Generic 12

ISSUE 12

ENERIC

EMERSON’S GENRE FICTION MAGAZINE

12

Generic, Issue 12, Fall 2017 Copyright for all stories goes to their creators Generic is copyright of Undergraduate Students for Publishing, Emerson College Interior Design by Kelsey Aijala, Jeannette Mooney & Bridget Walsh Cover Art by Jaclyn Withers Interior Illustrations by Jeannette Mooney This issue is set in Roboto and Athelas

Electronic edition published on issuu.com Print edition printed at Emerson College Print and Copy Center, Boston

facebook.com/GenericMag @GenericMagazine emersongeneric@gmail.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LETTER TO THE READER

Patient Zero

Kayla Cottingham A Shroud of White

Sophia Uy The Tattoos from Beauport

Jacyln Withers A Strain of Rarity

Abby McAuliffe Insipid

Laura Rodgers Earth Song

Allison Rassmann

1 2 8 16 24 32 40

GENERIC STAFF EDITOR IN CHIEF Rachel Cantor

MANAGING EDITOR Melissa Close

HEAD EDITORS Max Baker, Emily Hillebrand, Emily McNeiece

READERS Sammi Curran, Sarah Dolan, Emma Grant, Angela Haas, Philip Hubbell, Oliver Kaplowitz, Alexis Leira, Cassandra Martinez, Abby McAuliffe, Jess Morris, Allison Rassmann, Gabriella Saavedra, Haley Saffren, Alana Scartozzi, Carly Thompson

HEAD COPYEDITOR Allison Rassmann

COPYEDITORS Rafael Barraza, Philip Hubbell, Abby Ladner, Olivia Williams

PROOFREADER Oliver Kaplowitz

MARKETING MANAGER Max Baker

DESIGN HEAD Kelsey Aijala

DESIGN ASSISTANTS

Jeannette Mooney, Bridget Walsh

COVER DESIGNER Jaclyn Withers

DEAR READER, Welcome to the 12th issue of Generic! If you’re new to our pages, we’re the only literary magazine at Emerson to feature nothing but genre fiction, twice a year. We’re also completely student-produced: all of our authors, editors, copy editors, marketers, designers, and proofreaders are Emerson undergrads.

If you’re not sure what genre fiction is, keep reading and you’ll find out!

This issue features six fantastic stories ranging in category from science fiction to folklore to horror. And that’s pretty much what genre means: it’s an umbrella term for the disparate worlds of fiction that don’t fully follow the rules of our real one.

In some fiction workshops at Emerson, and at other writing programs, students are often discouraged or prohibited from writing genre fiction.

“Literary fiction,” essentially defined as realistic fiction, is sometimes seen as the only “serious” way to write a story. Generic was founded to provide an outlet for genre writers in its extracurricular workshops and in print, and to push against this stereotype. I believe that genre fiction can be just as worthy of renown, just as original and captivating as realistic fiction, if not more so. To those who love genre fiction as much as we do at Generic, trust your imagination. Don’t keep yourself aground because someone told you it isn’t literary to grow wings.

We wouldn’t have a magazine at all without the efforts of our talented authors and staff. To all of you: thank you for the time, energy, and care you gave to Generic, especially when you balanced your magazine duties with homework, other orgs, internships, jobs, and everything else you had going on. Our teamwork shines throughout this issue. Extra-special thanks to Melissa Close, Managing Editor and all-around star. I have no doubt that Generic will thrive under your leadership. And I can’t forget Undergraduate Students for Publishing, without which Generic wouldn’t exist. Pub Club, thank you for your unwavering belief in genre fiction, and for all the work you do.

It’s been an honor to captain this genre-ship. It’s my last semester at the helm; I’m graduating not long after this issue goes to print. Working on this magazine has been exciting and challenging and fulfilling—but most of all, it’s been fun. I hope you have fun reading this issue, too. Welcome aboard: there’s magic ahead.

-RACHEL CANTOR

EDITOR IN CHIEF

KAYLA COTTINGHAM SCI-FI HORROR

PATIENT

ZERO

Kayla Cottingham is a senior Writing, Literature, and Publish major at Emerson College. She’s a fiery redhead who lives in a dragon-guarded castle surrounded by a boiling lake of lava—but don’t let that cool you off. She’s a loaded pistol who likes piña coladas and getting caught in the rain. After she graduates in December, she’s yours for the rescuing.

T

he door to Beatrice Flores’s office moaned when Max shouldered his way inside. She barely looked up from her keyboard, where she was busily typing away at a job application—her fourth this week. She had applied to work in a rehab facility, a local nursing home, a midwife’s office, and even a bookstore. At this point, staying true to her thirty-year-old degree mattered less than getting away from these narcissistic teenagers.

“Nurse Flores?”

Max’s voice sounded thick and raw, as if he’d spent the afternoon howling at a sports event. It was possible—Beatrice had seen him wearing a lacrosse jersey more than once as she dabbed at his most recent head injury. He was a fairly typical student jock with his head in the next play and his hands up his peers’ skirts. Not her favorite by a long shot, but a frequent visitor nonetheless.

“Gimme a second.” Beatrice finished typing up what a valuable experience cleaning up puke at Brookline High had been so far, and then moved on to closing tabs. Mostly news—a stabbing near Downtown Crossing, a student protest at B.U., and four or five fallen stars that had hit the ground after last night’s meteor shower.

Beatrice stood, twisting her head left and right so her neck let out twin grinding cracks. She gestured towards the examination table, and Max sat, the paper crinkling beneath him. At this point, he would usually be joking about how sexy she looked in her white coat, but he’d gone uncharacteristically silent.

Beatrice pulled her rolling chair around to face him, the wheels screeching against the linoleum. His tan skin looked waxy. Sweat beaded on his wrinkled forehead. He was breathing heavily, but only through his nose.

Patient Zero

5

“What is it this time, Max?” Beatrice drummed her acrylic nails on the chair arm.

Max cleared his throat and winced. This close, Beatrice could see some kind of yellowish dust under his nose. The hell—is this kid sniffing spray paint?

You’d think rich Brookline kids could get their hands on something better.

Max tapped his throat. “I think I’ve got strep or something.”

Beatrice tried and failed to withhold a sigh. I told Linda we’d get more chlamydia. It’s that time of year.

“Have you had… contact with anyone with strep?” She raised her eyebrows.

Max pursed his lips and shook his head, overgrown hair falling in his eyes.

He mumbled something.

“I can’t hear you, kid.”

“Dahlia’s got something too,” he choked out with a wince. “We went out last night to see the meteor shower. Felt…off ever since.”

Beatrice let out a long breath through her nose. He didn’t have to explain that he meant his girlfriend, Dahlia Trevor. Beatrice had done a pregnancy test for her last week that came out negative. She’d seen the two of them together in the school parking lot afterwards, wrapped up in each other in the back of Max’s 4runner. Stupid kids never learn.

“Mmm-hm. Sounds like you’re both going to need antibiotics.” She wrote down a note about it on her clipboard. “This sort of thing clears up pretty fast—” Max broke into a coughing fit, struggling to get it under control. He gasped for breath, one hand over his mouth and the other clawing at his throat.

Not looking up, Beatrice asked, “You okay, kid?”

His lips parted, but no sound came out. Tears shone in his pale blue eyes.

His mouth silently traced the shape of a word.

“Speak up.”

He opened his mouth, struggling to force words past his lips. “I…I can’t.”

The pen in Beatrice’s hand stopped. Max coughed into his elbow, six, seven, eight times in rapid succession. His body trembled with the effort of it. Beatrice stood.

When Max pulled his arm away, Beatrice’s stomach contracted.

His hand and sleeve were stained gold with the substance she’d seen under his nose. The stuff leaked from the corner of his mouth, metallic under the florescent lights. It stained the edges of his lips.

“Oh my God.” Beatrice pulled on her gloves and retrieved the flashlight from her coat pocket. “Open up. Did you huff something? What the hell is this?”

Tears seeped from the corners of his eyes as he shook his head, mouthing “no” over and over.

“Open up!” Beatrice demanded. She stood with flashlight poised at the ready. “I need to see if your throat is swelling.”

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Kayla Cottingham

Max nodded, sobbing with every motion but not a single sound.

His chin quivered as he cracked open his mouth. When it wasn’t enough, Beatrice wrenched it open herself, not even flinching when he gagged and his teeth cut into her gloves.

She shone the light inside. A wave of cold crept up her spine.

Nestled inside the quivering, pink walls of Max Silver’s esophagus was a fully formed black rose. Its petals were dappled with the golden dust, and the thorns—which bit into the tender flesh like teeth—oozed that splattering liquid. Droplets of the stuff snaked down his throat in shimmering rivulets.

The light refracted off it, casting bright shadows on Max’s bleeding vocal chords. The inflammation only dug the thorns—and roots—deeper into him.

Beatrice’s mouth went dry.

The flashlight clattered to the ground.

She had just pulled out her phone to call 911 when Max choked, gargled, and vomited a mix of crimson and gold directly into Beatrice’s eyes.

— School closed for the rest of the day after Max was rushed to the hospital.

Beatrice hadn’t heard anything, and hoped that no news is good news rang true in this situation. Local officials thought it best to examine Beatrice’s office and the rest of the school in case there was any evidence to what had caused the episode.

One officer had touched her on the shoulder after she had gotten all cleaned up and said, “Go home and stay there. Best to keep to yourself in times like these.”

Times like these. She still didn’t know what he meant by that.

— Seven more cases like Max’s got reported on the news that night.

Beatrice clutched her wine glass with white knuckles as she sat on the fraying couch in her living room. They’d all had contact with the fallen stars from the night before—curious hands that couldn’t help but run their fingertips over the meteorites and the gold dust wedged into the cracks in the rock. Since then, people had been turning up with roses in their eyes and throats and leaves sprouting from their veins.

