PULP Issue 3 Part 3

PULP

ISSUE 003

TABLE OF CONTENTS It Happened in the Kitchen - Dimitri Ferraz the beach house - Edward Ahern backrooms - Kim Hayes The journey - Joel Glover Have you Ever? - Kayla Shawn Deceased As Is - Marco Etheridge kirkoff’s fingers - Michael W. Clark Stillness - Sam Zeimetz Realtor's Lament - George Wehrfritz

CONTRIBUTOR BIOS

Dimitri Ferraz (he/him) lives in Brazil and is currently studying law. He spends his free time listening to music, watching old Looney Tunes shorts and marveling at Goya's etchings. Some of his work can be found in Punk Noir Magazine.

Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He’s had about 500 stories and poems published so far, and ten books. Ed works the other side of writing at Bewildering Stories where he manages a posse of seven review editors, and as lead editor at Scribes Micro. https://www.facebook.com/EdAhern73/? ref=bookmarks https://www.instagram.com/edwardahern1860/ Kim lives and works in Chicago. Her day job is working for the Chicago Cubs. When she's not working or writing, she can be found playing fetch with the Feline Overlords.

Joel lives in the woods of Hertfordshire with two boys and one wife. In a house, not a nest.

He knows how that sounds. When not herding his two smøls to various extracurricular activities, or performing his powerpoint related day job functions, he writes and consumes caffeine (black, strong, if you’re asking). His grimdark novels "The Path of Pain and Ruin" and “Paths to Empires’ Ends” are available on Amazon, as is his fantasy novel “The Thirteenth Prince” and a collaborative project “Literary Footnotes”. He has been published by Nature:Futures, Epistemic Literary, foofaraw, Little Old Lady Comedy, Peasant Magazine, and Swords and Sorcery Magazine.

Kayla Shawn is a writer from small town West Virginia who has always had big dreams about writing stories. Inspired by writers like Katee Robert, Elsie Silver, and Ali Hazelwood, she loves love. She finds happiness in the weirdness of everyday life and enjoys living it with her two sons, husband, and Australian Shepherd.

Marco Etheridge is a writer of prose, an occasional playwright, and a part-time poet. He lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. His work has been featured in over one hundred reviews and journals across Canada, Australia, the UK, and the USA. His story “Power Tools” has been nominated for Best of the Web for 2023. “Power Tools” is Marco’s latest collection of short fiction. When he isn’t crafting stories, Marco is a contributing editor for a new ‘Zine called Hotch Potch. In his other life, Marco travels the world with his lovely wife Sabine.

Michael W. Clark is a former research biologist, a college professor turned writer with sixty short stories published. Most recently his stories have appeared in UC Berkeley’s Imaginirarium, Black Heart Magazine, Altered Reality, Infernal Ink, Piker Press, Frontier Tales, Half hour to kill, and CommuterLit.com. I also have stories in these anthologies: Fat Zombies, Creature Stew, Gumshoe Mysteries, Future Visions Vol. 3, Nightmares, Delusions and Waking Dreams, and Devils We Know. January through March 2019, his sci fi adventure Novella, The Last Dung Beetle appeared in www.serialpulp.com. It was rated 4.5 on Goodreads. He is the editor and content provider for the web site www.ahickshope.wordpress.com Sam Zeimetz is an aspiring science fiction and horror author with an interest in strange, incomprehensible circumstances that makes the reader question how they would act in place of the characters. With a special fascination in twist-endings, Sam hopes to shock, confuse, but ultimately entertain those who read his stories.

George Wehrfritz is a recovering journalist who lives in Salinas, California. He began writing short fiction during the pandemic. His recent stories have appeared in Tales of the Unreal, No. 3 (Unreal Press), Spoon Knife 8 (Autonomous Press), Coffin Bell Journal (Issue 7.2, Multiverses) and 34th Parallel (Issue 119). He enjoys big home improvement projects and sailing small boats with California’s oldest micro cruising club, the Potter Yachters.

IT HAPPENED IN THE KITCHEN DIMITRI FERRAZ

TRIGGER WARNING - SUICIDE AND STILLBIRTH

Mrs. Jones unhooks the telephone: “Mama” is gonna call today.

She sniffs her linoleum nails, scented kerosene, and hums along with the house. She gets up from her chair, her heels like an extension of the bright lazuli tiles of the kitchen and looks for her wedding ring. She looks in the trash can. She looks in the empty liquor cabinet. She shrugs. She goes to the staircase, walks up a few steps, then remembers there’s nothing upstairs if Mr. Jones doesn't go first. You'll have to wait, Mrs. Jones. You can't bother him when he's at work. Her face saddens.

Mrs. Jones dials, impatient. There’s an itch of gossip in her mouth, but she makes sure to reprise the first rule in her head: never monopolize the conversation. She sits down, hand on her chin, wondering what news to tell.

"I'm getting married!". That was years ago, Mrs. Jones. She rolls her eyes, pulls out a pocket mirror from her apron like a cigarette. "Well, the honeymoon isn't over for either of us". One half of her face steam-white from listening to water boil all her life; her skin, a silk dress, thanks to her sleeping pills. "I'm gonna have a baby!". That was also years ago. You can never be too eager to live, the doctor said. Stillborn. A cough of blood from under a skirt. “Still to be born”.

She applies another layer of red lipstick. She caresses her belly, looking up at the same two passages of the kitchen ceiling. "Maybe Tray? Johnny? Whisk? Barbara?"

Mrs. Jones presses the telephone against her ear, patiently hears a baby carriage tumbling down a staircase. She waits and waits for the burst of a cry. “Guess not today!”. She lays the telephone down and shifts her attention to the TV, where the white noise plays the usual morning news.

She closes her eyes, turns it off; opens them back, turns it on. Turns it off. Turns it on. Off, on.

Off... Alright, Mrs. Jones, give me that remote. I'm starting to get a headache myself! "Turn on to channel 9".

Mr. Jones, a spotlight on his cornstarch face, is shown undressing the neighbor's wife, biting her neck.

"Did I mention he's an actor and a model? That's why he's never home". No, you did not, Mrs. Jones, but that explains a lot. Now go on, get back onto making that cherry pie! He’ll be coming home from work soon, and straight to you, the kitchen. O, the kitchen... Yes, indeed, whether you're young or old, six months or sixty, the kitchen is the heart of the home.

Mrs. Jones turns the oven knob and grabs the empty baking tray. She kneels down and sticks her head in. “Now onto the oven!". She perceives the strange lack of heat. “Oh, no. It must be sick.

Poor thing”. She gets back up and closes the windows, the door. She returns and breathes into it.

Keep breathing into it, Mrs. Jones. She keeps breathing into it. She's determined to save its life, make it work. She can almost hear the child bursting through the door, a backpack in its back.

Her husband, wedding ring in his hand. Mama... “Well, no Mama, 'cause she died a long time ago”. Oh, Mrs. Jones, that's right: "Heart failure".

THE BEACH HOUSE EDWARD AHERN

The wind sliced in from off the ocean, spraying sand off the dunes and onto the two-lane road.

The boxy sedan swayed and skewed as its traction slipped. The two middle-aged men Inside it had been silent for a half hour.

“I gotta thank you for helping me hide.”

Frankie, the driver, shook his head sideways. “Nah. You’d do it for me. Besides, you’re paying.

Bad luck, though, what happened to you.”

“Yeah. About another hour. You need to take a leak?“ “Nah. You?” “I’m good.” Roger leaned back in his seat and tried to stretch. “You sure we got WIFI down there?”

“That’s what they said.”

“Good, because I don’t fish. Any questions when you wired him the rental cash?”

“Nah. The place looks dumpy, they really only worried about getting paid.”

Roger glanced over. “Still think we should have gone to Vegas. People ignore each other on purpose there.”

Frankie swerved around a mound of sand, holding two wheels on the asphalt so he would keep some traction. The dunes on both sides of the road were twenty feet high and partly covered in sea grass and scrub. The ocean and the sound were close by on each side, but unseen, and, because of the wind, unheard.

Roger winced. “You drive my car like I golf. Shitty.”

“Relax, you pussy. And we could’ve gone to Vegas if you hadn’t gotten videotaped.”

“Eight years together, and it’s the first time. There’s too damn many cameras around now.

Maybe we should off people in drag.”

Frankie smiled. It didn’t make him any better looking. Middle age had coarsened his complexion and furrowed his skin, giving him a gnomish look.

“Relax Roger. People got the attention span of gerbils. Two weeks down here, seeing nobody, there’ll be a couple other somebodies done and people will refocus.” He smiled. “Maybe shave your head, though, just in case.”

Roger ran his hand through a full head of brown hair. “Not likely, baldie. The hair keeps me looking like a stud.”

“And identifiable.”

They lapsed back into silence. The wind from the Atlantic Ocean continued to howl, sand grains hissing against the windward side of the car. The sky and the water matched ugly shades of gray.

“See if you can get a weather report.”

Roger turned on the car radio and seek-punched until he found a local station giving a live report. ‘The depression has shifted further landward, and will hit the Outer Banks tonight. Not hurricane force winds yet, but close to it. If conditions worsen there could be bridge and road closures and power outages. There’s no evacuation order yet, but stay tuned just in case.’

Roger cursed. “Let’s turn around, Frankie. Find ourselves a Norfolk motel next to a diner and a bar.”

“We bring our problem with us, buddy. You get recognized, we get caught.”

Roger nodded, then, “You hear the mope whimpering after you shot him?”

“Yeah. You done good to shoot him again. Though two more times was a little much.”

“Yeah. Got the trigger down to feather light.” His lips puckered. “Blood on everything, including me.”

Just before the Hatteras ferry landing, the burner cell phone spoke up, providing directions to turn left onto a side street and Frankie did.

They wove their way down four narrow, rutted streets before the phone told them to stop.

Frankie grimaced. “Shit, we’re right on the water.”

“Is that bad?”

“Right now it is. Street level parking could flood from the surf. But we don’t have a lot of choices. Grab your stuff. Let’s get inside before the rain hits full piss.”

The small single-story house perched on twenty-foot stilts, with car parking underneath it. The wood, long unpainted, had weathered down to a gray that matched the weather. In a city it would have been condemned.

Frankie shrugged. “Home for two weeks. Enjoy.”

“It looks like it’ll fall onto my car.”

It took them two trips up and down the right-angle exterior stairs to bring in the clothes, food and booze. The furniture looked like it had been salvaged from a foreclosed motel. But the lights worked, as did the little cable TV. Roger turned it on to CNN. Frankie stacked food cans and boxes on the counter. “Shit.”

“What?”

“We leak. Damned sideways wind is pushing water right past the window sill and around the window’s edges. Don’t worry, I got it.”

He grabbed four faded and frayed dish towels from a drawer and stuffed them along the window edges as best he could Roger saw a fuzzy picture of himself pop up on the screen. ‘The autopsy results for Suffolk County district attorney Philip Bristowe, gunned down on the street outside his office three days ago, have just been released. He died as a result of four gunshot wounds, three from a 9mm and one from a .38 caliber revolver. Police have released the picture you’re now seeing, saying that the unnamed man is a person of interest in the shooting….’

“Shut that crap off,” Frankie rumbled. “We already know how popular you are.”

“We should get rid of the guns.”

“We will, Rog, once the weather clears. Let’s get something to eat.”

Dinner was cold cuts on white bread and beer. They’d purchased no fruit or vegetables. After eating they switched to bourbon, no ice. As the cables into their location were whipped about, the TV picture started fritzing Frankie held his drink in both hands. “We’re gonna need to change how we operate buddy.”

“Huh?” “You’re usually the pretty boy who chats up the receptionists and clerks. Now I’m gonna have to go to charm school.”

Roger laughed. “And you’re so ugly.”

Frankie finished his drink. “You want another one?”

“Hell yes.”

Frankie took the two plastic water glasses over to the kitchen area, recharged their glasses and walked back over to Roger. “Poured doubles. Less work.”

“No problem here.” The two men drank without speaking, the noises of storm and television cranked high. Then Roger fell asleep in his chair. Frankie waited another five minutes and then walked over to him. “Really sorry, buddy. Nothing personal.”

He pulled thin latex gloves from a back pocket and put them on. Then he unzipped Roger’s gym bag and took out a 9mm automatic. He held the gun against Roger’s right temple And pulled the trigger. The gun bucked twice, almost simultaneously, the reports choked back by TV and storm noise. “Jesus, it really does have a hair trigger.”

Frankie inspected what was left of Roger’s head. The first shot had gone in cleanly just above his ear, the slug tumbling around somewhere inside his skull but not coming out. The second one had grazed Roger’s temple, taking some bone with it as it went by. “Okay,” Frankie muttered, “He still could’ve done it to himself.” He put the safety on the gun, wiped the gun carefully with paper towels, picked up Roger’s right arm and squeezed his hand around the gun handle and trigger. The he took the safety off and very carefully laid the gun onto the floor.

Roger always carried a couple thousand dollars in hundreds that Frankie left alone. Then he spent twenty minutes wiping down the counters, tables and door knobs. He washed and dried the plate and glass he’d used and put them back away. The owner might do an inventory. He also washed and dried the house and car keys, put Roger’s prints on them and left them on a table next to the body.

He grabbed his bag and walked out, the locked door swinging shut behind him. The rain and salt spray drove through his pants and right under the wrist and neck cuffing of his windbreaker.

He went down to the unlocked car, took a gym towel out of his bag and wiped down the interior and the exterior around the gas cap. Then, gloves still on, he grabbed his bags and started walking further up the rutted roadway.

Five houses down, parked next to a cottage under construction, was a Honda Civic. Frankie reached under the right front wheel well and took out a plastic baggie that held a key fob. He unlocked the car, loaded in his bags, and took off.

An hour up the road, in Nag’s Head, Frankie pulled over, took a new burner phone out of his gym bag and keyed in a number. “Me. It’s done…Nah, no problems. Crappy thing to do to him, but it needed doing. This ride stolen?...Figured. Some shitty neighborhood in Norfolk will get a donation… I know, but listen, we need to square things up with his wife…Okay, okay I understand, but at least drop cash off in her mailbox. Let’s show some respect.”

BACKROOMS KIM HAYES

I am being chased. I don’t know by who or why. I’m in a large sort of city office complex. It’s a tall building in the middle of a large urban area. The building is part shopping mall, part office space. I cannot leave. I search for a way out, yet an exit door eludes me. I don't know what follows me. I don’t feel my life is in any sort of grave danger.

I do not know how I entered this building. I can’t remember when I arrived or how long I’ve been wandering around. I look for a place to use the bathroom or a restaurant to sit and eat, but nothing is open when I need it to be. Or it changes as I arrive.

Every floor is different, and the floors change scenes, even when I try to go back to a previous floor looking for an office where I think I can hide, long enough to get my bearings and plan on where to go next to find an exit.

Sometimes the people in the building know who I am or that I’m ‘wanted’ but they don’t threaten to ‘rat me out’. It feels more like they are trying to warn me. Some of them tell me I’m close to being caught. Some people that I meet give me hints on how to exit the building.

I must keep moving. I have tricked a few people who know some sort of truth about me. I lost one by pushing him down an old elevator shaft. I made sure he had something to grab onto. He was friendly right until I pushed him. I left him screaming as he held on to a red ribbon that was tied to a hook in the shaft doorway.

