You're a smart girl," Derek said. "I don't think people can picture you readingThe Abominable Snowman of Pasadena."

"Exactly!" Sophie said. "I mean, my mom's a career waitress, and Dad's a cop. Everybody thought I'd be the family's ticket out of Bluecollarsville. I did too, I guess. But one day I woke up, and my wall was covered in trophies and certificates, and I didn't own a single book that was any fun. Well, I kept the fun ones in a box."

He nodded. "Do you know why I liked you in high school? I mean aside from the gorgeous librarian look?"

Sophie laughed. "Why?"

"Because of art class. You were so prim and proper all the time, and then you'd get a hold of a brush and the darkest, most beautiful things would just pour out of you. I would look at you across the room and think, 'I want to see the world the way she sees it. I want to see her life from the inside.'"

"All that work, and the only thing in my life that's worth anything came out of my biggest mistake. My life from the inside makes no sense."

"That's what I like about it."

"That and the gorgeous librarian thing," Sophie said.

"I'm serious. Guys look at you and think, 'If she just shook her hair loose and took off those glasses—'"

Sophie took off her glasses, pulled the clip out of her hair, and shook it loose. When she kissed him, she did it with her whole body. She folded into him, pressed him into the couch. Derek put his hands in her wet hair, grabbed her shoulders and pulled her hard down on top of him. Sophie was frantic, taking his hands and making him touch her where she wanted to be touched.

But by the time she took off her shirt, Derek wasn't kissing Sophie. Not anymore.

Araie's eyes were narrow, their blue almost lost behind long lashes. Her smile was coy and painfully alluring. He leaned in and lost himself, touching her shoulders, kissing her collar bone, her slender neck. Her tail coiled and uncoiled rhythmically along the floor, the lights along its length pulsing slowly. Derek's hand trailed down her side toward where the skin became dark blue and slick. When his hand met cloth instead, Derek stopped.

"What's wrong?" Sophie asked.

All of the tension in his body backed up into his veins, where it turned to acid. "Nothing," he said. He kissed her again, but all he felt now was frustration. He pulled away.

"Seriously, what's wrong?" Sophie asked.

"I just think we should call it a night."

She reached out and touched his leg. "We don't have to stop. It's okay. I want to."

But next to Araie, Sophie looked clunky and awkward. Her eyes were too small. Her body was too fleshy, too pink, too dry.

"I just have to go," Derek said.

#

"How did it go?" Araie asked.

"A little too well," Derek said.

"Secrets expose people's vulnerabilities. You can't blame Sophie for having them."

"I know that, but I can't help but feel a little cheated. I've lost some respect for her."

"Because she decided she liked you?"

"That's not it," Derek snapped.

"Isn't it? You have a pretty low opinion of yourself if you lose respect for a girl because she finds you appealing."

"I don't need to hear my own secrets, thank you."

"I thought you liked this girl."

He sighed. "She's just not who I want."

Aside from the incident with Sophie, things were going well. New cleaning jobs kept Derek's mother from working on the mansion. She even asked him to take over until she could get the other jobs wrapped up. He would have plenty of time in the coming weeks to repair the tank. An extensive inventory of the basement yielded all the parts he needed. All that remained was the actual manual labor, which he quickly discovered this was more demanding than he had imagined.

Derek set aside an aluminum panel and stared at the monstrous engine beyond. "I can't do this. I'll have to take the engine apart before I can even reach the back of it."

"You have to do it," Araie said. "Please."

"I just meant that it'll be tough. I'll find a way, Secret Girl."

Araie giggled. "What do you want for today's secret?"

Derek grabbed a ratchet and began removing bolts. "I want to know more about you."

"Me?" She spoke as if she thought herself perfectly ordinary. "What about me?"

"Tell me about your home, your family, things like that."

"I don't have a family," Araie said. "It's just me."

"You mean there aren't any other—" Derek almost said "mermaids."

As Derek worked, Araie told him about her world beneath the sea. She told him about conversations with whales and stingrays and even krill, who spoke in unison and didn't have very interesting things to say. She told him about teasing sharks, about luring schools of fish into the depths with the lights on her tail to appease the giants that no human had ever seen. She spoke of epic battles between giant squid and sperm whales, of cathedrals of coral, of underwater caves larger than cities that sparkled with the light of the creatures who lived there. She spoke of the day she had been caught, when dreadful sounds in the world above had drawn her nearer to the surface than she usually dared.

Days passed, and with each one Derek spent his allotted secret learning more about Araie. When he could physically work no longer, when his body shook and his hands bled, he would lean against the hatch, and Araie would sing haunting songs into his mind. One day after dozing off, he noticed the pattern of concentric rings in the dust had returned.

"Are they from vibrations in the water or something?" he asked.

"Is this your secret for the day?" Araie's voice lilted playfully.

Derek laughed. "Haven't I earned a freebie?"

"I guess you have. The sand is magnetized."

"Magnetized? By what?"

"That really will cost you your secret," Araie said.

He left it alone. He didn't care enough to sacrifice Araie's stories. They were the only thing that kept him going, and he was too tired to argue. Sometimes he would look at the motor and its pieces and become almost paralyzed with exhaustion. Somehow each of these parts had a purpose, but right now it just looked like a mess.

I have the blueprints, Derek reminded himself. And I have Araie.

And I plan to keep it that way.

#

The milk bottle hit the tile and split in half. The explosion was cataclysmic. Derek's mother spun around.

"I'll clean it up." Derek grabbed a rag off the handle of the fridge.

"What happened?"

"Nothing. It just slipped."

"It's not because your hands are shaking?"

"My hands aren't—" But they were. How had he not noticed before?

"Are you feeling all right?"

"Yeah," he said. "I'm fine. I've just been working hard."

His mother bit her lip. "I went by the mansion yesterday."

Derek's whole body tingled and itched. "Oh?" He had wondered when she would bring this up.

"Yeah. I had some time after I finished up the funeral home. It doesn't look like you've accomplished quite as much as I thought." Her tone was careful, and Derek could tell she was angry, but maybe more worried.

"Yeah, it's a nightmare," Derek said. "It has to get worse before it gets better, I guess."

"It hasn't gotten worse; it's exactly the same."

"I've been working in the basement lately."

She nodded, but she wouldn't look at him. Her expression spoke clearly enough:If you say so, sweetie. I'll drop it. For now. "Sophie called," she said.

Derek sighed. "Again?"

"You should call her back, Derek. Every time she calls, she sounds a little more frustrated."

"Not my problem."

"If you care about her, it is your problem. Whether it's your fault or not."

He tossed the wet towel in the sink. "Like I said." He grabbed the keys off the counter, hoping she didn't notice the way they clinked together in his trembling hand. "Well, I gotta get going."

"To the mansion." Her tone was accusatory.

Derek swung around and slammed the wall with his fist. "Yes. To the mansion. To do my job."

Though he didn't look at her on the way out the door, Derek could feel her back there, hands on hips, tears standing in her eyes. He hesitated at the door, almost turned around to apologize. But when he thought of Araie lying against the bottom of the tank, struggling to breathe, he took the final step out of the door, out into the day, and didn't regret his decision in the least.

#

"More of the usual today?" Araie asked.

"I want to hear about the magnetized sand." Derek said.

"The sand itself? The mineral composition of it? The total weight? I don't think I can manage a grain count."

"You know what I mean."

Blue lights swirled in the water, but they seemed dimmer, to move slower. Derek hoped it was his imagination.

"It's because of me," Araie said. "When I talk to you, it magnetizes things."

"You're going to have to back up and explain that."

"You've heard of electric eels?"

"You're an electric mermaid?" Derek asked.

Araie laughed. "The similarities don't go very far. They finger paint; I'm Monet. They zap stuff; I step right into your heart and speak to you."

A thousand little tumblers in Derek's mind clicked into place. Why he had never thought of it before, he couldn't say. Did he really think that this conversation was the same for her as it was for him? He only got to see and hear what she showed him, but if she knew all those things about Sophie, if she knew words like "magnetize" and "infomercial" then that meant—

"You can read my mind, can't you?"

"You betcha."

Derek swallowed. "So you know, then. How I feel about you."

"I do."

"And you've seen—"

"What?" Araie giggled. "The naughty thoughts about me?"

Derek dropped his wrench.

"Derek, I come from a world with no pretenses. The ocean is one big, violent orgy. Everything fights and dies and eats and reproduces. It's very raw. So if you're worried you're going to scare me off just because you've been rehearsing mating with me, I wouldn't worry about it."

Derek laughed. "Sorry. I'm not sure what to say."

"When you're the only one of your kind, you miss out on all the reproducing. The fact that you think of me in that way is kinda nice. It makes me feel special."

Derek shrugged and laughed at himself again. "Any time."

That night, when the work was done, Derek fell asleep against the hatch. He dreamed of Araie rising out of the ocean, salt water trickling down her body. The lights along her tail pulsed slowly. When Derek looked away, Araie told him not to, that it was okay to look at her. Derek turned around and looked and followed her into the ocean.

