It wasn't a novel, either, but it may be someday. Didn't hit 50k this year, either. I'm slipping. Note the Hiatus references…

The Highest Bidder
by C. A. Bridges

Chapter One – Cons and Pros and Cons

Bought: Kevin Sutton (2); Mark Goddard (1); Erin Gray (2); Playboy Playmate Miss November 2008 Grace Kim (1); George Lowe, voice of Space Ghost (1)

Morton would never have bought the souls in the first place if it hadn't been for the girl with the Captain Crunch box.

As far as Morton Sezlick was concerned, science fiction conventions existed for one reason and one reason only: commerce. You went, you sold, you bought, you moved on. There was a great deal of money to be made if you knew what you were doing, which he did, which was why every minute stuck in this half-mile autograph line that was not moving was driving him crazy with the lingering scent of lost revenue. Almost as maddening as the way the thousands of people currently crowding his space just went around mindlessly having fun all the time in their elaborate costumes of Jedis and Klingons and Browncoats and whatever the hell those big square brown things were with all the teeth. How could anyone enjoy this if they weren't paid to do so?

Despite the best efforts of dedicated fans, convention halls simply were not conducive to the creation of magical science-fantasy worlds. From where Morton stood he could see sad-looking paper-mache emulations of planets and rocket ships, a Mark I Viper made of slightly sagging cardboard, lots of poly-vinyl banners strung from the ceiling, and rows and rows of PVC-and-blue-cloth dividers divvying up the dealers' tables and artist alley booths. It might have helped if the con people could have controlled the environment and only let you you see what they wanted you to see, like a JayCees' haunted house or something, but none of the decorations rose higher than about 10 feet and above that the bland, institutional yellow of the walls stretched for another 20 more before the ductwork and pipes of the ceiling added the capping, fantasy-killing touch. Guests of the con, actors from popular science fiction shows and movies both past and present – the only reason to show up, as far as Morton was concerned – sat against a wall behind a long row of folding tables that were covered in butcher paper so the fans couldn't see the stars' impatient foot-tapping, stashed alcohol, missing underwear, or hidden Blackberrying. Behind each star was a piece of posterboard with their name and credits, in case you weren't sure why you wanted to meet them or couldxn't quite remember where'd you'd seen their face before, especially if it had been covered in makeup and latex tentacles at the time. And you needed to be sure; autograph lines of hundreds of people stretched and curved across the floor, doubling back on themselves to create some sort of intricate, organically changing knot that was broken and reformed repeatedly every time someone dressed as General Grievous or an eight-foot Pac-Man needed to come through.

Sezlic was even waiting for a hot actor, really, that was the worst part. Kevin Sutton, played "Captain Vince Parvo" on seven whole episodes of a cancelled sci-fi show last year. But the die hard fans spent weeks writing letters and signing petitions and demanding the show be saved, to absolutely no effect since the real reason the show was canned was because there simply weren't enough people watching the silly thing, die-hard or not. Networks would rather have 10 million bored viewers than 1 million passionate ones because it turns out that it's extremely difficult to purchase corporate jets with passion, so what the fans were really annoyed at was the bulk of America which preferred to ignore innovative new shows in droves to go watch the same old T-and-A reality show monstrosities as last year. Since it's very difficult to wage an effective letter-writing campaign against the American people, they sent spiteful letters to the network instead and muttered darkly about the death of television.

Meanwhile the actors, having spent two months in makeup chairs, could now spend the rest of their lives jumping from convention to convention if they cared to and their fans would cream over them like they were Ghandi and Brad Pitt rolled into one. The girl in front of Sezlick wearing the fake, vaguely militaristic uniform of the show was holding a People magazine (cover story: "Kevin Sutton, the New Harrison Ford?") like a holy relic. Pathetic.

Thing is, those die-hard fans and their cash was why Morton was in the line in the first place. Morton made a living selling reprinted autographed celebrity pictures on eBay, and without that dependable pool of slightly dim fans he wouldn't be making his rent payment this week. He stepped forward another half-inch. The sound of laughter from the front of the line made him wince. Dammit, he's talking to them! Move it, people!

"Isn't he fantastic?" came the voice behind him, and Morton spun on his heel to release a bit of his frustration in a short, contained burst of concentrated sarcasm designed to wither any social extrovertism the speaker might once have had into a tiny blackened husk. His sarcasm stuck in his throat when he saw her, and burned. She was a bit taller than he was, but most people were. Comfortably built, a mass of curly brown hair framing her delighted elfin face and spilling down her back, and a tight black T-shirt that read "Don't Tell Me About My Afterlife, I Want To Be Surprised." But that wasn't what stopped him. Attractive women weren't nearly as scarce in geek circles as non-geeks had always assumed, cliched pimply boys in basements aside, and everyone loved celebrities. No, what drew his eye immediately was the large box of Captain Crunch she was holding. It had signatures on it. "I got to see him last year at MegaCon," she said, oblivious to his confusion. "He told this great story about the network's censors freaking out over his velour tights and trying to get him to hold a gun or a clipboard over his crotch in every scene. Freakin' hilarious!"

Morton nodded absently and tried to get a better look at the cereal. Familiar red box, same old captain on the front, but there were tantalizing hints of black squiggles here and there. "Yeah, hilarious. Excuse me, is that–?"

She laughed once, loudly, and held it out. "It is! It's my autograph box! Check this out, I just got the guy who played Cousin Itt!"

"Felix Silla," Morton said, absentmindedly. He took the box and looked at it. It was filled with signatures, all from science fiction actors, writers, and directors. Mark Hamill had signed it, and Leonard Nimoy, and Tim Burton and Joss Whedon and what looked like the entire casts of "Dollhouse" and "The X-Files" and most of the writers for every Star Trek series there had ever been. Many of them had had to sign with very small writing. He gaped at it. There were names here he didn't even have. There were names there of celebs that he knew for a fact never, ever signed autographs. "But, why…?"

"Why the Captain?" she said, taking it back and grinning. "Couple years back I went with a friend to Necronomicon in Tampa so he could meet Terry Pratchett. You know, the writer?"

Pratchett's bibliography, bio, and current autograph market price (originals, preprints, and book inscriptions) flashed through Morton's mind in a multicolored second. "I've heard of him," he ventured.

"So me and Jeff are heading to the hotel and he's got this mule-load of books to get signed and I realized I didn't have anything and didn't even really know anything about the guy and I was just going to stand there and look like an idiot. Jeff gave me this killer idea, you know what it was?"

"Eat breakfast?"

"Ha! No, he made us stop at the first store we came to and told me to buy something, anything, and have Mr. Pratchett sign it. That way I wouldn't be left hanging, Mr. Pratchett might get a kick out of it, and I'd have a unique collectible. And I do!"

"Did he sign it?"

"Yup," she said proudly, and pointing to a scrawled "Yummy!" followed by a mass of loops and swirls with a T and P prominent. "He was the first. Since then I just bring it to every con I go to and get it signed by everyone there. It's great!"

"So you'll be getting Sutton on it?"

"Again, yeah. I want the whole cast before they get too spread out or die or something. God, I loved that show! Did you watch 'Hiatus'? Can you believe they cancelled–"

"Yes." Morton said flatly. "How much do you think this box of cereal would be worth now?"

She clutched the box to her chest. There was still plenty of chest left over. "Sell it? Are you crazy?"

"People do sell autographs, you know. Thriving market."

"Is that what you do?" She pointed with her chin at the wheeled luggage Morton was trundling over the convention floor carpeting.

"I collect them, yes." Not quite sure why he suddenly felt the need to justify himself to a total stranger, Morton opened the top of the case to show her the tightly-packed file folders inside. "You bring stuff to sign, I bring stuff to sign."

"I brought one thing. You brought… what is all that?"

"The usual. A selection of photos of each celebrity here in different stages of their careers and private life, a variety of pens to sign on either light or dark backgrounds for greater legibility, plus preservation and archival materials to keep them pristine. And some letterhead stationary from different charitable organizations each celeb is known to favor to prove that my request for a free autograph is a worthy one."

She peered into the case with a dazed expression. "And is it?"

"Of course not."

"Wow. Alpahabetized and everything."

"Well, duh. How can I find one quickly if the target comes out of the bathroom?"

"Sorry?"

"I'd go broke if I paid for every autograph here." He waved his arm to cover the entire room. "You gotta catch some of them while they're eating, or taking a smoke break, or in the john. I've even got a special waterproof tray so I can slide photos under stalls without risk of infection. Don't worry," he assured her. "I throw those pens away afterward."

"…oh. Good. I think."

"Man, some of those famous people can really curse, even the women. You'd think they'd be more aware of public perception, and the echoing effect of tile. And there's a big risk with bathroom acquisitions; a few of the pictures I get back that way aren't suitable for framing, if you know what I mean. Once, Sean Penn balled his up and–"

She wasn't smiling now and even Morton, who possessed all the social instincts of a dead fiddler crab, had the distinct impression that it was unusual for this woman to ever not be smiling. "Don't…" she asked carefully, the way you talk to someone on the wrong side of a 12th floor window. "Don't you ever do anything for the fun of it? Don't you enjoy being here?"

"Why should I? They don't enjoy meeting us," Morton said. "They're paid handsomely to come here, they're fed and boozed and partied for free, and they get a cut out of every signature they dash off. For some of these has-beens this is the only steady income they have going, so they treat it like the business transaction that it is. Why shouldn't I? For the time I'm spending in this one line I could have gotten 10 more autographs around the room."

"Why didn't you?"

Morton sighed. "Supply and demand. People don't pay for autographs of has-beens, even has-beens who have been in hundreds of shows and movies. But they'll pay for copies of this jerk's name just because he was on seven episodes of a bright and shiny show that tanked. So, I wait."

"I'm sorry," she said, and looked as though she meant it. She stepped forward again; they'd been moving steadily along as they talked and were getting very close now. Interesting. Talking to someone seemed to make the wait go by faster. Morton made a note to look into that for later use. He wouldn't want to actually chat with anyone, of course, especially since in most cases at cons he'd be trying to speak to a cardboard-and-shag-carpet dragon head or something, but he could dazzle them with his collection. Maybe she… she was talking to the guy behind her now, the fat guy in the "Frak Me to Tears" shirt, and they were laughing. Not at him, as far as he could tell, just laughing over a shared joke. Morton felt oddly rejected, which was doubly annoying since he hadn't wanted to talk to her in the first place.

He turned back just in time to reach the small table just before the star's table, where you paid the tired-looking volunteer and picked out photos of the star to have signed in case you hadn't brought along your own photo or memento or body part to be scribbled on. Morton looked them over disdainfully. Studio pics of Sutton as Captain Parvo in three different boring heroic poses, the head shot he no doubt sent out with his resumes when trying to get a real job so he could avoid working the cons, a single pic from the disastrous made-for-TV movie he'd co-starred in, for the completists, and that was it. Morton paid for two autographs and rifled through his files with swift fingers.

In front of him there was a squeal as the girl in the uniform jumped up and down. "You like it?"

"It looks great," Sutton exclaimed, smiling broadly. He was sitting behind the table, his name on a card in front of him, looking every inch the action star. "You look just like Lt. ParSec!" His eyes traveled down her costume. "Although I think you fill it better."

Even standing behind her, Morton could feel her blushing. Yeah, yeah, hit on the jailbait later, pops, he thought. Her name is Darla, she already told you Darla, everybody heard her say Darlas, just sign the damn thing and let's get going.

"So, 'Darla,' was it?"

Morton sighed loudly. Next to Sutton his "handler," a con volunteer whose only job all weekend was to keep the star watered and to serve as a human shield if the fans got too rowdy, quickly moved photos in front of Sutton's hands so the star didn't have to waste valuable signing time turning them right side up. As a fellow professional, Morton appreciated that. Volunteering at cons was a great way to get autographs, usually for free, since you were right next to the stars all day. The drawback, of course, was that you were right next to the stars all day.

Morton liked seeing stars out in the open like this, usually. They were always more washed out, less vital than they appeared on screen, and that cheered him up. Unfortunately Sutton was just as handsome and broad-shouldered in person, which seemed somewhat unfair. Morton concentrated on holding his photos by the very edges, to avoid fingerprints.

Finally, after talking to the girl for what seemed like hours and posing for pictures with his arm around her trembling shoulder the jerk let her go, and she drifted away still smiling at him with a stupid mooncalf expression and probably not actually putting a foot to the ground more than once every three steps. Morton stepped up quickly and laid his pictures down. They had been carefully chosen for maximum fan interest, stills from the show that displayed him in iconic poses but weren't the official studio shots that everyone else had. "Hi," Morton said, and waited.

Sutton beamed up at him. "Hey, thanks for coming out! Don't you worry, we're getting 'Hiatus' moved to a new network any day now, but we couldn't have done it without fans like–"

"Great, thanks. Sign?"

His photos were already in place and the pen was in hand, but still Sutton paused. "Right. And to whom should I make this out?" he asked, no longer looking as friendly as he had a second ago. Morton knew that look. Maybe he should have worn a costume.

"Oh, just your signature is fine," he said.

"I see," Sutton said, and he leaned back in his chair, taking in Morton's open case of files. "And if I asked you which episode it was where I broke my collarbone saving the life of Sparkoid, the alien space-dog?" Behind him Morton could hear fans nearly giving themselves aneurysms trying desperately not to answer out loud while still discreetly letting their hero know that of course everyone knew that, everyone except for Morton, who never watched television. Cameras were snapping everywhere.

"Well, I'd say that you didn't break anything, you're an actor. And I didn't know there was a competency test just to get autographs. Which I did pay for, by the way."

"Yes. Yes, you did," Sutton said coldly, and without breaking eye contact he quickly signed both and pushed them off to one side like a Vegas dealer at the cheap tables. Morton gave him something that might charitably be considered a nod and moved aside to collect the photos. He carefully picked them up and waved them gently in the air to dry the ink before sliding them safely into… Hey?

Morton turned back, angrily, but Sutton was already standing up and leaning over the table to hug the Captain Crunch girl. "Sally!" he was saying loudly. "How the hell are you? You changed your hair!" The rest of the fans thrilled to watch their captain acknowlege one of their own. Another con staffer was taking Morton by the arm to move him out of the way and he decided it wasn't worth the hassle. If he attacked Sutton now he'd have half the convention coming after him. All that time, wasted…

He jammed the photos in his case and left to go stand behind a gaggle of Slave Girl Leias and drown his sorrows with a $5 Coke and what, if you judged solely by the price, was the greatest hot dog ever steamed by man. With some difficulty he found an unattended section of wall to lean against and he dropped there, dejected. The Coke was mostly ice, and as he watched a grease spot slowly expanded on the paper under the hot dog and kept going. If he waited long enough, it might cover the convention center, he thought wildly. At least then it would look futuristic, in a post-apocalyptic way. Moving a few inches away from it, just in case, he pulled out the photos again. Sutton had signed 'em, all right. The bastard.

Out of nowhere the Captain Crunch girl dropped down next to him, out of breath and giggling and flushed. "God, that was fantastic! He remembered me! He is so totally made of awesome, you know? With highlights of lighter streaks of awesome!"

"Yeah, he's a peach," Morton muttered. She held out the box, bouncing a little in place.

"Look, he signed right under where he signed it last time, only he wrote 'What He Said, Only Better' and drew an arrow to his old signature. Isn't that great? He wouldn't even let me pay for it, something about 'thank god for real fans' or something. And we all sang the 'Hiatus' theme song, he was directing everyone in line and calling on different groups for the chorus. You should have stayed, it was amazing!"

"It'll haunt me to my dying day, I assure you."

"What did he write for you?" She took the photos carefully from his unresisting fingers. "'To eBay, With Love, Kevin Suttun'," she read out loud, and squealed with laughter. "Suttun? Oh my God, he spelled his own name wrong! That's hilarious!"

"I'm glad you like it. Keep 'em, they're worthless to me now. Twenty-five bucks a pop and now I have waste paper."

"Oh, come on, you were asking for it. Besides, you can probably get more for them now."

"How? By selling only to the blind?"

She grabbed his hot dog and took a large chomp from one end. "Mmm! I'm starving! You mind?"

"No, go ahead, I support assisted suicide. So how do I make money from this crap?"

"By selling utterly unique autographs from Kevin Sutton. Who else has anything like this? And it just makes him look that much cooler."

"And anyone with half a brain would believe I didn't write it myself because…?"

"Because you can put this next to it," she said, and she held out her camera as she finished off the hot dog. There, on the little screen, was a very clear picture of a disgruntled Kevin Sutton writing across the photo as an impatient Morton hovered nearby. "It's high rez, so you can probably even make out what he's writing. Include a copy of that with the prints and you're gold. What's your e-mail address?"

Morton stared at her. "That's… that's fantastic," he said. "That totally saves me, and I can charge double for it! Or, wait," he said, frowning. "It's too unique, I couldn't sell copies."

"Sure you could. It would be funnier that way."

"You're right. People would buy these. You're… you're awesome! Awesome, dipped in… something else awesome!" Morton told her, and was astounded to find he really meant it.

"Glad you finally realized that, I was starting to worry," she said, grinning, and she wrote down his name and contact information before hauling herself to her feet and heading off. "See ya later, costume contest is starting in three hours and I need to go get in line if I want a seat inside." She stopped and looked at him still sitting on the floor. "Try and have some fun, Morton," she said. "Do something you won't make any money off of, and see what you think. Who knows, you might even smile."

She walked off into the brightly-colored crowd, the princess of the science fiction convention, answering waves from friends and guests alike and clearly having the time of her life.

Morton looked down at his newly valuable photos. "Maybe I will," he said, and thereby doomed himself for all eternity.

Chapter Two – Please allow him to introduce himself

Darkness filled the space like an endless sodden blanket pulled from a winter's cruel river, thick and smothering and freezing to the bone. To walk through such a space was to feel all of your childhood terrors burn across your mind like a raging forest fire, to gasp for fetid air, to push through unknown pressures that threatened to flood your lungs and crush your brain and cause your heart to burst. No one living had ever entered without ceaseless pain nor left without scars both visible and unseen.

Also, the wi-fi connection just sucked.

The demon Ronove, Twenty-seventh Spirit, Marquis and Great Earl of Hell, Commander of Nineteen Legions, leaned back on his throne of ancient skulls and whacked the laptop again. "Curse thee to the lowest fires of blistering hell, thou haughty beetle-headed puttock! E'en the worst of the Fallen's host ha'e not such a torturous device as thou, ye earth-vexing canker-blossom!

"Fucking Compaq piece of shit," he added.

A lesser demon – and around Ronove almost all demons were lesser demons – cowered his way over the suspiciously sticky stone floor and stopped within mumbling range. "The souls are readied, lord," it blurted, leathery wings quaking in entirely justified fear. Many of the components of Ronove's throne were from previous assistants. "We await your every command."

"Of course thou dost," Ronove said absent-mindedly. His talons left dark brown smears on the keyboard as he tapped laboriously, one key at a time. "This is a great day, Bloodspittle."

The lesser demon opened his lower mouth and quickly slapped his claws over it. Ronove looked up, annoyed, which was more or less his base state. "What?"

"I'm…" The demon cleared its throat, with some difficulty. "I'm Lacksputum, lord, an' it please you. I'm new? Bloodspittle is my brother?"

Ronove turned back to his work. "I have no interest in learning new names. You are now and forever more Bloodspittle. Slaughter your brother, and his family."

Tears of relief spilled down the face of the new Bloodspittle. For a second there he thought he'd really screwed up. "Thank you, lord. Why is this day great, that I might celebrate it with the proper ceremony?"

Ronove tapped one final key, and smiled. "Because today is the day that the lords of Hell finally win. I, Lord Ronove, have discovered a way around that thrice-damned rules and restrictions from Above that keep us bound to their Puritan whims. And they can't do a thing about it! Tell me, you worthless speck," he said. "Have you ever tasted the soul of a good human?"

