 
## 8 LEGS UP

C. W. Clark

***

Smashwords Edition

***

Copyright 2011 C. W. Clark

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work, in whole or in part, in any form.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, organizations and products depicted herein are either a product of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously.

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## Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue

## Chapter One

There are dreams of a better life, and there are dreams of children walking hand in hand together. There are dreams of fame and power and sacrifice and fancy, and then there are dreams of black pudding. That last one was mine. This particular topic may not have been truly a first for me, but I can say with a great deal of confidence that it wasn't my usual fare. I reserved that honor for more important things like heroics and seducing women with my undeniable machismo. But on this occasion, it was a rolling sea of black pudding that captured my subconscious and undulated around me in gooey swells. I was lying atop the creamy, dark ocean, kept in place by the dense substance and a raft of pudding skin that had formed beneath me. I rose and fell with the peaks and troughs, simply being, or just as likely ceasing to be. The pudding finally tired of supporting me and soon after my rubbery float disappeared beneath the surface, I was called down into its depths. It beckoned me with promises of butterscotch and banana at the bottom, but I resisted my fate. I thought buoyant thoughts and felt myself regaining my place at the surface. The ocean threw all manner of enticements at me but I refused to succumb to the temptation. I willed myself to stay on the surface and enjoy the convenience of breathing air.

Angry at my defiance the pudding yielded to eight long cylinders of scorn that pushed up past the tension in the surface to tower over me. They were long and segmented and curled around my still form with a slow certainty. The world flipped and my pudding ocean leaked down around me in long, spiny strands. I looked wildly from side to side, unable to see the entire picture, but getting enough of it to form an image in my mind. I was held fast to the underside of something huge and furry. In the distance, a pair of long, black fangs as large as mountains hung down past the horizon of fur. They seemed too curved toward me, too much like they were reaching back toward me with those hollow points glistening with a luminescent green fluid. There was a lurch, and I felt myself jerked upward, my ass and one of my feet having been absorbed into the flesh of this thing. Another lurch and then another drew me further in. I could only watch helplessly as the light from that world disappeared as I was slowly, inescapably drawn inside the body of the beast.

****

"Dude, you were dead."

"Yeah, that makes plenty of sense since I'm talking to you right now."

"Maybe you're a ghost," Marty said as he pushed his finger into my shoulder, rocking himself back with a little shove. He was built a bit like a weeble, with his center of gravity firmly ensconced around his midsection. His long, spindly appendages seemed like they were an afterthought of his construction. "Nope. Not a ghost. But you were dead. I checked with the mirror and everything."

"You were baked out of your skull, man. You were latched on that bong like a third lung."

"Nah, man. I can hold my weed. I saw you dead, and now I see you alive. You're fucking Lazarus, man!"

"Right. And for my next miracle, I'll turn Old Milwaukie into Guinness. Face it man, you just got some bad weed. Someone cut your shit with lawn clippings. Hell, last night was the first time I blacked out on that stuff. You need to find a new dealer." Marty fidgeted in place on the seat beside me like it was on casters or something. There's nothing worse than smoking ragweed when you're just looking for a good mellow. I wouldn't have been surprised if he was still riding the green wave the way he was playing solo twister over there.

"You think so? Do you remember that spider?"

"I remember a dead spider." And that was about the last thing I did remember from last night's little blowout. We were feeling pretty tuned in to Mother Nature and ran across some big brown thing all curled up under the bed. Marty launched into some long-winded discourse of how it was obviously an Homo Arachnis, "cause it's a spider that lives in the home". He had a hell of a documentary accent, so I went with it. To the best of my recollection, last night's stimulating conversation went something like:

" _Too bad it's dead. I would love to see this thing running free. I mean, eight legs, all moving at once."_

" _I know," Marty had said "I only have two hands and they're like all over the place."_

" _I bet we can bring it back to life. Too bad I don't know any insect CPR."_

" _Dude, only one thing you gotta know. Google."_

He was right. Google is the second brain we all wish we had on permanent standby. We did some searches and found this really cool website with recipes for bringing dead things back to life, as well as one for some killer peanut butter chunk brownies. The recipe, the one for raising the dead, involved drawing all these shapes around the "deceased", which we laid out reverently on the kitchen linoleum. On top of that, we had to utter a jumble of words that sounded like an Aborigine reciting the Gettysburg address backward. I remember pronouncing them in all their guttural glory and they came out easy, which is odd since I have been known to have trouble with some of the bigger words in English. Somehow these damn things just about spoke themselves. It was toward the end that I blacked out, but not before getting a cramp in my stomach that felt like someone was trying to pull an octopus out of my bellybutton. Then there was nothing.

"What did you do with it? The spider? Throw it away?"

"No, man. You don't remember? It fuckin got up and walked away. You brought it back to life, and then you were dead."

"You're such a retard," I said, stopping the truck in front of a blue dumpster that had been tastefully covered in graffiti penises. I toyed with the idea that maybe, just maybe, some punk kid was trying for a rocket ship motif, but if so, they put the airbags in the wrong place. What kind of messed up kid thinks slapping willies on a dumpster will make him cool? I flicked the lever to my right, and the lifts rolled down in front of the truck to get ready to embrace the trash box. I felt a little bad for the truck at having to touching the filthy thing at all. Maybe I should invent some lift-condoms or something for just such an occasion.

"Dead spiders don't get up and walk again, and neither do dead garbage men." I caught myself staring at a speck that slowly made its way onto the dash from the ceiling. It dangled and then thumbed its nose at gravity and floated back to the roof. "It was just bad shit last night. Bad shit." I went ahead and pushed the lift forward. Just sitting around is for suckers. If you're not doing, then you're getting done, and I'm not ready for anyone to do me. Well, not guys at least. Or ugly women. Well, really ugly women, anyway.

****

You hear stories of the old age express and all the baggage cars of memory it leaves behind as it gains speed toward the great train station in the sky. You think, that will never happen to me, and then find yourself asking "what will never happen?" Mine must have jumped the track and plowed into an oil refinery or something because my memory for the rest of the morning was moth-eaten and ragged. The afternoon was damn near completely gone. I must have been operating on autopilot because I had made it back to my apartment, but I'd be damned if I could tell you how, why, or if I ran over anyone on the way. In fact, the first thing I recalled after the dumpster of shame was standing in the kitchen of my apartment and staring at the floor. It was, at one point, such a nice floor. It was a faux white tile design that had been lovingly glued down to the subfloor just before I moved in. I liked to theorize it was to cover up the blood stains of the previous tenant, but that was all conjecture. Now, an intricate network of big sharpie figures squatted on the linoleum like bloated tattoos. Each design was drawn at one of four points around a central circle as, from what I could recall from the depths of the weedy haze, an oh-so inspiring website demanded that each one be precisely aligned with the four corners of the globe. Of course, this had led to a huge debate about how a sphere could actually have corners, so we settled on lining it up with a compass. Since we couldn't find one of those, we pretty much rock-paper-scissored our way into where east was and filled in the rest.

At the top, the defacto north, was a symbol that looked an awful lot like a robot snowflake. It was all crossing lines and right angled shapes at the tips. To the east was an ornate cross that looked like it was being scaled by a moose or reindeer. Watching this spectacle were two crude figures, one with a spikey sun for a head and another that just might have been a duck. I wasn't really clear on that one. At the bottom was a circle with black and white figures of a bear, a turtle, a buffalo and a fish all drawn with jagged arrows through them. And the west was something that looked an awful lot like a lump of crap being sprinkled on by flowers. How quaint, it even had stink lines. Between those were little dancing stick figures, performing acts I've only seen while flipping through the pages of the Kama Sutra book as a teenager and then later as an adult and probably sometime last week. I can't remember if those were from the website or something Marty and I thought would spruce the whole thing up. Geez, I've got to stop smoking that shit.

The circle itself was decorated at intervals with alternating lines and squiggles. All in all, I found myself fairly impressed with what we were able to do while baked like a loaf of French bread. The total design space took up about three square feet and completely and utterly ruined any chance I had to get my deposit back. I pinched the bridge of my nose with a thumb and middle finger and closed my eyes forcefully. I still didn't feel right. Something felt like it was missing, or I was missing something, or something was missing me, or, oh hell, I don't know. I opened my eyes again and saw this hazy after image of the design turned forty five degrees. The blue-white figures faded slowly, but not before it registered that the stick figures were all wrong. They were no longer in pairs, and there were no longer just eight of them. I mourned the death of monogamy as I counted another six figures enjoying little stick orgies before the afterimage disappeared for good. I tried squeezing in the same place again, but all I could muster from that was a bit of a headache and a sore nose. I couldn't ever get that ghostly blue porno to come back. Ah well, what do you expect for free? One thing I knew for sure is that there was no longer any dead spider in the center of the circle. Whether it got up and left on its own or Marty and I taped its legs to toothpicks and pretended it was a cross-country skier, I couldn't recall, nor did I particularly care at this point. I was tired and felt like weasel crap. I needed to find my bed.

****

I dreamt of a woman, neither old nor young. She was a mother, or at least really enjoyed hugging children that looked an awful lot like her, and was dressed in light beige animal skins with blocky bird shapes sewn in around the hem. Long tresses of golden hair hung down freely to her waist. The children she held all had dark hair, braided down the back with tanned skin drawn tight over their cheekbones. The woman's skin was the same, and they all looked completely famished, surrounded on all sides by a desolate landscape without food or game. Her children, sons, were perhaps in their late teens or early twenties, but they were small and weak from hunger. She drew them close to her, and they shared their sorrow together. A man plodded unhappily toward the group, his spear dragging the ground and burdened not by game, but by his own shame.

The woman pulled herself away from the children and embraced her husband. She then faced her sons and husband and told them what they must do to survive. Her sons were speechless, and her husband was outraged and ashamed. They knew she was far wiser then they and was powerful and special - a favored of the gods that walked the earth. And so they had to obey.

She was slain with mercy and love and stripped of her clothing. They formed a line in the field, the youngest son with a spear, the oldest with a rope tied to a large, wedge-shaped rock, and then the husband, with his wife's body. The youngest son moved forward, breaking the crust of the earth with the tip of the spear. The eldest son then followed him, dragging the rock in the groove made by the spear and churning the dirt out each side. Then the husband followed, dragging his wife's body along this trench. This continued for row after row, the family weary in heart and body, but refusing to fail their mother by not honoring her sacrifice. As her body dragged along the earth, pieces of flesh were snagged by rocks and old roots, and fell off into the grooved channels, until finally nothing was left of her at all. Even her hair, bleached white by the sun that day became one with the ground. Why I was tormented with this gruesome spectacle was beyond me. I couldn't think of any mother issues lingering in my subconscious. We were close enough, for a mother and son, but she passed away years ago, and I never once felt like spitting on her grave. Nevertheless, the dream ran its ugly course, and I continued to watch it all.

Her family abandoned the spear and rock and got down to their hands and knees on the earth. With their hands, they filled in the grooves, burying their mother and allowing their sorrow to be fully unleashed. There was wailing and sobbing and even singing as their tears dampened the earth they pressed on top of their mother's remains. When all had been done in the field, the exhausted family returned to their tiny home.

The dream showed me glimpses of the days that followed. The first morning, there were green shoots in the once barren earth. A few more days and those shoots were higher than a man and boasted long, flat, green leaves. Even more days passed, and the plants had birthed ears of corn, complete with the same pale hair as the woman. The kernels of the corn were not uniform by any means, at least not the yellow ears I was used to, but different hues of red, brown and black, ghostly reminders of their origin. But to the People, this was life, and the family rejoiced and sang praises to their mother's spirit. Time moved on, and other families moved in to share in the bounty of food during this hard time. They were taught to praise the Corn Mother, as they called her now, and to replenish the earth with her seeds. The corn brought birds that had travelled wide and far, and they in turn brought other seeds that grew grass and trees. This brought the plant-eaters, so the people could hunt and grow strong, and...

I opened my eyes with a bit of a start. That was most definitely not the dream about the bored housewife with an unhealthy fascination for the trash collector and his incredible Velcro pants. It wasn't even one of those random dreams where I found myself battling a mountain of alien cannibals for the last yellow Twinkie on earth. And don't ask me why I should fear alien cannibals or why they would want a Twinkie anyway. It's just a dream, after all.

I pulled off the covers and staggered to the kitchen. Dreaming about matricide really worked up an appetite. I was famished and set about pouring myself a bowl full of Frosted Woman Flakes as quickly as I could. Normally, I'm not too keen on eating human flesh, even if it's soaked with milk, but somehow this felt okay. I scooped a spoonful out of the bowl and lifted the golden, crunchy flakes to the sky in an offering of thanks before popping them into my mouth. They're gr-r-r-r-reat.

I turned away from the counter with the notion of sitting down at the little two by two card table, which had been unceremoniously shoved off to one side of the kitchen to make way for the magic graffiti, when something changed my mind. Directly in the center of the table sat a brown and white house spider of impressive size. Normally, the sight of a plump spider wouldn't faze me a bit. I was okay with them, they were okay with me. There was a miniscule chance that the sight of a plump spider in the middle of my table might trigger some primal instinct to give me a minor case of the creeps, but that wasn't the case. It was the sight of a plump spider in the middle of my table giving me the finger that did the trick. Okay, fine. Spiders don't have fingers. But it was certainly giving me the leg. My new friend was about the size of a half dollar, and it stared at me with every one of its eight tiny eyeballs. It stood stock-still with a single forelimb extended theatrically into the air.

I set the bowl down on one corner of the table and dragged out a chair. It made a horrible noise as it sputtered across the linoleum, but both of us kept our eyes locked in a mortal embrace. He, I was only guessing here since I didn't take the time to turn it over, refused to flinch. Could this be the dead spider from the other night? I had no way of really knowing. The last time I saw that spider, I thought it had about twenty legs, so my memory wasn't that much help. It could have been. The thought of a zombie spider was ridiculous, and unless this was an arachnid messiah, coming back from the dead was impossible as well. More than likely, it could have been just playing dead or hibernating for the winter when we found him curled up and dry on the floor.

I sat down on the chair and reached out with the back of my hand to shoo him off the table. He immediately crawled onto it without any hesitation. The tiny legs tickled my skin as he perched contentedly on his new roost.

"You'd better get off little fellow. I've got to use this hand to eat, and I don't think either of us wants you near my mouth." To my astonishment, the spider hopped off and repositioned himself in the center of the table. As shocked as I was to think it was flipping me a bird, I was double that when I embraced the idea it actually understood me. I daresay that I entered stroke territory when it followed up understanding me with its next trick. It began to pivot on its legs so its abdomen could wag freely in an excited motion. I was eating breakfast with the world's smallest puppy.

Visions of mental institutions began to dance in my head. Something was definitely either wrong with the world or wrong with me. Black-outs, crazy dreams, and dancing undead spiders all pointed to a single, unhealthy conclusion. I was nuts. I began to hyperventilate before willing myself to calm down. There was a logical explanation for everything. I was simply hallucinating. That's all. There were millions of chemicals out there that could cause these. Whatever they used to cut that weed, it was still running around in my skull. That made me feel a little better, but even so, if it didn't stop soon I was going to end up in the hospital or the psych ward. I wasn't sure which one I'd have preferred.

The green numbers on the microwave told me that without a doubt, I had to get to work. "All right Scruffy, you be a good boy today," I said, embracing the hallucination with a dismissive humor. I retrieved a grey button up shirt and pair of jeans from the half-dirty pile on the floor and put them on. I tended to save the fully dirty pile for weekend wear. Stepping into my muck-waders and dragging on a baseball cap completed the ensemble, and I looked back over my shoulder at the obedient arachnid.

"Stay put, I'll be back before too long. Oh, and if you need a fly or something, there are plenty lying around." He gave me the leg again as he watched me leave. I was beginning to get the impression that it wasn't a hateful gesture, rather an arachnid version of a wave. I looked back one last time and instantly regretted it. I imagined I could see his little black eyes quivering with sadness. I refused to feel guilty for leaving my imaginary pet spider home all day long. It wasn't rational. It wasn't sane. Guilt rode me like rodeo champ all the way to the office.

****

My main responsibility at work was to drive the truck that picked up the garbage and to make sure that we didn't miss any of our appointed rounds. Usually, this job took a CDL class A and B license, nerves of steel and a keen eye for time management. We all had the license, but the other criteria were in short supply. They picked me because I had, so far, actually managed to keep the truck on the pavement for the entire route. Not a ringing endorsement by any means, but the alternative would leave the city full of rotting trash and angry citizens. Marty tried driving the truck once before and only narrowly averted lawsuit by Waffle House. He did not keep the truck on the appropriate section of pavement and apparently the proprietors of Waffle House 451 took exception to this. Who would have thought bringing the dumpster inside the restaurant through the kitchen wall and turning the front tire into a giant onion ring would cause such a stink? There was the usual shouting and pointing of fingers as well as some looks from the patrons that seemed to say "I wonder when that will be on the special." Thanks to Marty's choice of parking spaces, it took half a day to extract ourselves from the deep fryers. It only took about half a minute to extract Marty from his driving privileges. After that I drove the trucks.

I arrived at the depot on foot after six blocks of arduous walking and removed the padlock before sliding the gates apart to the "P-U corral". There was a yard full of mint green haulers arrayed before me, all decorated with their own patterns of splattered filth. Through chemical reactions and a failure to properly wash the trucks, the refuse had eroded into the paint to form intricate markings that were as unique as fingerprints. I paid homage to the zebra truck, the melting cow, and screaming orca before stopping in front of the painted lady. This had been my ride for as long as I can remember. She was a magnificent hauler, decorated by a matching pair of purple and orange paint stains in the back shaped conspicuously like giant boobs. I was, however, brought up a step or two short by a newly installed hood ornament. I had to search back in my memory to make sure, but I was fairly certain nothing was perched in front of the driver's side of the windshield yesterday.

As thoughtful as it was for someone to decorate for me, I wasn't sure I was comfortable with the new décor. Seated on the hood was something that looked an awful lot like a pre-teen girl, dressed from head to toe in a bipolar outfit of red and black. Even her hat was split right down the center. She was reclining against the glass with her dark hair spread out in a fan behind her. Her legs weren't long enough for her feet to make it over the edge of the hood, but luckily for the sake of all that was decent, she had them crossed. She was way too young for the Basic Instinct shot. Her legs, arms, and face were all well-tanned, but her most striking feature was the two huge brown eyes that bored into me when she looked up.

"So, you are the Daddy-Long-Legs-Man I've heard of. Can't say you're entirely what I expected, but then who am I to adhere to expectations?" She had a small voice that screamed innocence, and I might even have believed it if I hadn't seen the look on her face. There was something there that could not have been formed in such a short existence, a kind of parental disapproval that only time and experience could produce.

"That's a great question. Who the hell are you?" I replied with false bravado.

"Take a guess."

"Someone who really enjoys the smell of garbage? Or maybe you're some kind of trash-man groupie, here to ask for an autograph and, if you get real lucky, a pair of my underwear."

"Wow, good guess, but no. I wanted to see the new harbinger of doom for myself." She stared at me with those oddly deep eyes for a moment. I didn't know what the hell she was talking about, but made damn sure I didn't give her the satisfaction of letting it show. If there's one thing you learn in the city, it's that you need to make everyone else believe you're prepared for anything. "Didn't Grandmother tell you?"

"Look, girl, I don't know a thing about this 'harbinger of doom' thing, or who Grandma is, or who the hell you are. What I do know is that you're making me late on my rounds, and you're getting butt prints on the hood of my truck."

"It bothers you to have a clean spot on your truck?"

"No, but it should bother you. I can't even begin to describe the crap that has dribbled on there." She seemed to catch on finally and slid off gracefully. She only stood about five foot nothing and all of it contorted in a moment of sullen backside checking. She frowned at the results of her investigation. I noticed that the color of her shoes and socks was split down the middle like her hat. It struck me then, as she bent to one side and then the other, that anyone seeing her from the side might believe that she was dressed in a single color. Which color you saw depended on which side you saw her from. It's so hard to keep up with the fashion trends these days.

"I can't say you make a great first impression, but even so, I'll be keeping an eye on you. I'm not sure how this will all go down, but I'm not ready for this world to end quite yet." She walked to the back of the truck, waved over her shoulder, and then disappeared from view. I cut around to the other side, but she never appeared. It wasn't like there were a lot of places to hide, and a quick glance under the truck revealed nothing but empty space and tires. The next five minutes were spent in the corral looking under all the trucks, but she'd disappeared like a fart in a tornado. Even the clean spot on the hood was gone if it was ever there to begin with.

****

"Hey, Tim. 'Bout time you showed up. What took you so long?" Marty was dressed in the same fashionable grey shirt, jeans and muck-waders we all wore on the job. He hefted himself up by his wiry arms, planting his butt and its cargo of a full, round belly into the seat beside me. He resembled a furry basketball with limbs. At six foot three, I towered over him when we stood side by side. Even so, I felt insubstantial next to him that morning. He just seemed a lot more, well, solid than I did. I looked him in the eyes appraisingly. His eyes were oddly free from the red irritation that had taken up residence there for as long as I'd known him.

I asked him point blank. "Marty, am I nuts?"

"Yeah, probably."

"I mean more than normal."

He gave me a serious look for a moment. Even though I'd seen him almost every day since high school, I just noticed how old he was beginning to seem. His face was creased around his eyes and deeply across the center of his forehead. The three days of growth on his face was spotted with grey and he looked ever so tired. Usually a man looks this way only after hard lovin or hard livin. My money was on the latter.

"Tim, I haven't smoked so much as a joint since the weekend. I know, it's only been two days, but that's the longest I think I've gone in years. Seeing you die, or believing I saw you die, has really messed with my head. I don't know if you were right about that green being spiked, but it feels like I saw something I wasn't supposed to, like maybe a peek into the future. So, now that you know that, am I the one who should be telling you if you're crazy?"

It took me while to answer, but since Marty had gone all honest and vulnerable on me, I couldn't shortchange him. "I dreamed of corn being grown from a dead woman, I feel guilty about leaving Scruffy, my pet house spider hallucination, home alone, and I just had a conversation with a twelve year old girl who told me I was going to destroy the world."

"Dude, you're nuts. I think maybe I should drive today."

"What, do you intend on finishing off the Waffle House this time?"

"Guilty as charged. Let's get our crazy asses moving. I don't want to be stuck in this truck all day."

## Chapter Two

The day was a short one, meaning that we pulled an easy route that morning, and nothing much happened along the way. I dropped the hauler off at the depot around three o'clock with the sun still pretty high in the sky and life, as strange as it was, took a moment to cut me some slack. I had enough time to get back to the house and shower before heading out to the library a few blocks away. Scrubbing away the grime and stench was perhaps the most important social contribution I could make. It was only polite, after all. Being around garbage, the smell gets in your hair, your clothes, and even your skin. Whether you touch it or not, it touches you, so any time you make a public appearance, etiquette dictates a good ole-fashioned hosing down. My insanity was still in rare form as Scruffy was still on the table looking quite contented with himself. There was a small insect husk; I think it was once a silverfish, lying beside him. I told him to make sure he cleaned up afterward and headed out once more.

It was nice enough to walk now that the sun had gone behind the buildings, and I took advantage of the travel time to organize my thoughts. They were scattered far and wide and wandering aimlessly in my head. Bringing them together was like herding cats who were all trying to bury a turd on a marble floor at a rocking chair convention. It was total, utter chaos. Just your average start to an exciting week. On the one hand, I was quite sure I had gone mad thanks to some chemical reaction that was slowly eating away at my brain. Someone had put Drano in the dime bag Marty had brought over, and everything odd that had happened to me since was simply result of that. On the other hand, much of what I had seen, heard, and dreamed all seemed to be connected. And what was even more perplexing was that I could not recall ever hearing of such things before in my life. Now, I am a simple man with an above average intelligence, at least insomuch as I can keep a truck on the road most of the time, and know from countless discussions over booze and blunts that the human brain cannot just pull stuff from thin air. It has to take bits and pieces from things we've encountered and play Mr. Potato Head with them. That meant that I had to have encountered something about dead corn women, grandmothers, and apocalyptical daddy long legs before.

Life had become much too complicated for me all of a sudden. I hoped that somewhere in this new world of mine that I could find some answers or at least some assurance that things would even out. There was always rehab or religion, but I'd always been a do-it-yourselfer kind of guy. I considered I might get lucky in the reference stacks with information. I fantasized that I might get lucky in the reference stacks with Annie. Things were looking better already.

Annie was the single hottest thing in horned-rimmed glasses. Only they weren't horn-rimmed, I just said that because of the librarian stereotype. The glasses were actually squared off at the edges, but they added just the right amount of contrast to soft angles of her face. Throw in some sandy blonde hair cut at the shoulders and a figure that, well, how do I put this? You know how a supermodel is all airbrush and fairy dust? Well, there were enough little imperfections in Annie's figure to make you believe it was real and tangible, but not nearly enough to keep your heart from stopping every time you saw her. Her body was long, slender and curvy in all the right places. She didn't flaunt it, though. She wasn't one to dress for attention, sticking mostly to long dresses and slacks with layered tops, but that just added to the excitement. It was the difference between someone handing you a box with a picture of what's inside printed on it and someone handing you a wrapped gift and teasing you with hints. Today, she was wrapped in a white knit turtle neck and a pair of form-fitting slacks. Happy birthday to me. Was it unhealthy to wish you'd grow up to be a pair of pants?

Annie gave me one of those smoldering, over the top of her glasses looks as I approached the desk with the sign "reference" tacked to it.

"Annie, right? Do you remember me? I'm Tim." She pointed to a sign to her right that read "quiet please" indicating that I had put a little too much energy in that greeting. I turned it down a few decibels. "Sorry, umm, did I mention my name is Tim?"

"Yes sir. I believe we established that already. Several times in the last few years if I recall correctly."

"Right, but don't bother with the 'sir' thing, just call me Tim."

"Okay, Tim. What can I help you with today?"

"Oh, yeah. I need to do some research."

"On?"

"Well, I'm not exactly sure yet. I need to find something that can tell me about Daddy-Long-Legs-Man, someone connected to him called Grandmother. Oh, and also a lady who let herself get plowed into the ground to grow corn." The look I got was one part disbelief and two parts resignation. Something about her manner begged for me to make an explanation. "They are stories or characters in stories, and I'm just trying to locate where they came from. You know, what they mean." I gave it my biggest "I'm not a psycho" grin. I don't think it worked.

"This may take a few days to find something, especially if the reference materials are at one of our branches. Please write down your phone number on this card, sir..."

"Tim."

"Right, Tim. Please write down your phone number, and I'll let you know when we find something." I spent another half hour or so browsing the shelves and randomly wracking my brain to find a way to shed the stench of moron that seemed to billow out from me each time I replayed that conversation in my head. Even in my self-loathing, I couldn't help but feel a little giddy knowing that Annie asked for my digits. Small victories.

It was probably ten o'clock that night when my bed called to me like a lonely woman. I left a beer half drunk on the counter and staggered back to the bedroom to accept the mattress's horizontal embrace. It was by no means a soft bed, nor was it particularly comfortable. There was a huge indentation on the left side complete with a jagged spring or two poking through that jabbed me viciously if I dared roll over the wrong way. Still, I couldn't complain too much. It was free and probably old when given to Louis the Sixteenth's least favorite stable boy, but that night, it was the most welcoming thing in world. I crawled in, eager to abandon the insanity of the last two days, and fell asleep.

****

I dreamt again as the omniscient observer, drinking in the blissful life of a cloud whose sole purpose was to hover above the grass and the teepees and the seemingly content villagers and their scrawny dogs. I wasn't really sure the scrawny dogs would have called it a blissful life, but they seemed happy enough in a trailer park canine kind of way. And, indeed, the scene arrayed below me looked an awful lot like an ancient mobile home park, only with dignity. I found myself idly wondering if tornados feasted on these long before they developed a taste for plywood and vinyl. Ah, well, the fleeting thoughts of a cloud are many.

The people below me suddenly sprang into life, becoming animated and running anxiously toward the southern edge of the tribe's boundaries. I floated along with them, keeping pace with an old and weathered Indian chief who was leading the procession. He was much like I'd seen in those westerns as a kid, only not at all like that. For one thing, his outfit wasn't off of some rack in the moldy depths of Hollywood's anus, and for another, this man actually smelled of wisdom. Oddly enough, wisdom smells an awful lot like Old Spice with a dash of dish soap thrown in. This was not at all like the foolish redskins America was force fed in the early nineteen hundreds. You wouldn't see this man standing by the side of the road, shedding a tear at garbage rolling across the plains. He'd grab a spear and an axe and go get him some litterbug scalps.

As solid and immutable as he seemed to be, his resolve wavered as he approached the honored visitor who came to share a warning with him. The messenger was youthful but far from handsome. In fact, in profile he was disturbingly alien in shape and reminded me of a Picasso version of Marty. He had a surprisingly round body and thin, spindly legs and arms. His hands and feet were large and strong, making him seem completely disproportionate. He had long braids of black hair and smooth, tanned skin that peeked out from a buckskin vest with raccoon hide tassels. Nonetheless, it was clear that this was a man to be respected.

"Iktomi," the elder began. "Why have you come to my people today?"

"Wise chief, I bring grave news," he said, his voice a melodic tenor. I noticed for the first time how ancient his eyes looked. "Soon, not this season, but maybe the next, or the next after that, there will come a new man to the People and this land. He will be the Long-White-Bone-Man, and he will be different. You will know him by his skin with no color. His face and body will be covered with hair. He will wear clothes from no animal and carry sticks with fire in them. He will promise you god and give you the devil. He brings sickness and death."

"This is terrible indeed. Why is this come?"

"The People have become wicked. They spend their time quarreling with one another, coveting this land and that. They forget their ancestors and the way."

"Is there nothing we can do?"

"Do not be swayed by his gifts, no matter how shiny they seem. Do not take water from him, for in it is also fire. Do not suffer him to live in your land."

"And this will stop the Long-White-Bone-Man?"

"No. He will come, and the People will be cast onto the stones and will break."

"Then, there is no hope."

"Stay strong my brothers. Keep our ways and our gods in your hearts, and when the next world comes, you will ascend." With these words spoken, Iktomi turned and sprinted off into the grass with an unnatural speed and agility. Within seconds, he was scurrying hand over foot up a nearly invisible thread and disappeared into the sky.

I stayed a cloud, sometimes thundering, sometimes gleaming in the morning sun. I think I was even an awe-inspiring shade of pink once in the setting sun. I followed Iktomi, and with each fluffy incarnation, I watched the scene repeat itself in the northern woods, where he called the invader Hu-Hanska-Ska, near a great blue ocean, where he called the invader the White-Spider-Man, and in the desert, where he named the invader Daddy-Long-Legs-Man.

****

My eyes felt like a convenience store toilet seat as I weakly tried to pry them open. The crust had grown thick during my time in the sky, and I practically needed a shovel to get my lids free. Long-White-Bone-Man, Hu –something-or-other, White-Spider-Man, Daddy-Long-Legs-Man. Those names brought the natives of this country to their knees. Those names, obviously referring to the settlers, wiped out the teepees and drove their occupants to prison camps, bringing them nothing but misery and death. Well, and eventually casinos, but that's not the greatest of consolation prizes. Sure, it was just a dream, but it disturbed me a lot more than I wanted to admit. I wasn't around during that time \- hell, my great, great grandfather probably wasn't either, but I felt a bit responsible nonetheless. There was something about the whole thing that tickled at the back of my brain, like a parasitic idea working its way in one nibble at a time. It was too slow and deliberate to be able to pinpoint exactly what it was, or what its intentions were, but I could feel something wrong, something creeping up on me.

The clock assured me that it was only a quarter until four and chastised me about dwelling on the demise of the Native Americans when there were so many useless things I could be contemplating before I left for work. In retrospect, I should have chosen a time when I'd only had fifteen minutes or so to devote to it. Topics such as the end of the way of life have a way of leeching onto you like terminal cancer. The doctor tells you you've got three months to live and that gives you plenty of time worry and moan over what-could-have-beens. If given the choice, I'd sign up for the end where I only have time for the quick "Oh shit" before the lights go out. And yet, this morning at least, I didn't get a vote. So, there I sat, perched upon a beaten up bed with no other choices than to watch SpongeBob Squarepants or to mull over the what-wases and what-will-bes.

What brought on these dreams? Who was that chick at the truck yard? Why did she refer to me as Daddy-Long-Legs-Man? Just because I'm a white man? There were so many other white men to choose from, why me? Could I really be the instrument for the big finale?

It was all nonsense. These were just crazy dreams from not eating right, or working too hard, or too much television, or working too hard at eating the television. If arguing with myself didn't get me an all-expense paid vacation to my local loony bin, then the half-sleep images that popped into my head certainly would. I should have just watched SpongeBob when I had the chance. I turned on the TV to try to break myself out of this unpleasant reverie. The exciting world of infomercials was in full bloom, and I flipped the channels until I came to a particularly interesting one.

"People!" it boomed "This is a limited time offer. If you call within the next ten minutes, you can get a genuine, Franklin Mint commemorative end of the world coin. Each coin is cast in twenty four carat gold with a picture of Daddy-Long-Legs-Man on one side and the garbage truck known as the Chariot of Doom on the other. These are limited quantities, and only one thousand will be minted before the earth splits in two and God uses both halves for his bongo drums. Call now." I turned the TV back off, bemoaning the fact that I could officially add mentally unstable info-dreams to my list of weird.

I decided that I despised sitting on my bed contemplating the relationship between the end of the world and commemorative coin collecting. I mean, it wasn't the first time anyone had put the two things together, but my head was throbbing like my skull had shrunk two sizes last night. I got up and headed toward the kitchen to finish that beer I had generously left myself on the counter. There is nothing quite like warm, stale beer to make you truly appreciate a headache.

I stopped cold as soon as the dim fluorescents flickered into life. The deeper, inner processes of my addled brain began to hum and click. Something did not compute and after a brief flirtation with mental gymnastics and linear algebra, I finally gave up and simply accepted things as they were. Scruffy, my drug induced hallucinatory spider vision, was still in the kitchen and perched in the middle of the table. Nothing unusual there, all things considered. I had a pretty good recollection of telling him to stay and, from all available evidence, he had. It seemed that I had neglected to tell him no parties while I was asleep. Scattered on the tabletop with Scruffy were six of his closest friends in various stages of celebration. They were rigid little statues, like a bachelor party full of wild and crazy guys caught in the act and terrified that if they were the first to move, it would be up to them to come up with a good explanation for the dead stripper dressed as a wombat with a cattle-prod jammed halfway down her throat. All fifty six eyes stared at me intently as I made my way around the edge of the kitchen to the counter where the oversized can of brew sat. As I moved, the spiders slowly lowered themselves onto all of their legs and rotated in place to keep me directly in front of them. I could almost believe that maybe Scruffy had brought his family, which was cool with me since I am one who can appreciate how important family could be to a spider who just moved in with a new roommate. But, if that was the case, then his ancestral tree had more branches than a federal bank. There was quite a varied and mixed bag of spidery species on the tabletop. Two of the new ones were miniature versions of the original Scruffy; one was black and looked like it could be a widow. I opted to not check the under carriage to make sure. Some things are just better when taken on faith. One other looked an awful lot like the black one, only it was dusty brown in color. There was also a small, green one, and finally a small, black one with white dots. I had to admit, this was just what I needed to distract me from contemplating my place as the universe's future executioner.

I reached the beer, and, even though I felt a little vulnerable doing so, risked looking away from the spider jamboree long enough to check inside the can for any other eight-legged visitors. Thankfully, it was clear, and I drained the remainder in two gulps, wincing as it went down. I closed my eyes and counted to five, looking back at the table suspiciously. My new roommates hadn't moved a bit. "Hey guys," I started uncertainly. "Umm, is there something I can help you with?"

Scruffy turned to one side and then the other, taking a poll from his new companions and then he seemed to shake his body "no."

"You can understand me?" The headache came back with a vengeance, and it had invited a dizzying sense of disbelief to help share the rent. Of course, as a manifestation of my subconscious, these delusions should be able to comprehend anything I say or think. I put this to the test by concentrating on them creating a cheerleader pyramid, complete with pom-poms. Instead, Scruffy bounced up and down in acknowledgement of my question. This seemed to catch on with the others and before long, they were all bouncing up and down like rock stars. I stared at the spectacle, a Tim Burton rendition of the oompa loompa dance near the chocolate river, only with more legs and less desire to knock one in. This was bizarro world, population me, and I felt my knees begin to buckle. Obviously, I wasn't in control of my subconscious.

I staggered to the table and dragged out a chair, plopping my ass down on it and planting my elbows on the tabletop and my noggin in my waiting hands. To my horror, I realized my faux pas and looked out from between my fingers. The spiders were now all backed up to the other end of the table and were watching me with undisguised suspicion. "I'm sorry," I said, "I didn't mean to disturb your dance." Once again Scruffy started rotating in a "no" gesture and the others followed.

"I guess that means you forgive me. That's good." I paused a little, remembering that they were just hallucinations. I was certifiably nuts to be talking to them. That didn't stop me from asking, "Are you guys real?" They bounced up and down, touching their abdomens to the tabletop before rising again. "I don't suppose you guys can talk or spell?" Again they all started rotating side to side.

"Yeah. I didn't think so. Well, we'll figure something out. I bet you guys know more about what's going on than I do." The bouncing started all over again. Great, they could have at least lied to make me feel better. I considered playing twenty questions, but since I didn't even know where to start, and my skull was about to explode, I settled for dropping my head on my arms and apologizing to the universe for my transgressions.

I must have nodded off again, because the next time I sniffed consciousness, it was seven o'clock. I left the little table and its occupants, got dressed and headed out to work. It was odd how quickly I'd adapted to it, but having half a dozen imaginary spiders living in my kitchen seemed like no big deal. In fact, I hadn't felt this much a part of something in a long time. I thought that I should get them something nice today.

****

Inside the truck corral, there was a small office building. We kept routes, itineraries, a first aid kit, and what we called the "grab bag". All too often, when emptying a dumpster into a truck or the contents of the truck into the dump, one of us would spot something that should never have been thrown away. There were all kinds of things that should have been recycled and passed on to future generations, but for whatever reason, ended up swimming in a lake of garbage. We rescued these things and put them into a closet in the rear of the shop. Whenever one of us had a use for one of these items or just needed a last second gift, well, there it was. I took a moment to rifle through this treasure trove for something my new friends might like. We were fresh out of flies, at least the ones that I could easily catch, and so I was driven to dive into the stacks for something else. I ignored the Lego Indiana Jones adventure set and briefly considered the old turntable as a good exercise machine. I finally settled on a DVD with a picture of a baby on it and the words, My Baby Can Read. I mean, they seemed smart enough, and who knows, there was nothing else for them to do all day while I was at work. It's not like there was a manual for caring for your hyper-intelligent spider colony. Anyway, if it didn't pan out, then I'd just swap it out for something that required fewer brain cells. I dropped the DVD into the pocket of my slacks and headed out to the truck. I had the feeling that this day would be something special.

I hadn't gone ten steps before stopping to think about what I had just done. I had spent nearly ten minutes going through a storehouse of knick-knacks and second hand treasures to find just the right gift for half a dozen figments of my imagination. I felt shaken and a little off balance. Whatever they had started out to be, and no matter how the logical portion of my brain explained it otherwise, Scruffy was becoming real to me. All of them were becoming real. Madness wasn't something that you could just explain away with clever arguments. It made you a believer. I had hoped that all of this had simply been a result of a foreign substance in the marijuana, but that seemed less and less likely. Hallucinations didn't grow in number the longer you were away from the chemical. This was something deeper and more personal. This was making me late for my route.

****

I had always picked Marty up at a little convenience store just about a half-mile walk from his trailer. It was close enough that he didn't need a car, which was good, because Marty really should never be allowed to drive again, ever. His last automobile netted him eight lawsuits for wrongful injury when he rear-ended a clown car in the middle of the Big Top Circus. Luckily, the circus had not filed the proper paperwork to set up camp where they had, and the case was dismissed. Even so, Marty was politely informed by the judge that if he wanted to stay out of prison, his days behind the wheel had better be few and far between. The very next day, there was a boot affixed to the tire of his wreck. That wasn't so much to keep him from driving it away, since that was beyond his car's capacity in its current condition, but instead served as a none too subtle warning. It was a modern day chastity belt, and Marty didn't have anything to offer the local locksmith in exchange for its freedom. The half-mile walk wasn't a punishment or anything. I mean, I would pick him up at his place if the clay roads didn't have canyon-sized potholes in them. I could just imagine the flack I'd catch if I bottomed out the trash-mobile and had to get a tow.

Marty, it seemed, had decided to take his sweet time in getting there this morning. I waited for about half an hour before calling his number. The computer operator kindly informed me that Marty must have forgotten to pay his bill again and had been temporarily disconnected. Another fifteen minutes and I left. It wasn't like this hadn't happened before. Marty was probably baked out of his skull again, back on the wagon. To be honest, this was a good day to be alone. I could work through my mental issues and decide whether I was fit to interact with others of my species. Besides, the truck did most of the work anyway.

I alternated routes every other day as the corporate contracts demanded, and that put me right back at the penis dumpster this morning. I rolled the truck into a chalk sausage fest. It was no longer just the dumpster that was covered with the graffiti now but the wall above it and to both sides and even about twenty feet of pavement in front of it. I felt like I was trapped in a Chippendale's nightmare. The hairs on my neck and arms stood out in protest of entering this obvious shrine to some phallic god, this unnatural obsession that I had stumbled upon. Abandon all hope ye who enter the hallowed ground of the Cult of the Wayward Willie.

I approached slowly, afraid of catching whatever mental illness had infected these kids and their spray cans. The truck and everything in it except for me, the garbage in the back, the fuzzy pennies in the ashtray, and my two dollar coffee stopped with a sudden lurch. I found that I hardly cared about scalding myself with the dark liquid thanks to the agony of the seatbelt trying to ram my collarbone out the back side. In fact, this pain allowed me to experience one of the great entertainments in life with admirable calmness and clarity: rolling a garbage truck. I pitched through the air, giving the spinning world a casual glance as my ass pointed straight up and promptly dumped its entire supply of blood into my skull. I was still firmly strapped to the seat, which was probably still bolted to the cab, which, itself was spinning topsy-turvy and approaching the earth with a bit too much relish for my tastes. Then came the impact. It bent the roof inward and burst the windshield outward. Several large shards of glass and their tiny cousins defied the laws of physics and flew inside, bouncing off my face in their insolence.

My knuckles were white from gripping the wheel in a subconscious belief that I could exert enough control through them to keep the truck on the road despite the tires being on the wrong side. The pavement taunted me from above, pretending to be the sky through the empty hole that used to be my window. The lap belt hadn't been as snug as it should have been and I'd slid through it enough that my entire weight was supported uncomfortably by my midsection. I struggled to undo the clasp while I still had the capacity to father children and finally succeeded, banging my head on the roof of the cab as I dropped a couple of feet. I felt a sharp pain on my scalp as I had undoubtedly lodged a piece of windshield in there, but before I could regain my senses enough to check it, the door closest to me flew outward off of its hinges, and two meaty hands joined me in the cab. They grabbed me by the shirt and under the chin, dragging me out into the street. I could feel the glass grinding into my back and then the painful thud of my head striking the frame of the cab when they lifted me up way too early.

What I saw through the haze of mounting concussion were the blurry forms of two very large men dressed in brown overcoats. One of them had me pinned down with his hands, which were damn near mechanical in their strength. He exerted impossible amounts of pressure, so much that I thought he was yet another of my hallucinations. I was probably actually pinned beneath my overturned vehicle instead of in the grasp of a man. I turned my head to the side and watched the second Bobsey twin step toward me in a most unfriendly way. As he moved, I caught sight of what looked like a row of eyeballs decorating the hem of his coat. I might have accessorized with an eyebrow necklace or something myself, but to each his own. He planted a boot into my side hard enough to crack a rib. I struggled for breath and then regretted it instantly once my lungs filled. A broken rib made it to the top of my "never have this again" list. Hallucination or not, that one kick let me know that I was in serious trouble. I wheezed for them to stop, but they simply leaned on me and tried to squash me into paste. Their coats flapped around oddly as if caught in a swirling wind, but there wasn't even a breeze. It was as if the world had been robbed of life-giving air altogether. I entertained the fantasy that my truck flipping over was an accident, and that these two were really paramedics, but that idea extinguished along with my consciousness.

****

Unconsciousness was not as fun as it might seem. Many of those who have been knocked out for a significant amount of time have related either a complete and utter absence of anything or a bright white light and ghostly images of their loved ones waving them forward. I'd always promised myself that I would act like a zombie if I happened to be one of those loved ones. Imagine the look on Uncle Don's face! Of course, there have been those special few who rose above their bodies and looked down on themselves and those closest to them. It was usually a very spiritual and calming experience unless they wandered too far away. I was one of those special few, but watching from my perch on high brought with it less peace and more spiritual terror. I could see some very oddly shaped and definitely subhuman beings ramming jagged talons into my prone form. I only caught a glimpse of wide leathery skin before the pain from one of these thrusts reeled me back into my body and back into consciousness.

When I came to, my attackers still had me pinned down but had decided that I would feel more comfortable with short, sharpened sticks, or something pretty close impaling my arms and legs. They were once again humans, though my eyes seemed to slide over their features in such a way that I would only be able to describe them as "some big dudes" to any police that may have asked, and were quite skilled at their profession. They worked their shivs in carefully, avoiding the arteries while hitting every nerve they could. I looked into the face of the one leaning over my torso and saw nothing but shadow. Somewhere deep inside that shadow floated a yellow eyeball that belonged more to some jungle cat than to a man. I was so scared by this that to this day I count not wetting myself there as one of the bravest things I ever did.

A third man, this one wearing a wide-brimmed hat, walked up to eclipse the last piece of sky left to me and looked down with obvious distaste. He wore dark clothing, and as he blocked out the sun, the only thing I could find to focus on was a gently swaying silver medallion, in a familiar phallic shape.

"So, you're the new child of Grandmother. You're the Daddy-Long-Legs-Man. The great White-Bone-Spider. Not very impressive" His voice was deep, and he spoke in halting English.

"Who are you?" I managed to croak.

"And still so new to all of this, this stolen world. Pathetic."

"Pathetic? Pathetic is wearing a penis around your neck," I managed, trying to use anger to squeeze my out my fear, but the results were less than stellar. It was like trying to pass an Enrico's jumbo cheese burrito through your intestinal track. It was something that required more than just anger to make it work. I wondered if there was Metamucil for cowardice.

"Penis? Did you crack your head when my friends tipped your truck?"

"Your medallion. It's shaped like meat and taters, franks and beans, you know... man parts." I was rewarded by a grimace of understanding and a hint of anger. He leaned closer.

"This, my friend, is no 'man parts'. This is the symbol of Unktehi. See the beaver tail, and the buffalo horns?"

"So, the symbol for your horny beaver is a dick? You guys are pretty confused. What's next?"

"I'll tell you what's next," he said, planting a sharp-toed boot into my lower rib cage. His aim was uncanny as the tip dug into my already broken bone. I involuntarily tried to curl into a fetal position. Of course, this just brought on a fresh wave of pain from the freakin two by fours they must be using for shivs. "What's next is that we work towards repaying an old debt. Of course, there has been a lot of interest accrued, but this will be a nice payment on the principle." He grinned and looked to the thugs that were holding me in place. "Kill him. And make it messy."