#

Days passed. Derek's hands shook worse. Araie's lights slowed down and eventually disappeared entirely. Her voice was still cheerful and urgent, but quieter somehow. Thankfully, the motor was nearly completed, little more than a day's work if Derek's hands cooperated. Sometimes as he worked, he would blank out and stop moving. He would stare into the depths of the engine, squatting silently with a wrench or a screwdriver in his hand. There was nothing in his mind when this happened, and not even Araie could break through. But after a moment or two, Derek's brain would jump back in, and he would continue his work. He imagined cool, fresh water roaring into Araie's tank. He pictured her little body heaving as it took in the oxygen rich water, her eyes looking around in delight, her radiant smile. He pictured her swimming to the top of the tank, where he could finally touch her.

Where he would kiss her and tell her that he loved her.

One day, Derek ran into Sophie at the store. He clutched the tubes of sealant he was carrying and tried to hurry past, but she stopped him.

"Hi, Derek."

"How are you doing, Sophie." It wasn't a question; it was a reflex.

But Sophie answered all the same. "Confused, actually. Worried. Wondering if you're getting my calls."

Derek sighed. "I'm really busy. My mom has me working the mansion by myself."

You don't look so good."

He glanced at his grease-stained clothes. "No, I imagine not." He tried to walk past her and dropped one of the tubes of sealant in the process. He stooped to pick it up and dropped the rest of them. Sophie bent down to help him.

"I've got it," he said.

"Let me help you." Sophie grabbed three of the tubes and held them for him.

"I don't want help," he said. "And I don't have time to talk. I've got to get back."

"It's a house, Derek. It's going to be there. What's so important that you—?"

Derek pictured Araie at the bottom of the tank, lying in water murky with fish pieces and filth. He pictured her floating dead to the top like a goldfish. He grabbed the tubes of sealant out of Sophie's hands, managing to hold onto them this time. "I have to go."

#

Derek slept at the mansion again. His dreams about Araie had grown gruesome. He would be touching her, kissing her skin when it began to rot beneath his lips. He would look up in time to see her half-skeletal face whisper, "Help me." He woke up. His cheek was cold from the hatch.

"We're running out of time," Araie's voice said. "I'm scared."

"I'm here, Araie, I'm here."

"I need you to keep working," she said.

"Okay."

Derek tried to stand, but his legs failed him. He fell forward onto the hatch and hit his head. Blood spattered the glass.

Araie's blue lights flickered in the tank. "Are you okay? Oh, Derek, no. You're bleeding."

Derek wiped the blood away. "I'm fine. It's. Nothing." He was so tired. Words came in slow bursts. "We've got to get that water. Going. For you."

Derek picked up a tube of sealant and stared at it. It was just a shape. It had no meaning.

"Derek!" Araie shouted. Derek jumped. "I know you're tired, but there's no time! I'm getting—" She was crying.

"Do you want a fish brick?"

"No." Her voice was a pitiful, sad squeak.

Derek took a deep breath. "Listen to me, Secret Girl. We're tired, and we're weak, but we're going to do this. One more day, and I can have this done. I won't stop until we're finished, okay?"

She actually sniffed. "Okay."

"Okay. Team Araie is on the job!"

She laughed through her tears, and Derek got to work.

#

He worked like a man in a dream. He stared at the green button that would bring the engine to life once it was finished. An hour of work left, maybe two. Araie's voice grew flighty. It sang songs with no particular tune. Random images leaked into Derek's mind. He could feel Araie imagining herself swimming free. The sensation drove him to work faster.

Suddenly, as he worked, the light in the other room turned on A female shape appeared in the door.

"Mom, I don't have time to explain this."

"Not Mom," Sophie said.

"Go away." He tried to keep working, but her presence was like bees in his brain.

"What is this place? What are you doing down here?"

Derek turned his head. "Go away, Sophie. I'm serious. I don't have the time."

Sophie's voice and posture hardened. "I think you need to make the time."

He stood up and stared at her.

"I know I was an idiot all those years," Sophie said. "You were right there, and you were so good to me, and now that I've come to really like you, you're doingthis to me, and I just can't make sense of it. Are you punishing me?"

"Can we talk about this later?"

"Just tell me why," Sophie said. "Why, the moment I begin to feel something for you—"

Derek exploded. "That's the most important thing, isn't it? What you feel? A guy throws a couple water guns at you, and you drop your pants. How can anything you feel be worth my time?"

Sophie looked like she'd been slapped. She lowered her voice so he could barely hear. "I know I'm stupid with guys. I thought that things would be different with you, but clearly—"

"They aren't," Derek said. "I'm just one more giant dick. Go cry it off."

Sophie shook her head, sudden clarity in her eyes. She took a step toward him. "This isn't you, Derek. What's happening? What's wrong?"

"I'm done explaining myself."

"You haven't explained anything. But you can. Tell me. You were there for me. Now I'm here for you. Let me look at that cut on your head."

Sophie took a step forward. Araie died again in Derek's mind, floated to the top of the tank and bobbed limply. His grip tightened on the wrench. "You turn around and walk away, Sophie. I'm giving you three seconds."

Sophie didn't flinch. She kept walking toward him, hands out. "I'm not going anywhere."

In Derek's mind, Araie rotted and dissolved into the water of the tank.

"One," he said.

"Count if you want, but I'm not going to leave you," Sophie said.

"Two."

"Three," she finished for him.

Derek swung the wrench and hit Sophie in the arm. Bones cracked, and Sophie screamed and fell against the hatch, her eyes wide.

Derek looked down at the wrench. Up until the moment he'd swung it, he had only been planning to scare her. He hadn't given his arm permission—it had justmoved.

"Get out!" he roared through his tears. "Damn it, just get out!"

Sophie crawled to the door and struggled to her feet, clutching her arm. The look she shot back over her shoulder cut straight through Derek, not because it was accusatory or cold, but because there was nothing but fear in the expression. He thought of the way she had laughed during their water fight.

"I have to save Araie," Derek whispered. "I have to save her."

When the last echoes of Sophie's footsteps faded, Derek threw the wrench across the room and slid down the wall, sobbing.

"Derek," said Araie.

"Yeah."

"There isn't time."

"I know."

Derek picked up the wrench and went back to work. He worked furiously. His whole body shook. He fell down as he worked. He dropped things. Bolts rolled under the motor and he had to fish them out.

"Faster," Araie said. "There's no time. They're coming for you."

"Who is?"

"Sophie's dad is a cop, remember?"

"Shit."

Derek took one deep breath. He blew all his anxiety out. His hands still shook, but bolts seemed to fasten themselves. Belts wrapped wheels and stretched into place on the first try.

"Faster," Araie said.

"I can't go any faster!"

"Damn it, Derek, you better figure out how! If they take you away, I'm going to die in here!"

Derek began to cry, but he didn't stop working. "I'm trying! We can do this!"

And he tried.

"They're outside, Derek," Araie said. "We have to try it. Push the button."

"But if it's not finished—"

Araie shrieked. "Push it, damn you, we're out of time!"

Derek looked for the button and couldn't find it. The light had burnt out. "No, no."

"Find it," Araie said.

Upstairs, a door banged open. Derek felt around for the button, accidentally smearing some of the sealant.

"Find it, Derek!"

"No, no, no! Where is it?!" He reached into his toolbox for his flashlight, but his fingers were numb with wounds and calluses. Everything felt the same. He flung the toolbox across the room.

Footsteps started down the stairs.

Araie's voice became calm, seductive. "Just find the button and push it, Derek. Then we'll be together."

Derek crawled to the toolbox and found the flashlight. The glass was broken. He thumbed the switch. Dead. He howled.

Footsteps echoed from the concrete outside. Voices called his name.

"They're here." Araie's voice was blade-sharp. "Fight them!"

He could barely see through the tears and sweat. Lying on the floor in front of him was a crowbar. He picked it up.

The men with flashlights spoke, but Derek couldn't make out the words. His mind was full of murder. He turned to face them, the crowbar dangling at his side. More shouting from the men.

"Kill them!" Araie screamed.

Derek stared at the crowbar in his hand—it wanted to move so badly, but he wouldn't let it. Not this time.

There was a click and a twang, and suddenly his body was not his own. It seized up, pulled in on itself, and a horrible pulsing click shot up and down his limbs. Araie? No, one of the men had used a taser. Derek blacked out.

He felt men handling him, cuffing him.

"Drugs, you think?" said one.

"Did he look sober to you?" said another.

"What was he doing down here?"

"Looks like he was trying to fix that boiler."

The man chuckled. "To each his own."

"This ain't funny," a third voice said. "That little shit broke my girl's arm."

Araie screamed his name over and over. Derek told his body to sit up, to run back and push the green button. But his body was done taking orders.

"I'm sorry," Derek tried to tell Araie. "I can't move. I can't do anything."