Beatrice sipped her wine, hand shaking. She slowly set the glass down and began the same process she’d already repeated almost twenty times since she got homeShe took a flashlight and mirror, held them both up, and examined the inside of her throat.

Slimy and pink, but normal. Not gold dust or fluid. No rose.

She let out a breath and lay back against the couch, taking a hearty swig of wine. Her body felt lead-heavy, and her eyes still itched from…whatever it was that had happened with Max. After everything, she did hope he was okay. And Dahlia. And anyone else who might have touched the meteorites.

Patient Zero

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Just the meteorites, she reminded herself, which I never even saw. I certainly didn’t touch them. I couldn’t have.

Beatrice picked at her manicure, sliding her thumbnail under each other nail. She’d been unable to slow down the frantic beat of her heart for hours.

Clammy sweat pricked on her brow. None of this made any sense—how could a disease survive on meteorites, much less the fall into their atmosphere? She frantically picked at a hangnail, absentmindedly wincing as she accidentally tore it.

I sanitized everything, she reminded herself, moving back to running her thumbnail under each other nail. The scraping kept her mind more stable.

I flushed out my eyes, my mouth, I can’t—no, couldn’t— One thumbnail slid under the other, and pain splintered through her hand. Beatrice cursed.

She’d sliced open the tip of her thumb. Blood leaked down, tracing the skinny stem of her wine glass. Her heartbeat migrated into the cut, pushing out more droplets of red.

Beatrice winced. “Motherfucker.”

She dropped the glass on the table and clutched her bleeding finger. Her eyes travelled from the cut down to the other thumb on top of it.

Her throat tightened. All sound but her heartbeat seemed to fade into silence.

Poking out from beneath her fingernail was a single, russet-colored thorn.

SOPHIA UY

HISTORICAL FICTION HORROR

A SHROUD

OF WHITE

Sophia Uy is a junior at Emerson College pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She was born in the Philippines but spent most of her life in Singapore before moving to Boston. Her favorite genre for anything is Fantasy, so it’s no surprise that she is also an avid fan of Dungeons and Dragons. In her opinion, the best genre to binge watch is anime. She constantly wishes she has more time to read.

B

eware the woman in white who stands at the sides of crossroads and walks along empty highways. Beware her mournful eyes and beautiful white gown and do not stop the car, do not stare into her bloodied face, do not answer if she opens her pale mouth and rattles her jagged teeth at you in question. Instead, hold your hand to your chest and pray that you pass by undisturbed.

Some say she only attacks the impure. Some say she kills indiscriminately.

They all say she is a demon, preying on the souls of unlucky passersby. She’s the ghost of a woman raped and murdered by a scorned lover, by a mad lover, by a soldier. They say all she needs to move on is one act of genuine kindness.

They say she is cursed to roam this world forever. They call her the Woman in White, but once upon a time she was called something else.

Once upon a time she was me.

— It’s always difficult to remember. Memory has become something that flickers in and out of my mind and whatever I manage to hold onto comes to me in jagged fragments. They cut into what remains of my consciousness like glass shards, ripping my mind into bloody ribbons.

Names float around my head, always followed by faces. I string together the letters and form three names: Paolo, Mariana, and Rosalina. The faces that follow look similar to each other. The same brown skin, dark eyes, and head of thick, black hair. Mariana looks the youngest, while the other two share too much of the same weariness to tell who the eldest is. Paolo has eyes that burn and Rosalina—Rosalina was my name.

—

A Shroud of White

11

When there’s nothing to ground me, no concrete beneath my feet or smell of pollution in the air, I float between the spaces of the city and hear the sound of pouring water.

I remember loving the rain as a little girl. It had always been a welcome reprieve from the humid heat of the Philippines. Whenever my mother failed to stop me, I would run out of the house and dance in the muddy puddles.

I remember loving the water.

More words stitch themselves together.

It was called the water cure. The soldiers (Spanish? Japanese? No, American) would hold down rebels and force dirty water into their mouths until they broke or died. They called it the cure to our savagery, our barbarism, our spirit. The Americans were always so clever with their words.

Paolo never cried as a boy. He wanted to be like our father, so strong and stalwart as he fought for our independence in the southern jungles. But he cried when he saw Mariana’s body and he cried as they held him to the ground and broke his jaw to keep it open for the water. I don’t remember if I cried while I had to watch. Now, muddy puddles make my stomach churn.

I remember loving the water and I remember learning how to hate it.

Americans were also excellent teachers.

— The street I used to live on has always been full of children. I watch the families come and go. Once in a while, a child will see me and wave. Sometimes I do nothing, sometimes I wave back, and sometimes they follow me back into the darkness.

A girl used to live next door to us. Her mother was a mestiza—half Spanish with lovely hair and lighter colored eyes. The girl was Mariana’s age, and when Spain surrendered and the Philippines was handed over to America like a shiny prize, she fell in love with a Yankee soldier stationed in Manila.

I don’t know if he ever loved her back. Maybe in the beginning he could have, but when the rest of the Americans grew to hate us, so did he.

I wonder, if I knew what the smell of bloodlust was, would I have been able to smell it in the air? Like something rotten settling over the entire country? The soldiers were promised a war with Spain. They expected bloodshed and where they found none, they found other ways to satisfy their thirst.

Heartbroken. Humiliated. More and more letters lining themselves up in perfect lines. I don’t remember that girl’s name or her face but whenever I think of her I can see Mariana in her place.

— It’s impossible for me to think of my mother and not think of my father. No names come to mind but I do remember their faces. It’s not enough.

My father was a revolutionary. He fought against the Spanish and died.

I grieved him but I’m glad he never had to watch the revolution he died for

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Sophia Uy

fail and I’m glad he never had to see the cold, limp bodies of his two youngest children piled into a ditch by the side of the road. Small mercies.

My mother was alive for it all.

She didn’t come with us when we fled Manila to join Paolo and the war effort in the south. At the time, it felt as if everyone had to pick a side, but the death of her husband was still a fresh one and she was too tired of the fighting to care.

When I told her that Paolo and Mariana were dead (not tortured, not brutalized, not desecrated), months after it happened and months after the war ended, I thought the heartbreak would kill her. I was wrong.

Cholera. It rolls off the tongue. When my mother began wasting away, I joined everyone else in the street to beg for them to save her. It failed.

She died. I buried another family member.

I don’t remember her name but I remember her face. Eyes sunken under her heavy brow, cheekbones pushing against her yellowing skin like a layer of wax, dark wavy hair drenched in sweat. It’s not enough.

I wish I could remember what she looked like before the illness. Before the heartbreak.

— One day, soldiers dragged the village priest out of the church for his sermons on peace. They tossed him to the ground and began to beat him. Paolo and I kept our heads down. I knew he was thinking of the gun hidden in our small house and of the base he and the other guerrilla soldiers would sneak into after nightfall, but all those things were useless in the broad daylight.

Mariana shook out of my grasp and shoved the soldiers away. She was cradling the priest’s bloody face in her soft hands when one of the soldiers jammed the butt of a rifle into her shoulder blade. She crumpled. They laughed. She ignored them and returned to the priest. Then their Yankee smiles faded, replaced by anger. When the soldiers were done, I could barely recognize her face beneath all the blood and swollen flesh.

There was no mercy to be found in this time of war. Every passing day was another for hate to fester. The soldiers saw us as savages. It didn’t matter if you were a priest or a girl on the cusp of seventeen. We were small, dirty beasts and death was the only way to civilize us.

That evening, I tended to Mariana. Paolo called her stupid. She smiled through a cracked tooth, then asked if the priest still lived. I remember thinking that she was going to get us all killed.

— Mariana was the best of us. I try to think of her as much as I can, but thoughts of her bring the smell of blood and gunpowder.

I couldn’t think or breathe when the soldiers opened fire on the village.

We had hidden rebel soldiers within some of the houses and disguised them well. A little too well. We blurred the distinction between soldier and civilian.

A Shroud of White

13

I got lucky. The word feels too big in my mouth, my head, and I want to spit it out. I came out of it unscathed. A few feet from me, Mariana had taken cover by the dinner table. When the barrage of gunfire had finally ended, I turned to her and— — Blood gurgled in her throat. One of the bullets had torn through it. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk. Tears fell from her dark eyes, mingling with the splatter of blood across her face. Her hand reached out towards me. It trembled.

Fear filled her face, filled the desperate croaking sounds coming out of her mouth as she tried to call out my name. Not so brave anymore now that she was filled with bullet holes.

Her eyes were wide and glassy when Paolo rushed out of the hiding place we constructed in the back. I hadn’t moved from my position by the window.

He cradled her to his chest, not paying any attention to the puddle of blood beneath her, and cried. The blood covering his body would soon get washed away when the American soldiers broke down the door and dragged him out into the fields to be cured, purified in a perverse baptism.

I watched him as he cried. I know I was crying too, but it felt numb and distant. Mariana’s head lolled back as Paolo held her. Her dead gaze found me and stared. Of all my fading memories, that gaze will always remain. It lingers in the back of my mind as a reminder.

Mariana was the best of us. Mariana was killed, shot full of holes and all I did was watch.

— The emptiness is the worst part of being trapped between life and death.

Physical sensations are half-formed. Sound, smell and touch are difficult to feel fully. The present becomes something viscous around me, simultaneously becoming the ground beneath my feet and drowning me beneath it. The emptiness is what draws them to me.

I know what the legends say. That I kill those I come across, that I lead them to their deaths and drive them off the road into tragic accidents. The truth is a lot less dramatic.

I don’t kill them. I don’t do anything. All I do is wander. Down my street, along roadsides, through narrow alleyways. There’s nothing else for me to do but wander and sort through the memories I still have and try to make sense of it all.