Offices vary across floors, even as I walk. Décor transforms, scenes shift, people vanish, new faces appear right in front of me. It all melds together, sometimes fast, sometimes slow.

Sometimes I can feel I’m almost caught, that whatever or whoever is looking for me is just around the next corner. That’s when I run. Running down a hallway that changes as I run or walking down a flight of stairs and with every step I take, the stairway changes right in front of me.

There was a large mall with sunlight coming in from some large window in the ceiling. Am I on the top floor of the building? I can’t tell. There are shops I dart in and out of, but as I walk and explore the shops, it all changes again.

Customers in these shops either cannot see me (or chose not to see me) at all or give me stern looks.

Two people gave me the signal to be quiet. I am making too much noise as I move through the shopping area.

Sometimes I stop people to ask for some sort of directions to an exit. The people I stop to ask either don’t know what I’m talking about or try to give me clues on where to go. One or two people warn me again that someone or something is looking for me.

All I want to do is leave. I still do not feel like I’m in grave danger. All I know is someone wants me for a reason I won’t like. I have no idea what I have done to have someone, or something search me out. I must keep moving to keep from being caught. I lean up against a wall to catch my breath.

I hear a noise, a movement behind me. I’ve been found.

THE JOURNEY JOEL GLOVER

“Valued traveller, welcome to The Terminal.”

Nick looked carefully at the leaflet the faceless beige entity had handed him as he stepped unexpectedly into the vast, vaulted interior of what appeared to be a train station. “We understand,” the brochure went on, in a slightly smaller font, “that undertaking a journey to the destination selected for you may be distressing, and are here to ensure the best possible customer outcome.”

Nick did not recall having booked a journey, let alone by rail. He was quietly confident that he had been on his Brompton bike, that marvel of British engineering, cycling to work in the blue tweed suit he had only recently purchased from his man on Savile Row. Yet here he was, in a station, with some sort of explanatory brochure and a ticket. The orange and white oblong was reassuring in his hands. The traditional British Rail ticket, fit for any purpose, none of your mobile apps or any other modern tomfoolery.

“Your platform will be displayed prominently on your ticket when your train becomes available.”

Now that the brochure mentioned it, Nick did see that his ticket was curiously blank except for his name, which was stamped into the white band in a dark blue ink. He peered closer, hoping to make out the destination. His reading glasses, he was distressed to find, were not in his top pocket.

An announcement buzzed out overhead, the cheap tannoy horns mangling the voice of the speaker until they sounded like the buzz of a swarm of flies. Nick picked out a few words between the static scratch, which seemed to be “doors will close two minutes before departure.”

“All trains from The Terminal run to a strict and unalterable timetable,” the brochure went on.

Nick appreciated that. Trains running to time being something of a watchword of his. He looked down at his ticket. The words “Platform 6” had mysteriously appeared on the surface, sliding oleaginously over the surface of the card.

There remained, for all that, no indication of the journey’s end point, nor the time of departure.

Reasoning that more information would be available at the platform, he decided to venture down.

The concourse was a seething mass of inhumanity, packed jowl to tail, a foreboding glimpse at what might lay ahead on the train. Nick glanced down again at his ticket, hoping he had had the foresight to reserve a seat. The ticket remained resolutely silent on the matter. He also noted that there was no suggestion whatsoever that he would be travelling first class, though that was very much his custom.

Pushing through the crowd, he looked up hopefully at the departure board clattering above.

Each train was listed as having only one stop, unhelpfully given as “Destination”. The clock beside the board was not working, the time set to 12:00, 31st October 1517. All trains were listed as “Boarding.”

Mindful of the warning that all train doors closed two minutes prior to departure, Nick broke into a run. Many of the other passengers did not, trapped like gnats in amber in some other reverie. One woman was weeping, another praying to an east which was at best nominal in the shadowy interior of the station. Typical foreigners, Nick thought, bringing their religion into places where it did not belong.

Above him the platform signs flickered. He grabbed his ticket and forced it into the slot of the machine. A bored looking attendant watched as the ticket flickered in and out, like a serpentine tongue, before eventually being vomited back out into Nick’s hand, battered and still barely legible.

“I need to get that train!” he demanded.

“Let me see.”

The ticket was passed over, and scrutinised.

“Wrong platform mate, this is sixteen.” The youth pointed up at the flickering platform sign, which now read sixteen, the number one having spluttered into life during Nick’s debate with the ticket reader.

Nick looked down at the card in his hand. Ahead of him the train pulled off with the scream of cold iron.

“You’ll have missed it by now,” the attendant added, somewhat unhelpfully.

The ticket was now as blank as the look on the attendant’s face.

“What do I do about getting to my destination?” Anxiety and stress were not real things. He had written that in a column for The Spectator once. His heart was going like the leader in the Eleven Thirty at Goodwood. He tasted bile and copper on the back of his tongue.

“All information is in the brochure sir.”

The brochure was crumpled in his sweaty grip. A few frantic tugs returned it to a mostly flat state. Several sections did not appear to have any relevance to his current circumstances. There it was, though, in red upper-case type: “Missed Departures.” Continuing, in increasingly small font: “It is the sole responsibility of the passenger to make their allocated departure vehicle. Lateness to your point of destination may incur penalties.”

The word penalties crawled in front of his eyes like worms on a corpse.

Below the words was a phone number. Nick fumbled in his pocket to bring out the slick glass of his iPhone.

The latest version, of course. Black and heavy in his hand. He thumbed the number in and pressed the phone to his perspiring ear. The ostinato of a failed call’s tones greeted him. He looked down at his ticket, which displayed a new platform number.

“Platform 17.”

His heavy feet were planted where they had been when he missed his previous train. Nick took three steps to the rear, one step to the side, a knight’s move on the chess board, and looked up to review the platform signs. To the right, Fifteen. To the left, Eighteen. Above, Sixteen.

Seventeen, nowhere to be seen.

“Where is Seventeen?”

“We don’t give directions within The Terminal sir. Against Union regulations.”

“What do you mean?”

Typical trades union jobsworth. There would be a good column in this, if only Nick could get to where he was going. Message unsatisfactorily delivered the attendant turned away, back to scrolling through pictures of girls with cat ears pasted onto heavily filtered profiles. The solution was there, Nick knew it must be. Sweat was beginning to soak the once stiff collar of his shirt, particularly around the edge of his beard. The image consultants in Central Office had said he needed to trim it, shape it, so now he had a line of sore, freshly shaven skin for the collar to rub.

Nick scrubbed his thinning hair with anxious fingers, feeling the spots where the growth was becoming more sparse. Yet another thing to worry about. This close to the election he couldn’t get plugs. Oh, there it was, high up above, on the other side Of the concourse, beyond the WH Smiths selling nothing but oligarch-owned papers, high fructose corn syrup snacks, and potboiler thrillers ghostwritten for quiz show hosts. Nothing against the oligarchs, of course, Two-Beards was a delightful chap, just don’t call him that to his face or you might find yourself moonwalking out of the embassy of a former Soviet Republic.

Platform Seventeen. Nick might have missed one train, but he wouldn’t miss a second. He lurched into a run, pushing back through the milling herd of commuters. An overstuffed laptop bag struck him on the nose, a trailing air-hostesses’ suitcase forming a subsequent trip hazard which turned his ankle exquisitely. He fell, phone tumbling away from him, a runaway toddler in the supermarket’s chocolate aisle. A spiderweb of cracks appeared. He limped up the out-oforder escalator and hobbled down the corridor towards the platform. The machine took his ticket this time, allowing him access to the ramp which tipped down towards the train panting at rest, little puffs of steam rising from its stack. A steam train. How delightful.

The doors would not open. The guard within watched him impassively.

“You have to let me in!” He was desperate, though he did not know why. This was like a chop comedown.

The guard tapped the fob watch hanging from his jacket. Then the whistle sounded, that old familiar wail, and the train pulled off. First Class passed him first, standing room only, passengers crammed into the luggage compartments. Some looked gaunt, pale as liches, in suits that rather put him in mind of the clothes his father had worn.

His ticket was blank again.

Having missed two trains, Nick decided it was definitely time to contact someone in authority.

There was an office on the platform, still standing in its old red brick, but now covered in graffiti. Abandon hope, one jagged phrase read. Nick banged on the door, hearing only echoes within.

“It’s all computers, these days.” The voice startled him, cutting through his desperate attempts to rouse someone. “No need for a man on the platform they say. Phones, in your pocket, so I hear.

It’s not for me.”

The old man had watched his humiliating failure to board from a seat on the floor, a newspaper the only barrier between his bony frame and the tarmac. Nick did not talk to beggars. It only encouraged them. Emboldened them to prey on good, hard-working, tax-paying men like him.

He had a phone though. Might as well try. There was one of those wretched codes on the back of the brochure, which he scanned with his camera, fingers struggling to slide over the cracked screen smoothly, ridges and whorls snagging on sharp new topology. The phone flickered, then opened a website.

“If you have comments about the content of our guide, click here,” invited one button.

“For any other enquiries, please contact the relevant Public Private Partnership Provider,” instructed the other. There were no further details.

Nick could feel a very strongly worded letter of complaint brewing. Why, just wait until he was safely on his way, then he would let the so-called authorities know how insufficient their arrangements were. Comments he had, comments aplenty.

The phone rang, so unexpectedly he almost dropped it back to the concrete.

“Yes?” “Mr Nick?”

This happened a lot. He found it just as infuriating as a forty-four year old as he had at fourteen.

“Mr James.” He did not try to keep the sneer from his mouth.

“That’s right, my apologies. I find pronouncing names like yours hard.” The person at the other end of the phone had an accent suspiciously like Nick’s.

So much so he felt that, somehow, he was being mocked. “Mr James,” the voice pronounced it ‘jam-is’, “our records show that you have missed two departures. We want to ensure you do not enter the Enhanced Sanction regime by missing three consecutive departures.”

“Enhanced Sanction regime?”

“The Enhanced Sanction regime,” the voice began, disinterestedly, reading from some corporate approved script, “applies to travellers who fail to board their allocated transport on three consecutive occasions.”

“That is what you said before, but in different words,” Nick complained. “But what does it mean?”

“That isn’t my department, sir.”

“I’m sorry what?”

“G4S Rentokill are contracted to support travellers to avoid the Enhanced Sanction regime.

Administration of other parts of the passenger experience is delivered by other service providers.”

Nick did not know what to say to that.

“If you don’t have any further questions sir?” The voice did not wait for Nick’s answer.

“Enhanced Sanctions?” The old man was still there. Nick ignored him. Whatever Enhanced Sanctions were, he wanted to avoid them. His ticket showed new departure information.

Platform 7.

From the top of the escalators Nick could see the whole concourse laid out before him. The clock was still broken, but differently, fixed now at 07:53 on 1st April 1882.

A small board listed prospective arrivals, from Guadalquivir & Old Saville, Fal Vale Junction, and Istanbul. One departure, to Diritta Via, was noted as cancelled.

Platform 7 was there, within reach. No train was waiting at the platform. He would make it this time. The escalator staggered into life as he ran down it, dragging him back up towards Platform 17. He slipped, the slick soles of his dress shoes failing to find purchase on the grooves, before pulling himself down the last few rising stairs. This time he avoided the trip hazards of luggage, the greasy slicks left by spilled fast food, the sprawled limbs of travellers adrift in a sea of despondency.

The train pulled into the platform ahead of him, belching smog, an InterCity 125, the first train he had bought for his train set all those years ago. Diesel powered, much more practical than any electrified train. The barriers let him through this time at the first time of asking, though they did nip at his heels as they closed. The first carriage would not open, nor the second, nor the third, but the fourth would and he scrambled aboard. Though the platform had been empty, the train was somehow full with sweating passengers. Each seat was already taken and there were no choice spots to stand in: the vestibule stank of chemical toilet run-off and effluent; and the spots by the luggage racks were already swamped with suitcases and backpacks. Nick spotted some filthy hippies in tie-dyed hemp, the hems of their trousers as soiled as the backpacks he presumed belonged to them, the smell of patchouli oil and cannabis clinging to their clothes and seeping into the seats they were leaning on. He pushed through, trying to get as little of the dirt from them on his suit as he could.

Looking down he noticed a stain on his trouser cuffs, bike grease or engine oil perhaps. An armpit arrested his progress down the carriage. Lubricated hair bristled from the exposed orifice, dank and spiked, like a roadkill hedgehog plastered to the concrete. The armpit hung from a bare arm before disappearing under a ratty, sweat stained vest. Nick turned to find somewhere else to stand, but found himself trapped by another harried looking besuited man.

The train lurched suddenly, brakes disengaging as the engine kicked into motion. The platform started to drift past. Nick tasted sweet schadenfreude as he watched a man in a blue tweed suit and sweat stained white shirt pounding on the windows, desperate to get on. The man’s brow was bleeding slightly, a carmine trickle.

A new smell rose up to blend with the foetid mixture in the carriage.

A small Chinese woman, eyebrows heavily tattooed onto her forehead, had cracked open a tupperware box and begun noisily slurping thick white noodles from a fatty orange broth. Eggs rolled in the soup as she stirred, stained yolks glaring like jaundiced pupils.

Opposite her a stern faced, pale, matriarch tutted before opening her own lunch. M&S sandwiches, proper British commuter food. The metallic tang of cooked tuna slipped into the scents mingling around Nick’s aching head.

Still, a stiff upper lip is the mark of a gentleman. Decorum must prevail.

He found himself wishing for a newspaper, or a book to read, but he could not recall where he had left his briefcase. Without reading material he found there was nothing to do but wait, and watch empty factories and flats which had been warehouses slide past the stained windows of the train.

The tritone chimes of the announcement system interrupted his reverie. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your driver speaking.”

At last, thought Nick, an announcement of his destination and arrival time. Perhaps finally some light would be shed on this journey.

“Due to a failure of signalling equipment ahead of us on the line we are going to be diverted into a siding. We apologise for the delay which this might cause to your journey.”

Somewhere, deeper in the carriage, out of sight but not out of mind, a child started to wail. The noise clawed at Nick’s ears like nails being pulled down a chalkboard.

“You’re bleeding bruv.” The voice came from behind the armpit, accompanied by the smell of strong cider.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Claret, on your bean.” A gap-toothed face emerged as the bare arm lowered for long enough for a grimy fingernail to point at a crease above the eyeline.

Nick’s fingers touched his own face and came away sticky, claggy with blood warming to a scab in the humidity of the carriage. He pulled a monogrammed handkerchief from within his suit pocket and dabbed at the suddenly sore point on his skull. How had he not noticed this before?

The more he blotted, the more blood seemed to flow out. Nobody else in the carriage seemed at all concerned.

His phone rang. Another Unknown Number.

“Mister Nicholas James?”

“This is he.” Good grammar is the sign of a refined mind.

“Mr James, I am calling from PhillipMorris-Halliburton on behalf of the Enhanced Sanctions Regime. As you are no doubt aware, you are now late to your Assessment Centre and as such we have no choice but to place you under Enhanced Sanctions.” The voice was firm, strict, and disinterested.

“This is ridiculous,” Nick sputtered, spittle bubbling on his lips. “I boarded my train as scheduled, but it has been diverted. The matter is quite out of my hands.”

“Passenger Journeys are delivered by other service providers. PhillipMorris-Halliburton administers the Enhanced Sanctions Regime.”