Araie had ceased to be a thinking voice, a loving friend. Now she was a fire that burned in his mind. She threw his name at him like lightning, scorching him. It hurt worse than anything he had ever felt. Lying in the ambulance, Derek tried to lift his hands to cover his ears, but he couldn't make them move.

#

The next hours and days were hell. His dreams were fevered nightmares. He saw strange things and distant places, events without context.

A naked Asian man stood on the edge of a cliff and drove a bone knife into an infant. He dropped the bleeding child into the ocean. Blue lights swirled in the water. He gestured madly in the moonlight, eyes rolling, arms flailing as if casting a spell.

Dead soldiers floated in the water, surrounded by pink clouds of blood. The sharks who had gathered to eat scattered when they saw the blue lights rising from the depths. Men were pulled beneath the waves. Pieces surfaced.

A young Clyde Shunt and four other men stalked the decks of a ship, shooting others in United States uniform. On the deck, blood-soaked in the moonlight, the men knelt before a large tank of water.

Speakers blared music, rattling bedroom windows, shaking dirt down from the cracks in the ceiling. Clyde Shunt lay in his bed and watched the clumps of dust fall to the floor. His shaking hands folded the pillow under his head to cover his ears.

Over every image, each nightmare vision, Araie's voice never stopped shrieking Derek's name.

Days later, Derek awoke in his cell. He rolled into a sitting position on the edge of his bed. Outside a high, barred window, the moon glowed. He put his face in his hands. He imagined his mother being called in for questioning, the look on her face when they told her what he'd done. He thought of all the things he had said to her about Sophie about how he didn't care.

He pictured three year-old Jaren signing the cast that wrapped Sophie's left arm.

Derek collapsed against the wall, his sobs the only sound in the world. That is when he realized Araie's voice wasn't calling his name. She was silent. For a moment, relief washed over him, then blistering regret. How could he blame Araie for things his fevered mind had imagined? That was like blaming someone for what they did to you in a dream. And how could he blame her for being frightened? Especially now, when— When she was probably—

#

Derek's mother kept her eyes on the road. She wouldn't look at him. Derek stared out the window. They passed kids playing in a sprinkler, a man waxing a red car, a woman walking a poodle.

"Derek? Are you listening?"

He looked up. "Sorry. I am now."

"Tuesdays and Thursdays," his mother said. "Those days are therapy. Mondays you meet with the guy from the police department. Mr. Schmidt, I think."

"Okay."

"And we have court again on the 18th. Sophie is willing to drop the charges if you'll keep up with your therapy, but her parents are ready to string you up. We just need to show them you're getting better."

"Okay."

"Oh, and your neurologist wants to see you again in two weeks."

"Okay."

He looked out the window again. Far away on its hill, the mansion stood tall against a blue sky. Seeing it in the daylight, with white clouds overhead, Derek's mind flooded with thoughts of Araie, his friend, his love, his Secret Girl. He thought of their long conversations, of her stories and songs. He remembered his promises.

The van halted at a stop sign, and Derek threw the door open and ran. His mother called after him. He heard her door slam.

He pumped his legs and filled his lungs and willed the world to fly past him. His mother's voice was never far behind. He leapt over a terrace and lost his footing, skidding into a curb and scraping his chin. Blood ran down his shirt. He got up and kept running. When he reached a neighborhood, he vaulted fences and ducked under tree limbs. His mother's voice trailed away. He was losing her.

Derek made his wobbly legs obey him. What he lacked in balance, he made up for in pure will. He scrambled through a patch of cacti, climbing up a steep hill, his palms and knees bleeding. When he reached the top, the mansion was near enough he could see the yellow police tape in front of the door. Derek gritted his teeth and pushed himself harder.

He tore through the tape. He threw himself against the wooden door until it splintered and cracked down the middle. He forced his body through the opening, splinters digging into his skin. Over and over, Derek's mind chanted a single word:

Araie. Araie. Araie.

He flew down the stairs. The consoles were ablaze with blinking red lights. Tools and plans were still scattered across the floor. Derek found the page for the consoles. He read furiously, following along with his finger. He darted over to the console and mashed down on the black button that would open the hatch. The locks blew with a hiss.

He didn't care about anything now. He didn't care how much she weighed, how weak she had become. He would carry her down the cliffs to the ocean. The fresh water, the salt, the blue sky would have to revive her. Derek grabbed the handle of the heavy steel hatch and pulled it open. The water smelled like rotting fish, but he didn't hesitate. He dove headlong into the murky water. He swam deeper and deeper, groping for an arm or a tail, until finally his body forced him to swim for air. He shot upward, his body jerking involuntarily, fighting him. Finally, Derek burst out of the water and sucked in a breath, arms flailing for the sides. One clumsy hand snagged the edge of the heavy door. It fell, hit him on the head, and snapped shut. The locks hissed closed.

His head buzzed, and he nearly lapsed out of consciousness. When his senses cleared, he was sinking into the depths of the tank. His body screamed for air, but the request seemed far away now. He spotted a thin, silver bubble of air at the top of the tank, maybe enough for one breath, but he would probably never reach it. So he let himself sink. As his eyes adjusted to the murk, he could just make out a slender form at the bottom of the tank. Derek took every last ounce of strength, funneled it into his arms and legs, and swam down to meet her.

Derek wrapped his arms around what felt like Araie's limp tail. His mind buzzed again. Not yet, he told his body. Not until I've seen her. Not until I've held her and told her good-bye, and that I'm sorry for breaking my promise.

Derek dragged Araie upward to where the blinking red lights illuminated the water. It felt right, to die here with her. She was everything he wanted, everything in the world that mattered to him. Now that she was gone, he only wanted to follow her. He swung her body up to meet him. Bubbles trickled out of his mouth as he waited for her beautiful form to swing into view, so he could wrap himself up in her arms and kiss her pale lips good-bye. Her hair tickled his arms.

You're where you belong now, Secret Girl. We both are.

Air shot out of Derek's mouth. His stomach lurched. Every hair on his body stood straight up. Derek stared into the bloated, white eyes of a massive deep-sea eel. Needle-like teeth bristled from powerful jaws. A flowing mane of external gills swirled lazily in a halo around its head. Derek could not look away. The red lights blinked, and the face disappeared and reappeared, dead eyes staring, sometimes seeming to smile mockingly, other times ready to accuse him, to shriek his name into his mind like bolts of lightning.

He stared until his air ran out. No matter how he squinted, Derek couldn't make the dead eel look like it loved him.

Steve grew up listening to his dad's ghost stories and never recovered. He attended Uncle Orson's Literary Boot Camp in 2009 and currently lives in Oklahoma in a small house full of girls. His stories have appeared in Intergalactic Medicine Show, Redstone, Daily Science Fiction, and others. His nonfiction blog posts have been featured by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. http://stevenrstewart.blogspot.com/

© 2012 All rights reserved Steven R. Stewart.

Abomination of Desolation

by Milo James Fowler

They traipsed across the hardpan in boots, past tumbleweeds stirred from slumber and sent bounding by dry gusts of wind. The dusty hulk of Smiley's trailer sat alone in the distance, perched on the mesa's edge surrounded by sage brush, cactus, abandoned tires, and sun-scorched plastic flamingos. The remains of a gutted Baja Bug yawned, its trunk wide open. Smiley's new love caught their attention—proof-positive his business was going swimmingly: a shiny new pickup bluer than the desert sky on a summer day.

They'd left their own vehicle, a quarrelsome hatchback louder than its size, on the shoulder of the highway five miles back. The last thing they wanted was to alert Smiley—or that boy of his—to their arrival.

When they stood within ten yards of the dusty screen hiding Smiley's front door, two aluminum steps above the baked earth, Michelle shielded her eyes from the sun's glare with a bronze, sweat-slicked hand. "Think we should knock?" The stale breeze tossed her black hair over one shoulder. She wore a sleeveless Metallica T-shirt and skinny jeans tucked into snakeskin boots.

"I'm kicking the damn door down." Susan strode forward to meet a gust head on, squinting hazel eyes into the wind blowing back her dirty blonde hair. Her boots and jeans could have come from the same outlet mall as Michelle's, but instead of a clichéd heavy metal shirt, she wore a ribbed white tank that exposed her toned arms and accentuated the swell of her bust. "Smiley, you son of a bitch!" She leapt onto the second aluminum step and brought up one knee. "Get your ass out here. We've got business with you!" Her boot smashed through the brittle screen. The door shuddered; another hit would cave it inward.

Michelle glanced around. Nobody else was out this way. But she didn't think to check underneath the trailer, thick with shadows where the ground lay twenty degrees cooler.

The door swung open. Smiley Barnes appeared in a stained undershirt that struggled to contain his belly and red jockey undershorts that left very little to the imagination.

"Hey there, girls!" He grinned, toasting their unexpected visit with a can of warm beer. "Back for another dose?"

Susan's arm shot through the broken screen and seized his throat below a pair of sunburned jowls. "Your pills don't work, you stupid bastard."