His friends began to pound me with large corded poles. I could have sworn they didn't have those a moment ago and they somehow managed to keep me pinned down while they beat me with them. It felt like giant bundles of rebar battering me. One caught me across the face and broke my nose. The next one crushed more ribs, and the third gave me a brief and precious glimpse at unconsciousness as it dented in my right collarbone. Then they brought me back in agony. It was the feeling of one of those nasty sticks impaling my right ear that finally brought up the scream I'd been stoically trying to stifle. The torment didn't stop there. They ripped into the flesh on my chest and thighs for what seemed like hours. Playtime only ended when I felt a single sharpened point working its way into my chest. It carefully navigated around my ribs and finally lodged itself into my heart. The world froze in place and the thoughts drained from my head as darkness rolled in from everywhere. I tasted copper and salt as the dark fog bore me away, deep inside myself and then nowhere.

## Chapter Three

The dry, chalky mist covered everything. It was a thief of the senses, stealing sight and sound with its thick substance, smell with an odor of old lawn clippings, and touch with a numbing penetration that denuded at least the top two layers of skin. As for taste, well, anything that smelled like old lawn clippings probably tasted even worse, so I made a conscious effort to keep my mouth shut. Of course, "conscious" might be a poor choice of words, but wherever I was, I found myself oddly content to sit on a rock along the side of a road without any concerns for time or responsibility. I allowed inertia to work its magic and sat for what seemed like days. That wasn't long enough, so I added another week or so. Who could tell time in this place?

Whatever pain I had experienced at the end of my life did not follow me here, and for that I was grateful. I mourned the time I had wasted in life panicking about what would become of me when I died. It seemed childish at best. I was simply here and simply was. There was no hunger or boredom, there was no desire to get up and go anywhere, there was simply nothing. Of course, I never imagined nothing would contain one of the strangest things I'd ever seen. As difficult as that might be to accomplish, given the recent events of my life, watching a mouse take off its animal skin and seeing the human girl emerge from it got my attention.

"Oh, pardon me," she said blushing. "I'm so embarrassed. I thought I was alone."

"You were wearing that?" I said, pointing to the tiny empty fur sack at her feet. "How did you fit in there?"

"You are a strange one. Do you really not know that animals have a human form?"

"All of them do? So when I'm eating a chicken, it's part human?"

"So silly, like a child. Only the original animals have human spirits. Other animals have animal spirits."

"Sorry, I'm not used to all of this," I said. There was nothing quite like being admonished by a mouse to make a man feel special.

"No. I am in the wrong here. I have not only taken off my skin in front of you, but insulted you as well. It's these new times that have caused it. In the old day, we just had to worry about cats, hawks, owls, and snakes. Our world was all about outsmarting those predators and finding a few wholesome grains to snack on. These days, we gorge ourselves on junk food, crap ourselves watching soap operas, and spend our days stupidly stumbling into poison, glue boards, snap traps, and garbage disposals. We've lost what made us mice.

But I shall not forget the old ways or my debts. I shall answer any three questions you have, provided you ask them now. I have an appointment I must attend and cannot be late. Ask your questions."

"Okay. Let's start with this place. Where are we?"

"We are on the path to the two Great Houses."

"Why are we on the path to the two Great Houses?"

"Because I have a meeting I must attend, and you are dead."

"I was afraid of that. I guess those guys meant business."

"Ask your third question. Time grows short."

"So, what happens next?"

The mouse-girl stopped for a moment to think. She ran her hand over her face, as if wiping away something from her delicate mouth. I studied her a bit as she stood there pondering. She had a slight build and a moderately protruding nose which seemed to twitch of its own accord. Her hands ended in long, bony fingers that seemed to dangle from her wrists. All in all, even in her human form, she was very much the mouse. Time passed, and I began to think the question I asked might have been too much for the poor girl. Maybe it was like asking a computer why love exists. Such a question was too broad to be able to answer, and I supposed that asking for a prediction of the future fit nicely into the same category.

I decided to revise my question and even got so far as to open my mouth just as she spoke up. "You will follow the path this way and speak with an old chief by the chasm. He will guide you to the Skeleton House. After that, I cannot say. I must go now. Farewell my new friend." Without another word, she gathered up her fur and scampered off into the fog.

Follow the path. It seemed simple enough, and who was I to argue with destiny, anyway? I stood up, looking at my feet for the first time. They were quite naked, just like my legs, arms, and chest. The only thing keeping my dignity intact was a white, mid-thigh skirt and a large feather tied around my forehead. Not exactly my style, but my wardrobe choices did seem a bit limited. I took a tentative step in the direction the mouse girl had pointed, noting how light and buoyant I felt. I decided to take a little hop and then gently floated back to the ground. Jenny Craig must not get a lot of business here. I took another hop and then another, starting to actually feel a little enjoyment, though not as much as I probably would if I weren't dead. In either case, I Neil Armstronged my way into the fog toward the Skeleton House.

Bouncing quickly became as mundane as everything else, and I found simply putting one foot in front of the other was the best way to make sure I didn't simply find another rock to sit on. The pathway was littered with other people, some talkative, some not, but all of them performing various tasks over and over again. There was a woman named Lyoma who was transforming a bundle of sticks into a small hut. She told me that each evening she tore it down and then she would move it five steps down the path before she had to start to build the hut again. An older man who would not give me his name struggled to coax fire from two sticks. He said it took him nearly all night to create fire, but that he must have it for the daytime to keep the dogs away. As a consequence, he also only advanced a few feet each day. There were those who hunted, those who moved water in jugs, and those who just seemed to wander in endless loops and circles. No matter what they were doing, they were all dressed the same as I was, wearing simple white wraps and the same single feather tied about their head. They all also had blackened chins, and I guessed I probably did as well. The lack of mirrors in this place was appalling. Although, I suppose seeing your own spirit can be a little off-putting for some. In any case, they were all progressing in the same direction, and they were all Indians. All but me, that is.

****

As it turned out, my white-man status got me a "get out of burden free" card, and I made it to the chasm before any of the others I saw on the road. Unfortunately, my status did not let me cut to the front of the line that snaked out from the chasm. Finding the chief wouldn't be too difficult. He was the one at the head of the line, or at least that was a pretty good guess. It was not like I could really make anything out from way back there, but every once in a while, I saw something dark sail out into the mist, and then the line moved forward. It was a lot like waiting on the rock. You didn't mind it, and you just stood there for a while and then shuffled forward every time there was a space in front of you. You existed, only you did so in line. If only you could bring this level of catharsis to Disney.

I'd been staring at my toes for half an eternity. The other half was spent staring at the heels of the guy in front of me. They were ordinary heels but would occasionally move forward, and I would follow suit so I could return to alternately staring at my toes and his heels. At some point, it became just my toes and when I looked up to find the missing pieces of my puzzle, there was a scrawny pile of filth and rags standing before me, or, more correctly, I was standing before him. This, I reasoned, would probably be the chief. Now, I wasn't one to judge another man by his clothes, but the rags he wore definitely didn't scream "I'm in charge". However, the giant boulder shoes he was wearing did. They were definitely chief shoes if I had ever seen any. The poor guy could barely stand up in them, and when he listed over to the side, his shoes rolled him around and then back upright like a bony weeble.

"Uh, chief?" I ventured.

He turned his wild eyes on me and swiveled on his footwear. "Well, I don't have all day. Get nekked!" He screeched in a raspy voice.

"I'm not sure what kind of tribute you're used to getting here, but nothing under my," I looked down at the white wrap that was tied around my waist, "kilt is for sale."

He looked at me with a squirrely sidelong glance. "I'm not trying to get inside your teepee, boy. You need to use your wrap as a sail, to glide over this big hole right here." I looked past him and noticed that there was, indeed, a very large hole. It was, in truth, probably more of a chasm, but I didn't argue the point. "Of course, if you're too busy you can go back or just fall. I warn you, though; it's a hell of a long way down and even longer on the trip back up."

I considered my options and finally undid the wrap. The gods of dignity giveth, and they taketh away. While I was pleased to find my genitals were covered, I was dismayed that they were covered by a diaper. I resigned myself to accepting lessons on proper kilt technique from the old coot.

"So, I just jump now?" I asked at the end of the seminar.

"Gods no, you moron. You wouldn't make it half way before you sink. Here, hold tight to your wrap." He reached out with his bony claws and seized me by the upper arm and lower leg on my left side. His grip was stronger than it had any right to be, and before long he had me in the air and spinning around in a gut-wrenching circus act. Just when I was about to lose my spiritual lunch, he let go of me and sent me sailing high into the air. I could see the follow-through of his throw as he spun around on his rocks perilously close to the edge. He even tilted almost horizontally over the lip of the chasm before his round stone shoes propelled him back to a safer position as he let loose a happy whoop. He faded into the mist as I ascended.

As for me, I was about a hundred feet above the level of my destination and nearly halfway across the chasm already. Up here, I could see for the first time. The fog was a thick, downy blanket back from where I had come and ended abruptly at the edge of the canyon. The world around me was sharp and clear. It was an unfamiliar night sky above me, filled with billions of stars that either never existed back in the world of the living or were just hidden by a man-made fog of pollution and streetlights. Despite the time of night, everything was illuminated brilliantly, and I could even make out a few trees and scrubs on the far side. My momentum slowed a bit and the wrap filled with air as I slowly began to glide. The loss in altitude was slow and surreal. The strain on the wrap-kite was nowhere near what it should have been to keep me aloft. Before this journey, I had never had occasion to question what a dead person's spirit weighed, but as I stared into a hole that might just put the Marianna trench to shame, I was pretty happy with the answer. The flight took forever, but the result was never in question.

Control, this is Tim-zero-one-niner, requesting permission to land. Making my approach on runway seven. Control, we have a situation.

I arrived on the other side of the chasm, impacting gently on the side of a tree. Well, it was my first flight. No one's perfect. I took a moment to disentangle myself from the branches and re-kilt before deciding where I should go next. As far as decisions went, this one was a snap. There was only a single well-worn path heading off away from the chasm and in the distance loomed two humongous buildings. One of these, I assumed, must be Skeleton House. I placed one foot on the path and the other in front of that one and repeated the process.

****

The houses, I decided after days of walking, were bastards. No matter how many steps I took, no matter how many dips or bends in the road, no matter how many herds of cactus I passed, the two huge shapes never got closer. They simply fell back from me with every step I took. If I didn't look back every now and then and mark my progress, I would have sworn I was just marching in place. Of course, there was no real way of telling time in this place, but counting steps to thirty two thousand only fed my boredom. But it did give me a purpose, albeit a tiny, miniscule, insignificant one. With no better ideas, I continued walking and counting to mark my passage. I reset somewhere after fifty thousand, counted to it three more times and then just gave up. I'd either get there, or I wouldn't.

As fate would have it, I got there, and upon arriving, I was speechless. They snuck up on me in a flash. The last part of my journey took me below the horizon, so I didn't see it happen, but one second the two houses were just as far away as they had been when I started, and the next, they were right in front of me. They loomed like two giant, glowing misshapen breasts. If Mother Earth had a boob job, she'd still have come in second in a wet t-shirt contest. The sheer magnitude of those structures, side by side on the plateau stopped me cold. They were funhouse mirror images of one another in construction, only one was dark and stained by soot, lit by the deep red light you would expect in the pits of hell. The other was an immaculate bone-white and wore a diffuse golden halo. Neither of the bipolar twins were even technically a single house. Instead, they were each a collection of thousands upon thousands of small houses fused together. There were shacks, townhouses, lean-tos, teepees, long houses, and trailers made of wood, stucco, skins, plastic, grass, and anything else you could possibly think of to keep the weather out. It was like looking at a huge, frantically flashing neon sign saying "Insanity Lies Within." Why any rational person would venture inside these Houses of Escher was beyond me, but it seemed sanity had already driven me out to a remote area for a picnic and left me there to fend for myself. Going in was perhaps the only choice left since returning to counting my steps and then eventually plummeting into a chasm were not on my bucket list. Now the big question was which one?

I stood dumbly at the fork in the road between the two buildings pondering my options. On the one hand, we had a pristine house-city that seemed like it would contain nothing but presents and birthday cake. On the other, we had a house-city of filth and decay that smelled faintly of compost. I know, it was a tough decision, and it could very well have been a test of my worthiness. The clean house could have easily been a snare for those who think they deserve better than they have earned. Or, it could have been as simple as it looked. In the end, I chose the clean one. It was a decision based on a number of well thought out, rational ideas, all of which were dwarfed by the one that screamed that I didn't want to spend eternity with a smudge on my nice, white kilt.

The path, which was a little less worn than the one leading to the darker house, led straight onto the porch of an old and weathered wooden structure where an equally old and weathered lady kept it firmly anchored to the ground with her massive frame. She was well-tanned with deep creases running the length of her forehead and cheeks that sagged a bit below her deep-set eyes. I raised my hand in greeting, and she stared at me with unrestrained apathy.

"If you say 'how,' I'm going to get off this chair and give you such a thumping," she said without any real passion.

I dropped my hand, not wanting to tempt fate. "Ma'am," I said as I got within earshot.

"I do not recognize a tribe in you. Come out of the dark so that I may see you properly." I didn't think it was dark at all but I complied. "You are the first in many, many visitors that is new to me. Who are your people?" she said, squinting at me.

"I'm not sure of that myself. I should have asked the mouse but didn't think of it at the time. Do you know of anyone that might be able to tell me? "

"You have spoken with Mouse? How is it that a man such as you speaks to one of the First? How is it that you are here at all?"

"To the best of my recollection, I was beaten to death."

"Not that," she sighed, shaking her head. "How did you arrive in the spirit land of the People? You are white."

"Oh, that. It's kind of a mystery to me as well. I just ended up here when I died, and Mouse told me that I had to go to Skeleton House. This is the place, right?"

"Most unusual." Her hand went to her chin and massaged it lightly. "Yes. You have found Skeleton House, but I'm not sure what good it will do you. This is a place for the People. If you are not of the People, then you can join no tribe and will be left for the dogs."

"Surely, there is a reason Mouse sent me here. I mean, I think she was doing me a favor."

"Who knows? I'm just a simple woman. There are many wise chiefs at the center of Skeleton House. Perhaps one of them would be able to tell you. Go through my kitchen and out the back door. The House is a giant circle on the outside. For every step left, take one right. Every left door you take, go through a right one. Stick to this and you will find the center. Neglect this, and you may eventually find the center but will open many more doors before arriving there."

"Wow. How many doors are there?"

"You ask questions like a lazy young man I once knew. You waste your time asking about how many, how heavy, what they are made of. All pointless. They are doors. Doors open. Open them already."

"Yes ma'am," I said, properly chastised. "Thank you."

"You are a fine boy. Very polite. Tell the chiefs Anahua says to help you." She finished speaking with a big, knowing smile and returned to gazing out into twilight landscape. I thanked her again and walked across the rickety porch door and into her house. It was decorated in early cowboy movie with a number of animal rugs, woven blankets, and hand-drawn portraits. The portraits were of a young Native American lady and her proud husband. Later, there were children but no husband and the lady seemed somehow diminished. These were possessions gathered through a lifetime, and all the things you would expect to find in anybody's house. And they said you couldn't take it with you. I could kick myself for not having my own place with a big screen TV and a PlayStation.

The parade of homes dragged me from house to house. Some of them were occupied with people polite enough to realize I was just passing through, and others were empty husks that looked as if only the worn path inward had been touched for decades. The variation in room décor was amazing, but the Native American experience was part of each and every one. They were all well-kept and blended together in my memory as I passed through them, one after another. Every once in a while, I forgot which way I had turned last and had to go back and pick up the sequence. It wasn't as easy as you might think keeping track of directions after a nine hundred and eighty three doors. Not that I was counting.

With no real warning, a rather nondescript door deposited me into an open space so wide that I couldn't see the walls of houses on the other side. The sky was lit but seemed to be constructed completely of the foundations of more houses. Each one was precariously balanced against another to form a dome several hundred feet above me. I had to say, I never thought there would be so many different kinds of house bottoms or that I would ever have the opportunity to see them. My senses had been on overload for quite some time, and I found myself to be glad just to finally get some elbow room after wading through that giant M. C. Escher jumble sale.

People were everywhere. The empty rooms and houses I passed through all had owners, and each and every one of them were either milling about aimlessly or gathering in small pods around the makeshift stalls that dotted the dirt floor of this place. There were hundreds of stalls visible, squatting on the plains like a plague of prairie dogs. People were sitting, standing, gambling with dice, and talking to one another in a hum of overlapping voices. I felt out of place, like Luke Skywalker coming in the front door of a Star Trek convention. Sure, they were all dressed just like me, but I was by far the tallest, whitest Indian in the joint.

As I stood there, contemplating my place in this universe, if I did indeed have one, two old men passed in front of me dragging a fallen totem pole behind them. There were stout leather thongs wrapped around the pole with the other ends twined tightly about the shoulders of the old timers, biting into the naked flesh around their collarbones and midsections. The massive carved log they dragged plowed up about half a foot of dirt as they hauled it around the perimeter of this cavern. The line they had already carved extended behind them several hundred paces.

I waved to them as they passed. "Hi, how's it going?" They looked at me as they steadily trod on but ignored my greetings. "Nice trough. You guys do good work." They ignored me with renewed vigor.

Moments passed as they grew smaller in the distance and a scrawny, bent old woman staggered up with an ancient wooden shovel. She trailed behind the oxen brothers by a hundred yards or so, filling in the dirt that had been displaced by the old men.

"Excuse me, ma'am?"

"Walk with me child, stopping and chatting is not an option," she said gruffly.

"What's going on here with those two men plowing up the ground and you filling it back in? Seems like if you told them to stop pulling it, you wouldn't have to work so hard."

"If only it were that simple, young man. We carry with us the burdens of our choices when we were alive. Everything follows us. The good, the bad. If the scales do not even out, then there is a debt owed. We must be grateful to be allowed to serve our penance here instead of in the Smoke House."

"What did they do?"

"They were chiefs of neighboring tribes, Farhuk and Nosh-hu, tasked with protecting their people. Over tobacco smoke one night, they bargained with your people, sold ancestral land for trinkets, guns, and spirits. They were not evil men, but they turned their back on the old ways. Now they carry their greed behind them. When they have made a trip around the market for every day they took from every member of their tribes through their actions, they will be set free."

"And are you being punished, too?"

She was quiet for some time before responding. "I suppose I am. The work is hard and fitting my actions. I am happier believing that I am part of their punishment, though."

"How's that?"

"When they look back, they will always see me following, just as I followed their actions in life. My task here is to bury their wrongs just like I buried them when I learned they had turned their backs on our fathers." She grinned widely at this, and I stopped tagging along. Perhaps it was for the best that I just let her continue to chase the men she sent here.

I passed men and women carting large stones, logs, cactuses, and even hot coals on their backs and in their arms. These, according to the old lady, were the lucky ones. I no longer wanted to know why they were here and took pains to avoid disturbing their work. One murderer and her victims was enough for me. I hovered mostly around and between the stalls and stores that dotted the landscape. It seemed safer than just wandering aimlessly across the wide expanse that was the center of Skeleton House. People would gather at these stalls to barter personal items for food and drink. My questions were met with curious glances and some tight lips, but there was no real hostility there and eventually I gathered enough information to have a good concept of how the bartering worked in this place. The items that were traded to the stalls were in turn gifted to those who still held the ways of the people back in the living world. I wasn't seeing real profit in this business plan, but then a kindly old gentleman informed me that many of the old rituals, the ones still being performed by small pockets of the devout, are what supplied the Skeleton House stalls with spirit food. Thus the cycle was completed. The living helped the dead, and vice versa. A devout living person may find a rattle or drum or tomahawk of great significance in their home, and the dead got to eat. At least that's how it used to work.

Now, there were a great number of things to be gifted, and very few people in the living world to gift them to. Food had become scarce and many skeletons went hungry. When I heard this, I looked around at the back of the stall. It was just like a hundred others I stopped at or passed, covered in discarded melons, meats, and confections. None of the food looked spoiled or rotten, but pointing this fact out only earned me laughter and a good ribbing. Apparently, I was the only one who didn't know that the dead do not actually eat the food; they eat the aromas and essence of the food. Well, duh. That's kindergarten stuff.

I thanked them for their time and walked away a little disgusted with my naivety. It wasn't my fault. I was brought up believing in Heaven and Hell, angels and demons, priests, pastors, prayer clothes, and pews. I went from belief, to agnosticism, to indifference, and I eventually ended up in a giant Lego afterlife. This was not exactly what I'd been brought up to prepare for. Hell, I wasn't even sure why they need food. I'd been there for, well, for a long time, and hadn't been hungry at all. Maybe it was like an addiction, something to tie them back to what they had lost. Maybe I was different because I wasn't even supposed to be there.

Those and many other thoughts were lost as I approached a large, ornate pavilion near the center of the marketplace. It was like a giant circus tent, constructed with animal skins and large, curved rib bones of what I could only guess were whales and elephants. Under this tent was a collection of several dozen old men dressed in kilts that were downright regal compared to the rest of ours. These were the Armani of dead People dress, still white, but with any number of buffaloes, crows, wolves, deer, bears, and beavers embroidered down their length. They each wore a montage of massive headdresses made from feathers, bones, and beads designed not only to adorn, but to funnel the smoke from their decorative pipes back into their faces. These men were proud and strong, and without a doubt, used to being in charge.

It seemed like forever ago that a large dead woman told me that I should seek out the wise chiefs in the center of the Skeleton House. I had yet to find anything that looked more promising, so I decided that these were the fine gentlemen I was looking for. I approached with deference or at least as much as I could muster without knowing what I was doing, and begged their forgiveness for my intrusion. They looked at me in silence, either angry at being disturbed or just puzzling something out. They turned back inward toward the fire pit and began to speak to each other about me.

In my defense, I had been a little distracted since I perished, but it took me until this point to realize everyone here spoke English. This was highly improbable, even more so than a giant afterlife house made of smaller houses, given that some of these men, namely mammoth man at the back, must have died out long before Columbus lit the fuse of the genocide bomb that eventually did-in the early Americans. I just added that to my list of questions that I would probably never get an answer to.

"He is not of the Bear tribe. See how thin he is. Perhaps he is one of the Elk," said the man with a grizzly bear skull draped over his head.

"He is no ancestor of mine. Look at his eyes. They are narrow like a Crow," said another.

"Your tobacco must be old to believe he is of my people. My ancestors are sharp of mind and nose. He is dull in both ways. Perhaps he is a Boar."

"Much too tall and thin to be a Boar. I think he is Stork from the south."

"Tribes from the south are much darker of skin. This man must come from the north where the sun doesn't show its face. Maybe the Wolf."

"Could be the Mammoth," said the Mammoth man. He looked happy just to be part of the conversation.

"You think everyone is a Mammoth. This man is not Mammoth. He might be a Badger."

"He is none of those, my wise chiefs," said a man with a voice that was both calm and deep. The speaker was perhaps middle aged and looked well-fed. He had deep-set lines in his round face and two long braids snaking down over his chest and stomach. "Do you not recognize a white man when you see one? He is long of leg, hairy, and pale like the winter sky. I have seen enough of them to be sure of this. The more important question is what a white man is doing in Skeleton House? And what does this mean for our people in the living world?"

"Tell us, Iyotake. Who is this stranger to the People?"

He shrugged with practiced ease. "I can only guess. Many of my fathers told of the coming of the white man and how it would signal the end of our way of life."

"I know," I barked, cutting in with more anger than I intended to. "The Daddy-Long-Legs-Man, the White-Spider-Man. I've heard those names way too often in the last couple of days."

The murmurs amongst the chiefs seemed to devour this information before Iyotake could silence them with his next word "Yes." He waited a moment before continuing. "As a white man who can follow the People's spirit, you may be here to signal the end of Skeleton House." There was another murmur-uproar before perhaps the oldest looking man I had ever seen spoke up.

"I think that perhaps the Creator has another purpose for you, bringer of change. In time, this house will end when the world is lost. You will not fulfill your destiny staying here. You must find your way to the Upper World where the Creator lives. He will know your purpose. Seek out your path."

"The Upper World. Is that like, Heaven? I'm not sure how welcome I'd be there. I mean, they had their chance to claim me when I died, and you see where I ended up. Are there any other suggestions?"

"White man," Iyotake spoke again, but with some compassion and true sadness in his voice, "you are dead, but you do not belong here. There is no tribe for you, no ancestors to give you shelter. When the day comes here, you will be a pile of bones that the dogs will gnaw on and scatter across the land. You will spend each night trying to pull yourself together and each day being drawn apart. This is no good way to spend eternity."

"I think we agree on that," I said with a little more humility. "Okay, fine. Where do I find the Upper World?"

"Up," shouted a really old man with and air exasperation.

"Okay. How do I get 'up'?"

The one named Iyotake stood up and walked over to me. He put his hand on my shoulder. "None in this house have been to the Upper World. You must go to the Smoke House and find Bear. He has been there in the early days. He would know the way." With this, the others dismissed me.

"He can stay with my tribe," Mammoth man said wistfully. I liked my chances better in the Smoke House.

"It's that big, dirty place next to this one, right? Okay. How long do I have to get there? I mean, before day comes?"

"Time is a tricky thing here. Just go, and do not be lazy."

## Chapter Four

Nine hundred eighty- three doors later, I emerged from Skeleton House and out into the night. I hadn't realized just how dark it really was out there until that moment. I walked another sixteen thousand steps to stand before the entrance to the Smoke House. With each of those steps, and despite the return of my night vision, a feeling of doom and depression grew on me like a fungus. I felt weak and heavy as I stood in front of a singular door set flush with the wall in front of me. Images of cattle walking blindly into the slaughterhouse welled up inside my mind as I stood there. The door was nondescript, but I got the feeling that it would never be caught dead cozying up to a welcome mat. There was no friendly banter or welcome like I got from Anahua a lifetime ago. In fact, there was nothing but dread on this doorstep. That and the large door made of some dark-grey stone and no purpose other than to issue me into the bowels of hell. I had to remind myself that I wasn't in the land of Heaven and Hell and screwed up my courage. There was no visible handle that I could see, but I knew all it should take was a little push to open inward. Now all I had to do was force myself to place my hand on its surface and give a shove.

I'm not sure I ever actually touched it, but the door opened wide nonetheless. It did so with an ominous horror-movie creak of long-neglected hinges. That part was almost comical compared to the feeling of damnation that settled on me as I moved forward into the gloomy interior. I stepped lightly into the room, trying not to make a sound and was poised to spring backward and away at the slightest sign of danger. The foyer was little more than the size of a bathroom, and the floors and walls were lit by a strange, sourceless, red glow. There were several hanging pictures of people committing acts of violence against each other and themselves lining both sides of the entryway. I stared at these in distaste and then turned back to the door, thinking it might be better to take my chances with the dogs. Of course, the door had shut without so much as a whisper, and there was nary a handhold on this side with which to wrench it open again. I appeared to be stuck.

As I embarked on my very own Scooby Doo mystery, I cautiously explored the rest of this first house, going from one disturbing room to another. Each of them was similarly lit and decorated with sadistic pictures and the occasional spot of dried blood. The only exception was the master bedroom, which was tastefully decorated with a young man who possessed two squinty eyes, a mass of dark hair, and a pack of very large crows. He sat on the bed dejectedly as the birds took turns pecking at him and ripping great mouthfuls of flesh from the already well-established feeding holes.

"Hey," he said in a dry and casual voice.

"Hey," I replied warily.

"So, you're new here?"

"Yeah. You being eaten by crows?"

"Ravens, actually. They're my thing."

"Your thing, huh? Are you okay with it? Do you want me to shoo them away?"

"Nah. I'm used to them now. Some guys have it a lot worse, so I won't complain."

"How'd you get your...thing?"

"You know. Stole some stuff, desecrated some holy items. I didn't know they were holy at the time, just thought it would be fun to have the old guys smoking my pee during the big pow-wow. I was right. It was fun. So now I got these birds. What's your thing?"

"Haven't found one yet."

"That's good. You still have the excitement of finding out. Cherish it. Nothing but boredom after that. You know, there should be some kind of warning put on those holy pipes. 'Do not pee under penalty of birds.'" One of the ravens dove in and plucked out a squinty eyeball. It hung limply across his cheek before another peck severed the nerve bundle, sending it bouncing twice before it settled on rolling across the room. The flock of ravens abandoned its excavations and chased the eyeball excitedly across the floor.

The man with one squinty eye rolled it toward me and said in a matter of fact voice, "Don't worry, it'll be back tomorrow."

"Wow. It's been great talking to you."

"Yeah, same here."

I left the bedroom and looked for an empty corner to hurl in. I was only able to muster a dry heave, seeing how there was no food aroma in my stomach, and eventually gave up trying. Before long, the sound of ravens returning to their wet lunch found my ears, and I frantically hunted for the back door. I still felt the compulsion to be sick somewhere, but my stomach sent a "what's the point" signal to my brain, bitch-slapping the urge into submission. The gore was disturbing, don't get me wrong, but the impending apathy was ten times more frightening than the fact he was being devoured by birds. A person who was numb to that kind of torture was on a level of madness I wanted no part of.

The back door was marked conveniently with images of fat babies braining each other with rattles and sharpened teddy bears. How quaint. I began my journey through the dwellings with the same plan I had used in Skeleton House, one door to the left, one door to the right. Only this time, I hesitated to open some of the doors. I wanted to do the right thing and follow the path, but the animalistic sounds and screams coming from inside a number of these doors caused me to backtrack and try to find another path to the center. Let's face it, I was an idiot.

Each place I entered was a new nightmare, and I spent a lot more time stumbling into scenes I would have avoided if I had only manned up in the first place. The quiet ones almost always hid the worst this madhouse had to offer. I stumbled into rooms where old ladies were sighing in relief to have their flesh seared off because it removed the incessantly biting ants and flies. A young man who was barely an adult was getting scalped from forehead to stern in an agonizingly slow peel. One room held a fat woman who kept chasing berries and meatballs across the floor, but when she caught them and put them in her mouth, they turned to scorpions and stung her tongue and throat. Another held an old man being trampled repeatedly by his buffalo tormentor. And yet another looked an awful lot like a cactus car wash with huge columns of green, spiky turnstiles. The torments were as endless in number as they were in variety. I decided not to talk to any of these pitiful creatures as I passed through. There was little doubt that they would beg me to help or, worse still, tell me how they had grown to accept their fate. Too much of that, and I would probably have attempted to retch again.

I'd been holding my breath for as much of the journey as I could, but the stench of death and decay oozed in no matter how hard I clamped my hand over my mouth and nose. I would have killed for some fresh air or one of those pine-scented trees you hang from a rear-view mirror. I would have even settled for my senses to find a hole to hide in for the rest of my unnatural afterlife. The dysentery of my mind blurred and pureed everything into one giant, hellish blob of disgust that I tucked away deep inside to be regurgitated and then be sickened by at a later date. For now I could only focus on the hope that this place was enough of a doppelganger to the Skeleton House that the center would give me some relief. That was where all the important people would be anyway.

****

The namesake of this place began to prick at my lungs with urgency as I forced my way inward. At first, I barely noticed the smell or the choking ash that billowed out from somewhere up ahead. It hardly touched the outer homes and certainly wasn't any stronger than the other smells. But as I made my way ever inward, I found myself bending over more and more to get my head out of the grey fog. It got to the point that I had to wrap my kilt over my mouth just so I could breathe. This was how I introduced myself to the open space in the center of the Smoke House. Luckily, dignity was not the currency here, but then again nothing seemed to be. As orderly and tranquil a place as Skeleton House was, even with the burdened ones walking around, the Smoke House bazaar was a hell-hole. Chaos reigned supreme and whatever high and mighty ideas of right and wrong that wandered in here were soon washed away in a tsunami of discord.

Each person in this palatial courtyard, and there were far more of them here than in Skeleton House, carried their "thing" with them, and whenever two people got within ten feet of each other, the "things" began to incorporate the newcomer into the torment. One second a soul was being hamstrung by wild dogs, and another, someone else's rattlesnakes were biting it in the face. As soon as these poor devils realized they had violated another "thing's" space, they reared back, trying to get out of the sphere of influence, only to infringe on the space of three or four others. The mishmash of torments was like a bunch of nine legged cats going at it with chainsaws and blowtorches.

Avoiding these little tornadoes of chaos was tougher than it looked. I felt like an X-man in the danger room as I skirted around, between, and carefully through the maelstroms of punishment, avoiding most of the hazards. That doesn't mean that I didn't get gnawed on by a rabid possum or two, but coming through the shit-storm that was the central plain with only a few teeth marks, half a dozen bees stings and a hickey, wherever that came from, was something to be proud of. Every now and then, I'd come out of a particularly nasty squeeze to some open space and reorient myself to the pillar of smoke billowing out of the center of the house. Inch by inch, I worked my way there, to that place where something large and dark awaited me. The view offered by my destination couldn't have been further from the large and beautiful tent that adorned the center of Skeleton House. In fact, it was a hole.

Perhaps I was being a little judgmental with that "it was a hole" statement. If the truth be told, this was probably one of the biggest single holes I've ever had the opportunity to set my smoke-reddened eyes on. Imagine if the World Trade Center towers hadn't collapsed but instead succumbed to a sinkhole that swallowed them completely. That sinkhole would fit nicely into a small, dark patch of the hole at the center of the Smoke House. I stood at the edge of oblivion and simply looking into the deep, black absence made my skin crawl. There was nothing to hint that there was a bottom other than the fact that smoke constantly billowed out from the depths. I tried to imagine the fire that must be raging far below, and images of fallen angels and lost souls crept back into my skull. This was definitely not on the preferred vacation destination list. As I stared dumbly into the black, something caught my eye about twenty feet down and to my right. The ghostly outline of a ledge came in and out of view with the clouds of smoke. I skirted around the edge to get a better look and saw an odd and unexpected arrangement of hammocks and woven deck furniture perched precariously upon the rock. Lounging on the furniture were two very large, very furry animals.

****

Think about animals in hammocks. Do you feel threatened by them? Do the patches of brown fur poking through the netting trigger some inner fight or flight instinct? No. I wouldn't have thought it would either until I actually saw them. The stares of hatred that burrowed through me and out the other side that I got from these two made me wish I was back in one of the rooms getting flogged with pineapples. I was drawn to the fathomless depths of their pupils and found myself taking an involuntary step toward the edge of the world.

"Careful, cub," the bear said. "You don't want to fall in, now. At least, not until we've had a chance to chat." It seemed to drink me in and then wrinkled its nose like it got a snoot-full of cheap whiskey. In any normal scenario, a bear that was probably fifteen feet from tail to snout would get all the attention, and indeed, the large, black claws that protruded from feet wider than my torso did present a gut-clenching, pants-wetting type of fear. But the oddity of the enormous creature beside it stole the show. It was easily twice as big as the bear with a wide tail capable of flattening houses, webbed feet ending in claws, and a slick, oiled pelt that any naturalist would tell you is perfect for surviving in aquatic climates. Then you throw in the giant buffalo head and things got a little confused. Only they didn't. Not really. I knew exactly what this thing was. It was the horny beaver, Unktehi.

"Can it be, sister?" boomed the voice of Bear. "Has Grandmother has sent us a playmate? Did she send you, white man, to taunt us in our prison?" Unktehi snorted and butted her head into the side of the chasm. I could feel the vibrations all the way to my shoulders and staggered back a step to make sure I didn't pitch over the side. "Oh, don't be like that. Let us see what our visitor wants. Maybe he wants to come down and share a story. Do you want to come down, white man?"

"Umm," my voice sounded squeaky in comparison, and I had to clear my throat a bit before answering further. "Umm, not really."

"Pity. It has been so very long since we've had a third. Our choices of entertainment are quite limited here with just the two of us. So, if you have not come to join us, why do you seek us out in our purgatory?"

"Honestly, it was only after I got here that I decided to find you. Some of her boys," I jabbed a thumb in the direction of the beaver thing, "had a hand in bringing me here." Unktehi seemed to smile with her big, bison lips. "Once I got here, well, it became pretty clear I didn't belong. So, I need to get to the 'Upper World'. I'm told that's where I can find the Creator. I guess He can figure out what to do with me."

Bear laughed so hard that she rolled out of her hammock and landed face first on the ground. She continued for a few more moments before she recovered enough to right herself and formulate a response. Unktehi just watched Bear the entire time with a silly grin, as if she didn't get the joke, but wanted to be in on it all the same. I wasn't sure what was so funny. It seemed like a logical request. After Bear regained her composure, she spoke in a serious tone. "Everyone is always trying to get to the Upper World. Luckily most of them are too average to make it. But every so often, there comes along someone who just might succeed. This is normally a bad thing because the Creator lives there and he needs to be untouchable. It simply would not do to be on equal status with the likes of us. In order to maintain his exclusivity, he will establish a new Upper World that is well above the last. And the Creator cannot watch over two lower worlds, so the one that exists now will need to be destroyed. You see, that's the problem. The one who chases the Creator ultimately becomes the destroyer. Beautiful, isn't it?"

My head pounded with Bear's voice. It was like someone whacking my eardrums with a two by four. I took a moment to let the feeling settle before asking, "So, then what am I supposed to do?"

"Why, that is simple, White-Bone-Spider-Man. You are supposed to destroy the world."

"There has got to be a different way. I don't want to destroy the world."

"I wouldn't mind too much. It would get me out of here. Ah, to see the sun rise over a new, virgin forest. It's been a long time." I turned, dejected, with the intention of leaving those two to their hole. Perhaps there was a nice "thing" out there I could get attached to for the next billion years or so.

"Wait, white man." This voice was deeper than Bear's and resonated into my guts. I turned around and peered back over the edge of the pit. Unktehi was looking up at me. "Once, the Spider took my son from me. Those who took your life in the world did so on his request. It seems he was not so very proud to have coup counted on him by that eight-legged bitch. In fact, she counted coup on both of us, and I have been on this ledge filling my chest with smoke ever since. But she did save my child's life and freed him of her webs when she knew it would mean war between her children and mine. For that, I will return the kindness. I will tell you how you might shed your mantle of destruction."

"How?" Both Bear and I asked the question at the same time.

"Leap into the pit. None who have fallen ever return. If you cannot return, then you cannot destroy the world."

A slow, rumble started deep inside of Bear, and it built into a rolling thunderous laughter. Bear yelled, "Yes! Yes! Oh, white man, it would be worth another thousand years on this ledge to watch you try to fly. I would dream it every night. The Spider's chosen one soaring through the air like Eagle's turd. Oh, no, don't leave little white man. Come back." The yelling and pleading continued as I stalked away from the pit in a huff. The laughter followed me like a bad smell and settled over me in a cloud as I stopped and let it fester. It was bad enough that I was alone in this world and destined to destroy the other, but to be mocked along the way was too much. Full of anger and desperation, I turned and sprinted as fast as I could, leaping at the darkness from the last foot of available earth. I soared over nothing, a meteorite from the heavens and plunged into the smoky abyss. The last thing I saw before the darkness became my universe was Bear holding up a plank of wood with the number ten scratched on it. Then, there was nothing.

## Chapter Five

En-sey-wen-sey was proud that day, astride the moon's soft light;

He built a web above her bed, her nightmares were his fight.

This was the girl in all the world, who stole his one true heart;

Upon his word come beast or bird, En-sey-wen-sey did his part.

The girl, you see, was cursed times three, and suffered through the night;

Her mind was ill from demons' will, she was dying from its bite.

Her one true love sat up above, to catch her dreams so vile;

He caught each curse from first to worst, and trapped them with his guile.

The words of some strange song echoed through my skull as I lay still somewhere. I gave my eyes an experimental opening and, since they responded, opened them further. Nothingness contained a great deal more than I thought it would. The sky above me was dark and dotted with luminous orbs. They glistened along the length of nearly transparent gossamer like early morning dew drops. The light of the moon directly overhead gave them a life of their own that they would undoubtedly cherish until daybreak. The more I stared at it, the more it seemed like each of the threads stretched out to the moon itself, anchoring it in place so it didn't fly off into the galactic blackness. I squinted hard at the dew drops, scrutinizing them as too large and too bright to be mere water. As I looked, I became more certain that those glistening orbs were the stars in the night sky, pinned in place like beads on string.

En-sey-wen-sey, he had to pay, for setting things to right;

For his love to free, these horrors three, must be bested in a fight.

The first in line, a porcupine, its quills bristled around;

Our hero's blood dripped in the mud, he'd knocked it upside down.

The next that came, it was a flame, a molten foe so high;

It singed the hair til scalp was bare, En-sey-wen-sey would not die.

It turned his hands to glowing brands, as he reached forth with his hat;

Into the crown, he stuffed it down, and then he stomped it flat.

Alas bereft, there was one left, for the savior to undo;

He bled and burned, for death he yearned, but he'd only beaten two.

He charged ahead his fury red, he gave a mighty shout;

En-sey-wen-sey, he saved the day, he climbed that water spout.

A soft and gentle laughter punctuated the end of the song, and I sat up swiftly and immediately regretted it. I was dizzy and disoriented, and it felt like the wind-up springs in my head had given out hours ago. Everything was confused and muddled. The cosmic threads surrounded me, reaching toward the ground and grasping it somewhere in the nearby darkness. Only the center of this structure was lit in the soft glow of the moon, and in that light, I could just make out a horizontal lattice that turned those threads into a net or a web.

The face of a cherub edged its way out of the darkness in front of me, and I knew I'd finally found an afterlife that I could be at home in. Her face was round, without any harsh lines or angles, and her skin seemed flawlessly smooth and white as alabaster. The long, curly hair that dangled from her head seemed to reach out from the darkness itself in midnight tendrils, waving slowly in some otherworldly breeze that was too delicate for me to feel. The desire to see more was temporarily stifled as I watched her head rotate gently until she was fully upside down, the tips of her long hair dangling a full three feet off the ground.

Her voice came out thick and sweet, like corn syrup, and she had my undying worship from the first word. "My love, you have come to see me in my house. To what do I owe the honor of your company?" She edged out a little further, showing a glimpse of a slender neck as she rotated her inverted head a little to the left.

"Um. I. well, I," I stammered. "I'm not sure."

"Of course, my love. This must be strange for you, never having heard the Words before. Many things will be new to you, and I am sorry you must hear them here first." She edged out a little further, exposing the hollow where her throat met her bare shoulders. Well-manicured hands advanced from the shadows on slender arms and came together in an upside-down bow.

"No, no need to apologize. I'm not sure why I'm here, but I'm not sorry that I am. The last thing I remember was leaping into the chasm in the middle of Smoke House. How did I get here, and if it's not too rude to ask, who are you?"

"Not at all. I am called Grandmother," she began as she rose higher into the air, exposing a pair of very shapely breasts to the light. Her hand brushed across them and they receded back into the darkness teasing my imagination with their destination. She didn't look old enough to be a grandmother, and besides the whole floating upside down thing, she was actually quite a babe. "Your journey here was much earlier than I had hoped for, and I'm afraid, more difficult. You were not meant for the Smoke House or the Skeleton House, and their limits could not hold you. Not for long."

"So, you are the Grandmother I have heard so much about. I'm sure you already know, but my name is Tim. Nice to meet you finally."

"Tim you once were. I know you as Hu-Hanska-Ska, the White-Spider-Man, the Daddy-Long-Legs-Man. Tim was a hero to my children, and thus I have chosen to pull you to my bosom. From my womb you have sprung anew, my child. My Hu-Hanska-Ska." With this last word, she lowered toward the ground in one smooth movement. I watched the darkness swallow her, taking away my world, my reality. I wanted to follow, but an impossible weariness overcame me. I was returning to the soft earth, and as my back and shoulders touched the ground, I became enraptured with the ever brightening face of the moon. I could only keep my eyes from closing for a few moments, fighting the urge to sleep with a sudden burst of fear and panic, but there was nothing for it. I had to let my lids fall, and once I did, I returned to the embrace of darkness.

****

Light blossomed across my vision in a burst of fractured pain, and with it, my universe was compressed to a single pebble on a field of asphalt. A neighboring universe, much larger and shaped like a dumpster with penis graffiti drifted by on a solar wind. I felt the heat from a nearby supernova and gagged on the foul stench of burning garbage and tires. Another obnoxious constellation expended its cosmic energy, sending out wave after wave of ear-splitting noise as it closed in on my position. I rotated one eye upward and watched as a small platoon of men dressed in yellow ran through a cloud of filthy black smoke. The cosmonauts were here, and they brought fire extinguishers.

I reoriented myself to being in an alleyway, within a city, and lying next to a burning garbage truck. The iconic boobs of the Painted Lady blistered and peeled away under the scrutiny of the flames. Like her, I was marked and scarred by a life turned upside down, and neither of us was likely to be able to return to our places in this universe. The evidence was all there, but it was all wrong. To the rational eye, I had somehow survived an explosion that was powerful enough to flip my twenty-ton truck like a pancake. But that same "explosion" had left all the windows in the alleyway intact. I was still breathing and thinking although this should have been, and to the best of my recollection was, all too recently my grave.

The time issue made very little sense as well. I was standing here only minutes after the accident and yet could have sworn I had spent days in the land of the dead, just on the path to the Great Houses. I mean, it had to take at least a day and a half just to count to one hundred and fifty thousand. Travelling through all of those doors and talking to all of those people was simply impossible in the five to ten minutes I'd been on the ground. The implications of this were unhappy ones. Either my insanity had redoubled its efforts to make my life miserable, or I had to have a whole new respect for what an eternity really was.

I tilted my head toward the sky, noting that the sun had already crested and rolled behind the three story building to my left. Not that it mattered all that much. There was plenty of light thanks to the rolling flames that escaped from every crevice of my overturned garbage truck. I supposed this meant I wouldn't be getting a raise anytime soon.

I was lifted up onto a gurney and rolled back to the waiting doors of an ambulance with little caution given to my injuries. I wanted to scream at them for being so careless, but there was no pain and honestly no point in wasting all of that effort. I was still fairly punch-drunk on all that had happened and would have screwed up anything I tried to say anyway. Would they believe me if I told them I had been stabbed to death and then had come back to lie groggily in their sick-wagon? They wouldn't buy into any of that rubbish, and frankly I'm not sure I did either. There was a mirror affixed to the wall at the rear of the ambulance, and I looked at my face appraisingly. There were dark smudges and some lingering flakes of ash stuck to the sweat on my neck and forehead. I expected to see great dents and gouges across my nose and cheekbones, but these seemed undamaged. I took a moment to examine my wrists and chest for any signs of the horrors those two thugs had inflicted on me, taking careful pains to avoid straining my broken ribs. That proved pointless, though, as my bones were quite intact, and all I could find where they had stabbed me were some tiny white lines from long-healed scars. My encounter with the mafia, with Grandmother - hell, even with death itself must have been yet another hallucination. Great. That meant that I had somehow managed to flip my truck over and set it on fire, all while pretending that I was being attacked by the two creepy pets of a man who worshipped a horny beaver. I should have been happy, no, freaking thrilled to not only be alive but also free of disfigurement, but strangely I was not. Not yet anyway. At that moment, I was just tired, tired beyond all reason. I promised myself that I'd l take a moment to do an Irish jig in celebration of my continued existence tomorrow. Right then, all I wanted to do was meet up with my pitiful excuse for a mattress and have mad passionate sleep with it.