"N-no, lord. Of course not. Only the evil ones. We are not permi–"

"No, you haven't. Neither have I. We don't get to eat those. We don't even get to eat the measly, sort-of bad souls that we manage to tempt into our grasp. 'Oh, no,'" he said in a sing-song voice, made all the more startling by coming out of a heavily-muscled nine-foot abomination. "'You can't have those, those are still redeemable in My eyes,' God said. 'You can only eat the ones that have gone completely bad and crusty.' We get the leavings and the scraps, Bloodspittle. We're drug-sniffing dogs, dragged on an endless leash and doomed to forever seek out a substance we can never taste ourselves!"

"Yes, lord."

"They tell the tales themselves, you know, the humans. The devil will steal your soul! He'll bargain, connive, talk you into signing it away. They sing songs about it! Devil went down to Georgia, my monstrous ass. They don't include the part about all the paperwork we have to do afterward, or how we have to release all but the very worst souls back into His care. Bah! How are we to truly tempt humans into exercising their much-lauded moral choice if we can't reap the profits? Where's the incentive? Just think how hard we'd try, how tempting we could be if we knew that we could keep every soul we clutched. God is very much against the free market, Bloodspittle," he added.

"Yes, lord."

For the first time Ronove turned his full gaze on the smaller demon, which promptly wet itself. "Come here."

"Wha.. what?"

"I'm sure I don't need to repeat… good," Ronove said, enjoying the way his assistant held himself awkwardly to keep his weight off the ankle he'd just broken during his frantic leap across the floor. He reached for a small bottle on a shelf behind his throne, removed the cork, and held it out. "Taste this."

It was the same sort of old, dust-streaked bottle the usual damned souls came in, and Bloodspittle took it gingerly. Damned souls tasted horrible, like pouring kerosene on your tongue and lighting it, and even then the aftertaste would be better. Offering up any prayers probably wouldn't have been a good idea at that point — you never knew who might be listening — so he grimaced and drank it down. His eyes and nostrils opened wide. Almost immediately he nearly doubled in size with a horrendous ripping sound, his shoulders and arms swelling with dark new muscle, the ridges on his neck deepening, his claws lengthening, his stench increasing. He screamed, head flung back, and even his voice was deeper with a new bass gravel-chewing rumble that echoed off the distant walls. "That… that soul wasn't damned!" he asked finally, gasping. "There was Good in there! How did you…?"

Ronove was carefully watching him. "A fake," he said with satisfaction. "A pale copy of a real soul, and not much of one at that. You just gulped the third-generation copy of a bricklayer who only cheated on his wife once. How did it feel?"

"It felt…" Bloodspittle flexed his fists and watched his biceps ripple. Were his elbow spurs pointier? "It felt like nothing I have ever experienced before, my lord. It was like drinking light itself."

"Would you give me another century of service? Would you slay hordes for me, eviscerate enemies, challenge the gates of Heaven themselves to taste this again? How about the soul of a teenage girl who merely shoplifted a few times? Or a young politician who told a few white lies in his first campaign? Much better than the shriveled old politician souls we get now, yes?"

With new strength surging through his body, Bloodspittle looked up into his lord's eyes. "I would, lord." He took a deep breath. "I would pay anything."

Ronove smiled. "Good. And you will. And so will the rest of Hell. Go, I have arrangements to make."

"Yes, lord." Bloodspittle turned and stalked off, his broken ankle forgotten.

"Oh, and Bloodspittle?" Before his assistant could turn Ronove was on him, driving him down and sinking his claws through Bloodspittle's back into the stone floor. The demon screamed and thrashed as Ronove leaned down to speak directly into the his pointed ear. "Do not imagine that with enough of those running through your body, you could grow to challenge me. You could devour the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and I will still be able to destroy you utterly, with no effort at all. But I would make an effort, slave. I would make a powerful effort to cause you pain and anguish for thousands and thousands of years. Do you in any way doubt that I would enjoy doing that far more than I enjoy watching you walk around healthy and whole?"

Bloodspittle shook his head violently.

"Good. Go," Ronove said, and he returned to his throne. Technically — and Hell was nothing without technicalities — he was in the clear selling fake souls. God never said they couldn't, after all, and it was always easier to get forgiveness than permission. But just to be on the safe side, he was going to start off small and low key. Sell a few under the table, as it were. Especially since this first shipment was going to include something special.

He picked up the laptop again. He was risking a great deal here, far more than his assistant risked by angering him. He was bound to obey the Laws, and any transaction he made would have to be followed to the letter. His distributor was ready and willing, all Ronove needed was a fool-proof way to get his shipment there without appearing too suspicious to the casual Observer.

Fortunately he knew just the place.

Chapter Three – You Get What You PayPal For

Sent today: William Goldman (Ballentine, sent pic); Johnny Depp (rep); Sean Maher (Gersh, sent pic); Tim Conway (e-mail); Dame Judi Dench (e-mail); Marilu Henner (e-mail); Mike Rowe (Barsky address)
Received: Clint Eastwood (B&W 8×10 ISP, probably secretarial); Michael Rosenbaum (color 8×10 ISP); Dolly Parton (color 5×7 ISP $$ from eBay)
Sold: John Wayne (1), Paul Newman (3), Miley Cyrus (6)

Morton's life was filled with faces. Famous faces. Faces of actors and actresses, faces of politicians, faces of sports stars, all smiling at him from every wall and every door in his apartment. And across every image was scrawled a name, sometimes with a message. Hundreds of famous people had offered him their best wishes. Stars of currently hot TV shows filled his living room, their placement determined by the latest ratings. A-list movie stars circled his front door. If someone were to borrow Morton's bathroom, which no one ever did, they would find their activities therein observed by astronauts and Nobel winners. In his guest-bedroom-slash-office one large bookshelf was filled with signed scripts and inscribed novels, each one carefully wrapped in Mylar, with the top shelf devoted to a row of action figures still in the packaging, with signatures scrawled across their plastic fronts. Another was loaded with notebooks of all sizes and colors, filled to bursting with acid-free sleeves containing countless 8"x10"s and 5"x7"s. There was a small filing cabinet designed to hold 3"x5" cards, and an elaborate desk set up in the corner with the most advanced computer, scanner, and printer setup it was possible for a non-military person to buy.

In every moment of Morton's life he was surrounded by the smiling cream of human achievement, and at night he could hear their whispers, which sounded exactly like money.

Did you know that many people loved celebrities? Did you know that many people loved getting autographed photos of their favorite celebrities? Did you know that some people loved celebrities so much they were even willing to pay for a copy of a celebrity photograph that had never actually shared any sort of contact with the celebrity depicted whatsoever? Morton knew this, because he spent almost every waking moment selling such copies. Lots of them. The way it worked was this: Morton would obtain an authentic photograph, either by buying one or (even better) writing the celebrity and asking for a free one. This he would then scan in at a very high resolution so that when he printed it out again on glossy photo paper it would look very nearly almost like the original. That copy would promptly go up on eBay and get sold to a star-struck fan who desperately wanted to believe that $15 plus shipping would get them something their hero had physically touched with their own personal famous fingers.

And, of course, Morton could print and sell as many copies of that same photo as he liked, which was the best part. Actually, the best part was that since Morton kept all his originals, he really had a very nice collection himself.

He looked over at the stack of money orders freshly arrived from the day's mail and smiled to himself. No, he thought happily. Selling the copies over and over was the best part.

Once he got home, before he did anythng else, he cleaned the scanner and scanned in the photos from the con. That girl — Sally? — had really come through for him. She'd probably want a cut, which rankled a bit, but he couldn't deny that she'd rescued him from a bad situation. Maybe there was an opportunity there? Maybe start a kind of anti-autograph brand and ask all celebs to sign "to eBay," or "Get Away From Me," or something ironically generic like "Bland Indication of Affection, My Garbled Name" or something with pictures of them signing that way? After a moment's thought he decided it worked best as a one-off. Pity.

The rest of the evening was pretty routine. Print out a few dozen more photos, scan the autograph forums for new names or addresses. There was an article in Entertainment Weekly that listed the new fall shows already on the chopping block for having ratings lower than the Christopher Hitchens One-Party State Totalitarian Christmas Special. One of them was the CBS police procedural "Nothing to See Here" ("Perhaps the producers should have picked a less accurate name," the article read, "because one more week of this and we're ready to move along…") so he quickly wrote carefully fawning letters to everyone in the cast as address labels burped out of his printer. Actors on marked shows are more open to signing autographs; fan support becomes very crucial at those times, plus there's the gratitude factor from getting a fan letter just as your network is telling you that you suck. Insecurity is a powerful motivator, and no one is more insecure than an actor who sees his or her new show getting pre-empted by local sports.

Surrounded by photos, rolls of stamps and envelopes Morton licked and folded, joy in his heart.

He set the completed stack aside and checked eBay for new offerings. You were competing with every other autograph hound there but it was still a valuable resource, especially for people like Morton who lived far away from celebrity haunts. Florida simply was not the best place for his chosen occupation and more than once he had considered moving to Los Angeles where stars just wandered around freely like real people, but the costs involved in the move always stymied him. Anyway, it would take him forever to– What the…?

There was a listing there he hadn't seen before, with only a few minutes left, and it definitely didn't belong under Autographs.

"Damn'd Souls HUGE LOT!!! Free Shipping," read the title.

The picture accompanying it was that of an ancient wooden crate, thick wooden planks blackening with age, circled by rusting iron bands, and clearly labeled "Damn'd Souls" along with some odd symbols. The Sumerian version of "This End Up," Morton assumed. How could you not click on something like that?

It was a joke, obviously. You saw that kind of thing a lot among the engine parts and toys and electronics and jewelry and tchochtke detritus that made up the bulk of online auctions everywhere. Some joker would put up a nebulous item for sale like his sense of innocence, or advertising space on her body, or celebrity breath in a bottle, and word would spread. People would even bid on them just to make the joke funnier by driving up the price. For a person like Morton who practically lived and took his meals on eBay, this was knee-slapping humor indeed. Besides, bidding on a useless joke item was also a way to be part of a community, a skill he had previously lacked before social networks were something you could join by clicking a mouse button.

Besides, this one looked to be excellently done. It was worth bidding for the effort alone.

The item page itself was bland, the default template provided by the website. Morton preferred those, honestly. Sellers who didn't even try to pretty up their page were usually beginners, amateurs, and Morton liked amateurs. Amateurs made him smile with their blurry item pictures and confused category placements. Amateurs were refreshingly direct. Amateurs still felt vaguely guilty about trying to unload their old stuff to unseen, possibly judgmental strangers, so they often overcompensated by being brutally, deprecatingly honest with their descriptions.  Amateurs often had no clue of the actual value of what they were selling, and that was precisely why amateurs were exactly the sort of sellers that Morton greatly desired. Buying something of value was always fun, but buying something of value cheaply was an art, and a skill, and a deeply satisfying achievement. Morton roamed over eBay like a hungry shark, his every sense alert to slow-swimming sales and unwary but optimistic new merchants.

There was a larger picture of the crate, of course, and this description:

They were of each class and clime
From the very birth of Time,
Who perversely went astray,
Leaving Virtue's narrow way
For an evil path.
Upon earth they had their will;
Mourning now, they quaff their fill
Of the cup of wrath.

HUGE lot Damn'd Souls, vintage, mint, untasted
bound for the howling pit
PayPal preferred.

The seller was "teerallbynight." Morton had noted that he, she, or it was also a "Power Seller," which brought on a certain sense of kinship. Teeraal's been around a while, that little symbol said, just like Morton himself, and had pleased a lot of sellers. By long habit Morton had clicked on "View seller's other items" to get a sense of Teeraal's general line but there was nothing else active. Teeraal's location was simply listed as "Below," which Morton considered a nice touch.

It wasn't the sort of thing he'd ever bid on ordinarily; he rarely strayed from the Collectibles > Autographs area to even see such things and somewhere deep inside there was a Morton furious at this careless miscategorization, but he was in a uncharacteristically good mood thanks to the Captain Crunch girl. Spontaneous, huh? Never do anything for fun, huh? Well, what the hell. There had been only one bidder on it so far and the price was a whopping nine-fifty. Why not? If nothing else maybe he'd get the crate — assuming it wasn't just a Photoshopped mock up, which it probably was — and he'd be out the price of a pizza. Well worth it for the weirdness factor and bragging rights alone. Show her who's spontaneous.

Still, he might have passed it by but for one crucial thing: there was less than a minute left before the auction was over. Morton's nostrils flared. There was something about that innocent looking less-than symbol in a countdown that triggered an atavistic impulse in Morton like a wolf spotting a wounded fawn, shutting down his upper brain functions and jamming him into a predatory mode, hungry and cunning. Sniper-mode. It will be mine. It must be mine.

With the ease of long practice he opened the item in another browser window, entered his information and clicking along until he was one touch away from committing to his actual bid, and then he waited. He continued to refresh the first browser window over and over, watching the deadline creep forward in 3-second gulps. Everything in the room faded from his awareness until all he saw was the browser window glowing, filling his vision, becoming his entire world. He began breathing slowly, regularly.

At 8 seconds he zipped to the window where his waiting bid resided, let his breath out, and tapped his mouse with the lazy confidence of a fighter pilot launching an AIM-9 Sidewinder at a billboard. "You are the highest bidder!" he read, and he knew in his heart it was true. He didn't even refresh to make sure he'd won; it was something you just knew.

Buying things online was convenient, but sniping made it amazingly satisfying. Nothing added a thrill to an ordinary transaction like snatching it away from someone else who was even now, Morton was certain, shaking his or her tiny impotent fists at the sky and cursing Morton's user name. He smiled at the thought. There were automatic programs out there that could snipe on your behalf, but that seemed cold and impersonal. Much better to swoop in and snatch the prize away with a human hand, as it were, one that relied on skill and timing alone. Besides, he had beaten such programs before.

And now he owned a box of souls.

Wasn't the weirdest thing he'd ever seen at eBay. Someone once spent untold hours creating detailed sets and poses for a series of photos of a Barbie doll and her breakup with Ken. The photos were funny, the text descriptions of the domestic dispute, eventual breakup, and property battles were hilarious. The winning bid was in the hundreds of dollars for the actual auction items, which were the two dolls and perhaps $20 of accessories. And copies of the pictures.

There was also the oddball item like a pop star's chewed gum, carefully rescued from the garbage to be placed on sale to the true fan, or the bagel with the Virgin Mary's face miraculously toasted into it (a plain bagel, of course, the holy Mother seemed to avoid multi-grains). One of Morton's favorites from a few years back was for "A ham sandwich and an ass-kicking." There was a picture of the sandwich, and the description detailed just how fair the seller was willing to travel to deliver the promised smack down. Compared to that, what was a little supernatural trafficking?

He looked around. Everyone he saw seemed to agree with him with big, professional smiles.

He logged off the auction site and checked his e-mail. No real surprises, got the notifications from eBay (yes, he won, duh), got a few inquiries about his own items for sale ("Could you have Charlton Heston sign this one to 'Cheryl, with Love'?"), and one from someone named ronove666@gmail.com with the subject line "Give them back!"

Great, someone else pissed at him. Morton was always very careful to detail his items as carefully and accurately as possible, within certain loose definitions of "accurate," but there was always some bidder with buyer's remorse who waited a few days to realize that you know, he really didn't want to buy a perfectly nice copy of Madonna's handwriting after all and who now, despite the gentleman's agreement implicit in the purchase, wanted his money back.

I am totally not dealing with this idiot right now, he thought, and stood up to stretch, joints popping, to his full height of 5 foot 6. I'm heading off to bed. Good night, ronove666@gmail.com, you poor bastard, whoever you are.

Cat back inside? Check. Windows locked? Check. Everything in the kitchen turned off? Check. There was one odd moment when he swore he smelled something burning — a terrible thought for someone who lived in a house largely filled with old paper — but it faded before he could track it down so he put it out of his mind where resided most of the rest of the world that wasn't autographed. Put the mail out? Best to go ahead and get those in the mailbox in case the mailman showed up early the next morning. Morton snatched up the stack of still-warm envelopes, threw open his door, took a step forward, and slammed into something big, heavy, and painful that stopped at just below waist height, causing a certain involuntary jacknifing effect. There were a few entertaining moments there where his own personal stars swam around the sky, and then he opened his eyes to see something a quarter-inch away pressing his nose against the side of his face as envelopes rained down upon his head and back. A strong smell of decay and rot entered his nostrils with firm plans to stay there, and he lifted his head to look at what he'd just tried to merge with.

He was slumped over a large crate made of ancient wood, with rusted iron bands. It was prominently labeled "Damn'd Souls." And it had an address label with his name on it.
Chapter Four – It's Crate to Be Alive

Sent: Allan Arbus (e-mail); Drew Carey (e-mail); Larry Gelbart (e-mail); Julie Newmar (e-mail); Penn & Teller (agent, sent pic)
Received: John Goodman (color 5×7 PP)
Sold: Sarah Michelle Gellar (1)

Morton shoved himself off the box and back on his feet with speed and agility enough to make even his old high school coach smile, and usually you had to rip an opposing linebacker's arm off and eat it to get that rare acclaim. Morton certainly never saw it unless it was tucked away inside the belligerent screaming with which Coach Hafstetter informed him how worthless he was as a student, and athlete, and a human being, and that was just when Morton tried — and failed, spectacularly — to do a sit up. If only the coach had realized that all he had to do was find a way to scare the living shit out of Morton, athleticism would have occurred.

He fought to get his breathing under control as he peered at the crate. It was exactly as promised. The wood looked centuries old and utterly out of place sitting on the fake plastic grass of his doormat. No, that wasn't quite right. It… it made everything else look out of place. The crate looked too heavy, too real to be on his doorstep. Small tendrils of mist swirled around the bottom, apparently because it just wasn't fucking creepy enough all by itself.

Morton hesitantly knelt down to inspect the sticker. Definitely addressed to Morton Sezlick. Regular shipping labels, no odd stickers from Transylvania or the Stygian Depths or any place like that. The return address was too smudged to read, it was covered with some kind of thick, red– Morton moved on, quickly, to look over the rest of the new box in his life. There were no other identifying marks. He pushed at one side as hard as he could and was rewarded with the crate shifting slightly to one side and the sound of something inside rocking and moving. His apartment was on the ground floor, with his front door looking out over the overgrown parking lot that you only see in Florida, where it looks as if someone hacked just enough of the swamp away to fit in a couple of Civics and a decrepit Suzuki Samurai. From that angle he caught a glimpse of the crate against the evening sky, with glistening palm trees in the background and thick vines hanging from the oaks, and he realized that actually this crate was right at home there. More at home than he himself was, in fact. Pirates should be digging a pit for this crate right now over by the dumpster. The only thing keeping it from fitting in perfectly was the minor detail of being a few hundred years too late. Probably got stuck in the mail, he thought to himself, and then shook his head violently before he started that dangerous sort of giggling that never stops until someone breaks out the phenobarbital. He had to get rid of this thing.

Never mind where it came from, never mind how in the HELL it got to his door so damn fast. It had to be someone playing a trick on him… and Morton, deep in his heart, believed that there were always people ready to play tricks on him. He knew with unshakable conviction that waiters adulterated his food with gleeful abandon, that cabdrivers celebrated his fearful presence in their cabs by taking the opportunity to go on spontaneous city-wide tours, that women he encountered had already learned of him from a secret world-wide network that had targeted him, for whatever reason, for eternal humiliation. So firm was this belief that total strangers, nice people who would never consider doing such a thing to a stranger, found themselves oddly compelled to abuse him just to make the universe right again. This was clearly "their" work, and Morton wanted to deal with it before "their" dread agenda could be revealed.