Michelle pointed an accusatory finger up at him. "And you know full-well they don't!"

Eyes wide and bloodshot, Smiley gargled. Susan released his throat but grabbed a fistful of his undershirt along with the silver hair that frothed over the neckline. Ignoring his yelps, she hauled him out through the remains of the screen door. She leapt from the aluminum steps and threw him to the ground, where he landed on all fours. The beer went clattering across the scorched earth, splattering its fizzy contents.

"Hey, if you want your money back—"

Susan laughed bitterly. "Too late for that, Smiley."

"You sold us bad stuff, don't you get it?" Michelle advanced, looking ready to kick him while he was down. "Expired!"

"No, no, that's—you're mistaken." He waved them off, rising onto pink knees. "I sell only the finest, highest grade pharmaceuticals. Smiley Barnes would never intentionally—"

"Intentional or not, we're both pregnant." Susan's fists clenched white. "Thanks to you."

"Both of you?" Smiley blinked, eyes glancing from one to the other as he shifted in the dust. They had him flanked. "Well, you-uh know what they say." He cleared his throat. "Any birth control regimen is guaranteed to work only ninety percent of the time—even the stuff you'd get straight from a doctor."

"Don't you dare quote us the odds!" Susan kicked a cloud of dust into his face.

He cringed, cursing as he wiped at his eyes. "It's not like I'm the damn father."

Michelle chuckled. "Maybe so. But we're not gonna let you keep doing what you do out here."

Smiley coughed, spat to one side. "I run a legitimate business, ladies, licensed by the great state of Arizona to—"

"Sell expired pills from Mexico? Yeah, I don't think so." Susan drew back her boot and plowed the narrow steel tip into his side. "Not anymore."

Garbled curses erupted as Smiley fell over, holding up one fleshy hand. "Please, don't do this! My boy—"

Michelle kicked him in the back of his head, sending him forward. He face-planted in the ground with a spurt of blood, crimson spreading to congeal in the dust. He lay still.

"That's a start." Michelle winked at Susan. "Now what?"

"We torch the place." Susan regarded the trailer with disgust.

Michelle frowned. "Not with his boy inside—"

"Of course not," Susan snapped. "What do you think I am?" She returned to the aluminum steps and swung open the dilapidated screen to peer into the darkness. "Hey, kid. You in there?"

She didn't see the shape emerge out from under the hitch end of the trailer, a dirty little boy with bright blue eyes that glowed from the shadows. He wore nothing but a pair of baggy overalls with holes at the knees.

"Susan..." Michelle saw him.

He saw her, too. He stared at her unblinking, stared so hard his eyes jittered in their sockets. A split-second later, Michelle collapsed to the ground with her bones shattered inside the confines of her flesh, piercing her heart and lungs as she dropped to the earth. No more than a sick wheeze escaped her lips, and her eyes remained wide, fixed on the boy well after her heart had stopped beating.

Susan staggered back, unable to believe what she'd just witnessed. "No..." She held out both hands to the boy.

"You hurt my papa." He looked at Susan, and his eyes danced.

Unlike Michelle, Susan let out a strangled shriek as she broke apart from the inside, falling like a marionette's puppet with every string severed at the same moment, her body no more than a bag of flesh punctured by sharp sticks.

The boy blinked, and his bright eyes focused on Smiley Barnes, moaning and coughing into the dust as he came to. The boy shuffled over to him and rested a begrimed hand on his sunburned shoulder.

"You okay, Papa?"

Smiley wiped his bloody nose across a bare forearm and rose, using the boy like a crutch as he struggled to his feet. The boy trembled beneath his father's weight.

"You made this mess, boy," Smiley blew blood and snot from each nostril, one at a time. "Clean it up now."

He belched and staggered back into the trailer, leaving his son outside with a slam of the door.

#

The lights in Howard's Tavern were just bright enough to glow blue through the haze of cigarette and other varieties of smoke; but Mercer wouldn't have needed the house lights to see the man approaching him at the bar. Priests had a way of standing out in a place like this.

Father Thomas slid awkwardly onto the stool beside him, judging each movement before making it.

Mercer didn't glance up from his tumbler of Eurasian whiskey. "Ready to try again?"

"That stuff you're drinking should do the job for me." The priest coughed and attempted to clear his throat—a futile effort. He always sounded like he had a serious clog down in his drainage pipes. "A little early in the day, don't you think?"

"Never." Mercer tossed back what remained in his glass and checked his exit with a careful nonchalance.

The priest wore a scabbard strapped to the back of his cassock, and Mercer knew the holy man wouldn't think twice about whipping out his katana in here, before God and everybody—just the one-eyed barkeep and a pair of homeless codgers savoring the bottles they'd splurged on after half a day panhandling. Mercer could see it now: his head dropping off to tumble over the side of the bar, his body twitching like a drunk tap dancer while his spirit shook itself free, inconvenienced with the necessity of finding another host, fresh from Death's door, that would do just as nicely as the fleshbag he currently wore. Never much fun, that, and dealing with the family relations was even worse.

"Suit yourself." The Church assassin reached into his coat and Mercer tensed. But the Priest's cadaverous hand hadn't gone over his shoulder for the sword but into a breast pocket. "You've got to spend all that hard-earned lucre on something, I suppose. It sure as hell isn't on your accommodations."

Mercer felt the tug of a grin. He poured another round and toasted the priest—his fourth-floor neighbor from the Plaza Hotel, which, despite the flavor of its name, was little more than a pay-by-the-hour hellhole, home sweet home to plenty of drug addicts, prostitutes, and other local degenerates. Mercer's clients, more often than not, as well as the priest's.

"To the Plaza," Mercer mumbled and tossed back his tumbler. He could feel the sluggish effects of the whiskey, and if his mind had been clearer, he might have worried about his reflexes once the holy man decided to cut the crap and get hisTerra Sacra groove on.

Father Thomas slapped a manila folder on the bar and beckoned to the barkeep. "Scotch. Dry."

The mute bartender nodded once and shuffled to the end of the mirrored shelves crowded with bottles of every shape, color, and vintage.

"Sure you don't want to move up in the world?" Mercer raised his own bottle.

"Had enough of that acid back in the war. My tastes have matured."

Mercer doubted that. Word around the Plaza was that the good priest preferred only the youngest, most inexperienced harlots for those two-hour confessions behind his room's locked door. They always emerged at the end of their "prayer sessions" looking the worse for wear. The bruises, swollen eyes, and fat lips were nothing in comparison to the shame weighing them down after their weekly visits.

"You can't afford it," Mercer said, refilling his tumbler. He winked drowsily at the Cyrillic script on the bottle's label. "The Big Man doesn't pay you squat."

"Eternal rest is more than you'll ever get."

He had a point there. Unwelcome in both Heaven and Hell, Mercer's disenfranchised spirit had only this earth to call home, as long as it lasted. But he didn't really mind. There was plenty to keep him busy here, more than enough souls who needed smuggling into the Afterlife.

The barkeep set the holy man's drink before him and offered to leave the bottle, but Father Thomas declined, waiting until the man had shuffled to the opposite end of the bar before clearing his throat. Again, a futile effort.

"This is for you." One of his swollen-knuckled fingers stretched out to tap the folded envelope. He slid it toward Mercer. "Take it."

Mercer lurched back on his stool. Who was this priest to give him orders?

Father Thomas sipped his Scotch, staring straight ahead at his reflection through the bottles on the shelves. "Do you really want to spend the rest of the day hunting down another suitable host?" He stretched his back, lifting one shoulder, then the other, swiveling to face Mercer. His meaning was clear.

Mercer's fleshbag fit him nicely—thick-muscled and solid. Its previous owner had maintained it well, and its liver was strong enough to take this "acid" he drank religiously. It had the potential to last him another ten or twenty years—as long as he was able to steer clear of this holy assassin's blade.

Mercer palmed the envelope and slid it close, peeling open one end. "What is it?"

"A problem." The priest nursed his drink, shoulders back now, the katana's scabbard holding him erect.

Mercer slipped his fingers inside and withdrew a short stack of black and white photographs.

"There is a boy out in the desert," the priest began.

A voice crying in the wilderness, Mercer mused, glancing over the half a dozen images of a dilapidated trailer in the middle of nowhere and a small boy in dirty overalls nosing about outside.

"He has replaced you, for the time being."

Mercer glanced up. "Really." The Terra Sacra's hit list had a certain order to it. As far as he knew, Mercer's name had always been at the very top. "The kid must be a real hell raiser." His gaze returned to the photos.

"Do you follow the news?" An odd question, but this holy man was a peculiar duck.

"As little as possible."

"Birds have been dropping out of the sky by the hundreds, all over the country."

"End of days?" Mercer smirked.

The priest shifted on his stool, fingered the condensation on his tumbler. "USDA poisoning. The blackbirds were pests, destroying crops."

Mercer frowned. "What's that have anything to do with—?"