“I want to speak to your supervisor!” Nick had boiled over now, his exasperation escaping in a kettle shriek. Not a head on the train turned.

“Please hold.” A pan flute version of what appeared to have begun its life Katy Perry’s Firework played as hold music.

Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the muzak was replaced by a mindless pop song in which a man rhymed Kodak with Kodak. This pattern repeated eleven times as Nick waited, until eventually a voice pierced the monotony.

“Mister Nicholas James?”

“This is he.”

“Mr James, I understand that my colleague has informed you that as you are late to your Assessment Centre we have no choice but to place you under Enhanced Sanctions.” The new voice sounded remarkably similar to the previous one.

“But my train has been delayed!”

“Passenger Journeys are delivered by other service providers. PhillipMorris-Halliburton administers the Enhanced Sanctions Regime.” This message was delivered in the same dry monotone in repetition as it had been in the first instance.

“Are you reading from a script?” How dare they, did they not know who he was? This was really too much.

“All communications with Passengers follow the rubric agreed by our contract owners, sir. I am sure you understand.” The final part was a statement, not a question. Understanding was a nonnegotiable.

“Where is the humanity in that?”

“Not in our contract sir. Thank you for your time.”

The dial tone returned.

Nick wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. He wanted to throw his phone across the packed carriage. Before he could make a decision as to what to do, the driver began another announcement.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your driver speaking. As we are unable to make further forward progress this equipment will be returning to the Terminal, where all passengers will be detrained.

Myself and the train crew thank you for your patience.”

Nick felt no patience. Nor did any of his fellow inmates, who let out a chorus of exasperated sighs.

The train began a slow reverse, the hairy armpit swinging revoltingly close to Nick’s face as the carriage rocked in place.

In a few minutes the grim industrial landscape through which they had raced began to appear once more, flowing past in reverse, flickering like an untuned television set.

The stop, when it came, was abrupt. The armpit went from dangerously close to smotheringly so, strands of sweat-matted hair brushing Nick’s upper lip, beads of dank moisture transferring onto his beard. Behind him someone fell with a squawk. Nobody offered to help them up. The final remains of the curry soup were thrown from the tupperware box onto the carpet of the carriage, where they began to create a turmeric yellow stain.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your driver speaking. We have experienced an unexpected braking event. Myself and the engineer will now investigate. We do apologise for any delay to your journey this might cause.”

From somewhere in her bag, the Chinese woman produced another tupperware tub. She lifted the lid and snorted appreciatively as its smell hit everyone around her. The gravy had the same colour as her previous meal, a dark rapeseed yellow submerged between a thin layer of amber fat.

The salmon head which the sauce surrounded stared vacantly up at Nick, its mouth Forever caught in a supplicant shape.

The train had come to rest on a bridge or viaduct of some sort. Below Nick could see traffic, snarled and entangled, unattended roadworks preventing any forward progress.

A packed bus was marooned in the mix, ‘Rail Replacement’ marked plaintively on its running board.

Turning, he could see a stack of apartment buildings, small ‘affordable’ units clinging like warts to the base of the phallic thrust of a larger glass and concrete edifice. No lights were on, no curtains drawn. A woman passed one window in a grimy nightdress. Nick felt the prurient thrill of voyeurism run through him, a silent witness to her private life. She returned with a chair, which she stood on, reaching up to full stretch to touch something high above her head. It was, he saw, a noose made of a washing line.

“Can you see that?” He did not have an audience in mind, for the question, it escaped him fully formed. “Can anyone else see that?”

Nobody replied.

The woman tightened the noose around her throat, paused for the briefest moment, and stepped from the chair.

“God, can nobody see? Someone, anyone, we have to help her!”

The only noise in the train was the mastication of curry.

The tritone sounded again. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your driver speaking. We have now disengaged the brakes and will be making our return to The Terminal. We do apologise for any delay to your journey.”

Nick watched the woman fight her last as the train pulled off, the only witness to her plight. For the first time since boarding school he started to cry.

From within his suit pocket his phone began to ring. Lifting it out, he saw he had three missed calls and three voicemails, all from Unknown Numbers.

“Mister Nicholas James.” His throat felt like an orange was lodged in it.

“Mr James, I am calling from SportsDirect-Avanti’s Escalation Department. You were due to have an onboarding conversation regarding your stay with us, and have missed three calls from our team.”

“I’ve had no signal.”

“I am afraid no allowances can be made, Mr James, I am sure you understand. Because you have missed your mandatory onboarding session, when you do arrive with us you will need to conduct the onboarding in person and will be placed in a holding facility until such time as a group session is available.”

“But we are on the phone now! Why can’t we do any onboarding that needs to be done.”

“Please calm down Mr James. I am afraid onboarding can only be done by the relevant department. I deal with escalations.”

“Is there nobody I can talk to about this?” Nick demanded.

“Please don’t raise your voice, Mr James.”

“I’m not raising my voice.” He might have raised it slightly, at this point, he would have conceded.

“Mr James, if you are going to persist in taking that tone I am afraid I have no option but to transfer your file to the Abusive Correspondent Section. Good day to you sir.”

“Abusive!” Nick screamed it into his now silent handset. “I’ll show you abusive, you thundering twatwaffle!”

For the first time in the journey, it seemed, every passenger in the carriage could hear him. The space echoed with polite tuts of disapproval and the whisper of heads being shaken.

“How rude,” muttered the matriarch to the noodle eater, who nodded her head in quiet agreement.

“No need for that bruv, they are only doing their job,” added the voice from behind the armpit.

Nick seethed in silence, the judgement of the crowd pressing down on him. He thought he caught a teenage girl sneering at him, as if she had anything to sneer about. That stomach wasn’t going to stay flat forever, and those tits weren’t going to stay high. She’d probably end up pregnant, on benefits, never contributing anything.

The train ground to a halt with a noise like thunder.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, due to overcrowding at the Terminal, Signal Control have instructed us to stop here at King Salman Carey Street. A rail replacement bus will conclude your transit. All passengers, please leave the train by the nearest exit. Myself and the engineer do regret any delay caused to your journey today.”

The doors creaked open, not fully, wedging in the liminal space between akimbo and ajar. One by one the passengers fought their way free through the crevice, reborn onto the platform weary, hot, and bruised.

There was one exit from the platform, with three ticket barriers barring egress. Two were set to allow entry, unattended red crosses refusing passage. A filthy diesel freight train rumbled past, so close to the platform edge that Nick felt the displaced air slap him across the back. Slowly the crowd were squeezed through the gate. An elderly woman in a mackintosh stamped on Nick’s foot, glaring at him as if he could somehow control the tidal throb coming from behind him. An elbow caught him in the side, stealing his breath. Another foot fell on his Achilles, prising his Church’s loafer loose on his heel. He tried to turn, to demand some patience, but the press was too thick.

“Put the ticket in the machine! We’re all waiting for you.”

He hadn’t even realised he had been pressed into the gate. His ticket was folded, dog-eared as his copy of Foundation. The machine refused it with an angry rasp. It was simply too much.

He braced himself on the side and clambered over as if it were a stile. His shoe, loosened by that stomp, slipped off his foot, falling into the mass behind him. He tried to reach back for it, but the stern-faced matriarch from his carriage was coming through the gate, using her handbag as a shield to shove past him. Nick stumbled, and another woman came through the press, then a man, and their weight bore him on.

Outside the station there were no buses to be seen. There was a queue, a very English queue.

Nick felt relief that some things could be relied on, even in the most strained of circumstances.

Then it began to rain, a mizzle that turned quickly into a grey downpour. Nick never left home without an umbrella. But it was in his briefcase. Around him better prepared travellers hunched under their own shelter, cold rivulets running off the black surfaces and onto his unprotected shoulders.

His phone rang. In the wet, the clever fingerprint scanner refused to work. The call went to voicemail whilst he was fumbling. It rang again. PIN, that was the answer. 1310, Margaret Thatcher’s birthday. That great lady.

“Mr James.” Another caller who could not pronounce James.

“Speaking.

“Mr James. I am calling on behalf of Great Southern Rail Ticket Operations. Our records show that you failed to exit King Salman Carey Street station properly. I am afraid that I now need to put you into our Challenging Traveller regime.”

“What does that mean?”

“I am afraid Ticket Operations do not operate the Challenging Traveller regime. That is a different department. Good day.”

Nick’s phone gave a sad hiccup in his hand, and flickered off. No amount of poking or prodding served to resurrect it.

The bus arrived, a decrepit Routemaster, rusting at the edges The crowd surged on with a shout, desperate to board. Nick clawed forward. The hood of the old woman’s mackintosh made it easy to pull her to one side. His sock emptied its gelid load as he trod on her outstretched arm. Then he was aboard, the heat of the crowd trapped into the tight space adding a humid dampness to the cold of the rainwater infusing his suit.

The bus twitched forward, shaking everyone within, before the traffic arrested its motion.

Staring out at the grey beyond, Nick wondered if he would ever arrive.

Another spasm of motion carried the bus another car length forward. A cyclist cut around them, a blue suited man eager to be on his way, jumping across the junction ahead as the lights turned from amber to red. Nick envied him his freedom. Car horns brayed, tyres squealed. Nick closed his eyes, hung from the handrail, let himself be comforted by the bus’s trembling motion, rocked from dream to nightmare as if in a cradle. Behind the clouds the sun set, replaced by the neon illumination of chicken shop, vape shop, and bookmaker. Around him journeys went on with intractable slowness. Until they didn’t.

He stumbled from the bus, carried from its warm interior into the concrete embrace of The Terminal once more. A hand reached out to him, gloved, passed him something. He looked at the brochure he had taken, unwitting.

“Valued traveller, welcome to The Terminal.”

He turned it over in his hands, thinking about throwing the wretched thing away. But on the back, in the smallest print he could read without assistance, were words which made him reconsider.

“All enterprises administered on behalf of Tartarus Incorporated and the Gehenna B.V.” “No littering.”

HAVE YOU EVER? KAYLA SHAWN

​Avery picked at the blue, chipped nail polish on her thumb nail. The concrete of the curb bit into the back of her thighs as she waited for her friends to join her. Clubs weren’t her thing. ​A pair of black, chunky heeled boots appeared at her side. ​Avery looked up to meet the gaze of Jade Clarke. With her sleek black bob, sequin dress, and black leather jacket, she fit in with the city perfectly. ​“Sleepy already, Peters?” Jade teased her, using her last name like she’d always done, before sitting next to her on the curb. ​“It’s just not my thing.” ​Jade rolled her finger down the striker of an orange Bic lighter and lit the end of a joint that already had stains from Jade’s lipstick on the wrinkled rolling paper. “Why are you here then?” she asked after releasing a thick cloud of smoke from her mouth. ​Avery was there because Ezra and Leo were there. She was there because their friendship was strained on the best of days. She was there because she was the only one who hadn’t moved on with her life yet. ​“I don’t know,” she lied and watched Jade wrap her lips around the joint again. Deep red and painted perfectly, they shimmered under the dim street lighting. Jade tracked Avery’s gaze and smirked—barely noticeable if Avery hadn’t been paying such close attention to her mouth. ​“Have you ever tried it?” Jade asked, brows slightly raised. ​“Huh?” ​Jade held the joint up between her thumb and index finger. “Weed—have you ever tried it?”

“Oh, no. It’s not—” Jade snorted. “Not your thing?” ​Avery’s face heated.

For so long, she was dubbed the good girl. The girl her friends could call at any hour of the night. The girl who saved them from whatever form of trouble or debauchery or shit that twentyyear-olds get into. ​“What is your thing?” Jade asked. ​Books, Avery thought. Her cat. School. Planning for her future—which would be full of stale memories of chasing her friends around a college town begging them to notice her if she didn’t wake the fuck up. ​“Will you show me how?” she asked Jade. ​It was a loaded question—one about much more than just the joint held between acrylic tipped fingers. ​“Yeah, Peters. I’ll show you.”

DECEASED AS IS MARCO ETHERIDGE

Sara Grimes cannot move. Her body is immobilized, strapped tight to a steel table, ankles, wrists, waist, shoulders, even her skull.

Two men in black uniforms hover above, left and right in her vision. The shadow men disappear.

The ceiling is grey and dirty. Then the men are back, leaning over her, holding something above her skull. A device like the devil’s halo, a crown fashioned from steel and wire, emitting a sick green light.

The men cradle the evil ring over her face. Sara’s eyes see what her brain cannot comprehend.

Blue latex gloves, outstretched fingers, the halo descending, closer and closer, blotting out everything else.

Screams fill the room. Then strangled words. Pounding heartbeats pass before Sara recognizes her own voice.

“Please stop, please, don’t do this. You don’t have to do this. Please.”

Her words fill the room and die away. The men don’t stop, don’t hear, don’t want to hear.

The halo touches her head, pushes down tight, cold and hard. A sharp click. Sara is blind now, the room melting into a green glow. Metal bands tighten around her head. She fears her skull will spill open.

Voices float above the glow.

“Halo attachment?”

“Check. Ready for sequencing.”

Then the smell of coffee, stale sweat. An unseen presence beside her ear, too close, intimate. A hoarse whisper.

“Listen to me. Better if you don’t fight it. Less pain.”

Gone in the next heartbeat, replaced by bored monotones.

“Collection nodes energized.”

“Right. Powering up. Clear.”

A sharp ascending tone, electronic thrumming. Sara’s breath freezes in her throat. Panic courses through her. She hears a click, and a million angry wasps fill her skull. She falls into a pit filled with clawing beasts. Then a burst of white-hot agony, and nothing. *** Director Coldson is not pleased, and he intends to share his displeasure. As head of the City Guard, the Director’s task is to protect and preserve. He is the gatekeeper of thought and deed, employing a firm hand to police New City. His motto and mission are clear: Preserve, Protect, and Prevent. Stopping misdeeds before they happen is Director Coldson’s trademark. Failure stings the Director, and he will not suffer the sting alone.

Valuable information is being lost. His technicians are failing to achieve complete success. The New Council expects answers and Coldson will be the man in the hot seat. Before the Director appears before the council, he’ll make damn sure he has the answers, and that harsh punishments will have already been meted out.

A hidden intercom pulses. A breathy voice intones his title. Coldson speaks into the air above his gleaming black desk.

“Yes, Miss Steele, what is it?”

“Jenkins to see you, Director.”

Coldson reaches for a touch sensor beneath the desktop, triggering access to his inner sanctum.

He keeps his own gate as carefully as he guards the streets of New City.

A man dressed in a uniform of black coveralls enters the spartan office. Before he takes a second step into the room, a soundproof door locks behind him. The uniformed man walks across the office, a clipboard at his side. He halts in front of the huge desk.

“Jenkins.”

“Director.”

“Sit. Give me the bad news. You lost another subject.”

“Yessir, a woman.”

Jenkins consults his clipboard.

“Sara Grimes, thirty-two. Expired seven minutes into phase one, very similar to the other cases.”

“And the data set? Her memory readout?”

“It’s gone, Sir. No trace of her data in the system. None.”

Coldson says nothing, but his stare speaks volumes.

“I know it’s a setback, Sir, but we’re only losing about one in ten. That means the Halo Program is running at a ninety percent success rate. Before Halo, we were losing about eighty percent of the interrogation subjects without extracting any useful information. Halo represents a vast improvement over those numbers.”