I don’t know why some of them are drawn to me. I do not know what they see, if I truly am wreathed in a bloodied gown, or if my undead face is beautiful or monstrous. The simple truth is they cannot survive in the spaces I linger in, the ones in between life and death. They follow me in and then they disappear. When they follow me, I don’t stop them. I don’t think I can.

I like to think it’s my memories, my past that draws them to me. That somehow those are the things that slip through the veil separating life

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and death. Maybe it’s selfish, but I hope that it’s true. I hope that they feel everything I feel and I hope they understand.

When they die because of me, the grief and guilt become something faded and distant like everything else.

I continue to wander.

— Paolo and Mariana still felt fresh and painful, but after the war there wasn’t any time left for something like hate. No. We were all far too busy trying to mend the broken pieces of our would-be country.

After my mother died, I buried her and returned to an empty house. I have forgotten what the house looked like, but it was small and modest. The inside always smelled like fresh rice and wood furniture. There was a winding staircase I had fallen down as a child and a chip in the dinner table where Paolo had taken a knife and carved out a mark for himself. It was a house full of warmth and it was never meant to be empty.

After my mother died, the cholera epidemic improved. The Americans helped us recover, giving us a taste of their power, of what they could offer us.

And at that point, when so many of us were on our knees, breaking under the pressure, we gave in.

Everyone was so quick to forget the betrayal and the war. I never understood how. It was as if they expected some foreign power to bury the bodies left behind from the war. The Americans, perhaps, since they seemed to be solving all our problems like the saviors they pretended to be. It felt like anger was becoming a thing of the past.

This new world was one eager to forgive and forget, but I was the only thing I truly hated anymore. It was a feeling that burned in the back of my chest and it only grew in the emptiness of that house.

But the world was moving on faster than I could. This new era had no place for me.

— All I did was watch.

As Paolo died. As Mariana died. As Mother died.

— I don’t remember if it hurt when I touched steel to skin. I think it did. It wasn’t the release I was looking for. When all the blood in my body was gone, I didn’t die. Instead, I became a husk. Stuck between the living and the dead with nowhere to go.

If I could, I would have cried. I would have wept for my fast fading memories, my eternal emptiness, my family who had at least found peace in their deaths, but there was nothing left.

— They call me the Woman in White, and once upon a time I had a name. No more.

JACYLN WITHERS FOLKLORE

THE TATTOOS FROM

BEAUPORT

Jaclyn Withers is a writer and illustrator from the small seafaring town of Gloucester, MA. Her writing is primarily inspired by her art, as well as the mystical tales she grew up with, of her hometown. Within every story she writes, there will always be a piece of her, and a piece of Gloucester.

L

ate at night on the docks of Beauport, drunken sailors and hooligans sway.

They exit the bars in jubilant merriment, still humming the sea shanties sung by their fellow men. A young man sneaks out between the men, a notepad in hand. He darts quickly away from the atmosphere of a Beauport night, he is ready for sleep. As the men disperse, slowly staggering and slightly fumbling, they head to their rundown homes. Tired wives await them in dimly lit rooms, cradling malnourished infants and wondering when their men will return for the night. Those with no home must sleep in the musty, rat-infested inns scattered throughout the dock town. Some men may wander to the nicer built inns on inland Beauport, but many prefer the Crow’s Nest, not only because it houses the best tavern in the city on the first floor, but also because it harbors the most enticing and inviting barmaids.

There are, however, some men who stumble out to the edge of the pier in the darkness of midnight. No glow surrounds the dock’s edge as they peer down with glazed eyes at the indigo waves crashing into the ancient stilts of the pier. These men, usually alone and with whiskey in hand, stumble off into the salty abyss and away from the worn-down coziness of Beauport.

The waves are thick, sloshing and churning men out towards the endless ocean; the ocean they sail so often, to make lives for themselves and Beauport.

These men choke and gurgle in the saltwater, trying to get another swig of rum or whiskey or whatever they possess before she takes them down into the drowning abyss.

She is referred to as the Mother Ocean, she who nurtures and destroys the lives of men. But deep down in every drunken sailor’s heart, they know that she is not their dear Mother Ocean, but a servant of evil thrown at them from

The Tattoos From Beauport

19

Davy Jones’s own hidden watery hellscape. The men feel the slickness of her tail as it slaps past their flailing legs. They hear the hiss right before her maw gnashes into their ribcage, letting the sailor’s body leak crimson blood into the icy darkness. There are never screams, and by morning all that can be found washed against the rocks are torn shreds of clothing. Recently, a young man has been found at the beach sketching the tattered pieces of cloth with a look of wonder in his eyes. This artist lies in fascinated ignorance as folks whisper about the unlucky misfortunes that have plagued this fishing town for centuries. She is known as the Beauport Beast, and though she was once considered a myth, she is all too real.

During the day she lazily circles the outskirts of the piers, staying hidden from any sailboats heading out for their next adventure. She stays away from the inland beaches of Beauport, as the risk of being seen is high. Though a young fresh meal there is the most delicious, the waters grow too clear and shallow to hide her hideous and jarring frame. Instead, yard upon yard of docks suit her tastes perfectly. She is able to hide within the shadows of the rocks and waves while she listens to the hustle and bustle on the shop crowded docks. There is a beauty to the constant noise that escapes Beauport.

The Beast of Beauport looked up from beneath the surface at the perfectly blue day. Not a cloud in the sky, and air so clear and still that she could hear the complaints of the people strolling on the creaky docks above her.

Someday, she hoped, the dock would break and unleash the ultimate feast, but at the same time she knew she’d miss the cacophony above her.

That was when the melon hit her.

Plop!

The melon knocked her back a few feet below the waves. Enraged, she propelled herself back to the surface to destroy the melon. No one usually threw fruit into the water, but when they did, it never hit her. On the surface of the water, the melon bobbed peacefully unaware of its impending demise, like the sailor from the night before. The beast clutched the melon with sharp claws, ready to end its simple existence, when she suddenly stopped.

This was no ordinary melon.

Etched onto the melon were small, intricate designs. Sharp black contrasted against the pale green of the melon in swirls and curls that depicted her Mother Ocean. While deeply fascinated with the discovery of a new fruit, another melon fell out of the sky and onto the Beauport Beast’s head again. She threw the first melon to the side and stared at the new offender. Like the first melon, this one was etched with even more designs, this time sharp, straight lines mimicking the dock around her. Then another melon came, and then another, and then another. Somehow, by some strange force, she was now surrounded by a sea of special melons. She swatted her

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Jacyln Withers

claws through the mass of bobbing fruit as it slowly began to push her back beneath the waves. Aggravated, the Beast let out a loud screech that became garbled by her own Mother Ocean, before she punched a melon back into the sky, where it had come from.

— In a small and newly rented studio on the docks of Beauport, an aspiring artist sat in his room with a horde of melons. He hastily etched tattoo ink into yet another fruit before he jolted off his chair from a sudden roar, followed by one of his practice melons hurtling back into the room. Startled, he looked outside to see a large shadow dive deep into the waters, followed by the splash of a tail before the noise of the docks drowned out the anomaly. He rubbed his eyes and stared down at the now still cerulean water, before deciding to close his window and practice tomorrow. The Mother Ocean clearly had a problem with his addiction to art, he thought.

The day went on in Beauport. Mothers on holiday returned to land from the seemingly exotic Beauport docks with damp, sticky-faced children in tow, and fathers carried their toddlers on soft but stiff shoulders. They retired from the docks and returned to rented homes for a stereotypical family meal.

On the docks, store owners thumbed through the piles of cash earned for the day, and prayed they broke even. The sun rested on the horizon for those last few minutes. As the final sign flipped to “Closed”, the sun sank deep down into the abyss. As if on cue, the rough salt-covered sailors paraded from the piers toward the taverns. Somewhere, in a small studio, Royce, the artist, left to go join in on the merriment.

He seated himself on the stool closest to the door and had a couple drinks of soda pop as he observed the drunken men swaying to the shanties created from their own stories. Royce jotted down notes in messy writing, deriving inspiration from the wild folklore told through foghorn voices of men only used to shouting over Mother Ocean’s wrath. In his past, the people of towns were weary of telling their folklore, but here in Beauport, sailors boomed of the things they saw on the sea, the horror stories of what existed out there in the deep….

“B —but we’ve got more issues roight ‘ere.”

“Argh, roight, the Bowport Beest!”

Royce paused in his writing and thought back to the incident from earlier in the day. He took a sip of soda pop to clear his rarely used voice, letting his mind wonder and wander about, as if for once in his life he had actually found a real monster to look at. Royce’s eyes widened at his sudden withdrawal from the conversation. “What’s this thing… I mean, ahem, can you tell me about the Beauport Beast?”

A sailor sitting next to him swiveled his stool around and looked Royce in the eye. The sailor’s teeth were mostly missing and the stench of gin had already escaped his mouth before he began to talk. “Aye, you must be

The Tattoos From Beauport

21

a newcomer. The Beest of Bowport eats sailers late at night. She exists, I tell ya.

I’ve…I’ve seen ‘er with me own eyes.”

As if on cue, other sailors began to react. They took swigs of their whiskey and rum before they tugged their salt-covered faces and fumbled to their own rehearsed routine.

“She ain’t no myth!”

“Fuck the inlanders an’ their lack of understanding…a beest can’t be real they says. She’s real, I tell ya. Very…. very real.”

“She’s probably out there roight now.”

Royce looked down at his notepad and grinned. The possibilities of a real monster stewed in his head. He’d never been able to reference a real monster before. Royce had tried in the past, but it always led to frauds and disappointments. If this Beast really did exist, not only would his search to sketch the supernatural have meaning, his illustrated books for reference were now useless. He scurried out of the tavern and ran to his studio to grab some ink and melons before stealing an abandoned dinghy on the beach.