"None of those starlings died with a single bone broken. They simply dropped out of the sky; their hearts had stopped beating. But here," his cadaverous finger made a repeat appearance, pointing like something from Dickens' A Christmas Carol at the photographs, "in Arizona, just a few miles from this boy's trailer, there have been reports of thousands of dead fowl, varying species, with every bone in their bodies shattered as if they were broken up from the inside—without any signs of exterior trauma."

Mercer nodded, musing. Then he tossed the envelope and photos back onto the bar. "Any particular reason for this show and tell?"

The priest gathered the evidence and returned it to his breast pocket. "We could use your help."

Mercer nearly choked on his whiskey. "How's that?" He must have misunderstood.

"The Terra Sacra cannot afford to send any more of our operatives after the boy. We can't get close. He's moving on to bigger mammals, destroying more than birds. He's no respecter of persons."

"Sounds like your boss."

"You, however," the priest continued, "have a certain rare . . . gift."

Mercer cursed under his breath. These fleshbags sure liked to change their tune once they found a use for you. "You want me to go after him, this Abomination Boy?"

Father Thomas blinked at his use of the A-word.

"That's what he is, right?" Mercer narrowed his gaze at the holy man. "Some kind of supernatural freak you and your blessed Terra Sacra assassins think should be exterminated?"

"The order came from Saint Peter himself."

"And I'm sure it was the Big Man's idea to involve me."

"He believes you'll find the terms to be quite agreeable."

Mercer did his best to appear uninterested.

"We would not expect you to do this job for us without some sort of compensation." He paused. "And it just so happens that I will benefit as well."

"Win-win," Mercer muttered. "But you won't be the one pulverized by this kid."

"If you go to Arizona and take care of the situation, Saint Peter will find a replacement for me at the Plaza. You will never see me again."

"I'm sure you'd like that." Word was the priest had grown tired of his assignment; recently he'd been referring to the Plaza Hotel as "Hellhole Heights." He'd gotten older, much older, over the years, while Mercer hadn't aged a day.

"You can look forward to pulling all manner of pranks on my replacement, some wet-behind-the-ears lad fresh from the Vatican. Think of all the fun you'll have together."

Mercer eyed the bulge of the priest's scabbard. "More than having you come at me with that thing?"

The corner of the holy assassin's thin lips twitched upward. "What do you say? Are you willing to set aside our differences for a time, or shall I free your spirit from this latest acquisition here and now?"

His bloodshot gaze ran across Mercer's body, one found cold lying in the Mercy Hospital OR, a John Doe who'd given up the ghost only moments before. After a quick bath and a shave, the thing had been presentable right off the bat.

Mercer almost chuckled, glancing at the one-eyed man down the bar. "You'd have to be desperate."

The priest ground his teeth. "The child must die. And you're the only man for the job."

"I'm not a man." Mercer drained his glass and smacked the tumbler flat onto the bar. He slid unsteadily off the stool. "But I'll do it, if only to keep you off my back. You ugly vulture." He almost chuckled. "I have your word. I go to Arizona, you get replaced."

Father Thomas crossed himself and raised his right hand. "The word of Saint Peter himself."

Good enough, Mercer supposed. "One of these days, you're going to explain how the Big Man keeps in touch with you down here."

"Privileged information, Soul Smuggler." The priest flashed a hideous grin.

"Some Terra Sacra secret?"

"One of many."

Mercer didn't doubt it.

#

His boot heels scuffed along the dusty road, a sun-scorched hardpan off the highway where Mercer had abandoned his frothing Falcon GT. He'd left the hood up to cool off the radiator, but that wouldn't be helping matters anytime soon. Not in this heat.

Mercer hated Arizona—Phoenix, in particular. It was the ugliest terrain he'd ever seen, and the hottest. The closest thing to hell he'd experienced in the past two millennia. Beads of perspiration dribbled down his temples from the band of his black fedora and down his collar to collect in the small of his back, soaking his cotton shirt beneath the long coat that flailed in the parched breeze with every stride . A crispy tumbleweed blew across his path, and he swiveled his head to watch it bound over clumps of sage like a runaway convict.

Ahead, maybe half a mile off, he saw the trailer owned by a drug dealer named Smiley Barnes. The guy specialized in cheap pharmaceuticals carried across the border from Mexico. A fellow smuggler. Father Thomas had pointed out: "You two will have much in common."

Not likely.

Mercer eyed a flash of light at the lower midsection of the trailer. Some kind of signal?

He let out a low oath. This fleshbag sure liked to sweat. Was it really worth it, driving all the way out into the middle of nowhere, frying his Falcon, hoofing it over five miles in this infernal heat, just to do that confounded priest a favor?

Yes. If it meant that old cadaver would be replaced by some wide-eyed, fresh-faced kid from the Vatican, life could get interesting again.

Until the Terra Sacra found some way to contain Mercer's spirit, they'd be fighting the same losing battle their predecessors had for centuries. And he would continue to smuggle suicidal souls—those normally barred from entry at the Pearly Gates for the unforgiveable sin—into the Afterlife as long as they could pay. Eurasian whiskey didn't come cheap, after all.

Mercer eyed the yard as he approached, his boots skidding to a halt at its perimeter. This Smiley fellow liked his privacy; besides the dust-caked trailer, a few plastic flamingos that had seen better days, and a neglected Baja Bug, there wasn't much else. The truck nearby looked brand new in stark contrast to its surroundings, and Mercer was already sizing it up as a potential exit strategy when he noticed the source of the flashes of light.

"I know why you're here," Smiley said thickly as if coming out of a coma, his head bandaged and discolored from a recent injury. Reclining in a beach chair with a foil shield reflecting sunlight at the undersides of his jowls, he cracked one eye open and smirked. "Billy!" The man strained to rise to his feet with a few grunts and groans. "Good luck, stranger. You're sure as hell gonna need it." He took his makeshift tanning foil and disappeared into the trailer, leaving the torn screen door to flap shut behind him.

A small shape emerged from the shadows under the hitch end of the trailer.

"Hello, Billy." Mercer planted his feet shoulder-width apart, unable to help feeling like this was some sort of old western showdown—which brought back more than a few fond memories of the time period. But instead of two gunslingers, this was the meeting of two unholy abominations.

The boy didn't respond. He stepped into the sunlight in a pair of dirty overalls. Dust and grime clung to him like a living fungus, but his eyes shone clean, bright and blue as turquoise.

"Others have come for you before. Is that right?"

The boy raised an arm to point beyond the trailer where the mesa ended abruptly in a steep cliff. Mercer wondered how many bodies he'd find down there.

"You just want to be left alone," Mercer said.

The boy's eyes locked on him. The little abomination gave a slow nod but didn't blink. Not once.

"Yeah. You and me both, kid." He didn't know what else to say. He glanced back the way he'd come and seriously considering leaving. He doubted his Falcon had enough life in it to get him back home, let alone to the nearest gas station. "My car . . ." He gestured vaguely and returned his gaze to the boy—

Who had suddenly come to stand right in front of him. Fast. Very fast. And quiet, staring up at Mercer with eyes that jittered in their sockets.

Mercer cursed as his fleshbag collapsed to the ground, every bone shattered inside the confines of its skin. His spirit shook itself free and hovered for a moment, indecisive.

Now what? Fly all the way home across hundreds of miles on the immortal winds of the ethereal world? Sure, that was an option. But from past experience, Mercer knew it wouldn't work out so well. Forget this kid and the agreement with the priest; if he didn't find a workable body in the next hour or two, he'd find his spirit flirting with madness, the kind that could send him into a black hole of spiritual limbo from which he'd never reemerge.

In any other situation, there would have been a hospital or morgue nearby with bodies for the taking. But out here, in this overwhelming desolation where the kid had apparently destroyed every living bird and mammal within a ten mile radius, Mercer's spirit twitched in a sudden panic.

The boy had already started tugging his corpse by one arm, heaving the broken remains toward the cliff's edge to dump them over the side.

Of course—there had to be something down there Mercer could slip into, even if it was just long enough to get his head straight, take a minute or two to collect himself.

His spirit swept upward, over the cracked roof of the trailer barbed with old TV antennas and satellite dishes, then plunged to the base of the cliff where a horror story lay scattered among the jagged rocks below: broken corpses of men of the cloth alongside white trash desert rats rotting in the sun and crumpled, overturned vehicles. If Mercer had to estimate, it looked like Smiley and Billy had been visited at least a dozen times already. The most recent additions were two women, a day old at the most.

Beggars couldn't be choosers, or so the cliché went. Mercer's spirit penetrated a shattered body wearing a sleeveless Metallica T-shirt, and instantly he knew this fleshbag wouldn't be carrying him anywhere. Not a single bone remained intact.

He couldn't sense another living thing within range. There was the boy and his father and little else. A few insects and a lizard or two, but nothing he could use to steer himself back to civilization, even if he got his Falcon running again. He could travel by spirit if worse came to worst, but the idea of losing himself was enough to make him stay put for the moment.