He stalked around the crate. No signs of any monkey business. It just sat there, looking aged at him. Big mother, but some quick eyeballing convinced him that it would fit through his door with no problem.

An hour and a half later, after he had hurt his back trying to move it the eight inches to his door and banged his elbow trying to lever it over his threshold and sprained his finger removing the front door hinges to give him the extra 3 frickin' centimeters of clearance it turned out he needed, and then hurt his back even more working the god! damn! crate into his apartment by yanking it forward one corner, one inch at a time, he nursed a very large mug of coffee-soaked sugar and glared at the thing. As far as he could tell it was glaring back. The phone had rung twice while he was engaged but the only people who ever called him were hoping for his vote, his magazine subscription, or his rent, and he was perfectly happy avoiding discussion of all three.

How had it gotten there so fast, anyway?  His eBay info did list him in Daytona Beach and it would be easy enough to Google his address, but Jesus, he hadn't even paid for it yet. He hadn't even… a horrible thought occurred to him and he reached back to grab his wallet.

It was there, intact, but with a lingering hint of the same smoke he'd smelt earlier. He opened it to find most of his money, more smoke, and a small amount of sickly yellow ash. It wasn't a pleasant smoke smell, either, not the type you'd catch outside on a warm summer evening that indicated somewhere upwind people happier than you were grilling something tasty. No, this smoke was the thick, eye-watering, lung-filling kind that brought down firefighters before they could get the children to safety. Apparently hell used direct deposit.

No! This was insane! Morton kicked the crate once, as hard as he could, before stopping and taking a deep, calming breath. He'd lost his fear of the thing somewhere during the hauling process — if it was going to strike him down, it would surely have done so as he was straining against it with all his might and calling it, at the top of his lungs, something even the Internet would balk before printing — but he was trying to remain Mr. Wary. Mr. Wary was calm. Mr. Wary handled such things as magically appearing boxes with aplomb. Morton frowned. Unfortunately, Mr. Wary didn't happen to own a crowbar. He was going to need help. And this posed a problem, because when you needed help you traditionally called upon your friends, and that was where Morton's plan fell to the ground. It is exceedingly difficult, even in this communications wonder of an age, to call someone who doesn't, in any real sense, exist.

Morton had customers, none of whom he had ever physically met. Morton had neighbors, only one of whom he could successfully name two times out of three, none of whom he would want to. Morton had acquaintances from school who would be only too happy to hang up on him, assuming they remembered him at all. Morton had a few hundred faces smiling at him, in every room of his apartment, but none of them would drop what they were doing to help him out even if they knew who he was (some of them, if they knew who he was, might have even come over to punch him in the neck but not to do anything remotely helpful). Morton knew fast food employees who would undoubtedly recognize him but would certainly balk at providing him with anything beyond Chicken Mai Phun or Super-sizing his fries. Maybe he could rent somebody to bring him a crowbar…

Or a hammer! Hammers had those pry things on the other side, he could use that! Morton stumbled into his hallway (which was filled with autographed presidential pictures; he called it his Hall of Presidents and laughed loudly whenever he said it, which tells you a lot about Morton Sezlick) and began tearing through his supply closet. Paper cutter, stacks of photo paper, ink cartridges, bulk boxes of manila envelopes… hammer! He pulled it out just as a loud crash echoed down the hall. Brandishing the hammer, he ran back into his living room.

There was a tall, skinny man in dungarees, a checkered shirt, and a beard that had clearly stolen from a dead Norse god kneeling in front of the crate with wide-eyed amazement. To both sides of him on the floor were the halves of Morton's still-hingeless front door, where it had apparently fallen over, hit the crate, and split. Ah yes, Morton thought. I also have a nemesis…

"Damn'd Souls'? Is this a movie prop, Sezlick?" his nemesis asked, running his hands over it. "It looks fantastic, very Pirates of the Carribean-y."

Morton could only name one of his neighbors on sight, and that was only so he could put a label to his hatred. Ian Montgomery Woon was also a collector, which might have made him something of a competitor to Morton except he tended to collect everything. Morton, whose focus was entirely on authentic celebrity autographs, considered that narrow field to be more pure than the mindless acquisition of everything bright and shiny. Also, Woon was an asshole. Normal people, Morton was certain, did not call the police because their neighbors were using too much garlic or turning pages too loudly.

"Woon," Morton asked, silently squeezing the hammer handle. "Why are you here?"

"Saw the crate outside, thought I'd check it out. I knocked; your door was open," Woon said, apparently without irony. "What is this thing, anyway?"

"I meant why are you here on this planet? Are you a plague? Did God figure frogs and blood and first-born dead sons weren't enough, he had to infest us with you?"

"I am the finest example of humanity you will ever see, Sezlick. Women fight to get near me in the hopes that they may become impregnated with the next step in human evolution."

"Those women are committing suicide, Woon, and only the ones who really hate themselves use that method. Otherwise they stick with less painful deaths, like a gallon of gas and a match."

The really annoying thing was that Woon did, in fact, get women. Not a lot, by jock standards, and not many that would ever appear in a magazine unless you count "before" pictures in weight loss ads, but people of the female persuasion had, in truth if not believability, entered into Woon's first floor sanctum sanctorum without any obvious signs of drug use or mental retardation. Morton always knew exactly when this happened, thanks to the thin walls between them, the dependable sound of Journey's "Evolution" album, and the way Woon would walk the hapless girl past Morton's door on her way to certain doom and ring his doorbell over and over in a victory cheer. Morton chose those times to take long, healthy walks and built up his cardio by despising Woon in five minute bursts, 10 reps each.

"Seriously, where's this from? Zombie movie? Something supernatural?"

"It's a body, Woon. It's actually a box full of bodies, packed tight in salt for freshness. They're the last five people who asked me stupid questions. I think I can probably squeeze in one more, you wear a 38 regular, am I right?"

"Nice. I saw the Fed-Ex guy drop it off."

"And you rushed right over to help me move it in because…?"

"You kidding? I went back inside and watched "Dancing With the Stars" instead. Come on, which movie is this from? I don't recognize it, and anyone who knows me knows just how remarkable that is considering–"

"–my encyclopedic knowledge of the history of cinema," Morton finished with him, although he added more scorn and hand gestures. "No, this is something that, like light and hope and the smiles of little children, you know nothing about. Good bye, Woon. Don't let the shattered remains of my door hit you on the way out."

Woon ignored him and sat back on his haunches, staring at the box. "Holy shit, this is a Disney thing isn't it? It's part of the old Pirates of the Caribbean animatronics set that was partially dismantled to make room for more movie references and you got ahold of it! That's totally it," he said, pulling out his cellphone to snap a picture of it. "Knew you couldn't fool me."

Morton blinked and shook his head for a moment, then pulled Woon to his feet. "No, no, I'm taste-testing a new goth breakfast cereal for General Mills. They're hoping to crack the disaffected youth market with a depressing early morning treat. Spokesperson's a pale Victorian woman with consumption." He shoved Woon toward his doorway. "Sorry you can't… oomph… stay longer and help me try some… move, dammit… the oats and graveyard gravel really add fiber…"

Woon neatly sidestepped, sending Morton stumbling past. "Knock it off, Sezlick. You don't collect props, what's the deal?"

"Look, I really don't want you–"

"How much for it?"

Morton stopped cold. "Excuse me?"

The phone rang again but neither man paid attention. Money was in the air.

"How much? Only reason you must've bought it is to make a quick buck, so how much do you want for it? I would appreciate it, Sezlick. It would occupy a honored place in my home, whereas you'd just keep your Britney Spears pictures in it. Name a price so I can laugh at you. Eight hundred? Nine? I won't go over a thousand without a COA."

Morton fought to keep his expression calm as his mental processes jumped a mental median and did a mental 180. This was perfect. Let someone else, someone he didn't like, deal with it and he'd make out on the deal to boot! And with any luck Woon might be cursed for all eternity, which was a clear bonus in any transaction. This was better than perfect, it was magical. He immediately put on his "I don't know" face and stepped over to stroke the crate lovingly. "I don't know, Woon," he began. "Something like this, it's truly a–"

He laid his hand on top of the crate and his world went midnight, moonless black and very, very cold.

Chapter Five – The Shipping Package of Lost Souls
Sent: Dave Barry (Herald); Barry Gibb (Middle Ear); Terry Pratchett (Colin Smythe); Jewel Staite (agent, sent pic)
Received: Nothing today.
Sold: Nothing today. Update descriptions?

Morton's first thought was a flashback to the scene in "Ghostbusters" when the containment grid was shut down and the spirits escaped to fly around New York City. If Bill Murray had been floating in pitch blackness with hoarfrost forming on his body and silence that weighed a ton was pressing on him and the swooping spirits were multiplied by a million and they were all trying to get into his brain, it would be just like that.

He had no time to get his bearings, no way to process what was happening. There was no sense of his body or what direction he was facing or how far he was off the ground, if there was a ground. A thousand minds assaulted him, each one no more substantial than a whisper but terrifying in their numbers. Like drowning in spiderwebs, or being buffeted by a million sighs. He spun constantly, helpess in the tide of swirling awareness. And every time one of the massless wraiths brushed against him, which was many times a second, he felt… something. A boiling emotion, a shimmering presence, am incandescent hatred. He had the undefinable sense that if he could only grasp one of the sensations he could experience it completely and fully

Passions and longings filled his mind to overflowing, sensations he could not name threatened to squeeze his sanity out through his ears. He screamed soundlessly and cold tendrils filled his mouth and nose and lungs and he felt huge and powerful and drunk and he was dropping, dropping, dropping away…

He opened his eyes. Then he closed them again, quickly, and rubbed them to stop the pain that now was spiking through his head from what was surely the blinding light of a thousand suns, coming from his desk lamp. He was back in his living room, sitting on the floor with both legs straight out in front of himself.

"I want it," he heard himself say flatly, and then wondered why the hell that was.

There was no answer. "Woon? You still here?" Morton started to reach for the crate to help himself up and yanked his hand away just in time, almost falling over in the process. Then he stopped in mid-crouch to stare at it. Why didn't it do that the whole time I was using it to scar up my hardwood floor? Very carefully, very slowly, he extended a finger and, face scrunched up, he lightly touched the side of the box and jumped backwards.

Nothing.

Nothing the second time as well, and nothing again when he hesitantly pressed his palm against it. Fine, he thought. I just had a minor stroke. Happens all the time…

Woon was on the floor on the other side of the crate with his hand gripping the corner. Whatever he was staring at was definitely not in the room and possibly not anywhere outside of a Lovecraft novel. His body twitched slightly.

"Woon?" Morton kicked him. "Woon? Get up, I don't like you enough to call 9-1-1 and I'm too tired to bury you. Get up."

One more kick knocked Woon's hand away and he spasmed, twisting over on his side and shaking until he finally opened his eyes and gasped for breath. "Holy shit," he said, and abruptly went from a fetal position to a fully upright, across the room and backed against the couch with his knees drawn up to his chin position. Coach Hafstetter would have applauded.  "What the deep-fried fuck is that?"

"It's a prop," Morton reminded him, a little woozily. "From 'Pirates.' Remember?"

"If that's a prop it's from the dress rehearsal for the freaking Rapture," Woon said, who was beginning to hyperventilate.

"Doesn't matter, I changed my mind, you can't have it. Didn't I say 'get out'? I'm almost sure I did–"

"Was that the goddamned Ark of the goddamned Covenant? Is my face melting off?"

"Your ugly is right where you left it, good night, Ian," Morton assured him, guiding him to the door hole once again. And once again, Woon sidestepped like a ballroom dancing bullfighter.

Woon stuck his fists on his skinny hips, missing the first time. "I'm not kidding, man. What is that thing? Or I'm calling the cops and telling them you assaulted me!"

"You're in my house, you idiot. In Florida! I can shoot you dead and hang your body outside and the cops will just ask if I have a permit for outdoor decorations."

Woon stood still, glaring. It was apparent that nothing short of shaped explosives was going to budge him from that spot, and Morton wasn't licensed for any.

And if he were honest with himself, which he rarely was, Morton would know that his heart really wasn't into trying to outwit Woon. Mostly he was thinking about what it had felt like, touching the box, and wondering how to make it happen again. Now. Repeatedly. Drug addiction was not a weakness he had ever really understood before, but now he found himself fully prepared to steal all of his neighbor's kitchen appliances if he could just make the box go again.

Thousands of distant minds, calling to him, sliding their memories across his awareness like the softest of silks…

But was it? How could it be, anyway? Morton's personal religious beliefs started and stopped with a vague feeling that Someone was out to get him, and his opinion of every afterlife he'd ever heard of was "meh." If there was a heaven it would either be every bit as boring as the different faiths described — harps? honestly? — or St. Peter the Celestial Bouncer would undoubtedly take one look at Morton, laugh, and send him back to the beginning of the line faster than you can say, "You're not on the list." Somehow Morton didn't think the heavenly gates could be entered by slipping St. Pete a twenty. And hell was even more ridiculous. Torturing damned souls for all eternity? Why was that fun? Sure, Morton had his games with neighborhood pets in his day, like all amoral teens, but even including the wide range of things possible with firecrackers it still got old after a week or so. How could anyone keep it up for millenia? Pride in your work? Did hell have incentive programs?

In the face of what he had experienced and deeply wanted to experience again, Morton's morbid agnoticism was fading away like a chocolate solar panel. If souls existed, and they could exist beyond the death of the body, and he had every reason to believe he'd just been felt up by a legion of them, then an actual existing afterlife was not only possible but probably since those souls would need somewhere to go. Or did they? That could be just as spurious as seeing cats wander around and assuming there must be a magical cat-land somewhere. Maybe souls just hung around, or went feral.

Either way, abiding by a higher moral code had suddenly taken on a new and urgent importance. He'd have to get one of those. It was one of those things that everyone seemed to have but never actually used, like a George Foreman grill.

This year I cheated a bit, and worked on adapting a story I had tried doing in screenplay form for ScriptFrenzy, the annual screenwriting equivalent of NaNoWriMo. Didn't help – I still rewrote it to death without actually completing it. This is another I'm definitely coming back to, because some of the stuff I didn't get to write still makes me giggle.

"The Stolen Fairy Tale"
by C. A. Bridges

All imaginary figures, living or dead, are purely coincidental. So are the real people. So, very probably, are you.

Prologue

Heather was as prepared as it was possible to be.

In her room full of brightly colored toys and mobiles, gently used furniture and big fluffy comforters, she was huddled on her bed like an arctic explorer getting up the nerve to leave the tent. She was bundled in her warmest clothing and sturdiest boots. Her knit cap was pulled tight over her ears, and her gloves were tied to her coat sleeves. In the dim light from the window only little bits of her were actually visible through the various folds of cloth; she looked like a stuffed turkey designed by L.L. Bean.

By her feet was her school backpack, emptied and carefully repacked with spare clothes, a flashlight, pebbles for leaving trails, her jump rope in case she needed to climb a mountain or tie up a bad guy, and all the beef jerky in the house. Tucked away in various pockets were band aids, ointment, string, a key made of cold iron, and a whistle that she knew for a fact was very loud indeed. Also batteries, her Instamatic camera, and extra film, for later proof. If she could have gotten her dad's car keys she'd have had flares, but she made do with a box of fireplace matches.

And she had bus fare, because you never knew.

She snuck another sip of coffee from her thermos and grimaced. Horrible, horrible stuff, but she knew from her parents' jokes that it kept you awake — probably because you were too busy puking to fall asleep — and she didn't dare pass out, not now. Not tonight.

Heather had a mission. She'd been training for it her entire life (7 years and a bit), and she recognized the signs of its coming.

You see, Markham Glen (where she lived) was a little town that loved its celebrations. Everyone turned out for massive picnics and Homecoming parades and Easter egg hunts and town anniversaries, and every year, right after Thanksgiving, the Christmas decorations began to bloom. Hardly a person in town didn’t have twinkly lights and stand-up Santas on their roof. Manger scenes cohabited comfortably with reindeer on front yards. Christmas music could be heard from every window, and toy drives and hayrides and celebrations were planned for every day of the month. And this year looked to be the biggest and best Christmas ever.

But then the town's power plant blew a gaskit or a thurbine or something that same night and there wasn't enough 'lectricity to spare for the town's lights or the big Christmas tree in the square. Without the sparkly lights the wreaths on the town's lightposts looked sad and shriveled, and the streets of Markham Glen were, for the first time ever, scary and dark.

And then the weather stayed unseasonably warm right through December. Record heat, the man on the TV said, and behind him happy sun faces were floating all over Massachusetts where there should have been happy snowflakes. The temperature dropped just low enough so that the wind whipping through your clothes was cold and miserable, but not enough for snowmen or sledding or anything at all fun.

The postmaster got sick and the post office had to be closed and all the mail was sent thirty miles to Coleville to be processed until he got better or a replacement could be found. Someone reluctantly decided that letters to Santa weren’t a priority, so all the hopeful, misspelled envelopes and postcards piled up in heaps and stacks, unread and unanswered.

And worst, of all, because of the plant problems Daddy got laid off two weeks before Christmas. He and Mommy had sat down right on Heather's bed and explained to her that they weren't going to be able to afford much in the way of presents this year but they'd have a wonderful holiday anyway, you just wait. Daddy didn't say much, actually, he just looked sad. Mommy kept stroking Heather's hair over and over. Heather tried very hard to be a Big Girl and not cry, but it was so hard when there was no point in getting up on Christmas morning anymore.

After they left that night Heather crawled under her covers and made her plans. She knew what she had to do.

Tonight she had to save Christmas.

And maybe Hanukkah, too. She wasn't sure how that worked, but she'd borrowed a dreidl from a boy at school before Christmas break in case she needed one.

The wind picked up, howling and beating against the window. Heather kept her eyes focused on it, waiting for her moment, because she knew down to the very core of her being, that finally it was up to her.

Every night of her life Heather’s parents had read to her, stories of fantasy lands and hidden gardens and magical places. Every night she fought to stay awake to find out if Good triumphed and Evil was vanquished, and to beg for just one more chapter. Did Frodo make it to the lake of fire? Did Meg save her brother Charles Wallace from IT? Will Gerda rescue Kay from the Snow Queen’s clutches? The answer was always yes.

And she learned the lessons of the stories, which was this: one person can make a difference, no matter how young or how small. In some cases, in fact, a child was the only one who would do. Adults looked down at children all the time, but how many of them had ever fought the forces of evil to a standstill on a distant planet or faraway land?

Heather knew, more certainly than she knew her own address, that in times like this, when evil threatened to take away all that was good in the world, a child would come forward to Save the Day. He or she would face Mortal Peril and some really big challenges, but they would come through at the end and then the world would be saved until the next big threat. Even on television kids were all the time saving some holiday or other from some big meanie with bad fashion sense and maybe an army, and the plucky kid always, always, always won. Heather knew that she could be that kid, and she wouldn't make the same mistakes those kids always did, either, getting fooled by the bad guy or giving up too soon. So, more than a year ago, she'd started planning. She hadn’t know exactly which disaster would become her responsibility, but she wanted to be prepared.

First she started exercising. She didn't expect to become all muscley, but she knew that very few fantasy lands had mass transit so she took up hiking in the woods whenever she could. Her parents loved her new interest in camping and took her out several times during the warm months and they didn’t even wonder why she kept asking about medicinal herbs or how to defend a cave against monsters.

She also prepared her pack, which was tougher than she thought because she didn't know what to prepare for. Would she be in a land where darkness ruled and an evil fiery eye looked out over its evil creations? Definitely need a flashlight, then. Would she walk through her closet and come out the far end in a world of snow and ice? A heavy jacket would be good, and some Chapstick. She packed and repacked every few months, to fit the seasons.