Coldson leans forward and tents his fingers.

“Jenkins, let me be clear about this. I don’t give two shits about the subjects. You can kill all of them and good riddance. They’re a blot on New City, every one of them.”

A pause and a hard look at his subordinate.

What I want, and what the council demands, is the information in their skulls. Get their memories, that’s what matters. The problem is not a dead subject. No one will mourn Sara Grimes. But if the program kills this Grimes woman without gathering her valuable, no, essential information, then it becomes a very large problem indeed. And I will not dump problems in front of The New City Counsel without extremely valid explanations. So, by all means, explain.”

Jenkins clears his throat, checks his clipboard, and squares his shoulders.

“The best data that we have indicates that approximately one in ten of the prisoners expires during phase one. If the subject survives phase one, they almost universally survive the entire procedure. Their memory print is extracted and stored, ready for the analysts.”

The Director stops Jenkins with a raised hand.

“Yes, nine live, one dies. Got it. But what happens to the memory print from our unlucky number ten? Where does the data go? Their memories, names of accomplices, members of their dirty cells, the structure of their organization, that’s what we want.”

“Sir, I believe the short answer is that the memory print stored in a subject’s brain dies when they die. We’ve labeled it DAI: Deceased As Is.” The Director leans back, eyes on the ceiling. He lets the moment linger, allows Jenkins time to squirm.

When will these wonks understand? Success means succeeding, not eking out a percentage of success.

Percentages do not keep a man in the director’s chair.

“Jenkins, one of these dangerous scumbags might hold the key to their pathetic insurgency, the lynchpin that undermines their house of cards. That’s the information I want.

It’s your job to get it for me. Extract the memories before they die and I’m happy. The New City Council is happy. Everyone wins. Kill the subject without sucking their dirty heads dry, and I’m not happy. Not one tiny bit. Get the point?”

Jenkins nods. The Director waves his hand, then touches the sensor beneath his desk. Across the room, the black door hisses open. Jenkins scurries off without a word. Coldson chuckles to himself.

Run away, little rodent. Nothing like a dose of fear to put a spring in a man’s step. *** Sara slams into awareness. A disorienting flash, a jarring shift from black nothingness. She cannot comprehend what she sees. The only sound is the voice of panic echoing in her head.

Where am I? What is this place? Where is everyone? Where’s the ground? I’m falling! I’m going to die!

Then another voice, grim and certain.

Stop it, Sara. The bastards already killed you. The dying already happened. This is something else.

Emptiness replaces panic. There is no residual fear, no metallic taste of adrenaline on her tongue.

Sara feels nothing. No, this is less than nothing. A complete absence of sensation. No heartbeat.

No gasping breath. No terror, only a void.

Sara feels herself tumbling through a space so enormous it has no end. She is engulfed in a silent snowstorm. Illuminated flakes as big as playing cards, and behind the snowflakes an inky blackness.

Hands float in front of her. Sara sees naked arms glowing with the same eerie illumination as the tattered snow. She looks down, sees a body, legs, feet, flesh made phosphorescent. Then the sudden realization.

Your body, naked in the darkness.

The black void rotates up, down, end over end. But no, it’s her ghostly body spinning head to heels and back again. She wills it to stop, spreads arms she cannot feel, arches her back. She cannot sense muscles constricting, but her body obeys. The rolling slows, stops.

Now she hovers in nothingness, yet there is movement all around her. What she took for snow seems to flow in invisible channels and streams. Tattered shreds of lighted chaff pulse and spin, gathering on unseen currents that disappear into the void.

There are hundreds of these snow rivers, thousands, vanishing to shining threads. Here and there the flows intersect, creating nebulae that spin and pulse. Then the rivers of light flow on, tracing bright paths across the emptiness.

The streams undulate like serpents of stars across an endless night. One glowing intersection draws near. Fascinated, Sara extends a ghostly arm, dips her fingers into the flow. Shreds of light pass through her hand and then everything vanishes.

She is sucked into a vortex of fear, blazing images, and deafening thunder. Split-second memories race past. The grey room, straps, can’t move, men, her screams, please stop, please.

Skull-crushing pressure, voices, panic, the bolt of lightning, then blackness.

Sara opens her eyes. She floats in the void. There is no grey room, no men, no torture device.

The stream of light has changed course, leaving her to float in the darkness. She raises her hand, expecting to see a charred stub, but her flesh is unharmed. She wills her hand to move, and it does, translucent in the emptiness. Her first lesson: Avoid the rivers of light.

How long does she float, alone and pondering? She cannot tell. Hours, maybe days. Time does not exist here.

She observes the currents, looking for a sense of order. That way, to her left, multiple streams braid into something larger. Then a decision without thought. Sara wills her body to move, and it does, following the current upstream. There is a source, and she will find it.

Her journey lasts hours or weeks. There is no way to know. The braided river runs on forever, and behind it the void, and she follows. Nothing changes until the moment when everything changes.

Far ahead, two objects glimmer. Hope, she feels hope. Drawing closer, the shapes take human form. A man and a woman, both naked. They float as if waiting for her. Sara drifts near, wills herself to stop, and then there are three.

Sara hears the woman’s voice in her head.

You found us.

Were you waiting for me?

No, we weren’t waiting. But we found each other, and we knew there would be another. I don’t know how we knew, but we did. And now you’re here.

And before this?

The man’s voice now.

Same as you. Captured by the goons, the grey room, the Halo strapped to your skull. Then this.

Sara nods her, though she cannot feel it.

That’s exactly what happened to me. Those bastards did something to my brain. Like a monster clawing inside my head. Then I was here. How did you know?

It was the same for us. I can’t explain it any more than that. We found each other and now you’ve found us. I don’t know if names mean anything here, but in the camps, I was called Jack. That’s where they grabbed me, Camp Seven outside New City.

And I’m Beth. I worked in a cell in another camp. Who are you?

Sara. I was in New City. They snatched me off the street. It’s hard to remember. I only have bits and pieces. Like, I remember they didn’t ask me any questions. They just took me to that room and…

Jack’s voice again, filling in the blanks.

The goons don’t need questions anymore. They have the Halo. Our cell leader had information about a new interrogation device, a machine that extracts memories from a human brain. I didn’t believe it then. I do now. Beth thinks we’re inside their network. I can’t explain it. I ran weapons, not computers.

Three forms float in silence. Then a thought comes from Sara’s head and the other two hear her.

Then we’re dead. Outside of here, I mean. Whatever here is.

The thought hovers until Beth’s voice answers.

I think that’s right. Something went wrong. Their new toy killed our bodies, but they didn’t kill our core being. We’re not dead in here. And I don’t think the goons know it. Sara, what did you do in New City?

Information, organizing. I was a recruiter.

Right, and Jack ran weapons. I was a hacker. I have an idea, maybe a way we can keep fighting these monsters.

The three new comrades huddle together, thoughts flying between them. Pulsing streams undulate around them. When there is nothing more to say, they set out. They follow the plexus upstream, searching for the nexus.

There is no need for food or water, no desire for sleep. They follow the currents. Far across the void, the light grows stronger. When they reach the end of their search, there is no doubt they’ve found what they are looking for.

Before them lies a great tangle of streams flowing from every direction of the void. Where the light streams intersect, spinning nebulae swirl and glow. The balls of light are of different colors and different shapes, but they seem alike in purpose. Hundreds of these nebulae are packed together in an irregular grid.

The newly dead rebels halt a short distance from the glowing grid. It is Sara who asks the obvious question.

Holy shit! Beth was right. But how do we attack it?

On the weapons teams, we were always short on gear and most of it was junk. Our motto was adapt, improvise, overcome. So that’s what we do now.

Without another word, Jack swims away from Sara and Beth, gathering speed toward the first nebula. He smashes through it. Currents of light waver and falter. There is a silent explosion of what looks like illuminated confetti. The shattered streams coil and retract like severed tentacles.

Jack tumbles past the aftermath. His return is slower than his attack. Beth and Sara reach for him, but none of them feel the contact.

I can’t believe that worked.

You gotta have faith, Beth. Hell, it was your idea.

Yeah, but I never said use yourself as a battering ram. Are you okay? What did it feel like?

Yeah, I’m okay now. It felt terrible. Those cloud things aren’t any bigger than we are.

Hard to tell until you get close to them. I smashed into it because what other weapon do I have, right? Then I felt like I was watching someone else’s movie. I saw the goons and their goddam Halo machine, but it wasn’t me in the room. Then I was yelling and kicking and punching. Bang, the whole thing explodes, and here I am.

Sara points to the nearest nebula.

That one’s mine!

Then she’s off, willing her body to swim faster and faster. She smashes headlong into the cloud of light. Instead of an impact, it’s like stepping through the wall of a familiar room. She sees black-uniformed guards and some poor bastard strapped to an evil-looking table. She feels the fear, hears the prisoner’s cries.

Sara claws with her hands and kicks her legs, fighting everything she sees. The room explodes into fragments. A searing pain shoots through her skull. Then she is back in the void. Currents of light shrivel and die around her. Jack and Beth float forward and hover beside her.

Damn, Sara! You kicked ass.

Not as easy as you made it sound. It hurt like hell. Except it wasn’t my pain. I saw a guy strapped into the Halo, and I felt what he was feeling. It was so weird. But smashing that room to pieces, man, that was great.

Same for me, except it was a woman on the table. What do you think that means?

Sara and Jack turn to Beth. She raises two glowing palms to ward off their expectations.

Don’t look at me. I don’t know how any of this is possible. First we’re dead, then we’re not dead. We found this place because we followed the data streams. That was just a lucky guess.

I think you experienced different images because each of these… things are the stored files, the memories the goons grabbed with their fucking Halo device.

So, you think we’re smashing up memories?

No, I think we’re destroying the goon’s data. I don’t know if they have copies or backups, but throwing a wrench in the works, even a temporary wrench, seems like a damn good idea to me.

Beth swings around and speeds toward the nearest nebula. Sara and Jack see her collide with the thing, see the pulse and the soundless explosion.

Then she is back beside them.

Right. Let’s get to work.

The three ghosts maraud across the grid, destroying nebulae one by one. Each cloud brings a new wave of pain, a new glimpse into someone else’s suffering. They find a rhythm to their work.

Charge a pulsing cloud, burst through it, wait until the pain subsides, then charge again.

Lacking a sense of time, they do not stop. Yet as they fight deeper into the grid, some of the nebulae begin to change. There are denser intersections with eight or ten currents leading into and out of a cloud. One of these is in their path, pulsing red and purple.

The three warriors hover side by side. Jack points a ghostly finger.

What about that one, Beth?

I don’t know. None of this makes sense, but it looks more dangerous than the others.

Then I better get a good run at it.

Before Beth and Sara can react, Jack loops back out into the void behind them, then speeds past in full charge. He smashes into the cloud. The intersecting streams thrash and swirl. They see Jack’s outline inside the nebula, see his limbs writhing and struggling. Then the whole of it explodes into nothingness and the explosion carries Jack away. When the dismembered tentacles of light shrivel and fade, he is gone.

Now they are two.

Sara reaches for Beth’s hand. She cannot feel their intertwined fingers, but she can see. They hover in the void, hands clasped tight. Then she hears Beth’s voice.

Now what?

Now we do what we have to do, just like Jack. We keep going, tear up as much as we can. Dead is dead. I don’t want to be stuck here forever. How about you?

Right here with you, Grrl. C’mon, let’s fuck their shit up.

Hands unclasp and the two ghosts speed forward, crashing into clouds of light. They work their way across the grid. One after another, nebulae blink out of existence.

Suddenly, Sara sees a burst of light larger than the rest. Now there is only one ghost in the machine, a ghost named Sara. A long moment passes, unmeasurable in this timeless place. Then that single ghost moves forward, flying at the remaining nebulae, smashing, smashing, smashing. *** Director Coldson squirms. The seven members of The New City Council glare down at him from behind a raised ebony dais. The dais forms a semicircle looming over the hot seat. The council members are not smiling. A cold voice fills the chamber and Coldson is its target.

“These reports are very disturbing, Director, very disturbing indeed. As I recall, you assured us that the Halo Program would be a huge step forward. Those were your very words. I believe I have the minutes right here. Ah, yes, here it is. A huge step forward in undermining the insurgency. Do I misremember, Coldson?”

The Director leans into the microphone.

“No, Councilman.”

“I see. It seems to me that instead of a huge step forward, what we’re looking at is a huge disaster. Valuable information lost; memory files erased from the system. No backups, no paper printouts. This council demands answers, Coldson. How could this happen?”

“First, let me say that everything is being investigated. Yes, the system has been damaged.

However, not all the data has been lost. Some of the files were printed out for analysis.”

Another member of the council interrupts.

“How many files, Coldson? Give us numbers.”

The Director consults his notes.

“Approximately fifteen percent, Sir.” “Meaning eighty-five percent have vanished, or do I misinterpret?”

“As it stands now, that is correct, Sir. But we are investigating the events, and we hope to recover more of the lost memory prints.”

“Before you continue, Director, I need not remind you that this is the worst breach of security in the history of the City Guards. In fact, I don’t believe I am overstating when I say this is the most serious breach since the founding of New City. Do you disagree?”

Director Coldson feels a rivulet of sweat work its way down his spine. He covers the mike and clears his throat.

“I don’t disagree, Councilman. We believe this was the work of saboteurs, including at least one senior member of the Guards. It appears that, despite our best precautions and screenings, this man acted as a rogue agent. A mole if you will. We are interrogating him at this moment.”

A stir runs the length of the council bench. The members whisper to each other behind their hands, leaning close. In his lonely seat, Coldson feels the trickle of sweat become a stream.

The head of the council calls for order.

“Director Coldson, I warn you that your reputation and your standing with this council are both very much in jeopardy. Tell me, are you using the Halo device on this rogue agent of yours? And if so, how will you secure any data you might gather?”

“No, Sir, the Halo Program is on hold. We are employing more, ah, traditional methods with this subject. We expect to learn everything that he knows. Once we have gathered that information, we will root out this cancer and destroy it. You have my word on that.”

“I think the council is demanding a great deal more than promises, Coldson. And the payment for those demands may be very high. Tell me, what is the name of this traitor?”

“Jenkins, Sir.” “I see. I have a suggestion for you, Coldson. I suggest that instead of sitting here making up excuses, you hurry back to the basement of the City Guards. I strongly suggest that you take charge of interrogating this Jenkins fellow. Hands-on, if you know what I mean. Your hands.

Failure in this matter would be most unwise. Does the council agree?”

Director Coldson feels a rivulet of sweat work its way down his spine. He covers the mike and clears his throat.

“I don’t disagree, Councilman. We believe this was the work of saboteurs, including at least one senior member of the Guards. It appears that, despite our best precautions and screenings, this man acted as a rogue agent. A mole if you will. We are interrogating him at this moment.”

A stir runs the length of the council bench. The members whisper to each other behind their hands, leaning close. In his lonely seat, Coldson feels the trickle of sweat become a stream.

The head of the council calls for order.

“Director Coldson, I warn you that your reputation and your standing with this council are both very much in jeopardy. Tell me, are you using the Halo device on this rogue agent of yours? And if so, how will you secure any data you might gather?”