For several rather obvious reasons, I decided to catch a cab home after the paramedics were done with me. The police were kind enough to call one for me after forty five minutes of questions, and I was actually glad when the big, orange-yellow sedan pulled up to the curb. I poured myself in to the backseat, mumbling my address as I slumped over. I was still enjoying my horizontality when something about the cabbie's voice grabbed my attention.

"Hello, Daddy-Long-Legs-Man. It seems you've had some ill luck lately."

It was her. Somehow that little girl, the one who was most recently a hood ornament on my truck, was behind the wheel. "Who the fuck are you?" I groaned, just wanting the strange to go away.

"I'm your friendly cab driver. Where would you like to go?"

"Don't start that shit," I said as I finally poked my head up far enough to see the familiar red and black hat. "You called me Daddy-Long-Legs-Man. The only other real person who called me that had me killed. At least, I think he did. Was that real? Is anything real?"

"So many questions," she said. I could see her face in the rear-view mirror, and it was wearing an exaggerated pout on its lips. She seemed to reconsider her taunting and gave a little sigh. "I guess it's not fair to blame you. If you promise to be calm, I will answer your questions until we get back to your apartment."

"Thank you," I sighed. "First question. Who are you?"

"I am called Girl-Without-Parents, but I go by Myrtle now."

"Myrtle? I think I'd have stuck with Girl-Without-Parents if I were you."

"Well, it's still better than Daddy-Long-Legs-Man. At least Myrtle isn't a dirty word in most tribes."

"About that. If everything I've heard is right, I'm like some sort of human super-nova, or maybe just a plague of biblical proportions. I don't know. What am I?"

"There are stories from the People about the coming of the white man to this world. When the white man came, it meant the loss of the land the People always lived on, it meant death, it meant the end of things as they had been. Grandmother Spider oversees this world and you, well, you're her wild card. Have you met Grandmother yet?"

"Maybe. I was in a dark place with a bunch of lines running from the ground to the sky."

"Really?" she said with a hint of genuine surprise. "How did you get there?"

"Well, apparently I died and went to Indian heaven. Then that wasn't good enough, and I went to Indian Hell. Even that sucked, so I flung myself into a burning pit with a bear and buffalo-beaver cheering me on." I stopped and checked my skin under a flap of what once could have been defined as a shirt. Now, it was more like a tissue that someone had blown through with a massive sneeze. The little white lines were still all that remained of my brush with the great beyond. "Next thing I know, I'm in that place and this woman is talking to me, calling me her love, her child."

"That was Grandmother Spider. You may not believe this. No, you won't believe this, but she is responsible for tending the threads of destiny." She paused for my reaction, but I had nothing left in the tank, even for surprise. Myrtle seemed a little disappointed but continued anyway, "The last time she brought a Long-White-Bone-Man, a White-Spider-Man, into existence was when she severed the thread of the People, and their world collapsed."

"She killed the People? She seemed so, loving."

"It is not her desires that drives destiny. She merely tends the threads. If the threads call for the end of something, then she snips it without malice or emotion." The cab pulled up to the curb in front of my apartment and came to a stop.

"So, her naming me the new White-Spider-Man means that there is another end of a thread coming?"

"Unless we can convince her to overlook that thread. That'll be thirty-eight dollars."

"You're charging me?"

"Hey, Girl-Without-Parents needs to eat, too. Don't make me call the cops." I pulled out two twenties and handed them over to her. "Wow. I love a big tipper."

"I have more questions I need answers to."

"Do you have any more money?"

"About three bucks."

"Sorry, not worth my time. I'll see you around though. Now vamoose." I began to protest but found myself arguing with the outside of the taxi as it pulled away and disappeared around the corner. There were mysteries, and there were mysteries. Immaculate ejection from a cab ranked fairly low on my WTF scale, so I filed it away for later.

****

My head was pounding like two rambunctious sumo wrestlers were playing tag with jackhammers inside my skull. Entering my apartment was a force of will only eclipsed by the effort it took to acknowledge the eight-hundred eyes looking to me expectantly. "Guys," I said weakly, "What's up?"

The carpet of spiders that ran from one end of my kitchen to the other bobbed up and down in unison. I counted over a hundred of the little guys, but I also counted two tables, six chairs, and two and a half microwaves. I plunged my hands down into my pockets and let out a sigh. I was not equipped to handle all of this. All I had ever been good at doing was collecting garbage and driving the truck although admittedly leaving it parked upside down and on fire might not quite qualify as "driving" by the classical definition. My hand closed over a solid, plastic case in my left pocket, and I pulled out the Read My Baby Can DVD. I hoped that the words were in a different order, or I might have accidentally picked up some kiddie porn from the grab bag. I made my way to the disc player by the TV and tried to get the silver plate to sit in the tray properly. It was a very naughty disc. Only on the fifth attempt, after dropping it twice, putting it in upside down once, and just plain missing the entire entertainment center a couple of times, did I finally net the successful result. It retracted into the player with a satisfactory hum of gears, and the little engine whirred to life as it digested the disc. Words flashed across the TV screen, and a pleasant female voice read them aloud, singing me a dictionary lullaby as I staggered back into the bedroom.

****

Ah, but there would be no rest for the White-Spider-Man. The cruel work ethic of my subconscious dropped me from an exhausted collapse directly into another vivid dream. The vision came to me, like the two before it and God knows how many more to follow, as a remembrance from a world I was never meant to know. At least this time I recognized one of the men who were walking along a worn path through the sparse, golden grass that dotted the plain. The gangly legs and misshapen body made it easy to identify Iktomi as he bounced with each step. He wore a broad smile on his face, and he walked with a casual ease. Beside him walked another man who was a head shorter but was well-proportioned with a lean body and a pointed face. His hair was not bound in a braid like so many others had been in my dream worlds. Instead he let his dark mane stick out in a shaggy crown. The winter cold had ebbed during the day, and both men were carrying their blankets loosely draped over their shoulders. Iktomi's blanket was of a fine weave of muted, earthen colors, but his companion's was of even thicker material and as colorful as a box of crayons. I couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but the conversation was casual and friendly as they approached a rock in the middle of the path. It was a rather non-descript rock planted in the earth and was maybe four feet to the top of it and a little less wide. The two friends stared at it, considering something before the stranger took off his blanket and draped it over the stone.

Someone must have turned on the volume because suddenly I could hear them talking. Iktomi said clearly, "Brother Coyote, do you mean to simply give your blanket to Iya?"

Coyote replied with a wave of his hand, "Of course, our friend Iya must get cold out here. It is only fitting that I share my good fortune."

"That is very generous of you. Will you not get cold later?"

"I am known for my generosity. I am always giving things away to those that deserve them."

"And why have you never given anything to me?"

"Because you, Brother Iktomi, are a cheat and a thief."

"I would be offended, Brother Coyote, if it came from any less of a cheat and a thief. But since it is you, I will take it as a compliment."

They laughed at this and continued their walk together, going several miles before the sun set and they were forced to make camp. A cave served as a welcome shelter to settle into for the night, and they made a small fire in the center out of some hastily gathered sticks. It was clear that this was a particularly cold night, and the fire was much too small to hold back the chill. Iktomi pulled his blanket close around him and began to fall asleep. Coyote, however, was miserable.

"Brother Iktomi," he said "I am freezing. Give me your blanket so I might get warm."

"If I give you my blanket, then I will be cold. Perhaps you should have thought of this before you were so generous with yours."

"You are right. Iya does not need my blanket. He is used to the cold and has gotten by just fine since the world was new. Go and tell Iya that I need my blanket back."

"It is not right to give and then take back. I will not ask for it."

"Fine, then I will." And with that, Coyote headed out into the darkness. Through some trick of mental cinematography, he was beside the rock with the colorful blanket instantly. "Brother Rock," he began "I gave you my blanket earlier out of friendship, but now I am freezing, and you are much better suited to handle the cold than I am. Give me back my blanket so that I will not die tonight."

The rock responded, "What is given is given."

Luckily, I understood the magic of dreams and didn't really give a talking rock another thought. Coyote, however, took the talking rock very seriously and became furious at what it said. He snatched the blanket off the rock and wrapped it around his shoulders defiantly. "You do not need this, and it is a very fine, warm blanket. I should never have given it to you in the first place."

"What is given is given," said the rock.

"I disagree," Coyote said over his shoulder as he returned to the cave. Iktomi was asleep and paid no attention to his friend as he found a comfortable spot near the fire to nest for the night. It was, however, no more than a few minutes before Iktomi awakened.

"Brother Coyote, do you not hear that thunder?"

"I did not until you mentioned it, but now I do, and it seems to be getting louder," Coyote responded. Iktomi put his ear to the ground to feel the rumblings. He also heard the words through the vibrations "What is given is given."

"You fool! Iya refused to return your blanket and you stole it. Is that not so? And now he has returned to claim what is his." Iktomi stood up and lumbered awkwardly out of the cave carrying his blanket with him. Coyote followed and managed to dive to the side just before a familiar, rolling rock smashed into the cave's entrance. The two friends ran into the grasslands but were soon dogged by the sound of the rock continuing its pursuit.

"Brother," Iktomi yelled, "this is your mess, and I am an innocent. Good luck." And with that, he turned himself into a spider and crawled into a hole to hide. Alone, Coyote turned himself into a mangy looking beast to move faster and began to take long, bounding leaps to stay ahead of the danger. After three bounces, he tripped on the trailing edge of the colorful blanket that he had grasped in his teeth. Before he could stand again, the boulder rolled over him, flattening Coyote and taking the blanket with it. The words "What has been given is given" trailed off into the night. The vibrations became more distant and then disappeared completely. Iktomi emerged from his hole and transformed back into the awkwardly shaped man of the previous dreams. He looked around for a moment, and then his eyes settled on an unexpected prize.

The light from the little fire in the cave spilled out into the night. Inside, nestled deep in his blanket with a warm, contented smile on his lips lay Iktomi. There was an extraordinary sense of happiness and well-being surrounding him, which was odd given the departure of his dearest friend. Although, in truth, Coyote was not truly gone. He was there in the cave and just as generous and giving as he had claimed. For what more could a man ask of his brother than that he give of himself, specifically his pelt, so that another may have a comfortable bed to sleep upon?

## Chapter Six

Mornings, as a rule, are without merit. Sure, they harken in a new day, signal a new beginning, and bring with them the promise of something more than what was there just one night ago, but those phrases are used by optimistic people to sugarcoat the spoonful of reality they are being forced to swallow. Mornings are something altogether more sinister, like a predator waiting for a hapless little bunny to wander by before pouncing on it with fur-rending malice. This was especially true when said morning predator calls in advance.

The sound of the ringing telephone brought me up from the depths of sleep, but I was still a bit too blurry-headed to get to it before the answering machine did.

"Tim," it blared, "what the hell happened to my truck yesterday? Did you let Marty drive again? The insurance company will be up my ass on this one. Are you there screening this?" I kind of zoned out somewhere in the middle of this diatribe. I mean, I'd been chewed out before, and they all ended up pretty much the same. "You're such a wanker, yadda, yadda. You're in big trouble, yadda, yadda. I hope you're not attached to your knee caps, etc..." The only truly original chewing out I could remember was a gift from old Mrs. Wilson. She was blind and coming out of the grocery store as I was running toward it to ride the plastic Mystery Mobile. I had a handful of quarters and a Scooby Doo mystery to solve. Mrs. Wilson had a cane and a bad hip. The collision was epic. After helping her back up and replacing her groceries, she proceeded to read me the riot act and cane me repeatedly for my carelessness. At least she thought it was me. No Ronald McDonald ride suffered greater humiliation than the one outside the Tiger Food store did that day. "...so you know I'm going to have to suspend you until you pass a drug test and a psych exam and whatever else they want you to take. It'll be a while before we can get another truck, so you might want to get a part-time gig somewhere to pay the bills in the meantime. Sorry man."

"Great," I mumbled. It would soon be just me, my cardboard box and my one hundred closest friends before too long. "I'll need to brush up on my dumpster diving technique." As I moved to erase the message, I noticed there were two more on there from earlier. Morning was a persistent tormentor. I pushed the play button and was greeted by Marty's familiar, scratchy voice.

"Dude, I'm sorry I didn't show yesterday, man. Something came up. You okay? I got a call from Gus saying that the truck is trashed, but he'll let me ride with someone else until we get it fixed. Gimme a call later, man. Beep." I deleted it. Loyalty was a wonderful thing. Maybe if Marty was there, it would have deterred my attackers. Maybe they would have thought better about the whole thing, and the truck would be whole, I'd still be employed, and life would still be a little more normal. I stopped, realizing that I was doing it again. I had accepted my illusions as reality. I knew none of the what-ifs would have made a difference because there was no horny beaver man, and there were no big angry dudes with eyeballs under their overcoats, no Girl-Without-Parents, no Grandmother Spider, and no Daddy-Long-Legs-Man. There was only me, my insanity, and a tennis ball.

Consider for a moment the worn tennis ball. Consider how it mirrors life with its imperfections, how the discolored patches and bald spots represent our trials and tribulations. Consider how it was rolling itself against my toe insistently. Even in my deteriorated mental state, I could be relatively certain of the existence of the worn tennis ball. It was something solid, something I could touch and probably even bounce if I was so inclined. Bouncing was real. Bumping was probably real as well. However, what the anchor of my reality was doing bumping into my feet was a bit of a mystery. I looked in the direction the ball had come from and saw a lake of spiders looking at me expectantly. They were obviously not real, not like the tennis ball. What would it mean then if a figment of my imagination could push the certainty of my continued sanity across the floor and against my toes? If I were to accept the possibility of this happening, then I would have to accept all the other bits and pieces I'd chosen to disbelieve. I closed my eyes and concentrated on willing away the hallucinations and the madness. There was another bump against my foot.

"What's this for?" I asked the hordes of eager arachnids a little testily. They began to scramble around frantically, in a writhing mass of confusion. Scruffy seemed to be yelling at them with a disgusted look on his little arachnid face. When they stopped moving, I was more than a little astonished at the scene before me. The spiders had joined together in groups several dozen strong, spelling out the words "pley ball" on the floor. The room tilted and swayed under me as reality shifted once again. The urge to return to my bedroom with the sincere intent of flinging myself screaming out of my apartment window was great, but the parental need to bend down and pick up the tennis ball won out. There was an immediate undulation of excitement that ran through the pack like someone violently shaking a bowl of Jell-O. I gently tossed the ball into the kitchen, and it bounced three or four times before it disappeared around the doorframe. All of the spiders immediately gave pursuit, some hopping and other scurrying after the furry green orb. They looked so happy that I found myself smiling in spite of all the pent up fear and confusion. A full thirty seconds later, the ball came slowly rolling out of the kitchen, propelled by a wave of tiny legs. It stopped against my foot again and the spiders retreated into a pack, giving me a clear lane into the kitchen. They crouched down as one and wagged their abdomens from side to side. I tossed the ball again, and once more they gave enthusiastic chase. Fetch with spiders. Wait until they heard about this at the nuthouse.

Fetch lasted for about fifteen minutes before the enthusiasm ebbed and they stopped bringing the ball back to me. It was better to not overdo it on their first time anyway. I leaned against the wall in resignation as the troops separated and dispersed to whatever hiding places they had claimed when they moved in. This simply had to be real. There was no way even the craziest person would be able to play fetch by himself without moving from the living room. Reviewing what I had been through in the last three days under the assumption it was the truth was overwhelming. Nonetheless, once I had embraced the possibility, a sense of relief settled over me. Having chosen a path without uncertainty, without questions of real or not real, had calmed the storm within my head. I just hoped I hadn't chosen wrong.

A little brown dot approached me and hopped up and down a few times. When it saw that it had my attention, it scurried off toward the table with blinking answering machine on it. Only then did I remember that there was a third message on the machine. I gathered myself, stood up, and then walked across the room tapping the play button to finish the journey.

"Mr., uh, Tim. This is the reference desk at the Jacksonville Public Library. We have two books waiting for you at the desk. Please stop by and pick them up by eight o'clock tonight. Thank you."

****

Breakfast consisted of a couple of granola bars that were so old that the grain had evolved into something sentient that clung to the wrappers for its very existence. I considered my schedule while I chewed the new life forms mechanically into extinction. There was a large hole in my daily life now that I was temporarily unemployed. Normally, I'd be dancing in the streets for a day off, but work could have really served as an escape from what I was beginning to accept as my new life. A little normal would go a long way to keeping me grounded, but the best I could offer on that note today was a trip to the library. I marked that down as a definite for today's itinerary. Denial hadn't worked well for me so far, so maybe understanding would do what turning a blind eye could not. I looked up from my list and stared at the markings that were still scrawled on the floor. This was the magic marker circle that started it all. Maybe I could figure a few things out with all of my new-found time. I moved over to the computer and booted it up. Scruffy crawled up on the desk nearby and watched the screen with focused interest. I opened the browser and flipped to the history page, the last entry being the site from which Scruffy's "resurrection" was orchestrated.

As with practically everything else in existence, the site looked a lot cooler when I was stoned. It sported a stylish black background with dark grey swirls etched haphazardly down the center. Garish purple script letters adorned the middle frame from one end to the other, and across the top was a strip of bold text proclaiming this website as "The Netcronomicon". Shamelessly perched on the left side of the page was a vertical row of chicken skulls - chicken skulls that opened their beaks when the cursor hovered over them, no less. Overall, it was a hideous design, but linked to each of the skull-buttons were the carefully plotted diagrams of spells and rituals. It wasn't long before I found the one that matched my kitchen floor precisely. The "words of power" for this ritual were from a language I couldn't even guess the origins of. It seemed the weed had given me super pronunciation skills because I couldn't even make it through the first word without straining both my tongue and my brain. At the bottom of this ritual, credit was given to a book entitled My magic is stronger than yours.

I looked up the title on Google, but aside from a few hits for birthday parties, I came up empty. I was getting tired and a bit frustrated with the whole thing when I saw Scruffy marshaling his forces. They arranged themselves under his careful scrutiny to spell out the word "librarie". The time on my computer showed it was almost five o'clock already. Somehow the day had gotten away from me. Apparently, keeping on my own schedule would take some getting used to.

"Not bad guys. I guess those reading lessons are paying off. If only we could figure out how to make some money off your talents. Ah, well. I'm off to the library. I'll pick you up something nice on the way back."

****

The library was a constant in my life. I had gone there once or twice a week for years and had memorized all the details well enough that I could recall every table and shelf to memory on a whim. The obsession with that place wasn't from a love of books or to chase a certain well-proportioned skirt, although that had become quite the pastime, but it was a place I could go to feel greater than I knew I was. I'd been a garbage man since high school, and no matter how I spun it, that made me one of the least successful people I knew. The library, well, was a momentary escape. It was a place where I could go to every now and then and pretend I was something more.

As soon as I passed the threshold of the doorway, I could tell the library was somehow different. It no longer looked like the one that I had been visiting for the last decade. It looked cleaner, like a deep coat of wax has been applied liberally and then wiped off with a terrycloth sheet. It had that foot-deep shine to it. I rubbed my eyes, and for a moment, things went back to the same drabness I'd come to expect and then slowly, the shine returned. It was like the third dimension had a movie makeover. The familiar tables, signs, books, and even people seemed to have an extra depth to them than was there before. I couldn't say that everything was more spectacular or even more beautiful. In fact, there were some things my eyes slid over and chose to keep on sliding. Beauty may have been skin deep, but ugly was truly to the bone. Regardless of the aesthetic appeal, everything was accentuated. The patrons carried a faint inner light with them, and if I squinted, I could just make out some thin lines that extended in front of, behind, and above each of them. All of those extra bits came in subtly different flavors, from purple grape to bubblegum pink, but other than giving them a neon accent, I didn't see any real patterns in the differences. Older, younger, healthy, or sickly, they all shared the same spectrum of color choices. If I concentrated harder on these lines, they increased in number yet stayed fixed to their human point of origin. At the highest level, right before it felt as if I would have a migraine if I went any longer, there were lines emanating from the torso, head, each hand, elbow, foot and knee. It was interesting, but not so much that I was ready to risk an aneurysm. I stopped concentrating and returned to my usual couch potato mindset.

The biggest downside to my new outlook on life, aside from the staring at people like an idiot, was Annie. More precisely, the lack of Annie. She was apparently on break somewhere or helping in a different section, or simply saving me from looking like a fool in front of her. So instead of my vision of beauty, I spoke with the large woman who was playing the part of Annie that night. She was dressed in koala bear. Her shirt, earrings, pendant, and even bracelet cried praise to the idol of slow leaf-eating. She even looked a bit like one, with a bulbous nose and sleepy eyes. She was surrounded by a faint gossamer coating of greenish light and was gazing up at me with a sense of keen romantic interest. Perhaps it was the fact that I was staring at her in such wonderment or maybe it was just the desperation of her outback existence, but I quickly decided to put a merciful end to what could have been by asking for my books. She looked forlorn, which most likely was just how she normally looked, and handed them over with measured effort. I thanked her and retreated to a study table between the Res and the Ros.

The cover of the first book, which was disappointingly thin, strove to tantalize my senses with crude kindergarten drawings of what I could only have guessed were supposed to be cave paintings. It failed miserably, but made up for it with the title Native American Apocalypse: a collection of end-of-the-world myths and legends. I flipped through the pages eagerly until I came upon the myth of the Daddy-Long-Legs-Man. I didn't have to read more than a few paragraphs before I recognized the plot. It seemed oddly reminiscent of a dream I once had and a life I happened to still be living. The commentary by the author read: "Many scholars believe that this story originated after the push into the west by the settlers, although this is disputed by the holy men of the Sioux and Crow tribes as well as a few other experts. Regardless of the origin, the coming of the White-Spider-Man marked the end of centuries of tradition and the dominant way of life in the Americas. The colonization and expansion of the westerners effectively flattened the cultural and political landscape of these people."

It was an uplifting eulogy but not groundbreaking information given recent events. I set that book aside and looked at the second one. This one was much thicker and came complete with a red canvas cover inlaid in gold lettering that announced this as the Dictionary of Mythical Figures. There were several plastic tabs stuck to the top of pages throughout the book. I turned to the bookmark that was over two thirds of the way into it and scanned the words until I came to a paragraph entry for Spider, Grandmother. "See also Areop-Enad, Arachne, Anansi (Aunt Nancy), Iktomi, Jorogumo, Marawa, Spider, Tsuchigumo. The Spider is an important character in folk legends around the globe. Grandmother Spider is present in the mythos of many Native American tribes. She is seen as both a trickster and a savior at different times and was cited as being responsible for leading the original settlers across the ice bridge and into the Americas. Other legends of note have indicted Grandmother Spider for entrapping Water Monster's child and causing flooding in the rivers and valleys. Grandmother Spider is a neutral figure that symbolizes the hand of fate and is used to explain both positive and negative occurrences within the daily lives of the Native Americans."

I flipped to the reference on Iktomi and read his bio. He seemed to have basically been the trickster part of the "Spider Mythos", and was compared most closely to the more famous Anansi of African legends. I'm guessing he was the Red-Spider-Man and Anansi the Black-Spider-Man. It was like a little spider brotherhood. Welcome to the family Tim Sweeney! Although neither of those others were heroic characters, it was a bit annoying that they got a lot better class of stories than I did. I closed the book and rubbed at my eyes. It was a little awkward reading the text when the words would alternate between two and three dimensions like they were resting at the bottom of a wavy pool. Besides, there was nothing here that would help me to understand how I got chosen as the walking apocalypse anyway, or more importantly, what that would even mean.

I heard the chair across the table from me scrape across the floor and looked up in irritation. It wasn't like the library was full at this time of day or anything, but without fail some bozo wanted to sit as close to me as possible. Of course, "bozo" may have been a bit hasty of a word choice. Perhaps "goddess" would have been closer to the mark.

"Tim, right?" Annie said from within a golden cocoon of light from the opposite side of the table. She was leaning forward on her elbows with her hands clasped together as if directing the worshippers from her pantheon. I would have gone into more detail about what she was wearing, but honestly, I didn't notice. I was simply too fascinated with looking into her face. Like everything else, nothing had changed, yet there was so much more. I could actually see the energy coursing beneath her skin. It was altogether intoxicating. While drinking it in, I caught a glimpse of something I recognized, something familiar that I hadn't noticed before. It was a slippery idea, and it wiggled away from me as she spoke in a leading tone. "I see you found the books we requisitioned for you. Did you find what you were looking for?"

She obviously noticed that I was staring at her with my mouth agape, and I could feel the blood rush to my cheeks as I tried my best to remember where I left my tongue. "Uh, well, not really."

"Okay. Maybe I could try to find some other materials."

"I doubt that would help. I'm not sure the answers I'm looking for would be in a book. Know any good Native American holy men?" She paused at this statement, and at the same time, I grasped hold of my recognition with an unnatural certainty. Part of her, perhaps just a small part, was of the People.

"Are you friends with anyone from your tribe?" I could see her practically recoil from me, the gears in her head whirring to analyze how I knew this and what my motives were. Tentatively, she responded.

"How do you know that I have a tribe?"

"I can see it in you. There is only a little, but it's there."

"You are the first person to ever guess that. I'm somewhere around one-sixteenth Hopi, but I've never seen it. In fact, there aren't even any papers to prove it. It's just something my father said was there."

"I guess that means that you don't know any holy men. It's okay. It was silly of me to bring it up."

"Now, hold on. I met someone last summer who is supposedly a cousin that is in touch with the tribe. Maybe I could ask him."

"Really?"

"Not so fast. You have aroused my curiosity." The word "aroused" seemed like a command to my body and I made a mental note to avoid standing up for a while. "I want to know what this is all about before I commit to anything more than finding you some books."

"What makes you think..."

"Oh, come on. You've been showing up for years to make goo-goo eyes at me, and all of a sudden, you're doing research on obscure Native American legends and asking me to find a holy man. This is way outside of your normal scope of Sports Illustrated and Redbook." I was at once elated to realize she had been paying so much attention to me and horrified that she had been paying so much attention to me. I was looking at recipes in Redbook, I swear.

"Things change when life takes a U-turn on you. Sports and recipes just don't seem very important anymore." She looked at me a little quizzically, and I stumbled forward. "I mean, I never used to dream, at least none that I could remember, and now I can't close my eyes without having some weird legend of the People pop up."

"You have dreams about Native Americans? Do you remember any of them?"

"I remember all of them. You know about the corn lady already, but since then I've seen Iktomi warning all the tribes about the white man and watched Coyote get flattened by a rock for taking back his blanket. I haven't checked yet, but I have no doubt I would find these in some dusty book. The question is what are they doing in my head and what do they mean?"

"Is that it?"

"Not even close," I said. She looked at me with what could have been either compassion or boredom. I did sound kind of whiny, but the fact she was still making eye contact was reassuring. A book hit the table a little too loud somewhere behind her, and she looked down at her watch with annoyance.

"Damn, I'm back on the desk now. I'll talk to my cousin, but any info I get from him stays with me until I know the full story. I wouldn't want to be responsible for you blowing up what's left of the Hopi tribe." She stood up, pushed the chair in and walked back to the desk. Walking was an over simplified term, perhaps sashay or glide would be better descriptors. I took a moment to actively notice her dress, yes, that was what she was wearing, and how the floral pattern swayed back and forth seductively with each step, like an alternating breeze on a tropical island. Once she was out of sight, I allowed myself to finally breathe.

Nothing was ever simple. Absolutely nothing. Now, take me for example. I'd been just about as interesting as a skid mark to Annie for years, and now, through some twist of fate, she was intrigued by me. I had obviously become a mystery to be solved, and that singular goal was what drew her in. If I told her nothing, then she'd lose interest and return to ignoring me with renewed focus, but what would she think if I told her what was really going on? She'd think I was insane. Hell, I thought I was insane. My only way out, the only path to my salvation, was to lie. Unfortunately, I was perhaps in the top ten of the world's worst liars, and Annie seemed to be as sharp as they came. To put it simply, I was doomed.

Feeling a little self-conscious while avoiding the hawk-like stares of overprotective mothers, I wandered through the children's shelves until I found the thin book I was looking for. I had promised my friends back home a treat, and I couldn't think of anything better than this. Annie was working the checkout desk as walked up and set Charlotte's Web on the counter. She raised a single eyebrow at me, and I grinned sheepishly. She didn't return the smile. There was an awkward moment of silence while she scanned the book to my account. To break the silence, more than anything else, I mustered up enough courage to ask Annie if she'd ever heard of a book called My Magic is Stronger Than Yours. She glanced over to her left at a waiting cart that was stacked high with returns and new additions to the shelves. On the very top of that stack was a large, black book inlayed with silver stars. She plucked it off the cart for me and gave me a look of something like a cross between puzzlement and suspicion. She explained that purchasing had just acquired a copy of it, and she had just entered it into the system. She mentioned in an accusatory tone how she was quite taken by the amazing coincidence that a person such as me would ask for a book such as that at such a perfect time. All I could do was shrug my shoulders as I accepted the tome and checked them both out before Annie's stare could bore a hole through me. I found that after all I'd been through, that stare was the most terrifying thing I'd ever seen.

****

I was late in returning home from the library that evening. I found myself stopping every other step to marvel at one sight or another. There was just so much variety in what I could only describe as the spiritual undercurrents of the world. Every tree, bush, man, dog, bird, and cockroach had a soft aura about them and even the man-made objects, at least those in motion, had the short neon lines at the front and rear. I could only hope that someday this would become commonplace enough for me to make it anywhere on time.

Despite the lateness of my arrival, the apartment was poised to return me to the simple joys of life, namely a game of fetch. My new friends had been ready with the tennis ball as soon as I opened the door, and I'd thrown it for almost half an hour before they seemed to grow tired. While they were catching their breath, I sat on the floor with my back propped against the wall and leafed through the My Magic is Stronger Than Yours book, confusing myself beyond all hope of recovery while trying to identify the symbols and shapes on my kitchen floor. The book was by no means a complete work and was actually more of a list of the individual pieces used in magic. It associated each diagram with its meaning in English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish and Latin. _Wonderful,_ I thought, _this is an instruction manual for setting the options on the cosmic DVD player._

In truth, it was much more like a dictionary than anything else. I gathered together the English words that matched my décor and came up with "Direction" for the snowflake pointing north, "Spirit Drum" for the antigravity reindeer design to the east, "Grounded First" for the animals to the south, and simply "The Bath" for the stink lines in the west. In order, they meant a guidepost, spirit journey, stability, and, well, protection against smelling bad. I could see where some of this could be useful, but honestly it didn't really do me much good. I had the words, and I had the symbols but no mention of how to combine them together into useful sentences or what the combinations actually did. It was paint by numbers with Ray Charles.

I had spent a good bit of time on this before I realized how useless it all had been. I was still no closer to understanding anything than I was when I started. I mean, who puts the protection from smelling bad in a spell? I flipped through the pages roughly, getting angrier with each dead end and useless footnote. I began to take it personally and dished out a torrent of insults upon the book, the author, the Netcronomicon, and my life in general. During a particularly tasteful outburst of frustrated foul-language spewing, I found myself staring at the back page, after the index. There was a rather well-constructed lithograph of the "insert expletive" author, William Latrans, and his "insert colorful metaphor" bio. Most of it was the typical "grew up in..." but I skipped past those to look at a single item written in a ballpoint pen on the white space beneath. My distaste for all things magic receded a bit as I studied this. It looked suspiciously like a phone number. Had some previous borrower written on the back page? That was hardly likely as I was the first person to check it out. Perhaps it was one of the librarians then? Or maybe it was a trick used by the author or publisher during printing. I ran my fingers over the numbers and felt the telltale ridges of a handwritten item. Well, there was nothing else to do, so against all better judgment, I picked up the phone and dialed. It rang four times, and just before I hung up, I heard a voice.

"Latrans here. Talk to me."

Surprised, it took a moment before I blurted out, "Hi, my name is..."

"I know who you are, Mr. Sweeney. Call me again tomorrow around nine." The dial tone punctuated the end of the dialogue, and I listened to it until the single tone turned into one that pulsed with annoyance. I gently hit the end button and set the handset down. What the hell just happened? Was it my imagination, or did that guy magically know my name?

Or, questioned another thought, maybe the great magician could have just looked at caller ID. I slapped my forehead as punishment for my idiocy. All of this mystic bullshit was getting to me. It was an eclipse over the light of my common sense. Angry at just about everything, I picked up the phone again and redialed the number to get some answers tonight. The operator shut the door on my research by letting me know politely that the number I dialed was not valid. I dialed it twice more, making sure each number matched what was in the book, but I came up empty. I pulled at my hair for a while before giving up and dropping the phone back into its cradle.

There was nothing for it except to wait. I resigned myself to another night of confusion and decided to bring out the other book I had borrowed and set it on the floor. It was like a dinner bell had been struck and arachnids poured out of crevices and furniture to surround it en mass. They had to work together to lift the cover and were dancing in a line across the first page from left to right. It was a spectacular feat of coordination, but it seemed as if there were too many waiting in line for this to ever work. It was a full five minutes before the last one walked off the page and it was time to flip it over. By then, the first couple dozen in line had gotten bored and were scattered across the floor exploring crumbs or bits of lint. Taking pity on them, I interrupted the process and asked if they would like me to read it to them. The frenzy of bobbing and butt-wagging that followed would be frightening to anyone who couldn't read spider body language, but to me, it was sweet music. In such a short time, I had a family and could make them happy with such simple gestures. They cleared off the pages, and I raised the book. "Okay, but just one chapter, and then I have to go to bed.

"Chapter 1. Before Breakfast. 'Where's Papa going with that axe?' said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast..."

## Chapter Seven

There were buffalo in the mist. I could have done without anything that reminded me of the trampled man in Smoke House and the wooden look on Unktehi's face, but I apparently didn't have a say in these things. The buffalo emerged from the fog bank to gather on a solitary hill in the western prairie. They were strong, proud creatures and were masters of everything they surveyed. It was that pride that encouraged them to kill and eat other, smaller creatures, and since they were the largest thing around, that meant just about everything else, including man. Man, who was just a rather non-descript bunch of naked, tan people and the other animals were understandably unhappy with this arrangement and all the beings on the plain gathered together for a council.

Man's chief, still a non-descript tan person, said to the buffalo chief, "We were all created as equals, and you have no right to set yourselves above the rest of us. If any creature should be above the others and be able to kill them, it should be man." Each of the other leaders of their species said the same thing about their tribes. Finally the buffalo chief responded, "Fine. This arguing is pointless. We shall decide who is truly the greatest species with a contest. Let us have a race."

The chief of man complained, "A race is not good for us; everyone knows that four legs will beat two. We will race, but only if we can choose some birds to race for us." Confident in his superiority, the buffalo chief agreed. Each tribe of animals chose their fastest member and man chose three birds to race for them, the lark, the hawk and the magpie.

As unusual as talking animals may seem, I'd already seen a talking rock and a mouse take off her skin, so I was comfortable with the way things were going. The scene shifted to the starting line and the clouds of dust that were billowing out from the feet of the contestants. Shortly after the race had begun, it became clear that the world's largest buffalo and the champion of man, the lark had separated themselves from the rest of the pack. They streamed ahead of the others, neck and neck, but the race was a long one, and the lark began to fall behind as it tired. The buffalo, on the other hand, was a machine and hadn't even begun to breathe hard. The buffalos grunted and snorted in approval.

Shortly after this, the hawk soon caught up to and outdistanced the buffalo with ease, and the men cheered. Unfortunately, the hawk was a sprinter and tired quickly, giving way to the buffalo champion still miles before the end of the race. It looked like it would be an easy win for the buffalo, and they would continue to lord their superiority over the rest of the creatures.

Then, well back from the lead, the magpie appeared as a dot in the distance. The magpie was slow but persistent, and it closed the gap on the buffalo juggernaut, which seemed to finally be wearing down. The finish was still a mile away when the magpie drew even with the buffalo. Spurred on by the cheering of the men and grunting of the buffalo, the two racers gave everything they had, blood pouring from the hoof and nose of the buffalo and feathers streaming out behind the magpie. In the last seconds, the bird finally gained the advantage and won the race for the glory of man.

The buffalo took their defeat hard but resigned themselves to be the hunted instead of the hunters. Man celebrated his victory and prominence, promising to never kill the lark, hawk, and especially not the magpie as a reward for their heroic performance in the race. A cool wind ran across the plain and a chill ran through me. I shook off the effects of the dream, waking up cold from the sweat that had sprouted from my head to my feet. I wasn't a huge fan of exercise in the best of times, much less in the middle of the night. I got up to the shower, stripping off my sheets and making a date with a pot of coffee.

****

"Hello, Mr. Latrans, My name is Tim Sweeney. I'd like to ask about your book, My magic is stronger than yours."

"And what would you like to know about it?"

"Some of the drawings in it match something I found on the internet. I, well, a friend of mine and I followed this ritual and now some pretty weird things are happening. I don't suppose I could fax you a copy of it and you could tell me what is going on?"

"Hmm, interesting. You performed a ritual you found on the internet. Can you describe the web page to me?"

"Black background, big purple words, chicken skulls."

"Reckless. I like it. Tell you what, you buy lunch, and I'll take a look at it. Shall we meet at the Daily Grinder around eleven thirty?"

"Wait, in Jacksonville?"

"Of course. That is close enough, isn't it?"

"Yes. But how do you know where I live?"

"My magic IS stronger than yours. See you then."

It seemed that the cosmos delighted in giving my Rubik's cube a random twist every now and then. I got my daily dose of dial tone before I put the phone down.

****

The Daily Grinder welcomed me with a green and white striped awning and a whole lot of wrought iron rails adorning the outside. Once I entered, my attention was immediately directed to a patron at a table along the far wall. It's not that the other customers were boring and lifeless, far from it. On a normal day of seeing the world coated with shining gossamer threads, I'd have been very keen on staring at them, but the guy by the wall was certainly the most interesting. Seated alone, looking like a man who owned the chair, table, and restaurant, and the ground it was built on was someone I knew. At least, I thought I knew him. He was dressed in a white lounge suit with an extra wide collar and a brown undershirt. The shoulder pads were enormous, and the sleeves and hem of his jacket ended in thick, wooly ruffles. He looked fluffy, like an elongated kernel of popcorn. The only tell that he shouldn't be covered in extra butter was the dark face, topped off with a head of spiky, black hair that peeked out from the top. A single ear was decorated with a shiny, silver feather earring that seemed to dance when the light hit it, which happened almost constantly. But nothing could compare with the light in the Native American's eyes. They burned like mini suns behind the brown irises. He was unlike any being I'd run across and even without the strange new vision I possessed, he would have been the person in the room that I could not take my eyes off of. Of course, with my gift, the glow from within him was all the more alien given the fact that he was completely devoid of the threads that tantalized everyone else.

"I know you," I said, trailing off at the end of my sentence in confusion.

"Of course, you do. Mr. Sweeney. I am the man you are buying lunch for. Please, sit. I'd rather not attract too much attention. Autograph seekers are so tiresome." He pointed to the chair across from him, which I obediently plopped myself down into. The waitress, a shapely, young thing that I somehow knew was wondering why she was working such long hours here to make money to pay for college when she could have made the same amount in three hours a day stripping like all of her friends, came to the table and asked for our orders. She looked up into the face of my companion and instantly seemed to become transfixed by him. He ran his hand up her leg and under her skirt and made "uh-huh" and "hmmm" noises as if he is appraising the merchandise. He lowered his hand and then freed her from his gaze. She seemed unaware of the recent intrusion but knew something had happened as her face showed signs of general disgust. She took our orders and then walked back to the kitchen like a zombie with no brains in sight. I got the impression that she no longer wished to place herself in a position to be objectified by men for money. Pity.

"So, was that magic?" I said with a hint of reproach in my voice.

"For me it was. I don't think she was feeling it, though. White women don't respond to me as well as my own people do. Not sure if it's a genetic thing or if white women are just brought up more uptight." He smiled at this and then directed his stare out the window.

"I brought a printout of the rit..."

"Not yet. Wait until our food gets here."

"Okay, what do you want to talk about until then?"

"There was a day not long ago that a man would sit on a hill and listen to the words of the world. These days we invent things to fill the silence for fear that we might just hear them."

I took this to mean I should shut up and spent the next five minutes in silence. During this time, I caught snippets of conversation from around us, but along with it were undercurrents that I could just dip my mental fingers into. What I found when I tried this was more base than words. It was like tasting emotions, and something else, something deeper, far below those. My sandwich arrived, and I was startled out of my listening. William Latrans was speaking to me "...and then, my friend, he got up and left with the crab strapped to his head." His laughter was infectious, and I felt myself smiling in spite of myself.

"Mr. Latrans?"

"Ugh," he grunted, "that sounds so formal"

"Okay. How about Willy?"

"How about not. Mr. Latrans will do," he said darkly.

"Okay, about my problem?"

"Right, let's get down to business."

There were no longer any tables, chairs, or windows. There were no patrons, no waitress, no food, and no clothes. There was just Latrans and me, sitting in small room with a pointed roof and a whole lot of steam. In the center of this place were some very hot rocks and a small pot of water, complete with a lacquered wooden ladle.

"If you freak out on me, I'll not help you. This is a place of cleansing and relaxation. Just go with the flow for a bit."

I stifled the impulse to scream myself hoarse and instead focused on maneuvering myself so my junk wasn't quite so prominently displayed. Mr. Latrans did not seem to have the same concern. Instead, he was busy reviewing the printout from the website that I never gave to him. He looked at me from over the top of the paper with a glare that was both appraising and skeptical. It was unbearably hot in here and I was sweating from pores that had given up on me decades ago. My toxins must have been furious.

"You performed this ritual?" he said with disbelief.

"Yes. I think so. The markings on the floor are the same."

"This is a resurrection charm. Who were you trying to resurrect?"

"A spider."

"You saw a dead spider and thought, 'hmm, let's cast a powerful spell that we found on the internet to bring it back to life.' Do you realize what you were playing with? Were you high or something?"

"Yes."

"Which one? High or something?"

"High."

"I see. And you were alone. You and the dead spider."

"My friend was there as well."

"Ah. So he must have been the one to cast the spell."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because you are here. This spell would have killed you."

"Marty is still alive. He said that I died, but then I'm here now."

Latrans looked at me more closely as if trying to see beneath the skin. He reached out and ladled some more water onto the rocks, bringing out a reproachful hiss and a large billow of steam. "You know, I think you are right. You are alive. However, it is not the life of a white man. Not any longer."

"I am a bit pink in here, but that's cause it's so bloody hot." I saw him giving me a single raised eyebrow in response. "But, that's not what you mean. Please, go on."

"This ritual. It allows you to move your essence, your soul into the dead body. Once the essence is gone from a man, he becomes an empty shell. Lifeless. You performed the ritual and gave up your soul, willingly. You became that empty shell. The only question left, is what filled you up again?"

"Whoa," I said, trying to let it all sink in. I sent my soul into Scruffy. Was that how I became a "hero" to Grandmother Spider?

'Whoa, indeed, my friend," he said, pouring yet another ladle full of water on the glowing rocks. Steam billowed up again, so thick it obscured his face. "Has anything unusual happened since you discarded your soul?"

"You make it sound so cheap." I could see the bright, white teeth, in what I hoped was a smile, through the steam haze. "I've got about a hundred more eight-legged friends than I used to, I was attacked by a man with a thing for penises, a little girl keeps following me around, I went to Skeleton House and Smoke House, and I met someone named Grandmother in a world full of celestial threads. Does that sound unusual enough?" His head poked through the steam at me. He now had long hair, braided and adorned with large eagle feathers, and I suddenly remembered where I knew him from. "You're Coyote! I dreamed of you."

"So, you are one of the People now. You have visions of the old ways, the old stories. And you, I now know as well, Hu-Hanska-Ska. Grandmother Spider has adopted you. You are now her child. This is a most curious turn of events." He poured another ladle full of water on the rocks and leaned back.

"You came back from the dead. I saw you getting crushed by a boulder because you took its blanket," I said hurriedly.

He groaned audibly. "Why that dream? I hate that story. It makes me seem like such a fool. And it was my blanket. I just let Iya borrow it. I can't help that there was a misunderstanding." He pouted for a bit before continuing. "I am one of the First, one of the animals that was born when the first world was young. It takes more than a mere rock to kill me. You, however, may have the power to do it." He paused for dramatic effect before continuing. "Not directly, of course, but the fact that another White-Spider-Man exists means that it is entirely possible this world is coming to an end. I wonder if the Creator has finally gotten tired of us all."

"What is with you people and the end of the world? How can a garbage man bring on the apocalypse? It doesn't make any sense."

"The question you should be asking is how you, a garbage man, can stop the apocalypse. The fact that you are now what you are means that the sun is ready to set."

These cryptic responses were really starting to annoy me. The steam was getting to me also, the heat boring into me like a full body venereal disease. I shouted, "Okay, how can I stop the fucking apocalypse!"

He poured some more water onto those damn rocks. The air was thick, and nothing but the light from Coyote's eyes cut through it. He was quiet for a moment and then said matter-of-factly, "You probably need to die. More specifically, the White-Spider-Man does."

"Since that's me, I don't like your plan. Besides, I've already done all the dying I care to do. I even tried to fling myself into the abyss in the Smoke House. Is there any chance I can stop being the White-Spider-Man? Maybe get my soul back?"

The words, what is given is given, echoed through the fog. It wasn't Coyote's voice, but one from the undercurrent of the world that I was just beginning to notice.

"I will work on your behalf, White-Spider-Man, but this is business. There will be a price. In the meantime, learn the ways of the People. The spirits can be tricky to please. Oh, and if you happen to die for good before the end of the world, consider our debts settled." More steam billowed up and even Coyote's eyes finally disappeared. In fact, all I could see was white until my eyes closed from the pain of the hot, moist air. When I reopened them, I was back in the diner with the cute waitress staring at me expectantly. I was cold for the first time in what seems like hours and realized that I was completely drenched in sweat. Everything was sticking to me, and the air conditioning felt so damn cold my nipples wanted to leap off my chest and fly around the room.

"Sir, are you okay?" she said with a touch of concern.

"Yeah. I just don't feel quite right," I responded absently "Umm, what were you saying?"

"Your check. Are you ready for it?"

"Yeah. I think I'm done here."

"Well, since your friend took off, I've got to charge you for both meals. Hope he didn't screw you over," She said sympathetically. I could tell she didn't like Coyote, and I wasn't sure I did either to tell the truth.

"That makes two of us. That's fine, you've been wonderful." She smiled at this and set the check down on the table. The name Terri was written on there with a smiley face dotting the "i". I wondered if she'd have put that on there if she knew I was destined to take all her hopes, dreams, and even her life, shove them into a toilet, and then piss all over them. I left her a ten dollar tip to make up for my soon-to-be sins and gratefully walked out into the sunlight.

****

I wandered aimlessly after that meal, taking lefts and rights by accident, my body remembering the pattern of the Skeleton House as it weaved its way through the city. The sun had dried my clothes and left the surface of my skin a salt lick but had done little to clear the cobwebs from my head. The world was a blur of images that twisted and barrel rolled through my brain. Neon signs swirled into a vortex that pulled billboards and business fronts into it. I needed something familiar to latch onto, an anchor to keep me tethered to reality as my mind threatened to break free. It was unfortunate that the thing that brought me clarity just happened to be an alley filled with obscene graffiti. There were symbols here on these walls that I had seen in Coyote's book and on the website. They were not resurrection icons but ones used for other rituals. I refused to venture a guess at their meaning for fear I triggered something accidentally and ended up in an even more fucked up situation. Turns out, I didn't even have to try.