Everything you need to know about Heather could be explained by looking into her pack where one could see that, while preparing to enter into a world that might contain fairies, dwarves, monsters or knights, she had thought to pack a roll of toilet paper.

In school she studied hard and got excellent grades in everything except geography, largely because she kept insisting on including Oz and Xanth. She didn’t have any close friends but she talked to everybody, mostly to make sure none of them had been replaced with a robotic double or fairy changeling, and she became well-regarded almost despite herself.

She also talked to animals. All of them. There was no telling which one might suddenly realize it was late and disappear down a hole where she could follow, so she took pains to stay on speaking terms with every horse, dog, cat, donkey, and bird in the area. None of them showed an inclination to talk back, but you had to lay your groundwork.

But her real friends were her stuffed animals. There was a bear named Wolford, a smaller bear named Wolford Jr., a sort of froggish thing she called Spratt, and an ancient rabbit passed down from her grandmama named Pardy. She spent more time with them than with anything else, playing with them and loving them and cuddling them at night and whispering to each one her dreams and hopes, all on a strict rotation so as not to slight anybody. Every one was handmade and unique; her parents knew not to buy her any mass-produced toys. No one ever visited the Hundred Acre Wood with a bear from K-Mart.

She gathered them around herself now, all ready for them to magically come to life and guide her through the perils to come. Sure, sometimes they’d probably give her bad advice, but your veteran child fantasy adventurer allowed for such setbacks and besides, she knew she’d need someone to help carry blankets and things.

There was one problem: How to get into the magical worlds in the first place. By this point Heather had pretty well exhausted all the immediate possibilities. Every closet and wardrobe wall had been thumped. Every bush in the garden had been peered under. Every candy bar she ate was always carefully checked for golden tickets. None of her bedknobs moved her bed through time, even when she used a pipe wrench and bent the frame by accident and her dad had to put it back on with electrical tape. And her parents, in a surprising setback, flatly refused to hire a musical British nanny.

So she waited. If she couldn’t go to magical lands, they’d have to come to her. And if Christmas didn’t want to miss itself it had better get a move on.

She spared a peek away from the window – where an elf or reindeer or talking snowman was sure to rap and beg her to help, any second now – long enough to check the time. 2 a.m. How close could Santa cut it?

Mumbling about procrastinating Kringles and uncooperative holidays, Heather settled a bit to make herself more comfortable.

She awoke to morning light and snow gently falling past the window. Her animals were scattered around the bed, staring in all directions like, like lifeless toys. From downstairs she heard her father’s booming voice, "Wake up! Wake up! You’ve had a visitor, baby girl!"

Heather pulled off the sweaty jacket and stumbled downstairs to the most horrible sight awaited her.

There were presents under the tree. Lots of them, piled high. The lights were on, blinking bright color into every shadow. The rich smells of bacon and maple cyrup filled the air, and standing in the middle of the living room her dad was beaming from ear to ear.

"The plant’s fixed! I’m working again, darlin’!" He swept her up in a spinning hug and laughed and laughed and laughed so much that even had he noticed her tears he would have assumed they were tears of joy, just like his.

Christmas was, indeed, picture-perfect and wonderful. To make up for the weeks of dimness and gloom the town turned on ever light it possessed, firing the place up like a star. Carolers caroled in the park. The mayor dressed up in a Santa suit and rode the fire truck up and down every street, handing out gifts and candy. The town’s richest man, known far and wide for his greed and ill temper, burst from his house on Christmas morning and went straight to the orphanage to spoon out soup all day before donating half his fortune to the delighted nuns in charge. Children laughed and played in the snow all day long before curling up around fireplaces and roasting chestnuts.

During it all Heather sat in her room, listlessly thumbing through her favorite books, and thinking madly. How could it have gone wrong? She's been so ready! If she hadn't rescued the holiday and earned the town's love and oddly synchronized dancing – and she was certain she would have remembered – what happened? The notion of a random universe was new to Heather, and not a cosmological leap she was prepared to take.

On the first day of school after the break she arrived early and turned her chair so she could watch every child as they entered. It didn’t take long.

Peggy Harkney walked in proud and tall, shining with confidence, which was odd because two weeks ago she had been the shyest, meekest, most picked on person in school. Now she was bold, and the other kids responded to her the same way. Lisa Brady, the most popular girl in class, greeted Peggy warmly as if Lisa had never tried to kill her with a dodgeball a month earlier. "Hi Pegs! It was a great Christmas, huh?"

And Heather heard Peggy say, almost accidentally, "Thanks."

Heather spun back in her seat, furious. Someone had saved Christmas, all right, but it hadn’t been her. It was like being passed over when they were picking teams for sports, only a million times worse. Everything Heather knew with rock hard certainty was crashing down inside her head, distracting her so much she barely noticed when Peggy touched her arm and asked if she was all right.

And the thing that made it a thousand times worse was that she really had the sense that Peggy could help if Heather let her. Possibly with the help of her animal friends.

Heather never again let her parents read fiction to her. She started reading gossip magazines and watching hours of television every night. She never talked to animals or cars or toasters again. And all of her stuffed animals were carefully packed into a cardboard box and put away.

She didn’t even poke any air holes.

CHAPTER ONE – Once Upon a Time

Dark clouds swept over a densely wooded glen. In the midst of towering trees and rolling fields of clover, there was a single clearing where the world had stopped.

In the center of the field were seven small men in colorful, vaguely medieval outfits and floppy cloth hats standing around a glass case made of the finest crystal, and in the case lay a beautiful sleeping woman. The men were weeping, wiping their faces with large handkerchiefs (except for the one who was blowing his nose with his floppy cloth hat). Several were openly sobbing, and hugs were exchanged.

By the edge of the clearing, animals gathered to watch with subdued, mournful stares. A hawk swooped low to alight on a branch above a fox. Rabbits crept closer to see. A deer gently nudged some field mice closer with its nose. Two bluebirds fluttered around helplessly. They remained very still, and their sorrow was a thing to see.

The very air seemed to howl with regret and anguish.

Without warning the clouds broke and a single shaft of golden sunlight bathed the case, making it sparkle. On cue, the little men gasped and looked around to see a very non-little man emerge from the trees, riding up on a massive horse. He was tall and powerfully built and his face was so handsome that one of the bluebirds sighed, causing a brief airborne scuffle.

He dismounted with athletic grace as the men hurried forward to lift the case off the woman in time for the prince – and you knew just by looking that he was a prince, no one who looked like that was ever not a prince – to confidently stride past them. The prince leaned over the woman, soft and delicate, and prepared to kiss her lips in a gloriously romantic scene that was only slightly marred when her hand whipped up and pepper-sprayed him in the face.

The prince fell to the ground, screaming and clawing at his eyes, and the woman sat up.

"Knock it off, Romeo, that's date rape," she said. The little men cheered until the woman stared them down; they quieted and backed away, except for one dwarf who continued to cheer until the others nervously shushed him. She turned away and began addressing the camera.

"'Oh, girls are helpless creatures, easily fooled and in need of a hero to save them from the evil in the world'," she said in a singsong voice. "Is that really what you want your children to learn?" She looked over her shoulder to see a few of the men going to help the prince, who was crouched over behind the case, retching. "Oh, suck it up, it’ll rinse out."

She turned back. "Fairy tales served their purpose back in the good old days of poverty, rigid class distinctions, and rampant disease. They entertained. They amused. They lied to us to make us feel better about our miserable lives." Behind her the prince was frantically wiping his streaming eyes with one of the little men’s floppy hats, which was unfortunate since the little man was still wearing it. There were screams.

"Living in filth?" she asked, ignoring them. "Don't worry, someday your fairy godmother will save you. Bullied by evil relatives or evil landlords or evil kings? No problem! Magical creatures will appear to help you get what you'll never earn by yourself. And they don't even charge for it!"

She stormed through the agitated dwarves, past the flailing prince – knocking him over in the process — to where the animals were waiting by the edge of the woods. They looked up at her, entirely tame and cute and with eyes several times what any sober zoologist would expect. "And animals are all intelligent, kind, and helpful, instead of, you know, just animals," she told them. She snapped her fingers.

The collected wildlife suddenly blinked, shook themselves, and erupted. The deer dashed off, the fox snapped at the bluebirds, and the hawk immediately pounced on one of the mice and began to eat it in high-definition full-color documentary reality.

The scene froze on that close-up, bits of field mouse dangling, glistening, from the hawk’s beak.

"That was the opening from the upcoming Discovery Channel special ‘Mother Goose is Child Abuse,’" said a voice. A middle-aged woman stepped out in front of the grisly scene on what was revealed to be a large television monitor. Impeccably attired, she approached a podium and addressed the small crowd of reporters and supporters in the room with the smug look of someone enjoying the celebrity gained from someone else’s accomplishments. "Based on the highly controversial book of the same name," she continued, "now in its 4th printing and 22nd consecutive week on the New York Times bestseller list, by one of the co-founders of Mothers Against Lies, Dr. Heather Broudon!"

A small group of people in the front row of folding chairs launched into enthusiastic applause that petered out quickly underneath the almost palpable waves of journalistic cynicism emitted by the three reporters in the room, every one of which was wondering what he or she had done to piss off his or her editor this time. Two of the reporters, experienced in the way of book tour events, were already putting the finishing touches on their articles about the talk that hadn’t been given yet. The third, more experienced yet, had written his article two days ago and was therefore free to apply his considerable skills to good and industrious use at the small buffet.

The rest of the chairs were empty. Outside multitudes of oddly dressed teenagers and even odder adults wandered by, occasionally peeking in and quickly leaving again once a noticeable lack of anything fun was observed. A banner in the hallway stated, rather optimistically, that this was the 7th Annual SciFiFanSpecFicCon.

Unfazed and very likely unaware, the woman on the stage went on. "And now, without further ado," she said, with ado, "let me introduce our very special guest, my good friend, Dr. Broudon!"

From the shadows besides the monitor a figure stood and walked forward, her face matching the one on the backs of the stacks of books on the table at the entrance to the dining hall. Where the woman was dressed in Upper Class Regal, Heather was piloting what could only be termed a power mom suit; flower print dress, pearl necklace, and carefully coiffed hair. She was only one apron and a tray of cookies away from being a corporate logo. Heather took her place at the podium.

"Not much of a turnout, Helen," she whispered to the woman.

"Don’t worry, they’ll spread the word for us. Just give them the works!" Helen said. She started to move away but stopped and touched Heather on the sleeve. "Only do it quick, the man said they needed the room in 8 minutes." And she was gone.

Heather looked out over the room Was 11 people, most of them friends, enough to be called an audience? 3 reporters, 6 fellow members of MAL, and a few teenagers who had wandered in to the dingy convention room and were sitting off to one side, reorganizing their backpacks. And Emily, of course, back in the very back.

That gave her strength. She had spoken to far more people than this, of course, and she had talked to people one by one with the same passion as she would an auditorium, and the reason for it all was sitting in the corner nibbling shrimp puffs. So what if she wouldn’t get in the papers for this event. She just had to reach people, no matter the number.

Heather stepped out from behind the podium and walked up to the front row to stand in front of one of the reporters. "Seems silly to preach at you today. You know my positions, you have my book even if you haven’t read it. Do you have any questions for me?"

The reporter, a young man who was suddenly flustered at a story subject actually addressing him, fumbled in his bag and held a notebook in front of her face. "Dr. Broudon, why do you… oh, damn," he said, putting it down and producing a voice recorder that worked on the second try. "Why do you hate fairy tales?"

She sat down next to him. "I don’t hate fairy tales, Mr….?"

"Rockingham."

"Mr. Rockingham. I think that when experienced by readers or viewers of an appropriate age they can be very useful as moral guides, instruction in the social contract, retention of community mythology, and plain old entertainment. I think I’ve read them all, myself."

"And yet you want them out of school libraries."

"Only below high school. By the time children are old enough to fully distinguish reality from fantasy, fairy tales are safe." She raised her head to glance at the teenagers in the back. One was dressed as an elven warrior complete with pointy rubber ears and enchanted cardboard sword, the other was garbed as a Japanese schoolgirl with a white dress shirt and tiny black skirt, both about half the size they needed to be, and two puffy ponytails twice as large as her head. "Assuming that ever happens," Heather added.

"But why are they bad for children?"

"It's simple enough. Fairy tales, fantasy movies, stories whispered over a campfire, all of them instill an entirely false sense of ‘how things ought to be’ in children that is entirely at odds with how the world really is."

One of the other reporters leaned over. "And how is the world?"

"Utterly uncaring," Heather said. "There is no grand scheme or ultimate justice that will take you from poverty and want to glory and riches just because it ought to happen, and we do our children a grave disservice every time we tell them about magic beans or dancing animals or helpful fairies instead of teaching them to rely only on what they can see and what they can do."

"Fairies such as those in Peter St. Lucy's "Marvela" series?" the second reporter said. The teenagers sat up, suddenly focused, like lazy tigers scenting prey.

Heather smiled. "An excellent example. This is a hugely popular, best-selling series that's read by millions of children around the world, about to become a movie, and the ultimate message of it is that you should ignore the warnings of your parents and teaches, run off with little magical friends no one else can see, and save the world all because you're ‘special.’ What lessons do we teach our children with these books? That Good will always overcome Evil just because it's nicer?"

"Hey, are you dissing Marvela?" said the newly Japanese girl.

Heather stood up and addressed them. "For grownups? Not at all. But for children, impressionable children, books like that warp their concept of reality and make them think that their judgment will always be better than that of their parents or teachers."

Helen appeared and tugged on her sleeve. "Um, Heather?"

"Peter St. Lucy, by aggressively marketing his books to young children, is actively damaging the next generation of humanity!"

"Heather?"

"Peter St. Lucy is. . . what is it, Helen?"

Helen was looking past her. "Peter St. Lucy is over there."

In the doorway was a god, judging from the reactions of the people around him. St. Lucy looked, rather annoyingly, exactly like his book jacket photo: young, virile, handsome, with the flowing hair and piercing eyes of an artist and the stylish wardrobe of a successful one. He was flanked by two large men in VOLUNTEER T-shirts and was closely followed by what looked like the population of Minnesota, packed tightly in the hallway behind him.

"Excuse me, I’m supposed to do a book signing here?" he said, with a self-deprecating smile that made Heather’s hands itch for her pepper spray. The volunteers ushered him down the aisle past her as the crowd flowed into the room, filling every nook and cranny with bizarrely costumed and terribly eager excitement. Faster than she could follow, more volunteers swiftly appeared around the table of Heather’s books. There was a flurry of activity, and they stepped aside to reveal a much larger stack of "Marvela" books and a large poster of Peter St. Lucy’s smiling face. By the time she whipped around the podium was already gone, replaced with a long table piled high with "Marvela" books, toys, dolls, CDs, box sets, limited-edition replica "Marvela" pipe wrenches, and a wide variety of Peter St. Lucy head shot photos. St. Lucy himself was seated behind the table between the two volunteers with a bottle of ruinously expensive water and a wide assortment of Sharpies. He was twisting in his seat to see the large monitor, still displaying mouse guts.

"That reminds me, I don’t want room service again," he said, to the uproarious laughter of the crowd.

Most of the crowd, anyway. A small pocket of MAL members were huddled together, trying to avoid contact with anything fantastical. And Emily… where was Emily? Heather swallowed her fear – Emily could well take care of herself, and her own ice-cold gut was simply a relic of evolutionary maternal overprotection and could thus be ignored — and stared at St. Lucy. "I don’t believe we were quite finished," she said.

St. Lucy looked up from the papers he was shuffling. "Oh, I am sorry," he said. "I know we’re a bit early but the fans were getting antsy and kept coming after me, knocking over displays and hotel equipment and such, so we ducked in here. I think the elevator’s broken now. They got everybody out, didn’t they?" he asked a volunteer.

"You can’t be held liable, Mr. St. Lucy," the volunteer said.

"Right, then. Anyway, if you’d like to finish your little talk, please take all the time you need." He held up his sheaf of paper. "After all, I’m sure the folks here can wait a little bit longer to hear the first chapter of the next ‘Marvela’ book."

Heather suddenly found herself the focus of an enraged populace. Many of them brandished weapons. She drew herself up. "Mr. St. Lucy—"

Rockingham, sensing a better story, sidestepped in front of her. "Mr. St. Lucy, Dr. Broudon's claim is that fairy tales set an unreasonable expectation for children. How would you respond?"

"Well, first I'd probably stare at her in shock with my mouth open for awhile," St. Lucy said, and demonstrated. The room collapsed in laughter again. This was even better than a chapter.

"And then I'd suggest that stories in my world, or Oz, or the Hundred Acre Wood, or Neverland, or Hogwarts, to use more worthy examples… no, far more worthy," he said, to head off the shouted objections from the more spirited members of the audience, which was all of them. "These all inspire children to try and make the world match those ‘unreasonable’ expectations. Things like justice and honor exist only because we think they should, and this is where we start that belief, by delivering it couched in metaphor and language children can understand."

Heather crossed her arms over her chest. "And when you treat your children as stupid, you can't be surprised when they grow up that way."

"Sit the hell down," one fan yelled, to cheers.

"So you're saying that imagination is bad," St. Lucy asked. The crowd swiveled back to her, like a tennis match during a costume party.

"Not at all. Imagination and creativity and discovery are the greatest tools we'll ever have. But not make-believe. Not imaginary friends or beneficial boojums. They have words for people who see things that aren't really there. Long, scary, medical words," Heather said. "People should learn to see what's real. Why can't that be enough?"

St. Lucy smiled ruefully. "The world can be a pretty harsh place sometimes, you know. Some people need their harmless little daydreams."

"There are no harmless little dreams."

From the low-level muttering and fanciful death threats involving room service, another fan raised his voice. "Don’t you have kids, you whack job?"

She turned in the voice’s general direction. "Yes, I have a daughter, Emily. She's here today, in fact. Emily?"

There was some stirring as the audience looked around until three fans dressed as a dragon shuffled aside to reveal a small, red-haired girl. She waved. Heather tried not to show how relieved she was to see her.

"Hi, Emily!" St. Lucy called. "I'm going to go out on a purely conjectural limb here and guess she's not my biggest fan."

"Actually, I bought her your latest book," Heather admitted.

"Ah!" St. Lucy said, surprised and pleased. There was applause around the room. "So there are some fantasy books you deem worthy after all! I'm honored."

"No, it’s just that all of her peers have read them and I don't want her socially crippled." The applause abruptly stopped.

"Fair enough, fair enough," St. Lucy said. "I'd be happy to sign the book to her, if you like."

As an experienced public speaker, Heather could perceive the audience – any audience — as essentially a hive mind that could be manipulated with care, and that could turn on you at any moment. Right now this hive mind was torn. Half of them were cheering such a cool and stylish move by their favorite author, the others were bitterly jealous of Emily, and at least one fan still desired her to sit the hell down. "Thank you," she said. "That's very kind. Emily?"

The little girl worked her way through the crowd, which parted reluctantly. She walked past Heather and presented her book to a grinning St. Lucy, who started to take it until he looked down. The shriek he emitted then was barely audible past the first few rows, but unfortunately for him one lucky fan captured it on his phone and had the video on YouTube within the hour.

The book, a hardback edition of the last Marvela novel "Storming the Help Desk," was crammed full of Post-It notes. St. Lucy took it gingerly and opened it to see large red strikeouts and scribbles on nearly every page.

"What the hell…?" he said, his cool cracking just a little bit more.

"I just pointed out a place or two where she might have gotten confused," Heather said. "Not much, really. You’re very good, at what you do."

