Fossil Lake II: The Refossiling Page 14

  Something growled, distant but not too far off either. It was the worst sound Gary had ever heard.

  He punched the button console and willed it to the work, wishing he’d dropped out in his third semester of college like he’d wanted to so badly.

  His phone chimed. He held it up with a shaky hand, recognizing the tune. It wasn’t an incoming call or text. It was a notification for his email.

  You’ve got mail. You’ve got mail and it’s going to fucking eat you.

  He opened the message and saw what was by now burned in his brain.

  The doors began to open.

  There was a corridor in front of him. The floor was dirt and the walls and ceiling were an endless maze of pipes, a boiler room deep beneath the ground. Up ahead, shadows flickered. A single bulb hung from the ceiling.

  Three figures stood in the distance.

  He looked at the message and an idea came into his mind, one last and desperate thought. If it could not be deleted, maybe it could be transferred. He went through his addresses, thinking it was useless until a name popped up.

  I’m afraid you’ll be staying late tonight, Gary. We’ve got a boatload of junk mail and it’s your job to sift through it.

  No. She’d been good to him, had offered him a job.

  And she’s the reason you’re in this elevator right now.

  Down the corridor there were screams and pleading and the undeniable sound of shackles banging against the ground.

  Shackles he knew were meant for his ankles and wrists.

  He chose her name. The address bar filled in her email.

  Something moved toward him, something on four legs. It was fast, coming straight for the open elevator.

  He forwarded the email.

  He braced himself and closed his eyes, ready to feel claws and teeth ripping into his delicate flesh.

  The doors began to close just as the dog-thing was nearing. It slammed against the metal and the elevator began moving upward again. It felt as though he’d been inside the compartment for years. The journey back up was longer than anything he’d ever known.

  This time it stopped at the lobby.

  The doors opened and bright light shone through the front windows. Gary thought that he’d never run so fast in his life.

  “You look much better,” Bradley said on the subway Monday morning. “Finally get some sleep?”

  Gary nodded. “I slept most of the weekend.”

  “Ready to face the beast this morning?”

  The subway came to a stop and they waited for the car to clear before they hopped off and walked toward the escalator. “You’re too harsh on her sometimes, you know that?” Gary smiled. “She has quite a nice smile, actually.” And there are worse beasts than disgruntled bosses.

  Bradley’s mouth hung open. “Are you okay?”

  “Much better.”

  As they stepped outside and onto the curb they stopped short of the company’s front entrance. There were police cars everywhere, lights spinning and officers directing people away. Yellow caution tape lined the way.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Bradley asked over the commotion and chatter.

  “I’m afraid there’s been an incident,” the closest officer said.

  “What kind of incident?”

  The cop began to speak but he was cut off.

  The front doors opened and two EMT’s wheeled out a body bag. Cameras flashed from every direction. A line of reporters stood nearby yelling out questions, each one trying to pronounce more than the other. Suicide? Foul play? Identity of the victim—if that’s what it was.

  The EMT’s brought the body into the nearest ambulance and closed the doors.

  Bradley’s face went pale. “Who the hell do you think that was in there? God, I hope it’s no one we know.”

  “Did I tell you I got the job?” Gary watched as the ambulance drove off, certain of whose body lay beneath the plastic.

  Two words popped into his head but they faded away just as quickly as they appeared.

  MY BELOVED

  J.M. Northwood

  Some may call him a trickster, but I call him “Beloved.“

  I remember when we met. I was taking shelter in a small cafe, trying to avoid a rainstorm that brought a smell of new-washed silk to the streets of St. Louis.

  I’d been traveling through Senegal on assignment, trying to photograph as much of its history as I could. To some, these settlements and cities were fossils of a past best left forgotten — forced colonization, forced conversions, forced ... everything — but to others, they were a reminder of a richer time. The area shone with a brilliance that rivaled that of the sun: it was a reminder that we once built for beauty, for permanence, and for love of empire and ruler.

  Now, we only build for greed, overpopulation, and self-aggrandizement.

  But enough of my rambling.

  I’d been seated on the veranda, drinking strong coffee and staring into the rain, when I felt the table move. I looked up, past an extended hand, into a brilliant smile and radiant eyes.

  He was alone, he said, and lonely, and was hopeful that a lovely traveler like me would take pity on him and let him remain at her side. I was flattered, of course, but also somewhat wary: I was, for all intents and purposes, alone, and he was ... intense. So very intense.

  For good or ill, I invited him to sit, and we began to speak. For hours our conversation meandered through history, folklore, culture, food, and — slowly — our own lives.

  He had dallied before, with glorious women, who put up with his foibles, but who had never stayed with him for more than a day or two. He admitted, unblushing, to a his marriage with an amazing female who’d heard all of his excuses, and still stayed with him, and he spoke of their children who covered the globe. He’d travelled the world, as had I, but his stories never ceased, where mine were limited by my experiences.

  He spoke of princesses seen and queens dethroned, and of tar-babies built and hornets outsmarted; and then, as the day wore on, he regaled me with tales of how he hung the moon and sky for his mother, but his father despaired of him ever settling down, and “had to correct the angle, for everything was canted.”