"Hey, Spider-Man. I thought we took care of you already. I guess my boys here need some more practice. Their skills have gotten rusty."

Standing at the end of the alley surrounded by graffiti penises was the horny beaver man. He had found me, or maybe I had found him. Either way, I needed this reunion like a genital wart. Of course, if it were just him, I'd take some payback out of his ass, but he was smart enough to bring one of his goons with him. Only, he no longer looked like a goon to me. I could see him more fully now, all of him. Not only could I see the outer human shell, I was also privy to what lay beneath. It wore the face and the rest of the body like a semi-opaque costume, a plastic wrap human skin. I suppose it was designed to help the normal humans to see exactly what they expected to see. Today, however, it was an illusion that could not stand against my scrutiny. Beneath the façade was a mass of leathery skin, ringed with talons along the edge and sprouting a bundle of tentacles and eyestalks from the center. It looked like the lovechild of Cthulu and a Gucci purse. I was amazed these things could even be alive, much less beat me to death. There was no head, no internal organs, and no place for a brain. It was just a mass of eyeballs, tentacles, and talons tied together with folds of loose skin. It did, however, bear a passing resemblance to my seventh grade history teacher. Of course, as bad as reliving the nightmare of seeing Mrs. Holstein with her dress tucked into her undies might have been, I thought this thing ranked a little higher on the shudder scale. Especially as I recalled the feeling of those bony talons going through my flesh and the battering I took the last time I met with these things. I made sure to give it the patented Tim Sweeney piss-off stare before speaking.

"I see you've brought an umbrella with you. Pity it's so sunny out," I said, faking all the bravado I could muster while looking for the fastest way out of this. The good thing to remember about alleys is that there are two distinct paths out of them. One doesn't need to suffer from indecision when a threat is coming at you from one those directions; you simply go the other way. The bad thing about alleys is that there are only two distinct paths out of them. This was really discouraging when, upon my deciding to exit alley left, the second goon appeared and effectively blocked my escape. This one was a coat rack on a mission. The harsh light that filtered in past the buildings ran across the brown, ratty skin as it undulated in agitation. It was probably not happy that I didn't stay dead, but I wasn't going to rule out PMS quite yet. Sure, there were no visible sexual organs, but I doubted a dude could ever get that worked up.

I searched furiously through my brain to find a solution to my dilemma. Maybe there was a movie or a book, well, a movie anyway, that I had come across with the blueprints for avoiding getting sandwiched between two angry flaps of skin in an alleyway. I channeled my inner Indiana Jones and did the only thing I could think of. I stalled for more time. "So, you're the son of Water Monster. You know, I saw her in Smoke House the other day. She looked good. Very fit." _That should do it_ , I thought.

"I'm afraid you have things a little confused. I'm not Untunktahe. Untunktahe is a god! I am just his lowly servant. Would a god need my leathery friends here to squash you like the insect that you are, spider-man?"

"I'm pretty sure spiders aren't insects. Eight legs and all. But that's beside the point. Can't we just come to an agreement where you don't kill me, and I don't get blood all over your nice alley?" The horny beaver man shook his head, and his two companions closed in on me from either side. As my master plan crumbled before me, I turned to plan B and grabbed an old broom that was perched outside the heavily bolted back door of some inner-city shop and waved it over my head menacingly. Plan B sucked.

"Finish him, and do it right this time," the "lowly servant" commanded. That was the only starter's pistol needed. Fear cinched up my gut tighter than a Victorian girdle as I watched those two undulating things walk, or more appropriately ooze, over the asphalt in my direction. There was nowhere to run that didn't put me firmly into the embrace of one of these monstrosities, so I gave the shopkeeper's door a tug to see if I was right about it being locked. Being right never felt so wrong. I could hear some muffled voices arguing behind the door, and I pounded on it, shouting for someone to take pity on me and get me the fuck out of there. My expectations were low and based on the prevailing evidence, namely the door remaining well-bolted and the voices disappearing, they were correct. I, however, was a little disappointed that a kindly shopkeeper didn't take pity on me and unlock his or her door in concern for my safety, but at least I was right. Small victories.

The noise from the street seemed to muffle perceptively as I backed away from the door. The creature from the leathery lagoon had spread out its body and tentacles to fill the alleyway from wall to wall and was closing in on my position with an uncanny speed. With no other options and such a big target, I took a swipe at it with my mighty broom. I struck out, and the bristly end of my weapon fell to the ground impotently with a single swipe from a talon-laden tentacle. A second talon lashed out at my head and missed scalping me by mere inches. I counted three tentacles that took turns striking at me in rapid succession and soon found I was barely able to dodge them much less make any kind of attack. It was a dance of desperation, each step driving me backward as I stumbled over some discarded bit of refuse in the alley and struggled to regain my balance without dying yet again.

The next attack came from above and I managed to get lucky and bat away it away with the broomstick. At least I thought I had, but the gash that opened up on my right arm told me how truly outmatched I was. That will teach me to bring a broomstick to a talon fight. The pain seared its way along the length of the cut and raced back to my brain, flooding my system with endorphins and God-knows-what else. All I could think of was that I was suddenly a whole lot more desperate not to feel the rake of one of those claws again. The idea that these things would break me once more, and I'd have to stare at the smug face of Mr. Penis-Pendant man again as I died was infuriating.

Windows shattered, and the shades rolled up in my mind, and I was flooded with sights and sounds from the outside world. I saw the self-same undercurrents of the world, the faint glowing strings that surrounded everything in front of me, only a thousand times sharper. It was no longer simply a glimpse of what lay beneath the façade of the world illusion; it was the truth of seeing things in all their possibilities. Eight different outcomes streamed across my brain in a simultaneous montage like cobwebs, one sharpening while others blurred into the background as the moments passed and the most likely action took form. Everywhere I looked, there were transparent silky lines outlining the could-bes of the future. As the could-bes transitioned to were-nots, the lines disappeared back into the ether. Watching the motions before they happened made everything seem to move in a molasses drip. I feasted on this spectacle with a massive helping of dumbfoudnedness as a long, snaky tentacle reached for me from overhead again. I moved purposefully out of its way and allowed it to continue in its arc until it struck the ground with a show of lazy impact. A second attack was already on its way, and I dodged aside easily with a sense of utter wonderment. I was like a spectator, just standing there watching this slow-motion ballet. That is, until one of twirly bitches hit me square in the back.

I stared at the tapered end of something sharp sticking out above the pocket on my shirt. The dark-red line of probability had it curling down and then returning, so I bent down and rushed forward to free myself. The second goon had apparently closed in on me from behind and was flailing its hooked horrors at me like a deranged windmill. But even at its most frantic, the hooks and arms followed their paths like obedient little children. I would have loved to sit there and watch the show, but with six tentacles to dodge now, coming at me from both sides, the situation lost whatever beauty in motion it might have once possessed. To add to the buzz kill, the threads were diminishing in size and intensity the longer I watched. I wasn't sure if this ability was time limited or if the emotion that brought it on had simply dulled too much, but it was getting to the point that I could barely make out where the next attack was coming from. Life was about to become interesting - short, but interesting.

My hands had become slick with blood, but that didn't stop me from plunging one end of the broomstick into an open eyeball of the dishrag in front of me. The agonizing scream that burst from the thing was deafening. I don't know exactly where these things hid their mouths, but the sound that came out of it made me want to rip off my ears and stomp on them in self-defense. I pressed on and took out another eyeball before feeling the sting of a gash opening up on my back. I wasn't certain how much blood I had left, but I was so pissed right then that I intended to take at least one of these abominations with me to the other world. I could feel the world shift again, bringing everything back into slow focus for just a moment, and that gave me the time to reach out with my hand and grasp the stalk with the remaining eyeball on it and squeeze the bulbous mass as hard as I could. It popped in my hand like an overripe plum. The loss of blood and the smell of eyeball juice brought me to my knees in one of the few lucky breaks I'd been given all week. The blinded monster raged forward, stumbling over me and tearing into its twin like a maddened chainsaw. The sounds of tearing flesh and more of those unearthly screams followed as my two attackers dismembered each other behind me.

On instinct, I crawled out of the melee and staggered to my feet, leaving the alley and its scene of bloody destruction behind. I hugged the building on my right and stumbled into the empty doorway of a dry cleaner before collapsing. I sincerely prayed that my bloody corpse would cause Mr. I-won't-open-my-door-for-a-white-dude-about-to-get-mauled-in-the-alley a world of legal issues as I sagged against the concrete. My shirt was shredded again, and I wondered just how many of those I had left. The wound on my chest was still oozing blood, my life dripping away little by little as I breathed through a ragged, liquid lung. It wasn't like I had a lot to live for, but I wasn't ready for it to end again. I mean, there was nowhere for me to go anyway. Neither House wanted me, and the most I could hope for was a return trip to Grandmother's nest, and even that was probably a pipe-dream. Second chances are notorious for only coming once.

## Chapter Eight

Life ebbed from me as an outgoing tide of blood pooled in my lap and on the ground beneath me. I found myself staring at it, curious to see how much I could lose before the end. I blinked, and when the lids made their return trip, I noticed that I was no longer seated upright but instead had done a face plant, tilting everything on its ear. I refused to take this dying thing lying down and sent the signals to right myself to the muscle in my arms and legs. They summarily ignored me. Well, lying down wasn't all that bad.

I waited for the end and then waited some more. I waited and watched, conjecturing that dying for a second time so soon after the first would probably nudge me over the edge of sanity for good. Of course, the edge of my sanity was more like a wheelchair ramp these days, but even that's scary when you can't find the brakes.

_Certainly I should have been dead by now_ , I thought as I careened out of control, _and more certainly, there should be no way a drop of my blood should be able to rise from the pool around me and begin to march in my direction._ These were things I had come to hold as truths over the years. They were incontrovertible, solid, unmalleable. I lose all of my blood and I die. My blood stays where I left it until someone comes along with a bucket and a mop. Therefore, it must have been a figment of my imagination that a crimson dot was inching its way toward me.

Certainty cracked and shattered as that dot, that drop of blood, was joined by another and then another still. Soon all of my blood was eagerly marching back toward me, and I could feel it reenter my body on tiny hair-like legs. I stared at the drops more closely as my mental focus slowly returned. It was not blood marching, not anymore. It was a mass of tiny crimson spiders, their abdomens shiny with a deep gloss, and legs the same dark red color. They marched in an orderly procession, purposeful in their journey as they refilled my body. They invaded me through each of the cuts and wounds that lay open and I let them, even down to the last small pod of spiders that marched out of the alley and returned to their home. It was only then that they began to spin their webs, using sharp little legs to pierce my skin and stitch me back together. The sutures were minute, precise and amazingly strong. Within minutes, the wound was closed and all but invisible, marked only by a thin white line where the hole used to be. My breathing was regular, and I felt fine. I was exhausted, but alive and well. And I had thought things couldn't get any stranger.

****

The red, bloodshot eyes that greeted me at my door told tales of sleeplessness and worry or maybe it was just the weed. Either way, their gangly owner was reclining against my door in a pantomime of my dry-cleaner doorway repose. He sat with his legs splayed wide and his distended belly resting between them. In a way that seemed to spit in the face of gravity and defy all known laws of physics, he rose like a phoenix from the ashes of a roach, never once lifting his head or using his hands for support. I, on the other hand, could barely keep vertical from becoming horizontal and had even more trouble keeping the tatters of my shirt draped over my shoulders. I imagine I looked like a drunk who picked the wrong wood chipper to take a nap in.

"Dude," Marty began, "you look like you've been partying a little too hard lately. Didn't want to invite old Marty to the party?"

"I would have, but, contrary to all that is right and just in the world, you're the only one of us who still has a job."

"Yeah, I talked to the boss about that. He says you're on 'administrative leave' until they figure out how your ride got so trashed. He has moments where he just wanders around mumbling about how it shouldn't be possible for you to flip it. I'm riding along with Paul and Jonesy now. Jonesy's all right, but Paul's a dick." I opened the door, and Marty followed me in.

"No surprise. But it still pays the bills."

"True. How are you going to pay the bills? I could loan you some money if you need it. I'll just cut back on the recreation." His eyes popped out of his head as we rounded on the kitchen. Mine were having trouble staying put as well. Piled on the table was a mound of coins and bills, most of which looked as though they'd spent some time stuck to the bottom of somebody's shoe. "My recreation fund has been a bit low lately; I don't suppose you'd like to make a donation?"

'Where did all of this come from?" I said with Christmas morning wonderment.

"It's your house. Don't you know?"

Honestly, I didn't. I was as clueless as I had been about everything else. Money doesn't just magically appear out of thin air, nor does it grow on trees or a card table in the middle of my kitchen. It simply did not make any sense. That is it didn't make any sense until I saw a dime scurrying across the floor. It wobbled as it moved, making a little side to side dance before it hit the table leg and then actually began to crawl up it. At the top, the dime flipped over into the pile revealing two industrious dusky brown spiders. They took a moment to catch their breath and then spotted me standing there gawking at them. They wagged their abdomens in greeting and then scurried off the table and into the bedroom.

"That was kind of weird," Marty said flatly.

A steady tide of spiders poured down out of the bedroom and washed towards us, building into a tsunami of greeting. "Things have been kind of weird lately."

"You've got a bit of a spider infestation," Marty said with some caution as the hundreds of arachnids came to a stop in front of him. "I know a guy who is a part time exterminator..." At the last word, the spiders surged forward, hopping menacingly toward his legs. He squealed in terror, caught his heel in a worn spot in the carpet in his haste to avoid their blitzkrieg, and ended up on his back and at their mercy. I wasn't sure exactly what they would do, but if they decided to get nasty, I had no doubt that several hundred spider bites could make living a bit tricky. His legs were quickly engulfed as the wave continued to surge forward, stopping only with my assurance that "uncle Marty" was only teasing. I got a horde of skeptical looks, but they melted off of him and back to a military formation on the carpet. It took some long moments and a lot of coaxing to get Marty to calm down. He had never been particularly squeamish, but a one thousand leg hug could put anyone off their game.

The first beer slid down his throat with an unhealthy gurgle, so I forced him to take it easy on the second. Halfway through the third one, he was calm enough to talk to without using my motherly cooing voice.

"All right, Marty. You've already met my new friends," the spider phenomenon wagged their abdomens in excitement, "but seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot. So, I'm going to introduce you to someone. Scruffy?" My little brown and white striped friend eagerly bounded up to me and scurried onto my shoulder to look at Marty. "Marty, this is Scruffy. Scruffy, this is Marty. Say hi." Scruffy bounced in a nod to my traumatized pal. Marty waved a little "hi" back at Scruffy.

"Now, I think once I tell you this, you'll understand. This little guy is the spider that we brought back to life on Sunday." I raised my eyebrows in the "do you get it" motion before recognition and wonder finally filled Marty's eyes. He did, to his credit, stay silent. "Now, Scruffy has a lot of friends and family and they have decided to stay with me for a while. Before you say anything else, I want Scruffy and his crew to say a few words." I nodded at Scruffy, and he rotated back and forth in disagreement. I raised my eyebrows at him in turn, and he sagged a bit in resignation before scurrying back to the ground and joining his mates. After a brief huddle, the pack formed the words "Sorry Marty" on the carpet.

Marty was, of course, dumbfounded, but I gave him a helpful nudge, "Now you should tell them how sorry you are."

"Yeah. Yeah, little dudes. Man, I didn't mean anything by it. I'm sorry guys." The spider pack broke their words apart slowly and then began bobbing up and down in happiness. I left Marty sitting there on the floor for a while as I gave the boys some exercise with a tennis ball, followed by another chapter of Charlotte's Web. It wasn't long before my children got that sleepy look in all of their two thousand plus eyes, and I sent them scurrying off to their crevices and nests. Now came the hard part.

****

"Man," There was a profound look of awe on Marty's face as he uttered that word, "that's deep. Now, just so I know it's not the weed talking, you've been adopted by a god, been to Indian heaven, and can now basically talk to spiders?"

"That's close enough," I conceded.

"And you can, like climb walls and shoot webs out of your hands."

"No. That part is from a movie."

"Oh, right. Yeah, I liked that movie. Tim, do you know what this means?" He drifted off a bit, and I was sure he'd finally gone comatose until he picked up his train of thought right in stride. "Gods are real, and they, like, listen to us and everything."

"I guess that's true."

"I'm going to find me a god, so I can get super powers, too. That'll be awesome."

"You bet, man. I'm sure that's why they want us around. They're just sitting up there with all these super powers laying around thinking, gosh, I sure do wish there was someone I could give these to."

"Now you're just poking fun at me. Time to kick the stoned guy and all."

"You're right. Religion isn't a bad thing. Go forth and find your god." There was a pause in the dialogue before I said, "Maybe you should be getting back to your place. They won't know where to find you tomorrow for the rounds."

"Pfffft," he replied with more than just a little spittle. "They don't even pick me up at the store. I've got to get a cab to the depot. Luckily, there is this little girl cabbie who's been giving me discounts. She's pretty nice."

"Red and black outfit?"

"Yeah. You seen her, too?"

"Once or twice. Good night, Marty."

"Later."

It was close to nine when he left, and the front door closed behind him. My stomach growled angrily and I realized that I hadn't eaten a thing since lunch, and I didn't even remember eating that. I reasoned that a three course meal was out of the question, seeing how the table was occupied by a heap of dirty money, so I settled for the next best thing, Hot Pockets. Ham and cheese was the luck of the draw, and I slid it into the microwave with practiced ease. While I was waiting for my food to absorb the requisite amount of radiation, I scooted the mountain of coins out of the way and tried to wipe clean a spot to eat on. There was quite a bit of cash there, and I wouldn't be surprised if most of it was plucked from under a sewer grate. Strangely enough, that was the first thing in a while that made a lot of sense. The industrious little buggers went out and found a bunch of loose change for me. There were some cleaner bills toward the far end whose presence tugged at my inner Sherlock Holmes, but before I could get out the pipe and hat, a stronger force pulled me away. It was the Pavlovian "ding" of the microwave. I think I even drooled a bit. After letting the molten core cool off for a minute or two, I took a bite. Ham and cheese, my ass.

I disposed of my meal in the least humane manner possible, by eating it, and then set about filling both the kitchen sinks with hot water and dish soap. In an act of kindness to my sense of smell, I shoveled all the change into them to soak overnight. I crammed the filthy bills in there, too, for good measure, and then headed off down the hall to find the welcoming embrace of my mattress. Luckily, it and my sheets had dried significantly throughout the day.

## Chapter Nine

I saw an old, silver fox living in a stone hovel. I was no longer a cloud but instead maybe just some inanimate object on the counter of what appeared to be a very large kitchen, complete with a massive oven. The old fox was patiently kneading a large bowl of clay with his forelimbs, trying to get just the right consistency. When he was done, he removed the clay from the bowl and laid it out on the counter, pushing and nudging it into the shape of a man. He took more of the same clay and molded it into the shape of a woman. Het set both of these side by side on wide stone and then using his teeth, picked up the baking sheet and popped it into the oven. While these were baking, Coyote swaggered up with a curious grin on his doggish face.

"What are you doing old man?" Coyote asked.

"I am creating a new creature to share the earth with the animals."

"Really? What are they?"

"This is going to be man. They will be as entertaining as they will be troublesome."

"I think I might like them. Are they supposed to be smoking like that?"

The silver fox looked to the stove and hurriedly pulled out the stone, setting it on the counter with a loud bang. The man and woman were burned and blackened, and the old fox shook his head. The man and woman rose from the stone into a sitting position and looked about in confusion. The old fox told them that they had to go to the west where they could find a home. When they had walked off, he turned to Coyote, and said, "Look what you have done. You distracted me, and now I have cooked them too long. Be quiet next time and let me work."

"Of course," said Coyote

The silver fox began to knead more clay, and Coyote sat by and watched quietly as a second batch of man and woman were formed. These went into the oven, and the fox waited for the right moment to remove them.

Coyote could not keep his mouth shut any longer and blurted out, "Don't you think we should remove it now? We don't want them to get burnt again."

"Not yet," said the fox with growing uncertainty.

"I think I smell it burning already," Coyote said. The fox hesitated but then ran over and pulled the man and woman out of the oven. This batch was pale and underdone. The old fox told them to go to the north and, when they had gone, began to knead another batch in silent anger. When these were ready, he put them into the oven and then turned to Coyote with murder in his eyes. Coyote ran off in panic and the fox smiled to himself. He waited just the right amount of time and removed this man and woman. These were neither underdone, nor burnt. They were exactly right. He told these to go outside and find a nice place nearby to live and have children and be the People.

****

The newly baked People beeped at me in agreement with the idea, happy to be cooked and actively multiplying. Their beeping was incessant and it dragged me from my sleep like a morbidly obese catfish on a fishing line - one moment lying about in the muck and the next slowly realizing that the bright world above was closing in on me. I was certain that I had killed my alarm clock a couple days ago, and four empty swipes at the end table confirmed this. The sound shrunk to a single beep and was followed by a female voice. A second beep ended the struggle, freeing me from the hook, but by then it was too late. I was too close to the light to go back and my internal clock sang to me the tragedy of my awakening. It had to be mid-morning already. I had overslept although I'm not sure that truly applied to me anymore. As nice as it was to not be bound to a schedule, it was also a little frightening. Everyone needs something to anchor them down in life.

I got up, not out of necessity or habit, but really because I couldn't think of anything better to do. My mouth felt like a pig took a crap in it and only a morning beer would be able to wash away the taste of ham and cheese flavored morning breath. I'm sure toothpaste or Scope might have worked a little better, but getting a buzz off of Scope wasn't nearly as much fun as you might think. When I got to the kitchen, I noticed a thick film of scum floating on top of the water in the sink, and my arteries congested just thinking of what the pipes would need to swallow. I seriously considered taking out stock in drain cleaner. The last beer stared at me forlornly from its place on the top shelf of the fridge, and I set it free of its solitude. Loneliness is something that no one, man nor beer, should suffer for long.

The bottle tipped up, the cold liquid went down, and life became a little more bearable. I looked about the room for the first time this morning and noticed that once again the message light on the answering machine was blinking at me urgently. I shuffled over and hit the button, half expecting it to be the police looking for the guy who had blinded two poor alien creatures with a broomstick yesterday. Maybe they were filing a lawsuit, citing cruel and unusual treatment. "Honest, your honor, we were just floating there minding our own business when this madman came up and started poking us in our eyes. Yes, your honor. Then he forced us under duress to attack each other with our clawed tentacles. There are physical and psychological scars that will never heal."

The voice that came out of that box was far from the Dragnet monologue of my imagination. It was something closer to auditory cocaine. My pulse raced, my vision went to a pinpoint, and my heart felt like it was about to jump out of my chest and pull a few laps around the living room. It was the voice of an angel soaring out of my machine, profoundly clear and natural, something my answering machine would never have been able to accomplish on its own. Normally, it regurgitates the message so the speaker sounds like one of Charlie Brown's adults, but somehow, Annie was immune to such degradation. "Tim, uh, Mr. Sweeney, I've spoken with some of my relatives and was given the name of a very well-respected individual that lives right here in Jacksonville. If you're still interested in this information, then I'm ready to listen to your story. You know where to reach me."

Oh, how the fortunes can swing. From basement to penthouse in thirty seconds. I was positively walking on water as I took a shower and put on fresh, and intact, clothing. I closed the door to my apartment with an itinerary consisting of going to the library, setting up a date with my dream girl, convincing her I'm not insane, and then sweeping her off her feet. I'd do more before ten o'clock tonight than I had all the rest of my life. This whole becoming a pawn in the plans of the universe was finally about to pay dividends. At least until the world imploded at my hands and I ruined everything. I alternated between basking in the glory and bemoaning the tragedy of my future conquests as I worked my way down the stairs and out on to the street.

The sky was overcast, and light assaulted me from all angles in its ambient fury. I squinted and dropped my head to the side, trying to get adjusted to my new surroundings. Through slitted eyes, I noticed a pod of spiders moving from shadow to shadow along the edge of the apartment complex. There were probably twenty in all, and they were carrying some bits of junk between them as they moved with determination toward the side of the building that faced the merchant district. I took a step to follow them, curious to see what they were about, when a dusty cab pulled up in front of me. I stood there and watched the intrepid arachnids scuttle around the corner and then disappear. I banged on the window with the back of my hand in annoyance. It rolled down to reveal none other than my good friend, Girl Without Parents.

"Myrtle. What a pleasure to see you," I chimed with forced grace.

"I bet. Do you want to get in?"

"Not sure I can afford taxi rides everywhere. It's a nice day; I think I might just walk."

"It's on me this time. Get in." Every once in a while my intuition springs to life to warn me of impending doom. I usually just ignore it, since impending doom usually lies in the direction of impending entertainment, but today's message seemed in earnest. I got the distinct impression that a simple "no" would result in more trouble than I needed. I did as she commanded, sliding into the front passenger seat beside her. We waited in uncomfortable silence for a few moments before she finally caved in. "There are murmurs that you had another run in with Untunktahe's crew. How'd that go?"

"Unkatunka who?"

"Water Monster's son? His name is Untunktahe," she said a little dismissively.

"Oh, him. I never actually met the guy, just some high priest and his goon-things. It went a lot better than the first time. I could actually see those things this time. They weren't just some guys in raincoats."

"Like an empty skin? With tentacles and claws?"

"Yeah. I take it you've seen them before?"

"Heard of them. South American heavies. Cuero, they're called. Hang out in rivers, killing people. I bet it cost them a bundle to ship them up here."

"So, what exactly does this guy have against me? He's tried twice now to have me offed. I know that my existence made some people feel like killing me even before I became the antichrist, but this is a little ridiculous."

"I felt like killing you at first, too."

"Ouch. You wound me. I take it that you've revised your opinion?"

"You've grown on me a bit. You're not the typical pompous horseman of the apocalypse. Besides, you're quite a mystery."

"Okay, in the name of our new friendship, spill the beans. Why is he so hell bent on making my life short and miserable?"

Myrtle sighed. "It's not you, specifically. You have to understand the mindset of a Brave. Untunktahe sees himself as a noble warrior, and his honor is more important than anything. When he was captured by Grandmother so easily, he was embarrassed. When his failure as a warrior caused the entire world to be destroyed, he was mortified. When his mother died because of his weakness, he was emasculated. He can never get to Grandmother Spider to confront her directly. Iktomi is much too clever to be defeated, and Untunktahe failed to stop the last White-Bone-Spider man. You're the only one slow enough for him to catch and vent his anger on."

"Oh, great. Now he's probably even more pissed that I took out his goons."

"No doubt. How did you not only escape two Cuero but manage to kill them?"

"I'm a master of the broomstick."

"A broomstick? Well, count me impressed. Now all we have to do is figure out how to stop the end of the world. Not sure a broomstick will do, but maybe we can get you a mop."

"I've already got some people working on that. I've just got to stick around long enough to get some answers."

"Who are your people?"

"I was just on my way to set up a meeting with a holy man. I figure if anyone might be able to give me some insight, it would be an expert."

"Fair enough. Maybe he knows a legend or two that might help."

"Yeah, and I also met with one of your friends yesterday, and he said he was going to help."

"One of my friends? Which one?"

"Coyote." There was a deafening silence that followed. Girl Without Parents just looked forward out the windshield with a scowl on her face. Her knuckles grew white as she gripped the steering wheel with emotion. "I take it he's not a friend?"

"No." She stayed facing away from me, her small chest rising and falling with hard breathing. "He is. But only as much as he is anyone's friend. Coyote is, well, chaos. From chaos springs creation and destruction, and often both at the same time. He is a schemer, a trickster, a savior, a destroyer, but he always has an angle and is always in it for himself." She turned to me at last, worry clearly written on her face. "Don't trust him. Don't ever believe you can trust him. His price is always more than you can pay."

"I've read about him. I know he's sneaky."

"Sneaky! You have no idea. He cons sneaky every day. Sure he brought fire to man, the same fire that consumed them. He showed the hunters the best place for elk, but while they hunted, he had his way with their wives. It's too dangerous to deal with him. Trust me on this. Get out while you can."

"Wow. And he seemed so nice. Unfortunately, he's the closest thing I have to an answer to our little problem. He might be able to return me to normal, which would kind of disqualify me for Armageddon duty."

"What makes you think he can change you back? Did he tell you that?" The cynicism was thick in her voice.

"No, but his book had the same symbols I found on the net, the ones that got all of this started."

"How, coincidental. Coyote finds himself in a position to profit from a random web page that used his magic to turn you into a potential customer. Coincidence is the mother of necessity."

"You think Coyote put that web page there as a trap?"

"All I think is that you can never trust Coyote." The radio in the cab cackled, spewing out some address for Myrtle to get to and she shrugged her shoulders. "Duty calls. Been nice talking to you."

"You, too." I said from the curb. I didn't remember leaving, but there I was. I placed random teleportation without consent near the top of my list of things that annoyed me. I'd have to have a chat about that next time I saw her. The shadows had changed their direction somewhat since entering the cab. I looked up into the sky, noting that the sun was directly overhead now. That placed our conversation at just about an hour in length. There must have been some kind of space-time rift in her cab. It probably wasn't the supernatural kind of space-time rift either, just something the company came up with in order to increase the fares.

****

The stench of bodies rolled out of the doors of the library like a fog bank as I opened them. I took a step back from the force and was met with an equally powerful wave of sound. It was a one hundred voice pile up as the sound waves from a jumbled mass of conversations collided with one another. The place was unmercifully packed with people. Someone must have been fumigating the local shelters because every homeless person on two legs, and some on one, was crammed into the building. They lined the shelves, sat on the chairs, and lay in the corners, all enjoying the hospitality of a climate controlled public building. The smell reminded me of the pile of change on my kitchen table last night, and I wondered idly if some of these folk spent their time looking for loose change under the sewer grates as well. Amidst it all was Annie, looking fresh and clean in a white blouse, like a water-lily sitting atop a scummy bayou. She was seated at the reference desk, trying vainly to answer the questions of half a dozen members of the unwashed masses club. It was clear by the looks on their faces that the only knowledge they were seeking was a more thorough topography of her chest, and I can't say that I blamed them. I'd often wanted to join the same geography class or at least to get some private tutoring on that topic. Nevertheless, the crowd was impeding my progress, and it was my duty as a gentleman to rescue the fair damsel in the most macho way I possibly could.

I reached into my pocket and grabbed a handful of the change that I had rescued from the sink earlier this morning. As I approached the desk, I pulled my hand out of my pocket, and the air was filled first with light tinkling of nickels, dimes, quarters and pennies playfully bumping into one another and then with the harsh percussion of them striking the floor. With eerie precision, every shaggy head turned at once, like a school of piranha sensing a wounded fish, and then a mad dash for loose change ensued. Regardless of what they were doing at the time, the Pavlovian response kicked in and bodies were flailing about on the ground, grasping at anything shiny. I stepped to the side and moseyed up to the reference desk as casually as I could muster.

"Morning," I said while tipping my head to her.

"It certainly is," Annie replied, staring at the writhing mass of bodies on the ground. "I'm not sure my boss would approve, but thank you anyway. At least I don't feel quite as claustrophobic. Although I'm not sure it does too much for my ego, seeing how they gave up mentally groping me for some loose change."

"Don't think too much on that, think about what I spent to be able to mentally grope you without all the company." Did I actually say that out loud? That was not one of my normal pick-up lines. Those usually consisted of a lot of embarrassed "umms" and "ahhs" followed by a strategic retreat and flogging myself with cheap alcohol for my stupidity. Maybe something about being the play-thing of gods and destiny had loosened my tongue.

She cracked a grin. "So much for being the white knight, but I'll take what I can get at this point. As you can see, we'll never get anything done here. Shall we meet for dinner tonight? I might have some theories on your dreams." She must have seen my face light up because she quickly added, "Not for a date, and we'll meet there. I'm not sure I'm ready to lock myself in a car with you, just yet. I get off at eight. Let's meet at the Daily Grinder around quarter after. You know the place?"

"Yeah, I've been there once or twice." A post-traumatic stress flashback reminded me of the Cuero that once lurked somewhere around there, but I couldn't think of anything better off the top of my head. The rush of bums began to disperse, and you could easily tell the winners from the losers by the size of their toothless grins. One even came away with a bloody nose that he wiped absently on his sleeve. Things could have been a lot worse. The line began to queue behind me, and Annie sighed audibly.

"Okay, quarter after eight. I'll be there," I proclaimed.

"See ya then," was all she said as I moved away from the desk and out into the sweet-smelling air of the city. Having left the cattle and the worry of what loomed in the distance behind me temporarily, I took a moment to revel in the fact that I actually had a "not date" with an angel tonight. If I could have jumped and clicked my heels without falling on my face, I would have. Instead, I settled for a fist pump and a little skip down the sidewalk.

In an odd twist of fate, nothing tried to kill me on the way home. I made it back to my place around three in the afternoon and, after a second shower and a mad dash for clean clothes, I ended up in the kitchen. There were more coins, this time placed in the sink, but not nearly as much as there had been yesterday. Apparently, the loose change in this area was a bit depleted. As I ran some water over this bounty, I saw a few leaves of paper money wander in on their own from under the cabinets. They were mostly ones, but there were also a few fives in there and even a ten. Quarters soon followed, each one shiny from recent ownership, and they gleamed in the fluorescent light as they trudged across the floor and landed at my feet. I recognized a few of the other items that found their way inside as the same bits of string and other baubles I saw a troop of spiders carrying out this morning. The porters seemed a bit tired but still waggled their abdomens in pride of their accomplishments.

"You guys are awesome! Where did you get all of this?" I said in exaggerated excitement. Don't get me wrong, I was excited, but a little extra exuberance never hurts.

The crew gathered together and another two dozen scurried out to join them. After a brief consultation, they spelled the word "work" out on the floor. Daddy's little spiders were all grown up and running the rat race.

"Well, I have to say that this is amazing. You make more money than I ever did." Their abdomens waggled in a frenzied response. "Tell you what. Get all your buddies together, and we'll read two chapters tonight. I've got to make a little trip to the store, but I'll be back in about half an hour." The spiders bobbed their understanding, and I took one of the fives, a handful of ones, and a pocket full of quarters and headed out the door. It only took me twenty minutes to accomplish my task, and I stepped back in the door holding a small bag from the pet store around the corner. The whole gang was there and looking at me expectantly.

"I got takeout," I announced as I upended the bag, dumping the contents out onto the floor. Two dozen crickets hit the carpet and took off in every direction. It was a giant game of tag for the spiders as they bounded after their prey, and one by one the crickets were wrestled into submission. They dragged their not-so-happy meals into a central location to share and all the children settled down for a snack as I picked up Charlotte's Web and began to read aloud. "Chapter 5. Charlotte. The night seemed long. Wilbur's stomach was empty and his mind was full. And when your stomach is empty and your mind is full, it's always hard to sleep."

## Chapter Ten

Early people are desperate people; either that or they are just a little mentally unbalanced. The compulsion to be early for appointments serves people well in the business world where they are viewed as "go-getters", but in society, it's just pathetic. I was pathetic. The time on my cell read seven-fifty, and that meant I had just over twenty five minutes to agonize over what kind of ass I was about to make of myself. I tried standing for a while, leaning against the wall casually, but my lurking made passers-by uncomfortable. I settled for perching on a bench outside of the restaurant that seemed inviting enough and decided it was as good a place as any to hyperventilate in the sweet, humid night air. Despite the building tension, I had to smile a little. Today had been a good day, perhaps one of the best I could remember. I had ended up reading three chapters at the insistence of my hoard of eight-legged children before they let me get up and get ready. By the time I left, they had all retreated to their webs and dens. All except for Scruffy. He had stayed up to see me off, offering me good luck with his signature front leg gesture. Interesting what life throws at you.

So, there I was, early and pathetic, watching the daytime breathe its last before giving way to night. One by one, the conventions of man strove to fill in the void left by the setting of the sun. Lights came on from inside buildings, billboards, headlights, and streetlamps. I had fallen into some sort of reverie at that point and began to see things through eyes that had never truly seen and a mind that had never truly thought. The universe was before me, and I looked and understood.

At night, each light takes on its own soul. They become living things, keeping away the dark from our eyes only as a blessed side effect. In reality, they burn not for us, but to prove to themselves that they are separate from the dark, that they are not lifeless and void of purpose, that they are alive. I suppose that makes them family to us in a way. Sure, they may just be a simple super-heated filament, or a vacuum container of inert gas excited by an electrical current, but what are we if not just ugly bags of mostly water. Who's to say what we are made of is any more a judge of life than what we try to do?

"Long day?"

I jerked my head up with a start and gave my pupils a moment to adjust. The bluish yellow shapes of the bulbs I was staring at clouded most of my vision, but I knew that shape anywhere. "Hey, Annie. I was just, well, pondering the meaning of life."

"I see. Well, should I come back later? I'd hate to interrupt such a philosophical moment."

"No. Please stay. There will be plenty of opportunity for that later on. But how often do I get the opportunity to have dinner with a beautiful woman?"

"Okay. First of all, there will be no romantic undertones to this dinner. I want to get that out of the way right now. We are here to satisfy your need for information and my curiosity about your need for information." She raised her eyebrows waiting for me to acknowledge this statement.

"Of course. It doesn't change the facts, but this is completely business."

"Great. Let's go in, I'm starving."

"Wrangling homeless people takes a lot out of you?"

"You have no idea."

We were seated without having to wait, which we were told by the hostess was unusual for this time of night. Coincidence placed us at the same table that Latrans and I had sat at yesterday, and Terri, with a smiley face over the "i", was even there. She gave me a "nice to see you again" smile and took our orders.

"She's awful chummy with you," Annie observed with a wry smile.

"She's just trying for a big tip. It's good business. She can spot a sucker from a mile away."

There was some kind of celebration going on at the opposite side of the restaurant, and although it was a little loud, it did provide for a relatively private conversation at our table. Which was good. I was going to be hard pressed to keep Annie from trying to get me committed, and witnesses would just ruin my plausible deniability.

"So, tell me about my dreams."

"Now, I'm no expert, so these might be a little shaky, but I did some research on spirit journeys and vision quests. Aside from the fact that they are used to find the totem animal, they are also credited with showing the future and with teaching important lessons."

"Kind of like an instruction manual?"

"More or less. Take the Corn Maiden tale. The dream you had matched up quite nicely with and old legend that was told to teach the tribe the value of self-sacrifice for the good of the whole. I'm not sure how it might apply to you, but apparently, if you believe in that kind of stuff, you are meant to sacrifice something in order to accomplish something that affects a larger group. Does that make sense?"

"A little too much," I said glumly.

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing. What about the White-Spider-Man one or Coyote and the rock?"

"What exactly happened in the White-Spider-Man one?"

"I saw this person, Iktomi, telling various tribes that they had been wicked and that the white man would soon come to wipe them out."

"Hmmm. I'm not real sure about that one. Maybe it was just a history lesson or symbolic of something still to come. I don't know. The Coyote one was also an old legend and has been interpreted as an entertaining way to show how the terms of bargains should be kept."

I nodded my head at this a while, thinking of all the bargains that I had made, intentionally or not, and what that meant for the future. "I don't suppose you'd be ready for another one?"

"You're having more?"

"Every night this week. I dreamt of a race between all the animals to determine the dominant species. Man made a deal with the birds where if they raced on man's behalf, they would treat the birds as holy beings and, uh. Dammit, what's that word?"

"Venerate?"

"That's it. Venerate them."

She thought for a moment, rolling her eyes up to the right in the cutest way. "That one seems pretty easy. It's kind of like in the Bible where God says He'll place man above all other creatures. All man had to do is worship God as the one true god and abide by some simple rules. The birds, in your dream, are playing the role of God or the gods of the People."

"You are really quite good at this."

"Maybe," Annie said with a self-satisfied toss of her head. "All right. Your turn. Get talking," she said rather brusquely. I suddenly found myself lost as to how to start. Maybe I should have rehearsed it instead of staring at the lights like an idiot.

"I think it would go better if you asked me questions. It's going to be easier to digest in small bits."

"Okay. How did you know I was part Hopi?"

"I saw it in your face. Ever since I've been having these dreams, I see things a little differently. I think I'm more connected to the Native Americans."

"Are you part Native American?"

"Not biologically. I'm mostly Irish."

"Then how do you explain suddenly being so 'in touch' with the People?"

_Oh lord_ , I thought to myself. _Think of a good lie, think of a good lie, think of a good lie,_ "Because I am apparently the Daddy-Long-Legs-Man." _Doh!_ I gave a big, nervous grin that screamed uber-psycho. Annie just looked at me doubtfully.

"Fine. You're going to need to explain a little more. How do you know that you are the Daddy-Long-Legs-Man?"

I started with a sigh. Conversations that start with sighs are destined to be painful, and this one was no exception. It was the moment of truth, and I was kicking myself for not having the brain power to cook up a decent lie. "I got the first clue after my friend told me that I had died and then came back to life. Before long, I ended up in Indian heaven, or maybe it was hell, they were both side by side over there. Anyway, after that, Grandmother Spider told me a few things and a little girl driving a taxi confirmed everything..." I broke off at this point and looked up hopefully at Annie. She was giving me a look that made me less hopeful with every passing second. It was so much easier with Marty. "This sounds nuts, doesn't it?"

"Um, yes. Perhaps I should go."

"No! No, please wait. It will all make sense, I swear."

There was a pause in my begging as our food arrived, and after assuring the waitress that we didn't need anything else, Annie nudged a French fry with her index finger and then said without looking up, "I can't imagine how your going to the Indian afterlife, talking with a myth, and then getting validation from a pre-pubescent cab driver will ever make sense. This was all a mistake," she said, looking around for the waitress. The moment was slipping away from me, and desperation twisted my gut like a ham and cheese Hot Pocket. She was ready to bolt, and I had to do something fast. Unfortunately, my brain ceased to function under such pressure, and I did the only thing I could think of. I cut myself with a knife. This, by the way, wasn't easy with those damn Playskool steak knives they give you these days. I had to saw a little, and it hurt like a mother.

Annie's eyes grew wide with fright when she witnessed what I had done. It was obvious that she was about to pass a kitten as she mentally worked out exit routes from the table and away from the nut across from her with the knife in his hand. Hell, I was kind of freaked out by him, too. I set the knife down and stared at the blood leaking onto the plastic checkered tablecloth. My date seemed to be finally gaining enough of her faculties to muster a scream when I held up a cautionary finger.

"Just hold that thought for a moment," I said through strained teeth. That cut really hurt. You know, after all I'd been through, to have a slice from a dull steak knife bring tears to my eyes was ridiculous. I just watched the blood pool even further out. "Any moment now..." Damn things were taking their sweet time in getting back inside me. What if that had been a one-time thing? What if there were only certain circumstances in which I would repair myself? I hadn't thought of it before now, but I was pretty much dead the other two times. Did I just play the psycho card and lose?

It was just as I began to panic and the power of the cautionary finger waned that my blood rose up and began to march back in to the wound. The small puddle of crimson broke into little drops, each one sprouting legs and marching right back from where they came. If a scream was something that could be swallowed, Annie would have choked to death on hers. Her eyes were still wide with horror, but now overflowed with incomprehension. She barely moved during the entire procession, and I was lucky that no one else in the place noticed my little demonstration. I was really lucky that it still worked. When all the blood returned, the wound sealed up nice and tight.

Many a man has said "silence is golden." Very few have mentioned "silence is a man on a sinking ship straining at the horizon for a sign of rescue." Or "silence is waking up in a coffin with no idea if you've been buried yet or not." The moments of quiet stretched into agony, took a left, and found a bed to hide under in terror. In those eternities of silence, about two minutes by standard time, Annie struggled to compose herself. Finally, she stuttered, "What? How did you do that?"

"Are you willing to listen to the rest of my story?" She nodded her head numbly. "You should eat something while I talk. Don't want the food getting cold." A mechanical nibbling commenced upon the French fries, and I relayed everything that had happened to me. I did a much better job this time, picking things up from the initial ritual and continuing through to the latest battle with the forces of the angry child of the water monster. She mercifully didn't ask any questions during the monologue and, even more mercifully, didn't get up running and screaming from the restaurant. At last, she seemed to have digested everything, mentally at least.

"Let me see if I have this right. You accidentally gave your soul away to save a dead spider." She poked at the air with a half-eaten fry as she spoke.

"Yes."

"Then a Native American deity gave you the soul of a spider in return."

"Close enough," I said.

"For some reason, the son of another Native American deity had you killed, and you went to the afterlife and then came back to life."

"Yep."

"A girl, who you suspect is another deity, is giving you advice in a taxi. You met with Coyote, and then you fought and killed two South American water spirits."

"You're on a roll."

"Oh, and let's not forget that you have a pack of trained spiders living with you and that your blood refuses to stay out of your body." She sat back in the chair and shook her head in disbelief. "I'm not sure how much of this to believe. I mean, I saw the blood, but that could just be some kind of magic trick. But why would you come up with such an unbelievable story?"

"Excellent point. I'm not smart enough to make all that up," I conceded.

"But, it's impossible. Everything you've told me simply cannot be." She seemed to scoot backwards at the sight of something on the table, and I looked down. The familiar form of a house spider ambled across to the center to the table and bounced up and down at my guest. Annie looked as if she was going to either run or start wailing on the poor thing with a shoe before I scooped him up in my hand.

"Annie, meet Scruffy. Scruffy, this is Annie."

"Scruffy? You named it?" her voice rose a little higher and began to waver.

"Of course. This is the little guy I brought back to life."

"This is too much. This is the spider that you gave your soul to? How do I know he's not just another prop in whatever sick game you are playing?"

I thought on this for a second, and Scruffy took the initiative by jumping down and gesturing at the salt shaker. I picked up on his meaning and removed the top of the container, pouring the contents out onto the table. I spread the grains into a thin coat and let Scruffy take over. He moved his forelimbs through the grains, and after a minute, had the word "Hello" spelled out. Annie stared dumbfounded, and Scruffy gestured for me to erase the word. Then he wrote "believe" in the salt and returned to me, moving around the folds of my shirt to find a safe perch out of sight.

Annie stared at the salt a bit longer and then said, "Okay. We'll go see the holy woman tomorrow if you won't be too busy going on a spirit journey or something."

"I don't have anything scheduled. How do I get there?"

"I'll drive." She hesitated before adding, "As long as you don't bring any spiders with you. No offense to Scruffy there, but I'm a little afraid of them."

"Okay, deal. "

"I'll pick you up here if that's okay. It's on the way. Around ten?"

"Ten o'clock. Tomorrow."

"I'm going to head home now and get really drunk to try to keep from having nightmares about you." Her face bore the aspect of one slapped in the face with the impossible. It was a spaced out look, complete with a vacuous stare like she had her eyeballs super glued into place. It was a look I was intimately familiar with. She stood up, turned toward the door, and followed it out into the street without a glance back.

"Date didn't go well?" Terri said from behind me.

"It went about as well as I could hope for. She didn't run out of here screaming. That's a win in my book."

"Great attitude to have. Here's the check. Take as long as you need."