Out in the darkness of the water he could see nothing, hear nothing.

Nothing seemed to be out there beside the endless indigo of the Mother.

Royce lit the dusty lantern at the bow of the dinghy to give himself comfort, but it only isolated himself further into the qualm of the unknown. Frustrated, he moved closer to the lantern’s glow and began to sketch on a melon. The lines were quick, jagged, and curving in ways that Royce despised. He held up his hand to stare at the way it shook, before looking off into the still water.

Royce placed his hand back on the melon before crashing his head down onto the fruit with a thud. He let out a groan and stabbed the melon with his pen a few times before hurling it into the ocean. Almost instantly the melon was chucked back into the boat and onto the Royce’s lap. His eyes darted between the sopping wet melon and the empty ocean, a feeling of doom bubbling in his gut.

“Hello?” he croaked. He began to trace his damp designs on the melon, noticing the sharp punctured claw marks that now covered the fruit’s shell.

He let out a barely audible gasp before he heard a small hiss come from out beyond the boat’s safety. Royce edged over to the source of the noise and looked over the side of the boat. Two fluorescent fishy eyes stared up at him.

A wheeze escaped his throat before he blinked twice. The eyes were still there.

And then came her face; a mostly human face. There were two eyes above a humanoid nose, followed by pink rose colored lips. Instead of ears, there were fins, and placed on her neck were gills. Her head was decorated with barnacles and a misplaced starfish hung onto her forehead. The Beast reached up a clawed hand and pushed herself more out of the water. Royce lurched back and shut his eyes. After a few moments of silence, he looked. Her skin was pale and reminded him of a polished melon sitting on a pedestal. He peered over the edge again to see the way the beast’s hips transformed

22

Jacyln Withers

into a mass of scales, how her smooth moonlit skin melded with jagged points that jabbed deep into the sea. By now, both claws were holding onto the dinghy and the two were face to face. With an uneasy smile, Royce lifted the melon towards the Beast as a gesture of peace.

The Beast peered down at the melon. Her eyes, unable to blink, stared at the fruit for what could have been five eye blinks before she moved her head closer. Royce quickly moved the soggy melon closer to the Beast to give her a closer look at his art, only to hit her in square in the head. She let out a loud hiss. Her claws dug deep so deep into the dinghy that a loud crack could be heard. Royce jolted back. He thrusted his body to the opposite side of the boat as the Beast glared at him. Yet she did not lurch forward. Instead, she waited with bared fangs and claws that dug deeper into the dinghy, her eyes occasionally glancing down at the melon.

Royce scrambled to his small, pen-shaped motor-powered tattoo machine that was rolling on the boat’s floor. He jabbed the machine into empty pale space on the melon while glancing up at the beast. After a few moments, Royce carefully turned around the soggy, wobbly melon to show to her. She let out a small gasp and lurched herself forward to see that the melon now possessed an image of her face. She shook her barnacle covered head and attempted to scramble further into the boat, which began to tip.

“Woah, woah, woah, wait!”

The Beast stopped and looked up at Royce, who was clinging to the boat as it propelled into the sky. Carefully, she placed her weight off the boat and back into the ocean and stared silently at Royce. He inched back closer to the Beast and held the melon a reasonable distance away from her.

“This, this is you…uhm. Do you like it? Do you—do you even understand English?”

She grabbed the melon out of Royce’s hands. He let out a shriek as her claw ripped into his hand and let fresh blood drip into the boat. Startled, the Beast sunk into the ocean with the melon.

“My melon! I mean—don’t leave! Ah, uhm... wait! Do you want me to give you a tattoo? Like the melon has?”

The melon plopped back into the boat followed by the Beast’s torso yet again sticking out from the water. She pushed her left shoulder closer to the boat and stared at it before she looked back to Royce. Hesitantly, he grabbed his tattoo pen and pressed it against her shoulder. She flinched and hissed in pain as he worked, but managed not to tip over the boat. Finally, Royce removed his pen and there on her arm was her friend, the Kraken. She let out a distorted laugh and flopped back into the deep indigo ocean. Royce sat still in his dinghy for a few moments. He listened to the waves that nudged rhythmically against the pier before he slowly headed back to shore.

— From there, day after day, Royce would sketch a singular design on his

The Tattoos from Beauport

23

melons. He would chuck each one into the ocean below until a melon would be chucked back up into his studio. The melon would be placed on a small rickety chair, sopping wet. It slowly dripped onto the towels placed underneath the chair. At night, Royce would grab the now dry fruit and wander off to the abandoned dinghy. After he rowed out into the darkness he would chuck the melon into the unknown and wait for the Beast to appear before the boat.

Day by day, her moonlit skin blended more into the darkness of the ocean that surrounded them. Illustrations of waves covered her shoulders and a shark jaw was etched across her chest. One day, the Beast arched her torso into the dinghy so that Royce could draw a ship being split in two, sinking deep into a vortex of scales with tentacles curving above it. A compass rose soon followed the drawing below the hull of the doomed ship, with south pointing deep into the Mother Ocean and north to the rickety old docks above the Beast. Soon every inch of pale skin was detailed in nautical imagery. Only the Beast’s face remained that pale glow that looked more and more like the moon. Royce one day tried to etch an anchor on her round face, but she hissed and snapped her maw at him. With no room left, Royce stopped throwing melons out of the window, and the dock town’s activity resumed as it normally had.

Royce’s next project instead used a large piece of parchment. He sat in front of it, pen in hand, and worked on the paper daily. Slowly, the pale paper bled darkness onto its page and started to mirror the image of the Beauport Beast. She posed on the page in an elegant manner, shifting her body to curve up and out of the water, as she had done so many nights in the darkness for Royce. He gave her a fierce snarl, one tooth extending out onto her face more than the others. Her eyes were drawn as slits with her barnacle eyebrows arching violently down. Above her head Royce wrote, ‘Tattoos of Beauport,” and hung the parchment on the window facing the docks.

Tourists would look up from day to day, as summer cooled into fall, and admire the picture. A Kodak would sometimes be pulled from a large purse and the sound of a click could be heard. Children would scream in terror at the image and sing of the beast that glowed patterns in the darkness. At night before heading to the taverns, a few sailors would look up at the image, sobering, and wondering where Royce got the inspiration to draw her like that.

They also noticed, as their sailboats pulled into the pier against the orange glow of the setting sun of autumn, a large shadow that glistened oddly in the darkness, her skin telling tales of the Mother Ocean and her many horrors.

ABBY MCAULIFFE SCIENCE FICTION

A STRAIN OF

RARITY

Abby McAuliffe is a junior Writing, Literature, and Publishing major at Emerson College. When she’s not explaining why Deep Space Nine is the best Star Trek series, she can be found reading comic books and drinking too much tea. She plans to one day return to her home planet.

B

ianca struggled to pry herself out of the mangled shell of her stolen spacecraft. Taking a moment to rest, she cursed her luck at crashing on the least-developed moon in the system. Imogen was quaint and picturesque, with towns few and far between; not the ideal place for someone looking to make a quick getaway. Bianca rallied herself to try again and this time succeeded in extricating herself from the warped metal that had once been flightworthy. Her boots hit the rocky beach and she realized it could have been worse: she could have landed in the ocean. Bianca took inventory of her injuries; fortunately, they were nothing serious, but it was enough to make life difficult. She shifted her attention to the moon itself, cautiously moving further inland. The dark of night forced her to strain her eyes to make out the trees in the distance.

A harsh clang came from behind her. Acting on instinct, she spun around and drew her blaster. The noise had come from the crashed spaceship.

A small figure climbed out of the wreck, its metal protesting each movement.

Bianca hadn’t been alone, and she had sinking feeling she knew who had stowed away on her ship.

Still aching from the crash, Bianca levelled her blaster at the girl who now stood across from her on the shore, aware that her injuries put her at a greater disadvantage. She had been able to escape, but now her hope of clearing her name was quickly dwindling in the face of the prison’s most enigmatic convict. The crash hadn’t killed her, but this girl — if she could still be called that — certainly could. But, disgraced or not, Bianca was an officer of the Coalition Security Forces.

“Under Central Coalition law, I’m placing you, Drea, under arrest for escaping the Praxis Confinement Center.”

A Strain of Rarity

27

Drea just laughed. “On what authority? You’re not exactly a Coalition officer anymore, Bianca. And you escaped from Praxis same as I did!”

“You think I’m going to just let someone as dangerous as a mind reader go?”

The girl shrugged blithely.

“Stop playing games. You know everything I’m thinking, don’t you, Drea?

I know who are, what you can do.”

“The Coalition isn’t on your side, Bianca, but I could be.”

“I’m not about to ally myself with a convicted criminal,” Bianca said.

“I’m the only one who knows your partner framed you.”

“What are you getting at?” Despite Bianca’s newfound freedom, her former partner’s betrayal was as painful as ever.

“You’ve seen my case file,” Drea continued. “When I was on the run, I evaded capture for a year before the Coalition caught me. I wanna break my record, and you have inside knowledge. Neither of us will make it far off this moon by ourselves. You help me stay free and I’ll help you find your partner. With my abilities, clearing your name will be so much easier.”

— As Bianca searched the landscape for electric lights, the outlines of buildings against the night sky, or any other indication of some sort of settlement, she looked back on her deal with Drea and wondered if she had made the right choice.

“Yes, this is the right choice,” Drea said. “I can help you prove your innocence.”

Bianca glared at the girl. Despite the time they had spent together, she still hadn’t gotten used to Drea verbally responding to unspoken thoughts. “Stop reading my mind, got it?”

“I didn’t— It’s not ‘reading’….” She gestured futilely. “It sounded like you were talking to me. Aloud.”

“Whatever. The point is, we need to make it to civilization, or the next best thing here, and get ourselves a ship. I’m trying to hold up my end of the bargain. It’s night and we don’t know where we are or where to go.”