  I’d never been married, and I’d long ago quashed the thought of a prince astride a white charger, reaching for my hand to carry me away; still, there was something there. A spark, perhaps. A gleam in his eye that matched my smile. And I wanted to know more about him.

  We agreed to meet up the next day, and spent our time wandering the streets and markets of that beautiful city, talking of everything and nothing. We spoke of our lives, our dreams and our fears, and — heaven help me — of the slow-blossoming feeling that there was something here greater than the both of us.

  Well, let’s be honest: greater than me, at least.

  Over the next week, as I completed my assignment and prepared to leave, I realized that I wanted to be rash and impulsive for once in my life. I didn’t want to have a life hedged about by cheques for work completed and itineraries for work yet to be done.

  I would wake to flower petals on my bed, even though my room was still locked from the inside, and go to sleep hearing his voice, even though he was miles away. With his hand in mine, I stepped through beaded curtains of webbing hung with dew, and emerged both dry and smelling of exotic spices. He introduced me to fresh-baked yams and crisp-cooked rabbit, and always had a smile or a quip for those around us.

  We spoke at length of what we offered one another: a comfort, a warmth, a safe harbour in the storm that life threw against our respective shoals. He had no permanent attachments, and I had no husband or boyfriend for whom jealousy would be an issue. Should children come of the union, he said, he would care for them as he has all of his others. Should none be borne, we would — as best we could — remain friends, and perhaps see one another when next I passed through this region.

  The lies we tell ourselves.

  I wanted to take him back to my room, but he said that our trys
t should occur under the eyes of the sky: that way I would know of his honesty. And all the while, his eyes twinkled like multi-faceted mirrors reflecting the myriad of stars above us.

  We stood before a rough-spun silken hammock and slowly removed our clothes. He reached for me and helped me into our bed, then drew a gossamer cover over us. For some time, we simply lay there together, naked, pressed against one another, and let the silence of the night wrap around us.

  Slowly, however, our hands began to wander, and our breaths to mingle. His kisses were gentle, yet electrifying, and I felt my nerves awaken and start to sing.

  As our movements grew more heated, he reached for my breast, and for the briefest of moments it wasn’t his hand I felt, but a thousand hairs tickling my skin. I moaned as he bent forward and drew my nipple into his mouth, suckling at it until it stood — moist and erect — crinkling in pleasure. I grew damp and heavy, and trailed my hand down his body, wrapping it around his erection.

  It was his turn to gasp, and mine to smile, as I slipped under the covers and took him into my mouth. I was inexperienced, true, but it was all the more exciting for that. I slicked my tongue along his length, and nearly dislocated my jaw with his girth, but when he was — I felt — wet enough, I took him into my hand, then rose above him.

  He stopped me, hands on my hips, and whispered “are you sure?“ My answer was, I thought, rather clear: I slowly lowered myself onto him, my breath hitching at his entry, and shifted until he was fully sheathed within me.

  We began to move as one, his hands alternating between my stomach, my hips, and my breasts, as I would occasionally fall forward to capture his mouth with mine. He fit within me like a key to a well-turned lock, and I knew that he was making me his. Just as, in a way, I was making him mine.

  I do not know how long we lay there, limbs entwined, ere the dawn lightened the land around us. We gathered our clothes, dew-damp and cold, and struggled into them, laughing and nervous. The light of day brought new life and new hope, but it also brought the inevitable awkwardness of a new relationship, and the realization that it may be over before it began.

  We walked in silence toward my hotel, holding hands and smiling at one another. When we arrived, we tore one another’s garments in our haste to couple again. This time, he was in charge, and his pace was furious. He thrust into me as I arched against him, drawing him as deep as I could, hoping to etch this feeling — his body, his hands, his scent — into my soul. Time was fleeting, and tears of regret ran down y cheeks and into my hair, even as I called his name and moved with him.

  As the day warmed, our moods dipped. We showered and dressed, and he helped me pack. All too soon, my taxi was at the door, and I was on my way to the airport. He took me in his arms as I left and whispered, “should it happen, I will know.“

  I spent the flight home curled in my seat, trying to muffle my sobs with his silken handkerchief.

  Over the course of the next few months, I became moody, irritable. My ankles began to swell, and my breasts to hurt. I’d realized after I’d missed my second menses that I was pregnant, and I was torn between missing my beloved more than ever before, and wishing he were here that I might kill him for doing this to me. And then, damn me, admitting that it was the path we both trod that led us to this particular patch of life.

  As my due date approached, he began calling me. A feat that — in hindsight — should have terrified me, as we had never exchanged numbers. Still, to hear his voice was glorious, as was his assurance that he would be there for the birth.

  He arrived, true to his word, well before my due date. We spent that time catching up, and I learned just what could — and could not — be done while pregnant.

  Key in lock, indeed.

  My belly continued to swell, the skin rippling and coursing as though a million feet were tapping against its constraints. I would lay in bed upon my side, holding my weight against a pillow, and wake to find myself on my back, hands cradled about the newly-forming life within me.