****

My answering machine was practically humming with eagerness to play me a message when I got home. The children had called it a night hours ago, and I set Scruffy down on the kitchen table so we could celebrate. I removed a bottle of Michelob Ultra from the fridge – the good stuff – and wrestled with the cap for a while before it finally came off. I placed this ridge-up on the table. The first good taste went to me, the second to my little buddy. I dribbled a few drops into the cap and gave a toast. "To us." We finished our brew in contented silence, and Scruffy excused himself to go to bed.

I was making a bee-line for the bedroom, trying desperately to ignore the incessant flashing of the answering machine, but the blasted thing was imploring me to push its button. It seemed to claim it would, without a doubt, explode if I did not free it from its burden. I stopped and took pity on it. To this day, I swear there was an audible sigh of relief from that thing when I hit the play button.

"Spider man, spider man, does all the things that a spider can," sang a low voice, accompanied by what sounded like a bean-rattle. "Just kidding. In case you haven't guessed by now, this is Latrans. We need to meet tomorrow at Ball Park on Franklin Street. I have a solution to your problem. Eight thirty o'clock, tomorrow, sharp." Beep.

I sighed as loudly as the answering machine had. I realized that I had been harboring an unspoken hope that I would never have to deal with that man again. Myrtle was right about him. He was not to be trusted. I could have just ignored the message, but I had a feeling disappointing the embodiment of chaos might be even more dangerous than dealing with him. I sighed again as loud as I could and then retired to my room for the night. Nothing like an impending meeting with that clown to make for pleasant dreams.

****

That night, I dreamt of a flood. Everywhere I looked was wave upon wave of undulating water, carrying debris with every motion. There were desiccated trees floating beside icebergs floating beside bloated bodies of animals and people alike. I had the sneaking suspicion that this would not be the restful sleep I had hoped for. The sky was grey and solid, save for a single point of light that punched through the cloud barrier and bathed a small patch of the water's surface in sunlight. Illuminated in this patch were dozens of the soggiest and most pathetic looking people I had ever laid my eyes upon. They were alive, in body, but all hope had fled from them. They bemoaned their fate and railed against the unfairness of it all. Several grew still and let go of the flotsam that kept them afloat, giving themselves to the deep. Others cursed their fate and cursed those who had left them behind.

It was the curses that drew Unktehi, the great water monster to them. She appeared, surfacing like a furry submarine nearby and stared at the pitiful humans with impassive eyes.

"Save us, Unktehi!" they cried. "We do not deserve this."

"Deserve has little to do with things," Unktehi replied in her deep resonant voice. "This world has come to an end and us with it. Soon, we will be nothing but a memory."

"Why did this happen? Who sent us to our deaths?"

"My child, Untunktahe, was stolen from me by Grandmother Spider, and then they left us here to die."

"That witch!" they cursed. "How could she do this? We must avenge this wrong and the others who have perished here. Is there nothing we can do?"

Unktehi was quiet for some time, and then she spoke, "I can save you, but you must find my son and serve him. You will live to do his bidding and to torment those that were saved above you. You will punish those that allied themselves with that Spider bitch. Do you accept these terms?"

"Yes!" they cried unanimously, for they were very scared of dying.

Unktehi roared into the water and the vibrations traveled along in ripples and popped out of the water in large globs of energy. Each person touched by this surge began to transform, gaining aspects of the creatures that lived in the seas, rivers, and lakes of the drowned world. Some grew fins and tails while others stretched long and thin like an eel. Still others traded their arms for giant pincers, or tentacles, or bulbous, sticky toes. I saw the creation of mermaids and things resembling the creature from the black lagoon and others that looked eerily similar to the living dishrags I'd fought and still more. All the variations whirled around in my head as I watched.

It was impossible to pin down any one transformation and focus on it, for they were still changing as the water around them began to swirl and funnel upward, taking the new creations with them up into the lighted world above. Water Monster stayed behind in the dark, her eyes gleaming up in sadness, resignation, and anger.

I was, predictably, soaking wet when I awoke. I hoped that it was just sweat, but with the sheer amount of liquid, I couldn't be sure. In either case, I had to give up on any further sleep for the night and set my mattress up in front of a fan to try to dry it out again. If this kept up, the poor thing would simply disintegrate. I spent as little time in the shower as I could while still achieving cleanliness, but found I kept checking myself constantly for additional fins and scales. I decided to swear off of sushi forever right then and there.

## Chapter Eleven

Yellow. The pants, the shirt, even the shoes. He stood there like a giant banana just waiting for a couple scoops of ice cream and some fudge drizzle to join him. I was forced to resign myself to the task at hand. He was staring at a particularly fit jogger and her less than fit friend when I sidled up next to him.

"You can tell a lot about a woman by what company she keeps. The thin one is insecure about herself and seeks out physically inferior companions to make herself better by comparison. The fat one is insecure about herself and seeks out a physically attractive companion to make herself better by association."

"Quite the psychologist this morning."

"It pays to understand people. Knowing their motivations makes bartering that much easier. So, White Bone Spider, what kept you?"

"I'm here on time, Coyote. Don't you have a watch?"

"I do now," he said, looking at his wrist. My watch decorated it nicely.

Now that I knew who, or what, I was dealing with, those little parlor tricks didn't faze me in the least. "Okay, but that's payment for this talk."

"What? You mean my watch?" He caught my glare and seemed to concede a bit. "No, this is payment for our last talk."

"No way. I've got a receipt for the lunch you stiffed me for. That was payment for last time. The watch is payment in advance for this little chat. Provided you actually say something useful and aren't just trying to con me."

"I'm hurt that you doubt me." He looked at me hard "I see someone has been talking about me to you. Spreading lies. Who would that be?"

"That, my friend, is privileged information. The fact that I'm here should be enough to let you know that I think you can be helpful if there is something in it for you. So, the watch is yours, and there is more to be gained later on if it's worth my time."

Coyote considered this and tugged on his dream catcher earring before answering. "Very well. I like you even though you are a white man, and you are destined to destroy the world. My services are not bought so cheaply with a few mere baubles, but I will consider running you a tab. Be forewarned, though. When it comes time to collect, my price will be steep. Still interested?" He licked the dryness off his lips with alien motion. He was dangerous, Myrtle was right about that, but he was also one of the only people I could get some real answers from.

"Deal, but only if what you say is useful. So, how do I avoid destroying the world?"

"I have thought on this since our first meeting. I do not think, if the world is meant to die, that we can stop it."

"Gee, that was worth the price of admission. I want my watch back."

"Not so fast, my white friend. Your people are always so eager. Like children ready to go hunt bear with your rattles. Your question is wrong. If you are destined to destroy the world, then you will destroy the world. However, there may be things you can do to postpone or even change the thread of destiny."

"I thought destiny was fixed. A done deal."

"The world ends when it is too wicked to continue. The Creator sets a level of wickedness that man must attain before world's thread is cut. It's like a scale, where it only tips when things become too much for this world to continue. The original creations, the Animals, are outside of this and can influence humans one way or another." He looked at me with a serious expression. "You have to make the world less wicked."

"Oh, sure, I'll just conjure up some goodwill from my magic pockets. Oh, what's this? Pocket lint? The little girls and boys will be so happy."

"You are a very funny man. What do you define as 'wicked'?"

"Oh, probably killing people, robbing old ladies, kicking dogs. Stuff like that."

"Always thinking like a white man. Think like a red man. Wickedness is the People losing their way. Wickedness is the People forgetting their culture, neglecting their gods. When man was created and placed on this earth, it was with the understanding that he would, ah..."

"Venerate?"

"Yes, that is it. That he would venerate those who gave him his place in this world. When they forget this obligation, they renege on the deal and become wicked."

"It's still impossible. There is no way I could convince people to go out of their way to please a bunch of Native American gods. I mean, how many are out there anyway?"

"You wouldn't have to please them all. In fact, if only one god, say, Grandmother Spider, thought that the world wasn't wicked, well, she might hesitate to cut the thread when the time comes."

Coyote was almost as proud as I was dumbfounded. Grandmother was in charge of the threads of destiny. Girl Without Parents told me the same thing, so I had to assume that it was true. Even though she was duty bound to snip the thread, she might procrastinate if she was enjoying things in this world. It was a simple idea but made sense like few other things had. If we just focused on her, then I wouldn't have to get the whole world or even the whole city involved. "I'm with you so far. How do I make her happy?"

His grin widened, and the canines hung down below his top lip a little further than they had a few moments before. "She is a god. What do gods need?"

"Worship."

"Ahh, he does have a brain after all. Not just worship. Worshippers. She needs ceremonies, rituals, the old ways. Then, she will be too happy to destroy it all."

"That actually makes sense. Perhaps the first thing since all this started, that really makes good, solid sense."

"Worth more than a watch, wouldn't you say?"

****

Apparently, talking was still out of the question as we rode side by side in her sensible little car. It was one of those foreign jobs that could make it three hundred thousand miles without an oil change if you could stand riding in a plastic bubble that long. It came standard with plastic panels, plastic dash, plastic seats, and probably a plastic engine. The only positive thing I could say for it was that it was better than what I was driving.

Annie gave me suspicious glances every time traffic would allow. I caught her looking at the white line on my arm and then checking all the creases and crevices in my clothing for hidden spiders. To her credit, she had still showed up like she said she would. True it wasn't with a gleam in her eye and a smile on her face, but even gleamless, frowning people deserve a little credit.

"I'm not smuggling any of them in here. You made it quite clear extra passengers were out of bounds," I said to finally break the silence.

"You'll have to forgive me," she said in mock apology, "but the alcohol didn't quite erase everything I saw last night. I'm still not sure if I should believe you, much less trust you."

"And yet, you've put yourself alone in a car with me as we head off to see your holy person. I think that says you've made a decision on trusting me."

"I've got pepper spray over here in case you get too frisky. I don't know what that was you did with your arm, but I doubt you've got anything prepared for a face full of habanero."

"Honestly, I was hoping for a little more on our second date."

"It's not a date. Just shut up and enjoy the ride."

I reclined my head against the plastic head rest and closed my eyes, inhaling Annie's scent with heady enjoyment. She so liked me.

****

Magda spoke in a weathered, but steady voice, only stopping long enough to place another quill in her mouth and mash it flat. Her back teeth were just stubs, little flat pedestals of enamel, worn down from years of doing just what she was doing as she stared at us. Once a quill was flattened, she brought it down to her blanket and skillfully worked it into the weave with her strong, gnarled fingers. I couldn't guess how old she was, but if she was anything like a tree, counting the rings would take me quite some time. She was small and dark with thick, wrinkled skin like an ancient shar pei.

The apartment she lived in was hardly anything to write home about, but it was cozy enough by ancient holy woman standards, I supposed. Annie and I were seated on a couch that probably predated Abraham Lincoln, and across from us, Magda squatted upon a worn brown recliner. She sat without grace, like a small ancient bear examining a pot of honey as she worked the quill over and then under, then over again within the existing weave. Beside her chair was perhaps the largest dog I'd ever seen. It hadn't actually gotten up to greet us or do anything other than lie there, but judging by the size of its head and the mountain of pitch black fur attached to it, I would have bet it was at least two hundred pounds. It looked to have some wolf in its heritage based on the shape of the face and head, but its eyes lacked that murderous yellow you see in all the pictures. Instead, they were a soulful basset-hound brown.

There were few decorations around the living room, but the ones that were prominently displayed included a few headdresses and pipes from days long gone. Off by itself in a corner was a tomahawk suspended from a nail in the wall with the business end pointing down and something round and furry tacked up next to it. Overall, though, the two main focal points of the place were the old lady herself and the ancient iron stove in the kitchen. Something simmered in a dull, cast iron pot and produced a sickly sweet odor. Puffs of steam trickled out religiously every minute or so, giving Old Faithful a run for the title.

"It is so nice to have visitors and so very kind of you to keep me company. Normally, it is just Shunka and I."

"We are the ones that should be thanking you for your hospitality, Magda. Do you know why we have come?"

"Of course, you wish to hear a story. You wish to know your present, but to do so you need to understand the past." Annie and I were both a bit dumfounded at this, but Magda continued without missing a beat. "In the beginning, there was nothing, and nothing went on for a very long time. As it went on, it became bored with itself. This, of course, was a thought, and a thought was certainly not nothing, so it had to be something." It was hard to argue with her logic, harder still to understand it.

"That something would later become known as the Great Mystery, the Creator. Having sprung from the boredom of nothing, the Creator sought to make more something and created the world. On this world he created the first animals. With their help, he created rivers and oceans, the sky and earth, mountains and valleys, plants and lesser animals. Eventually he created the People."

"The Creator decided that he needed someone to watch over the world and care for his creations, chief among them Man, for he was the most unpredictable and least wise. He turned to his steadfast friend, Turtle, and asked him to preside over the world. Turtle was loyal and kind but shortsighted. Because of this, the world only knew light and dark. There were no shadows and no stars. The only light at night belonged to the Skookums, the Fire People, at the top of a distant mountain. Man became curious and wanted light for themselves.

"One day, Man spoke to Eagle, 'Brother Eagle. You fly so high and can see so much. Tell us what those lights are at the top of the mountain.'

"Brother Eagle said 'That is called fire.'

"'How do we get fire?' Man asked.

"Brother Eagle replied, "Fire is not meant for man. It is forbidden."

"The men were angry and sad and lamented their fate. Coyote, who was bored with the world the way it was, heard this and answered, 'You must go to the top of the mountain and ask a fire-bearer four times to give you his fire. Ask only the first one you meet. I will go with you to help you ask.'

"Eagle was displeased and left to tell Turtle, but as fast as Eagle was, Turtle was equally as slow. He never made it before Man left for the mountain. Man left at first light and began the climb up the mountain. Coyote wanted to go with them to see the fun but was distracted by one of the women left behind. It was because of his lust that Coyote was delayed in reaching the top of the mountain. When he got there, he stopped at the first fire-bearer, a small flame flickering out of the rock.

"'Where is Man, who should have asked you for your flame? Did I miss it?' Coyote asked.

"'No,' replied the flame-bearer 'They were not pleased that my flame was so small and went on to coax the fire from Kelok.'

"Kelok was the fire within the great mountain, and Coyote was at once afraid of what he and Man had done. He raced to the very top and arrived just in time for Man to ask for the fourth time. Now anyone knows if you ask someone for something four times, and it is within their power to give it, then it must be given. Man had asked for the fire from the great mountain four times. The fire poured forth from Kelok in waves like the spreading of wings and covered the entire world.

"It was because of Turtle's stubby legs that he could not see the jealousness of man and the mischief of Coyote until it was too late. And thus, as the first world burned with Kelok's fire, Raven carried the seeds of the People and the insects and the forest animals into the upper world in a basket. The Creator was so pleased with his subject that he placed Raven in charge of the second world." Magda paused a moment, sniffing the air. It had become acrid with the substance in the pot as it had started to burn. She licked her lips and set her weaving down as she rose and then hobbled into the kitchen. The smell of berries grew thick in the air as she began to stir the simmering pot with practiced ease, as if she had done it a thousand times before. Out of the corner of my vision, I saw the large, black dog carefully pull at the blanket and then deftly remove quill after quill and stash them under the chair. By the time the old lady returned, the blanket was no more complete than it was when we came in.

"Uh, ma'am? Your dog..." I started to say.

"Yes?"

The dog shook his head from side to side. I shook mine back and forth in unison. "Um. He's very well behaved."

"Thank you. Shunka has been with me a very long time. Now, where was I?"

"You were telling us of the second world, Magda," Annie said smugly. I got a brief glimpse of her sitting at the front of the class raising her had every time a question was asked.

"Ah, yes. Raven was in charge of the second world. The Creator knew the mistake he had made with Turtle and was certain that Raven would be able to see the wickedness before it could grow out of control. Raven danced in the sky to see the workings of Man and saw that the People were very clever with their hands and made many interesting and beautiful things. Raven was obsessed with these creations and prized this above all else. The People soon forgot about the ways of their ancestors and no longer sang joyful praises to the Creator but instead sang joyful praises to themselves. Those that held true to the old ways were laughed at and driven from the villages.

"Distressed, the first animals came to Raven, saying 'Brother Raven, why do you abandon the old ways? Why do you cause Man to forget the creator?'

"Raven said, 'The old ways belong in the last world. In this world, we are the creators.'

"The first animals held a meeting one night and were joined by the Creator. It was decided that this world had grown too wicked to continue. The Creator spoke with his servant the sun and asked him to find a place to hide, and there was darkness such that Man and Raven could no longer see the beautiful things they had created. Furthermore, he took the world and flipped it upside down, where north was south and south was north. The wicked could no longer find their way around and without the sun, the world slowly froze solid. And that was the end of the second world.

"As the world below diminished, Bear climbed the great mountain into the upper world, carrying the seeds of creation on her back. As a reward for her bravery and humility, the Creator placed Bear in charge of the third world."

The old woman took a few moments to chew another handful of quills flat, so she might weave them in during the next part of the story. "Bear was a mighty overseer but very strict and terrible. She ensured her children would do no wickedness by keeping the sun away from them, and this world remained covered in ice and snow. Man was starving and freezing as were all the animals and birds and fish. All that remained in the land lived beside a great lake, heated by the Earth itself so that the water never froze. Nevertheless, every living thing was still too cold to be clever and wicked except, perhaps, for Fox. Fox called a meeting with the other First Animals, and in this meeting decided they should go find where Bear had hidden the sun. Once they found it, they would bring it back into the world. Fox, Wolf, Badger, Mouse, Bobcat, and Pike went into the mountains, close to the upper world where Bear had last been seen three seasons ago. The journey up to the summit was long and cold, but they eventually came to a hut with a fire burning in front of it.

"There were a number of clay pots lined up against the hut and bound with leather straps. Fox pointed to one and asked 'What's in the pot?'

"Badger popped the stopper and looked inside. 'It is earth,' he said, 'but the opening is too small to let it out.'

"'And in that one?' asked Fox.

"Wolf opened the stopper. 'This one holds the wind, but only a little can escape through the opening.'

"'And that one?' asked Fox.

"Bobcat pulled the stopper on the last one. A small ray of light shone out, and Bobcat quickly put the stopper back in before the light brought Bear back to the hut. 'It is the sun,' he said.

"The Animals gathered for another meeting. They knew they had to hurry before Bear returned to the hut. The meeting was brief, but they were able to put together a plan. Mouse quietly returned to the pots and began to chew through the leather strap holding the one containing the sun. Bobcat, being the swiftest, changed himself into an elk and, when Bear returned with her two hungry cubs, ran in front of the hut and out into the woods. Bear yelled at her cubs to follow, and all three gave chase, for they were very hungry. Wolf grabbed the sun pot and began to run in the opposite direction, back toward the world below. They took turns carrying the clay pot, for it was very heavy and got very hot, and by the time Bobcat rejoined them, all the large animals were exhausted. Bear was following close behind them and would kill them if she caught them in their thievery.

"They made it to the edge of the lake near the bottom of the mountain with Bear closing in fast. They gave the basket to Pike, and he took it to the other side of the water where Man was camped. Pike told the men that they had to smash the pot to let the sun out. When they did, the sun burst forth and was very close, burning the skin of the men. This is why the people have red skin to this day. Animals and Man rejoiced at the sun and the melting snow, but Fox knew that Bear would simply grab it again when it reached the west. "

Magda stood up again and returned to the kitchen to stir her berry stew. Once again, the dog began to pull out the quills that she had just woven into the blanket and hide them under the chair. It looked at me and gave a bit of a smile before returning to its mischief. Who was I to question? These two had obviously been together a long time.

The old woman returned with a cup of tea I hadn't noticed her make and took a sip. She mashed a few more quills with her teeth and picked up the story where she left off. "As the ice and snow melted, the rivers and lakes swelled. Fox had an idea and tried to talk with Water Monster to get her to flood the world. She refused, and Fox knew that Bear would recapture the sun before long and would punish those who had stolen it. Fox turned to Spider, one of the more practical of the first Animals, but no friend to the ice and cold of the last few years, and she agreed to help. Spider wove a net and, while perched on a giant reed, went fishing. She was quiet and patient and soon had captured Water Monster's son in her sticky trap. She reeled him up securing him to the reed. She had set other traps as well, her nets securing the Animals and Man alike.

"When Water Monster saw her child had been taken, she was furious and used all the water from the melted ice and snow to flood the third world. Spider climbed the reed into the Upper world, hauling her nets after her, letting down a final thread for Bear and her cubs. Bear refused to go but placed her cubs in the net to be saved.

"Fox called up to the creator and said, 'See, through my cleverness, I have saved us from that world without sun. I deserve to rule this new one.' The Creator responded, 'If you were truly clever, you would have found a way to bring the sun without destroying the world. Now I must create another for me to live in. Spider, you have eyes enough to see in all directions. You are ingenious and compassionate. You shall rule this world.' And that is how the fourth world began."

We sat quietly for a moment, waiting for her to say something more, but she gave us only silence. "So, we are still in the fourth world, then. The one ruled by Spider?" I asked.

"That is correct," she said as she rocked slowly back and forth in her chair.

"And how is this world supposed to end?"

"Suddenly. Like all of them," she said with a wry grin. I got the impression that I would never get a clear answer. It was interesting to hear the story about the other worlds, but I wasn't sure it did much to help me understand what was going to happen with me.

We thanked the old lady profusely and then stood up to leave. As we approached the door, I turned to her with one last question. "I'm just curious, Jacksonville, Florida, doesn't strike me as a place with a very large Native American population. Why did you decide to live here?"

"Do I live in Florida? Such an odd thought. Young man, many roads lead to my house. Only one leads from it."

****

Old tales told by old people have a mystic quality that stays with you long after you've walked away. I felt it, and I thought I could tell that Annie felt it as well. "That was quite a story," I said, with hopes for a slightly less hostile ride on the way back. She stared at the road for a few seconds before answering.

"Yeah. She's an interesting lady. I wonder how old she is?"

"I don't have a clue, but did you see her dog? He was pulling out those quills as fast as she was putting them in."

"Did he really? I didn't notice." That caught me by surprise. It was so obvious, how could she not have seen it?

"Um. Yeah. He wasn't really making a secret of it." I winced as the words came out. The air seemed to ripple with tension, and I got a distinct feeling that I was in trouble.

"Well, maybe some of us were actually paying attention to the holy woman. You know, the reason we went there?" I could see that we were heading back down the "I want to claw your eyeballs out" path and quickly tried to skirt around this disaster.

"So, what do you think about the whole 'ends of the world' thing?"

"I'm sure it's just something the ancient people came up with to explain the unexplainable, just like almost all myths and legends."

"And yet, here I am with super-legend spider powers."

"So you say. Something's weird about you, but I'm not sure I'm quite ready to believe you're the son of a Native American legend."

"All right, but you'll have to agree that there's nothing wrong with educating people." I had mentally rehearsed this argument on the quiet ride over and dangled the bait.

"Okay. What are you getting at?" nibbled Annie.

"Look, whether you believe it or not, I think the world has a fairly good chance of becoming a molten lump of something or other in the near future. One thing I've considered doing might be able to postpone it. It's something that is both harmless and may actually teach people a little something."

"I'm listening."

"If we can get more people interested in the ancient rituals and practices of your people, well, maybe the gods won't be so eager for the world to end." My weak smile wavered for a bit in anticipation of her laughter.

"So, we would start a school and teach people about the Hopi way?" She used the word "we". "That doesn't sound too bad. What's the catch? There is always a catch."

"The catch, as you put it, is that it might actually need to be a, umm, church of some kind."

"A church?"

"Well, in order to please a god, there has to be worship."

"Okay," she said dubiously, "if, and that's a big if, we can find people willing to worship the Native American gods, then it shouldn't be too bad."

"There is, of course one more thing." She gave me a sidelong glance at this. "We need to focus on Grandmother Spider. Magda said that she's in charge of this world. She's the one with all the power right now."

"The spiders. Of course. It couldn't be 'Let's start with the dog or the bunny, or something equally as cute and fuzzy.' Instead it's all hairy legs and beady eyes that stare at you." She shuddered briefly before chewing on her lip in the cutest way as she considered things. Finally she said, "Okay. I'm in." Shock and elation fought for dominance within me at these words. "But I get power of veto."

"No problem."

"And you have to be the figurehead. I'm not too keen on being the next Jerry Falwell."

"Okay, but you have to provide the technical details. I'm not exactly suited for this 'mastermind' thing."

"As long as you can 'master bank roll' this thing, then I'll handle the 'mind' part."

"Sure thing." I said, hoping my supply of lost and found pocket change could withstand the abuse.

****

The excitement of the return trip from the holy woman was tempered by the two days of relative boredom that followed it. Of course, I put that time to good use. Having entered into a binding contract with a nefarious and dangerous individual, I did what any other sane person would do. I looked for a way to cheat. Coyote's antics were legendary, and so was his ego. That was where he was most vulnerable, and I Googled furiously to uncover the tricks and traps others had set for him in the past. There were two tales in particular that stood out to me.

The first was about Iktomi's wife, Shunk-Manitou, and the night Coyote was invited for dinner. She was a disrespected wife and, while cooking two buffalo livers for the men, decided to eat them for herself. She knew she would get beaten for this and told Coyote that the guests always provided the meat for dinner. When he asked what kind of meat, she told him it had to be his balls and took out a long knife. He took off running, and Iktomi asked where Coyote was off to in such a hurry. She told Iktomi that Coyote had been very rude and taken the livers with him. Iktomi chased him for miles, asking that Coyote let him eat just one. Well, that story may not have been practical, but it was entertaining. Unfortunately, tricking Coyote like that would require something I just didn't possess enough of, intelligence. And besides, he could always come back later and collect his fee.

That's why I thought the second story had a greater amount of potential. It involved trapping him with his own overconfidence. That story began with Coyote and Fox raiding the white-man's ranches for food and trinkets. They would also play pranks on them like sawing through saddles, shortening the handles on the shovels and axes, and urinating on the blankets. Eventually, the white men got fed up with it and laid a trap for the trickster. One night when the animals came to pull their shenanigans, there was a short, dark figure waiting for them just around the corner of the barn. It startled Coyote, and he bristled and threatened the man, getting angrier with each passing moment. Before long he could not stop himself and he kicked out at the figure savagely. His foot stuck fast. Thinking that he had been grabbed, he struck out with another foot and then the third and fourth, each one getting stuck in turn. He eventually bit the figure and upon doing this, realized he had a mouthful of tar. The entire thing was one sticky mass and try as he might, he could not pull himself free. There were sounds from within the houses and he looked over at Fox imploringly for help. She took one step forward and then turned and ran into the fields. Coyote was found, killed, and skinned by the white men.

So, that was the key, then. All I had to do was set up a situation where he got himself in trouble and I would set him free if he promised to wipe out my debt. What could be simpler? I spent a few more hours looking for ideas on how I was going to outsmart the trickster god when I happened upon a link that promised animal imprisonment in the summary. I entered the site and a world I never knew existed.

There were sheep, raccoons, wolves, dogs, cougars of several impossible colors, weasels, large and bulbous hamsters, kangaroos, koalas, and a number of creatures I could not identify. They were all humongous, utterly fake and fornicating with one another. It was a writhing mass of costumed crazies getting their furry freak on. There were pictures and videos of fur piles, "four-paw play", meeting notices, testimonials and plushy accessories of all imaginable shapes, sizes, and purposes, not to mention a few beyond any imagination I ever possessed or wished to possess. Everything about this site repulsed me, yet I found I could not pull myself away. I'm not sure how long I lingered, but the entrancement lasted until I felt the burning eyes of scorn upon me. I felt them boring a hole into the back of my head and piercing the inner heart of my shame. I turned slowly, knowing what I would find.

Scruffy stood atop a lamp behind me, giving me the evil eyes. I quickly closed the browser window and turned to him, explaining how it had been a mistaken visit, just an errant click, but he was having none of that. My soul looked into me from those eyes and berated me for my moral trespass. I slinked away in shame, realizing that I really needed something to do to occupy my time. Who knew that retirement from trash-collecting would be so hard?

The spiders went out in the morning to be the bread-winners, I slept in later than I should have, the spiders came home, and there was more money on the table that I laundered. In the middle of this routine, I decided to throw myself into securing and building the website of the soon to be newly formed religious institution, or, rather, I got in the way of Annie building and securing it. She was definitely the brains of our operation. I would never have been confused for a webmaster, and after a few false starts and bumping of heads with the competent partner, I signed off and focused on fulfilling another need of mine. Curiosity.

On the following morning, I decided to get up at the butt-crack of dawn and follow my industrious little friends out into the world to see exactly what it was they were doing with those strings and things. I acted nonchalant and pretended not to notice when the troop gathered their supplies and scurried out of the apartment. I waited for a count of five before cracking the door to the hallway and peering outside. There was already no sign of the main body and only the tail end of the spider train could be seen rounding the corner and disappearing into a shadowy hole where the electrical conduit poked through the floor. I followed as best I could, but they proved to be difficult to keep up with. Every time I got close, they'd find one of the innumerable cracks and crevices that festooned my building to squeeze through. I, on the other hand, had to use doors, half of which were stubbornly locked. My numerous detours and dead ends caused me to lose them for nearly five minutes before finally catching sight of a trailing pair of daddy long legs in a nearby alleyway. They were carrying what looked like a straw between them, which they had apparently found somewhere along the way, and that was the only reason I found them at all. I waited for them to round the corner and then scurried over to it to look down the alley. Nothing moved along the ground. The alleyway was occupied only by inanimate garbage cans and a few discarded boxes. They could have been anywhere.

I concentrated, trying to bring out the adrenaline I felt when fighting off the Cueros. There were tiny little lines of faint purple that were quickly receding up the wall to my left, and I once again caught sight of the backside of one of those little buggers cresting the edge of the brick and heading over the roof. Gotcha.

Through a series of fire-escape gymnastics, I managed to not only identify their next direction but actually made it there in time to see them moving out toward the Duval County Courthouse. This troupe was joined by another three groups of spider friends that each took a different route from the apartment to get there. I wasn't sure if this was just a naturally careful instinct for these guys, or if they knew something I didn't, but their cloak and dagger stuff was impressive.

I watched their progress in undisguised amazement as they sidled up to one of the indigents asleep on a bench. A single daddy long legs tramped up the support railing and onto the chest of the sleeping man. After a second, it crawled back down, and they all moved along the shadows to another one. This one was surrounded by empty bottles of malted liquor. Again, the daddy long legs scaled the heights and leaned in close to the man's lips. It bounced up and down in excitement, and the others moved into action. They pushed the bottles under the bench with a coordinated effort and then began to assemble what eventually became a makeshift circus. There was a high-wire, a redneck trapeze strung between the bench and a nearby tree, a number of small unicycles made out of pennies with what looked like silk stuck to the sides, and even a rubber-band slingshot.

A small contingent trouped out onto the pavement with pebbles and spelled out the words "Spider Circus" with them. Once finished, they scurried back under the shadowy confines of the bench. Another group arranged themselves in the shape of a dollar sign. When a passerby got close enough, the spiders went into full circus mode, doing tumbling tricks, riding their little unicycles around, and launching themselves through the air with deeds of daring do. If the passerby stayed to watch, the dollar sign would march out in formation and stand in front of the customer. The first one who was given this treatment pulled out a dollar bill and tentatively held it down to the dollar sign. Three of the group hopped away from the rest and politely plucked the bill from the man's hand and ferried it into the shadows under the bench. As they moved, a different three ran out and joined the donation brigade.

Honestly, I was stunned. Somehow, these guys had figured out how to put on a show using drunken homeless guys as their cover. And they were good. Hell, I felt like going over and paying them to watch. They got donations from at least ten people before I decided to leave them to their art. I'm sure I could have gone over and told them what a great job they were doing, but it didn't seem right. This was something they'd probably rather do on their own without their parent's approval. I was cool with that. I'd just have to be extra nice to them from now on. Maybe I'd host a few more cricket rodeos or something.

I wandered off in the direction of my old stomping grounds and, after about half an hour, reached the dump-truck depot. It was pretty empty this time of the morning, but it still brought back a touch of nostalgia for the normal life. Barely a week ago, I had been coasting through life in the front seat of a truck with my biggest concern being what might accidentally dribble out of the dumpster onto the windshield. Now, well, it was a lot more. I sighed wistfully and pointedly kicked a pebble into the street. My eyes followed it there and continued up until reaching a beat up station wagon parked about fifty yards away. It was a car that one would have labeled as "unremarkable" outside of the hideous green and brown wood-panel paint job. That classification, however, did not take into account the fishy looking characters taking up space in the front seats.

When I say fishy looking, I really do mean it. There were two of them, and they were clad in what looked like bulky brown jackets and cheesy, matching G-men fedoras. Looking beyond the clothing, and what would pass for a non-descript human face to the untrained eye, I could see something with large, bulbous eyes and a huge, gaping mouth. It was more disconcerting than frightening for me, especially after playing tag with the South American throw rugs, but it was quite obvious that these were either fish or frogs or some combination of the two. It was also quite obvious that they were casing the truck yard just in case some person of interest should happen to randomly show up during a casual morning hike. What were the chances of that happening?

I struck out toward them with a purposeful anger, taking in great chunks of distance with each of my strides. Immediately, the engine roared to life, sputtered, and then roared once again in response. Streaks of blue-black smoke poured out of the tailpipe as the wheeled behemoth shot backward in a wandering half-circle. It came to a stop against one of the support poles of a chain link fence and then screeched off in a forward direction and down the street. I took that response to mean that they didn't want to have a friendly chat and didn't feel comfortable making a move on their own. I also assumed this meant the horny-beaver man hadn't given up on killing me yet. Just another day in paradise.

## Chapter Twelve

Creating an off-brand religion became much easier with the growth of the internet. Al Gore really came through with that one. It used to be that only the established religions had enough ready supply of parishioners to get something started, either that or one had to have underground connections. I had no one to sell prayer cloths to nor a standing membership at the local fetish-mart. But I did have a website, and that imbued me with the power of Jerry Falwell and the undeniable right to use it. A blog, a forum, some basic rituals, and the Order of the Eternal Arachnid was born. Hallelujah!

We decided to segment our future followers into a hierarchy. Chief among the believers would be an elite sect of holy men known as the Eight-Legged Apostles. That one was Annie's idea. She thought that people were more likely to become excited about the religion if they had a chance to be able to show that they were more devout than their fellow believers. Under that would be the Weavers for those parishioners who have paid their dues and the Spiderlings for the newest members. She was also the one who built the website, so she had as much creative license as she wanted. As weird as it might seem for her to take such an interest in venerating a giant spider, she was pulling out all the stops. I couldn't say I really cared why she was doing it, I was just damn glad she was.

The website went live, and I checked the logs every five minutes after its birth to see how fast our congregation was growing. I did so with dismay for the first hour and then despair for the second. It was almost four hours before the first tentative enrollment came in. The enrollee was timid, like something that knew its prey status was at the bottom of the food chain. It poked its little electronic nose out and tested the air before venturing further. The bait was there, just waiting for a hefty dose of courage to seal its fate. A tentative step out of the hole came by means of a post on the forum entitled "Is this for real?"

I tried to form the words in my mind that would be comforting and welcoming but only came up with "you bet your ass." Though not particularly eloquent, it did answer the question. Before I could compose my reply, the Admin came online with the words I would never have been able to compose. "As real as it gets. I'm sure you've read the doctrine, and I assure you that the Spider goddess is real and can hear us. Her eyes are always watching." Damn, Annie was good. I didn't know if she bought into all of this or not, but she had at least adopted it as a hobby.

Just like that, the others came out of their hiding places. One by one, as the word spread to sympathizers through word of mouth or email or smoke signal, they came. By the end of the day, we had ten subscribers and sixteen threads on the forum, discussing everything from what the proper uniform was to how they knew they were spiders in a past life. The weirdos had landed. In a turn of unfortunate luck, we also got a fair number of inquiries from the sector of the population with eating disorders. Apparently, OEA had already been used. We added a link to the official Over Eaters Anonymous website to our home page and continue with the cult-ivation process.

****

The fog clung thickly to the ceiling in the apartment like some upside down bog in the early morning. It leeched downward in a thin mist, coating everything and everyone with its essence. Marty looked at me with bloodshot eyes and then inhaled deeply from the spout of the heated bowl in front of him. He held his breath for some time and then released great clouds of smoke in a coughing fit. He passed the bong over to me and continued his laments.

"It doesn't seem to matter what I try, they ignore me. I prayed to God, Buddha, Vishnu, Zeus, and that guy who found the golden tablets."

"Smith," I said coughing out my own bank of narcotic fog. "The Mormon guy?"

"Yeah, him. I prayed for a couple of wives. I wasn't greedy, but he ignored me completely."

"Maybe that was because you didn't remember his name."

"Nah. He would have understood. Anyway, I even tried your spider god since I know for sure that she's real and willing to part with a few miracles."

"No luck?"

"Nothing." We took a few moments to stare at the room around us. It had grown thick with second hand smoke and some of the spiders were beginning to act funny. They were staggering around, bumping into walls, and staring at their many legs. I tossed a handful of chips on the floor in case they got the munchies.

"You know," I said after Marty locked in another lungful of weed air, "maybe you're looking at this religion thing all wrong. I mean, I didn't ask for anything. It just happened to find me."

"That's great and all, but I've been waiting at least as long as you, and nothing ever found me."

"I'm not saying that will work for you, but we can't go out seeking religion. It has to find us."

"I'm not following, dude."

"Okay, what is religion?"

"Getting superpowers from a god?"

"No. Not quite," I said wrinkling my eyebrows together. "I think you're a bit too focused on superpowers. Look, religion is inside of us. I don't think I could have contacted Grandmother Spider on my own because she wasn't part of me before. It was only after I merged with Scruffy over there," I pointed at the house spider doing pirouettes on the TV, "that she became real to me. I don't think I could have found all of these Indian gods until they became part of my existence."

"But I know about them, and I didn't stuff my soul into a spider."

"Yeah, but you're in touch with them through me. I'm not sure they are really part of you. Hell, I'm not sure if I'm still speaking English."

"No, I think you might be on to something, man. The gods aren't listening to me because I'm not part of them and vice versa. I've got to figure out where I belong and then," he paused for almost a minute before continuing. "we'll find each other."

"That shit is so deep, man," I said taking another hit.

"I wonder, though, why your Indian gods can destroy the world when they're a very small part of the people's lives. Are they the only ones that control things?"

"I dunno. Maybe these life and death struggles of religion are going on all around us every day, and we just don't notice them."

"You mean like the starving children in Africa? I mean before they showed them on TV."

"Maybe. I'm not sure it's exactly the same, but I'm not sure I care right now."

"I adopted one of them once. I named him Franco, after the spaghetti."

"No way."

"Yeah, I couldn't stand seeing them out there with all those flies and everything. I sent him some Off." And the word "flies" about a hundred spiders staggered over to our feet in anticipation.

"Sorry guys," I said. "All I have are these chips. Want some?" They dispersed in crooked lines, wandering off into corners and settling down for a nap. That seemed like a great idea, and I followed their example.

****

The tennis ball bounced freely across the spacious floor of the meeting hall, its new, fuzzy yellow surface a magnet for the fifty or so arachno-puppies I'd brought with me. They trailed after it gleefully until it slowed enough for them to catch up and then pounce on it with great enthusiasm. As they slowly rolled it back toward me, I glanced over to where Annie sat, high up on a stool and well away from the creepy crawlies. I bounced the ball again before mentioning that, as a founding member of the Order of the Eternal Arachnid, she should really get over her dislike of spiders. She shot me as un-ladylike a bird as she could possibly muster. She was so cute when she was annoyed with me.

It takes a strong woman, or at least a strong phobia, for a woman's heart not to melt at an act of kindness from my little children. Earlier today, shortly after we had arrived, the entire cast of my spider family trotted out this lovely sweater they had knitted for me out of spider silk. The black figures of Santa and his sleigh raced across the front with eight tiny arachnids providing the propulsion. I had thanked them profusely and showed it off to Annie before folding it gingerly and tucking it into the gym bag that I had begun to carry with me everywhere I went. You never know when some unnatural thing will pop out of the shadows and rip yet another shirt to threads. Even though the floor was covered with "hairy legs" and "beady eyes," you have to admit it was a heart-melting gesture. Well, I had to admit it. Annie, it seemed, was a hard-hearted woman.

I threw the ball a third time and shortly after it began its trek back to me, perhaps ten minutes after the official start of the first meeting, the door opened and a fearful looking man in his mid to late thirties edged his way in. He was scrawny, balding, and had a weasel face. Not your ideal parishioner, but he was ours, at least. He took a few steps into the "church", in truth it was a vacant warehouse we rented for the occasion, and cleared his throat.

"Umm, is this the OEA?" he said in a tentative, nasal voice.

"If you're looking for help with bulimia, then no," I replied, kicking myself for our unfortunate choice of names.

"Actually, I'm looking for the Order of the Eternal Arachnid." At the sound of this admission, the children abandoned the ball and ran out into the middle of the room in mass. It would have been a menacing gesture for anybody else, but our new friend just sprouted a grin from ear to ear. He knelt down and extended his hand to the waiting arachnids. I tensed a bit in worry, but I knew, as a whole, the spiders were a good deal smarter than I was and held back my objections. Two green ones hopped forward and onto his fingertips. He lifted them up to his face, and they moved in closer, inspecting his features and the gleeful shine in his eyes. A few moments of close scrutiny passed before they bobbed up and down in agreement and then bounded down to the floor to join the others. The bouncing must have been contagious because before long the entire mass of spiders began to bounce up and down with approval. This lasted for a handful of seconds before the call of the wild tennis ball had them pushing the yellow orb back in my direction.

"Looks like you passed," I said before giving the ball another roll. "I'm Tim, and this is Annie. You've already met the children." I stood up and skirted around the retreating mob to get to our new friend. I shook his hand heartily.

"My name's Calvin. Calvin Tuttle. I go by 8LeggedFreak on the forums."

"Nice to put a face to the name, finally," said Annie as she scribbled something in a ledger she had in front of her.

"How, how did you train them to do that?" he said, pointing a wondering finger in the direction of the tennis ball.

"No training, Brother Calvin. These are the children of Grandmother Spider. They know when they are in the company of believers. They can be themselves here." It was one big, corny lie, and Calvin ate it up with both hands. He pulled out a smart phone and typed in a few words before returning it to his coat.

"The others will be along shortly. You can't be too careful about these kinds of things. Spider worship is frowned upon by a lot of people, and someone is always trying to flush us out." Annie and I exchanged quizzical glances before Calvin shed his overcoat. Beneath it, he was clad in a dark velvet suit that did nothing for his complexion but would have at least been dapper if the outfit had not included a ceremonial headpiece. This had to have been one of the oddest articles of head-gear I had ever seen. It was constructed of two bulbous pieces of fabric attached together in the middle. The back half was filled with stuffing and the front half was some kind of lycra that slipped over Calvin's head to ear level and allowed his eyes to see out from the two holes cut in the material. There were six rhinestones sewn into the material around the eye holes, making it seem like they sprouted directly from his forehead. The hat was not complete until he pulled a string at the top and eight stringy legs descended from his head down to his shoulders.

I had all kinds of reservations about this whole thing, but before I could say anything, the door opened again, and three others walked in. This trio consisted of two guys and a woman, each one glancing around with apprehension. When they spotted Calvin, their body language changed to relaxed and they no longer looked like poster children for Ritalin. When the spiders came to greet them, I thought they were going to faint or at least need to press some paper bags to their mouths. The initiation turned to religious fervor as they were inspected and then each approved in turn. The very touch of the spiders brought out "hallelujahs" and "praise Spiders" from our new members. It wasn't long before they, too, had shed their mortal trappings and displayed their native plumage. The two men turned out to be brothers, Ralph and Georgie, and wore matching Spiderman outfits. They didn't have the physique for it, being short and stocky, but were proud enough to display their goods to all present.

The woman's name was Marjorie, and she wore perhaps the most regal of all the regalia. Hers was a full-body outfit, complete with spidery limbs tied to one another by black strings. They moved in a synchronous orbit around her plump torso with any number of wide-reaching movements. This outfit was an instant hit with the spiders, and they spent a good portion of the night flitting from one arm to the next.

Nine in all showed up this first night, some in plain clothes, and visibly disappointed in their choice of attire, and others with T-shirts, rings, and various paraphernalia proclaiming their devotion to the arachnid cause. We began the service reviewing the doctrine and why it was vitally important that we bring about a renaissance in the belief structure of this country. We heard testimonials from each of our members, recounting the moment of their faith and the hardships that had come with being labeled an aberration. There were tears and comfort and jubilation. At the end of the "get to know you" phase, we gathered in a ring around the center of the room. The spiders resided in the middle of our circle as I began the tale of the Spider Clan, the one Annie had so kindly put together for me.

"The world was once of one People, each one belonging to a tribe named after one of the first Animals. They were new in the world and lived in a place where there was no food or game and they were starving. They cried out to the Creator to send them salvation, but that's not how these things worked. Everyone knows that anything worth having must be earned with work and faith.

"The leader of the Spider Clan was an old woman who had a great deal of power. She had the sight and could see all the possible paths of the future. The leaders of the other tribes came to her and begged her to save them and she agreed reluctantly. She knew that many would fall by the way, but with no food here, all the People would surely die.

"'All right,' she said. 'We must all move from this place. The journey will be long and difficult, but you must not lose faith until we arrive at the final lands.' The other tribal leaders agreed heartily, and the next day all the People save one tribe pulled up their houses and gathered their children and set off to the north. The Monkey tribe stayed behind, choosing to walk the deserts to the south instead.

"After many days of walking, more tribes began to weary of the journey and decided to make their home in the barren lands of the north. By the time the People came to a massive crack in the land of ice, many of the tribes were discouraged and angry. They had lost family and friends to the journey, and to be stopped now at this impassable chasm in the bitter cold was too much. All the other tribes turned back, cursing the old lady and her visions, and leaving the Spider tribe alone. Only they held faith to their holy woman's visions.

"In the night, a great spirit descended from the heavens and wove a web across the chasm. As the web froze, it formed a bridge sturdy enough for the tribe to pass over, and in the morning, what remained of the People rejoiced and resumed their journey. They continued to follow the holy woman's vision until they came to a place of the greatest bounty and grew strong in numbers and culture. Years passed, and starvation forced the other tribes to reluctantly follow the Spider clan. Crossing the great divide without the aid of the Spider's bridge had made them bitter and angry. When they saw the bounty of the Spider clan, they became jealous, making war on them and eventually driving them off the land and into obscurity. From then on, the Spider tribe was looked upon with suspicion and fear, but none doubted their connection to the mystic power, and none could truly forget what they owed the Spiders and their holy woman."

There was silence, and a deep sense of spiritualism settled on the group at the end of this. A lot of the parishioners nodded their heads absently, seeing parallels to this and other moments in their lives. Annie led us from this into some of the ancient dances and songs of the Hopi tribe. I couldn't bring myself to watch any of the others dancing for fear I might miss a minute of Annie's lithe movements. I thought she caught me staring at her a couple of times, but she didn't seem to be upset, so I kept enjoying the show. The spiders danced as well although it looked more like they were swaying and forming some kind of double-helix in the center of our pow-wow by climbing on top of the pile and hooking their legs together. It was like they were acting as a conduit for the energy, directly feeding Grandmother Spider the good vibes.