Drea was quiet for a few moments. She cocked her head like a bird, eyeing the darkened landscape for something Bianca couldn’t see.

“I know which way to go.”

“How?” Bianca had read the mind reader’s case file back when she was in the academy, when Drea was still newly arrested, but she couldn’t remember any mention of preternatural navigation. Drea had managed to evade capture for over a year, though; maybe she had learned a thing or two.

“I can hear people,” Drea tapped her temple.

“From this far away?”

“I can’t pick up on individual thoughts from this great a distance,” she explained. “It’s like… it’s like a buzz. A sizeable group of people living together, with all their emotions and thoughts… if you were like me, it would be hard to miss.” She pointed toward the outline of a hill. “We should go that way.”

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Abby McAuliffe

“I doubt a town here will have a spaceship, or even any type of land transport,” Bianca mused.

Drea shrugged. “But they could at least tell us where to go to get what we need. They’ll know their moon better than we do.”

Bianca was loath to admit that she was right. She had conceded to the partnership, but she wasn’t fond of taking instruction from a teenage convict.

She was still the authority here.

There was no input from Drea, so she was either respecting Bianca’s demand for privacy, or tactfully refraining from comment. Bianca had a sneaking suspicion that it was the latter, which only irritated her further.

“Fine, we’ll go your way. You first.”

— The moon’s terrain was unforgiving, particularly at night. The stars provided just enough light for the pair to make educated guesses about where they were placing their feet, but concealed many hazards. The landscape was mostly rock, but the stone was frequently interrupted by brambles sprouting from the crevices or, worse, grikes, which proved to be the greatest impediment to their progress. They each ended up with scraped shins, bruised calves, and abused ankles. Fortunately, they soon felt a dirt road beneath their feet. They were on the right track.

— Bianca found herself rolling her eyes yet again. Drea was constantly running ahead to pick wildflowers whose colors couldn’t be divined in the dark and then falling behind as she plucked off the petals one by one with a disturbing intensity. A few times Bianca caught her testing out the sharpness of thorns with her own fingertips, stopping only when blood began to flow down her hand. She would skitter off the road and disappear in the shadows, only to emerge moments later with a shiny rock or gnarled stick. At first this behavior made Bianca’s hand fall to her blaster, but Drea discarded the items as quickly as she picked them up, her interest scattering.

“Sorry,” she’d mutter after bumping into Bianca’s back, her eyes still transfixed by the starkness of tree limbs against the night sky.

Bianca found it all rather commonplace. She had flown by Imogen many times on her way to more interesting and important places; it was a blip on a map, nothing more. She didn’t see much worth looking at, even in daylight.

“Haven’t you seen flowers and rocks before?” she asked in annoyance.

Drea dropped the naked stem she was holding. “It’s been a while. Do they have flowers on your planet?”

“My planet?”

“Yeah, where you’re from?”

“Not as many wildflowers, but my parents have a garden.”

“That sounds nice.” She sounded almost wistful. Drea moved ahead again, leaving Bianca to wonder what she was after.

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29

As they continued on, the stars began to fade away. Bianca could see a greater distance in front of her as the sky morphed into a different shade of blue and tendrils of light appeared over the horizon. However, the rapidly approaching day seemed to slow Drea down. Her gaze was on the ground instead of the sky and her hands rubbed at both of her eyes. The second time she had to wait for her companion to catch up, Bianca broke their truce of silence.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I don’t know,” Drea responded. She wiped at her left eye and her unoccupied hand twitched.

They continued at a slower pace, but the issue only seemed to worsen.

By the time the sun rose into view, Drea gave a sudden shriek and fell to her knees, her hands cupped protectively over her face.

“I can’t see! I can’t see!”

Bianca dropped to her side. “Look, just calm down —” “I’m not just being dramatic! I can’t…”

Bianca couldn’t be bothered to scold the kid for reading her thoughts now.

She couldn’t think of what was affecting Drea’s eyesight. If there had been something wrong with her, other than the telepathy, the scientists at Praxis would have figured it out long ago — Praxis.

“When was the last time —” “Before I was arrested,” Drea cut in, still hunched over.

That was four years ago.

No wonder the girl couldn’t bear the daylight; she hadn’t seen any sun since she was ten. Bianca recalled the harsh artificial light of Praxis and the confines of its cells.

“Is it permanent?” There was only a slight tremor in Drea’s voice.

“No, it shouldn’t be.”

She relaxed a fraction.

“Here,” Bianca removed her jacket and manhandled Drea’s arms into the sleeves. Reading her intention, Drea allowed Bianca to help her into the jacket, backwards. Bianca flicked the hood up so it covered Drea’s face. Light still filtered in through the material and from the back, but Drea’s eyes would be shielded from direct sunlight.

“Your eyes should adjust soon, but until they do…” Bianca said, standing up once more.

“Thank you,” Drea also stood, though with more caution.

Bianca had to fight the urge to laugh at the comical figure the dangerous fugitive cut with a backwards jacket.

“How do I look?” Drea asked, a note of teasing in her voice. She had been listening in.

“Let’s keep moving.”

—

30

Abby McAuliffe

They walked for a couple hours in verbal silence, but Bianca couldn’t shake the feeling that Drea was using the opportunity to rifle through her thoughts.

“We’re getting close,” Drea said. In the elapsed time, her eyes had adjusted enough for the hood to be removed, but she still squinted at the world around her.

“How close?” Bianca was eager to progress to civilization, but encountering other people stirred up potential problems.

“There’s a house that’s near enough that I can hear individual minds. It seems like they would help us.”

Bianca opened her mouth to question further, but Drea saved her the breath.

“It’s a mother and three, no, four children.” Her brow furrowed. “And you don’t want me to go with you.”

“It would be better for all of us if you just waited for me here.”

“I don’t want —I’m not going to hurt them.”

Tell that to the last kid you met.

The thought had risen unbidden in Bianca’s mind, but there was no taking it back now. Drea met her gaze. Bianca tried very hard to clear her mind, but her thoughts kept returning to how quickly she could draw her blaster.

“That was not my fault,” Drea said. She was completely still and hadn’t broken eye contact. It made Bianca both more afraid and more enraged than any emotional outburst would have.

“You put a kid, a thirteen-year-old kid, into a coma,” Bianca accused. “And then you ran.”

“I was a kid, younger than him and his friends. Nobody ever remembers that.”

“Kids don’t have freakish mind powers! Kids don’t make other kids brain dead!”

“You know this from what, reading the reports? I was there. I know what happened.”

Bianca laughed harshly. “Like I can trust what you say.”

“What about what I saw?”

“What?”

Drea lifted her hands to her head. “I can show you.”

Bianca pulled her blaster from her belt and pointed it squarely at Drea.

“That’s not going to happen!”

Drea regarded the weapon with a tired indifference. “I think you should put that away.”

“You just back up, alright? Reading my mind is one thing, but you’re not gonna put anything in my head.”

“Sorry, Bianca.”

Before she could say another word, Bianca’s world fell away. Drea disappeared, as did the sound of bushes rustling in the wind, the road beneath her feet, and Bianca’s grip on her blaster. It was all replaced with a sudden rush of garbled sensation. There were the sounds of people, snatches of conversation that gave way to particles of thought. Through the swirl, Bianca realized that

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she was hearing the surrounding world, all at once. Bianca tried to latch onto a particular memory in a desperate bid to stay afloat. There was a bright white and the pricking of needles with panic, a log cabin accompanied by the smell of pine. Suddenly, it all stopped. Everything was blurry and impressionistic, but all-encompassing. Bianca could feel tears slide down her cheeks as she saw a door slam closed. She was trapped inside a closet; it was dark and small and so was she. She knew then, as she had always known, that this was the orphanage where she had grown up— But, no, she was Officer Bianca Diaz and she had been raised by her parents on Belari and this didn’t belong to her— Laughter came from the older children on the other side of the wall, the ones who had put her there.

Their eyes were always open for weakness and she was strange and alone and could be hit, or kicked, or locked away without consequence. There was a shift, but the same children’s hands were on her, their thoughts surrounded her, and the same door was in front of her. She felt her limbs lashing out, landing only glancing blows as fingernails bore into her flesh, and then her mind lashed out too. She remembered all the times this had happened before when caretakers were facing away. But, no, she was—All the desperation that was inside came pouring out. And the hands were gone and the pulsing minds around her were all afraid, except there was one less than there used to be. A body was there, but its mind was gone and she could taste bile in the back of her throat, and everything else vanished.

Bianca opened her eyes. She was met with the dirt of the road, now embedded in her fingernails. She was on all fours; her blaster had fallen beside her. Drea was standing nearby, but breathing heavily.

“That was… more than I anticipated,” she murmured, almost to herself.

She turned her attention back to Bianca. “You understand now, don’t you?”

Bianca pieced her sense of self back together. Her memories and emotions were her own once more, but she still struggled to process the sheer amount of information she had experienced in Drea’s memories. This only further proved how dangerous Drea was. She had been a victim, sure, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a threat. She lacked discipline. Even when she was in control, she had used her power to circumvent all of Bianca’s defenses. The last person to do that had been her partner— her former partner.

“No, no, no. You can’t think that,” Drea said. “Why can’t you understand?”

Bianca took a step back, trying to reconcile this desperate girl with the cold mind reader unfazed by threats and the scared child locked in a closet.

Sometimes Drea seemed like no more than a child; prison wasn’t known to be beneficial for development. But a darker, more mature side seemed to have emerged due to her exposure to the minds of so many.

“You need to calm down,” Bianca said, in her best negotiation voice.

“You want to leave; you can’t; we need each other—” “I’m not going to leave.” Drea was a danger to herself— and others; Bianca wasn’t going to leave.