St. Lucy flipped through the book, growing more visibly appalled by the minute. "’This doesn’t happen’? ‘She should have been grounded for this’? ‘Thinly disguised, inaccurate satire of representative government’? What are these, Buzzkill Cliff Notes?" Finally he stopped and read a sample passage, raising his voice to be heard over the muttering. "Hang on, here’s a good one. ’Marvela thinks she's running away to help her hallucinatory 'magical' friends, but she'll probably be assaulted and left for dead in a rest stop bathroom’. You must be a riot around the campfire."

"Just a few helpful tips to help her separate fantasy from reality," Heather said.

"On a first-name basis with reality, are you?" St. Lucy said, to more laughter.

"I know that if Emily ever stumbled across a bear in the woods she wouldn't expect him to be a harmless and cuddly fellow of Very Small Brain who likes pots of honey. She's been taught not to romanticize the world, but to see only what her own eyes show her. She would know that this massive and very territorial creature could easily disembowel a grown man with one swipe of a germ-ridden claw," Heather said.

Emily spoke up for the first time. "It’s true," she said. "She showed me videos."

There was a moment of stunned silence, broken only by the reporters’ furious Blackberrying.

"You… I… I don’t know what to say," St. Lucy said. "I make my living crafting words and I am utterly speechless right now. How can you… wait a minute. You’re the nutter trying to ban my books, aren’t you? Right, full marks for balls, campaigning against fantasy at a science fiction and fantasy convention and all that, but I think it’s time we move on." He spoke up over the sudden applause and hooting. "Thank you, Mrs. Broudon, it’s been magical! Any last words?"

Unbowed, Heather took Emily’s hand and faced the crowd. "By reading your children stories of magic and wonder, elves and fairies, good knights and damsels in distress, and magical lands that lie just on the other side of reality, you are dooming them to a lifetime of pain and disappointment so they can grow up to be parents just as horrible as you are," she said.

As one, St. Lucy, the volunteers, the reporters, and the audience all stared at her in shock, mouths open, as Heather, Emily, and the remaining MAL members filed out. Helen paused, torn by years of etiquette, as she faced 500 angry people mostly covered in facial paint. "Thank you for a lovely afternoon," she said, and fled.

CHAPTER TWO – Paying Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

"Mother?" Emily asked, as Heather bit into a six-dollar hot dog from the convention snack bar. "Will I get my book back?"

Heather painfully swallowed roughly $1.25 of overcooked wiener. "Oh, honey, I’m sorry, I forgot all about it. I’m sure they’re still in there, we’ll go get it back after we finish eating." She looked at their meal. "Although as a responsible parent I should probably slap that lunch out of your hands. How do people eat this?"

Around them the snack bar boiled over with costumed convention-goers, all waiting reasonably patiently in line for overpriced, below standard meals with the quiet resignation of those who have done this many times before. One fan was dressed as a 6-foot high Stargate, and the PVC supports in his costume kept knocking over the ketchup bottles. A Gandalf was trying to balance six bags of chips and a fruit smoothie, while behind him a chubby Red Sonja fought to hold her backpack, three bags of books, and a large, framed poster and still negotiate the sale of a nacho basket without popping out of her wholly inadequate chain mail top. People in line around her watched the battle with interest.

Those fans without costumes all seemed to be wearing roughly the same thing: a T-shirt, usually black, with either a slogan on it relating to pop culture or technology, or an image from a popular TV show, movie, or comic book. The men wore jeans or big shorts, the women mostly wore jeans. Conformed nonconformity was the outfit of choice.

Emily sipped her water. "Only, I haven’t read it yet, and I think Marshelle at school keeps using lines from it. I’m having problems staying relevant."

"Don’t worry, we’ll get it. If need be we can always buy another. There’s certainly no shortage around here."

"Will I have to wait for you to go through it again?" Emily asked.

Her mom started to answer, then stopped and rested her chin on her hand. "I don’t see why. You’re old enough now, I think you can spot lies on your own." Emily felt very proud and grownup, but Heather continued. "Remember; come ask me about anything that doesn’t ring true. What did I tell you? ‘If you can’t see it—‘"

"’—don’t believe it," Emily finished with her, and then giggled.

A teenage female Klingon paused on the way past their table. "Jinx!" she said delightedly.

Heather and Emily stared at her.

"Now neither of you can talk until someone says your name!" the Klingon said, beaming.

Heather and Emily looked at each other. "I can’t?" Emily asked. She touched her own throat. "I think I can, actually."

"But you’re not supposed to, that’s the whole point!"

Another female Klingon walked up. "Unless you say ‘buttercup,’ that takes the jinx off," she said.

"Not if I say ‘jinx no buttercup,’" the first Klingon insisted, brandishing her ceremonial weapon for emphasis.

Heather leaned over to whisper as the alien race argued. "Playground ritual, looks like," she murmured in Emily’s ear. "A way to enforce temporary dominance and humiliation through someone’s personal inconvenience, based on a totally random and meaningless occurrence." Emily nodded, and gathered her things to sneak out.

"—but you can also say ‘pinch poke, you owe me a coke,’" said the second Klingon.

"I thought you just linked pinky fingers," a third, meeker Klingon said, but the first two turned on her with the ease of long practice.

"God, Tricia, you are so lame!" they said in unison.

Emily looked back over her shoulder as she and Heather headed for the hallway. "Jinx!" she called.

This was the 2006 entry. This was also the first time I didn't hit the 50k mark, mostly because I started writing a Serenity fan fiction book and switched to this partway through.

Save Hiatus
By C. A. Bridges

chapter one –

Lagging Lukas latches onto Lykewater
Variety, November 1: The newest network has a new face already. In a surprising move MyTV, Geoffrey Lukas' latest offering in a cable box full of stations, has replaced recently retired executive vice president Ed Handleman, the guiding hand behind the network’s breakout hits “Lineman,” “Drama Queen,” “Someone’s Watching Maria,” and “Hiatus,” with new golden boy Brendon Lykewater, a producer from the MyTV regional affiliate My65 in Orlando, Fl. Lykewater, 27, nearly doubled the affiliate’s ratings through bold, innovative programming and viewer outreach programs and clearly Lukas is hoping he can do the same at the main office. We're watching, Brendon! Here's hoping America is, too.

Brendon Lykewater looked out over his new domain, and saw that it was good.

The only visible light in the room was a dimly glowing fixture directly over the door, which had the effect of slightly blinding the unprepared visitor and making the rest of the office seem even darker. This was aided by dark furnishings, indirect lighting, an air conditioner set to 68 degrees, and a polished black oak desk at the far end of the room that reflected the dim light in an altogether unsettling manner. The mind filled in drifting mists and pits to snag the unwary. Brandon stepped inside and relished the feel of the thick carpet as his eyes adjusted to the shadows. The room fairly stank of power, coiled and ready to strike. Also, Windex, but that would fade.

His new administrative assistant Christine, a tall, cool blonde number that he was carefully not staring at, held the heavy oak door open for him. She also radiated power but it was a very different sort, the kind that makes men and some women walk into lampposts. "I think you'll find it meets your needs," she said. Her voice was low and smoky and had not a hint of sexual innuendo in it whatsoever, which was, oddly,  incredibly sexy. "The light control and thermostat are controlled at your desk, sir."

"Good," Brendon said. "Humans have an atavistic fear of the dark, Christine. They know, with ancient senses they've forgotten they possess, that predators lurk within. It's only fair to warn them that their senses are correct." He liked that line. It had taken him a week of practice with his PDA, recording it and playing it back until he got the ominous timbre in his voice just right. He didn't look to see if his new right hand was properly nervous; looking would have ruined the effect. Besides, he was busy taking it all in.

Definitely beat the old digs. Carpet that hadn’t been scuffled across by hundreds of sweating interns. Paneling you couldn't push your finger through. A distinct lack of cardboard for packaging, decorative, or structural purposes. Dark and silent now, the discreet flatscreen panels filling one wall fairly screamed money if they ever did anything so déclassé as scream, which they didn’t. Black holes in the distance hinted at doors for private bathrooms, closets, and possibly soundproofed areas set aside for ritual sacrifices. Barely discernable on the left were inset glass shelving clearly designed to tastefully display the awards for the many successful shows he would personally craft out of the aether. In fact… He looked closer. A faint layer of dust revealed round shapes on one of the shelves, about what Lykewater would expect the base of an Emmy to look like. Bastard took ‘em with him.

No matter, he thought. I’ll just start cranking out my own. Not like it’s tough to do, no one here has a clue how to grab eyeballs. He touched that spot on the shelf for a moment, to absorb its power. And the desk…

The desk was a polished chunk of ebony, so dark it was impossible to tell if it was wood, granite, or simply solidified dark matter made manifest. The only thing permitted atop it, a slim matte black computer monitor, was pushed to one side. Lykewater's stygian leather chair was nearly as tall as he was, in stark contrast to the smaller, weaker furniture huddled in front like damned souls waiting to be judged and found wanting. This was a slab of midnight wood that left no possible doubt as to which side was the wrong side, i.e. the side the visitor was on. The faint light by the door offered a hint of escape, encouraging anyone on the wrong side of the desk to give in to their shrieking hindbrain, snatch up their young, and dash for safety. Perfect.

There was also, Lykewater noticed, plenty of room on the floor behind the desk for any personal assistance he might require during the course of his day. No sign yet if Christine included such services in her official duties, but there was plenty of time for that later.

"Your files have been loaded into the system per your specifications. There's an orientation meeting scheduled for you at 11:30 and I can begin setting up meetings with your staff immediately."

Lykewater allowed the fingertips of one manicured hand to rest, ever so lightly, on the desktop. "What are our top three shows, and their shares?" he asked without looking back.

"'Lineman,' 9.1, 'Celebrity Curling,' 8.7, and 'Seinfeld' reruns, 8.6," she replied.

"What are our top three shows on TiVo?"

"'Hiatus,' 'Big Johnson,' and 'Betcha Can't Do This.'"

"Numbers?"

"Third, sixth, and eleventh."

"iTunes?"

"We haven't signed a deal with Apple yet, I believe Mr. Lukas was hoping you'd have some input on that."

Lykewater smiled the sort of smile that was usually only restrained by zoo handlers with wire loops on sticks. "Yes, I believe I will." He turned and looked fully at Christine for the first time. "And my orientation?"

"A couple of employee handbooks you'll never read, some forms I've already filled out for you and placed in your top drawer, and a tour of all the floors of the building that you wouldn't be caught dead in. I cancelled it while we were talking."

He glanced at the inobtrusive Blackberry in her hands. "Excellent. I'll meet with the department heads at 1, and then individually afterwards, assuming none of them have quit or just run away." He rubbed Emmy dust between his fingers. "And fire Housekeeping and get me a service."

"Yes, sir."

"Now leave. I have a feeling that when I sit in that chair I'm going to make a sound that could be interpreted as inappropriate."

Christine smiled and walked out. Lykewater had seen runway models with less poise. Well, not personally, but that was about to change.

A lot of things were about to change.

Fourth year. Still maintaining my record of completed NaNos without completed novels. It is said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So, without further ado…

This year I went horror comedy. This proved to be a more accurate description than I'd have liked.

Habeas Corpse
By C. A. Bridges

chapter one: the surprise witness

"Dying is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing to do with it."
–Somerset Maugham

Grave-robbing ain’t nearly as much fun as they make it out to be.

Chuk. Chuff. “Whouf!” Chuk. Chuff. “Whouf!”

Also not quite as creepy-cool, at least not when there’s a small crowd around with half of ‘em in law enforcement. Just takes the coolness factor right out of it.

Chuk. Chuff. “Whouf!” Chuk. Chuff. “Whouf!”

“How deep did you guys bury him, anyway? Do we need to get the backhoe out here?”

“Same as everyone else, deputy. Six feet under, just like the TV show. Don’t worry, Earl and Jimmy are almost there,” said the voice in the reassuring tones of someone who wasn’t standing in a five-and-a-half-foot hole.

Earl – which is me — was almost dead himself if my aching back was any judge. The spotlights shining down at us brilliantly lit up everything in front of me, which at the moment was a pile of dirt and Jimmy’s butt crack. I don’t know about Jimmy but the reason I was working so fast was because whatever was left in that coffin had to be a damn sight prettier than Jimmy’s south end. There was a car battery and some jumper cables I had thought were there to run the lights but they seemed to be doing just fine without.

Chuk. Chuff. “Whouf!” Chuk. Chuff. “Whouf!”

Somewhere above me I could hear people pacing about. Police Deputy Step Moody was crouching at the edge, probably waiting for something to burst out so he could shoot it. The weasely guy whose name I can never remember that works at the graveyard was keeping an eye out to make sure we didn’t leave a divot. Judge Califer was leaning on the gravestone looking appropriately grim for someone standing around an open grave at ten minutes to midnight on a cold and foggy night.

And Aunt Peggy was clutching her purse and walking around the gravesite in a wide circle. Dunno why she was so worked up, this was all her idea and it ain’t like she’s never seen a dead body before, although I grant you she usually sees ‘em in more clinical surroundings.

Chuk. Chuff. “Whouf!” Chuk. Chuff. “Whouf!”

There was this man named Carl Brunswick, see, and he came up all stiff and suicided in the woods about a week ago. Terrible blow to his wife and son, namely because of the lost insurance payoff. Something less of a blow to his circle of friends and relatives, assuming there were enough to form a circle, and something more like karmic justice to everyone else.

Every town, no matter how small, has to have certain personages in it if it expects to be taken seriously and allowed to eat at the Big Cities table, and the citizens of Jackson Springs proudly did their part. There’s the sweet church ladies that gossip and twitter like birds on a fence. There’s the town drunk, a job I considered as a likely career goal in my younger days. I let that dream go when I realized I didn’t have the stamina for it, preferring instead to remain a talented amateur. There’s the tough-but-fair police chief, the shady lady at the bar, the kindly old preacher man, and the stuck-up, priggish bank manager what has everyone’s finances in his tight, thin-knuckled fists. That last one would be the late Mr. Carl Brunswick.

It seemed like an open and shut case, something the TV detectives would have solved before the first car commercial. Brunswick was found lying dead in the woods with a gun in his hand and a bullet in his head. There was no note, but his car was properly parked at the side of the road with the wheels turned at a 45 degree angle to the ditch the way the driving test said to do, and his topcoat was folded neatly in the front seat.

This is Florida. The fact he even owned a topcoat tells you a great deal about the man right there.

The cops took a lot of pictures, gave the body a look-see, pronounced him ready to eat, and passed him over to Ernie Joe the mortician to turn into a table display for everyone to ooh and aah over before sending him off to be plant him out here in 35 feet of hard dirt.

Chuk. Chuff. “Whouf!” Chuk. Chuff. “Whouf!”

Then Aunt Peggy – Dr. Margaret Peach, M.E. — came back from her Caribbean vacation and all hell broke loose.

Aunt Peggy was what you call your applied research medical examiner, one that spent a lot more time working with dead bodies than was really required or particularly pleasing to think about. She’d gone to college for twice as long as anybody in Jackson Springs and was always taking notes and asking people questions about how long their dead relatives twitched before croaking. Then she’d take off for another week to study with a biologist in Peru or a witch doctor in Haiti, which no one really understood because there ain’t a whole lot to know about fixing a body once it’s dead and if she had plans to work up to sewing on live folks she’d never mentioned anything about it.

Two hundred years ago she’d have been burned as a witch if they could have found enough people to stand up to her. I wouldn’t count on it. When she’s got her mind set on something you can bend rebar over her stare.

I could hear Deputy Step legging it over to talk to her, but it didn’t sound like she was stopping for him. Good, he needed the exercise. I’d even give him a turn behind the shovel if he asked nice.

“Dr. Peach, is this really necessary?” he said, panting a bit. “I mean, we took pictures, we didn’t just dump him.”

I heard Aunt Peggy mumbling something but it didn’t sound like an answer to Step’s question. Step seemed to agree. “Dr. Peach, please stop and tell me why we’re defiling this here body. It wouldn’t have been right for you to examine it anyway, you know. Is that a candle?”

In front of me Jimmy stuck his shovel into the dirt and leaned on it. “More than likely she wants to see him for the same reason everyone at the reception did. To make sure he’s dead.”

I kept shoveling. “You keep a civil tongue in your head, Jim. Don’t speak ill of the dead when you’re standing on him, it ain’t polite.”

“Oh, sorry Earl, I forgot. I didn’t mean nothin’ by—“

“No sweat. Just dig, let’s get this over with.”

From the sound of it, Step was losing ground. If he wasn’t careful Aunt Peggy’d lap him. “C’mon, Miz Peach, this is a bad idea. I feel just as sorry as you do that this happened and it’s a damn shame Mrs. Brunswick won’t get a settlement. But it ain’t like she’s hurtin’, and there ain’t no good reason to keep bringing up such a horrible memory, is there?” He stopped and collapsed against the headstone. I could see his beefy arms hugging the top of it. “What’s this gonna get us, anyway?”

Aunt Peggy stopped at the foot of our hole. “Answers,” she said.

Chunk!

My shovel hit something harder than dirt and woodier-sounding than a root. It only took a few more minutes of digging and scraping to expose the coffin and then me and Jimmy nearly strained ourselves pushing it up onto the edge of the grave. If you can ever arrange your affairs so that you never in your life have to heave a big damn casket above your head in the dark, all the time wondering if a hand or something was gonna flop out and smack you in the face and make you scream like a 9-year-old girl, I suggest you do so.

When we scrambled out of the hole Step was wringing his hands, the graveyard guy was standing back like he was disassociating himself with our group in case any paparazzi caught us, and Aunt Peggy was muttering things over the coffin and rummaging in her purse.

“I gotta admit, the coffin held up nice,” I said.

Jimmy rubbed at a scratch in the finish. “It sure did. This mahogany?”

“Cherry wood,” the graveyard guy said proudly. “Holds a deep, lustrous shine longer. And look at the brass fittings! That’s quality, that is. Mr. Brunswick would be proud to rot away in a casket like this.”

“Can’t even smell a thing,” I said, although I wasn’t planning any deep breaths in the immediate future. Any second now I’d have to help carry this puppy to Aunt Peggy’s meat wagon and I wasn’t sure how airtight the $2,999 Cherry Forever Deluze Special was. At least the handles were—

With one final, unidentifiable exclamation that sounded like she was clearing a small squid out of her throat, Aunt Peggy threw the lid of the coffin open. There, before our shocked and somewhat nauseated eyes, was Carl Brunswick, or most of him. His eyes were sunk in a bit and his skin was hanging on his body, and his slack-jawed mouth had that undeniable “I’m dead” look about it. Also there was a hole in his left temple that Ernie Joe had tried valiantly to cover with makeup and whatever spackle morticians use.

“Geez,” Step said, gagging slightly. “Can’t you wait til you get him back? I didn’t need to see that.” I whole-heartedly agreed. This was a rough enough ordeal for me anyway. If Peggy hadn’t been family I’d be home watching Gilligan and being only half as nauseated. If she started cutting on anything, family or not I’d start running and not stop until I hit the snowline.

Then I wished she had started cutting on him. Instead she snapped on some rubber gloves, pulled out some small vials from her purse, and poured a couple different powders into the dead guy’s mouth, and before we knew what was happening she grabbed the jumper cables and clamped ‘em onto his tux.

There was a flash and a muffled noise like a small explosion inside a meat loaf and a smell like burning bacon, and the dead guy jerked like a Pentecostal on Sunday. Peggy hit him again. Zap! I began to seriously consider the immediate therapeutic value of vomiting. For once, Jimmy was way ahead of me.

“Dr. Peach, maybe you oughtta just come away from the body real slow, like,” Step said carefully, reaching out for her shoulder. I came up behind her and snatched the cables away before she thought about using them on Step. Jimmy came up behind me, wiping his mouth, and between the two of us we got her on her feet and away from the sizzling stiff.