“No, Sir, the Halo Program is on hold. We are employing more, ah, traditional methods with this subject. We expect to learn everything that he knows. Once we have gathered that information, we will root out this cancer and destroy it. You have my word on that.”

“I think the council is demanding a great deal more than promises, Coldson. And the payment for those demands may be very high. Tell me, what is the name of this traitor?”

“Jenkins, Sir.” “I see. I have a suggestion for you, Coldson. I suggest that instead of sitting here making up excuses, you hurry back to the basement of the City Guards. I strongly suggest that you take charge of interrogating this Jenkins fellow. Hands-on, if you know what I mean. Your hands.

Failure in this matter would be most unwise. Does the council agree?”

Grim nods are the only answer.

“Very well. We stand adjourned.”

Director Coldson ejects himself from the hot seat and scuttles out of the chambers. Coldson does not return to the basements of the City Guards. He hopes Jenkins sings them a good tune before the end, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Jenkins is no longer his problem.

Coldson understands the leaders of New City better than they know themselves. Regardless of their words, he understands exactly what The Council will do to him. The clock is ticking. It’s time to run, fast and far. The soon-to-be former Director does not know who’s beaten him, or how, and he doesn’t have time to care. By nightfall, he will be far beyond the fences of New City, far beyond the camps, and still running.

KIRKOFF’S FINGERS MICHAEL W. CLARK

It was the only job he could find. He lied about his age to appear more mature. He was already bigger than most grown men, so the steel warehouse manager didn’t care about maturity, only strength. Jack Kirkoff was stronger than most and he needed a job. The 1970s recession had hit Cleveland hard. Most of the heavy industries had run away to Mexico by then. What was left had been battered and beaten by financial constraints. Steel American might have been the last steel business in Cleveland. It was the last chance Kirkoff had to support himself. His size saved him this time, usually it didn’t help at all.

He was last hired thus he got no say on his tasks. It was the night shift, 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM. The job was lifting. Fifty to a hundred-pound sheets of steel. Kirkoff could do it with ease. He knew how to lift and stack. It was easy for him. His only discomfort was the annoyance he caused to his coworkers, they were all black and he wasn’t. He didn’t care but they did. He thus kept to himself. On his breaks he read paperback books he bought at the used bookstore. He liked reading.

“Hey, Jack Off. Why you here?” It was Darrel’s usual comment.

“Need the job.” Was Kirkoff’s usual answer.

Tonight though, Darrel changed his statements. “You big for a white boy. I need that big. Think of it as an extra job.”

Kirkoff took off his Teflon gloves and rubbed his nose with his right index finger. “What do I do for this extra job?”

“Protection, is all. Protectin’ me.” Darrel glanced over his right shoulder first and then his left.

“You just being big. It should be enough.”

“Is it illegal?” Kirkoff had a boy scout canteen filled with water he carried on his belt. He poured the water over his up lifted face. It was just another uncomfortable Cleveland night.

“Not just standing there. You just stand there.” Darrel showed Kirkoff a fifty-dollar bill. “This is the pay day.” Darrel stuffed the fifty into Kirkoff’s shirt pocket. “It’s your break time, follow me.” Darrel waved for Kirkoff to follow him. Kirkoff did. #

They walked through the back wall, not by magic just a giant hole in the cinder block. It lead to the yard behind the warehouse. Darrel stopped Kirkoff. He pointed at him with his index and middle finger. “Do this and put your hands in your jacket pocket.” Kirkoff nodded and did it.

“Don’t say nothing.”

“The double negative indicates I should talk. I assume that was not what you meant.” Kirkoff didn’t smile.

“Shhh!” Darrel hissed.

Two men entered through an opening in the fence. One of the men, the shorter one, continued to walk toward them, the other held back in the shadows. “Hey? What’s with Moby Dickhead here?”

Darrel stepped forward. “Rico, Rico. Not reason for the nasty.”

Rico stopped and scratched his chin. “Makin’ house calls, not my routine. But for you, I want the cash fast.” Rico held out his hand, palm up.

Darrel glanced back at Kirkoff. “You have, the, my item?”

“The collateral? Sure sure. Seeing the cash.” Rico snapped his fingers. “Funds here!” Rico snapped his fingers again.

Darrel pulled out an envelope, “My collateral.” He held it close to his chest.

“You first!” Rico demanded. He snapped the fingers on his left hand which was raised to his shoulder. The man in the shadows lifted an automatic pistol, pointing it at Darrel.

“Moby dickhead’s finger gun has no effect on anyone. Ha! Now, you won’t get anything. Just lighter. The money!”

“No!” Darrel shouted. Rico snapped his fingers again. The man in the shadows changed his stance.

Kirkoff stepped in front of Darrel and with his left hand threw a baseball at high speed Into the gunman’s face. There was an obvious crunch followed by a scream. The man dropped the gun and grabbed his face. He collapsed to the dirty concrete. While this happened, Kirkoff moved forward and shoved the finger gun on his right hand into the solar plexus of Rico. Rico hit the concrete at the same time as the gun man. Kirkoff continued to the gun man and grabbed the gun. Kirkoff patted the groaning man on the ground. He found a fleck knife and a small revolver. Kirkoff picked up his baseball. There was blood on it. “Other than a wallet. This guy has nothing that could be your collateral.”

Darrel was still confused about what had just happened. “Ah, what? Ah.” “Your collateral, it must be on Rico. You search him. I will watch this guy.” Kirkoff pointed with his right hand holding the two guns and fleck knife. Kirkoff had big hands too. He bent down again and with his left hand rubbed the bloody baseball on the pants leg of the groaning man.

“Oh. Oh. Yeah. Yeah.” Darrel stepped cautiously toward Rico who was still gasping for Air. Darrel checked the inner pockets of Rico’s jacket. He removed a small box. “Might be it.” He turned his back on Kirkoff and opened the box. “Yeah, yeah. This is it.” Darrel had the envelop in his left hand. The closed box in his right. “Yeah, we can go. I guess.”

Kirkoff shook his head. “We call the cops or you leave the money.”

“Don’t say, ‘and deal’s a deal’.” Darrel looked at the envelope.

“Didn’t have to. You know it is best. But I keep the weapons.”

Kirkoff held up is right hand. “It is a safety issue.”

Darrel sighed. “Rico? I give you the cash and you guys leave. All even steven.”

Rico groaned as he sat up. “We in junior high now?” Rico stood up slowly. “Moby dickhead seems to be making the rules. So yeah.” Rico held his hand out.

Darrel reluctantly placed the envelope in Rico’s hand. “Yeah, remember that.” Darrel rubbed his ear vigorously as he looked at Kirkoff looming in the shadows. “Knew he would be useful.”

Kirkoff put the baseball in his jacket pocket and then helped the disarmed gunman to his feet.

He helped the gunman through the opening in the fence. Rico watched Kirkoff as Rico walked through the opening. Outside the fence Rico turned. “Hope we never do business together there Moby.”

Kirkoff nodded. “I share your sentiment.” Kirkoff waved goodbye with his right hand still holding the confiscated weapons. He waved until the two got in their car and drove off. Kirkoff turned to Darrel. “Interesting break.” Kirkoff smiled and walked to the opening in the back wall.

Darrel followed.

Inside Darrel got beside Kirkoff. “Ah, you, you did great kid. Where did the baseball come from if you don’t mind the asking?”

Kirkoff took out the baseball. He held it up to examine it in the overhead fluorescent lights. “My weightlifting buddies and I have a bet. Each of us carry a baseball. The bet is on who will be the first one to crush it with only their left hand?” Kirkoff squeezed and the baseball groaned slightly. “I have dinted it. See?” Kirkoff held the baseball in front of Darrel’s face.

Darrel could see the fingertips impressions. “Yeah, Jack o, Jackie boy. Yeah. Yeah. I would put money on you too.”

Kirkoff tossed the baseball in the air and then caught it. “I agree. Working here wilL increase my grip.” Kirkoff put the baseball back into his left pocket, stowed the weapons underneath his seat and then put on his Teflon gloves. “Safety first. Another skill I am acquiring here.”

Darrel nodded. “Yeah, you have skills Jackie my boy. Skills.” Darrel smiled weakly. “Have to make a stop. Crapped myself out there. Gotta get some fresh draws.”

Kirkoff pulled the paperback book out of his back pocket. He would read until the rest of the crew returned. It was never clear when that might happen. It was a union shop.

STILLNESS SAM ZEIMETZ

The flight control room was completely silent as Lyra Three slowly fell closer to the lunar surface, everyone in the command deck waiting for a radio transmission confirming a safe landing. The altitude of the module was no longer descending, indicating that it had reached its destination with no issue. Despite the readings, all still awaited the vocal confirmation, their hands pressed into their headsets and eyes locked onto the screens before them. It was Commander Leo’s first mission with the association, and he began to wonder based on his colleagues’ reactions if the interference was common. The silence continued.

The three men all had their suits equipped as the door of the module opened, allowing the vacuum of space to rush in and surround them. There had been a small mishap with the system, causing their landing to be a bit more difficult than they had planned, but it would most likely be resolved soon. Each of the three astronauts took their first step onto the Moon, and lost themselves in the beauty they beheld before attempting to fix the error that had occurred in orbit.

There was still no response, yet no one in the flight control room seemed concerned. If their nerves were starting to increase, they were not expressing it. All except Commander Leo, who was nervously shaking his leg where he sat.

The problem was more complex than the three had originally intended, but their conditioned and focused minds would not allow them to entertain the thought that the problem would prevent them from returning to Earth. Once they had accepted that as a possibility, panic would begin to creep into them like a disease. It was an hour after they had started to try and fix the dilemma that the severity of their situation began to set in. Hopelessness followed.

A voice abruptly became audible, so distorted that the words it was saying were unintelligible and foreign. Many of the flight’s commander’s faces became pale. Several seconds passed until another voice sounded in the flight command room. “Cygnus, this is Lyra Three. We have touched down safely.” The fear abated.

Once Lyra Three had returned home to Earth, Commander Leo asked one of the men in the ship a question that had been bothering him ever since the technical error with the communication system “What went wrong with the radio transmission when you landed on the Moon’s surface?”

The pilot was silent for a few moments before replying, “What do you mean? Did something sound wrong back at Cygnus?”

“At first, it sounded as if the console was broken. We couldn’t hear anything. Then, a voice reached us, but no one could make out what it was saying. Finally, your voice told us that you had all landed. The sound was back to normal.”

The blood went from the astronaut's face.

“No one’s told you?”

The flight commander stared at the pilot in confusion.

“Fifty years ago, a spacecraft landed on the Moon, beating us in the race by just a few days.

Their ship had broken down, allowing a safe landing but making departure impossible. Once our craft arrived, they begged the three pilots to take them home, but there was no chance of the module being able to supply enough oxygen for twice the amount of people it was built for. Their choice was to either allow six men to die or three. There was nothing they could do besides leave them. It was a failure for them and for us. The world never found out.”

Leo thought for an instance before asking, “Then you and everyone at command were having a moment of silence for the three?”

“No. I was silent because I heard them speaking in their native tongue, saying ‘Let us in’.”

REALTOR’S LAMENT (AND SUBSEQUENT REDISCOVERY OF IMMUTABLE TRUTH IN THE TIMELESS ADAGE: LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION)

GEORGE WEIRFRITZ

PART ONE POWERS THAT BE A Truncated Police Procedural “Money can’t buy happiness, but it will certainly get you a better class of memories” - Ronald Reagan ARLO The clatter reminded him of the calls to prayers that rang incessantly across Iraq, guttural chanting piped through bullhorns and bounced around the souk. Funny, though. Arlo couldn’t remember much that was said or who’d been speaking in the first cacophonous moments after he awoke, undead.

So, now I’d walk the Earth as what? A zombie?

At least I solved one last case.

The thought bubbles burst when somebody informed him he’d retain his identity and continue in law enforcement “fer da time bein.” They found that funny. He – or they, he wasn’t sure – outlined new circumstances he couldn’t comprehend, with phrases like “apex predator” and “full adaptation could take years.” At interludes they’d ape his southern drawl.

“Nuthin’ to fret on, Sheruff. Ya got all time in the wurld.”

Arlo found himself laughing with them. Go along to get along, he reasoned. Even in death.

Yet in the disjointed days that followed, Arlo promised himself two things: that he’d safeguard Sam’s suspicions about Halcyon; and that he’d never, ever, eat human flesh.

Halcyon’s undead sheriff kept one of those vows.

SAMANTHA

Across her spit-shined town, tourists flocked to the scarecrows. Most loitered like papier mâché blobs along sidewalks. The best claimed pride of place in Pioneer Square with its invitation-only catwalk strung with rope lines to contain crowds.

Sam shuffled past the ghoulish pageantry, oblivious. She ignored the craftspeople slinging trash talk and sharing bagels, thinking only about the joint she’d been hiding in her pocket since Thursday, anticipating the moment when she’d slip into the woods and take the edge off. A puff to blunt Maude’s usual “Stay out of trouble, dear” nag, delivered as she’d slouched from their tiny apartment in her trademark Death Cab hoody.

She’d mounted the saddle of a scraggly oak preparing to light up when a faraway branch cracked. Then muffled cries, a struggle. Turning, she spotted a huge creepy guy dragging a flailing granny downhill through the trees.

Fuckin’ performance artists, she thought, but this wasn’t scarecrow shtick or part of any show.

That horror landed when the big dude pummelled granny unconscious and ate her.

ARLO He was small town ready. He’d served in Iraq, spoke Good ‘ol Boy with deep southern fluency, nursed a tin-a-week chaw habit and sported a gut that overtopped his utility belt. Easy to underestimate. Fallujah was a big fat kill zone during his deployments. San Bernardino’s toughest corners could be as deadly on a hot Saturday night -- and he’d walked them for close on nine years before heeding advice from his ex-wife, trading in his BPD shield and taking this sleepy job on a safe beat.

Arlo’s first impressions: gorgeous coastline, crazy mountains, townsfolk with noses so high they’d drown in a rainstorm.

Soon he rubbed elbows with various Powers That Be –meaning folks (men, mostly) who hobnobbed every second Wednesday at the Halcyon Commerce Chamber’s executive breakfast.

Arlo attended regularly, nodded approval of each new promotional campaign and added at appropriate moments: “Y’all need my troopers, say the word.”

Requests included nabbing speeders along the Pacific Coast Highway, providing volunteer crowd control at HCC events, and hushing up the occasional PTB misstep.

“Let’s just say ya owe me a favour,” he’d offered more than one privileged lawbreaker.

Go along to get along. Halcyon’s way.

SAMANTHA It exploded fast-motion, like those True Blood killings she’d watched with a friend who had HBO. Mohawk gorged on granny and buried his leftovers in a shallow grave. Sam gagged, but she couldn’t turn away or block the vile metallic stench – of blood, entrails, turned soil – permeating the undergrowth like mustard gas.

Over the next week Sam barely slept. Over the next three months she rarely Attended school.

“Unless things change, young lady, you won’t graduate,” her counsellor admonished. As always, he urged Samantha to channel anger by honing her evident artistic talent. “Use it for selfexpression.”

Express this! she imagined saying as she grabbed her junk.

Samantha quit school and left home five months’ shy of her 18th birthday.

In nearby San Luis Obispo, she joined the underground artists’ collective Tag Blasphemers, with its comrades who panhandled by day and redecorated downtown Alleyways after dark. Yet neither the drugs nor her first real girlfriend erased that terrifying afternoon in the woods.