The meeting adjourned with everyone feeling happy and fulfilled. We showered those who had braved the unknown with praise and anointed them as the holy men for this, the first chapter of the Order of the Eternal Arachnid. The ceremonial knowledge and rites that they had learned tonight were now their sacred responsibility to practice, perform, and pass on to others of like mind and faith. You could see each of them swell up like birds trying to catch the eye of a particularly obtuse female. They now had a purpose, a sacred duty, and with this they strode forth into a world that for once no longer owned them.

My partner in crime was exhausted, but in a good way. I could only imagine she would look that way after a particularly fulfilling roll in the hay. There was a giant grin on her face, a sheen of perspiration, a few locks of her hair were darkened and stuck to her forehead. An angel's afterglow.

"Well, that was fun. What do you want to do next?"

"Next?" she said in surprise. "Next, I'm going home."

"You lightweight. I'm sure there are a lot of cult-recruiting opportunities down at Wild Bill's Saloon." She seemed to be warming to the idea or at least considering it. My gaze moved over to the mass of exhausted spiders. They lolled about on the floor as if drunk, and I knew I couldn't just leave them there. I turned back to her with a resigned shrug. "Just give me a few minutes to get these guys back to my place, and then we're off."

She looked to the pile of legs and carapaces and seemed to cool on the idea. "I've got to work early in the morning. I think I'm calling it a night. I'll see you tomorrow. We'll post some updates on the web." She said this last part with a quick smile and then used her long legs to propel her out of the door and into the night. I frowned and pouted. It seemed that two large parts of my current life were at direct odds with each other. Why couldn't I be the White-Boned-Puppy-Man or something equally as cuddly? Oh well, without my little friends, I'd have never gotten this far with her. I carefully gathered the exhausted little guys into an empty knapsack and headed for home.

****

Midday rolled around, bearing the gift of email. Hiding among the messages about male enhancement, twenty dollar Rolex watches, and yet another noble in an African country willing to give me millions to access his bank account for him, was a notice in my Inbox demanding that I upgrade to a higher web hosting package if I wanted to continue using the excessive bandwidth for www.churchofspider.com. My cynicism screamed that this was just a ploy to get me to pay for something they had advertised as free. Of course, nothing was totally free, but I had hoped that the currency of staring at obnoxious banners for weight loss and further penile enhancement would have bought me something. I logged in to the site and damn near swallowed my tongue. We had sixty three thousand hits overnight, and the membership had soared to nearly four hundred people. There were pictures from last night's meeting and testimonials from our new apostles adorning the home page. Just like that, the word was out there, and it was as popular right now as anything with four letters. I sent Annie a "check this out" email and then signed up for the twenty dollar a month web hosting package. That seemed like a pretty decent middle ground for data consumption, but I was really pretty clueless about the lengths and means people would go to for social networking. I had always just preferred to just watch TV and smoke pot with Marty instead, often at the same time. But times were a changing.

****

We set the next meeting for Friday, which was exactly one week after the first one. Hopefully, that would give new members some time to get comfortable with everything and Annie and me a chance to recover from last night's dog and pony show. In the meantime, I had some research to do on my own. There was a certain someone trying to keep tabs on me, and it was only fair that I returned the favor. I set out on foot toward the truck depot in search of that froggy duo I caught lurking there before. It was an overcast day but not unpleasantly muggy. Even if I didn't find anything, then the walk would do me good. Most of my spiders had left either for their circus, scavenging, or simply to go do what spiders did, but I had asked a handful of them to stay behind with me for a little double-o seven action. I'd never seen such eager little spies. It was with a pocket full of black widows, nature's little ninjas, that I approached Czechmate Refuse Services. Don't ask. I never got the real story about that name, but the best rumor was that the owner named it after his mail-order bride. I had long since put that little mystery in the 'do not open' section of my brain, so I didn't give it another thought as I kept to the shadows of Beaver Street for fear of my prey bolting.

There was no green and brown station wagon parked in sight of the dump truck corral this day. In fact, it was quite an empty landscape, which was typical for a Saturday afternoon, with only a humungous white flower delivery van in sight. It was parked within spitting distance of the neighboring scrapyard like a bulbous wart. While they had certainly improved their accommodations, there was still a lot more to surveillance for the fishy frogman to learn. If there was one place less likely for flowers to be sent than the refuse collection center, it was to the hardened collection of hog-riding outlaws that manned the scrapyard.

I backed out of my hiding spot and circled around to where I could jump the fence into the dumping ground. There were mountains of rusting metal as far as the eye could see. I knew that the "beware of dog" signs were really just for show during the day. It was only on rare occasions that one or two of the surly wiener dogs might venture out in the middle of the afternoon, but the greater part of the pack saved themselves for nighttime patrols. At least, that's what I had always been told. There were many rumors and urban legends that I wouldn't give much credence to, but for lack of any better plan, I chose to believe in this one and placed myself in the hands of fate. I sprinted from stack to stack, closing in on the administration building with the cunning and skill of an out of shape garbage man. Even so, I made it without incident and peered ever so shyly around the corner. The van was still there, and so were the four occupants I that I could spot through the tinted windows.

"It's time, little spies," I said as I lifted the flap to my shirt pocket. Half a dozen black widows crawled out and down my shirt front into the grass. They disappeared almost immediately, with the only sign of their passage coming from the tiny purple threads that I could see if I concentrated hard enough. I tensed up for my role in the drama as the threads arrived at the van and then disappeared into it. I rushed out from the building, trying to look as large and obviously menacing as I could in hopes of having them drive off and scurry back to their lair. Instead, I didn't get any reaction. _At least_ , I thought to myself, _they're_ _observant_. It was nice to know that only the very best had been sent to keep me under surveillance. I picked up a half brick and chucked it into the side panel of the van. The thing rocked in my direction as bodies, a lot more than four of them I realized with a little bit of concern, pressed up against the glass to see where the noise had come from. I counted about eight different sets of eyes peering at me from behind the glass before I realized that I may have miscalculated.

Running back through the heaps of sharp metal that were stacked precariously high was a great plan, right up there with throwing a brick at a van loaded with things that wanted to hurt me. I told myself that time and again after I shredded yet another shirt and dug several long trenches into the flesh of my arm by cutting a corner too close to an old Buick skeleton. On a more positive note, this obstacle course proved downright enjoyable to my pursuers. At least half a dozen amphibians bounded effortlessly around and on top of the pile of burnt out cars without a problem. On foot, I might have been able to outdistance them in a straight run, but in this jungle gym, I wasn't fast enough to avoid them forever. I took a hard right after the next pile of debris and heard the satisfying scrabbling of one of my pursuers losing his footing at the change in direction. The rest of my plan was simple and stupid, but what else can you expect from a garbage man being chased by a group of angry frogs?

I chose the path of most resistance and aimed for the open door at the backside of the administration building, barreling into it blindly. It was a world as dark and foreboding as any seedy dump could ever be. I wondered briefly at what sort of creature would choose to live in such dark and dreary conditions. I conjured up visions of goblins and trolls and pale, pasty looking subhumans lost in the subways under the streets of Manhattan. Then I crashed into a tower of empty beer bottles and had to crab crawl across the floor before I could gather my feet under me again. I banished my imagination and made for the only source of light I could see. It flashed red and blue neon and but did little to illuminate the three burly figures hunched over a pool table. In what glimpses I did catch, I counted a total of four eyes and almost as many teeth. I heard something slip on the bottles and the sound of shattering glass exploded behind me. I gave a perfunctory wave to my hosts as their attention was drawn to my pursuers and plowed through a mountain of paperwork before bursting into the sunlight again. I spun around and slammed the door shut, grabbing a screwdriver and wedging firmly into the hinge-side of the door for good measure. The noises that came from inside that building would probably haunt me forever. It was a mixture of grunts, meaty thuds, and the snarling frenzy of a pack of rabid sausage dogs on a rampage. I almost felt sorry for those slimy bastards.

Home felt safe, but empty. I was depressed and rather ashamed that I had put my friends in danger. The darkness of night had come and the early morning infomercials were the only thing to take my mind off the worry. This was the worse I'd felt in a long time, and I promised myself that I wouldn't put them in danger like that again. The agony stayed with me until shortly after three in the morning when the black ops came strolling in, full of confidence and victory as they were greeted by the cheers of their many companions. It was one of the proudest moments of my life to see them like that, and I was instantly filled with relief. The mission was a success, all hands returned safely, and we now had the address of the headquarters of my enemy. I'm not sure what, if anything, I was going to do with this information, but all of a sudden, this fight seemed a little more equal.

****

The nights passed, and the dreams were unrelenting. Whether they ran their little movie scripts in my brain to show me little nuggets of wisdom or to indoctrinate me into the People or even just to beat me senseless at how flat and lifeless my culture was, I'm not sure I'd ever know. They did, however, wear me out. I was a bag crammed to overflowing with tales of a rolling head that ate people, teeth-laden vaginas, men who married the moon, and countless tales of the encroaching doom of the white man to the ways of the People. I couldn't wait for the reruns to begin so I could ignore them and finally get some decent sleep.

In between the dreams, we had more members join the OEA as the apostles reached out into the secret pockets of freaks that existed in the shadows of our local population. As the web hits piled up, we got more and more interest from those who were constantly hungry, as well as interest from those who were outside of our region. One or two of these were even willing to travel here to study under us in hopes of starting their own chapter. It seems that the OEA was an enormous success, and tomorrow night's meeting was sure to be big. Things were looking up for the world.

## Chapter Thirteen

I could feel the explosion before I could hear it. It was like a Mike Tyson punch in the guts as the waves of force rolled over and through me. I was in the stairwell of my apartment complex, minding my own business, as I reached the landing below my floor. I was returning from a trip to the pet shop when the first red black petals unfurled and rushed down the stairs straight at my head. I wasn't sure if it was reflexes or the shockwave, but I was on my back swatting out the flames that danced on my chest before the main wave of fire washed across the ceiling and then turned back in on itself. To have still been standing would have been unfortunate for my hairstylist as well as the plastic surgeon at the burn care ward of Shands. My bag of crickets had been torn apart by the heat, and the stairwell was full of a chaotic soup of charred and frantically hopping insects. The confusion and surprise of nearly getting roasted gave way to panic as I realized what all of this meant.

Time became liquid, slow moving, and remorseful as I righted myself and dashed up the stairs into the hell storm that was once my apartment. The billowing waves of fire rolled slowly across the ceiling and walls, following glowing lines of destiny and enveloping everything they touched. All the threads of other possibilities were swallowed in the inevitable march of destruction. Dodging the swells of rolling flame was easy enough, but the heat was still nearly too intense to let me move forward. It was like opening a kiln and then trying to crawl inside to retrieve your pottery. My skin blackened and cracked, and my eyeballs felt like they were going to dry into tiny raisins and pop out of their sockets. The few images I was able to gather through my withered vision told me all that I would ever care to know and gave me a good idea of what would haunt my dreams for years to come. The kitchen was a single wall of flame, filled from floor to ceiling with a solid, painted-on coating of fire. There were trails leading into the other hells known as my living room and bedroom, each with their own complementary red and yellow decorations. I could see the computer screen, twisted and buckled from heat, and everything from the furniture to the linoleum was blistered and poised to ignite. The last image I got as I flung myself back into the hallway and down the stairs was of the half-finished library book, charred and ruined, like my life.

It was hardly surprising that I ended up in the backseat of a cab. I had no idea how I ended up there, but I wasn't shocked that Myrtle was there to pick up the pieces again. I was burnt and broken, having been launched out of a window, or through a wall, of the second floor by a gas main finally succumbing to the heat. My clothes and skin were fused together and smoldering as the backseat windows rolled down mercifully to let some fresh air in. The smell of burnt hair and, oddly enough, bacon, worked its way out of the enclosed space. There were sirens in the distance and a small, persistent cough from much closer.

"That looks, uh, painful," Myrtle said with an unusual measure of kindness.

"I'll probably heal, but my apartment and," I paused with a little choking noise, "my friends weren't so lucky." Saying it out loud made it real, and for the first time, my tear ducts tried to work. Of course there was no liquid left in there with which to cry. Yet another thing taken from me today.

"Where can I take you?" she said

"Do you know who would do this? I've got a pretty good idea."

"You think it's Water Monster's kid, right?"

"Will you take me to them?" I asked seriously.

"I would, but I don't know where they are."

"As luck would have it, I do."

****

The cab pulled away and glided down the street, taking a left into obscurity and leaving me and my anger alone. I got the impression that Girl Without Parents didn't think this is a very good idea, but right then, I could say without a doubt, I didn't give a damn what she thought. I didn't give a damn what anyone thought. I was here for one thing, and that was revenge. Sure, it wasn't the noble sentiment of the moral heroes in all the movies and shows I'd ever seen, but we all know deep down that stuff is just horse shit. A man who resists the urge to rip out the intestines of someone who killed his loved ones is either a coward or didn't really love the ones he lost. At least, that's what I was going with to stave off any guilt that might creep in when my temper subsided. But for now, fuck 'em.

The door to the warehouse flew off its hinges and crashed into the center of the empty space beyond with a horrific scream of torn metal. It bounced off the walls with surprising power and made for a pretty impressive entrance. I wasn't sure how I had done that or where the power to dislodge a bolted metal door had come from, but the looks on the faces of the two assholes inside kept me entertained enough that I didn't contemplate it further. The aroma of old fish filled my nostrils, they had healed from the fire just in time for this treat, and I found myself standing just inside the threshold of an old cannery. Of course all the wires, bricks of explosive clay, and electronics that littered the table seemed a bit out of place for stuffing Charlie Tuna in a can, but what do I know about modern seafood packaging?

The older of the two men, the one who had clearly cut his teeth on danger and hard living, recovered his wits first and pushed the younger one toward me as a diversion. Score one for cowardice. With the younger man there to occupy my attention, the salty dog retreated to the back of the room. I wasn't in any real mood to argue. At this point, one punching bag was as good as another, and the longer they drew it out, the more fun it would be.

The young man was big in the shoulders and probably pushing his mid-twenties. He was Hispanic with dark, close-cropped hair and held a baseball bat that had been propped up against the table. He positioned his weapon up by his ear like a good little slugger and ran towards me. His form was actually pretty good throughout his swing and my noggin would have taken quite a pounding if he had done this a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately for him, that offer had expired. I could see the whole thing unfolding in plenty of time to mark the bat's trajectory through the air as he took that major league swing at me. I saw the path it would take long before it got close to me and ducked rather nonchalantly. I wished this was a little more challenging as my fist slammed into his exposed ribs and he went tumbling into the table and stopped a full ten feet of skin-shredding concrete beyond it. There was a streak of blood and a few pieces of jacket dotting the trail. I looked down at my fist and saw the skin glowing from below like someone had lit up a filament in there. Newly formed wisps of smoke rolled off the remnants of my shirt and pants and rose toward the ceiling. This was new. I stood there, smoldering for a moment, before I heard the telltale sounds of something large lumbering up the rickety metal structure far below. It sounded like several floors below, but the only thing beneath this building was the water.

I hadn't taken more than two steps across the room before something inhuman burst out of the door the older man had left through. If the guy on the cover of a Motley Crue album had unprotected sex with a ninja turtle, this could have been their illegitimate child. I had always had a fondness for those mutant pizza-loving reptiles. Of course, the comic book was much more entertaining than the cartoons or movies, but that seems to be the way of things these days. It had a bit of trouble forcing its shell-covered body through the doorjamb, but a few tugs with its long, scaly claws seemed to do the trick. It turned to me, staring down at me intently with its deep-set eyes. There was a snarl on its gorilla face and its hair extensions waved freely behind it as it lurched forward. I just caught a glimpse of another clawed hand pulling its owner out of the back door before the first one closed in on me.

****

The threads of destiny refused to give me a fair warning about the first blow that toppled me over and sent me skidding into the sheet-metal wall. For an angry turtle-ape, this thing was pretty fast. It followed me with awkward steps, struggling to keep from tipping over. Obscenities flew out of my mouth like machine gun bullets as it closed in. I was still on my back as it came toward me, lashing out with my tongue and feet. Although the words would never hurt it, the kicks to its sticks and stones seemed to do the trick. The first one struck the creature low on its hardened underbelly, and a wheezing groan leaked out of its mouth as it bent over. Another kick to the face straightened it up, and a third one connected squarely with its right leg as the sound of crunching bones erupted from under my foot. It listed forward, and then catching itself, tried to compensate by leaning back. I rolled up to my knees and dug my shoulder into its chest plate, driving it backward until it landed on its bulbous shell. The scaly claws were digging at my shoulders, but I was past the point of caring about a few scratches. I pistoned my fists into that ugly face with reckless abandon, feeling something give way beneath that rubbery face with each punch.

I was feeling a little sea-sick as I rode this monkey-turtle like a jet ski. I would shift my weight forward with a punch, and we would rock that way, and then I would lean back into the motion to bring its face up for another strike. It was like one of those rides at the park with the horse body sitting on top of the spring. Back and forth we went. Back and forth. I was just starting to get used to the rhythm and enjoy the ride when I felt the mouth clamp onto my shoulder from behind, forcing four thick canines into my collar bone and shoulder blade.

My favorite punching hand seized up as I clawed with my other one to free me from the bear trap that was standing behind me. It was, of course, the second ninja ape-turtle that I had forgotten about. My battlefield awareness needed a lot of work if I ever managed to make it out of here. The creature behind me pressed forward, and its weight forced me down on top of the first creature. I enjoy hugs as much as the next guy – well, maybe a little more - but I quickly began to understand the game plan as I was now close enough for a second gaping monkey face to latch onto my left arm. I was held firmly in place by the weight and teeth of these monstrosities while I felt the clawed hands trying to scoop out great chunks of my torso. The burning rage of hatred and self-deprecation welled up inside of me and expelled itself in a furious stream of guttural sounds. Then I blacked out.

****

I wasn't sure where I was, but I was pretty sure I was naked. At least, that's what the wind was telling me as it rolled past my willows. Mr. Toad was probably laughing his ass off at me right about now. The mournful sound of a siren echoed from somewhere nearby, and I beat a hasty retreat into an alley to get out of sight. The smell of smoke was thick in the air and, as I could tell when I covered my mouth, in every pore of my skin. I ran my fingers through my hair, or where my hair used to be, and felt only the smooth, stubbleless skin stretched tight over my skull. Well, that and a single jagged fragment of something lodged firmly in the back of my head. Wincing, I grasped it and tugged. It came out with a moist little sucking sound and I held it out in front of my eyes between my thumb and forefinger. It was about two inches thick, smooth, and slightly rounded on one side and sharp on the opposite end like a piece of pie. If it wasn't greenish brown and hard as a rock, I might have guessed it was from a large egg shell, but I settled on pottery as the answer for now.

The sirens were still blaring, and I was able to triangulate the position of the disaster from where I was. I moved a little closer, sneaking from shadowed alley to shadowed alley. It seemed to be coming from the area where the water children frolicked, where I had gone earlier. My head throbbed when I tried to recall the details, but somewhere between playing paddy-cake with the turtle twins and waking up out here was a void that refused to be breached. Whatever happened there was lost, but it left a mighty big skid mark on the city. Mazel tov!

No apartment, no money, no clothes, no problem. I'd always wanted to be a free spirit, just not so free that my lack of attire could be seen as an invitation. It was no longer dusk but still light enough make out the hazy details of my surroundings. Full night would be coming soon, and with the dark came the weirdoes. Yeah, if I'm calling them weirdoes, then you know there is something seriously wrong with these people. The OEA meeting hall was only a couple miles away, so I decided to make my way toward it. At the very least, I could get off the street and, with even a little bit of luck, get something to spare my dignity further insult.

Without a key, I had to force my way in through a rusty window and drop down from a poorly maintained catwalk. I made a mental note to talk to the landlord about that in the future. There was nothing useful in the place except the same folding chairs and podium that we left after our inaugural meeting. Self-pity and relief mixed into a cocktail of emotional confusion. So much had happened. So much unhappiness and death and hairlessness. I'd never been bald before, much less shaved and smooth like an Olympic swimmer. They didn't feel like my body parts anymore and when they touched me, it was like some other dude's parts were touching me, and that was just more than one man could handle. I sat my bare ass onto one of the folding chairs and placed my head in my hands, running them from front to back. I could have sworn I heard them squeak over the surface.

I must have been exhausted because the next thing I knew, I was on the floor between a couple of the chairs and there was light streaming in through the windows on one side. I glanced around to get my bearings and spotted two things that were of interest. The first thing was that I was facing toward the back of the warehouse, and the light was coming in strong and hot to the right of me. Using my innate sense of garbage man direction, that would mean that it was late in the afternoon, and I had been asleep for at least half a day. The second item of interest was perched on the floor behind the makeshift podium. It was my gym bag. I had forgotten it after the first meeting. Perhaps it was an honest mistake, or perhaps that zippered package of wrinkled, sweaty clothing was a sign of universal acceptance. How else was it possible that a homeless naked man left clothes in the only place that he could still go? The universe could have been saying to me that I was meant to get blown up, to fight, to kill, and to return here and wait for the next chapter. Despite the absurdity of this line of thinking, it was still oddly comforting, even after I realized I hadn't left myself any underwear.

## Chapter Fourteen

It started with a brick like a great many things man had built. A planter, a house, Rome, the pyramids, the Great Wall of China all started off as a thought and with the placement of a single square or rectangular block of building material. Although somewhat less impressive than one of the wonders of the world and somewhat less functional than a planter or a house, the end result of a simple broken chunk of rocky material sailing through a window of the Order of the Eternal Arachnid was something to behold. It was as if the simple act of being hurled had betrayed the true purpose of the brick and warped it into an object that desired destruction rather than creation. It was a seed from which the dark roots of anger would grow and spread, and I got out the can and watered it. Hell, I spread fertilizer on it, pruned it, sang songs to it, and even prayed to the gods of fertility for its well-being. It was not surprising that with all that had happened, something so mindlessly simple would set me off again, and I was not in the mood to disappoint. And I wasn't alone. The parishioners of the Order had begun to arrive shortly after I got dressed and had become infected with the residual anger and sorrow that permeated my every look and word. They saw the tell-tale signs of battle in my eyes and on my skin, especially the increase of it on the top of my head, and noticed the significant absence of our spiritual mascots. I didn't say much to them, but I didn't have to. When the insult came flying through the window, they poured out of the building, carrying umbrellas, cleaning tools, chairs, and whatever else they'd brought or could get their hands on. I left our chapel with the offending brick clenched tightly in my right hand. What we found outside was disquieting but at least it was a target.

Arrayed before the front of our makeshift church were nearly two dozen men and women, all dressed in outfits that mimicked some form of sea life. There were otters and starfish, dolphins and sea urchins, a small pack of beavers, various fish, and even an oyster. Each of these had armed themselves with various blunt objects and murder in their eyes. At their front was my old friend, the high priest himself - the horny beaver man.

The images of the suffering I had endured at his hands came flooding in around the edges of my vision. He had been directing the Cuero to kill me. He had kicked me in my ribcage and mocked me as I died. He had attacked me again without provocation. He had sent those frog people to kill me. And I had little doubt who had decided to blacken and blister everything I had in the searing heat. My mind flashed to images of my spider friends and Scruffy, curling up and crisping on the floor near their tennis ball and the charred remains of Charlotte's Web. I knew who did this, and I saw him standing there with his smug little smile.

I could feel the surge of energy through my body, a jet of molten anger forcing its way through my veins, looking for an outlet. There was no thought or hesitancy. The built-up tension released through my arm and hand as it rotated violently like a catapult, stopping at just below the horizon and launching the brick through the air with inhuman speed and accuracy. The object of my hatred lurched backward and landed on the ground with a lifeless thud, the brick embedded firmly into his face. I could just make out a tiny thread extending from his head into the sky. As the tension holding it in place disappeared, it came down around his head in a wispy spiral. Then the world erupted into chaos.

I'm sure if someone were to view this battle from a distance, they would have seen some measure of hilarity of it. Everyone likes a good mascot fight, and we seemed to be having a hum-dinger of one. Two men dressed as Spiderman were braining a guy in a starfish costume with a table leg. Nearby, a beaver and an otter were teaming up to rip the cotton arms off of a woman's tarantula outfit. A jellyfish was getting a taste of its own medicine and was forced to clutch painfully at his silly-string stung eyes. All of these might have been funny if you weren't in the middle of the melee, if people you were responsible for weren't in the middle of it. It wasn't all as much innocent fun as it seemed. I took a knife to the kidneys while rescuing Marjorie and delivered a backhand to what I could only guess was a trout. My father had been right when he warned me about trout. "Never turn your back on 'em," he had said. Words to live by.

My assailant went sprawling to the ground, and my momentum carried me around to give a lanky otter a smack upside the head. Marjorie dropped the beaver with a sharp kick to his furry little balls. He crumpled on the ground and groaned in agony.

Calvin and I think Ralph and Georgie were fighting like madmen against a couple of dolphins. The tubby little spidermen were delivering the body blows while Calvin jabbed them mercilessly in their bottle-noses with his umbrella. All around us there was mayhem, and I quickly lost track of our apostles. Our membership had swelled to nearly twenty this night, and fully half of them came dressed in the red and blue spandex. When they had all arrived, and Annie had not as of yet, I had been a little worried about finding a way to entertain them all. I think I did okay with a street brawl. Nothing like a little religious fervor to get the blood pumping.

It didn't take long to establish that the spider was mightier than the fish. You could feel the jubilation starting to surge through our ranks as we battered the sea life into submission. For one brief moment, it was the glorious victory anyone who has ever been discriminated against dreams about, and then just as quickly, the happiness was gone. It was replaced with a sense of unease, a growing, gnawing of "something's wrong" playing Parcheesi with "there's a monster under my bed". We could all feel it building, a storm front rolling through our joy, but none could feel it quite as strongly as I could. It was a First, or something close enough that the difference hardly mattered, and it brought lots of friends.

****

Who else could it have been but Untunktahe who materialized from the shadows and stepped into the cone of soft light sent down from the street lamp? He was a man and yet not a man. I couldn't make out exactly what his true self was, apparently his illusion was too good for everyday superpowers to penetrate, but the flashes of what I saw were not comforting. Before I could come to grips with this turn of events, the silhouettes of two dozen men and a number of their friends materialized behind him. I could count nearly thirty heads in all from that direction. My newly honed skills of battlefield awareness told me that there were probably more people in thrall of the son of water monster boxing us in. That's just how they seemed to operate. Even those numbers, as daunting as they were, might have been overcome if they had been the same type of freaks that were lying on the ground at our feet. Unfortunately, the newcomers looked more like someone opened the gates to the penitentiary. They were big, brutish-looking guys with their clubs and tire irons and chains striding confidently into the light, sucking the victory right out of my troops. Of course, if they could have seen behind the masks, the devout of the OEA would have been running frantically away without another thought, and then maybe, just maybe, they would have had a chance to see another dawn. Maybe.

"Go inside and get my bag," I told Marjorie. "There is something in there I need." She ran inside the warehouse as the noose tightened. I finally spotted the other goons who were choking off the exits to all the adjoining streets as well as a few on top of the adjacent buildings. That didn't stop my congregation from exacting their pound of flesh. The sounds of groaning and few well-placed kicks to the prone sea life were all that could be heard for the next few moments. Untunktahe was taking his time, relishing the moment and making sure the escape routes were blocked off. I'm sure that would have bothered me if I had intended to escape, but that thought was last on my list. Some of the items above that, in no certain order, were looking bad-ass, keeping my parishioners alive, and taking out my frustrations on a demigod. Oh, and I decided I might tack "don't die" in there somewhere as well.

Marjorie returned and handed me the mostly deflated nylon bag. I took off my shirt and heard the gasps as my companions noticed the wound on my back. More than likely, though, it was the fact that my blood refused to stay out of the wound that drew the most attention. I pulled out the sweater Scruffy and my children had made for me and tugged it on over my head. Looking bad-ass, check. Sure, the sleigh being pulled by tiny, eight-legged reindeer was not as intimidating as I would have liked, but the material was light and probably stronger than any Kevlar vest. Besides, it felt right to wear this while ripping their murderers apart.

"You guys should probably get out of here. This is about to get serious."

"Tim, we're not leaving you. You gave us a place to belong, and we intend to fight for it, right?" There were some not so encouraging sounds of agreement, and, no doubt, any roads out of here had been cut off by now anyway.

"Okay. But get back to the church and take care of it. I'll handle things out here." They agreed eagerly, maybe a little too eagerly to preserve illusion of bravery, but it was all for the best.

****

The barbarian horde arrayed before me was made up almost entirely of pale, glistening creatures with squat little bodies and long, frog-like limbs. There were a few true humans mixed in as part of Untunktahe's affirmative action plan, but they were scarcely any consequence next to their amphibian co-workers. This was the first time I really got to observe these creatures out of their overcoats and came to the conclusion that they should probably put them back on. Ugly did not do them justice. Each of their tree-frog fingertips was adorned with a hooked claw and was covered in horizontal ridges in between the joints. They stood erect on legs that, though spring loaded and ready for action, bowed out from the center at sharper angles than should be possible. Only their huge, wide-spread toes kept them from toppling over. Their bodies were covered in some type of brown mucus, and when they weren't puffing out their throats in challenge, they were opening and closing their gaping, needle-lined mouths. The glare of hatred filled every inch of the bulbous, fishbowl eyes that were unerringly trained on me. I'm sure there were more surprises to follow, but I didn't want to wait around and test my resolve. The last of my blood spiders returned to my kidney wound, and I could feel the skin knit back stronger than ever. That was the signal to attack. I know, I know, a guy in a Christmas sweater rushing into a crowd of evil frogmen didn't exactly inspire images of the great heroes of days long passed, but I had to work with what I had.

A thousand lines of pulsing light spread out from the crowd as I launched into the melee, delivering crippling blows to the first two frog-things with my fists and knocking another half dozen of them to the ground in a flailing frenzy. I managed to snag a baseball bat on the way through and played blooper ball with the rubbery skull of one of a handful of amphibians to my left. Steam rolled off my bare skin in the cooler night air as I attacked again and again. It was an oddly surreal feeling in the middle of all these bodies, but the pressure of claws striking my back was enough to ground me to my predicament. They didn't find any flesh past the tight weave of spider silk, but that didn't stop them from trying. I could hear the grunts and croaks as I batted my way clear of the closest of my enemies with a series of wild swings. The ground around my feet was littered with crumpled forms, and that suited me just fine. It was much easier to wheeze and try to catch my breath without having to fend off attackers.

Opportunity smiled her face upon me, and I found myself moving forward into a mosh pit of frogs that had formed when those closest to me retreated and bumped into those that were too slow to realize the danger. I picked my targets carefully as I pressed the attack, batting another two to the left and then one to the right with alternating swings. The wooden bat began to smoke a bit where it touched my palms, a black line of charcoal spreading out slowly. A quick survey told me that nearly a third of my attackers were either dead or unconscious on the ground, but I had this sneaking suspicion that I was somehow losing this fight. The lines of those waiting for a piece of me had begun to shorten, but I was breathing pretty hard. They hung back, not wanting to get within bat's reach of me. Although grateful for the rest, the fact that my foes had stopped attacking was, in itself, a little worrisome, especially when one wall of bodies parted to make way for a huge something-or-other to enter the ring.

"Say hello to Amikuk," came a voice from the leader of this rabble. He stood leaning nonchalantly against the wall of a nearby building. He looked young and stoic when the image of his human skin wasn't wavering like heat lines in a desert. But at no time did he feel young. Each of my senses tingled and screamed out that this was some being that was far older than me or any other human on the planet. This shouldn't have bothered me much, having been in the presence of Coyote, but the weight of Untunktahe's malice sat on my chest like a morbidly obese cat. I still couldn't make out what he was underneath the disguise, but then, I also had more pressing matters to concentrate on at the moment.

"Amikuk, say hello to the White Spider Man." Every speck of my attention swiveled to Amikuk, who bellowed out a challenge from deep inside his scaly hide. This creature was a genetic cocktail of improbability. It was fifteen feet from tip to tail with a body like some kind of thick, flat eel, and it perched on four very large, very human-shaped arms complete with hands big enough to cover my skull within a single palm. To make the nightmare complete, the part closest to me was the head of a polar bear and by some cruel twist of fate, was also the most disproportionately large piece of puzzle. It was time to rethink the whole "need for revenge" thing. Perhaps they'd agree to settle our differences over a nice game of Hungry Hungry Hippos?

****

The crack of wood on bone marked the conclusion of the third attempt to devour me. The creature was slow enough on dry land, but its length and sheer size made it a difficult opponent, especially to someone who was never much of a fighter to begin with. Without cheating, I was an average brawler, and against something nearly three times my size, I was toast. Even so, as long as I held tightly to my anger, I was able to hold my own as it circled me. I was, unfortunately, at a point where those glorious lines of destiny or probability had faded to nothing. This left me completely unable to predict its next move. I focused instead on backing up and trying to avoid giving it a good shot at snatching off a limb or two. Amikuk was an animal at heart and was trying to wound me with long, exaggerated lunges toward my legs. Each of these so far had ended in its huge jaws snapping together with inches to spare. A simple backward hop and a parry with the bat were sufficient to overcome its strategy. At least it would have been, had that actually been its strategy.

I had apparently underestimated its intelligence or severely overestimated my own, which happened to be a common theme in my life. I caught the sight of a fire escape to my left and a street lamp to my right. I had been forced between the two of them, and that was what Amikuk was waiting for. It leapt forward with surprising speed and agility and grasped each of these with two of its massive hands. The thing was now directly above me, and as I braced for it to drop down, I felt the thud of something impacting with my stomach. It hurt. A lot. There was something long and twisted sticking out of my gut. It took me a moment to comprehend what had happened, but it soon dawned on me that this object was attached to a long tail which in turn was attached to a sea creature that was a lot smarter than I was. Out-thought by an eel-man-bear. Not something to list on my Mensa application.

The pain, of course, was immense. The spike was probably around three to four feet in length and was spiraled for my pleasure. It had caught me just above my right hip and, if I was lucky, had just missed skewering the kidney on that side. I didn't have much time to try to break free before Amikuk descended, and I was seized by one of the giant's hands. Its fingers encircled my chest and arms and gave a friendly squeeze. I thought my eyes were going to pop out of their sockets and head off for parts unknown under the pressure. Luckily they were distracted from their migration by the fresh wave of agony that washed over me as my side stretched against the spike. This was in turn supplanted by the smell of rotting meat that covered my face as Amikuk eyed my noggin as an appetizer. The day just kept getting better.

"Hold up for just a moment, my friend," the leader said as he confidently strode forward into the light. His skin was that of a young man, probably in his late twenties with a long, single braid of dark hair trailing down his back. For the first time, I could see clearly beneath his skin as he let his guard down in a confident taunt. He was a large, burly creature, with the head of a bull and a great, long fish tail. Fur and scales fought for possession of his skin with the scales winning out over the back half of his body. He had long arms that flattened out into paddles at the hands, each one tipped with a dozen long, shovel-like claws. In short, he was yet another nightmare that I would never be able to purge from my subconscious. Belying his physical form, his voice was smooth and even tinged with just the slightest hint of regret. "The great Hu-Hanska-Ska. You have been a mighty thorn in my side for the last couple of weeks. What possessed you to think you could kill my followers, destroy my chapel, and count coup on me and my people?"

"Your 'people' attacked me first. They even killed me once, sent me to Skeleton House, but I don't seem to die very easily anymore."

"Ahh. But that was yesterday. I found where you kept your soul and sent it to the Smoke House along with your home. You are oh-so mortal now. And when you go this time, you will follow it there to pay for your sins, and your suffering will give my mother something to keep her entertained until this world is gone."

"Wait, what?" I gasped out as Amikuk gave me another squeeze. "What does my soul have to do with anything?"

"Are you seriously that stupid? You soul anchored you to the world of the living. As long as it was here, you could never truly die. Now though..."

"Grandmother..." I murmured in pain and in desperation. I didn't know the mechanics of all this spiritual stuff, but what he said made sense. The only thing tethering me to this world was my soul, and that was in Scruffy. He was now gone along with everything else. That meant I would not be coming back this time. It was truly the end.

"Oh, pray to your Grandmother. That unfeeling bitch will feel the shame and loss that I live with every day. She will know that you died, and she did nothing to stop it. Amikuk, end this."

It was like staring into a hungry manhole with teeth. There were bits of decayed flesh stuck between the yellow, rotting fangs. I had a momentary compulsion to reach in there and pluck out some of the debris. I mean, who would want to be devoured by such a filthy mouth? There was little doubt that he was so grumpy due to suffering the gum disease known as gingivitis. A few trips to the dentist and a pack of floss, and this creature would be as gentle as a kitten. I gazed forlornly at the teeth that were as long as my fingers and twice as thick. They were also firmly attached to a set of jaws that were strong enough to punch through a cinder block. Those teeth, burrowing into my skull would, without a doubt, be the last thing I ever felt. Bad kitty.

It was funny, how I had spent thirty eight years, the first fifteen or so probably didn't count, knowing that I could die and doing everything I could to avoid it. And then after one week of immortality, I simply couldn't imagine that there would be an end. But the arrogant bastard was right. With my soul gone, I had nothing keeping me here, and I would probably just be set adrift. And so, then, would Annie and Marty and Myrtle and Grandmother. All of them would follow me into the void when the world ended.

****

The smell of rotten penguin meat receded from my nostrils, and I focused my gaze on what I assumed was a surprised polar bear. It's not something I've encountered often in life, but Amikuk's eyes were wide with confusion and perhaps a smattering of terror as it stared down at where it had pierced me. I followed its gaze to where my blood literally ran from me, surging forward out of the hole and streaming up the spiral horn to get to the creature's scaly hide. There was smoke and a deafening roar of pain as they landed and then burrowed into Amikuk's tail, leaving blisters and charred flesh in their assault. The spike jerked out of me with a lot more pain then when it went in, and I dropped to my knees weakly. I looked up from where I knelt with no small amount of satisfaction as I watched the huge beast roll on the ground, beating at the holes the blood spiders had made in its flesh. Giant, meaty fingers dug furiously at the skin without any chance of success. I could have watched it chase its tail all night long, but the sounds of panic that rippled through the frog army drew my attention elsewhere. Untunktahe's troops were leaping into the air with regularity and swatting and slapping themselves in a frenzy.

I was still on my knees as the blood from my wound first pooled around me and then slowly reversed its flow, returning from where it came. I must have lost a lot more blood than I had originally thought. I began to hallucinate, transferring the dream of black pudding onto reality. The asphalt swirled and swelled around the lamp posts, fire hydrants, and bodies. It rolled forward in little ripples and lapped at the legs of the frog men, sticking to them like tar. Only it didn't stay stuck in one spot. It moved upward over their thighs and chest, quickly enveloping them from head to toe. Amikuk was on the ground, covered in a heavy coating of the thick goo and flailing about trying to free himself as well. In an act of desperation, it doubled up on itself and bit down on its own tail, ripping the last three feet of it off with its hands. My ears tried to collapse in upon themselves with the force of the roar. There was a huge fan of blood that jettisoned out of the stump as he reared up on two hands and then slapped handfuls of tar from his face and body. Some of the asphalt sailed through the air and landed at my feet, shaking off the blow and returning to the fight on their eight little legs.

Wrapping my brain around anything was a battle of attrition on the best of days, so I forgave myself for not realizing what was really going on sooner. I looked at things with new eyes, at a scene straight out of a classic horror movie. Hitchcock would have been proud. Many of the frog men had fled, but others were not so lucky. There were a number of prone figures on the ground, some of which looked like they had a layer of Saran Wrap covering them. Another half dozen were wobbling slowly away, their movements sluggish and heavy with the poison of a hundred bites. Amikuk gave me a last look of hatred and then bounded off into the dark, stopping every so often to swat at its face. I smiled. I couldn't help it. Grandmother Spider had sent reinforcements, millions of little troopers to save me. A small line of blood rose out of the pool that rested around the stump of Amikuk's tail and then marched toward me. It crawled up my knee, and returned to what was once a cavernous hole in my gut, sealing it up after them.

Untunktahe was a proud warrior and had refused to run. I doubted the spiders themselves would have been able to harm him. He was after all, part god. But, then again, apparently so was I. I was buoyed by a new sense of confidence, drunk on the cocktail of immortality and divine favor. I stood up and moved toward the wall where my opponent was hemmed in by a mountain of arachnids. The black sea parted as I stepped forward and then closed behind me, erasing any sign of passage. I was barely within spitting distance before I had him by the throat, pinning him to the wall with one steaming hand.

"It's not over," he hissed.

"It is for you," I said, squeezing a little tighter. This guy's neck was like iron, but it began to darken under my grip.

"She told me what you wanted to do, but I won't let you. I have allies, too."

"She? Who is she, and what did she say? That I intended to stop the end of the world? Well, tough shit, brother. I intend to do just that, and once I get you off my back, things will be much easier."

"The king of lies, she called you. I see now she is right. I could almost believe you."

The ground seemed to rock a bit with one of those tremors you feel through the soles of your feet and up into your bones. "Who is 'She'?" I roared at him.

"Girl Without Parents," he squeaked. I was confused and shocked. So much so that I forgot all about choking the life out of him. Not that it really mattered, because shortly after that, the road split open and the huge chunk I was standing on listed up and then sank like the Titanic. I could almost hear the violins in the background.

****

The world around me was a toilet. It was dark, wet, and smelled suspiciously of ass. I could hear the sounds of thrashing above me, and from the sky came just enough diffused light to give the world definition. There were large, jagged boulders of earth, concrete, and metal pipes above me and to all sides. I caught a precious few glimpses of something large and tubular lashing in and out of the open space above me and was suddenly glad I was down here, away from prying eyes and the huge writhing serpents. I just wished this roller-coaster of a life would leave me be. One second I'm losing, then I'm winning, then I'm fifteen feet below the street. I wondered, if by some stroke of luck, there were side tunnels that branched out from here. I could live underground, snacking on rats and leaping out of drainage holes to frighten passers-by into dropping their mocha lattes. I would be able to wander around out in the open on Halloween. It's not like anything up there would be able to find me down here.

I was, perhaps, a bit premature in my assessment. The serpents I had seen, which I later dubbed the "thing that should not be," seemed to have caught a few fleeting glimpses of me as well. Within moments, a large tentacle snaked down from above and wrapped itself around my torso. The suckers on the tentacle were rimmed with sharp edges and hooks that were intended, with little regard for my comfort, to dig into my flesh and hold me tight. My sweater turned a number of these away, but others bit into the exposed flesh of my face and neck. I took a quiet moment to contemplate just how a tentacle could have seen me, but as it constricted tighter around my torso, the darkness blinked at me. Truthfully, it was a subtle difference, but the black in front turned to weathered grey and then back to black. Does anyone else get tired of always being wrong? Standing in front of a giant eyeball with an equally giant tentacle wrapped around me constituted what I would define as a potential problem.

I was right, of course. It was a huge problem. Even as I sailed up into the air on rubbery wings, I tried to get a look at my new best friend and couldn't fit the entire image into any one snapshot. I needed panoramic vision to get an accurate view of my latest nightmare. I pieced together several different images in my mind and formed a decent composite. It was all finally so clear. I was clueless. Honestly, even after seeing it, I couldn't tell you exactly what this thing was. I thought that maybe I'd seen it on the Discovery channel as a baby jellyfish, or some kind of man-eating anemone, but as I reached the apex of my flight, all I could focus on was a gaping hole of a mouth surrounded by writhing tentacles. And, of course, no monstrous mouth would be complete without several full sets of backward facing teeth designed to keep the prey from ever escaping.

The rational part of my mind took over - since the emotional one was curled up in the fetal position on the floor of my subconscious - and began to dissect the biological design of my new found playmate. Something this massive would have had to live on the bottom of the ocean. How then, could it survive up here with such a drastic reduction in pressure? What would it have to eat in order to survive? Its food source had to be something much larger than me; otherwise it would just swim out from between the teeth. The top row of teeth collapsed together at that moment, creating a seamless zipper of interlocking flesh and bone. _Oh, well that explains it_ , I thought. There was a vast upward heave, followed by a swift downward motion. I managed to grunt a strangled "Oh, shit" just before finding myself travelling downward at a blood-chilling pace.

The final seconds of life are molasses for us all, I suppose. I saw the thousands of spiders that danced across the impenetrable surface of this leviathan. I saw the faces of the spider worshippers that peered out of the makeshift chapel with their comic book expressions of horror. I heard Untunktahe laughing manically as he reveled in the fact that he had finally brought something big enough to beat me. I even saw Annie and Marty getting out of her car a block away, the look of abject terror written clearly on their faces even at this distance. And then I fell, or was flung, I couldn't tell which. I only knew that the world was spinning, and I was tumbling past the eager tentacles, beyond the teeth, and into some sort of biological meat grinder. The world slowed down ever more in an act of malice. I felt the sweater catch on the spiked protrusions in the creature's gullet. It was ripped apart like it was nothing, and soon after, huge muscles punched me down onto the very same apparatus. As the bony pallet churned, huge chunks of skin and muscle were peeled first from my arms and legs and then my chest and face. My organs spilled onto the plates and were quickly crushed and conveyed down into the stomach. The bones came soon after, and then nothing was left but red, hot anger.

## Chapter Fifteen

I saw the hand of God. It struck with a clapping thunder upon the surface of the world. It was a single drum beat, and a mountain split and crumbled to the ground. In the center of the pile of rubble yawned a chasm that contained the inner fury of the earth itself. That fury was me.

The drum beat struck again and again, as my essence surged forward. "Awaken," I heard her call. "Reveal yourself my child. Burn for me." And I burned. Oh did I burn. I felt my legs, all eight of them, reach out, ramming through the tender insides of my prison. The meat grinder churned at me, trying to grasp something, but what it tasted made it tremble. I had found my abdomen, and it was large and bulbous, filled with life, and then I realized my fangs. They were heavy with venom, their hollow tips trembling with anticipation. Last of all came my eyes, and the world splintered into a panorama of intestinal material. I was inside something dank and alive and a very easy target. I bit down, sending my venom into the beast, and listened to the flesh sizzle and pop. I tasted sweet fear all around me. This was the day that this elder beast would finally feel the uncertainty of life and the terrible shadow of death looming close. I doubted that it had ever felt fear before, or even could, but I was a teacher equal to the task. I slashed with my forelimbs and bit down again and again, tearing ragged holes in tissues around me until I found the freedom of the night air settling upon my face. I slashed again and pulled myself free of the fleshy prison, only to be grasped by two of the massive tentacles. They spun around me in opposing directions, trying to rip me apart, but I was flesh no more. I was blood and fire, and the more it tore at me, the hotter I burned. Flames erupted over its skin, and the same hooks and teeth that once held me in place now held its own arms prisoner to me. The smell of cooked meat was intoxicating.

I broke free of the charred coils and landed onto the trunk of the beast, biting and slashing and burning and killing. I lost focus for a while, simply reveling in the freedom of release and the ecstasy of destruction. When the joy subsided, I was perched on top of the burnt out hulk of what used to be an ancient sea creature. Untunktahe was no longer laughing. His smug little smile was gone, and he knew finally how insignificant he was. He knew that he would burn for his arrogance and his stupidity. I skittered over to him, the world alight with my essence. So long. So very long I had waited to burn like this, to shine for the Creator. The reflections of my light returned to me from every window, every pool of water, every shiny eye of every living thing that witnessed my brilliance. It was magnificent. My foe knelt on the ground before me, offering himself up for the execution. "Make it swift, Kelok. I only ask that you reconsider ending this world and make my death swift and honorable."