LAURA RODGERS

GOTHIC HORROR

INSIPID Laura Rodgers is a junior in the Writing, Literature, and Publishing major with a minor in History. She’s just a small town girl living in Boston. When she isn’t playing video games, she’s immersed in some book that she’s been trying to finish for a year. She’s a morning person so automatically she’s insane. Cats and coffee are her favorite things.

C

harles Rousseau hated dessert. Sour gummies, chocolate fudge, anything artificial or sickly sweet made him grimace. He had been gone for only one week and returned to his kitchen, his beautiful black marble kitchen, in the middle of a war. Piles of sugary sweet and tart goodies towered over his gleaming toaster oven. Packets of rainbow colored sticks sprawled inside his sterling silverware drawer. Stale fortune cookies were thrown carelessly to the back of the fridge. The island had ants pillaging a pile of melting chocolate chips. His shadow detached from his feet and leaned against the island as it inspected its nails. Its form was constantly flowing, like mist wafting above a mountain on a cool October morning.

You leave for one week and this is what he does, the shadow said inside Charles’s mind. The voice of the creature sounded like many voices at once, like the last part of an echo that Charles didn’t hear from the beginning.

“I know. He never does anything around here anymore,” Charles huffed as he pulled paper towels from under the sink. His luggage had hardly touched the tiled floor before he had to fix everything. The shadow had been very clear with its demands. Charles was still in shock that he had agreed to do the unthinkable; however, the fact that he had agreed said a lot about how Charles felt about his life. A clock with a spoon and fork for its hands chimed four times. It didn’t take long for Charles to dump the remains of the plastic casualties into the trash and wipe the countertops. He set out ant traps, but in South Carolina it was hard to get away from pests. He doesn’t even respect your kitchen, his shadow whispered as it snaked around his neck. It felt like the physical representation of how a TV turns to black and white static. Charles brushed the shadow off, the creature returning to pool into the floor. It was

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35

always leaning against something, but the size of it was always shifting. The back of his neck felt like tiny needles were being punched into it, like when his foot sometimes fell asleep. Let me eat him, the shadow moaned. Charles’s cheeks grew hot, and his hands began to shake. Ignore it, ignore it. Sweat beaded down his forehead as he excavated moldy take out boxes out of the fridge. A loud bam from the front of the house made Charles jump. The grey mass sucked back to its position at his feet.

“Muffin! You’re back,” Mateo said as he waltzed into the kitchen, obviously hiding something behind his back.

Charles had always disliked that nickname. Muffins were too close to cupcakes. Mateo wore jean shorts and a t-shirt with some local band on the front. His black hair was slicked back, either from hair gel or sweat.

Charles could never tell. As Charles knelt to return the paper towels, he felt his colored shirt peel away from his sticky back. He’d have to fix their air conditioner soon, before summer came in full force. But we’re not staying for very long, the shadow sang in a sing-song tune. Charles shook his head silently, refusing to look down and see the creature. Charles stood and thumped onto the counter stool.

“Well, I have a surprise for you! I went peach picking and I was thinking we could make a pie,” Mateo said as he stood across from him. Mateo pretended to slam the groceries, along with a bag of fresh peaches, on the island. At the last second, he stopped the motion and delicately put them down.

“Every week with you about pies. I don’t feel like cooking today. Please tell me you haven’t been binge eating sugar since I left? You said you were going to cut back on the sugar.” Charles said as he crossed his arms. Disregarding his tone as usual, Mateo began unpacking the reusable cloth bags. His fiancé smirked. Charles almost smiled, remembering their first date. That grin had made him forget about puking bad sushi all over Mateo’s shoes.

Yeah, don’t want to ruin the meat, the shadow said, its voice sounding more high pitched.

“You were in Quebec for a week, and you know I can’t help myself,” Mateo said as he wagged his eyebrows. He bit into a peach, the juices dribbling down his chin. Mateo wiped his mouth with the bottom of his t-shirt. Did he not notice the napkin pile next to the fridge? Charles tapped his fingers on the cool marble and forced himself to count to ten. He really does treat you like garbage, just like those judges did. Now that I’m here, I’ll make you the best cook in the world, the shadow said as it ballooned itself to look exactly like Mateo.

Charles almost thought about quitting their deal right then and there. But he thought about Robert, and the anger returned.

“I know you don’t feel like cooking, but why don’t I make your famous homemade spaghetti dinner to cheer you up?” Mateo said. The shadow floated up to the ceiling, spreading its grey form as if it were starfishing onto a bed.

36

Laura Rodgers

“Listen, we both know you can’t cook to save your life,” Charles said as he frowned at the mess of peach juice. His foot slipped on the rung, and his shiny shoes kicked the island cupboards. “I don’t know why I bothered to try and teach you. You can’t even make premade cookies. No wonder my cooking show was rejected.”

Mateo immediately gasped, leaned over the island, and kissed him.

Charles’s jaw tingled as he tasted the sweet juices on Mateo’s lips. As the kissing continued, something lower tingled. Could Charles really do this?

Could he do the unthinkable to the one man he had ever loved? Charles pulled away and grabbed his forgotten bag off the floor, placing it gently next to the sleek black stove. He felt Mateo’s eyes on his back. He doesn’t love you anymore. Don’t get distracted now, you made me a deal, it chuckled. Or did you already forget the road to fame is coated in blood?

“Anyway, I’ll get the sauce simmering,” Charles said as he gulped.

Charles heard Mateo sigh and retreat down the hall as he unzipped his leather bag. A minute later the shower turned on, accompanied with loud music in Spanish. Charles remembered slow dancing to that same song when Charles proposed. The dinner they had was delicious. Slowly, reaching underneath the binder of his family recipes, Charles pulled out a thin black case. He opened it, quickly looked in the direction of the bathroom, and pulled out a cleaver.

— “You definitely know how to cook, Muffin. Shit smells seriously good,” Mateo said as he came out of their bathroom in a clean white undershirt and basketball shorts. It was close to five o’clock now. I bet he didn’t leave any hot water for you, the shadow said. Charles knew he would find a wad of hair in the drain later. He stirred the homemade red sauce, licked the spoon, and added a few more shakes of salt. The shadow, perched on the counter next to the pot, frizzled its form, and a long misty tentacle reached across the kitchen and pointed to the sugar.

“I try,” Charles said as he begrudgingly retrieved the sugar.

“Next Monday, I’m building more houses down Strathmore Road. People are just buying them up! Doesn’t even matter that they all look the same and stink of new paint,” Mateo said.

“That’s great, darling,” Charles said as he carefully drained the vat of pasta. Steam wafted up into his face and he felt his pores opening. No matter what, cooking always relaxed him. Only now did he have the help he needed to become famous and start over. Mateo set the table then hugged Charles from behind as he shook water from the colander. Do you think he hugged his other boyfriend like that while you were gone? the shadow said and made a noise that sounded like gasping. Charles did not know if it could laugh. It had only been with him for two days, and, while it terrified him, he was at the end of his rope. He didn’t know someone, or something, had

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been listening when he thought to himself that he would do anything to be successful again.

“I’m sorry the producers didn’t like your show. At least you got to visit your family up north,” Mateo said as he tightened his arms around Charles’s stomach. That’s the lie you told him? Clever boy. Charles could feel his eyelid twitching. Charles wiped his hands on the apron Mateo’s grandmother handcrafted for him.

“Everyone was happy to see me. I’m just glad my brother offered me a chance to pitch to his producers,” Charles said. Yeah, he felt bad that you’ve been unemployed for so long and that your entire relationship is a sham, the shadow said. He raised his eyebrows and stared as Mateo pretended to be a ninja and snuck a spoonful of sauce.

“Sauce is done!” Mateo grinned. “Ow, burned my tongue.”

“Never patient, are you?” Charles muttered. The last steps of the meal were taken care of. Garlic bread was taken out of the oven and cut into slices. The everyday silverware was placed across from each other on the table. Charles served as Mateo nursed his mouth with ice water. Once seated, Charles admired his colorful plate. Doesn’t he look more delicious? the shadow purred as it enveloped Mateo’s head. Mateo didn’t react. Ignoring its voice, Charles delicately tasted his creation. He savored the noodles squishing under his molars, the spices pleasantly burning his tongue. Mateo inhaled his plate like he needed it to survive. Charles watched him, sipping on a glass of red wine that cost more than the entire meal put together. He tried to convince himself that it tasted better than the five dollar wine he bought in college.

As he stared at the love of his life, regret entered his mind again. He knew what he had to do, and yet he still hesitated. In exchange for incomprehensible skill, you must cook anything I desire, remember? the shadow had whispered in his ear. Charles knew he should feel hot breath on his ear, but it was just another reminder that this thing was otherworldly. His jaw tingled and he felt his meal threaten to make a reverse appearance. Mateo glanced up curiously as Charles excused himself. He rushed into the kitchen around the corner, silencing a cry as he banged his hip against the island. Charles gripped the edge of the black marble counter. The peaches had been placed next to an empty pie dish. His stomach churned. Could he really do this? The walls around him were crowded with pictures of their trip to Europe and family Christmas cards. You know what will happen if you go back on your word, the shadow said as it grew much bigger, filling up the walls of the kitchen until Charles could only see black and grey swirling around him.

“What are you doing, Muffin?” Mateo called out.

His shaking hands let go of the counter. Charles felt nothing. The pain in his hip was gone. The counter swayed in front of him. Suddenly, Charles grabbed a huge peach from the top of the bag and strode into the dining room. He didn’t stop, didn’t make a noise as he rounded the mahogany table.

38

Laura Rodgers

Mateo’s eyes grew as big as dinner plates. Charles would make him pay for all the pain he had caused.