“Maybe you should, like, report it or whatever,” said Lana, a freshman at the polytechnic. “Read this,” she’d suggested two days after Sam told her about the killing, offering a dog-eared copy of The Decameron. “It’s scary, and super trippy – kinda like you.”

ARLO Kid got to the point real fast.

“Somebody killed my mom,” she said. “Need you to figure out who.”

No request. A command. From a 20-year-old named Samantha. A woman in legal terms, but in Arlo’s eyes a skinny, scared kid. He took an immediate liking.

“Hold ‘er up,” he said. “What makes ya think yer mama’s dead? Maude’s kid, right? Pretty sure I saw her muckin’ out the HCC offices just, what’s it? Week or two back?”

“Look. Mom’s gone, okay? I came out for lunch two days ago. I mean, we made plans.”

Arlo extracted details while reviewing Sam’s rap sheet on his desktop computer. Old truancies and a newer shoplifting bust. Punk stuff. And the kid was scared.

“How ‘bout we give ‘er another day or two?” he suggested gently.

“Wait, there’s more!” Sam blurted, hyperventilating. “Other bad shit … you need … to know.

Killing … Scarecrow Festival ... Saw it with my own eyes…”

“Let’s set back down,” Arlo replied.

Samantha recounted everything. Batshit story, but to Arlo the kid vibed sincere as hell. If the punk was pulling the wool, she was good.

The sheriff also had a secret -- hidden, mainly, from the macho knuckleheads in law enforcement.

When confronting stories wacky or farfetched, he’d sometimes suspend disbelief to imagine what Fantasy Island felt like. The mental exercise had helped him crack a case or two over the years.

Arlo’s cursory review of missing persons files yielded one Mathilde K. Garnett, widowed, age 70, as the probable granny. She’d been reported missing in October 2012 by colleagues at the Macy’s in Modesto after failing to return from Halcyon’s Scarecrow Festival. Worse, numerous missing persons reports lurked within the department’s disorganize files.

Not random, Arlo thought. And he set to work.

SAMANTHA The sheriff called.

“Who’d wanna harm your mama?” he asked.

“Nobody!” Sam said. “I mean, she’s a pain in the ass sometimes, but was, uh, is a really great mom.” She’d started crying.

Arlo waited.

“One thing bugs me,” the girl said between sniffles. “I’ve called The Chairman -- you know, Mom’s boss -- a lot of times since she disappeared, but he’s never called me back. Dick move.”

ARLO He put down the phone, shifting his mind to PTB and Fantasy Island.

People were disappearing. In nothing-untoward-here, snail’s-paced, crime-free and upscale Halcyon. His deeper dive into a single year of the department’s unkempt criminal complaints files revealed far-flung queries that formed a pattern: Franklin Schellto, DOB 4-6-1952, resident ofYoungstown, OH. Reported missing by his son on July 16, 2012, after failing to attend a family reunion in San Fernando, CA. Seven days prior he’d called from Morro Bay to say he’d next pilot his motorhome north to Halcyon for a few days at Moonstone Park.

Jesse ‘Grunt’ Wyant, DOB unknown. Reported missing on Nov. 3, 2012, by the Kitchen Aid Food Pantry and Homeless Shelter in Morro Bay, CA. Fellow shelter residents recalled that Wyatt joined “a certain lady friend,” also homeless, for “a daytrip to Halcyon.”

Ariana LeBoun, DOB 12-7-1988, resident of Christchurch, New Zealand, reported missing by her father on June 21, 2013, 37 days after she’d last posted an update from her USA Pacific Coast Walkabout Tour ’13 on Facebook from Monterey’s Cannery Row.

Arlo ignored every caveat – the probablys, allegedlys, suspecteds that comprise the legal edifice called Reasonable Doubt. Lawyers would mince those words, and local leaders might insert their own spin, he reckoned, possibly to thwart any police action threatening to derail a blockbuster tourist season.

Tread lightly, he told himself.

He rang up the HCC’s newest board member to “chat under the radar.” The rook got jittery real fast, which Arlo found … odd. The guy insisted they speak only on the phone, so okay, he laid out his suspicions that way. “Big cases drain resources real fast, and heck, the current budget can’t sustain a serial murder investigation. Not by a mile.”

Arlo’s chamber liaison panicked, calling incessantly to plead for “zero publicity.” Trigger shy, Arlo thought, letting the man’s rants go to voicemail.

HCC leadership summoned Sheriff Arlo to an off-the-record “review of law enforcement strategy.”

Shoulda spotted the ambush, he realized too late.

PART TWO THE DROUGHT YEARS The neighbors are scary enough when they’re not dead – George A. Romero

Guilty!

Their misbegotten verdict sliced like a guillotine through me, separating head from heart. Not strictly, for it is nigh impossible to kill someone already departed, but sever me it did, though the people never understood how or grasped their own predicament – that latent, cyclical malignancy which sets neighbor upon neighbor in a place whose very name declares it idyllic, mystical and perfect.

Halcyon!

My hasty relocation from that snobbish enclave on California’s central coast followed what locals call The Drought Years. Survivors favor the euphemism still, not realizing I crafted it to mask our misbehavior.

Biotech ransomware, a few techies still whisper. Or ecological overload. Traditionalists favor the metaphysical (a haunting of some variety) but understand from Victorian literature that gothic horror takes many forms. My own thoughts unfold like a burial shroud upon these pages, but first, consequences. The influx disrupted Halcyon’s delicate food chain to favor the deadliest of all predators: Us. That, dear readers, is my Big Reveal. Swaddled within fogbanks, cradled against wind and surf, Halcyon attracted, over five grizzly years, an unsustainable concentration of undead.

Yet even a zombie apocalypse failed to tarnish our town’s to-die-for curb appeal, or hobble your humble narrator’s ability to sell, sell, sell.

I am not crazy. I knew Halcyon couldn’t be my Forever Home, yet I’d never imagined stealing away in the dead of night as if fleeing a posse. Not after the countless beach clean-ups, youth sports sponsorships and tourism promotions. I’d climbed the volunteer leadership ladder and twice won Grand Marshal for our Independence Day parade.

With superhuman self-restraint, I’d even kissed babies along the way.

Yet the banners and buntings couldn’t save me. My work ethic didn’t factor in the end. I sensed the backlash with scarcely enough forewarning to resign my HCC chairmanship and sell my home of 35 years. Social media detractors claim I “escaped Into exile.”

Salient facts (as I know them): Hungers smoldered within Halcyon’s real estate market.

Deceptive tourism promotions lured outsiders to slaughter. We joined the Tiger Mosquito, Mountain Pine Beetle and Asian Carp on nature’s pantheon of invasive species for which collapsing ecosystems have kicked down the door, not blameless in what followed but understood as having done our thing out of instinct rather than malice.

Yet I alone drew public ire. Disgraced leader silenced in absentia, easy scapegoat for false claims of betrayal. Slanders ravaged my waking mind like locust masticating a corn harvest until a response coalesced in my dreams: Halcyon’s crisis demanded reinterpretation -- a fresh postmortem from our vantage! -- before memory’s inexorable fade. Subsequent research revealed: 1) the Zombie Experience lacks a self- expressed history, or voice, and 2) a voluminous literature about us is pure scaremongering pulp – making this memoir fresh from at least two aspects. A third is that we may already be your neighbors.

To those among you prone to night panics: stop reading now! I’d gauge you wiser for turning away, as certain mysteries exact a price in their resolution too rich for anyone’s blood. Duplicity, you say. Had not your narrator himself once fluttered moth- like to Halcyon’s mesmerizing incandescence, intoxicated by a community so very precious? One or more cuts above, we’ve heard said countless times.

There’s no denying the morbid yearning to weigh each hideous detail, unpack hidden terror troves buried (as they were) into so, so many shallow graves. Who else to render cold and dispassionate judgement -- both on this treatise, the earliest first-person account of our existence, and, by extension, upon my character?

Proceed, as you must. But beware: This is not my confession.

Z-O-M-B-I-E The word itself grabs hold. We prefer “revenant” for its Scots trill and implied coexistence in a shared world. Our presence is, per real estate industry convention, disclosable as a source of market volatility. Like an earthquake fault with teeth.

Disclosure One: Not-in-my-backyard types raise drawbridges even in our cold world.

NIMBYism proliferates wherever communities grow expensive, exclusionary, and inclined to add “e” to the word “town” or swap it entirely for “village.”

Disclosure Two: Halcyon occupies a precious biome. Free-range retirees, shutterbugs landing daily; bountiful hunting on the downlow. Perfection on God’s Green Earth so long as the ratio stays right.

Disclosure Three: Halcyon forms a natural amphitheater -- for horror. Arresting beauty, clement isolation, fine dining beneath Parrish Blue skies. And the people are oh-so-friendly. Ask anyone.

A TINY CONFESSION: A concealed addiction. My intemperance most abject for the latter-day laudanum that is Home and Garden Television. Yes, the channel that pits preening style gatekeepers against traditional floorplans, popcorn ceilings and anything avocado that isn’t toast. Remodeling’s high priests and priestesses – those telegenic Judgy Wudgies – snatch converts, impose standards and seduce with pursed lips and eye rolls.

I became their fanboy.

I’d howl whenever a celebrity renovator flounced into a doomed bathroom and declared “gut job!” Each sledgehammer ritual and fridge full of maggoty meat jacked up the thrill. HGTV’s open-concept proselytizing stripped my dated wallpaper, pried loose cracked plaster and demolished me down to the studs -- flipping my very perception of your world.

I grasped linkages between Wow Factor and ecosystem collapse. Began marking humankind’s countdown to luxuriant oblivion one tick or tock with each new granite kitchen, spa-like master retreat or hardwood floor from Brazil. I comprehended HGTV’s noblesse oblige. Its crusading creatives (bearded dudes and folksy women) resurrecting backwaters they’d once fled, one distressed shack at a time.

One sleepless night it hit me. The Drought Years was Halcyon’s variant on this variant, a sequencing hiccup deep in our molecular strands imploring our newcomers to set upon unsuspecting locals and cull visiting herds lured into the box canyon with crafty hipster hullabaloo. The show was raw, edgy and real. And it ran (without fanfare) for five seasons.

But make no mistake: We, the zombies, fell unintentionally into your quagmire, cause and effect in normal succession.

Dearest haters: I’ve looked into the mirror, but have you?

A HANDY FORMULA HELPS POSTCARD BURGS MONETIZE CLOYING QUAINTNESS It holds that every season needs a festival, maybe two, less for cultural enrichment than to haul in the tourist buck fist over fat fist.

On this principle I created a Scarecrow Festival that recurs every October. Contestants display life-sized mannequins throughout town; judges award the creepiest, cutest, etc. More to the point, the spectacle never fails to attract gawking weekenders by the busload from less artistic places, like Fresno.

For decades it kept Halcyon’s baristas frapping, hotels brimming and antique shops humming like termite nests every autumn.

Until the clientele changed.

TAKE FRESNO JAKE AS A SPECIMEN He crashed into my office as if through a guardrail, unannounced and on fire.

“Been way-y-y too long, man. Sorry, but I’m off the chain!”

This cousin was familiar somehow.

Jake riffed. Said he awoke the previous morning “inspired to play dress-up,” then “rolled out fast in a client’s Shelby 500 – the purest Mustang, a true badass!”

A day later he stood sated and disheveled up to his greasy mullet, a creepy gearhead from Fresno.

“You got tide pools, pinecones, tourists by the herd – and man-oh-man, what hunger! I joined all those freaky scarecrows, played zombie auto mechanic for, like, hours.”

“And?” I inquired.

“Along comes this granny. Real Model T! ‘He’s so lifelike,’ she squeaks between bites of rhubarb scone.

Then she pinches my cheek!”

Jake grinned.

I waited.

“Why play the hater, dude? You know the ending. Okay, sure. I ate! Al fresco, down by the dry creek.

And boy, what a meal!”

No festival could lighten the weight I felt just then – a cloying sense that things were no longer as they had been.

But know this, dear readers: In all the years since I’d hung out my shingle in what Sunset magazine once called “one of the West’s undiscovered gems,” I’d never previously hosted a family visit or seen one of our kind dine wilfully off range.

ZNIMBYs I coined the term to describe Halcyon’s new homebuyers. “Z” as in zombie tacked to the usual acronym for drawbridge-types. Soon after Jake’s visit, they began trickling in.

The first ZNIMBY, let us call her Calamity Jane, arrived by Cadillac from Laramie, Wyoming, dressed as if for a roundup.

“Read up on ‘yall in Oprah Magazine,” she said. “Somethin ‘bout this place draws me. Never felt nothin’ quite so powerful, and this ain’t my first rodeo. Nowatimean?”

Jane’s needs were modest. Her budget, not. We toured a timber frame temple to light and air with views overlooking coastal ranchland turned regional park.

“Trailhead’s just yonder,” Jane marveled. “Hikers, joggers, young’uns out on fieldtrips.”

“Ticks every box,” I said.

She declared herself “ob-sessed.”

Jane was what realtors call a wedge client. Others like her – like us – rushed through the barn door she pushed open, close on the heels of her turquoise-studded boots. Over the next year I sold 27 homes, all but one to you-know-who.

The question arose like a harvest moon: what would we eat?

PROJECT BUFFET After a brief debate in executive session, the HCC commissioned VISIT BEAUTIFUL HALCYON! billboards in twelve nearby counties. Another in my string of unheralded triumphs, but who’s counting?

PART THREE THRST “A slimy green dragon racket in the bush – An angry war that doesn’t want me pokin’ around – It’s been there a million years and doesn’t want me clashing darkness with it” Jack Kerouac, Big Sur, 1962

KRYLON She skimmed the book but didn’t get Lana’s point. By then she was sure of two things: violence stained like Krylon on raw concrete, and The World was about to end.

GOODBYE BEEEEP. NEW MESSAGE, THURSDAY JUNE 13, 4:37 PM: HI. I’M, UH, SAMANTHA. WE MET AT THE YOUTH SOCCER SHOOTOUT A FEW YEARS AGO, MAUDE WAS – UH, IS – MY MOM. I’M TRYING TO FIND HER AND NEED YOUR HELP. END OF MESSAGE. BEEEEP. NEW MESSAGE, FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 10:17 AM: SAM AGAIN. MAUDE’S DAUGHTER. FORGOT TO LEAVE YOU MY CELL NUMBER YESTERDAY. PLEASE CALL ME AT 805 341-9766.

SOON. PLEASE. END OF MESSAGE. BEEEEP. NEW MESSAGE, SUNDAY, JUNE 16, 9:12 AM: SORRY FOR BUGGING YOU ON SUNDAY. JUST HOPING TO CATCH YOU FOR A FEW MINUTES. I THINK MOM’S GONE. KNOW IT, ACTUALLY. REALLY, REALLY WANT TO FIND HER, UH, EITHER WAY. IF YOU COULD … END OF MESSAGE. BEEEP. NEW MESSAGE. TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 3:34 PM: PLEASE, SIR! CALL ME BACK ABOUT MAUDE, YOU KNOW, YOUR HOUSEKEEPER. YOU KNOW SHE’S MISSING, RIGHT? I’M SURE I SAID THAT ON A PREVIOUS MESSAGE, IF YOU CHECK THEM … ANYWAY, IT’S URGENT. SAMANTHA. 341-9766. END OF MESSAGE. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 8:53 AM: THE MAILBOX YOU HAVE ACCESSED IS FULL. GOODBYE. THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 9:04 AM: THE MAILBOX YOU HAVE ACCESSED IS FULL. GOODBYE. SATURDAY, JUNE 22, 11:17 AM. THE MAILBOX YOU HAVE ACCESSED IS FULL. GOODBYE.