“Dr. Peach—“

“God, that smell’s gonna make me barf again—“

“Aunt Peggy, maybe you should—“

“Lady, you can’t do that to our—“

“Urrhhhh.”

In every monster movie there’s a moment where you, the audience, wonder how the fifteen-foot morons up on the screen could be so mind-numbingly stupid. Don’t they know better? Don’t they hear the damn music? Can’t they see that as soon as they turn their backs the evil shambling whatsit is gonna Texas chainsaw them all to death? Let me tell you, when you’re actually in that position, when everyone around you with a pulse is in your line of sight and you can hear another voice behind you, you feel every bit as stupid as the audience thinks you are. Also, you piss yourself.

Aunt Peggy looked triumphant, a little wild-eyed, and proud. I would have paid cash money and two coupons not to turn around and see what she was looking at, but there’s this manly thing and I was surrounded, however loosely defined, by guys. I turned around.

There was Carl Brunswick, standing tall and straight. And dead. And looking at us. And dead. And standing between us and the car. Did I mention he was freaking dead?

Aunt Peggy pushed between us to take Carl by a dusty arm and lead him away. “We need to talk,” she said.

The rest of us stayed perfectly still. “Ain’t he supposed to be with Jesus or something?” Jimmy asked.

“You know my brother, Jimmy,” I said. “Always has to be doing something different.”

Third year. Hit the 50k mark both times previous, still no finished novel to show for it. I am broken but unbowed.

This time I tried a mystery. Partly because I read a lot of them that year and the idea appealed to me, partly because I might as well have an unfinished novel in every genre, just to be complete, and partly because mysteries like Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series proved your protagonist didn't really have to know what they were doing. Works for me.

So, This Murderer Walks Into a Bar…
By C. A. Bridges

Chapter One

There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.
– Samuel Johnson

When you’re a bartender and there’s a hurricane beating on your door, you really start to notice just how much glass is surrounding you at eye level.

Angry winds howled outside the windows like frustrated gods but I was ignoring them by contemplating the impressive shelves of bottles behind me. When 120-mile per hour gusts blew the plywood through the windows and started a whirlwind inside the bar, cutting us all open with shards of pre-sterilized glass, which of these flying refreshments would have my name on it? Maybe I should put the Crown Royal back in its bag, to soften the blow.

Then again, if alcohol was ever going to do me damage it would have to be blunt trauma. I’m a nondrinker, which isn’t as much of a handicap to being a bartender as you might think. It’s no tougher than a vegetarian becoming a master chef at a Kobe steak house.

OK, maybe it is a handicap. But it does keep our profit margin healthy.

“There you go,” I said finally, pointing at a squat amber bottle. “That’s the one that’ll get me, officer. Take my nose clean off and bash out half my teeth, I’m sure of it. You can tell by the evil gleam on its label. It’s a killer.”
The large man leaning on the bar behind me rumbled the hearty chuckle of a man accustomed to always being slightly wasted. This is because even stone sober Jimmy McNye was usually two drinks ahead of anybody else, it was more or less his base state. That’s why he owned the bar; he was smart enough to guarantee a steady supply for himself. It did tend to blunt the edge of his decision-making skills, which is why I run the place. I’m his nephew, Anthony. Anthony Marciano. Call me Marcy, everyone does.

And yes, he’s Irish. My name’s from Dad, and I’d like you to take a moment and think about what arguments between a feisty Irish mother and a proud Italian father were like during my youth. By the time I started working here, dealing with drunks three times my size was the easiest part of this job.

“The Dewar’s 12? Perish the thought, lad,” he said. “Such a smooth sip could never do you no harm. It’s certainly been good to me all these years, aside from the blackouts. And the impotence, o’course. No, it’ll be the Stoli what slashes you open, mark my words!”

Laughing with him, a very-nearly-pretty, very-nearly-drunk woman named Lee slumped against his shoulder in much the same way – and for much the same reason — that panicky white water rafters grab on to big rocks. “Jimmy! What a thing to say! And so untrue!” He embraced her with one beefy arm.

“Ah, you’re defending my manhood, then, 'love? Speaking up for my wee lad?”

She looked down into his lap. “God, no, that’s been dead and dust for years. No, you’re scaring the boy, talking about which bottle will cut open his pretty face. It won’t be any of ‘em, and I think you’re horrible to suggest it!”

I smiled at her. “Thank you, Lee. I appreciate that.”

“No sir, it’ll be all that stemware over the bar,” she continued happily. “All those wine glasses, just hanging there? Take both your eyes right out, splat! Or maybe sploorch. I dunno.” She swiveled around to address the bar. “Hey, what sound does a scooped out eyeball make? Anyone?”

Helpful patrons broke away from their own conversations to provide their best guesses. For a full minute the bar sounded like someone had dropped a truckload of squid into a blender.

Lee giggled and kicked her feet. “Ewww! That’s perfect!” She spun back around and overshot, correcting herself by grabbing Jimmy and hauling herself back hand over hand to focus, with some difficulty, on one of the three of me she could see. “So, if you hear a sound like that, pretty boy, duck!”

It wasn’t the usual weekend at McNye’s Bar (“A Drinking Establishment”), mostly due to the oncoming killer storm. Our usual mix of Friday night regulars was off-kilter due to various opinions regarding evacuation and a few people had finished loading their cars to the consistency of wet baklava and had stopped by for just long enough to get loaded themselves before heading to high ground. Some had already left, of course, booking away as fast as their U-Hauls would go before the first drop of rain hit.

And some were staying, refusing to let anything as incidental as a Category Four hurricane interrupt their daily lives.

Jimmy was here, of course. He’d wait out the Last Trump here, nursing one more wee dram just in case Heaven made you take the pledge before they let you in. Beside him was his old partner and drinking buddy, Oscar Vetrano. Quiet guy, big sense of humor, living off his pension and investments that included, incidentally, a small but significant portion of the bar.

Lee Lasserre spent all her off-nights here and had ever since we started vetting her boyfriends for her, Lee having a natural attraction for victimizing jerks. More than one perfect date had ended for Lee when she brought her new beau here to get a nightcap only to wave sadly as we saw him to the door, not always under his own locomotion, not always in the same vertical position he’d started out in.

Phil Schafeler was still in his spot at the bar in front of the TV, which is how I knew we were still open.

Regulars from the rest of the week passed in and out, looking oddly out of place and almost surprised to see us open on other days, like they had wandered into a time machine set for “Happy Hour.”

When you hear a bar is set in a place like Daytona Beach you might think of tanned and wildly drunk college girls with notoriously loose bikini tops, or hairy, wildly drunk bikers tearing up the joint, or possibly even triumphant and wildly drunk race fans cheering on their favorite driver while they pound down the pitchers. McNye’s didn’t cater to any of those, specifically, although I still had hopes for the occasional misplaced college girl.

McNye’s is a locals bar. That means that just about everybody that walks in the door is a regular or about to become one, and that’s just how I like it. Just now I could look around the room and see fourteen or fifteen people whose lives I know in very limited and very intimate ways, mainly those having to do with relationships, personal histories, and nausea levels precise to within two sips.

And everyone had the same look of fearful anticipation on their faces. Not our usual mood, here, which varies between jolly companionship and artful drunkenness. The mood tonight was that of people huddled in a bunker, waiting for the bombs to start.

This was largely due to the cheerful blobs of red, yellow and green currently swirling on the TV set. The blobs were named “Bruno.” Or, to be precise, they represented a tropical with winds of nearly 140 mph extending outward 72 miles from the center. That center, if it followed the latest forecast, was aiming at the Main Street Pier. “Bruno” seemed appropriate.

The crowd clustered around the bar watched, mesmerized, as professionally concerned people pronounced certain doom.

“It’ll come right down Main Street, you mark my words,” Phil Schafeler said, shaking a gnarled finger at the screen where attractive people with carefully furrowed brows were assuring everyone that Armageddon was near. Phil was a retiree and was always waiting at the door when we opened, mostly so he could grab the remote. He had it now, having scooped it up the way hawks snatch small and furry things out of the tall grass. “It’ll kill us all in our beds!”

“Good thing I’m usually in someone else’s then,” Lee called over to him, to general laughter.

“Ain’t a jokin’ matter, missy.” The small knot of people between them tried to look amused without looking afraid, and only managed to look constipated. “I almost got my hair parted by a 200-year-old oak tree last time, I ain’t lookin’ to do it again!”

I set a fresh shot in front of him. He liked it when he didn’t have to order. I liked it when people didn’t have to yell at me. We were both happy. “So why didn’t you evacuate this time?”

Phil looked at the drink mournfully. “Didn’t want to come back to a smooshed house, water up to the second floor, open to the sky. If it happens, I want to know about it.”

Last time Phil’s neighbors to either side lost significant portions of their houses that had not been intended by the builders to be detachable. Neither family had been home when it happened, but Phil had been there waiting for them when they returned, holding carefully bagged, sentimentally valuable belongings he had salvaged for them.

He still charged them both hefty fees for hazardous retrieval and sentimental valuable storage, but I think his momentary spell of nobility unnerved him.

I squeezed his bony shoulder and smiled. “I’m with you, Phil. Ride it out and pick up the pieces afterwards. It works for my love life, it’ll work here.” This time when the people around him chuckled the nervous edge was gone. He grumbled and went back to glaring at the screen.

When a couple dozen people are drinking heavily and trying not to panic, it’s never a good idea to encourage them, especially when you’re the one that’ll be cleaning out the bathrooms later.

Behind Phil a young and attractive woman I’d never seen before smiled at me, sizing me up with as thorough an appraisal as she could manage considering half of me was hidden behind three feet of polished cherrywood. “Aren’t you scared?” she called from three feet away.

“Scared, no,” I said. “We’re boarded up and locked down, just waiting for the 11 o’clock forecast. What can I get you?”

“’Sex on the Beach’,” she said, smiling. “Unless you think it’s too dangerous.”

I glanced up at the screen where a man in a yellow windbreaker was standing on a wind-hammered beach somewhere, screaming something as gouts of rain went by him sideways. I couldn’t hear what he was saying but I guessed it was the traditional “Don’t do what I’m doing right now or you’ll die” announcement that field reporters are required by federal law to do every time a major storm comes closer than Puerto Rico.

“Only if the Weather Channel catches us,” I said, and slid back down the bar, smiling at her all the way. I’ve done this for too long to have to look at the bottles so I whispered to Lee out of the corner of my mouth, prison yard style, while my hands started doing interesting things with vodka and schnapps. “I’ve got a friend,” I told her.

Lee looked up, interested. “Chick with the rack?”

“That’d be the one.”

“Got your back,” she said, and she picked up her drink to casually saunter over to chat. By now I had the ingredients in the shaker and the outside was already getting cold. Lee was murmuring in the girl’s ear. Twice both of them looked over me, Lee sympathetically, the girl with a growing and slightly disgusted concern.

There are as many “Sex on the Beach” recipes as there are beaches. Ours uses vodka, peach schnapps, pineapple juice, three splashes of grenadine, and some heavy cream, although for a real “Sex on Daytona Beach” you should include an ounce of tar, a turtle egg, and a driftwood garnish. I’m a big fan of realism in alcohol. I poured the frothy mix into a glass and set it on a napkin in front of my newest groupie with a flourish. “There ya go,” I said, and followed with my most dazzling grin.

She smiled weakly, dropped a five on the bar and fled to the safety of the far tables underneath the huge “Hurricane Party” banner.

The banner had been one of Jimmy’s endless ideas to drum up business for a bar that didn’t really need it. We had compromised: I refused to preside over a drunken “flip the bird to Mother Nature” party, but I let him hang it at the start of hurricane season in August with the agreement that we’d take it down at the end of the season in December. It tended to bewilder new customers who came in on sunny days, but I enjoyed that..

Lee was back in her usual spot, visibly straining to look innocent when I returned. “So what was I this time,” I asked.

“Tragically diseased. I didn’t think she’d believe you were gay.”

“Thanks. I think. Which disease?”

She laid her hand on mine. “I’d rather not say. You don’t need that kind of burden in your life right now.”

We giggled together. I have no interest in romance-seeking barflies and Lee gets a kick out of returning the favor and scaring them off for me. It’s never a good idea to date a customer. Tipping becomes problematic.

Around the corner the toilet flushed, barely audible over the din outside, and Lenny Scales re-emerged to claim his traditional place at the bar in front of the garnish rack. He always said it was because he got the best view of the goings-on, but I knew it was so Lenny could filch olives.

It occurred to me that out of this soon-to-be disaster, some good could emerge. “Hey, Lenny,” I said. “Now’s your chance.”

Lenny looked up, confused. It was a familiar expression for him. He had the look of a man the universe has decided to stomp on. If you were to follow your dog around for a week, collecting his output into a bag, and then — for reasons known only to yourself and your god — go to the mall and heave the bag up over the crowd as high as you could, the person the bag would land upon would be Lenny.

He was twitching, wringing his hands and watching the TV with fearful eyes. Not a good guy in a crisis, our Lenny, and he couldn’t swing a hammer twice the same way, but he was a wizard with a pool cue.

“Chance? For what?”

“Maybe you’ll get lucky and that damn house of yours will get flipped into the Halifax. Then you can stick a tent there and finally rent the place.”

He slumped on his crossed arms and looked morose. “God, I hope not. Not now. Geez, of all times, not now.”

“Why not? For the last five years you’ve called down every manner of natural disaster you could think of on that old place. I’ve think I’ve helped you rebuild more of that house than you started with. How long since you rented it last?”

He mumbled into his glass.

“So maybe God will finally take it off your hands, or at least kick it enough so your insurance will pop for some real repairs. I’ve just about done all I can do with it.”

“But things are different now, Marce,” he said. He was almost pleading, although it was hard to tell. There was always something permanently frantic about Lenny, it made it hard to judge actual panic conditions. “I got something going, I need the house to stay upright and everything. It’s gotta!”

“Really? What’s up?”

He glanced sideways at where Lee, Jimmy, and Oscar were talking about obscene hurricane supplies and which batteries they’d need to stockpile. “Don’t wanna say, it’ll jinx it.

“Lenny, that house couldn’t get any more jinxed if you hung black cats at every corner. It’s on 13th Street—“

“That’s Walker.”

“It’s between 12th and 14th, you and the city planners can call it what you like. No one’s lived in it more than six months at a time since it was built, and it rejects any plumbing we try to put in it. At this point I think the best way to renovate it is with a bloody great hurricane, don’t you? Here ya go,” I said as I handed fresh drinks past Lenny to a few people that had come up and politely waited through my rant. There were some muffled thumps as something outside bounced off the plywood on the windows. I admire a storm with a sense of drama. “The thing’s cursed, Len, and I’m saying that as a faithful agnostic. You’re the one that’s been saying for years you’d tear it down yourself if you had the chance.”

He looked up at that and this time he held himself very still. “You think it’ll come down this time?”

“The last storms almost did it in, and you know we haven’t finished patching that up. I’d be surprised if it’s standing now.”

A sudden collective gasp from the bar potatoes caught our attention. The 11 p.m. forecast was on the screen. Lenny gave a little scream and he was gone, with the front door swinging shut behind him before I even saw him get up. I looked back at the harmless looking weather map.

Bruno was coming to visit. In about three hours.

“That’s it, bar’s closed,” I called. “I don’t care where you evacuate to, but you can’t stay here. Good luck, everybody! Be careful!”

The crowd filed out, slowly and grudgingly. Phil laid the remote on the bar in front of me and touched it once, tenderly. “I’ll guard it for you, Phil,” I promised.

Lee finished her drink and stood up, carefully. She had worked the last week solid so the other nurses on her shift could get their stuff boarded up, now she was heading into the hospital to ride out the storm. Made sense, it was stronger than most of the shelters and way stronger than her apartment building. I just hoped they didn’t give her grief for her off-duty, staggery condition. She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “You take care,” she said, and left, daintily stepping over the tiny barricade of sandbags outside the door.

It dawned on me, not for the first time, that I really liked these people. I hoped they made it.

Jimmy came back from seeing Oscar out. “Well, here we are.”

“Yup.”

“Got all our preparations made? Got the windows boarded, the bleach and batteries laid by, the supplies of food and drink secure? Haystacks tied down? Prayers said, peace with God made and shook on? Are we ready for Bruno, lad?”

“As ready as we’ll ever be,” I said.

Jimmy grinned. “Then there's nothing to fear. Break out the cards, boy, it’s going to be a long night.”

Chapter Two

"Basically, I'm for anything that gets you through the night – be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniels."
– Frank Sinatra

The first hour was the worst, but only until the second hour started.

I'm not sure if I can accurately describe the sensation of weathering such an awesome storm, but after hours of consideration, most of them in screaming pitch-blackness, I came up with this:

Take a mob of violent, clinically insane criminals, ideally released early from their aggravated assault prison sentences, and dose them liberally with PCP and the more home-made strains of alcohol. Assemble them together at a construction site where you've placed generous amounts of power tools, earth-moving equipment, and a portable 50,000-gallon water tower with attached, pressurized hoses. Show them that the backpack in your hands is crammed with $1,000 bills, unmarked and non-sequential.

As they growl and reach for the sledgehammers, run over to the porta-potty and jump inside. In there you have a flashlight, an AM radio, two bottles of water, and a can of Beanie Weenies. Yell at the assorted mass of murderous humanity you’ve assembled and suggest that their mothers might not have been moral, upstanding citizens (choose your own phrasing). Lock the door.

What will happen to you over the next few hours is very similar to hunkering down in a house during a hurricane, although you have to add the sound and sensation of all the shingles on your roof being ripped off and blown to Mexico. Also, the criminals should howl a lot.

We lost power around 2:30 in the morning but that was hardly a surprise. I didn't bother with the generator, I figured the freezer would keep things cold enough until morning and I didn't want to mess with gasoline just then. Instead we lit some candles – after making sure that all of the tables had been cleared of any possibility of spilled booze – and waited it out.

Roughly every twenty minutes or so one of us would feel compelled to look outside. The first time I did it I told myself it was to check on the Jimmy’s car in the parking lot. Really it was just to feel the storm.

When I forced the door open and slipped outside, my first thought was that I had stepped onto the deck of a mighty sailing ship during a typhoon, which wasn't too far off the mark. Everything was water. Water in the air, water sluicing off the roof in huge gouts, water surging down Nova Road, with an apparently endless supply waiting its turn. There weren't any deckhands running around that I could see, or waves crashing over the bow, but my sneakers were splashing ankle deep the second I stepped off the curb and there were indeed tall masts swaying in the endless winds. Unfortunately they had power lines attached.

I went back inside.

As recently as a year ago most central Floridians ignored hurricane warnings as being so much hot, wet air. Big storms never ever came near the east coast of the state, everyone knew that. It was the Gulf Stream, or all the sand bars, or El Nino, or the Bermuda Triangle, or hot air currents from the Speedway or something. Storms might smack into the Keys or skim upwards to terrorize the Carolinas or loop around to bounce around the Gulf of Mexico like a pinball, but never did they join the tourists to pay a visit to Daytona Beach. Whenever a tropical disturbance got big enough and fast enough to deserve a name, local residents smiled to themselves and maybe rolled their car windows up as a precautionary measure.

For over twenty years, their lack of fear was justified. Sure, they’d buy some extra water and batteries and maybe a few bottles of bleach, since everyone else was, but they didn’t really worry about it.

Then Hurricane Charley carved its way across the state with devastating thoroughness, followed by a plodding Hurricane Frances that took its sweet time pounding everything Charley had missed. Houses were destroyed. Trees uprooted. Trailer parks smashed even more than usual. Millions of people were left without electricity and water for weeks. Power crews and rescue personnel worked heroic hours without rest to bring everyone back into the twenty-first century, and everyone began to rest easy.