Every bit of strength went into his fist as Charles shoved the peach into Mateo’s mouth. Mateo’s arms flung up from surprise. Mateo gripped Charles’s biceps as he gurgled. Tearing, scratching through his shirt. Charles just pushed harder. The chair collapsed backwards. They landed in a pile beside the chair, Charles’s full weight on Mateo’s chest and shoulders. Mateo kicked wildly, his muscular body failing to pure panic. Mateo’s screams couldn’t escape his throat but Charles felt the vibrations below his knees. He could feel his lover’s jaw resist and wondered if it would break under his weight. Yes! Yes! the shadow screamed, a thousand voices screamed as it zoomed around him.

“I know about Robert,” Charles grunted, “I thought I was your only one!”

Mateo’s nails were slicing into his arms, tearing at his flesh, but Charles was filled with a dark strength. With his dominant left hand, he continued to push the peach, ignoring Mateo’s teeth scraping his fingers. The yellow juices trickled onto the wooden floor. With his right, he held down Mateo’s right arm. The cleaver! the shadow cried out, sounding almost breathless.

Tears welled up in Charles’s eyes. All he could think was how Mateo looked in the morning, his brown eyes warm and comforting, and how he hid his face whenever Charles complimented him. They had been so happy.

“Wasn’t I enough?” Charles choked.

His hold loosening, Mateo rolled their bodies to the side. Charles’s head narrowly missed the table leg. Mateo was on top of him now, his eyes full of adrenaline. As you wish! the shadow shouted, Charles’s ears ringing. Like a tornado, the grey formless creature began to swirl. Mateo looked up and started to scream. The shadow dove down Mateo’s throat so violently that Charles thought his lover’s neck broke as his head shot backwards.

After a moment, Mateo slowly moved his head to look at Charles below him. His pupils were so large his eyes looked black. A smile crept over his face. A lightning crack of pain shot through Charles’s jaw. His vision blurred, the light blue walls swirling around him. Hot, iron tasting blood filled his mouth. Charles felt the weight shift off of him, then a distant, familiar click. The last thing he saw was a grinning Mateo running at him as he swung a cleaver.

— Police were called in for a welfare check due to the disappearance of Mateo Arias and Charles Rousseau. Mateo had missed several work days, and when his family had been contacted, they claimed he had made no contact. Charles Rousseau’s family claimed they had not seen him since Christmas.

Lacking any theories, two officers paid a stop at Mr. Rousseau’s house.

They knocked on the door. No response. One looked through a cracked window. He gagged, almost spilling his breakfast on the perfectly trimmed

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hedges. Taking that as probable cause to enter, they broke down the door.

One officer called out the names while the other rounded the living room corner, hand precariously hovering above her holster.

Everything appeared normal until they entered the dining room. The first to enter, the cautious one, surveyed the scene and shook her head.

The second, seeing the display of gore, ran outside the house. She heard him heaving again.

“Assistance is needed at the Rousseau residence. Definitely a murder,” she said into the phone. “Gonna need medical over here ASAP. I think the victim is Mr. Rousseau.” She pulled her pistol out, and swept the rest of the house.

No trace of Mr. Arias remained.

Medical arrived, and the scene was secured. The cause of death had been identified as a cleaver splitting the head in two. One detective commented that the strength a human would need to do that was remarkable. The kitchen and dining room were coated with blood. The body had been cut into pieces and cooked in the oven. All of the chairs and table decorations had been cleared except for one. The pieces of cooked flesh were arranged like a basket on a large silver platter, the two halves of Mr. Rousseau’s head right in the middle. The teeth had been removed and decorated around the handle made of flesh. A peach had been placed in the mouth, the fruit split in two to reveal the pit. A note card had been placed in front of the hideous display, with only one word written. Dessert.

Ensuring the families that Mr. Arias would be caught soon was difficult.

His car was found abandoned three states over. His credit cards and ID’s were in the glove box. A thin black case was found in the trunk. The foam imprint of the meat cleaver was empty, with two gold rings left inside.

EARTH ALLISON RASSMANN SCIENCE FICITION

SONG

Allison Rassmann writes about the people the world would be better off forgetting. She has been published in Generic Magazine, Gauge, and Stork Magazine, and is the Editor in Chief of Stork Magazine. Her collection of short stories, “Under Floorboards, Under Skin”, is published by Wilde Press. She resides in Chelmsford, MA.

W

e were about to pass through the giant, hulking doors of Lifeboat when my sister grabbed my shoulders and said, “Listen, sis. Anything could happen in there. Don’t freak out. Be calm, look like you’re supposed to be there, and nothing bad will happen. And if they pull one of us aside for any reason, don’t look back.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because the moment you look back, they know you’re lying, too. If they’re going to catch us, the least we can do is give the other a chance.”

She gave my shoulders a squeeze and walked through the doors, chin held high. I tried to hold mine that way, too, but it felt like my neck was exposed and waiting for the knife.

Lifeboat was massive beyond comprehension, but it was still packed with people being herded in and out of security lines, baggage checks, and loading docks. The oxygen aeration units were turned to the max to stifle the odor of sweat and metal, but it made the air feel sticky and uncertain. And there were guards stationed everywhere—the crowd was a blur of color in the pure steel hangar, but the blue of their uniforms dominated like stars flooding the sky.

Dozens of hands rested lazily on stun guns and handcuffs. They were in every corner. When I closed my eyes, I could still see them watching me. It was a mess of order.

My legs were shaking. I blamed the gravitational field of the ship, but when I looked at Zae, hers were shaking too.

“Attention passengers. The transport to Colony 8 is now boarding,” an intercom above us boomed. “Those not present at boarding will be denied entry.”

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43

I followed Zae through the crowd, stumbling as people weaved in and out of every direction. I wanted her to take my hand like I was young again, but she had that determined look in her eyes, and my hands were full clutching my luggage bag and Pooka’s leash. Pooka wasn’t afraid of the crowd. He didn’t know the stakes. His tongue lolled in a smile as we shuffled into the line waiting at the first security gate.

“My feet hurt,” I mumbled.

“I know, babe,” she said, casting me a sympathetic look. “Hush now.”

From the way she shuffled her feet, I knew she felt the same. To pass the time, I pulled out my passport and lottery ticket. The lottery ticket was number 78159330, bound for Colony 13 out in the furthest reaches of the solar system. The best fake tickets had the Embassy logo in holographic ink when you held it up to the light. This one was a good fake. The passport had my photo and the name Rhett Axon. My name was not Rhett Axon.

The line was agonizingly slow. I wanted to sit down, but I couldn’t decide if it was something a normal person would do, so I didn’t. To keep my palms from getting sweaty, I stroked Pooka, combing the mats out of his soft white fur.

He nuzzled against me. People stared at him as they passed, and for a fleeting second I debated leaving him somewhere so that they wouldn’t question us, maybe a bathroom or an unused hangar, and know that his sacrifice allowed us to get away. As soon as I thought that, guilt wrenched me. Pooka had been a part of our family as long as I had. I clung to him in apology. I would never abandon him.

I tried to tell Zae this, but her attention was on the front of the line, where a man was arguing with the security officer. The officer had his lottery ticket and was holding it up to the light. He waved his hand and several other officers approached, one wielding a pair of handcuffs.

Suddenly the man in line bolted for the boarding area. He shoved his way past the first guard before another two tackled him, while a third whipped out an electric resistance-discouragement baton and hit him. The crowd watched as the dazed man was hauled to his feet in handcuffs and dragged past us, out the front entrance. Gradually the mumble of the crowd returned, and the man was forgotten.

“What will happen to him?” I whispered to Zae, who was still staring at the entrance. “Will they send him back earthside? They won’t just throw him out into space, will they?”

“I don’t know,” she said. I looked at my ticket again. It didn’t seem as secure as before.

I hugged Pooka for support, hoping Zae wouldn’t see my fear. But I felt a hand caress my head, stroking my hair.

“Don’t be scared. Remember the stories mom used to tell us? About the earth songs?” she said, her voice soft.

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Our mother worked in the silica mines. There was always a need for more silica to build more computer systems and to ship out to less habitable colonies. The work was hard and the pay wasn’t good, but we learned not to expect any better. Down in the mines, they’d dug so deep and the walls were so thin that cave-ins were more likely than ever. An unconfident blow would cause a wall to crumble rather than fall inwards, which often was the death of many teams.

The echoes were loud and the drills were louder. Talking was impossible.

Therefore, the only way they could communicate was with rhythm. The miners tapped their feet in time with their pickaxes, and when they saw a mistake about to happen, they’d change the rhythm as a warning. Faster meant strike harder. Slower meant slow down.

Cuddled together at night, I breathed in her smoky, tired scent while she tapped out the rhythm on our backs. “Don’t hesitate, girls,” she told us. “When the world is caving in, the only thing you can do is strike hard and fast.”

We were at the front of the line. Zae, acting as my legal guardian, beckoned me up with her. I guided Pooka with one hand and my suitcase with the other.

We presented our passports and lottery tickets together.

The officer who took them was a burly man with a long brown beard seated at a podium. He took the documents and peered at them with squinting eyes.

I was glad he did not look us in the eye, because I wouldn’t have been able to hold his gaze.

“Headed to 13, are ya?” he said. “Heard it’s a good time to move out there.

Not crowded yet. Lots of open space to start a homestead.”

Zae nodded, forcing a smile.

“I heard it snows up there,” I piped up. I had never seen snow. The idea excited me. From the corner of my eye, I could see Zae cringe.

But the officer chuckled. “Sure does. Hope you brought a nice winter jacket with you.” He scanned both our passports under a device that looked like a clip-on lamp, which beeped. My heart jumped. I was sure it was bad. I waited, but no guards came. The officer handed back our passports with a smile. But when he looked down at us, his hand stiffened.

“No dogs on the spacecraft,” he said, pointing at Pooka. I froze. I wanted to bury my face in his fur and cry. I’d go back earthside if it meant keeping Pooka by my side. But when I opened my mouth, no words came out. Going back now would mean leaving Zae all alone. I couldn’t abandon her, either.