“DOPPLER TELLS THE STORY!” The hapless weatherman’s inane catchphrase pissed everyone off. How he’d use it to tease precipitation-free satellite imagery with less mystery than a grocery list. Over months, then years, viewers took to mocking him until – the horror! – graffiti appeared on Halcyon’s historic fire hall to satirize everyone.

DOPPLER MUMMIES! it read, above the tag ThrsT. The Chairman deplored vandalism. Considered every paint burst or knife cut a desecration. One broken window and society commences its decay, wasn’t that the theory?

Also, he didn’t get the perp’s point. Sure, Halcyon’s scrawny creek had dried to hardpan and dead salamanders, so they’d shut off sprinklers and rolled out the old hippie slogan “When it’s Yellow, Let it Mellow.” Even leased a fleet of water trucks. Did that make them ambling corpses with bodies bound in rags? Hardly.

“We’ll manage,” The Chairman would reassure his HCC board. “Our economy’s actually booming,” he’d say.

By outward appearances Halcyon rallied together as model hamlets are wont to do in a crisis, for the betterment of all.

MANY NEIGHBORS, TOO Since the rains quit The Chairman’s cumulative sales tally had risen to 44 homes, 41 of those to status conscious ZNIMBYs. Yet the influx remained secret as each insatiable newcomer juiced his bottom line.

In a desk diary entry dated May 13, 2015, he wrote: My clientele is changing; my ZNIMBY fears have actualized. This may be evolution, but it’s killing the traditional balance. Many neighbors, too.

He’d penned that somewhat alarmist missive the morning after his discrete and efficient housekeeper, Maude, failed to show up for work.

May she rest in peace, he’d added in hasty condolence.

Days later a disquieting exclusive appeared in the local free weekly, The Fog. Entitled “Crisis at the Blood Bank,” it exposed a plasma shortfall “with dire implications for public health.”

“Halcyon once collected 147 pints per month,” it read. “Today the intake is a third of that and falling.”

Pundits blamed Obamacare. High-volume outrage trumped logic and analysis. Few yet suspected that the town was bleeding out.

FOR THE RECORD The Chairman misplaced the public notice that declared: “The HCC will convene an Emergency Executive Session on …”

The Chairman misplaced the attendance tally recording that just seven board members – a bare quorum – attended. All save The Chairman were Young Turks with new blood that ran cold.

For the record, The Chairman subsequently lost all paperwork from this meeting - - a rare clerical mix-up that remained hidden until subsequent forensic accounting efforts foundered upon it.

One of the Turks outlined the problem. “We’re fielding calls from all over,” he said. “Relatives of people who’ve supposedly gone missing. Nothing verifiable, but in P.R. terms it’s a shit-bomb with a very short fuse.”

“Hold up,” said The Chairman. “How many are we talking?”

“Ask Sheriff Arlo,” suggested a second Turk. “The last time we ‘liaised’ he yammered about needing outside help to investigate what he called ‘probable serial killings.’”

“You have a plan?” The Chairman asked.

“Somethin’ y’all shoulda’ green-lit months ago,” offered a third conspirator, The Chairman’s indomitable wedge client.

Jane outlined a rapid-response initiative to “spur leadership dynamism” in Halcyon. Her motion targeting Sheriff Arlo carried unanimously.

As for The Chairman’s own vote, he might say that he viewed it as strictly procedural and cast in the spirit of group harmony – an effort to stay within the flock, as it were, rather than to confer his own actual approval of what could be considered a decapitation strike.

Again (and regrettably), all records were lost.

A RUMPLED NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER LANDED In The Chairman’s office, unannounced. An honor, surely, Halcyon’s de-facto mayor thought, but also a risk.

“Drove up from Santa Monica,” the reporter announced. “Came to take the pulse.”

“Hottest market in decades!” his subject touted, foisting data points to prove it while noting the journalist’s threadbare blue blazer and wrinkled khaki pants.

“Look,” the guest began. “I’ve obtained some numbers from Halcyon’s waterworks that don’t, uh, tally. Rainfall’s a big fat zero. The creek’s bone dry. Yet a tiny back-up aquifer is apparently sufficient for current needs. Can you explain this? Or do you share my suspicion that these numbers are, uh, cooked?”

“Join me for a drive and I’ll show you what’s really happening.”

The Chairman grabbed the keys to his Range Rover. The Times Guy trailed in a dented Hyundai. In caravan, they toured ocean-view neighborhoods beneath a vast cloudless sky.

“We’ve retrofitted every home with low-flow commodes and water-saving shower heads,” The Chairman explained from the bluff where they’d parked. “We’re living like Bedouins.”

Sea lions barked and frolicked on the beach. The Times Guy had seen it all before, apparently, and proceeded as if herding an old goat. Said he suspected Halcyon was hiding something. “How else could a town suffering acute dehydration vibe so relentlessly chipper?”

The Chairman stayed on message. Their jousting continued over lattes at the Artisanal Café.

“Look,” the reporter said, back out on the street beside his Hyundai, “My editors determine what makes the paper. Just so you know.”

Warning shot delivered, The Chairman thought. Halcyon would get torched. He read the uplifting headline with elation.

ONE CALIFORNIA TOWN SLASHES WATER USE 90 PERCENT. “‘It’s as if we were dead,’ gushed a Halcyon official, speaking to The Times on the condition of anonymity.” Brown lawns and frugality got credit. Halcyon shined. The Turks were ebullient in their praise.

THAT NIGHT Thrst tagged VAMPIRE on the side of The Chairman’s building. Three days later, Halcyon’s de-facto leader caught a bulletin on the local public radio affiliate: HERE ON THE CENTRAL COAST, A FREELANCE REPORTER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES IS MISSING. RANGERS DISCOVERED HIS BATTERED HYUNDAI ON A BLUFF IN MONTANA DEL ORO STATE PARK. SUICIDE IS SUSPECTED, THOUGH NO REMAINS HAVE BEEN RECOVERED.

As covers go it feels thin, thought The Chairman, though he’d done his best in a pinch.

“Cuzzzz!” Jake had said, storming his office a day earlier.

“I trust you’re being discreet,” The Chairman replied as they’d bro hugged.

“Funny you ask,” said Jake, sitting down.

Outside the blood bank yesterday this eager beaver dude waves me over. Looks kinda homeless.

Takes out a notebook and says: ‘You a donor?’ I say, ‘Yeah.’ He says, ‘Can we talk?’ I say, ‘Let me have you for lunch.’ He says ‘Sure.’ So, I do.”

Jake was giddy, a kid who’d just devoured his Happy Meal in three glorious bites. To him this was one big joke.

“This place is so bountiful,” he said, “I may reloca-” “Look,” The Chairman interrupted. “You must help me with something right now! Hotwiring a Hyundai!” The rest of his busy day flew out the window. “Korean cars – the horror!” Jake yukked, a Detroit Metal man to the end.

VANDALISM DOMINATES MORNING CHATTER AT THE ARTISANAL CAFÉ In an escalation, ThrsT had scrawled HALCYON CONQUISTADOR in gigantic polychromatic block letters across the rear wall at Deep Six Wine and Spirits out on the Pacific Coast Highway. No driver could miss its discordant message.

And yet, opinions in the art vs. eyesore debate ran eighty percent favorable. One cappuccinosipper called it “truth’s pinwheel.” Another said it “gave this stodgy town some edge!” A third mused: “Think he’d do my barn?”

Hardly a public emergency. Yet in accordance with Halcyon’s broken window protocols, The Chairman summoned Sheriff Arlo anyway.

“Let’s take ‘er easy,” the lawman drawled, a wad of Red Man distending one cheek. “I reckon the perp’s a juvenile -- spit -- worst he’d face is a slap on the wrist. Spit. Besides, trappin’ a graffiti vandal is harder than seeing the green flash out at Moonstone. Spit.”

“So that’s it? Crack wise and do nothing?” The Chairman asked.

“Jeesuss. Spit. I’ll poke around, okay? But it behooved us to consider potential blowback from other ‘artists.’ I’d be acting on your order. Catch my drift?”

Arlo almost spilled his Dixie Cup as he waddled out of The Chairman’s office.

The Chairman attributed his sheriff’s uncharacteristic slovenliness to The Change. Realized just then that the vandalism itself weighed on his mind less than the word conquistador.

PART FOUR

FLIP DECK Many people who come to San Antonio sense that it is one of the ancient Indian “power spots.” Those who sense it, though, prefer to keep the secret to themselves. – Leo C. Sprietsmo, Manuscript for a New History of Mission San Antonio de Padua, 1988

WHY I ENVY ANNE RICE VAMPIRES In two words: total recall. Her fictional bloodsuckers bank every thought, act or encounter and dine out on the interest forever. In the real world, dear readers, afterlives float on shifting sands beside a ravenous sea, where memory’s pervasive erosion constitutes our primary existential predicament.

My hunger for context overpowers all but one other. So, episodically, I curate -- memory care self-administered, using artifacts in a travelling trunk I acquired (from another dead guy) at a charnel house called Shiloh.

HINGES CREAK My afterlife reanimates in reverse chronology: Halcyon, 1982-Present; Hong Kong Missionary Society, 1966-82; Columbia Bar Tugboat Pilot, Astoria, OR, 1945-66; Correspondent, United Press, 1920-45; and so on. I imagine this retrograde journey as my personal flip deck, those stacks of picture cards used since Medieval times to conjure moving images. Sartorial norms, haircuts and adornments jitter. I flit into and out of uniform. Backdrops span four continents in a vivid post-mortem with plot twists torn from a penny dreadful.

Catalonia: I board a three-master destined for New Spain.

Panama: I join a Papal expedition to Alta California that includes 79 soldiers, priests and servants. I die aboard a packet boat named Pelican when a Russian lieutenant becomes my maker on the 38th day of that harrowing passage.

Monterrey Presidio: I land there a revenant, bound to secrecy, inclined to solitude, agent to a sweeping colonization that would reshape California. My posting is Mission San Antonio de Padua, part church, plantation and fortress built in an oak- studded valley to project Spanish power. Led by Father Buenavista.

“God’s Servants, greet the day,” he’d whisper to roust acolytes.

“All creatures share His Grace,” he’d chide any who cursed natives or struck an uncooperative burro.

“On Sunday we rest!” he’d declare as we supped on fresh game and mission wine.

Sagacious. Loving. A majestic force.

Buenavista’s curiosities blossomed during treks into the Santa Lucia Mountains. “Like our feet, conversation can carry us anywhere!” he would proclaim each time we escaped the mission walls.

At every village, he’d preach in the local tongue and break bread with naked men half his size.

Alongside his sincerity my deception festers. How had I failed to confess that Satan himself had possessed me? I burrow my left hand deeper into the trunk to finger beads on my oldest Rosary.

Then, something else: a diagram depicting Buenavista’s irrigation system at the mission.

A new memory vault creaks open: Unremitting drought/FLIP/crop failures push neophytes to privation/FLIP/Five dry years, maybe six. I tremble at the climax: uprising/FLIP/communal violence/FLIP/ Buenavista’s death.

FLIP, FLIP, FLIP. Am I dreaming?

We trek into mountains named for a Sicilian saint martyred with a dagger in her throat.

“A hectic fever rises,” Buenavista whispers, wild-eyed. “A Pagan chieftain once spoke of it. Told me it devoured families. Poor soul bore a dark spirit. ‘Praise, it could never be so, Brother’ I assured, ‘for The Almighty’s hand is strong!’

He stared, yet unbaptized in a village drained of saved souls. “’Pray, you too are welcome to join us at the mission,’ I implored. ‘You will see,’ he rasped. ‘You will see.’”

“Now,” Buenavista shudders, “I do.”

He leads me into a village empty but for scattered bones and blood. Buenavista falls to his knees and prays.

Flip-cards fail me. The irrigation map remains in my clutch. I realize something obvious: the sierras that ring San Antonio loom dagger-like above Halcyon, a mere vulture’s flight to the west.

HECTIC FEVER! I shudder. Memories pound in long, curling waves that break with thunderclaps then retreat to the deep.

DISPATCHES FROM A UP NEWSMAN May 1926: I chronicle one William Randolph Hearst’s campaign to restore Mission San Antonio.

I roam his San Simeon palace alongside starlets flown in from San Bernardino for parties. I go on safari amidst a free-roaming menagerie including zebras, a forlorn giraffe and two elephants. The rugged coastline forms a natural shield. An epicenter, but of what?

I relock my travel trunk.

On the drive back to Halcyon I fixate on a single recovered memory: Buenavista’s body, burned to obscure what I am certain were bite marks.

PROJECT BUFFET (PART 2) The Turks’ most infamous gambit. Its transcendent significance never registered outside Halcyon. That arrivals exceeded departures, violating tourism’s implied zero-sum mathematics, only struck home with those directly impacted.

Eventually we lost agency in a miasma, surrendered to a primitive hive instinct of which I bear no memory. Survivor testimonials (since scrubbed from social media channels) described “rage mobs” and “cannibalism” at the 2016 Scarecrow Festival. Yet in today’s infotainment hall of mirrors, who’s to say what’s true?

I’m no biologist, but I’ve enjoyed National Geographic programming over the years and recall something analogous to our uncharacteristic behavior in Halcyon: footage of Great White Sharks, normally among the blue ocean’s most solitary creatures, clustering off South Africa in what resembled a Bacchanalia, a ritualized feeding frenzy.

For a time, only zombies sought property in Halcyon. Their exuberance drove prices to insane heights, sending some among us north past San Simeon and south as far as Pismo Beach in search of relative bargains. I made numerous referrals for revenants who, sadly, couldn’t afford Halcyon’s opulence; most receiving agents reciprocated with finder’s fees or cases of palatable wine, oblivious to the ZNIMBY gentrification they, too, abetted.

I dashed south to Cayucos for fish tacos one Saturday and noted a new sign at the edge of that picturesque (though, not truly exclusive) burg. It read Small Town, Big Hearts, and I thought bet they stayed up all night writing that one, so generic was its message. But the drive refreshed, and the tacos were divine.

When I repeated the journey several weeks later, I found that the new sign had been defaced to read Small Town, STILL Hearts in the script of Halcyon’s edgiest street artist. I thought now that’s a campaign worth mounting.

WE FAVOR QUIET EXITS MADE ON PRETEXTS Needed to nursemaid a distant sibling, we’d say, or landed the job of a lifetime in Cincinnati.

For a century, “going west” was a discrete zombie’s go-to.

In contrast, my escape from Halcyon lacked grace, plan or cover story. My passion for real estate decayed overnight into loathing; the muted grey spaces I once adored became instantly ambiguous, like shadows. I quit HGTV cold turkey, repulsed at long last by mindless consumption and maintenance free engineered quartz.