Kelok. A name, but not mine. Or was it? I paused, considering just who or what I now was. Once, I was Kelok. Once, I was Tim. Tim was my flesh, and that was now gone. Tim gave his soul to Grandmother as a gift for saving a dead spider I, no he, found under his bed. The soul she placed in him, me, was something far older than just this world, far older than all the worlds but the first. I remember the feeling of the lake of molten stone caressing me when the skies were clear and dark, and the land was unformed and water was unknown. I did the bidding of the Creator, a wizened silver fox even then. He allowed me to rage, called me to build mountains and valleys out of the magma, gave me a purpose and gave me a name. Tim. No, that wasn't right.

Then the All Father left us. He left his daughter. He left the First. He left me. He left to live in the upper world, putting an unreachable barrier between us. I raged on, hoping that he would come back, even if it meant coming back to punish me. But there was something else then, there were the First, and they were in charge of this world. I was asked to sleep, to rage no more, and I did. I slumbered in depression as the years passed until the People came to me to beg for my fire. I told them they didn't want it. I told them not to ask. But they asked over and over again, and the fourth time I could not withhold the fire, nor my anger at their stupidity. I gave them what they asked and bathed the world in my fury. And that world ended.

I was left in the dark for so long I forgot myself, forgot why I should rage or who I was raging for. I became unformed and stupid until Spider came for me. She tunneled down into the dead worlds, three of them, she told me, and asked if I would like to see the sunlight once more. She adopted me, and I became like her, a spider. Once the People named me Kananeski-Anayehi, and I helped bring proper fire to the People, and they thanked me. They worshipped me. A little of what I felt with the Creator came back, and I was happy. But those times were short and men forgot about us, and it was dark once more. Grandmother Spider rescued me a second time, asking me to help one of her children, to share in the experiences of the world, and I agreed. Better that than to return to the nothing, and maybe one day I could rage again.

The word, Tim, came again, echoing in my head. The voice was sweet and kind, the calling undeniable. It was like something was probing deep inside me, pricking out the fibers to form my own mountains and valleys. The peaks became the nose and chin and chest and shoulders and knees and feet. The valleys formed eyes and mouth and neck and limbs. It was one of the People, only not. A type of man I had never seen yet was intimately familiar with. This was Tim, and Tim had to go. Grandmother Spider was calling him. Farewell, Tim.

****

I was drowning in a lake of boiling water with no up or down to guide me. My lungs itched to breathe and then ached to pull in oxygen, but there was none here, and I fought the urge to the point of bursting. This was a new death for me and was by far the least pleasant. I suppose I deserved it though, running hand in hand with revenge like I had. I deserved it all but did not regret.

A voice drifted down to me out of the void, calling my name over and over. I spun around, trying to locate its source and, when I did, swam to it frantically. There was no direction but the voice and no light save for hope, and there was precious little of that to go on. Just as it dimmed to nothing, I broke free of the water, dragging in huge lungfuls of air and clawed my way onto dry land. I lay there, soaking in the coolness of the world around me that was a far cry from the burning haze that had born me down into its depths. It was cool and dark, and my skin lapped it up greedily. The stars, for there were finally stars above, were hung in the sky by translucent threads like beads of dew in the early morning. I recognized it with a smile, and then I recognized myself.

It had been a while since I was me, but the lifetime of mostly pointless underachievement came back in steady draught. Not exactly riveting cinema on the whole. I was guessing they saved the best parts for the sequel. The previews rolled, and the brief memories of my time as the White Spider Man, the Daddy-Long-Legs-Man, the White-Bone-Spider-Man flashed across the screen of my mind. Oh, how the hero had struggled and fought against his destiny. The last words of Untunktahe replayed for me, and I puzzled over the meaning. He blamed me for wanting to destroy the world. He must have then sent his high priest and the dishrags over to kill me only two days after I was "born". Someone told him what I was, where to find me, and convinced him of my evil intentions. Girl Without Parents had found me the day before. She had sized me up in the truck corral and decided it was better to have me out of the picture. I could respect that. She wanted to save the world.

But then, when I came back from the dead, she had befriended me and helped to steer me toward preserving the world. Had she, at the same time, plotted with the enemy to have me killed yet again? Had she organized the bombing of my place? Had she told them where I lived and where my soul was hidden? I had told her everything. I had been stupid and trusting, and she had used it against me. It made sense, in a purely functional way, and sure, that made her a bitch. But what I didn't get was what her goal was. What did she hope to gain from all of this? Was she still afraid I was going to end the world even after starting the church to save it? That was possible but didn't make a whole lot of sense. I was created because the world had become too wicked. Killing me would just hasten it at this point. She could have been working on behalf of Water Monster, but then why would she drop me off at their hideout and let me tear that place apart? So if she wasn't out to kill me and wasn't wholly on the side of Water Monster, then who was she against?

"I may be able to answer that, my brave Hu-Hanska-Ska." The voice wafted out of the dark like a sweet breeze. The smell of honeysuckle filled my nostrils with every word. "You have made me very proud and brought joy back to these limbs such as I thought I would never have again." Her voice dipped down into tones of regret and sorrow, and I felt it to my very core.

"Then why are you sad? We won. We beat the son of the Water Monster. We brought back the rituals. We made the world better than it was. Surely that should give us more time. This world isn't done yet."

"Oh, but there you are wrong my son." She emerged into the light and into full view for the first time. She was beautiful and terrifying. Hair of midnight danced on invisible currents, swaying gently from her scalp in a ballet of grace and beauty. Her skin was marble smooth, and the light played erotically over her bare chest and shoulders, all the way down to her navel. She viewed the world upside down, her back eternally arched, using her arms as forelimbs, her hands were either treading upon the ground or used to grasp the cosmic strands. Extending from her stomach was the abdomen of a black-widow spider. The hard, black carapace was beautiful in its own way but menacing as well. From this junction sprouted another six legs, all long and graceful, and wickedly sharp. They carried her forward in their dagger-like precision. "Follow me, child, and I will show you."

I followed. There was no reluctance or hesitation, simply obedience. We walked casually and carefully until we were outside of the circle of light and cosmic threads. We continued past row upon row of smaller cords, many twisted in among others into impossible knots. "These," she began, "are the threads of destiny. Each one, while whole, carries someone forward in their journey through life." She pointed to a thicker strand to which others joined or from which they split. "Some are great events that will shape the world someday, ending journeys and beginning others." She stopped so suddenly that I almost ran into her. I was close enough that her head was inches away from my waist, and I could almost feel her hair trailing along my conspicuously bare legs. In fact, I had just noticed that I was entirely nude when I felt her grasping me around my waist. I sucked in a breath as she plucked me off the ground with hands that were too impossibly strong for how delicate they seemed. There was no warmth in her touch and her skin was as smooth and hard as her carapace. She turned me around as if I weighed nothing and set me down on her abdomen so that we were face to face, and then she spun around and climbed the wall. We rose above layer after layer of fate and fiber until we were free of all but a single line that held the rest in thrall. This was the key, the thread that supported all the others. This was the world thread.

The wall ceased its vertical climb and tapered inward to a point. We followed it to the apex, finally stopping once we came within reaching distance of the fiber. It was a terrible thing to be so close to it, to know that this cable, no thicker than my arm was all that stood before oblivion. I stifled the sudden urge to sneeze. I wasn't sure if getting snot on it would be a sacrilege, but I had recently come to the conclusion that it was best not to risk these things. On closer inspection, I noticed that the world-ender was really two threads, a thick one the size of my wrist and a smaller one twined around it. At the top, the smaller wire sagged and a loose end hung limply out into the darkness.

Grandmother watched my face carefully, gingerly even, as I took this scene and its implications in and processed them. "Yes, my Hu-Hanska-Ska, that is the destiny of this world, and it is failing."

"It needs both of them to keep things in place? The little one is so small. How can that make a difference?"

"The smallest changes often have the largest effects. The remaining strand will weaken, and it will fall. The world will end."

"Why did the small one break?"

"When you were fighting, you called out to me. I left my realm to help. I abandoned my duties. Someone came in and severed the thread."

"So, it was my fault after all. The White-Spider-Man destroys the world, whether he wants to or not. Can I ask you a question?"

"Certainly."

"If you were happy that I saved one of your children, why did you curse me with being the Daddy-Long-Legs-Man? Why did I have to be destined to end the world?"

Grandmother Spider thought about this for a moment before speaking. "I am the keeper of the garden of destiny, and my children are its tenders. The webs they weave mimic the interdependency of all things. When one of the strands stagnates or rots, it threatens the entire structure and must be removed. So it is in the world when the People turn their backs on their ancestors." She paused and brought her hands together with her fingers entwined. "The first White-Boned-Spider-Man was born because the People had grown petty and wicked. For the first time in this, the fourth world, a white man had more of the spirit of the People than those of its blood. I sent my white spider across the ocean to the People and Iktomi to warn the tribes of his coming."

"He told them not to trust the white men or accept any of their gifts."

"Yes. And while some tribes obeyed, many more saw the white man as a tool they could use to settle old debts with other tribes. They allied themselves with the newcomers and traded with them in goods and flesh to satisfy their desire for revenge and for greed."

"So, the White-Spider-Man did not destroy the People?"

"He was an agent for change. His presence offered the People a chance to return to the old ways and the mend the old alliances with the Creator and their ancestors. They chose a different path. You are also an agent for change. The world is wicked. You offered the world a chance to forge a new alliance with the Creator and the ancestors of the People. You brought back the old ways and tried to restore light to the darkness. Even without your coming, the world would have ended soon enough on its own." Her voice was low and consoling, a mother's voice.

"Whose thread was it?" I asked, shifting the topic and pointing to the loosened strand above me.

"Touch it and find out."

I reached out a tentative finger just far enough that it brushed against the loose end of the strand. I was in a room. It was familiar, and I could place it immediately. Beside an old and worn recliner, there was a large, black dog surrounded by flattened quills. He was silent now, no breath remaining, and no warmth behind those huge, brown eyes. Shunka Sapa was dead.

"I don't get it. Why would they kill the dog?" I said as I pulled away from the scene.

"Kareya, the Great Mystery, gives each world he creates a balance. While the parts of the balance are in place, the world will continue. Once the world becomes a place in which the balance is no longer true, the world will end. For this world, He asked Magda to make him a porcupine quill blanket. Upon this blanket he asked for the design of a great buffalo. It is her singular goal in life to make a pleasing gift for the Creator.

The creator, in turn, asked Shunka Sapa, child of the first dog, to ensure that Magda never completes her blanket. It was his sacred duty to ensure she never finished. The quills he removed were returned to the Creator as a symbol of the continued fulfillment of His will. It is the act of making and remaking that keeps the world intact. Should one or the other fail, should the Creator see that he is no longer honored, then life itself will fail."

"How did he send the quills to the Creator?"

"There is a hole under the chair."

"Oh. That makes sense. So, what can we do?"

"Do?" She looked at me, her pupils widening until they filled the entire space behind her eyelids, and then they returned to pinpricks. "Do? We do nothing. What is done, is done. The worthy will ascend, and the unworthy will be no more. Things will start anew. That is the way."

"There has to be something..."

"Ah, my Hu-Hanska-Ska. You rage against everything. You accept nothing. You are a brave with great heart. But rest now. Return to my followers and prepare them for the end. Sing me one last song. Give me one last dance." She leaned in to me and kissed me with lips that were neither soft nor warm but as loving as any I could imagine. The darkness crept in and swallowed me.

## Chapter Sixteen

"Dude. Wake up, man." I felt something nudge me in the side, hard. The world was solid again. I could feel that I once more had fingers and toes, and I flexed these with a conscious effort. I counted them one at a time to make sure I had enough and also not too many. I had a sudden urge to sneeze and raised a finger to my nose. I stabbed myself in the eye once and nearly get it lost in a nostril the second time, but the third try did the trick. As I rubbed away the impending explosion, I mentally explored the rest of my form, tensing and untensing muscles wherever I could remember them existing. Everything seemed to be working well enough, but somewhere in the back of my mind, something was screaming that things were terribly wrong. I could feel the prick of tiny daggers along my back and an unnatural coolness running the length of my body.

"I'm naked, aren't I?" I managed to croak through sandpaper lips.

"As the day you were born, man," Marty replied with undisguised admiration.

"Hi, Tim." Came a familiar feminine voice, one that I'd heard say many things to my naked body in my imagination, "I thought maybe we could hang out, and I see you had the same idea." That was a new one on me.

"Could someone get me a towel or a blanket or something?" I pleaded.

"I've got a napkin here. That will probably do," Annie replied impishly.

"It's cold, all right? Things contract in the cold. It's physics. Maybe you've heard of it?"

The welcome comfort of something clothy and opaque greeted me from waist to mid-thigh. It felt a bit grimy, but nonetheless, I was thankful for the small blessing. Did I mention that it was cold out? Now that my dignity was completely shattered, I risked opening my eyes to the world I had so recently doomed. I rolled my head from side to side, taking in first the kneeling forms of Marty and Annie and then the scenes of destruction that surrounded me. The ground was littered with dead and desiccated frogs the size of men. Their inert forms were covered in silk and happily feeding spiders. Huge chunks of pavement sprouted up into a central volcano which seemed to have vomited up large chunks of squid. I moved my gaze from the sushi explosion and directed it to the man who was seated on the ground with his head hung in shame. It would appear that I did not kill Untunktahe during my rampage. I probably should have. Not only would it have made me feel better, but it would have saved him from carrying this defeat around forever. Although, admittedly, forever would only last a few more days.

"Man, you really made a mess around here. How are you going to explain it to the cops?" Marty said, leaning over me.

"I don't think it will matter for long. It's all over."

"What do you mean, over?" Annie said as she dragged Marty back out of the way and took his place. I was a bit surprised she put her hands on his yellowing undershirt, but that thought was lost as she stared at me with those intense eyes. I couldn't accept they would soon be gone. Everything would be gone.

"The world is going to end, and I can't stop it," I said, turning my head away in shame.

Untunktahe looked up from where he stooped. "You. You did it then. You beat me, and now you celebrate by ending it all? What will it be this time? A nuclear strike? Sudden loss of all air? Turning off the sun?"

"I don't know how it will go down, but I didn't do it by myself. We did it. You and I both did it, beaver-boy."

"You indirectly pushed the world's self-destruct button?" Panic was beginning to creep into Annie's voice. "You know, if I hadn't stepped in a giant puddle of squid vomit in the middle of Jacksonville tonight, I'd think you were just another nutter. Perhaps you should explain to us what you know."

"Someone snuck into Grandmother's house while she was distracted with," I waved my hands weakly in an all-encompassing gesture. "They killed Magda's dog. Magda is the fuse, and Shunka kept her from igniting."

"Magda? The old lady we talked to," Annie said weakly. "All she does is work on that blanket."

"And when she completes it," interrupted Untunktahe, "The end of the world will be upon us."

I pushed myself up on my elbows. "Right. And the whole time we were there, I watched her dog remove the quills whenever she got up to stir her pot. Hell, he's probably done that for thousands of years."

"And now he's dead. Who killed him?"

"My money's on Girl Without Parents, the twelve year old taxi driver," I explained for Marty, who had been oddly silent. "She played us both." I nodded in my foe's direction.

"She told me of your coming, and your mission," the son of Water Monster said with a heaping helping of disbelief. "Well, your alleged mission. She told me where your soul was and that you were meeting tonight over here." I doubted he truly believed me, but at this stage of the game, you had to just close your eyes and roll the dice.

"Your soul?" Marty said, finally deciding to participate in the conversation.

"Yeah, you remember when I died? I kind of put my soul into Scruffy's body."

"Scruffy? Right, yeah, about that. You remember that talk about finding religion and the gods inside of you?"

"My memory's not so good tonight," I said weakly.

"Yeah, well, I tried a few more and then felt really bummed out. So I went for a smoke and couldn't remember where I left my stash. I remembered coming home from work and watching this show about fairies... not a documentary or anything, just a program...I had this bag of Cheetos that I opened and thought..."

"Marty! Get on with it."

"Yeah, sorry. See, I had lost my train of thought. And that's what I did."

"What?" said Annie and I at the same time.

"That's me. I'm always losing things, and I'm also a lost cause. I'll never change. I know that by now. I always wanted to be someone you could depend on, but I could never get my shit together. So I looked up the gods for lost things and found one on the internet. I prayed to Anoia and then found my stash! It was awesome. I think I found myself also."

"I'm glad for you, Marty. It's good to hear."

"I'm not done yet. I prayed for you, man. I knew that there was some heavy shit goin down, so I prayed for your soul." He was wistfully silent for a moment, and I was so touched that I didn't have the heart to interrupt him. "So, there I was looking in my sock drawer after work today, and I'll be damned if I didn't find it. A hundred freakin spiders popped out and wagged their butts at me."

"No way," I said.

"Hell, yes way."

"You mean Scruffy's alive?" I said with a sudden up swelling of hope.

"Yeah," said Annie, sporting a smile that lit up the night. "They all are. They gave Marty my phone number and then told us where to find you. We left them back at his place snacking on crickets."

Relief and happiness are words that were unworthy of the feeling. Marty had found what I had lost, and I had no desire to lose them again. Sirens could be heard in the distance, and I figured it was pretty darn close to time to go. "What about Calvin and the others? Did they survive?"

"Oh, yeah. They'll be racking up the therapy bills soon enough, but they made it. I told them to get out of here before the press arrives. It seems no one really wants to go public with their beliefs quite yet."

"That's some damn good advice. Let's get back to your place, Marty. I need to make a phone call."

"And what of me, White-Spider-man?" Untunktahe said. "I was captured by Grandmother before this world was born, I tried to kill you and lost, and now it seems I've been played for the fool. I do not deserve to live. My life is yours."

"Quite the gift, but I've got an idea. You're good at this whole revenge thing. Why don't you find me a little girl who drives a cab and wears black and red? I'd like to have a little chat with her if we all live that long."

****

A man and his spiders. There should be a movie about that. I can see it as a heart-rending tale to rival that of Old Yeller, but it still wouldn't compare to the real thing. As soon as I walked into Marty's apartment, I was assaulted by a thousand grasping legs and an equal number of welcome looks in their little spider-puppy eyes. Annie still seemed to be a bit shy around the writhing mass of arachnids, but it was their celebration, so I put her phobia on the back burner for a moment. After another five minutes of reunion, and they let me up enough to begin to get to work.

"Marty, I need a phone. Does your still work?"

"If you've got thirty five cents, and you like to walk."

"Here, use my cell," Annie said, handing over a touch screen phone covered with "Undead Hello Kitty" pictures. I gave her a raised eyebrow and she shrugged. "So I've got a sense of humor."

"Ok. Guys, what was the number for Latrans?" The spiders conferred for a moment before arranging themselves in the shape of digits. I had gotten through typing in the first six numbers when her phone chimed an incoming call. The tone was a happy one that I couldn't really place but bounced around in my head like a racquetball. It hugged me like an old friend and kept me safe from harm. It also kept me from moving of my own volition. It was like all my brain cells had been infected and were resonating to the harmony. I looked imploringly at Annie, but she was too focused on how hard she had to clamp her hands over her ears to ward off the musical demons. I looked down at the display, not surprised to see the caller ID showing a single word, Coyote. I pressed the word answer on the screen like a wooden puppet and enjoyed one blessed moment of silence before placing the phone to my ear.

"Tim, it took you long enough."

"Dear God, man, what was that?"

"I hate being ignored. Now, to the point. You were trying to get in touch with me? How did the church idea work out?"

"Not too bad until our pal Untunktahe showed up with a bunch of his friends. The party got out of hand, and now the world is going to end."

"You had a party and didn't invite me? Tim, I'm hurt."

"It was a last minute thing. You did hear me say that the world will end soon, right?"

"Of course. What makes you say that?"

"Someone killed Magda's dog."

"Shit. That means the world will end soon. We've got to do something."

"You're the man with the answers."

"Okay, first thing we have to do is keep that old girl from finishing her quilt. And then you've got to get her dog back."

"Yeah, that whole being dead thing isn't really an obstacle." I said with more than just a touch of sarcasm. "Grandmother Spider said there wasn't anything we could do to repair its thread."

"Grandmother Spider plays by the rules. I think that's cute. Get to the old lady's house first thing in the morning.

"Why not now?"

"You're such an idiot. There are no roads to her house at night. You need to get there at daybreak and stop her from finishing her job. I'll meet you outside when you're done."

"How..." There was silence on the other end, and I knew that it would be pointless to try to call him again. It looked as if the fate of the world rested squarely on the power of my intellect. We were doomed.

****

Comfort was a luxury we couldn't afford at this point even if we had the opportunity, which we didn't. I was a passenger in Annie's plastic car once more and we were barreling down the road recklessly toward and early morning sun. Annie, who was normally calm and analytical, let the stress of the situation get to her as she white-knuckled the steering wheel. This lapse in her usual demeanor was understandable given the fact that the existence of the world and all the people we knew in it hinged on what she and I did in the next few minutes. We were the only things standing in the way of total destruction, and that burden was a difficult one to bear. Of course, that didn't explain the constant fearful glances into the rear view mirror. The large collection of eight-legged passengers arrayed across her backseat, however, did.

"Don't worry, they're harmless," I said trying to calm her.

"I saw how harmless they were with all those men they had cocooned in the street last night."

"That was war. And, just in case you were wondering, they weren't men."

"I know what I saw. They were men, wrapped in silk and being drained of their blood."

"Did you see the giant thing sticking out of the street? You know, the one that ate me?"

"I saw the goo and the suckers. I just assumed it was a giant squid."

"But you didn't see it."

"No. From a distance, it looked like some pipes had burst, and you were riding them."

"There you go. These things disguise themselves. It's an illusion. The pipes were actually a large mouth with arms, and the men, well, they were more like frogs."

"Frogs. Six foot tall frogs that walked on two legs and wore clothes?" She shook her head in disbelief or just discomfort at the thought. "It still doesn't make your friends any less dangerous."

"As long as you're not trying to kill them, they're gentle as kittens."

"Kittens with big, pointy fangs and about a million legs."

"Really? After all of this, are you still afraid of spiders?"

"No. They just creep me out sometimes." She looked into the mirror again after she said this. "Nothing personal, guys." Scruffy gave a bit of a bouncing shrug, and the others followed

We drove for another fifteen minutes before arriving at the house of the ancient woman. There was some brief discussion about what we would do, but we only knew part of the plan anyway. The rest would be a matter of improvisation.

****

"Come in, come in children. I have some wojapi on the stove." Magda was as deliberate in her actions as she was the last time we had visited. She shuffled into the kitchen to stir the needy little pot, all the while giving the perception that she had been expecting us. "Please, sit. I will get you something." Annie walked confidently over to the couch and sat down immediately. I shuffled slowly and uncomfortably across the floor, taking a moment to absorb the scene arrayed before us. The old chair was covered in a blanket that was very nearly complete. The buffalo image was strong and well defined, with only the point of one horn left unfinished. In the shadow of the chair, under the trailing edge of the blanket was a very large, very dead, black dog, looking for the world like a taxidermist's wet dream. I hiked up my slacks a bit and dropped half a dozen spiders onto the floor. They took off obediently and ran over to where the dead dog's body rested. Smuggling spiders in my trousers wasn't exactly my first choice either, but times like these called for sacrifice. I tried pretending that they were a pair of fishnet stockings, but that just made me feel even more uncomfortable, so I stuck with the spider long-johns idea.

I nodded my head at Annie, and she stood up saying "Let me help you with that, Magda." She ran interference for me on the way to the kitchen as I shook my pant legs again. The spider paratroopers rained down onto the floor in droves and raced toward the blanket. The first batch had managed to work one of the quills loose from the blanket as the second platoon arrived. More pacing and shaking released squad after squad of little workmen until my supply was exhausted. The quill removal was progressing nicely, but we were too far behind schedule to leave it solely to the arachnids. I stepped toward the blanket, and the old lady's head swiveled like the Exorcist to nail me to my place.

"I was just admiring the blanket," I said tentatively.

"Yes, thank you," she said, never removing those suddenly predatory eyes from me. I took a step back, further out of reach of the blanket, and she returned her motherly protection to the pot on the stove. Well, so much for my giving us a head start. Even if all of the little buggers worked feverishly, the best they can do is keep her where she was, and they would wear out much faster than an immortal dog would. Even if they worked in shifts, they probably couldn't last more than a couple of days.

"Annie, I'm going to go out to the car for something. Maybe you can get Magda to show you how she makes that stuff from scratch."

"Yeah, why not. Don't be too long," she said, waving her fist at me in mock anger. At least, I hoped it was mock anger. I walked through the front door, unburdened by arachnid underwear and just about walked right into a man in a bright orange suit. It even had a texture that resembled an orange peel. "God, you scared the shit out of me."

"Maybe you should have dressed in brown?" Coyote mocked with a wink.

"Yeah, that way I could have looked like a coconut or something. So, how do we fix this?"

"You need to go get Shunka's soul and bring it back here. Then we can put it back where it belongs and he can go back to sabotaging the old lady."

"Gee, that sounds easy enough. I wonder if Wal-Mart has that on special."

"My, aren't we snippy. Here's how it works, and I know this from experience. There is an island where the souls bound for an afterlife go when their bodies die, at least for a short while. The spirits cannot be removed from that island without a certain basket. To try to do so would result in the island relocating and taking the souls with it. If you did happen to get a soul in the basket and away from the island, if you let it out again, it will just return to the island, and the island will relocate. That would end any chance we've got. Are you following me?"

"Yeah. Get a basket, put the soul in it, don't let it out," I said ticking them off on my fingers.

"Good. So, this is very important to remember. Once you get the basket and get Shunka's spirit into it, you must get him back here and no matter what, you must not open the basket. Understand?"

"Don't open the box. Right. How do I get the box?"

"It's a basket. And you need to get it from the dogs."

"The dogs."

"Yep. The dogs. They were once the wisest critters around, but they got a little arrogant. Even so, they were given the task of ensuring things that die, stay that way. They've got the soul basket."

"And how do I get the soul basket from them?"

"Convince them. You're a smooth talker. Bring some Milk Bones."

"Great. Wonderful. Where do I find them?"

"At Wal-Mart. They're in an aisle near the deodorant..."

"Not the Milk Bones! Where do I find the dogs with the soul basket?"

"I thought you'd never ask." Coyote grinned wide and toothy and then plunged his hand into my chest. "I wouldn't tell them about me, by the way. We parted on bad terms last time." Things went dark, and I died - again.

## Chapter Seventeen

In case you hadn't come to the same conclusion as I had, I'll let you in on a little secret. Dying really sucks. It isn't just the pain, although there was a significant amount of that at the time I had a fist enter my chest, nor is it wholly the pain of feeling your cells ripped apart as your essence becomes separated from its nice and cozy little slumber nest. The part that sucks the most for me is waking up on the other side and realizing I am on that same stupid road to Skeleton House that I was before, and that a long, boring journey is there to welcome me back. Yippee.

The silhouettes of objects in the fog slipped anonymously by as I focused on placing one foot in front of the other, time and time again. Rocks, houses, people, everything was ghostly figments of my imagination, and I... I was the nutjob actively pretending they did not exist. After all, they held no menace and were merely occupying space, just like me. The only real difference between us was that I knew I was fucked if I didn't get to somewhere in a hurry. I passed Lyoma and her stick house without a word and hardly spared the old man and his would-be fire a second glance. It was the chasm that I was after, and I had a hot date with my old friend the Chief. The journey there was over quickly, as far as I could tell anyway, which was probably a combination of having done it before and having a massive cosmic imperative fueling my every step.

"Back for another ride, I see. Can't say I get too much repeat business around here," the wiry old man said.

"What can I say," I quipped as I undid my kilt. "I'm trying to earn my frequent flyer miles."

The chief seemed a bit confused by this but lifted me up and slung me over the abyss anyway. I could hear his cackling laughter as I soared out over the abyss. It was nice to find someone who really enjoyed his work. The flight was a pleasant one, and since I couldn't very well rush things at that point, I enjoyed a moment of peaceful contemplation. Contemplation might have been a bit of an overstatement. I really couldn't say that I actually thought about much of anything, but I did spend a few moments ruminating on landing techniques. I had to say it worked. I missed the tree altogether and pulled off a two point landing, followed by a roll, and then some skidding. All in all, it was a much more successful maneuver than my first attempt.

Massive cosmic imperative or not, the rest of the journey was inescapably long and dull. Walking or running made no difference, and nothing I did was able to relieve the boredom or shorten the trek. Perhaps the time required to get to the Houses was a universal constant, kind of like a three hour visit to the DMV no matter the time of day you arrive or whether you called ahead or not. I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do to find Shunka's spirit, but the answers lay with the dogs, and the location of the dogs lay somewhere either within the Skeleton House or within the Smoke House. I walked and jogged and trotted and moseyed and walked some more, placing one endless step after another. I soon became lost in a secret place within my skull. I was in a reverie that a man with a singular purpose and a severe lack of entertainment eventually finds himself in. It wasn't until I was at last waving hello to Anahua that I returned to consciousness. She was, of course, exactly the same as when I had first met her except for perhaps that she wore a smile with just a hint more of regret.

"My boy. I see you have returned to us. For a while, I was foolish enough to think you had returned to the living."

"I had," I said solemnly.

"All the more pity, then. Is it true? Will the world fall?"

"Not if I can get in touch with the dogs. Do you know where I can find them?"

"Of course. But they are day walkers, and we, well, we are just bones during the day. I'm afraid you would meet them, but the meeting would be less than productive."

"Then, that's it. If I don't talk to them, the world is over."

"All things must end one day. What is meant to be will be. What is meant to end will end."

"Maybe I'll just sit here, then, and wait for it to come."

"You must find your tribe. Morning is not far off, and if you are not with your tribe, the dogs will scatter your bones to the wind."

"I have no tribe. I'm a white man in a red man's world. Besides, it was me who failed. I deserve no less." Anahua was silent. "Would you at least sit with me until the morning comes? I could use the company."

"Of course, my boy. Of course."

We sat together on her porch, sometimes talking of the world and how it had changed, sometimes just sitting and watching the light grow on the distant horizon. There was a gentle touch on my shoulder and then I heard the door close behind me. Brilliant light flooded in over the rim of existence, and then there was once again the familiar embrace of nothingness.

****

"Poko, I think it is awake," said a husky voice from nearby.

"Are you sure you got all of its bones?"

"Yes. I had to scold a few of the pups for chewing on them, but there wasn't too much damage."

The world swam into focus at last, and I sincerely wished that it had not. In my brief time as a player in the world of the supernatural, I had awakened to many a sight, but the large, yellow eyes of the predator above me might just have been the most disturbing. Those eyes were attached to a very large dog covered in silver and black fur with a stark, white face. It was a bit like having a sun bleached skull taking my measure. Of course, I never imagined a skull could actually bare its fangs at me, but then I was a bit of a novice in the ways of skulls. Behind this bony countenance was the star-laden night and on a more horizontal plane was a haphazard pack of dogs, all very busy chewing on bones from those who seemed to have been less fortunate than I. I noted that I would have to adjust my definition of "fortunate" for future reference.

"White-Spider-Man. I never thought I would see you here. This is an honor." It spoke with the same ease that everything else seemed to in this place. Its lips and mouth moved out of sync with the words to give the impression that I was watching Kung-Fu Theater. Even so, it was better than having to read subtitles through the entire conversation.

"I will return the sentiment as soon as I can remember how to find my legs. That is, if I still have them," I said through a groggy haze.

"Take your time. Your bones were all brought here but not in the same order as you left them, I'm afraid. It takes time for your spirit to sort them out again."

He was right. If I was a betting man, I would bet it took me almost fifteen minutes for my spirit to reconnect with all of my limbs, and even then, I couldn't be sure that I had them all in the right order. When I was done playing pick-up sticks, I sat up and then bowed my head toward my benefactor. "I am honored to meet you. I have heard of the wisdom of the dogs. I'm afraid I don't know your name, though."

"I am Poko Kachina. I am the first Dog. May I ask what it is that an emissary from Grandmother Spider wants with us? It has been a long day, and we will need to rest soon. So many bones to find, and the tribeless are becoming more numerous each morning."

"Of course. I'm sorry for bothering you. I am here to return the soul of Shunka Sapa to his body. Someone killed him in order to end the world."

"My son. Yes. He came here recently although I have not been able to talk to him yet. Once his spirit forgets his body, we will be reunited."

"Possibly, but what happens to this place, to you, when the world ends?"

"We will pass to the Upper World to run free in the forests again. We will have a fresh start."

Damn. That was an appealing outcome for him. I could see that this was going to be a difficult sell. "That sounds... great. The only problem I see is that by sitting on our asses, we are conceding victory to the son of a bitch," Poko's eyes arched at that phrase, "umm, I meant, bastard - to the bastard who killed your son and is looking to kill the millions of your children all over the earth. I mean, there has to be a reason he wants the world to end. Think about what that murderer will get out of it. They obviously aren't looking for a reward in a dead world. They think they've got the inside track on ruling the new one."

Poko Kachina sat back on his haunches and idly scratched at a flea "I suppose that might make a good argument, but this world hasn't been exactly friendly to us."

"I heard that you were once respected as being the wisest of all the animals. How did you end up exiled here?" I could see the hackles start to rise on the massive dog and knew that I was pushing things in a dangerous direction.

"We were duped. The wisest of all animals, indeed." He said with what could have been a spit but instead hung on in a giant glob of drool. "Oh, we were wise. So wise, in fact, that we set up a council to discuss matters of conduct for all that roamed the earth. We were the first congress, you see, only we could not agree on which of us was the wisest. When our ideas conflicted, we quickly realized that we would never make a decision without someone to rule 'yea' or 'nay' on the idea. We held races and contests, devised puzzles and riddles, but nothing we did was definitive. It is just not that easy to define wisdom." His hair had flattened again, and Poko began to lick at his hind legs. "The means of gauging wisdom that we adopted, and for the life of me I cannot figure out why it made so much sense at the time, was that we would be able to smell it. So, we set about trying to find our president through our noses. It didn't take long for the other animals to notice our efforts. They'd gather around and watch us and laugh. It seems they were in on the joke. It turns out a certain mischievous First had made the suggestion that we choose our wisest by scent. The wisest of animals had been tricked into sniffing each other's butts." He made dismissive gesture with his head. "We lost respect and reacted poorly and eventually ended up banished here."

"If the one you are referring to is Coyote, well, I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one who wants the world to end. How would it be if he were in charge of the new world?"

Poko cringed at the thought. "You do make a good argument, but in order to get Shunka's soul back to the world of the living, you would need to use the soul basket. This was given into our keeping by the Creator, a responsibility we take very seriously. I could not, in good conscience, just give you such a dangerous thing."

"Because it could destroy the world?" I said derisively.

Poko considered this statement with another lazy scratch at his ear, dislodging a ghost flea with practiced skill. "Point taken. Fine. I will offer you the use of the basket. Your word will bind you to the keeping of it, just as ours has for all these thousands of years. You must travel to the Island of Souls where you'll find Shunka's soul. You must hurry, though. Once day breaks again, the souls cross over and are lost forever."

****

I came to the conclusion that Poko was a decent critter. He went above and beyond his obligation to help me on an errand that he really had very little stake in. I'm pretty sure that he knew I was stretching the truth with the Coyote part, but it gave him the out he needed to bend the rules a bit. He gave me three very important things before sending me on my way. He gave me the soul basket, which was a small, rectangular wicker tub about the size of a large pet carrier. He gave me the landmarks that I would need to follow to reach the soul island, and he gave me a large slab of deer meat. The last item was the entry fee to get past the guardian of the path to the island. Normally toting a severed deer leg over my shoulder for several miles would not be on my list of French benefits, but upon seeing the guardian, I was grateful for the hunk of rotting meat. The mottled grey and black coat hid his outline in the star-born shadows that filtered down through the trees, making it seem like the creature extended for twenty feet in both directions. It was as if the shadows themselves were waiting for me with piercing yellow eyes. As I approached, I began to see the distinctive wolfish features and noticed with a good bit of worry that it could look me in the eyes without standing up. I glanced down briefly and then returned my gaze to the horizon. It was definitely a "he". He was at least five and a half feet at the shoulder, and when his lips receded, I could see the zippered row of oversized teeth waiting to greet me. The beast that sat stoically in the middle of the path I needed to take was perhaps the largest version of man's best friend that I had ever set my eyes on. I seemed to be saying that a lot lately.

There was an imperious look in his eyes as I approached. He was well aware of the fact that I was nowhere near man enough move him, quick enough to get around him, nor smart enough to fool him. He sat without concern in front of a crevice that ran, presumably, through a giant wall of red rock. That was the very crevice that I was supposed to move through to get to the spirit island. From what I was told, there was no way around it, and my only hope was that Poko hadn't been lying to me about the food. I set the basket down and hefted the deer thigh in front of me with both hands. The dog's eyes locked onto it, but he refused to react otherwise, if you didn't count the drool rolling out in great gobs from under his lips.

"Poko said you would let me pass if I gave you this." The giant dog didn't give me the satisfaction of a response. Instead, it continued to sit, stare, and drool. Left with little choice, I set the deer meat onto the grass and backed away to my basket and waited. And then I picked up the basket and waited some more. Then I set the basket down and continued my new favorite hobby. After about thirty minutes of uncomfortable waiting and staring at each other, the dog finally swiveled its eyes down to its meal and then crouched down to sniff it. The entire haunch was drawn into the jaws in a flash, and the sounds of thick thigh bones splintering cracked out like gunshots under the force. The dog turned its back on me and made a subtle and very narrow opening for me to pass. I took this as permission and, with the basket in hand, began to carefully sidle past. I certainly wanted to get by him, and I desperately wanted to get away from him, but I wasn't too keen on ending up as the second course. I tiptoed my way as carefully as I could and, once I was close enough to the crevice, turned and ran. The sounds of pursuit never came, and after a good quarter of a mile, I was able to slow down both my frantic footsteps and my rapid heartbeat.

I sang praise to Poko for helping me avoid getting mauled by Marmaduke before turning my full attention to the world around me. This area was mostly wooded, with sparse pines, oaks, and some trees that were not in my vast encyclopedia of woodlands knowledge, which stopped at pines and oaks. There were vines and brambles woven into the scrub brush that dotted the landscape in large clumps, and in between those was a carpet of bright green prickly pears sporting thorns as long as pencils. The options for travel within the forest were few and unpleasant which made the existence of a well-worn path winding through the center of it a tempting choice. I've always had a penchant for the easy way out, and the trail fit my criteria nicely. Easy walking, check. Not getting ripped to shreds by Mother Nature, double check.

As I followed the trail, I caught glimpses of ghostly figures moving in and out amongst the trees. At first, I thought that surely they were animals since any sane person would cease to be classified as such if they chose to wander through the inhospitable foliage. However, in due time the shapes resolved themselves to be human and quite at ease with their choice of footpaths. The further I walked, the more of them appeared and disappeared from my sight. Despite my curiosity, I pressed on without stopping or trying to reach out to them for a conversation. If I had more time, then things might have been different. I might have tried to make contact and see why they were wandering aimlessly among the trees, but that kind of nobility would only have slowed me down now.

Only a short time had passed, or seemed to pass, before the pathway opened wide into a grassy field that nestled snugly into the bowl of a small valley. The sky looked down on the valley in its midnight splendor. I noticed for the first time, consciously at least, that there was no moon. This gave it all a queer alien look, and I felt somewhat uncomfortable under its gaze. I focused on the task at hand. At the far side of this valley was another wall of rock and the telltale scar of a crevice. This pathway was the twin of the one I had come through and only the lack of forest confirmed I hadn't walked in circles. Oddly enough, from where I was standing, I could see another dog at this entrance, too. I thought it odd that this one should be on the inside of the pathway, but I figured it served the same purpose - keeping people out. It became clear, after it growled at me with undisguised menace, that it must be confused. It seemed to think it was supposed to keep me in, which would present a serious problem since I had given my last bit of food to its doppelganger on the other side of the wood. I'd given up on the role of coincidence in the grand scheme of things which left me with one question. Why would the prince of dogs only give me one ticket to a two ticket ride?

****

The answer was simple, Poko was a dick. He had set me up to get trapped here between steroid puppy number one and steroid puppy number two. This way he had "tried" to help save the world for the sake of his children and still kept the soul basket safe like he promised the Creator. Politicians.

Well, Poko could be a little bitch all he wanted, but I was going to succeed in my mission by hook or crook. What he hadn't counted on was the inexhaustible ingenuity of a Jacksonville refuse wrangler. If I had been able to survive the concrete jungle by my wits alone, then outsmarting a country mutt would be child's play. Applying a liberal helping of dog psychology to the problem, I approached the very large and scowling dog that was blocking my path to the spirit island, put my hand to my mouth, and made "mmmm, nummy, nummy" noises into it. His ears perked up immediately and I knew I had him hooked. I turned my back a little to shield my "food" from him and saw him craning his neck around to get a better look. Drool ran from between his lips like a faucet. I glanced back at him, damn near eye to eye, and raised my eyebrows questioningly. He inched his head forward, and I tossed the chunk of bark I had cupped in my hand back toward the woods with a hearty "Go get it, boy!" He promptly sat there looking at me. I could swear I saw him roll his eyes.

That was fine. It was amateur hour at the Improv, and I knew that wouldn't work. I just wanted to gauge how smart this dog really was. Now it was time to prey on this creature's instinct. Not allowing discouragement to get the better of me, I returned to the trees and found a nice, boomerang-shaped branch. I hid this behind my back until I got within about ten or fifteen feet of the canine terror and then pulled it out, whistling excitedly. This really got his attention, and I yelled "Here, boy! Come on! Get the stick! You want the stick? You want it?" With each word, he became more animated, spinning around in circles and lunging in the direction of every fake throw. When the time was right, I reared back and chucked the stick as far as I could. The dog sat back down and gave me one of those patented canine grins that said, "Wow, people really are stupid."

## Chapter Eighteen

I sat in a puddle of my own shame. I languished under a shadow of sorrow and incompetence that blocked out all else. I sat at the edge of the forest, a man who had been utterly defeated. Everything I tried had met with failure, and now the world would fall simply because I could not outsmart a lowly dog. I marveled at the stupidity of the situation. It should have been so simple. I relived my failures over and over in my head, looking for the one obvious thing I had been neglecting. I had tried to catapult myself over the top of the dog using a sapling once, holding my kilt behind me like I had been taught by the old chief at the chasm. When the treeling had flung me skyward, I felt the self-same joy and carefree wonder that only flight could provide, and then I fell, landing on my face to the cheers of nearby spirits and a stifled guffaw from the dog. Apparently, the laws of spiritual gravity were cruel and unforgiving here.

I followed that up with spending hours crafting a pinecone bunny and gathering enough string from my kilt to make a leash. I let it trail behind me far enough that it wasn't too obvious what I was doing and began to run, the Franken-bunny jouncing behind me in a tantalizing ballet. My warden simply let me run around in circles with it until I got bored. More of the other lost souls had gathered to watch the spectacle by that time. Let me tell you, there is nothing quite as humiliating as running around dragging pine-cone rabbit behind you, whooping excitedly while two dozen of your peers make themselves sick laughing at you.

I tried to offer it my hand as food, and when that didn't work, I tried to offer it one of the other spirits as a snack. It rejected us both, and I got a scornful swat on my head from the spirit-lady for my troubles. It would seem that old Indian women trapped between two dogs in the afterlife take exception to being offered up as kibble. Who knew?

The worst part of it was that this didn't even seem like a particularly bright dog. It just sat there occasionally panting with this goofy grin on its face. Every once in a while, it would turn this way and that to make sure its butt was still there. Once, I swear it even chased its tail after an obscene honking noise erupted from underneath it. I guess maybe this thing had simply been here so long that it has seen it all. Surely the spirits that had arrived before me had tried all manner of stupid things to escape although possibly not as stupid as the bunny. Working off this premise, I even lowered myself to ask them for advice, but they just shooed me away so that they could suffer in their misery alone. Well, all except the old lady I tried to feed to the dog. She swatted me again and stomped off cursing. It was at the end of my beating that I noticed the guardian had left its post, and the way was suddenly clear. Except that it wasn't. Sure, I was briefly elated and even started to run forward, but then I spotted it. The dog was off to the side of the path curled into a question mark while taking a dump. It was looking right at me with an expression of supreme smugness while he did this. I hated that dog.

The unmanageable depression had set in just after I realized that bowel movement had been by far my best chance to escape. I had nothing left in the think tank and had simply decided to sit around and wait for the next bowel movement. I was sure it was due any moment now. Yep, any time. That was me, sitting there, waiting to break out the ole spiritual pooper scooper. Another new low point in my afterlife.

I wasn't sure how long I had wasted with my butt on the ground waiting for the dog to need to take another smug shit or for the world to explode, whichever came first, when an idea struck me. If a spirit dog could cop a squat, then surely it had to pee as well. Throw in the fact that this dog was quite obviously a male, and a plan was finally coming together in my mind.

I stood up and walked purposefully into the line of sight of the canine guardian and then headed back to the trees. I was probably a hundred yards away from him when I set the basket down, hiked up my mini-kilt and moved the man-diaper to the side. There was no natural inclination to do this as a spirit, but through sheer force of will, I managed to send a stream of lukewarm urine onto the bark. I looked back smugly over my shoulder at the dog, who was staring at me in utter confusion. To add a little gasoline to this insult, I even lifted a leg. After almost toppling over and peeing on my foot, I decided I was done defacing the spirit tree, and I tucked everything back in, gathered my basket, and walked about twenty yards closer to the next tree. I repeated the insult. The dog was simply beside himself with the need to re-establish his territory. I had to give him credit, though; he lasted until I started in on the fourth tree.

Without warning, the dog had gone from his post. I grinned wide and looked back at the other trees I had defaced, expecting to see the dog frantically covering my scent. There was nothing. The trees still stood, and the damp spots on their bark gleamed serenely in the starlight, but there was no sign of the guardian. I heard a heavy splashing sound coming from the other side of tree in front of me and then felt hot stream of urine hitting my shin. I faced forward again and greeted my tormentor warmly. The guardian finished watering the tree and my leg, sat down, and grinned at me. I had been beaten again. I tucked my spirit junk back in my diaper and resigned myself to live out the remainder of my death in the forest, wandering aimlessly through the prickly pears.

With my newfound emotional agony carefully stowed deep inside of me, I turned and witnessed something unexpected. The little old lady whom I had tried to feed to the guardian had her kilt hiked up and was sprinting awkwardly out the exit. She moved surprisingly fast for someone of her age. The canine guardian saw this almost at the same time I did and looked thoroughly confused. He was dumbfounded that someone else would try to escape while he was tormenting me. Served him right.

With a blood curdling howl, he was off on the chase, racing through the crevice and into the world beyond after his prey. A flood of trapped souls surged out from behind the trees and shrubs and bolted in a great herd toward the exit. I inserted myself and the soul basket into the middle of this pack, and as a single unit, we poured out of the valley and headed for freedom. We dodged left and right in perfectly synchronized harmony, weaving in between the trees and around any obstacles that might hinder our progress. I looked around in panic for the return or our jailor and locked eyes with him for an uncomfortable moment. He was on his way back to his station with the old lady dangling limply from his jaws. He dropped her suddenly and launched himself into the herd, snagging any soul that was too slow or unlucky to be within reach. This was all the incentive the rest of us needed and we scattered in every conceivable direction.