He forced the woman's crusty eyes open and blinked, expecting the blinding glare of the sun. Instead, he found himself in shadow—but it wasn't cast by the cliff behind him.

Father Thomas cleared his throat and chuckled softly. "I don't believe I've ever seen you like this before."

The woman's vocal cords were raw and dry, but Mercer forced them to rasp, "Dying?" As if on cue, Billy dumped Mercer's fleshbag and it flopped among the rocks, spurting blood from every fresh puncture.

"A woman." The priest reached for the scabbard strapped across his back.

"You followed me." The woman's voice slurred, cracked lips sluggish. Mercer couldn't make even one of her fingers twitch.

The holy assassin's katana gleamed as he swept it through sunlight. "This is as good a place as any to strand the likes of you. There is no escape for you here, Soul Smuggler." The blade came down in a single stroke to sever the woman's head from her body.

But Mercer's spirit had already switched hosts, returning to his own—what remained of it. "Not much of a plan, priest. I've got plenty of corpses here to choose from. Granted, some aren't in the best shape, but I'll do what I have to. And when I get bored with you hacking up the meat, I'll move on."

"Not with him around, you won't." The priest nodded up to where Little Billy stood at the cliff's edge, staring down at them. "How fast can that spirit of yours move?" The sword struck again, and Mercer's head toppled among the rocks.

His spirit broke free, rocketing upward steeply, invisible to the mortal eye. Or so he thought.

Racing away from the trailer, backtracking to the smoking Falcon as fast as he could fly, then heading straight for the highway and the nearest town with the nearest morgue and the freshest meat to be had, Mercer became aware of the soft patter of scurrying feet chasing after his ethereal essence.

Little Billy could see him. And Little Billy was freakishly fast.

Mercer's energy dissipated, as if he were compelled to slow down by some external force. He turned to find the boy's eyes shuddering in their sockets like he was possessed or having a fit—take your pick.

Unlike every other mortal on the planet, he could see Mercer, which meant Little Billy's powers apparently extended beyond the physical realm. Unexpected. Frozen in mid-air, Mercer did the only thing he could: speak to the boy, spirit to spirit:

We're alike, you and me.

Little Billy's eyes calmed. There was no guile in him; it was plain to see. He was a killer, of that there could be no doubt, but he killed only to protect his father. From the depths of the boy's soul, Mercer saw the memories play out: Smiley telling him bad people were coming, that he had to use his special powers to protect his papa.

Little Billy had never seen anything like Mercer before. He stared at his spirit in mute wonder with eyes clear and focused.

Mercer found himself free to move. If he dashed across the highway into oncoming traffic, would the boy follow and splatter himself across the front of a semi?

But he didn't have to kill this kid. There had never been an arrangement with Father Thomas, endorsed by the Big Man Upstairs. That much was obvious now. This abomination could be left alone.

Mercer's spirit vacillated, indecisive, unsure of the right direction to take into town. But he didn't flee from the boy, now that he could. There was more to be said:

You are special, an incredible creation. There is none like you. Don't let anyone tell you different.

The light in the boy's eyes dimmed, his spirit troubled. "Take me with you?" he panted, hopeful.

Mercer could see plainly that his soul yearned for release. But he didn't make a habit of carrying kids across the border into ethereality. And besides, it wasn't like he had hands right now to quench the life from this boy's bag of flesh and free his spirit.

Mercer twitched to and fro in mid-air.

You go back to your father. But don't you kill for his sake anymore. Protect yourself—not him.

The boy stood rooted and blinked.

For Mercer, it was enough. He fled across the desert, following the highway through the desolate terrain toward the first outlying town of Phoenix. There was a new fleshbag to be found.

He always felt so naked without one.

Milo James Fowler is an English teacher by day and a writer by night. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Shimmer, Daily Science Fiction, and Macmillan's Criminal Element. In his spare time, he collects rejection letters.

Fellow travelers are always welcome: www.milo-inmediasres.com

© 2012 All rights reserved Milo James Fowler.

Mrs. Henderson's Cemetery Dance

By Carrie Cuinn

It was a fine Spring day, but the mangy dog had no need for blue skies or warm weather; he had a bone and was intent on keeping it. He ran down the dirt path, leaping over fallen tree limbs and darting around tall weeds, for the path was not well tended in those days, and the dog was in a hurry. His delicious bone was clutched tightly in his jaws, and the bone's owner was not far behind him.

The dog, a stray who prowled around the edges of the village looking for scraps, had no name. The bone's owner, who had been buried in the little cemetery on the hill for about three years now, was named Mr. Liu, and it was his forearm which the dog had dug up and run off with. That Mr. Liu was now quite unhappy should be of no surprise to anyone. It's hard to give up a part of yourself, especially when you are still attached to it. That he pulled himself out of his grave with his remaining arm is, perhaps, a little surprising, but even in life Mr. Liu was a person who hated to part with anything. His death was believed to have been caused by the close proximity of his many belongings and found objects, with which he filled his tiny home, but in fact he had contracted food poisoning from a bad batch of meat-filled pastries.

The village baker had, upon hearing of the old man's death, donated both a berry pie and a honey apple cobbler to the wake, so Mr. Liu had considered the matter settled. Sure, the baker was not fastidious when it came to keeping his kitchen clean, but he was a kind and jolly person, with no ill intent in him. Instead of haunting the man, Mr. Liu had gone quietly to his grave and slept there, undisturbed, ever since.

Well, until the dog came along.

It was little Mary Herbert who first saw the dog, but not the shambling corpse which chased him. The dog jumped over her washing bucket, shaking clumps of dirt into the water and onto the under-dress she had just scrubbed clean. She screamed, the high pitched wail of a nine-year-old who'd been wronged. Her mother, the plump Mrs. Herbert, looked over from the line where she'd been hanging clothes to dry and saw not the dog but Mr. Liu.

"My arm!" Mr. Liu pointed his remaining arm at the fleeing dog.

Mrs. Herbert paid no attention to the thieving beast, and paid far too much attention to Mr. Liu. Her heartbeat quickened, her breath caught in her chest, and she fainted with a loud thump.

Realizing that he'd never catch up to the dog at this rate, Mr. Liu stopped next to Mary, who was looking down at her mother's prone form. "Dog took my arm," he said to the girl.

"Took my bread last week. Right after I buttered it," she replied.

"That's a bad dog," Mr. Liu said, and they both sighed.

"What's going on here?" Mr. Herbert, the village cobbler, asked as he rounded the corner, slightly out of breath from having run outside at the sound of his daughter's screams. He blanched as Mr. Liu looked at him but had the good sense not to faint. One Herbert flat on the ground was probably all that the situation required.

"Dog took his arm," Mary said, pointing at the corpse standing next to her. "And got dirt in my washing tub. Oh, and mother fell over. She's sleeping, I think." They all three looked down at Mrs. Herbert, who was starting to open her eyes.

"Excuse me, sir..." Mr. Herbert began. Other villagers had arrived and were crowding around the strange scene. Mrs. Henderson, the poor widow who lived next door, helped Mrs. Herbert to her feet while Mr. Herbert searched for the right words. "Not to be rude, sir, but aren't you meant to be dead?"

Mr. Liu blinked. "I am dead."

"Ah, but what I mean to say," Mr. Herbert countered, "is that aren't you meant to be buried?"

"I was buried," Mr. Liu acknowledged.

"Right, yes, of course," Mr. Herbert replied. "I was there, you know. Fine ceremony. One of the last we had at the old cemetery, before we dug that new one behind the church. It's just that... I believe that you were meant to stayburied."

"Dog took his arm," Mary said again, helpfully.

"Yes, exactly. The dog took my arm," Mr. Liu said. "I don't think that's the sort of thing one should just let stand."

"That would be hard to ignore," Mrs. Blackstone, the schoolteacher, said. The crowd murmured, nodding their heads.

"It's agreed that we understand why you... rose up, as it were," Mr. Wenzlaff, the village's mayor said. "Now, in the interest of civic peace, what can we do to get you to go back?"

"Back to being dead?" Mr. Liu asked.

"No, it's clear that you're still dead," Mr. Herbert said, glancing down at Mr. Liu's rotting clothing and missing arm with a frown, until he caught the dead man looking at him. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"I think they mean for you to go back to your grave, sir," Mrs. Henderson said quietly. As a young woman whose new husband had gone off to war and not come back, she knew a thing or two about being unwanted in this village.

"You can't send him back without his arm," a voice called from the back of the crowd. There was some commotion as the villagers backed away from the speaker, until everyone could clearly see the strange man who'd spoken. His face had rotted away, leaving only a few bits of skin and hair atop his ivory skull. Bare skulls were notoriously hard to identify in those days.

Mrs. Herbert moaned and fainted again, slipping from Mrs. Henderson's frail arms like a sack of potatoes.

"Sorry we're late, Mr. Liu," the skeleton said. He was joined by two more corpses, one of whom had to be helped along by his friend. "Mr. Angeli can't keep up, since that runaway cart shattered his leg."