  All too soon I awoke in the middle of the night feeling as though I were ready to burst. My cramps grew in intensity and shortened in cycle, all the while he rubbed my back and murmured words of encouragement.

  I felt a tearing first, a hot release that spattered fluid — thick and warm — down my thighs, and left fibrous tendrils laying limp against my legs and sheets. What was a trickle became a rush, and then subsided. As I lay there, I could feel a movement in my womb, and I smiled up at him.

  “They’re coming.“

  A tiny foot stuck out, tentative, tapping about and tickling my most intimate areas, and then the rest of the body followed. That movement, that first child, opened the gates, and the rest exited in a rush.

  Thousands of spiders — lime green and mocha brown and cherry red, bulbous of body and slender of limb, spread from my loins, rippling against my flesh and crawling up my legs, and thence to my chest. Each feather-light brush brought a new burst of love to my heart, and as they danced across my lips and tongue, tickling the inside of my ears as they explored their new life, I made sure to whisper my love to them.

  As my beloved opened the window that they might take to their silken threads and fly, I felt my heart break a bit. They were so small, so young. And yet their father named each of them as they flew away, and the look of pride his face held was only matched by my joy at bearing them.

  He turned to me and took me in his arms, and I kissed each of his eyelids as he lay around me, cocooning me in his legs.

  My trickster. My beloved. My Anansi.

  BLOODBOUND

  William Andre Sanders

  The aftermath of Kemper,

  Dahmer, Gacy,

  impregnating a whore

  overdosed on Klonopin

  in a bloodshed orgy,

  results a psychotically

  schizophrenic monstrosity

  thirty-four years grown

  inside me.

  I don’t barbeque the flesh,

  or serve a dish of bitch fillet;

  I take pleasure out of anal fucking

  some slut’s carcass’ soul

  straight to hell.

  I behead the torso,

  assuring the fantasy—

  I can have my dick sucked

  during any minute of the day.

  Ed Gein got off frolicking

  around the farm in cadaver skin,

  I prefer to fuck the flesh,

  cum inside cold pussy—

  burying my signature

  immortalized.

  Then I toss the useless bitch

  in a mass grave

  beneath the swings set

  on my back lawn.

  My founding fathers,

  sperm donors of sadistically

  acute detestation,

  kick and scream—

  stirring rot

  within their forgotten coffins.

  Even death does not allow them

  escape from wretched dismay,

  traumatizing their spirits

  by serial murder

  imprisoning the bloodline.

  TRAPPER KEEPER

  A. Stinky Cat

  I suppose you’re wondering why I became a horror writer. Maybe you’re wondering why I’m still writing horror stories—self-publishing them because I can’t find anyone else to publish them. Sometimes I don’t know why I put up with all the anonymous bloggers ridiculing my best work. Let’s face it, I know I suck.

  So why on earth would I keep writing after all these years? Why would anybody in his right mind spend every day in his grandma’s basement, writing stories nobody will ever read instead of getting a job and moving out on my own even though I’m pushing forty?

  I’ll tell you, but I don’t expect you to believe a word of it. In fact, I’d almost forgotten about it until the other day when I saw an episode of Saved by the Bell.

  It happened one day my senior year. The other kids used to call me “retard,” “pussy,” and “
short bus rider” just because I was a retarded pussy who rode the short bus. I must have spent half my high school career stuck in a locker. I can’t tell you how many times I had the waistband of my underwear pulled up over my head. This day was no different. I was walking down the hallway on my way to see the guidance counselor. It was between classes, the halls were full of kids standing around, waiting for the next bell to ring.

  I was a scrawny little runt. By some lapse of judgment, I thought dressing up like a page boy and attending Renaissance Faires over the weekend would make me a hit with the ladies. Naturally, it didn’t occur to me wearing my Renaissance Faire logo on my jacket would make me fodder for more torment. By the day in question, I wasn’t surprised to hear a taunt referencing unicorns or “Princess Dustin,” so I barely noticed the kids mocking me as hustled down the hall of Fossil Lake High, looking at the ground in an effort not to look at anybody, not to dignify their jeers with a response. I just had to make it through the next few months without killing myself. One day I’d be a great writer like Stephen King or H.P. Lovecraft. I carried their books in my backpack like talismans to make me impervious to the mockery of my classmates. They were shoved in there with my Lisa Frank-style glittery Trapper Keeper which brightened my days.

  I had all the ideas and inspiration to be the next big thing, except one—I couldn’t write. For that matter, I could barely even read. You couldn’t blame my teachers for having given up on me. If I’d had half a brain I’d have given up on myself, too. That’s why the guidance counselor wanted to see me.

  His door was open. Looking up from his newspaper, Mr. Porras motioned for me to sit. He was a chubby, balding old fellow with a short sleeved button-up shirt and a clip-on tie—the kind of guy who was obviously so unsatisfied with his life that he seemed to get some kind of perverse pleasure out of crushing young people’s dreams. I pulled up a chair to his desk, and he asked me my name.