I had no illusions about what would soon be coming for me as I crested a hill and put on as much speed as I could without tripping. I didn't have time to stop and admire the scenery arrayed before me. Instead, I concentrated on covering as much of the lightly wooded ground as I could. After a while the ground became sandy, and I could hear waves lapping onto a nearby shore. I finally allowed myself the luxury of looking forward and nearly tripped over a stick, or possibly a bone, half buried in my path. My path, it seemed, took me toward an immensely long dock that extended out over the blackest water I'd ever seen. It may have been quite tranquil and beautiful, but at that moment, I had things other than landscapes to worry about. The sound of baying exploded from behind me.

****

There was a board. It was weathered and grey and looked as if it had suffered God's wrath for forty years in the desert and had been tread upon by Moses and all of his flock. That board was my trophy, it was the measure of my success, and it sat there idly basking in the play of the starlight's reflection off the water's surface at the end of the dock as I ran toward it. It seemed to be about a hundred miles away. Just beyond that fateful board was a solitary figure standing erect on a boat that sat low in the water. I watched the figure as I approached, and it possessed an unnatural stillness that would normally set my hair to standing and skin to prickling. This was someone or something that played by different rules than the rest of us. Life held no sway over this thing and probably never had. In every conceivable corner of my mind, I harbored a fear of this creature and of making its acquaintance. Even so, it wasn't until it began to pole itself and its transport toward the open ocean that I knew what true fear was. I wasn't sure if the dog's howling was some kind of warning or if the boat tender just had a sick sense of humor, but watching the object of my salvation do an about face and begin marching away was almost more than I could handle. I felt like a child running outside with coins in hand and then chasing the ice cream truck for four blocks before it pulled out of the neighborhood and disappeared for good. No Drumstick for me today. Only in this case, I was also the Drumstick for another hungry, four-legged kid that was closing the distance fast.

I gripped the basket over my shoulder with one hand and pumped the other one up and down furiously as I sprinted with everything I had. Thump, thump, thump went the basket on my back. Thump, thump, thump went my feet on the dock. Thumpity, thumpity, thumpity went the dock behind me. This was a new sound and was accompanied by some really heavy breathing. I risked a glance back and almost tripped like some B movie actress. What I saw in the short time I had my head turned around filled me with dread. There was a familiar large canine on the dock that was closing on me fast, his huge paws bending the wood with each bounding step and using them to catapult him forward. A giant pink tongue trailed from his mouth as he obviously felt good about his chances to run me down. I returned my head to the forward position to concentrate on speed and avoid doing a face plant into the splintered planks. To add a little pressure, the raft had completed its turn and was now pointing directly away from the dock. All that was still visible was the stern and a withered figure leaning on its pole.

The wet-hot breath of desperation caught up with me, and prodded me forward like a bottle rocket taped to my ass. The end of the dock flew at me and I barely had time to register it before I was airborne and sailing toward what looked like a five man canoe. While I was airborne, I had some time to reflect on things. On the one hand, I was ecstatic I wasn't going to get torn to shreds by an extremely unhappy puppy. On the other hand, I was also ecstatic that it looked as if I was going to make the boat. On the third hand - that mutant third hand of fate that had a mind of its own - it looked like I was going to land on the tiny boat like a bunker buster. Which I did.

The boat, or canoe, looked like a wide bottom skiff carved out of a single tree. I couldn't make out any seams or gaps on its ever closing hull. There was a good chance the boat wouldn't be ripped to shreds by the force of my landing. That seemed like a positive thing until the edge of the canoe caught me just under the rib cage and knocked the spiritual breath right out of me. I gasped like a landed carp and frantically grabbed one of the seats with my free hand. Through some miracle of happenstance, or simply a bending of the laws of physics, I managed to keep myself mostly inside the little craft, and, just as importantly, managed to keep my grip on the basket. My body from the waist down and the boat captain were not so lucky. When I hit the back end, the boat had lurched up about forty-five degrees, just inches from flooding, and had unceremoniously flung the captain back over my shoulder about ten feet in the air. He did a lovely pirouette, followed by a half gainer before smacking into the surface of the water in near flawless belly-buster form. My legs got the dunking of their life and didn't feel half as lucky or graceful as the captain. In fact, they didn't feel anything at all.

I tried in vain to move them, and they staunchly refused. _Damn legs, after all I'd done for you_. More disturbing was the lack of any sensation whatsoever from my crotch. It wasn't that I was actually afraid that I'd lost my spiritual meat "n" taters. Well, that was a lie. It was precisely that I was afraid I'd lost them. I gave the ole' college try to swing them up on the side of the canoe but that wouldn't have worked even in the best of situations. I then decided to try to swing my legs up, but there was nothing except an empty feeling from below my bellybutton. If I were alive, I'd have been worried that I had shattered my spine and would be saying goodbye to reaching the top shelf. Since I was dead, I was actually more concerned with the possibility that I had simply lost those parts. Thinking about my legs and other precious parts floating down to the bottom of the sea to be nibbled on by undead fishes made me feel a bit queasy. It also gave me a good burst of adrenaline. I flung the basket into the canoe and used both my arms to drag myself up over the side and into the boat.

I lay there exhausted for a long time staring up into the speckled sky before risking a look at my useless legs. The fact that they were still there was a huge relief. The fact that I still couldn't move them, well, wasn't so great. Whatever that dark, brackish water was made up of, it stank. It smelled like a sickly sweet compost heap rotting in the summer sun. It also just so happened to deaden any part of me that it touched. I felt, or rather ceased to feel, my lower back as the brackish liquid pooled out from my loincloth. I dabbed my pinky finger onto my wet legs experimentally, and it also lost all sense of feeling and went limp. With a great deal of relief, my finger came back to life as soon as the water had evaporated. Now all I had to worry about was getting and keeping dry, getting to the island, recovering Shunka's soul, returning to the living world, and then saving it. I mentally shortened my to-do list to just getting dry and finding the island. Yes, finding the spirit island which was somewhere out there, in some direction or other. It occurred to me that this was exactly the benefit of having a boat skipper. He knew the way. Unfortunately mine had decided to go for a little swim.

****

Lying in the boat and staring up at the night sky made me wish I would dry a little faster. Sure, I got the thrill of watching my toes dry and then wiggle, followed by bits and pieces of my legs, but ultimately, they were pretty useless without my midsection. That part was still quite frozen from the cloth wrapped around it. I couldn't even remove my wet undergarments as every time I touched them, my fingers became useless. The most I could do without the use of my hips was to push myself up into a sitting position and, well, wiggle my toes some more. It was in this state of joyful existence that I heard the first splashes of something approaching. I craned my head and propped myself up on my elbows to get a better look at the skeletal hand that reached up and grasped the side of the canoe. The boat didn't so much as dip as the rest of the creature pulled itself up, splashing water onto my forehead and lips. My right eye went totally still along with the rest of that side of my face. As I drooled on myself through my half-useless mouth, I could just make out the figure of my new boat-mate through my good eye.

Against all the conventions I'd learned in this land, this poor guy was just bones at the best of times. He must have been some new kind of dead, or a very old one, because he was the most active skeleton I'd ever met. The boat skipper shrugged his rags back from his hands and dragged the pole up into position. Then, he began to pole without so much as a glance at me. I could feel us moving slowly with each thrust as the boat slid across the surface of the unusually thick and dark liquid. I relaxed, wheezing as I took deep breaths from my left nostril. My brain began to put everything into context. My high school knowledge was buried deep in the folds of a very little used part of my frontal lobe, but I was able to slowly pry out stories of a river called Styx and my main man Charon at the helm. That must have made me Odysseus and Shunka that guy that Odysseus went to see...who I couldn't remember right now. I should at least have gotten partial credit. And just in case you were curious, Charon made for a lousy traveling companion. He kept splashing me every time I dried, and this continued even when I dragged myself to the other side of the boat. I think it was intentional. Outside of that, he was just sullen and groaned a lot, kind of like your typical city bus driver.

****

Boats and I were relative strangers. I'd passed by a few of them here and there, seen them both float and sink on TV, and even briefly stood on one for a high school fishing trip that was canceled due to inclement weather. Since I had limited exposure to such things, I chose to believe the large number of people who swear by them for a good time. With that in mind, I'd have to rate my cruise an "F". There was nothing but flat seas and boring, monotonous poling. I even offered to take over for a while just for something to do, but Captain Bones wouldn't hear of it. I resorted to trailing my fingers in the water one at a time and waiting for them to wake up again. I was touching a moist digit to my tongue when perhaps the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen peeked over the horizon and then slowly floated into sight. It was an island and the urge to leap overboard and swim for the embrace of dry land was almost overwhelming. Rational thought stepped in before I did. With a stationary reference point, I realized that we were actually moving at a very fast clip. I'd have been left in the wake no matter how frantically I swam even if I had somehow avoided just sinking to the bottom anyway.

The island was something straight out of Gilligan's imagination, if Gilligan ran a night club for ghouls, that is. The place was jam-packed with souls apparently awaiting the cosmic shuffle that would determine which afterlife they went to. There were people from all races and species littering the beach with about a thousand little Charons working themselves to their bones to ferry them off and on. My Charon barely took the time to properly boot me in the ass before a trio of turbaned figures hopped aboard. And here we were just starting to bond. I landed with all the grace and charm of a limbless ballerina and performed a face stand beside my basket on the sandy shore of never-never land. My Charon and passengers were already well out to sea by the time I straightened up, no doubt heading toward their permanent afterlife placement.

I heard that a wise man once said, "It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out; it's the grain of sand in your shoe". I was hoping for some rich, full-bodied shoe flavor from my mouthful of sand, but the grains really were quite bland and tasteless. It was like chewing on plastic. If you thought about it, that wasn't too surprising for the land of limbo. I put this place on my "don't go here for vacation" list and set out on the next phase of my mission, the dog-hunt.

This place was big, much bigger than it looked from a distance. It was also home to a disproportionate number of middle-eastern people at the moment. That wasn't surprising seeing as how there always seemed to be so much unrest over there. What was surprising was that there were almost as many men dressed in wife-beaters. Must have been some kind of national "kill your abusive husband day" back in the good old US of A or something.

I began to weave my way through the crowds, bumping and nudging the other dead people out of the way with mumbled apologies, when the sound of a drum beat started from overhead. The sky was still dark, and the stars still shone down in all their brilliance. Not a cloud to be seen. I looked around but couldn't see any voodoo drummers lining the edges of the crowd, but something was obviously making that sound, and that sound was in turn making the spirits around me get down and boogey. Every once-living thing around me started bouncing up and down and undulating like a great washing machine. I was knocked around in the melee and had to struggle just to avoid being trampled inside the spiritual mosh-pit. The shoving, kicking, yelling, cursing, and getting pinned between two super obese ladies technique of crowd control failed me, and I decided to switch to the "grabbing a big stick and threatening people" method. There were large, decorative hedgehogs dotting the beach, each of these buried so that only the tips of their snouts and their bamboo quills were still visible. I waded against the current of spirit dancers to one and held onto one of its thicker quills like a life preserver as I took a moment to catch my breath. It was only around four feet in length and had a good, solid feel to it. I pried and tugged at it before finally managing to wrench it free of the others. By now, the dancing had become even more manic, if that was even possible, and whatever reservations I had about using my stick were gone the second time I caught an errant elbow in the chops.

I used the end of my staff to poke and nudge the frolickers out of the way. For the most part, they responded by parting just enough to let me squeeze by, but one particularly annoying man relished bouncing around in front of me, shouting something in German. No matter which way I went, he bounded over in front of me and blocked my way with his enormous bulk. I didn't really have time to waste, and the exuberant and happy greeting he shrieked at me was really starting to grate on my nerves. Before long, I couldn't take any more and officially resigned from my post as the Good Samaritan spokesperson. I reared back and whacked him on the head with the stick. It gave a satisfying "thunk" and he went utterly rigid and fell over, stiff as a, well, a stiff. It seemed that I had killed a dead person and not in the cool "shoot a zombie in the head way" either. Instead, I had opted for the whack him with a stick and scream like a little girl way.

I expected accusatory glances from all the others or for some cosmic police force to come down and drag me off to the Smoke House to get my "thing", but neither of these happened. In fact, nothing changed at all. I was still standing there with a bamboo stick, and there was still a fat German on the ground at my feet. I had always tried to avoid tempting fate when I could help it, so I moved slowly past him, all the while telling myself that he deserved it for standing in the way of my saving billions of lives. That and for being so bloody annoying. Justification was a wonderful thing, but seeing Mr. Annoying German Guy begin to move again saved me a great deal of work. Before long, he was back upright and bouncing around like nothing had ever happened.

I did what any red-blooded American male would do when presented with the new found wisdom of the stick. I went around whacking every dead person within my reach on the head. It was kind of fun in a morbid way, like watching videos of those fainting goats. You know you shouldn't laugh, but damn. I tried not to let myself become too absorbed in this sport and kept an eye out for my ultimate goal. After a good deal of whacking and looking, I was able to whack a trio of businessmen with a single swing. I was getting good at this. As they toppled over, my diligence was rewarded with a dog sighting.

The island, from what I'd seen, had a few scattered grass huts sprinkled in among the bamboo ornamentation. In front of one of these was the humongous black dog. He seemed content enough to cha-cha his way into eternity, but I had other plans for him. Of course, he was a bit bigger than I remembered him, and I looked at my basket a little dubiously. Oh well, I'm sure they wouldn't have given me a basket that was too small to carry Shunka's soul, would they? I remembered a certain pooch that only gave me one ticket for a two ticket ride and cringed. I wasn't even sure he had given me the real basket. What if they were all back there snickering about having duped me not only with the whole guardian thing, but with a made-in-China special basket?

Dammit, it was too late for all of that now. I would just have to hope that it was real and made of some inter-dimensional spandex. I cleared some space around the dog spirit with the whacking stick and set the basket down, opening the lid for the first time. Curiosity tugged at me to peer inside, and I didn't have the strength to resist. This would be my one opportunity to see what the inside of a basket of souls looked like. Oddly enough, it looked an awful lot like a dusty old basket. Other than inspiring a vague impulse to hop in and pretend to be a turkey sandwich, there was nothing special about the wicker container. I half expected to see a World of Wicker sticker on there somewhere.

"All right, Shunka, into the basket," I said with authority. He continued dancing.

"Come here, boy. Time to go home." Still nothing.

"Okay, I didn't want to have to resort to this." I said before hitting him on the head with the stick. Nothing happened. I hit him again. Still nothing happened. Frustration and anger had a shotgun marriage inside my skull, and they birthed something dark and horrible. Their abomination was so great that I started flailing on the dog's spirit with the stick time and time again. I lost count of how many times I hit him before he finally toppled over, his legs sticking straight up into the air. I stood there, staring at his still form and struggling to catch my breath. This was probably the first time I could recall feeling exhausted and physically drained in the spirit world. It only got worse as I struggled to lift his lead-ass into the basket. Of course he didn't fit. What in this or any other universe had ever convinced me that things would be easy this time around?

I didn't have time to sit down and contemplate the fung-shue of dead dog storage, so I instead chose to try folding Shunka into uncomfortable-looking positions. I took from this experience an everlasting distaste for packing and a concussion from one of the many times I was smacked in the face by an uncooperative leg springing out from where I had tucked it. No doubt this would have been hilarious to watch, but you try getting a horse into a kitty carrier and see how funny it is. Thankfully, before he woke up and I had to start all over again, I was finally able to lock all his legs in place by bracing them in opposing corners. I quickly closed the lid and latched it shut, waiting for the whole thing to bow outward under the strain. Nothing happened. The lid stayed firmly closed, and I danced a little jig of celebration. It was short-lived. I had given so much effort into this part of the expedition that I had little left to combat the impending depression I felt at the thought of how my back would feel after lugging this two hundred pound wicker brick back the way I came. I bent at the knees and heaved upward, almost tossing the basket into the air. It weighed no more than it had before I had crammed dogzilla inside of it. Small miracles.

Small miracles did not get me back to a boat in record time. In fact, my paranoia over the basket made the going slow and painful. I didn't want to chance dropping it and letting Shunka loose. Sure, it was fun hitting him with a stick repeatedly, but that's one of those games that was fun the first time you play it and just annoying every consecutive time thereafter. I'm looking at you, Pictionary. I carried the basket pressed tightly against my chest with one arm, and with the other, swung my cane from side to side at head height like an angry blind man. Whenever I happened to strike a spirit hard enough, it toppled over with a satisfying "thud". The "thuds" became less satisfying as a disproportionate number of the spirits tended to fall directly in front of me, causing me to have to move around them to get through. Before long, any decorum I may have started with involving the sanctity of the soul was lost, and I found myself stepping on hands, feet, heads, and anything else in my path with impunity. When I finally got to the shore, I whacked my way past a crowd waiting for a particularly bedraggled looking Charon and staggered into his raft.

"Home, Geeves," I said as he pushed off the shore with a groan. I wondered what these poor slobs did to deserve this eternity.

****

"Home" was an address that sent us gliding in to the other side of a familiar dock. Memories of the last playful frolic with guardian number two made me a little hesitant to actually disembark there, so when we got closer, I decided to give Charon a well-deserved break and took over the poling for him. He wasn't as appreciative as you would think he should have been, the ingrate, and I gave him my gentlest nudge toward the back of the boat before poling away from the dock. I lined us up with an estuary in the distance, one that was punctuated by a long exclamation point of smoke that I recognized. Charon moaned and feebly tried to grab the pole from my hands, and I resisted the temptation to whack him with a stick. Instead I gently rebuffed him with a stiff arm to the forehead, putting him back on his bony non-ass. I liked to think of this as part of my maturation. I could see my autobiography now, From Whacking to Stiff Arms, a Journey of Self-Discovery. That sounded nice – perhaps a little too much like a book on puberty-- but nice anyway.

When we arrived on the shore, the mountainous houses loomed in the distance. This was much better than I had expected, and I thanked whichever celestial being was being kind enough to give me a helping hand here. Although I knew they were still a good distance away, I could make out some of the details of the houses stacked at the top. This was much closer than I could have hoped for. I returned Charon's pole to his eager hands and hefted my basket over one shoulder as I leapt for the beach. Granted, I did not have a ton of options, but leaping off a boat into the ocean Styx was a bad idea in anybody's book. I was careful to avoid getting any water on me, but something snagged my trailing foot in midair, and I did a swan dive onto the shore. I briefly felt the water lapping over my left foot and yanked it away in panic. It was too late. I looked angrily toward the receding boat and thought I caught a grin beneath the cowl of the boat captain. It's not always a precise science to judge what constitutes a grin when there is an absence of lips, but he had one. I waved goodbye to my favorite Charon and got the bony finger in return.

I hopped up and started to jog, falling repeatedly as my dead foot flopped back and forth. It sucked to have to drag my dead foot around for the first half hour or so, especially after wasting so much time at the edge of a forest and whacking things on the island, but as far as karmic retribution goes, it wasn't so bad. Jogging was nice after the feeling returned to both my feet, but I began to realize that I wasn't getting the least bit winded. I upped the ante. Sprinting across the hills was no guarantee that I was actually moving any faster, but it sure did make me feel better about my chances. The gods of dumb luck and even dumber plans must have agreed because I did actually make it to the Smoke House before dawn. Barely.

****

"Wow, I see you've got a basket."

"Yeah, it's my thing."

"Great thing. I've still just got these ravens." I still couldn't tell any difference between a raven and a crow. It was getting close to daybreak, so by now the birds had one eye, an ear and about twelve feet of intestine strewn about on the floor. "So, is it like heavy or something?"

"Not really," I confessed as Shunka's pleas to be freed leaked out from the lid. "It's full of something begging to be let out, but I can't do it. I think it's meant to frustrate me."

"Truth," he said, nodding his head. His second eyeball must have been on the verge of dropping anyway, because at the trough of the nod, it fell onto his lap and then rolled out into the middle of the floor. A small murder of crows did battle for the rights to peck it. "Sounds like you must have smoked someone else's peace pipe. That's why you got the noisy basket."

"You're right. It wasn't worth it, though. The pipe tasted like piss." I left him smiling there in the room full of black birds and organ streamers and hurried through the doors. Door after door parted for me and my basket, but the views hadn't changed much since the last time I was in there. There was the one exception of taking a wrong turn and rudely popping into a house containing a man wearing bloomers filled with squid, but otherwise it was the same bison stomping, cactus car wash good time as always. Without having to stop and gawk at everything, I made it to the center of Smoke House in record time.

The underside of the house dome had brightened perceptibly as I came running out into the clearing. I couldn't explain how sunlight was passing through layer upon layer of stacked house, but it was and was causing quite the stir. All the sane dead people were busily taking their things indoors without any concern for the things of their neighbors. I found myself swimming upstream, being jostled by spines, bees, reed torture racks, and a pack of rabid coyotes when the first rays of the sun hit the far side of the clearing. An unfortunate soul who was forced to walk on porcupines in that direction didn't make it to the door in time, and as the light struck him, he disintegrated into a dusty pile of bones. They were still resting on top of porcupines but didn't look nearly as uncomfortable as the fleshy being had been. Of course, once the dogs came for them, they might not be so happy. Time was growing short, and I began to run again, taking as much care as I could to keep the lid of the basket from jarring open.

I reached the edge of the pit and without slowing my momentum at all, leaped in, thankful that the daylight was still a couple of minutes behind me. The darkness below was inviting, and I relaxed myself at the anticipation of its embrace. That was when something else decided to embrace me by the leg and I smacked face first into the side of the pit. I just barely managed to keep hold on the basket with one hand while the other one reached out reflexively to shield me from the rebound smack. Miraculously the lid hadn't opened with either impact.

"You've returned, my little spider man. Come to entertain me? Are you going to put on a show for me and the Water Monster here?"

I recognized the frightening baritone immediately. "Not now, Bear. I have to get back to the living, and I don't have time to chat."

"My, the cub has gotten so brave since the last time we saw him. Maybe he doesn't understand his predicament." I felt a searing pain enter the calf of my trapped leg. I looked up to see one of her claws buried halfway into the flesh of my leg. The light reached the other side of the pit and began to walk its way slowly, but inevitably down.

"You don't understand," I yelled. "I've got to get back to save the world."

"And what do I care if the world ends? If the world ends, I might get a reprieve from all the boredom here."

"Maybe, or you could just vanish into oblivion. Have you ever been in here when the world ended?"

"I can't say that I have. But either way, it would be a release from this captivity."

"And what about your children out there in the real world? How many of them do you think will survive? Don't they matter?"

"Not really," she said as she pulled me higher into the air. The morning light touched the bottom of my foot and the flesh melted away. It wasn't painful, just discouraging to be so close to success and then to watch it all fall apart.

"I wonder how far I can pull him up before something falls off?" Bear mused with a few experimental tugs on my shinbone. "What do you think we should do with him, Unktehi?" I felt myself being lifted higher during the pause in conversation.

"Let him go," came the deep voice of the Water Monster.

"What?" Bear and I said simultaneously.

"Let him go. He spared my child and now works to save the world."

"Like I give Rat's ass about the world. Let it burn or freeze or blow up. This boredom will be done with and we can get back to living."

"Let him go."

"Make me."

I was dragged upward with a violent motion as the sound of a meaty thud exploded from up above. Bear adjusted her grip as the flesh she was holding melted away. My knee, however, was still intact and holding tightly onto my shin. I watched as my left foot tumbled down past me in a shower of bones. I wondered just how much of me would have to make it down the pit to count. There was a roar, and I was jounced about as I saw Bear's other paw swipe out in an arc and then come back leaking blood. The grunt from above confirmed that she found the mark, but then the slap of a giant tail drove my tormentor backward. This was followed by a bellow from Unktehi and the thunder of another driving charge. Bear had no choice but to let me go. The only way she could fend off the attacks of the larger beast was with both of her paws free. I tumbled down into the dark, wrapping myself around the basket to protect it as I fell. A small sigh of relief escaped my lips as the darkness finally wrapped around me.

## Chapter Nineteen

Grandmother was conspicuously absent when I came to. I looked around for her and realized the reason she wasn't there. I, in fact, wasn't there. I was definitely somewhere, but it was a far cry from the peaceful nighttime sky I'd seen before. This place was more like a cave or a cavern with walls decorated in images only a drunken Salvador Dali could appreciate. There were images of people and animals twisted into awkward shapes with their mouths frozen open in overly large cavernous grin-shaped holes. A man with one leg was laughing at a beaver that was cheerfully gnawing on his other one while a tree was bent curlicue over the both of them. There were ducks running a race into the waiting mouth of a wolf, which was in turn being used as a teepee for a small brown family of quotation marks. In fact, there was only one thing in the room that was normal in its perspective and manner, and that was stretching those definitions as well. It was an all too familiar man, his grinning face peering down at me from atop a very dark purple outfit.

"You certainly took your time. I feared we would lose Shunka forever," Coyote said without bothering to feign concern. "Oh, I think these are yours," he said, tossing me a handful of bones.

I looked at them for a moment and then down at the stump of my left leg. "Remind me to thank you later for killing me," I said sullenly as I began to pile my foot up in front of me.

"Nonsense, I'll just add it to your tab. We need to go now. Your body misses you."

"And how do you propose we get back to my body?"

"I have left us a path to follow," he said, pointing the open end of a giant reed that jutted through the ether of the floor. It didn't really seem to have punched a hole through the rock but had simply displaced it as if it were water. Inside of that reed was a thick, impenetrable blackness. It looked an awful lot like someone had punched the business end of a wooden flute into the asshole of the universe. One giant, happy, cosmic colonoscopy.

"I guess we pretend it's burrito night, huh?"

Catching my imagery, Coyote grinned and flung himself into the breach with a "Look out below."

I touched my stump to the mound of bones and they shifted into their correct positions, at least I hoped they were the correct ones, and then marveled at how the flesh crept down from my shin to cover them. I stood up and tested my replaced peg for a moment before following the mad god into the bunghole of destiny. I had grown progressively less enthusiastic about supernatural means of travel since this odyssey began, but I had to admit that this ride was worth the price of admission. I wanted my money back after the landing, though. You wouldn't think that a spirit could bruise its tailbone, but that's just what I think I did.

The light was diffuse as I righted myself and checked the integrity of the soul basket for the hundredth time. The world around me seemed transparent and surreal and not just because of the body on the ground with the giant hole in its chest. Everything lacked depth and solidity. It was like being inside of a holographic projection without being a holograph yourself. Only my own spiritual essence and that of Coyote were real here.

"You've only been gone around fifteen minutes. Your woman has been doing her best, but I think your spiders can't keep up with the old lady," Coyote said with a dead pan voice.

"Well, let's get in there and bring the dog back to life before she finishes her blanket."

"Just one thing. I believe you owe me a fee." That wolfish grin crept up at the corners of his mouth.

"What? You want to get paid now?"

"You've run up quite a tab. If I don't secure some kind of arrangement now, I'll have no leverage to demand it later. You forget, I'm known as a swindler, so I know all the swindler tricks."

"Okay, okay. What do you want?" I said, mentally reviewing all the stories I'd read about him and how I could outmaneuver him.

"I want the basket when we're done."

"The basket?" I said with surprise. "You mean the basket that I promised Poko I would keep safe? The one that holds life and death at its beck and call?"

"Yeah. That one. Seems a fitting price for saving the world."

"But then you could just turn around and use the box to destroy it."

"Where would the profit be in that? Tick, tock, Mr. Sweeney"

"Dammit!" I shouted, hating this man, god, thing more every second. True enough I had promised the prince of dogs that I would ensure the basket's safety, but the little son of a bitch tricked me, so my obligation to him was minimal. The bigger obligation was to the world and what this psycho could do to it with such power. Could it be worse than imminent destruction? Perhaps, but I couldn't think of how at the moment, so I had little choice but to agree. "Sure, fine, the basket is yours. Can we just save the freakin world now?"

"Absolutely," He said with a wide smile of satisfaction.

****

We entered the home of the weaver of the apocalypse undetected. I was, of course, still a spirit, and Coyote presumably had had quite a lot of practice at sneaking around. With an indiscrete wave of his hand, the concoction on the stove began to billow smoke in great clouds. The little old lady moved with frightening quickness as she bolted across the room to save her favorite snack from becoming charcoal. The spiders burst out from their hiding place and began to feverishly pull out the quills one by one. Annie had just sat on the couch opposite them with her head in her hands. It seemed that trying to stall the old broad had taken its toll.

"It won't keep her for long. Let's get moving," Coyote said as he approached the corpse and began to draw many of the same arcane symbols on the floor that I had used on that fateful day weeks, a lifetime, ago. The symbols glistened in a dark crimson that was a little too close to the color and consistency of blood for my liking. It didn't seem to bother him at all as he slapped them on the floor with practiced ease. I declined to ask exactly what medium he was painting in. I was paying a high enough price for his service, and there were some things I'd rather not have to pay for with more nightmares.

"Hey, buddy. Open the basket," he said, nudging me sharply.

"Are you sure?" I said without thinking. He raised a single eyebrow at my impertinence. "Right, sorry." I grabbed the lid and pried it back, the sound of escaping air filling my ears. A ghostly, four legged apparition crawled its way out, rising into the air as if it sought to lose itself in the ceiling.

"Uh-uh," Coyote said like a scolding parent. "You belong down here. At least for a little while longer." The ghost dog looked down at its body and then back up at the ceiling as if deciding whether to listen. His desires pulled him upward, but something else seemed to keep him firmly anchored to this world. He finally relented and dropped to the floor to pick up his mortal form. It took a few moments of moving around the body this way and that, but once it was properly aligned, Shunka's spirit put it on one limb at a time like a suit. I would like to think that it was a sense of duty that turned Shunka's head back to his body, because the alternative was that Coyote's magic was indeed stronger than death. What could someone with that kind of power do with the Creator's soul basket? What couldn't he do?

The giant black dog stirred to life, first opening one brown eye and then the other. He got up unsteadily and stretched out the rigor mortis with one of the patented canine bows. His joints popcorned with disuse, and he shook his head vigorously to get the juices flowing. He turned to the blanket and gently nudged the spiders aside as he plucked quills out with impressive speed and dexterity, letting them fall to the ground and then nudging them under the chair with practiced ease. Annie lifted her head, staring wide-eyed in disbelief. After coming to grips with what had happened, her expression morphed to relief with the implications.

"World saved, work complete, come to daddy," Coyote said, waggling his fingers at the soul basket.

"I want to get back to my body first. I'm not sure I want to haunt this place for all eternity," I said warily.

Coyote rolled his eyes. "It's always something. Fine, let's go." In less than a blink, we were outside on the doorstep next to my prone form. This was my only chance to come out on top of the situation. I reviewed everything I had learned on the internet, in books, and in my journeys through the land of the dead. There had to be something I could use or do.

"Step on its feet to keep from getting separated." I followed his advice, keeping a tight grip on the basket while I did this. My mind was frantically searching for a way out, for a solution. There was a static connection as soon as I touched my body, and my spirit feet seemed to fold backwards on themselves until they pointed upwards along with my physical form. It didn't seem to hurt, but the sensation was less than pleasant. "There. Now for my payment. And don't even consider breaking our agreement. I've learned how to torment those who won't pay."

"I wouldn't dream of it. One soul basket, as agreed upon," I said, finally settling on a plan. I flung back the lid of the basket and slammed the open end over his head. I had visions of his spirit scrunching up inside and my closing the lid on his schemes forever. I would save the world twice in one day. Instead, Coyote just stood there wearing a wicker basket on his head. It might have been comical if I had not just handed an incredibly powerful artifact over to the consummate con artist, the trickster, the bane of all that is orderly in the universe. Not my finest hour, but, I'm only mostly human. He pulled it off of his head and shut the lid. He looked at me and grinned.

"It was a good try Spider Man. I mean, had you succeeded, you would have still fulfilled your part of the bargain, so I would have had no room to complain. I like it. See you around," he said with a dismissive wave. Then he giggled with childish glee and strolled off down the street, humming a sea shanty whose words disappeared from my brain as soon as they landed. I watched him until he faded off into the hazy distance and then took the opportunity to re-fuse myself with my corpse. It was an unpleasant experience, the electricity hitting each part as I slipped them into my physical form. I jumped more than once when my midsections knit back together. It wasn't until I was complete, with everything from my head to my feet connected, that the blood spiders began to come to life and put my chest back to its pre-Coyote condition. That made what? Three deaths? Four, if you count getting ground into hamburger by my squiddy friend. I thought that it might just be time to hang up my web before my luck finally ran out.

****

The sweet look and feel of a good, solid world were sensations I treasured as I sat up and looked around me. Everything was bright, and more importantly, real. I got to my feet and took a few unsteady steps with my heavy, leaden legs. I checked my left foot to make sure I had all the toes pointing the proper direction and then made another effort to walk. When I managed to achieve stringing together five consecutive steps without the fear of falling, I moved carefully to Magda's door and entered her place without another thought. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dimness of the living room, but for the first time in an eternity, I felt I could spare the time. The old lady had returned to her half-completed blanket and was seated in her chair with a look of confusion on her face.

"I could have sworn I was closer to finishing than this," she said. Shunka looked at me with an expression that showed both gratitude and resignation. "Our fate is our fate," he seemed to say with those humongous, brown eyes. I couldn't entirely agree or disagree. I mean, my fate was to destroy the world or at least change it beyond recognition. I got close, but with a little luck, things turned out okay. For now, at least. Unless, of course, giving Coyote the soul basket would eventually lead to the end of the world, in which case I did fulfill my destiny. Thinking in that direction was a bit of a downer and was a little too much to ponder so soon after returning from beyond the grave. Instead, I asked about something that had been bothering me.

"Excuse me, Magda. Do you mind if I ask you a question about Girl Without Parents?"

"Certainly. What would you like to know?"

"I don't really know anything about her story, but the last time I saw her, she told me that she wanted the world to end. Do you know why she would?"

The old woman thought on this for a bit, chewing on a porcupine quill before she spoke. "I am no good at guessing things. I can tell you that there is a legend of the Creator, the Great Mystery, the Silver Fox, who formed all the worlds and all those within it. Many creatures he formed from the earth or stars or anything he could get his hands on, but at least one of these he formed from a piece of his own spirit. And one day into the world was born a daughter from the Creator's essence. She was cunning, sly, young and beautiful. She would one day be known as Fox in her animal form, and she was very proud to be with her father in the sky.

It is the way of the universe that someday all things must end. The Creator realized that he would need to be away from his creations and his children in order for them to grow on their own. If he stayed with them in this world, they would always be babes and rely on him for everything. So he made up his mind and ascended to the upper world so he could watch the growth of his children without interfering. Fox was both furious and sad that her father had left and that she no longer got to look upon the earth from the heavens. She took the name of Girl-Without-Parents when in human form and she became mischievous, using her cleverness to try to take her father's place as ruler over the other animals and the humans. Well, there are many stories about Fox and her schemes, and a good number of those have her trying to bring things to their conclusion."

"So," Annie began tentatively, "she might want the world to end so she is put in charge of the next one?"

"Perhaps, but it could be as simple as she just wants to see her father again. The only time this happens is during the ascension into the Upper World, before the Creator has finished his new home. This is, of course, all just a guess. Why not ask her herself?" Magda said, sending a questioning look in my direction.

"I intend to the very next time I see her. Is that smoke I smell?"

The old lady jumped up and ran to the pot on the stove and began to stir frantically. My spiders bounded out from under the chair and crossed over to my shoes in a steady stream. One by one, they ascended up my pant leg to my upper world and to the horror of my female companion. "It just tickles a little. You should try it."

"Think I'll pass," she said through strained lips.

"Your loss. How are you doing, Shunka? Poko sends his best." A black tail as thick as a tree branch flipped into the air and then thudded down on the ground in a half-hearted wag. He was already pulling out more quills and keeping the world away from the brink of disaster. The last of the spiders found its way back to its perch inside my trousers, and I took the opportunity to call out a farewell to our hostess. I know it was rude, but I was pretty beat. It felt like I'd been awake for decades. She waved to us from the kitchen, and we promised to return soon. We left the nowhere apartment and headed back into Jacksonville.

## Chapter Twenty

Time has a way of slipping by when the world is not in immediate peril of obliteration. After delving into the afterlife and handing a doomsday weapon to an ancient sociopathic criminal mastermind, I did what anyone else would have done, I slept for a week. After recovering from this mini-death, and, no, not the one of which the French speak, I got down to the business of tipping the scales of existence in the direction of being distinctly "less wicked". It took a bit of coaxing to get our membership at the Order of the Eternal Arachnid to feel confident that we wouldn't face terrorism and urban disaster at every meeting, but once that was accomplished, the movement took off. We now boasted a weekly sermon with nearly fifty attending members and an extended membership of nearly three hundred. Other chapters had sprouted up in cities around the continental US including Atlanta, New York, and even Las Vegas. Some unscrupulous soul, cough - Annie \- cough, had spread the rumor that the rituals of the Order of the Eternal Arachnid brought luck at the craps table. Each meeting was punctuated by performing the ancient Native American ceremonies to honor the gods of the People, which, hopefully, brought great joy to those overseeing our continued existence on this planet.

Since leaving well enough alone was a completely foreign concept to us, we didn't just stop with the OEA. We initiated movements to honor many of the other Firsts and even convinced many of the tribal leaders to teach the pale faces the ways of their tribes. The first of these chapters just so happened to be a church dedicated to a certain giant buffalo beaver and headed by none other than Untunktahe. It wasn't like this was a new thing, a water monster cult, but something about being in the open and away from the skulking revenge-driven doctrine seemed to make it more wholesome. It attracted its fair share of worshippers, mainly fishermen and other maritime folk, and became one of the most philanthropic organizations out there. They were constantly donating to Greenpeace and other conservation organizations as well as organizing a family support network for those who had lost someone to the briny depths. Not long after it gained its popularity, there were reported sightings of large, furry creature with horns frolicking around in some of the lakes in the northern US. I'm not going to say that it was water monster released from her prison, but I'm not going to say it wasn't either.

Perhaps one day this would become known as the red man renaissance, and I, its Leonardo. As a newly self-proclaimed leader of enlightenment, going back to work for the city was out of the question. Not that I felt the job was beneath me, but there was just too much work to be done. I was transforming the culture of a billion people after all. Of course, I couldn't have done it without Marty, who had set his bong aside to become a deacon for the Church of All Things Lost. Between donations, what the spiders brought in, and what Marty found in his couch cushions and sock drawer, we were able to hire Annie away from the library to be our research consultant and webmaster extraordinaire. I also had aspirations of her being the girlfriend of the White-Spider-Man, but, well, that was going to be a work in progress. I guess the billions of crimson spiders I had trapped inside me was a bit of a hurdle to overcome, but anything worth having was worth working for.

****

A full-blown brawl in the middle of a tourist mecca was generally considered bad for business. Tourists don't like to see uncontrolled violence and like becoming part of it even less. That's why it doesn't happen. At least not very often. Which made the skull breaking, chair throwing, little old lady shin kicking beat down on a sleepy afternoon on the island Freeport so unusual. It had all started, or so I was told, over a disagreement about what color a little girl's outfit was. One sidewalk full of people said, "Did you see dat girl wearing black", and the other side replied "No, mon, she was wearing all red." Of course, any disagreement of this magnitude wouldn't normally result in a knock down drag out fight, but I'm sure it was helped along by the twelve year old menace that I knew so well. Having failed to end the world did not seem to particularly dampen her spirits, and she was keen to spread mischief behind her like the wake on an ocean liner.

She rounded the corner, moving away from the melee, and began to stroll down one of the cobblestone pathways that a million feet had walked on before. This time, however, there were only four feet on this avenue. In all truth, there were six, but only four that mattered at this juncture. The smile melted off her face as the long, lanky figure in brown threads stepped out from a crumbling alleyway and into her path.

"Hello, sister. My, you have been busy," chided the man in his usual nonchalant manner.

"Coyote. I never thought to see you again, much less be lectured by you about causing mischief."

"Now, a little thing like leaving me stuck to the tar boy to be skinned by the pale faces is no reason to hold a grudge. Of course, I did have to tamper with your little end of the world scam, and for that, I apologize."

"I was wondering about that. You've been through enough of these new worlds not to fear the end of such a toilet as this. Why did you help the spider boy?"

"He cut a deal," he said, looking at his fingernails.

"It's not like you to run a charity or a tab. The guy is a garbage collector. What could he have possibly given you that was worth the world?"

"This," Coyote said as he pulled an ancient looking wicker basket from behind his back. Everyone has a pocket dimension except for me. Life is so unfair. Myrtle's face showed first confusion and then astonishment.

"Is that?" She started.

"Yes, it is," Coyote said cutting her off. The surprise on her face gave way to terror as Coyote reached out and snagged the girl by her throat. She wheezed out a scream, but this was pinched off in its infancy by the other hand, now free of the basket. Coyote grinned his wide, toothy smile and then pulled his two hands apart. The skin stretched like rubber and then snapped free, landing on the ground in a loose sheet. Coyote held the wriggling form of a beautiful red fox tightly in his grip.

"Nothing personal, sister, but I have needs. You understand." The basket opened and with a quick motion he tucked the fox spirit into it. The lid slammed closed and the man in the brown suit latched it securely. With another effortless motion, he hefted the basket and tucked it back into whatever hidden space followed around behind him.

"Funny to find you here. Settling an old score?" I said emerging from the shadow where I had been lurking.

"Hu-Hanska-Ska! It's been too long. We really must do lunch again soon."

I wasn't at all surprised with how calm he was. Of course he had expected me here. It was one of the angles a good business man always considered. "I would never have taken you for a revenge kind of guy. Is that why you wanted the basket?"

"Hardly, my boy. About six months ago, a rather wealthy customer requested Fox's spirit from me. It seems he is kind of a 'fan'. It's so difficult to find something that can contain the essence of a First."

"Wait. Six months? But how did you know you'd be able to get the soul basket? That only happened because she killed Shunka and tried to end the world." The light bulb burned brightly in my brain and then exploded. A thousand burning shards stabbed at my consciousness with realization. "You, you set it all up?"

"That might be a bit of an exaggeration. I rolled the bones and won. I'm lucky that way."

"So, you risked the end of the world? No, that's not it. You tricked Girl Without Parents to start the apocalypse just so you could complete your deal with the wealthy customer? How did you get her to do that?"

"My boy, she always wanted to do it. She just needed the right opportunity."

"You mean, she needed me."

"Precisely. She was a bomb ready to explode, and you were the trigger."

"But, I was an accident. How did you trick me?"

"No trick. I set a snare, and you were a happy accident."

"And the snare was...the website?"

"Honestly, I was expecting someone to try to resurrect their dog or maybe a pet cat. That would have been much easier to deal with. You threw me for quite a loop helping out one of Grandma's kids. It took me a while to figure out what to do with you. Ah well, it's all for the best."

"Yeah, for the best."

"What, you disagree? You were a garbage collector with no life. Now you are the head of a church with a beautiful squaw at your side, and you are practically indestructible. You are experiencing the world like few white men ever have. I should charge you extra for all of that."

I considered this and frankly couldn't argue. So what if it was all a great big scam that got me killed multiple times and could have ended life as we knew it? I was doing great. So was the world for that matter - for the time being at least. "So, what, if I might ask, are you getting in return for Fox's spirit?"

Coyote smiled again, showing his prominent white canines. "That, my boy, is privileged information. If you really want to know, I'm sure we can work out some kind of deal."

"You know, I'm tempted, but not enough to owe you again. I'll save all my debts for the big stuff."

"Suit yourself."

"Just one thing. Next time one of your plans involves getting me killed, give me a little warning first, would ya?"

"Now what fun would that be? See you around, Spider-Man." He turned and strolled nonchalantly down the old, weathered path, whistling "It's a small world" as he disappeared from sight. God, how I hate that song.

I had come to this little island with the intention of confronting little miss scheming traitor myself, to ask her all the lingering questions and just generally yell at her. I was even hoping for an outside chance that she would be spoiling for a fight. That's why I had Untunktahe keep his ear to the, well, ocean for any sign of her. He was more than happy to do so and had even sprung for my plane ticket to the Bahamas. It seemed being master of the seas gave you access to a few extra gold doubloons when you needed them. How fair was that? I got sewer nickels, he got gold bullion.

The outcome wasn't exactly as I had pictured it, and, frankly, I was feeling a little more disturbed than when I had left the states. Sure, Fox had gotten what she had coming to her for her role in the whole mess, but seeing the true puppeteer and learning just how intricate his plan had been gave me the creeps. I mean, if he was willing to risk the survival of this world to get his prize, just what could that be, and how long before this came back to bite us all in the ass?

It was too much to worry about, and it wouldn't really do any good to stress over it anyway. I was sure if he had some other master plan in the works, then I'd end up playing right into his hands one way or another. It was better to just enjoy what I had today. I was in the Bahamas, there was some guy selling t-shirts by the beach for five dollars with a lifetime guarantee, and I heard rumors that the conch salad would improve my sexual performance. What more could a guy have asked for?

## Epilogue

I dream of a man dressed all in white. He is strapped into a deeply cushioned seat which in turn is set into the fuselage of large and futuristic aircraft. He is dreaming or remembering, I can't tell which, about a time so very long ago.

In his mind, he had once been in love with a star that had traveled the skies at night. It was the brightest, most beautiful star that had ever been, and Coyote spent each night trying to find a way to get its attention. He wrote songs and sang to it until he was exhausted, but it ignored him. He climbed to the tops of the tallest trees and tried to grab hold as the star travelled by, but he could never reach it. He danced for it from dusk until dawn, but there was no acknowledgement.

Coyote was heartbroken and lay down to sleep in a fit of depression. It was then that he dreamt of mountain so tall that the stars would change their paths to avoid running into the highest peak on their way up each night. Coyote ran like his tail was on fire for weeks on end until he came to the great range of mountains, and at its center was the tallest one in the world. Despite his exhaustion, he scaled it from base to peak without resting. It took him better than two weeks to make the journey, but even though he had not slept or stopped to eat in nearly a month, he was too nervous to do anything but wait for his star, his love.

As night came and the wind blew cold, the stars began to rise. Coyote danced on his hind legs and begged for his beloved to dance with him and finally, she did. The star grabbed hold of his paws and lifted him into the night sky, dancing with him ever higher until they were out of the atmosphere. The earth grew tiny beneath Coyote, and he became scared, but he knew that his beloved star would care for him. They continued to dance and rise until they came to the apex of their journey. The dancing stopped, and Coyote looked into the eyes of his love and then she dropped him. Down he fell, plummeting through space and atmosphere for a solid month. At the end, he lit the night as if he were a comet and struck the land with enough force to topple the tallest mountain, reducing it to nothing but rubble. Coyote was dead for many years and his children mourned him by howling at the stars in sorrow and anger. Even as he finally rose, there was a part within him that was still dead, the part that remembered being dumped by his true love, the part that remembered the cold, unfeeling look in her eyes.

And now, at last, Coyote is heading back into the heavens to dance among the stars. To what end may remain a mystery. Did he wish to try again with his true love or ask why she rebuked him so long ago? Or will we see the brilliant light of a supernova revenge winking at us from a thousand, million miles away?

A ticket on the second passenger space flight cost the gross national product of several small countries. Booking the first passenger space flight in its entirety only cost a single wicker basket and an unhappy teenage cab driver.