And Mother Nature, proving that she could handle being fooled but got really ticked off if she was ignored, slapped the state with another hurricane a few weeks later to knock all the power out again and add some flooding besides.

People in Daytona Beach didn’t ignore hurricane warnings anymore.

Actually, once we got used to the sounds of creaking walls and water crashing against the window plywood, it wasn't that bad. You can only tense your shoulders for so long before you either accept your impending doom or you get a headache, and I've never been the headache type.

The card game wasn’t quite as soothing for me as it was for Jimmy, who had embraced “Texas Hold-‘Em” to his poker-playing repertoire the way serial killers had embraced the reciprocating saw. I was nearly four thousand dollars in the hole when an ungodly ripping sound caught our attention. It started on the roof, ground there a while like someone was dragging a truck across it (with the parking brake on), and ended up with a resounding crash. Tucking his cards in his shirt pocket, Jimmy went to investigate.

He came back inside looking like he’d taken a few minutes for a quick, fully-clothed bath. "Well, we're no longer McNye's," he said. "Although we might have a shot at being Domino's Pizza if their sign comes any closer to us."

“The sign’s down?”

“It’s sailing merrily down Nova Road without even stopping for the lights.”

“Well, good for it. About time it got to travel a bit.”

“True words indeed, and ones I’d be proud to toast. That’s a hint, boy, usually you have better ears than that. Is the wind too loud for you, then?”

It felt… calmer, behind the bar. Not in the sense that I was in any way safer there, surrounded by glass and sharp objects – the DeWars bottle was eyeing me in a menacing manner – but I felt more… I don't know. In control? Maybe it was something like the captain wanting to be on the bridge when the ship went down, manning his post until the very end. It felt right.

Or else I just liked having a ready-made barricade in front of me.

"Too bad the TV's out," I said. "Be nice to know what to expect."

"I dunno. If you know when it's coming and when it should be past, there's more pressure to do something about it. Like, we've got seventeen minutes between the blasted feeder bands, there’s our chance to rush out and tighten the support straps on the sign or make sure the cars are pointing west to reduce wind drag or something."

"No worries there, our sign's probably on I-95 by now."

"But this? It's out of our hands,” he said, waving his glass for emphasis. “We can't do a thing. We've prepared ourselves, made our peace with God, and now Mother Nature has us in her clutches. She's a rough bitch, Marcy, and she won't put us down until she's had her fun. She'll shake us and throw us about and do everything to scare us to death, and all we can do is try to relax and enjoy it."

I looked at him, content in the candlelight. "I think I know more about your sex life now then I ever really wanted to, Uncle Jim."

"Ha! You're a rogue, you are! I won't deny that it'd be better to spend this night with a warm, willing lass in your arms. Nothing like mortal terror to get the girls jumping for you, eh?"

"And now I know too much about your dating strategies."

He leaned over and tapped me on the arm. "Why didn't you grab on to that wee lass earlier? She'd have been a ride and a half and from the looks of her she was already saddled and ready for you before she even said hello. She'd have been a bit of comfort tonight, to be sure. Better than a drunken Irishman, hard as that is to imagine."

Something heavy smacking against the front of the building distracted us and gave me a few extra minutes to think about my answer. Anyone else would have gotten my stock responses ("I only date lesbians, they're more of a challenge" or “If I want a woman I’ll download one”) but I owed Uncle Jimmy a lot. He was the only one of my relatives that thought I was ever worth a damn, and he proved it by hiring me at the bar the day I turned sixteen.

Well, not "hiring," so much, that being illegal. Seems the state of Florida has funny ideas about alcohol, underage kids, and the proximity thereof. But he paid me to sweep up and clean tables and haul boxes and he treated me like a regular employee until I was old enough to hire legally, and by then I already knew how to follow drink recipes and talk to people.

Which, as it turns out, is all bartendering is.

Apparently he’d had a bit too much time to think. “Damn me, you’re not fey, are you? It’s perfectly all right with me if y’are, don’t be thinking otherwise,” he said, very quickly, when he saw my expression. “You’re a keen judge of character and I’m sure you’d pick a fine man to love. Only I’d like to know, if it’s not too personal. I’m not even in the pool, so it won’t matter if I know.”

It took me another minute or so to stop laughing, and a bit more effort to avoid joining in once he started up. “No, Jimmy, I’m straight. Not that there’s…”

“Anything wrong with that,” we both finished, laughing again.

“I just don’t… You know I had a girlfriend in high school, right?”

Candlelight made his shadows dance as he nodded. “Aye. You were hotter than pups in season. I’d be lying if I hadn’t expected to become a great-uncle a bit earlier than I’d planned.”

“Let’s say things went badly.” Uncle Jim gave me a sharp look. While he didn’t know exactly what had happened to me in high school – records for minors are kept sealed – he knew enough about it to make some shrewd guesses. “Really badly. About as bad as things could get, ever.”

“And that’s weighin’ on you still? Bad as it was, boy, that was eight years ago! I don’t know what Miss Manners says about it but I think you’re allowed to date again by now.”

I slumped back in my chair and took a long pull off my water bottle. “Allowed, sure. Interested?” I sighed. “I dunno.”

Then I sat up again. “Wait a minute. What pool?”

“What? Oh, well, I, uh…” A face that was not accustomed to ever needing to look innocent took a shot at it, screwing itself up into something approximating, if not actual lack of guilt, an expression of nolo contendere. “A few of the lads, you know, mostly the ones that have tried unsuccessfully to attract the selfsame ladies you brush off, have been having a bit of a game where-“

“You’re telling me that my friends, people I care for, people whose houses I’ve worked on and families I’ve helped out and drinks I’ve goddamn poured for all these years, these friends are actually betting on whether or not I’m gay just because I don’t try and nail everything that walks in the door?”

“Well… yes.”

“How much is in the pot? It gets high enough, let me know. I can kiss anything for enough money.”

“Good to know, lad, good to know.”

We watched the shadows flicker on the walls. There was a small apartment upstairs where I lived, but by unspoken agreement both of us were down here for the duration. I didn’t know about Jim but I was eyeing the floor under the pool table as a likely camping spot. It was hand-made quarter-sawn oak with mahogany rails and the sweetest cushion I’d ever seen, more than strong enough to hold up the whole second floor if it had to. If it didn’t make it through the storm I didn’t think I wanted to, either.

Jim stretched, old bones creaking despite the steady single malt lubrication, and looked over at me. “You know, it’s not good to be lonely, Marcy. You’re an only child, you can’t count on having a loyal nephew to keep you company the rest of your life.”

“I’ve got lots of friends, Uncle Jim. I’ll be all right.”

“Friends are wonderful, I’ll never say different, and there’s not a person that sits in this bar wouldn’t flat out adopt you if you said yes. You’re a better son to half of them than their own blood already. Which reminds me, what was Leonard going on about?”

“He’s worried about his house. For the first time since he bought it, as far as I remember.”

“Ha! By right of blood and sweat it’s rightfully yours anyway, you’ve worked on it more than he ever has.”

I shrugged. “He needed a hand. I like having something to do when the bar’s closed, you know that. And it really isn’t in too bad a shape, structurally. It’s just from the outside that it looks like what you get after you demolish a house and sweep it into a pile.”

Jim leaned over the table. I caught his scent, a blend of smooth whiskey and pipe tobacco. The fact that I didn’t share either vice made no difference, that smell was home. “You do everything for your friends, and too much for me, and what does that leave you for yourself?”

“Uncle Ji—“

“Take some time off. I’ve tried giving you vacations and you spend them building someone else’s deck or helping grout the Ocean Center or something. Go, spend a week doing nothing at all for nobody, see where it takes you. Go ride your bike to Key West or hike through the Rockies if you have to be exercising, although why a man needs to move more than his hips or his elbow is beyond me.”

For a full moment he just looked at me, with his face covered in more lines than a walnut and his eyes paler than a clear sky, and then he smiled and relaxed back into his usual, overstuffed couch self. He reached into his shirt pocket and produced a soggy handful of cards. “And you’ll be needin’ money for that, yes? I believe it was your ante…”

Outside the rain gods had their way with the city. The city screamed back. It was date rape night in weatherland, and in the morning all that would be left would be soreness and a suspicious puddle.

Chapter Three

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
– John Lennon

I was in a giant washing machine, pounding on the door to get out while the hot, sudsy water swirled higher and higher, faster and faster around me. Jeans and socks and pillow cases whipped around me with blinding speed, slapping me with wet denim and suffocating me in cheap linen. Someone had tossed their sneakers in with me and they kept beating me in the side of the head before I could dodge.

There was also a bright red T-shirt spinning past my eyes in a flat trajectory. I realized with a sinking feeling in my heart that when I got out, if I got out, I’d be forever dyed a bright pink.

Abruptly the ceiling swung open and light stabbed into my eyes as a gargantuan Lenny reached in and pulled me up, snapping me once or twice to get most of the water out. “Not now,” he said, in a voice that could shake buildings. “Not now!”

My world was filled with Lenny. I was on his hand, staring into miles of shabby clothes and acres of mournful face. When he opened his mouth to speak I was thrown to his palm from the forceful winds that suggested that dental care was an abstract concept in Lenny’s world. When I looked up his face contorted. He almost looked… sorry? “Lenny,” I said. “What are you—“

Without warning he dropped me into an angry ocean. Green lightning flashed overhead, highlighting the endless waves that were waiting to crash down over me. I swam feebly, fighting with weary arms to pull against the current that was dragging me back into a massive, shrieking whirlpool. Houses full of screaming people swept past me, familiar faces calling for me to come save them and buy a round for the house. All of the plywood and wood slats I had put on for them were coming off in shreds, like wet tissue paper, and I watched helplessly as friends and regulars were sucked out of their windows into the sea.

Tears streaming from my eyes I climbed onto half of a torn roof chunk and rode it into the vortex, cleaning it with my bar rag as I went. My certain death was nothing to me but I’d be damned if I went down with an unpolished roof. I had my pride.

Somewhere in the back of my dream there was the faint but persistent notion that if this wasn’t some kind of subconscious, storm-related fear then I had better start sleepwalking towards the bathroom, fast.

Lenny’s voice boomed over the furious surf. “Not now! Marcy! Not now!”

As I disappeared below the surface the last thing I saw was the red T-shirt, following me down…

Chapter Four

"Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!"
– William Shakespeare

It was still raining when I woke up, which seemed unfair. It was supposed to be over by now, wasn’t it? I’m supposed to wake up, blinking in the sunlight, to see the other post-apocalyptic survivors picking their way out of the rubble to see the bright new day?

Nope. Just rain.

My second year of noveling, I reasoned, had to be easier. I knew I could do it. I knew where I had gone wrong before. Plus, I had a fantastic idea. What would happen if someone developed a perfect cure? Something that would rebuild a human from the DNA out, in a matter of minutes? What would happen if it were released to the world, without asking the world first?

In my book, someone would get sued.

I loved the idea, had reams of notes. Piece of cake. I even considered waiting a week to start, to make it fair.

By the end of the month I was seriously thinking about giving one of my characters an uncontrollable impulse to recite 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" whenever he entered a room, because I needed the words. Made a strong start, got quite a ways into it, and then made the cardinal mistake of speed-writing and horror movie chases: I looked back. Spent the rest of the month endlessly editing and re-editing what I'd already written, barely managed to stumble over the 50,000 word finish line with a half hour to spare.

This one I'll probably come back to, because I still love the idea. Here's the last version of the opening:

THE CURE
By Chris Bridges

Prologue

The cool thing about working at Starbucks, Mannie thought, was the awesome potential for spying.

You had to be discreet, of course. People often got touchy when they were distracted from their private affairs by a nosey guy who took a half hour to wipe their table, but Manny was a pro. So far this morning he had carefully not noticed the three gorgeous, giggling co-eds bragging about the sex they had the night before (he especially liked not hearing the story about the blindfold and the jar of grape jelly). The fact that he was pretty sure all three were lying to each other made it even better, almost as good as the two weepy guys he overheard the other day trading lost love stories. Great stuff.

People who are unable to function without caffeinated beverages are at their most vulnerable during the first cup, noted Mannie, amateur sociologist. Before they get it they're surly, sarcastic, and often incomprehensible, more like Dawn of the Dead extras than real people. After their fix, when the murky hot bean juice seeps into every pore of their bodies and kicks them awake, they gradually evolve into productive, sharp-eyed and unnaturally alert members of society with brief cases and SUVs the size of a mid-town apartment. But oh, in those magic moments between the first scent slapping them in the face and the last drop swirling around the bottom of the cup, when their whole body chemistry is changing and their brains are still wiping the sleep from their lobes, that's when they're as wide-open as a white-collar prison. Working unobtrusively around the shop Mannie spent his days hearing about passionate love affairs, unsavory business deals, divorces, flights of fancy, moments of despair, heights of selfless nobility, and the deepest, darkest secrets of the human soul. It was better than TiVo.

Mannie called it "breakfast theater."

Some day he hoped to overhear some spies, or become a hero by single-handedly thwarting the nefarious plans of some bomb-throwing, latte-guzzling terrorists. But until then he'd settle for the usual, which was smut and soap opera.

Right now he was refilling the straw and napkin dispensers, which happened to be located in a prime spot with great acoustics. A couple of stockbrokers were talking in low and excited tones about something that would surely have gotten them arrested if Mannie had been an undercover agent for the SEC, but he was too busy carefully not paying attention to the two men hunched over the table in the back. They were some kind of science guys and were always good for some bizarre entertainment. He placed straws in the bin one by one and listened.

"Jackson's results are in, Vince," the big one said. He always reminded Mannie of an old Grizzly Adams, or maybe Santa Claus the morning after a bad eggnog drunk, and he looked like he had gotten dressed in a burning house. Wrinkled, mismatched clothes, wild hair, no socks. From the excited way he was gesturing about and trying not to yell, part of him might still be on fire. "They're better than anything we even dreamed of!"

The other man, presumably Vince, wasn't impressed. Or else he was trying really hard not to be, Mannie guessed. He made a small bet with himself over that and reached for another straw.

"We still haven't tried it on a large enough sampling," Vince muttered. "A group of scientists and their families over a couple of years is hardly a statistical city block, much less a universe."

"Brinker is cured, Vincent," said the other man. "Completely, totally cured! Projections were for partial remission, maybe just slowing things down, but his PCR was clean as a whistle. The lab tested his viral loads and it went away while they watched. While they watched! And do you know how long it took?"

The wild guy leaned back in his chair to make more room for the grin that was yanking his face around and getting larger by the minute. "Ten minutes. He's the fiftieth one, and he had the farthest progression, and he was all better before he could finish watching a Friends rerun."

"And now you want to go public, I assume? That's what this is about?"

"Of course! We all do! This is the greatest breakthrough in the history of… of breakthroughs! We've just cured-"

"Quiet! Keep it down, you idiot! You know my opinion on this, we've been over this a million times. We're not ready yet, there are too many complications. We still haven't figured out how to deliver it or keep it stable, and we haven't decided how to keep from being killed doing it. A few more years and-"

The wild guy smiled like Heaven's own lottery winner. "You can't keep stalling forever, Vincent." He stood up and dropped a couple of bills on the table. "It's time to kiss the world and make it all better. There's been a meeting called for tomorrow, the full staff. Take your precautions, I'll catch up with you later."

Vincent (and Mannie) watched him leave.

Mannie watched the remaining man out of the corner of his eye. He was almost to the point of no return as far as napkin-stuffing went. Come on, come on…

Finally Vincent slammed his fist down on the table, making the coffee cups jump.

"Damn," he muttered. Then he got up and stalked out.

Point for me, Mannie thought cheerfully, and headed over to clean windows behind the crying lady who was writing the Dear John letter to her fiancé in Boise while her hazelnut frappé turned into warm mud. He loved his job.

So intriquing was her tearful prose that he completely failed to notice the man in the far corner who folded the newspaper that had coincidentally obscured his face, and left in the same direction Vincent had gone.

Chapter One – Dysfunctional Family Planning

The United States spends a larger share of the GDP on health than does any other major industrialized country. In 2000 the United States devoted 13.3 percent of the GDP to health compared with 10.6–10.7 percent each in Germany and Switzerland and 9.1–9.5 percent in Canada and France, countries with the next highest shares.
– "Health, United States, 2003"; U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services

If by chance I talk a little wild, forgive me;
I had it from my father.
– William Shakespeare; Henry VIII I, 4

I wonder if any other companies start their meetings this way, Carl Browry thought to himself. He sank farther into his chair and watched his sister and fellow company vice-president walk quickly around the long oak table behind the woman who was simultaneously their mother, their president, and their CEO. At the moment she was also naked. And singing.

"It's a ga-as! Just a dash of silicone! Shake your new maracas and you're fine!" The song had certainly been sung better through the years but even the most avid theater-goer would be hard-pressed to remember anyone who had ever sang it more enthusiastically, or with more visible maracas.

"Mother, please!" his sister Elizabeth pleaded. She was carrying the Donna Karan ensemble that their mother had shucked and was chasing after her like she was trying to douse a fire. Which wasn't, after all, too far off the mark.

Fortunately the elegantly appointed boardroom had no windows or, for that matter, sharp corners, and had been soundproofed months ago once impromptu naked performances became commonplace. Other than those minor modifications it was a pretty standard executive hidey-hole with a small side bar in the back, computer monitors around the table, and leather and oak fighting it out everywhere else for interior supremacy. A large whiteboard covered the far wall next to the painfully distinguished picture of the company's founder, Nathanial Lancaster, whose stern expression suggested he had just taken a moment to sit stiffly and pose before popping off and single-handedly ending WWI, beating Joe Lewis in two rounds and inventing value-added tax.

Camille Lancaster, Nathanial's great-granddaughter, was just as imposing. By the time she turned twenty-five she was already running the family's shampoo company almost single-handedly, her father (Horace Lancaster, previous CEO and renowned inventor of hair conditioner as a separate and vitally necessary product) having died the same year in an inexplicable accounting accident. Unfortunately, by the time she conquered the business world she found to her dismay one of the few things that doesn't sexually discriminate: Alzheimer's didn't sexually discriminate. In the last few years her failing faculties forced her to begin delegating some of the responsibility to trusted subordinates who could be relied upon to guard against exaggerated rumors — or selected truths — reaching the stockholders. That meant family. Her daughter Elizabeth was already showing remarkable financial acuity and unsuspected depths of anal retentiveness, so VP of Finance and Marketing was a natural position for her. And Carl…

Officially Carl was Vice President of Research and Development. What Carl was in real life was a semi-talented chemist in a suit who found that nepotism wasn't really all that bad once you got used to it. What he was in practical terms was the guy who did everything that Camille and Elizabeth didn't, which included designing new product labels, researching and purchasing new equipment, and picking up the pizzas for the weekly Employee Appreciation Lunch.

What he was most of the time was mortified and frustrated. Summerville Shampoo Company, Inc, his chosen future, was going under, and its once-powerful leader was singing it down with a bang.

Camille was apparently heading into a big finish, expertly dodging Elizabeth like a star quarterback and hauling a chair between them for defense. On her next line she paused, and posed like she'd just turned over a vowel. "What they want is… whatcha see!"

If Carl was embarrassed or uncomfortable at seeing his middle-aged mother in the altogether he'd gotten over it quickly during the last year. Instead he focused on her face with an intensity that even the most advanced meditation couldn't create and tried to think about whether pumping up the pH balance on the latest product line would be worth the hassle. Some of his most innovative ideas had come while trying not to look below his mother's neck.

With a heroic lunge Elizabeth grabbed her and began dragging the silk blouse over her head. "Are you going to help me or what?" she snapped in Carl's direction. Camille sang on, undeterred. Carl tried to discretely clear his perpetually-clogged sinuses (an annoyance for most, a boon for a person who mucks around with chemicals all day) and grudgingly leaned forward to get up with the speed of a sleeping jungle cat, stopping instantly when his phone rang.