Mr. Angeli held up a dismembered hand. "I got this, though, Mr. Liu. I thought you'd be wanting it back."

Preacher Angeli, the corpse's son, moved to the front of the crowd. "What abomination is this?" he cried in his fiery, Sunday-sermon voice. "What demons have brought you forth?"

"No demons, son," Mr. Angeli replied.

"I think we've pretty well established that it was a dog," Mr. Liu said.

"I command thee, in the name of the Lord, to be gone from this place!" Preacher Angeli shouted, raising his Bible aloft.

Nothing happened.

The dead men looked about. More nothing.

The villagers shuffled on their feet, a little uncomfortable about the lack of Divine intervention.

"Now, son, I know we didn't always get along, but that was a bit rude," Mr. Angeli said quietly.

The other dead fellow, the one who was holding him up, looked sternly at the preacher. "You've hurt his feelings. He does nothing but talk about how proud he is of you, you know."

"Look, we need to find a resolution," said the mayor. "We can't have dead relatives showing up all day. What can we give you so that you'll go away?"

"Besides my arm?" Mr Liu asked.

"Yes, yes, besides your arm. No offense, but I'm certain that dog isn't giving it back." The mayor crossed his arms over his wide chest. "What else can we give you? You must want something."

"I could use a new pair of pants," Mr. Liu said. "I had several. I'll just go home and change."

"No!" yelled Mrs. Nickerson. She was a large woman with several small children milling around her and another in her arms. "You can't. You stay away from my house."

"The village sold it to her husband when you died, Mr. Liu," the mayor said. "You didn't have any heirs."

"What about all of my things?" the one-armed corpse asked.

The Mayor shrugged. "Sold, or given away. You weren't around to complain."

"So you're trying to send the man away without his arm or his pants," the bald skeleton said. "At least I have the comfort of knowing that my household goods went to my son. Is he at home, do you think?"

"What is your name?" the schoolteacher asked. She had lived in the village her whole life, and was well liked by the children.

"Alton Smith," the skeleton replied. "I was the Mayor myself, once upon a time."

"I'm sorry, sir," Mrs. Blackstone said with a sad tone. "Your house burnt to the ground about ten years ago, and your son moved with his wife into the city."

The skeleton shook his head. "This day is turning out to be quite a disappointment."

"I can give you a pair of pants, Mr. Liu," Mrs. Henderson said. The others turned to look at her where she stood next to the fallen Mrs. Herbert, who was (still) lying on the ground and occasionally opening one eye to see if the dead men had left yet. "My husband would not mind, I don't think."

"Will that satisfy you men?" the mayor asked. "Would you leave us then, in peace?"

"We'll think about it," Mr. Smith said. "Come along, boys. Let us go back to the others and discuss the matter."

"I'll bring you the pants," Mrs. Henderson said, and Mr. Liu nodded.

"Thank you," he said to her before turning to join the others as they shambled back up the hill to the old cemetery.

"We need to have a meeting ourselves," the mayor said, once the corpses were out of earshot, and the villagers agreed.

Later that day, Mrs. Henderson walked slowly up the hill. She was carrying a large, heavy, sack, and she walked alone. No one would accompany her out of fear of having to face the fact that their dead relations were in a sociable mood. As she climbed the dirt path, she saw that the wood fence around the hallowed ground was falling down in places, and creeping vines had grown over many of the head stones.

A bird passed overhead. She stopped to watch it as it flew away, out of the valley.

"I wasn't sure that you would come," Mr. Liu called as he walked out of the cemetery to meet her.

Mrs. Henderson waved, shouldered her heavy bag again, and trudged up to meet him.

"I brought everything that my husband left behind. I thought the others might have need of new clothes as well."

He smiled at her, his rotting face pulling oddly, but he meant it kindly, so that's how she took it.

Inside the cemetery, she set her bag on top of a large stone and looked around. A few dozen people stood together or sat nearby while Mr. Smith spoke. Seeing the living arrival, he herded the group to her, and she soon found herself surrounded by animated corpses. Some were, like Mr. Liu, fresh enough to wear skin and stand upright, and others were like Mr. Smith – skeletons stripped bare of any identifying features. Mr. Liu explained about the clothes, and the bag was opened and pants and shirts and socks handed out.

"I brought this for your hand." Mrs. Henderson gave Mr. Liu a belt with a brown leather pouch on it. "You can carry it with you until you find your arm."

"Have you spotted the dog?" he asked hopefully, but she shook her head.

Other corpses sighed and patted his back and made encouraging remarks like, "He's sure to leave the bone once he's gotten the meat off of it," and "I bet he gets sick of the taste of your old flesh and drops it straight away!"

"You are very kind to us," Mr. Smith said to the young widow. "Can you afford to part with these things?" The others paused in their trying on of garments and started to hand them back at once.

"No, please keep them," she insisted. "I did try to sell these clothes, last year when the winter was very cold and I was sure my husband wasn't coming home, but Mrs. Nickerson put it around that buying a dead man's clothes would bring bad luck, and so no one wanted them after that."

An old woman, her face and hands chewed by insects, creaked as she put a pair of warm woolen socks on her bare feet. "I appreciate your husband's clothes, my dear," she said, and the others agreed, piling thanks upon Mrs. Henderson until she smiled shyly and insisted that they stop.

After some hours of listening to the dead tell stories about missed lovers and favorite pets and the sad state of the cemetery, she returned to the village just after nightfall.

Mayor Wenzlaff and several of the important men of the village were waiting for her.

"Did they tell you what they wanted?" the mayor asked.

"Did they say they would leave us alone?" Mr. Herbert asked.

"How many of the demons are there?" Preacher Angeli asked in a loud voice.

"No, no, and about 30, I think," she answered.

The mayor made a grumbling noise and Preacher Angeli's eyes bulged, his jaw dropping open.

"Though they don't seem to be demons," she added when it looked like the man might be having some kind of fit. "I think they're lonely, if you don't mind my saying so. Maybe if we went up to the cemetery more, they would feel wanted again and go back to their rest."

"Ridiculous." Mr. Herbert snorted. "We can't send a woman to do this, Mayor Wenzlaff. We have to march up there and tell those monsters that they're not allowed to roam about!"

"Why don't you tell me yourself?" Mr. Smith called from the darkness. He walked into view, the edges of his skull catching the lantern light and making him look even less human. Behind him, several other corpses shuffled into the light. "We're here to make our demands, unless you had something else unfortunate to say?" When none of the men answered, he continued. "We know we're not wanted here, though many of you eat from the crops we first planted and live in houses we helped to build. We can't help that we've been woken from our long sleep but we will not go quietly back."

"What do you want of us?" Mr. Owen, the baker, asked.

"We want our things," Mr. Liu said. "Or, if we can't have them, we want other things that are just as good."

"We want the proper respect due to the dead," Mr. Smith said, looking at Mr. Liu, who shrugged and said, "Well, that would be good too."

"And when you have all of that, you will leave us alone?" the mayor asked.

"Yes, we promise," Mr. Smith said. "We want the cemetery cleaned up and the fence mended."

The men agreed that the grounds could be kept nicer.

"We want our treasures back, the gold and jewels that were given to our ungrateful children."

"Wait, now, we don't have all of those items anymore," Mr. Herbert said. "Some of your descendants have moved out of the village."

"We'll take whatever you have," Mr. Liu said, "as long as every person in the village brings us something."

The men talked amongst themselves for a moment and then agreed that yes, there were some little pieces of precious metals and gems, hidden away in hope chests and behind loose fireplace stones, that could be given to the dead.

"And we want a party," Mr. Smith said.

"You want what?" the mayor asked.

"A party. With food and music and everyone must attend. Tomorrow night, actually."

No one spoke for a long time, though Preacher Angeli did shut his mouth.

"I... I could make meat pies," Mr. Owen said, finally.

"No," Mr. Liu said. "I don't think that would be a good idea at all. How about a cake?"

"My blackberry cake is very good," Mr. Owen suggested, and it was agreed.

"Anything else?" the mayor asked wearily.

"A horse," said the old woman wearing Mr. Henderson's socks. "And a cart."

"What?" Mr. Smith and the mayor asked at the same time, with about the same amount of confusion.

"You know," said the old woman, "in case we want to go somewhere."

"Oh, yes," Mr. Smith said. "Of course. We need a horse and cart, absolutely."

"And that's everything? We give you all of this, and you won't come into the village again?"

"Definitely," Mr. Smith said, holding out his gleaming white hand bones to the mayor. The living man's face contorted from disgust to an approximation of a smile before he reached out his own fat-fingered hand and shook on the deal.

The next morning, the whole village scurried about, making themselves ready for the celebration for the dead. The Carreon boys were sent out to pick berries for Mr. Owen's cakes while their father and some of the other men cleared the path up the hill to the cemetery. The littlest of the three boys came back with his teeth stained violet from the berries which didn't make it into his bucket, but no one minded because Mr. Owen declared the haul "more than enough". The mayor made the rounds of the houses, taking donations for the dead.