From one day to the next I realized that what Halcyon needed – amity, perspective, catharsis, whatever – would arrive on their own schedules after we were gone. By then Calamity Jane had sold her home in an off market deal I learned of only after she’d galloped away. Sheriff Arlo and his makers disappeared over the span of eleven days. As it happens, nature truly does abhor a vacuum. I listed my home and received multiple all-cash offers. Halcyon’s NIMBY market – minus “Z” as in zombie -- was hot, hot, hot once again.

NO LONGER SEPARATED BY SECRETS I crossed the mountains to Paso Robles, retrieved my trunk from storage and traced the fabled El Camino Real northward on a journey backwards in time. In San Antonio, shaded by an ancient olive tree, I found Buenavista where he had lain undisturbed beneath clay and wild grasses for 184 years.

I realized it only then: I had gone to make amends.

“Fears so hampered; shyness bore a staggering cost! Satan himself took grope of me. My grief – my responsibility – overwhelms!”

I spoke in the past, transported. Heard the audacity in my petition for forgiveness knowing that had the table been turned I would never comply.

“Praise you, my brother!” I blubbered as if performing penance ahead of a Sunday feast, an inarticulate neophyte dissembling before his sage.

A Cooper’s Hawk soared past on a hot breeze that tamped at my face. The mission we once built rippled mirage-like in the glare, part tourist attraction and part ruin.

The spot was, is, forever will be, sublime.

“Our early work affirms a 20th century industry adage,” I told my oldest friend. “’In real estate but three things matter: Location. Location. Location. The rest is mere distraction.”

I imagined his belly laugh amidst the drone of power tools. I imagined the two of us laboring together again side-by-side, building tasteful Mediterranean-style homes in Halcyon, CA, to Buenavista’s exacting specifications. Craftsmen no longer separated by secrets.

I vowed never again to forget the man who shaped me more than my own father. Yet I knew I would.

PART FIVE

TWO BILLBOARDS

The advertising industry‘s prime task is to ensure that uninformed consumers make irrational choices—Noam Chomsky

HE’D PLANNED ON ARRIVING HOURS AGO But the road snakes across a vineyard-draped valley kept verdant with depleted aquifers, then scales the jagged Santa Lucia range on switchbacks predating the Internal combustion engine. It offers scenic pull-outs too numerous to count, an A+ for majesty as road-trips go, but a D- for its dearth of passing lanes. A slow convoy slithers snake-like behind every RV-America rental and pod of long-distance cyclists, speckled with candy-colored Mustang convertibles from AVIS. His gas gauge bounces between ¼ and E; the country music station he’d picked up back over the mountains in Paso Robles warbles.

“Just ‘nuther unpaid dash to Nowheresville,” he mock-croons after the signal fades to static.

Halcyon’s bald hucksterism has hooked him already. He would, as instructed 25 miles back, and 70 miles back, VISIT BEAUTIFUL HALCYON! “Your wish is my command,” he goofs to the empty passenger seats in his 1987 Volvo station wagon as it clanks down the scenic byway.

Each billboard promised lush foliage and wildflowers lining a tranquil beach.

But as Halcyon comes into view through his cracked windscreen, a once-majestic oak lays splayed down the middle in a field that looks to have undergone chemotherapy – hairless but for a resilient stalk here and there in defiance of foregone death.

The ground itself is crackled, its pallor grey as crematorium ash. Mother Earth lay sick, maybe dying. Behind a tacky wig and Jackie O sunglasses.

Takes greenwashing to a new level, like calling Death Valley a sunken garden, he thinks as he pulls into the local gas and mini mart to the pungency of overcooked brakes.

He’s seen denialism touring the drought-ravaged Golden State in mad dashes to Podunk towns where he’d harvested bark samples for tenured colleagues who have better things to do with their weekends and barely acknowledge his existence anyway. College, grad school, dissertation hell, and still a glorified gopher.

But the spadework is important. Both professionally – co-authorship, if the project pans out -- and to battle the climate crisis. So drones his pesky inner monologue.

True, he’d been thrilled to join a three-person team to model California’s drought at select highimpact locations. Based on the visuals, he may have just hit the bullseye. We’ll see what the data shows, he thinks. Then: Gotta pee.

He pumps $20’s worth into his Volvo and hits the head. As he enters the too- charming town, he spots a middle-aged guy in front of a florid Victorian cottage folding an Open House sign into a Range Rover.

Bit of local knowledge never hurt.

“Excuse me,” Brian asks after parking. “I’m-” “Sorry, but you missed it,” the man interrupts. “She’s a beauty – full reno, granite and stainless kitchen with an open floorplan – listed less than 48 hours and we just went pending.”

“No. I mean … I’m looking for pine trees to examine, you know, up close. I’m a climatologist.

Any suggestions?”

“Oh, uh, sounds fascinating,” says the man, who then goes silent for a long moment, looking up and down the street.

“Okay, yes. I’d skip the county park – trails are packed every weekend. You could head up Dead Man’s Creek Road about a mile. It’s there just ahead. Where it turns to dirt, bear left onto a gravel track and you’ll find a whole enchanted forest.”

“Sounds like the ticket, thanks.” Brian says.

“The spot’s magical and somewhat haunting, especially when the wind’s up. You’ll have all the privacy you need unless someone heads out for a picnic.”

“No locked gates or anything?” Brian asks.

“Heavens no. Never in Halcyon. We prefer our visitors free-range.”

Brian finds the guidance odd but laughs anyway, then (back in grad student mode) he follows directions. Within minutes he’s into some truly enchanting trees with his sample kit, trailing dust in knee-high plumes.

What a tinderbox! Just as the model predicted, he thinks, then wonders if he’ll make it home in time for Saturday Night Live.

Brian doesn’t.

In fact, his colleagues never hear from their junior researcher again, and neither is sure where he’d driven off to the weekend he disappeared.

After waiting an appropriate interval, the University of California at Merced’s climate modelling team selects a new up-and-comer from the pool of non-tenured scientists they routinely tap for grunt work.

Brian hears a car approach as he tags and bags his last strips of thirsty bark. He steps out of the woods a final time. Spots the man with the Range Rover accompanied by a fat cop as they park, exit the vehicle and wave. Nothing untoward. No hint of malevolence. The men close the distance.

Brian notices a boxy object in the realtor’s left hand. The Taser crackles once, twice. No witnesses, no mistakes.

PUBLISH, OR PERISH The subconscious is a trickster, The Chairman concludes not for the first time. He recalls an impromptu picnic in the woods one scorching Saturday afternoon in Halcyon, a feast foreshadowed in his dreams the previous night, a scenario he’d pondered over breakfast as one gropes in the dark.

For that entire morning he’d secretly multi-tasked – selling a small cottage marketed as an “intown mansion” to clients hungry for Halcyon’s fancy zip code and tasteful people, while also mulling a phrase from his dream: publish, or perish?

The meaning of it landed like a pizza pie delivered to the wrong address – aromatic and droolworthy yet forbidden unless …. The meaning had walked straight up to The Chairman outside the open house he’d just finished, when he met a curious stranger. Too curious, he soon realized.

The guy’s research involved California’s climate crisis -- a nettlesome topic in Halcyon, and just the kind of unwelcome inquiry that could get a young man lost in the forest.

Big pizza. The Chairman had remembered just then that poor Sheriff Arlo really did need to eat something.

OHMYGOD! Dispatcher: 911, where is yourCaller: (screaming) Ohmygod! Real blood! They’re eatingDispatcher: Okay, ma’am. I need you to calmCaller: No. No. Fuck!

Dispatcher: (talking to someone else) Third report from Halcyon. Doesn’t sound like a prank …

Caller: Ohmygod! No, no, no … Ohmy …

CALL DISCONNECTED

PART SIX A COMEDY, REALLY?

“It‘s like a constant limbo, I’m always in between” – Jeffrey Lee Pierce

IN A SETBACK My memoir remains unpublished in its true form and each new rejection stings.One New York literary agent responded to my submission with two words: “What crisis?!?!” Another, based in San Francisco, called me “unfathomably deadpan even for a supposed dead guy. Sorry!” The insults fill a shoebox.

Incredulity and nitpicking go with the territory, I get that. But I hadn’t anticipated an eyewitness account of Halcyon’s revenant infestation to garner either willful misinterpretation – a comedy, really? – or callous disinterest in the tragedy it chronicles. Such glibness insults all of those who participated, not to mention died.

Yet like Halcyon’s rainfall bad news seldom lingers. My manuscript found a hungry talent agent and our stars, as they say, aligned. Filming for the yet-to-be-titled zombie flick set in Central California begins next April. It’s Halcyon’s biggest self-promotional opportunity since, well, forever. Another in the string of unheralded wins I’ve delivered to local businesses over the years, but who’s counting?

Mother Nature remains cantankerous. A ferocious El Nino has brought flooding to Halcyon so severe that the creek recently overtopped its banks and lapped to the Artisanal Café’s very threshold, prompting a Hollywood scramble to secure alternative shooting locations near Palm Springs, just in case.

YOU MAY JUDGE MY PROTESTS PETTY Yes, I sold the manuscript. Yes, I got paid. What sears is the realization that my actual story won’t ever grace the silver screen, and how demoralized, prayed-upon and left for undead that truth makes me feel.

I’d stood mute as my own agent shared his winning elevator pitch: Shaun of the Dead meets Jonathan Swift at Hearst Castle. For a time, I took this as success. And yes, I’d taken their blood money. But it hasn’t appeased my sadness and utter disappointment at so rare an opportunity squandered.

HOLLYWOOD CHITCHAT EXCLUSIVE! Guess Who’s Coming for Dinner? ZOMBIES to feed at Hearst Castle HOLLYWOOD, 11/11/22 - SLEEPY ONCE DESCRIBED

WE’VE ALSO LEARNED THAT THE MEGASTAR’S

CENTCAL’S TONIEST BURG, BUT SOON HALCYON WILL BECOME SOMETHING QUITE DIFFERENT: A BUFFET. UNDEAD, LED BY A BONA FIDE ALISTER AND CLARK GABLE REINCARNATE BEST KNOWN FOR HIS ELABORATE CAPER FILMS, ARE SET TO SWARM IN AND FEAST.

PARTICIPATION, WHICH HTOWN HOTHOUSE HOMEGROWN STUDIOS COULD FORMALIZE WITHIN WEEKS, INCORPORATES A SECOND ROLE: EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, CODE-SPEAK FOR CREATIVE CONTROL. BRAVO!

CHITCHAT’S TEAM HAS STOLEN A TASTE OF WHAT COULD BE HOLLYWOOD’S

“GEORGE SAW BLOCKBUSTER POTENTIAL IN A NEWBIE AGENT’S ELEVATOR PITCH: SHAUN OF

MOST DELICIOUS UNDEAD SCRIPT, A CREEP-SHOW WITH HIGH-TANNIN THROUGH-

THE DEAD MEETS JONATHAN SWIFT AT HEARST CASTLE,” SAID A SOURCE

LINES, MUSCULAR MYSTERIES AND SEARING SATIRE – DRENCHED IN LOTS (AND LOTS, AND LOTS) OF

CLOSE TO THE PROJECT.

BLOOD. DON’T EXPECT PG-13 FOR THIS GORE-FEST!

“WAIT! SCRATCH ‘GEORGE,’ THAT’S OFF-THE-RECORD –

KEEP THE KIDDIES SAFELY

I’M NOT KIDDING!” THE SOURCE ADDED, SWEAT BEADING ON BOTOXED BROW. “I NEED THIS GIG TO

AT HOME, AND (TRUST US) PASS ON THE CONCESSION

MAKE RENT. AND THE BEACHES UP THERE ARE

CHILIDOGS.

WAY COOL.” SORRY CHARLIE. NOBODY’S GETTING OUT ALIVE.

I’VE RELOCATED TO LA-LA LAND And secured, with gluten-free paradox, lucrative work in The Industry. I run beaches to cultivate a righteous So Cal tan and look two decades younger than Halcyon’s formerly top-rated Certified Real Estate Professional, the villain who, conspiracy theorists would have you believe, lead the biggest murder cult in California’s history.

Fortunately, I’m unrecognizable. Fresh name, look and location fit the bill every time. Still, dear readers, there is no use in hiding that my transition has been rocky, a change no amounts of cosmetic balm and vigorous exercise, applied even in a community built atop strata upon strata of superficiality and obsession with “look,” can rectify. My brain thinks in one place while my heart doesn’t beat in another. That guillotine really did slice me in two.

A brain numbed by predation, yes. A cold, undead heart, yes! Though as any astute reader would have discerned by this juncture, zombies experience the full range of human emotions as if trapped on a fast-moving and elaborate mechanical diorama that stretches (theoretically) from creation to the end of history.

Which is not to say other victims haven’t suffered.

My lingering regret: Halcyon still maligns my achievements. My hope: time could rectify that.

Just maybe.

To that end, my original manuscript resides padlocked inside my travelling trunk And beyond contemporary judgement. Like fine madeira, gothic tales age gracefully if kept in a dark cellar.

Though, as you know, a few unauthorized copies now circulate -like warm blood -- in the community.

My debts are repaid.

WOULD THAT IT WERE SO SIMPLE That I could raise a bullhorn and decree “It’s a wrap people!” with a Hollywood honcho’s verve and be done. But sadly, dear readers, my big finish flopped with the test audience in my head.

A recent diary entry encapsulates my unravelling:

DEC. 17, 2022 HOW IS THIS HAPPENING? WHY CAN’T I MOVE FORWARD? THE POSSE STILL TRACKS ME. “LYNCH HIM!” SANTA LUCIA SCREAMS IN MY DREAMS. BUENAVISTA, MY ETERNAL MENTOR, EXTENDS SKELETAL ARMS FROM HIS GRAVE IN MY DREAMS. I IMAGINE HGTV. CELEBRITY FLIPPERS SCRUB BLOOD, SCOUR VISCERA. HOURS BEFORE A CRUCIAL OPEN HOUSE THAT SOMEHOW CAN’T BE RESCHEDULED. GUT JOB! I IMAGINE HALCYON’S ZOMBIE MOVIE. NEIGHBORS GROWL AND SPEW, BREAK DOWN THE DOOR AND EAT A FAMILY THAT JUST SAT DOWN TO LASAGNA. EACH VICTIM BECOMES A COMRADE-IN-ARMS BEFORE THE VINO DE PORTO IS POURED. I LAMENT THE BEAST THAT IS HOLLYWOOD: PREDICTABLE AS OUR INEVITABLE DEMISE.

My sighs deepen and deepen. My days grow insufferable. I’ve begun to forget what an afterlife not consumed by misery feels like. I face a binary too cruel to fathom -- sleepless exhaustion, or nightmares that overpower even madeira -- and I know not how to regroup.

One question has dogged me over these trying years: Was the judgement I should have feared my own?

Eternity looms.

IS HE DREAMING? Golden, idyllic, wildly affluent: Halcyon beckons its exiled former chairman. Nocturne.

Am I dreaming? Halcyon’s formerly top-rated Certified Real Estate Professional wonders, perhaps for the last time.

He parks the Range Rover, wades into Moonstone’s surf and swims out. Approaching the fog line, he turns. Beholds Halcyon’s starlit majesty a final time.

Kelp tangles.

Exhaustion moves extremity to core.

Water envelops.

Then, he imagines a Great White haunting the frigid depths and thinks: Forever Home.