When Zae looked back at me, her eyes were brimming with tears. But when she looked back at the officer, the tears were gone and determination flooded her eyes instead. She looked so old, my sister, though she was only eighteen, six years older than me. Not a child, but not an adult. I forgot that sometimes.

“He’s her service dog,” she said, gesturing at me. It was the same voice she used when lying to my parents whenever we got in trouble. “She’s blind.”

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I couldn’t breathe. When I felt the officer’s eyes on me, I did my best to keep my eyes unfocused, both looking at him and not looking at him at the same time. I didn’t blink so they watered and reddened. My hands dug into Pooka’s fur.

“Her passport didn’t say she had a disability,” he said.

“It happened too recently. Malnutrition.”

Her voice shook as she said it. It was a gutsy lie. Millions of people were starving every day—that was the whole reason everyone was leaving Earth.

But it wasn’t like blindness was a common side effect of hunger.

He watched me closely. I didn’t know what he was searching for. I sucked in my tummy, though there wasn’t much to suck in. I was malnourished already. He bent down, keeping his eyes at my level, and waved a hand in front of my face. The fingers danced across my glazed vision as I stared off into the distance. My eyes were watering. He sucked in a breath, puffed out his cheeks like he was about to blow in my eyes when someone behind me shouted, “Hey! What’s taking so long?”

Startled, he jerked up and barked at the person, “It’ll take how long it takes!” Despite this, his hands hurried to stamp and hand back our passports.

Zae reached for them and put mine in my hand. Pooka smiled and barked.

Zae thanked the officer, put her hand on my back, and guided me away.

We exhaled together. When we went through the metal detectors and body scanners, Zae helped me to remove my jacket and shoes, and though it kept up the ruse, I think she did it just to be a little closer to me.

“Attention passengers,” said the intercom. “The transport to Colony 10 is now boarding. Those not present at boarding will be denied entry.”

Everyone was trying to leave Earth at once. Massive floods and overpopulation had put a drain on resources: not enough food to go around.

So many people were headed for the Colonies that the world’s governments banded together to implement a lottery system; can’t leave earthside without a ticket. That worked at first, but then the officials started giving them all to friends and family, leaving no hope for the rest of us. The best anyone could hope for was to buy a fake on the black market. Our parents had saved for as long as I could remember to get two for Zae and I. The last time I saw them, they hugged me and promised they’d be following us soon. I knew better than to believe them.

We were almost through the scanners when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“You’ve been selected for a random security check,” someone behind me said.

They knew. I knew it. There was nothing I could do.

I expected Zae to jump to my defense. I was too little, she could argue.

There was no way I could be a criminal. But she didn’t even turn around.

Yet despite her vow she slowed down, almost stopped in the middle of the hallway to keep listening. Whatever they did to me, she would know, and she would not move on.

46

Allison Rassmann

I let myself be guided into a separate room, where a female officer was waiting. She wore purple latex gloves and glasses that made her eyes look too big. I remember thinking how she must be able to see everything with those glasses, even through me and my big lies.

The woman patted me down.

“Name, date of birth, and destination?”

“R-Rhett Axon, September 10th, 2386, and Colony 13.”

“All the way to 13? Any reason?”

“Because that’s what the lottery assigned me.”

“Traveling alone?”

I hesitated. The image of Zae turning away still lingered in my mind. My fists clenched. “Yes.” The woman stared at me. “You sure? You looked an awful lot like that other girl you were with.”

“What other girl?” The response came automatically. I was glad that I still had to act blind, because it meant I didn’t have to stare back. I could feel by her gaze that she wanted to ask where my parents were. We both knew times were too tough for those sort of questions. She gave my ankles a rough squeeze and straightened up again, then turned to Pooka and threaded her hands through his wild fur. He gave a happy bark.

The clock on the whitewashed wall ticked down the seconds. In ten more minutes, the spacecraft to Colony 13 would be taking off.

“Alright, you’re good to go,” she said as she peeled off the plastic gloves.

I sighed a breath I didn’t know I was holding in. Too afraid to move, I waited for more instructions. Only when she gave me a questioning glance did I stumble out of the room, letting Pooka guide me as I stared into nothing. As soon as no one was looking, I blinked my tired eyes and sighed.

This part of the station was quieter, less frantic as most passengers gained the confidence of knowing where to go and what to do. Most lounged around in stuffed chairs, waiting by their dock while the countdown to their departure was projected on the wall in vivid laser red. Many sat at a bar or one of the fast food restaurants. Everyone looked like they were killing time and, to my eyes, looked as if they too were avoiding the glances of the officers that patrolled every entrance and exit. Zae was nowhere to be seen.

I took a deep breath. Think. If I asked an officer for help, they’d know I wasn’t traveling alone. They might have spoken to the woman who interrogated me, and then I’d be caught in a lie. Same thing if I asked a stranger.

I looked around, then looked down at my ticket. The gate was nearby.

I looked over at one of the time displays. The shuttle would be boarding in six minutes.

Letting Pooka guide me, I wandered towards our gate with my head full of thoughts of Colony 13. My mother talked about it with reverence, as a legend or an age-old bedtime story. It was a magical place where everyone had wide,

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open space, and you could scoop up a handful of snow and drink and never be thirsty. The closest colony, 12, was millions of miles away, meaning you could be alone and at peace. When you shouted, it echoed, but in a different way than when your voice bounces down the city street, more like it went on and on forever. And because there was nothing built yet, you could always look up and see the stars.

Zae protested once. She had learned in school that 13 was barely a place, more like an outlying territory that had few resources, only what cargo ships from Lifeboat could bring in and what they struggled to grow themselves.

“No one goes to 13 because they want to,” she said. “They go to 13 because they don’t have the choice to go anywhere else.”

“You hush,” our mother said, and sealed the thought away with a kiss.

“Your classmates don’t understand what it’s like to live in this world yet.

Someday, when you’re riding far away, they’ll all look at you and be jealous.

Because you’ll be in a better place without them.”

I was halfway to our gate when I saw Zae sitting in one of the other terminals, wringing her hands. She caught my eye. I didn’t know if I was supposed to stop and acknowledge her or if that would get me in more trouble, so I kept walking. I never did know how to do things right.

Pooka pulled me towards her before I could stop him. Fortunately, she sprang up and wrapped me in a giant hug. As she cradled me, she whispered into my hair, “I’m so glad that you’re safe.”

She held me like that a long time. I could feel her chest tighten, like she was holding back sobs. Her hand kept tapping my back gently, like our mother used to do. I don’t know how, but somewhere in that moment it clicked that she could not have left me behind.

“Attention passengers. The transport to Colony 13 is now boarding. Those not present at boarding will be denied entry.”

“Come on,” Zae said, pulling away with a smile, “we’re almost to our new home.”

Hand in hand, we ran to our boarding gate, where several dozen people were already lined up and waiting. Outside a small porthole I saw our ship locked in to the loading dock. The earthshaking rumble of its engines startled me, even from inside. I couldn’t stop smiling, and even Pooka was wagging his tail. Thousands and thousands of miles away, Colony 13 waited.

One by one, the passengers shuffled over to the attendant, who took their tickets and scanned them while repeating the same phrases over and over.

“Have a nice trip,” she said. “Welcome aboard. Have a nice trip.” Each one nodded in turn and proceeded through an airlock tunnel to where the ship was open and waiting.

Halfway through the line I released Zae’s hand to pull out my ticket again.

When I went to grab hers again, she was looking straight ahead. With a calm but firm gesture she pushed me in front of her so we were no longer walking

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side by side. I wanted to protest, but it didn’t matter. We could be close again when we were on the ship.

At the front I handed the woman my lottery ticket. She scanned it under a laser sensor while I held my breath. It beeped.

“Have a nice trip,” she said, handing it back and patting Pooka on the head.

“Welcome aboard.”

I grinned, and just because I was feeling sure, I said, “Thanks, I will.”

I was halfway into the airlock tunnel when I realized I hadn’t heard the beep of Zae’s ticket being verified. Kneeling down and pretending to pat Pooka, I listened carefully as the attendant apologized about it not scanning properly. Zae forced a laugh, as if it was no big deal things were so far out of her control. Pooka whined and thumped his tail anxiously.

The attendant tried again and again before she thought to hold it up to the light. When she did, her eyes narrowed. She was caught.

“I’m sorry, would you mind stepping aside for one moment while we make sure this is a valid ticket?” the attendant asked. Zae smiled and nodded. Like she had a choice in the matter. Trying to run now would get her—well, who knew where? The vacuum of space?

Other passengers were passing me now as I crouched in the tunnel, hugging Pooka, afraid to make up my mind. If I ran and claimed Zae as my sister, would it help? Or would they throw me out just as easily? I didn’t turn around, but already I could heard the thick boots of approaching officers as Zae tapped her foot impatiently, as if willing all her nervousness out of her body.

No—not impatiently. She was tapping out a beat.

The earth songs.

Don’t look back.

Just strike.

My stomach lurched. She was telling me to go. My sister—already now she was being grabbed by the wrist—and I did not turn around. The dilemma surged back and forth in my mind until I thought of nothing at all.

In that moment, I disobeyed her rule. I couldn’t stop myself. I looked back.

When I did, I caught her eye, and she smiled. She was being hauled away back towards the interrogation offices. The officers hadn’t seen me yet. She mouthed one word to me: Strike.

With no more thoughts in my head, I turned and I did not look back again.

IN THIS ISSUE PATIENT ZERO by Kayla Cottingham A SHROUD OF WHITE by Sophia Uy THE TATTOOS FROM BEAUPORT by Jacyln Withers A STRAIN OF RARITY by Abby McAuliffe INSIPID by Laura Rodgers EARTH SONG by Allison Rassmann