Mrs. Nickerson had appointed herself the mayor's assistant in this matter, and he found her persistence hard to deter.

"It's a small price to pay for the ability to sleep at night," he said to the villagers who weren't eager to give up their riches. "How would you feel if they didn't leave us, but instead wanted to move back into the village? You'd have corpses reaching their rotting hands into your well and sitting next to you at community feasts."

"Won't you think of the children?" Mrs. Nickerson exclaimed, clutching at her skirts.

That worked. Even Mrs. Henderson had given up a pair of tiny gold buttons she'd been saving. By the afternoon, they'd collected enough to fill a basket with glittering trinkets.

"It doesn't seem fair, does it Mr. Wenzlaff?" Mrs. Nickerson was turning a small silver salt cellar over and over in her fingers, watching the sunlight reflect off of it. Shaped like a lamb, it had seed-sized emeralds for eyes and was delicately made.

"No, it is not fair at all," Mr. Wenzlaff answered, though he hadn't contributed to the dead men's treasure himself.

"You're a good man," she reassured him as they turned away from the last house in the village. "My heart can be at ease knowing you're looking out for us." Her heart may have felt better but her left breast was uncomfortable, since she'd tucked the salt cellar into her bodice, and the lamb was a bit pointy. "Perhaps you'll save me a dance at the party?"

"Oh, yes, I'll see what I can do," he answered, without any intention of doing so.

With the loot acquired and the path cleared and the cakes out of the oven and the children's faces cleaned and everyone in their Sunday best, the village gathered the decorations and old man Lindsay's cart and horse, and headed toward the cemetery. The musicians, a piper and a fiddle player, began a cheerful tune as the group climbed the hill.

"Welcome, all," said Mr. Smith, who met them at the cemetery's gates. "The lads did a wonderful job cleaning up the place today; come and see!"

Indeed, it did look wonderfully refreshed, with the headstones cleaned and the weeds pulled. The fence was repaired and painted with a new coat of white. That it hadn't quite dried yet was obvious; a few of the undead guests had white marks from where they'd stumbled into it, but the polite thing was done, and no one mentioned it to them.

Mrs. Henderson helped the baker and candlestick maker set out food and lights, and the musicians got to playing again. The more agile dead began to dance.

"Join us!" they cried.

As the children surrounded the sweets, their parents paired off. Waltzes were attempted, and a reel was rather more successful. As the night grew darker, the piper started a mariner's jig and Preacher Angeli surprised everyone by kicking up his heels while his decaying father clapped his hands vigorously, and smiled.

"It's been a lovely evening, Mayor Wenzlaff," Mrs. Nickerson replied. Her children, stuffed with goodies, were asleep in a pile under the table. "Shall we dance?"

"Oh, sadly, no, dear woman, I believe it's time for us to go back to the village, and leave these souls to their eternal slumber."

"I was just coming to talk to you about that." Mr. Smith raised his hand to signal the end of the dance, and the other dead stopped at once, though Preacher Angeli kept up his jig for another minute, until he realized the music had ended.

Mr. Smith addressed the crowd: "Thank you all for being here. There is just one more thing that we demand before we can leave you in peace."

"What?" Mrs. Nickerson asked. "That isn't fair at all!" Some of the others grumbled their agreement.

"You said that this was enough," the mayor said sternly. "We shook on it."

"Yes, we did, but what was the point of the party, Mr. Mayor?" Smith asked.

"I... I don't know. Was there meant to be a point?"

"Of course. Every party has its reason, whether it be birthday, death day, or wedding."

"And which is this?" Mr. Owen asked nervously.

"A wedding, dear baker. I cannot rest until I have taken a bride." Mr. Smith said.

"And which of these... ladies... is to be your wife?" Mr. Herbert asked. "I mean, congratulations, of course."

"He cannot marry a dead woman," Mr. Liu said. "The, what do you call it, curse?"

"Yes, we're calling it a curse," Mr. Smith replied.

"Right then. The curse says he has to marry a living woman."

Oh, the villagers gasped and moaned and made other noises to indicate their shock.

"It has to be done now!" Mr. Smith cried, his voice mournful. "Or we will never be able to leave!"

The other dead raised their arms and began to wail.

"The curse!" Mr. Smith shouted. "Who will you give us to satisfy our need?"

The villagers huddled together, pulling children behind the adults.

"You can't be serious," Mrs. Nickerson said.

The dead quieted, and turned as one to look in her direction.

"We'll take her," Mr. Smith said.

"No!" she screamed. The dead moved forward, reaching for her with grasping fingers.

"No!" Mr. Nickerson yelled. "She's my wife already. And the children need her."

The dead paused.

"Well, how about her?" Mr. Smith said, pointing at Mrs. Blackthorne. The corpse party moved toward her.

"No!" several people shouted. "She is our much beloved teacher! Our children need her!"

Mr. Owen, who'd had a bit of a crush on Mrs. Blackthorne in his own school days, brandished a knife at the old woman wearing Mr. Henderson's socks. She tried not to smile as she gently pushed it aside. "It's all right dear," she said. "We'll find someone else."

"How about Mrs. Henderson?" Mr. Smith asked, his hand on hip. "Anyone object to that? I mean, people, it's like you want us to stay for all eternity."

"No!" Mrs. Henderson cried, but no one joined her. She looked around at the other villagers. "You can't."

"Yes, her you can have." Mrs. Nickerson smirked.

The dead fell about her, separating her from the yielding crowd and dragging her, kicking and screaming, into the back of the cemetery.

"You should go now," Mr. Smith said, as the screams quieted.

The villagers ran.

Mr. Nickerson ran back in a moment later, gathered up his sleepy children from under the cake table, and hurried them back out again.

The candles, burnt low, flickered in a light breeze.

"Are they gone?" Mr. Liu called.

"Yes, they're gone."

Mr. Liu and others shambled back. Mrs. Henderson, in the middle of them, trembled, tears rolling down her face.

"What's wrong?" Mr. Smith asked her gently.

"What's next? Do you bury me? Do you eat me?" She sobbed but remained standing. "Get it over with, whatever it is."

"Of course we're not, dear." The old woman handed Mrs. Henderson a mostly clean hankie. "That was just to get the rest of those people out of here in a hurry. Worked, too."

"You are kind, Mrs. Henderson. We wanted to do something nice for you." Mr. Liu handed her the basket of treasures taken from the other villagers. "You can move away."

"You can buy a house of your own," Mr. Smith said.

Mrs. Henderson wiped her eyes.

"You mean you don't want me for your corpse bride?"

"No, that was ruse," he replied. "I winked, so you'd know not to be scared."

"Oh," Mr. Angeli said. "You don't really wink, per se, anymore, Mr. Smith. What with having a lack of face."

"Damn," Mr. Smith said. "Sorry about that. I could have sworn I was winking."

"No harm done." Mrs. Henderson took the basket from Mr. Liu, resting her hand on his remaining arm for a moment. "Thank you."

The others packed up the food and loaded the cart. They blew out most of the candles and lanterns, and gave those to Mrs. Henderson as well.

"Make a good life for yourself, dear," the old woman said. Mr. Smith helped the young widow into the cart, handing her a still-lit lantern.

"I can't ever thank you enough," she said.

"Live a good life. That's thanks enough." Mr. Smith slapped the horse's rump, which was all the encouragement it needed to get away from the several dozen animated corpses.

"Good bye!" everyone called out as she rode away, and Mrs. Henderson waived back at them.

One by one, the dead went back into the cemetery, which was much quieter now that all the living people had left.

"It was a lovely evening," Mr. Angeli said. "I had a great time."

"She's going to give it all to charity, isn't she?" the old woman wearing Mr. Henderson's socks asked with a sigh.

"Probably. Come along Mr. Liu," Mr. Smith called to his friend, who was still standing at the gate, watching Mrs. Henderson's lantern light fade away into the distance. "It's getting late and I am sleepy and we should all of us be getting back to our rest."

"Fine, fine." Mr. Liu joined the others as they creaked and mumbled and moaned, shuffling off to their burial plots. With some help from Mr. Smith, who had a stone casket to go to and didn't need to be assisted with his dirt, Mr. Liu and the old woman and Mr. Angeli and all of the rest got themselves covered back up with soft, cool, earth.

A cloud drifted over the moon.

The stars moved slowly across the night sky.

In the distance, the mangy dog howled, and Mr. Liu rolled over in his grave.

Carrie Cuinn is an avid reader, author, editor, small press publisher, and computer geek. She writes speculative fiction – including science fiction and apocalypse stories and magic realism and fucked up fairy tales – and non-fiction on a range of academic and technical subjects. Born and raised in California, she currently lives in a North-Eastern state.

You can find Carrie on Twitter @carriecuinn. Links to her published work, as well as her writing blog, can be found at _www.carriecuinn.com_

© 2012 All rights reserved Carrie Cuinn.