"Sorry, gotta take this," he said, smiling insincerely and thanking the gods for whomever the caller was. She glared at him and went back to wrapping a skirt around Camille's chubby hips. Camille, meanwhile, was singing to a hidden audience somewhere by the overhead projector about debutantes, chorus girls, and wives, and how they might be suitably enhanced. Why do I put up with this, Carl wondered. "Hello?"

The voice at the other end suggested intelligence and guile, genius and self-purpose. A Grand Vizier's voice. This voice, you could tell, was issued from under a very thin mustache. "Let me guess," it said. "A Chorus Line?"

Oh yeah, that's why. "She was just telling us about the fantastic performance she saw last night, Dad."

His sister's head snapped up, wide-eyed and slightly revolted, at the word "Dad."

"I'm certain of it. Did this performance, technically speaking, exist?"

"Of course," Carl said, hating to be little-kid defensive right off and knowing no other way to react. Vincent Browry, scientist, bioengineer, genius, was a man who took life by the horns, presumably to kill it and hang it on his wall. If there was ever a time when he had treated his son (or anyone else) as anything other than a slightly embarrassing problem to be solved and dismissed, like dandruff, Carl couldn't remember it.

"Ah, good. Normally she tends to see very limited debuts, often in the strangest places. Remind me to tell you about the time I found her singing a soulful duet with the washing machine. Very moving. But for now I'll be quick, I know how important you think your time is."

Elizabeth, using arcane combat dressing maneuvers no doubt learned in the Orient, had managed to get Camille more or less completely covered. She hustled the still-warbling woman through the side door to her office, suddenly relieved she only had a whacked-out mother to deal with while Carl got the terrifyingly sane father. The door closed with a heavy clunk, leaving him alone in a room with no really satisfying methods of suicide, which meant he had to keep talking.

He held his phone away from his head in case snide condescension was catching. "No problem," he lied. "What can I do for you?"

"Please. I'm merely informing you I'll be away for the foreseeable future. I'm at a crucial juncture in my work and I'll be in an undisclosed location finalizing it, for an indeterminate amount of time. Distasteful though it is you are my next of kin and as such I thought you should know. Also, something of mine may be arriving shortly and I would appreciate it if you would keep it safe."

"Glad you can be so precise. Are you sure you called the right number?"

"Unquestionably. Anyone else I might have called, anywhere in the world, would surely have understood me better."

"So what are you sending me? Is it something you need help with?"

Now there came an audible sneer. It was almost like a mime act, in reverse. "No, none of my experiments currently involve keeping one's hair springtime fresh. The only reason I'm calling you at all is because you were convenient and helper monkeys are prohibitively expensive to rent. But obviously this is a waste of my time and possibly even yours, difficult as that is to imagine. I leave you to your cleaning products."

"Dad," Carl said. Silence on the other end. "I'd like to help. Please."

A sigh this time, as if agreement hadn't been expected and wasn't entirely welcome. And then, in a single rushed breath, "Thank you, that's all I required, instructions should arrive soon, please do not tell anyone about it or tamper with it in any way, I trust your holidays will be well," his father said, and hung up.

Carl stared at his phone for a long, silent moment, as if waiting for his father to call him back and say "Ha ha, just kidding" before he folded it up and slowly placed it back in his pocket. What in the world could that have been about? Vincent Browry's phone calls to his son in the last six years could be counted on the fingers of one thumb. And the odds of him ever asking for help of anybody at all was as likely as Carl being elected Pope on the Liberal ticket.

The empty board room suddenly seemed even more depressing. Apparently the meeting was over, unless there was an encore planned. He opened over to the side door and peered in. Camille, mostly dressed, was sleeping peacefully on the leather couch in her office with her legs propped up on the back. A visibly worn Elizabeth was sprawled in the desk chair. "Oh, you made it," she said wearily. "Good, we have a quorum."

"I need to talk to you-"

"This meeting of the executive board of the Summerville Shampoo Company, Inc, is now called to order!" she said loudly. Looking around, she selected a pen and rapped the desk with it. "All accounted for and present?"

"You've got to be kid-"

She stared him down. "All accounted for and present?"

"Aye, aye, sir," he said. He grabbed the last soda out of the little refrigerator by the bookshelf and sat on the other end of the couch. Almost immediately his mom's feet slid down and landed with a plop in his lap. He clasped his hands together over her ankles and tried to look executive.

"I've been going over our books, Mr. Browry," Elizabeth said.

"Liz, you don't have to-"

"…And it appears obvious that this next quarter could very well be our last quarter." She pushed off from the desk and let the chair spin around. "I'm serious, Carl, I don't know what we're going to do about it. This is it, we're tapped out."

"Completely? How much do we have left?"

"That Coke you're holding represents the last of our capital expenditures budget. Sip it slowly. And save the can."

Carl abruptly forgot about his father, which for once was a mixed blessing. "But all we have to do is just hold on until the new line starts selling, right? "Enchanted" just rolled out, that's gotta be bringing in some cash, right. Do we have any numbers on that yet?"

She laughed once, without the slightest sign of amusement, as if somewhere in front of her someone had held up a cue card that said "Chortle" and she was gamefully playing along. "Numbers? Yes, we have a number on that. That number would be three."

"Three? Three thousand?"

"Three cases. Jimmy Joe's Discount Warehouse bought them after I promised free shipping and one of those promotional hand towels."

"Three!"

"I counted them. Twice. Used my executive calculator and everything."

"After all that work? Three? That's insane, "Enchanted" is the best product this company has ever made!"

"You're right, it is. There were two problems with it." She ticked them off on her fingers. "One, we barely had enough money left to manufacture it and get it in the little bottles. There was nothing left for distribution or advertising. And when I say nothing, I mean exactly that. I had to drive the three boxes over myself." She sighed. "I was hoping to get by on advance sales from our regular customers, but they didn't bite."

"Great. What's two?"

"Jennifer said we couldn't use the name "Enchanted." It's already being used for a Revlon line of nail polish, a Neutrogena blush, and at least twelve different bath soaps and herbal shampoos. For other companies."

Carl sat perfectly still, ignoring his own sudden frustration and Camille's gentle snores. Jennifer Gaskidy was the company's lawyer. She triple-checked everything she encountered, which gave rise to some interesting speculation about her love life. If she said they couldn't, they couldn't. If she said Carl was a moo cow he would begin grazing without a moment's thought because he knew she would have more statistics and worker-impact studies to prove he was than he could produce to prove he wasn't. "So what did we go with, then?"

Elizabeth nodded mournfully towards the couch. "We didn't. She did."

"Oh, no…"

"Yep." She spun around again and faced out the office window that looked over the retention pond and the company parking lot. Both were more than half-empty. "The ad agency called while I was in the bathroom and Mom answered. Apparently she told them to call it "Whizzipoo." Got a certain ring to it, don't you think?" she asked, smiling crookedly for a moment until her face collapsed into despair. She laid her head down on the desk blotter and began pounding it there in a slow, easy rhythm that suggested she was prepared to keep going until the nice ambulance people arrived.

""Whizzipoo." Our new line, crafted for elegance and decadence, designed specifically to be an expensive-looking product that was reasonably priced so Wal-Mart shoppers could pretend they bought it at Tiffany's, went out marked as "Whizzipoo." Our last and greatest shampoo, the one we pinned all our hopes on."

She stopped pounding to look at him. "You know, that's exactly what our buyers said, the ones that weren't laughing. Maybe you can get a job with one of them after we lock the doors here." Pound, pound, pound.

Carl leaned back and thought frantic thoughts. Then he drew a mental line under them and examined the result. It wasn't fair. It wasn't. There simply wasn't a shampoo on the market that could match "Enchanted," er, "Whizzipoo" for strength, gentleness, conditioning, silky feel, or honeysuckle-scentability.

But if no one knew that, no one would buy it. Except, presumably, for discount warehouses who get free towels. "So when can we remarket it and try again? What's our next move?"

Elizabeth lifted her head again. Her dark brown hair hung in frazzled strands over her face. "We've got about a week, I think," she said.

"Before?"

"Before the creditors start prying the copper pipes out of the employee bathrooms."

###

"Hi, everybody," Carl said to the small group of people in front of him that represented the remains of Summerville's once-reasonably-mighty work force. They consisted of a head chemist, who was given the title instead of any actual subordinates, four women who worked the line and made sure the shampoo went in the bottles instead of the other way around, and a sole security guard who took the expensive security system home with him at night so no one would steal it. They shuffled nervously.

"I'm glad you could all make it to our Friday Employee Appreciation meeting–"

"We're getting canned, aren't we," said Flora, one of the line women. She had the perpetually downtrodden look of someone who expected to get fired every day of her life and was rarely disappointed. The fact that she was often fired because she kept depressing other employees with her dire predictions about imminent layoffs never seemed to register with her.

"Um," Carl said.

"I don't see any pizza. That leaves termination," Flora said, unwittingly encapsulating everything anyone needs to know about operant conditioning in human psychology.

"Um," Carl said again. Personnel management wasn't his strong suit, or even his casual one. He had enough problem managing his own life, much less anyone else's, and he strongly suspected that whatever Human Resources he personally possessed didn't include knowing how to fire anyone. He always had the secret worry that anyone he laid off would come back with a shotgun, or a scheme to tamper with the products in a vengeful and creative fury. Then again, within a matter of days there'd be no more products to affect or people to shoot, so he relaxed.

When all was said and done he preferred chemicals. You knew what worked with chemicals, and if something didn't work you just made a note to never do it again, at least not until your other eyebrow grew back. But the head of the company was currently circling Venus in a geosynchronous orbit and the other VP was crying in the executive washroom, so that left him. "We've, um. We've had a bit of a let-down with the projected sales of "Enchanted," our great new shampoo–"

June, another line woman who differed from Flora only in her choice of head scarves, jerked a scarred thumb over her shoulder at the pallets of boxes piled up in the dark warehouse behind them. "You mean "Whizzipoo"?" she asked.

"Yeah. And, due to our rising, um, fluctuations in the market, we, uh…"

June walked over and touched his arm in what he had to assume was a motherly way. "Do we have jobs or not? I don't mean to rush you but if we hurry we can still make the bus." The other women, similarly drained of life, interest, or color, waited.

"No, I'm afraid you don't," Carl said miserably. All four women heaved a single, chorusing sigh at the culmination of their private patriarchal conspiracy theories and dispersed to the break room to get their things. The two men, obviously out of touch on the whole patriarchal thing, started to follow. "Pete? Marty? Could you guys hang around for a few minutes? I was hoping you could both stay on for a few more days. Marty, we need you to keep watching the place until we figure out what's going to happen to it. Insurance. And Pete?"

Head chemist Pete Santago looked at him like a puppy waiting for a treat, or at least hoping not to get kicked. Before Carl got his foregone promotion to VP Pete had been his assistant, which in Pete's experience was slightly worse for picking up chicks than working for a funeral home (which at least had the benefit of attracting goth chicks). He had seen Carl's rise in the company as a good move all around; he got the head chemist position and the key to the restricted chemicals closet, and he now had a friend in management who understood what it was really like in the labs and who could cover for him the morning after "Rum and Pop Rocks Night" at O'Malley's Beeratorium. Pete had always been a "job half-full" kind of guy, which is why Carl was stalling. Pete was the closest thing to a friend Carl had that didn't need to get watered every day.

"I'd like you to… to… to help with the disposal of the remaining materials!" he announced. "Yes, some of that stuff needs to be handled carefully, OSHA and all, and I'll need your help. If that's okay."

Pete grinned widely and shook his hand. "Sure! I can use the extra bucks. Look," he said, while Marty went back to the guard shack, "if you get a line on a new place, you let me know, okay? I got your back, you got mine, right?"

Carl smiled, despite everything. "You got it. Temporary setback, we'll be back in no time!" He even almost believed it as long as he didn't look in the warehouse.

###

Florida is a great place to live unless you have allergies. Carl had been known to experience allergic reactions to paintings of haystacks. He stumbled out into the soft light of a typically magnificent Florida sunset which cast brilliantly lit tendrils of color across the sky, blues and pinks and purples all suffused in the thick golden light of the setting sun. Glorious, he thought bitterly. Just freaking glorious. Beautiful or not, more colors in the sky meant more particles in the sky, which meant more particles in the air, which meant more sneezing for him. The benefits of a near-total lack of smell in the lab was offset by the hard-to-describe-and-who-would-want-to experience of sneezing into a face mask.

For a brief moment he was torn between going back in to clean out his desk or saving it so he'd have something to do Monday.

Across the lot he saw Elizabeth helping Camille into their Ford Explorer. See, things could be worse. I could have been the one that ended up as Mom's live-in nurse, chauffeur and babysitter. Almost immediately he felt guilty for the thought. His half-sister had basically put her entire life on a shelf to keep their mother going. It was an incredible act of love and self-sacrifice that he was deeply, sincerely glad someone else was making.

As he was buckling his seat belt he remembered the promise to his dad. Probably not the best timed request he'd ever heard. I'd suspect him of doing it on purpose, if I were the suspicious type, he thought suspiciously. So should he keep his word and honor a promise to a person he despised, or break it and stand by the family and the spectacularly failing company to whom he had pledged his loyalty?

It was an interesting question. Carl couldn't wait to find out what the answer was.

He might have been cheered up had he known that in a little more than forty-eight hours he would change the world forever. But probably not.

National Novel Writing Month 2002: my first try at a novel, ever, and it showed. I decided to write about a couple strikingly similar to myself and my wife. Deeply in love and more than slightly out of shape. What would happen, I thought, if I took those two people and made them even more out of shape, and then stuck them into a reality show where viewers watched fatties try to lose weight for points?

It was the very last thing I could ever imagine myself doing, so it was perfect for a novel. I still think it was a good idea. Apparantly so did a Hungarian network, because while I was working on this I read that an actual version of this show was being filmed. Since the novelty was lost, and I was bogged down in ever-deepening plot, I let this drop where it lay. I did cannabilize portions of it for a column on weight loss, though.

And, more importantly, I hit the 50,000 word mark on time. Here's the first two chapters. Warning: adult content.

Getting Pumped
By Chris Bridges

Chapter One – Size Matters

It must have been good sex, I thought. I’m fibrillating.

I let myself fall to the mattress next to my wife, panting and wheezing like a marathon runner crossing the state line. Cassie rolled over, beautiful breasts and belly rolling just ahead of her, and tenderly touched my face with loving affection and a bit of thinly-veiled medical concern. I imagined the burly paramedics hauling me, stuffed and zippered into a black body bag, down the stairs, chuckling to themselves and hitting on her.

“You okay?” she asked, dangerously breathless herself. For a moment I fought to keep my own incipient heart attack under control so I could listen to her panting. Yep, the paramedics would have to make two trips, poor bastards.

I managed to kiss her on the nose and reassure her I was fine, if only so she could die unconcerned. She rolled back onto her back and we lay next to each other, starfished across the bed, fighting for air. And to think we used to do this in a Chevette.

According to ancient custom, as the one who had finished on top it was my sacred duty to fetch the towel. Somehow it never occurred to us to get one beforehand, as if it would somehow ruin the reckless spontaneity of our regularly scheduled weekend encounters, and so I got up, creaking, and stumbled on trembling legs to the bathroom. There was a wild man in the mirror, and it looked as though he had swallowed a small child after a fierce struggle. I spared a second to glance at my post-sex appearance, always a crowd-pleaser: slightly receding hairline with wild, sweaty hair, same face I’ve had all my life, thin shoulders, skinny arms, thin chest, small potbelly, slight love handles. I need to get in shape, I told myself, willfully ignoring the fact that I said that every time I passed in front of a mirror. Or climbed stairs. Or walked more than a few blocks.

I got a clean towel, dampened it in the sink, and shambled back into the bedroom where Cassie still lay, spread-eagled.

As she abluted, I sank back down next to her and surreptitiously monitored my heart rate. “This is getting, huff, really annoying,” I said around deep asthmatic breaths. “How can I be out of shape in bed? This is the only exercise, huff, I've ever enjoyed! It’s aerobic, right?” How did you tell the difference between a heart attack and something milder, like a collapsed lung? Were there definite symptoms for each, or was it something you just knew? I mentally reminded myself to look it up tomorrow if I survived the night. Cassie just nodded, dropped the now-damper towel on top of me, and snuggled up to my side.

“It was one thing when, whouf, when I couldn’t run around the block without stopping,” I panted. “No big deal, I’m getting older, right? I’m supposed to slow down, it says so in all the sitcoms. And I’m working at a desk all day. It’s only natural that I spread a little. I’m almost 40, I can’t expect to do a million jumping jacks anymore.” I glared at the ceiling, my resolve hardening into an unstoppable force, boiling out of me so fast now that I managed to forget I had never done more than 15 jumping jacks in a row in my life. “But now this! Sagging pants and high blood pressure is all well and good, but now it’s cutting into our sex life! I’ve had alls I can stand and I can’t stands no more! We have to get into shape! Do you hear me? Are you with me?”

I waited for her response. Some reassurance would bolster me nicely, or agreement, or even hushed admiration for my sterling conviction. Instead she snorted softly and settled into her low, even, marathon snoring.
I chuckled to myself and lay back where I could relax and still see her. She was beautiful. Dark curly hair, cascading over white shoulders and framing her little girl face that looked even more angelic when she was asleep. I tugged the covers up over her hips and drew them to her chin but not before I took a long eyeful of the lush curves rising and falling with her breathing.

We had met in high school, many years and many pounds ago, but despite the changes of the years I still felt that same hot teenage rush of hormones every time I saw her. She was lovely in my eyes, something she always had trouble believing even in her youth. After decades of patient persistence and subtle hints, often involving hand gestures and hooting noises, I had finally convinced her that I was being utterly truthful in my lustful appreciation. She still didn’t believe it herself, mind you, as she wasn’t fond of her own looks and absolutely hated the weight she had put on, but she accepted my worship as a useful delusion on my part and let it go.

It took almost twenty minutes for her breathing to stretch out into long, slow cycles. By then my own body had calmed down somewhat. I need to start jogging or something, I thought. I didn’t use to get this worn out. I briefly considered getting up and doing a few sit ups, just to prove I could, but Cassie’s rhythmic noises were lulling me to join her and I’ve always been a sucker for a good lull. Well, I guess I’ve already had my exercise for the night. I set my iron-clad resolutions aside and went to sleep, vowing to start my new health program the very next day.

Chapter Two – Working at the Code Mine

The alarm did a rude thing so I hit it. Then I calmly considered all the reasons I had to stay home versus the subsequent reasons my boss would have to fire me, matched it against our current bank account, arrived at an unhappy conclusion, and got up. Behind me Cassie slumbered on like a trouper. I really couldn’t complain, although I did allow myself a moment of blind envy. Artists set their own hours. Besides, she had spent far more than her share of mornings getting up much earlier than this to get our daughter to the bus stop every day during the last decade or so. It wasn’t her fault that Darlene was in college now and presumably on her own as far as getting up was concerned. I hoped.

I fired up my computer and let it gulp down my e-mail while I was showering. It was somehow comforting to know that should some turn of events cause me to desperately need home-delivered Viagra, a mortgage, immediate access to indiscriminate teen Asian lesbian cheerleaders, copier toner, and a lengthier penis, I had options. I checked it over while I pulled my shoes on. No useful e-mail, no recent news events I cared about, no unusual traffic problems lurking, couple of good movies starting tonight, nice weather today; I love the Internet. On the wall over my desk was a painting Cassie had made for me for our 4th anniversary; it depicted someone who looked remarkably like me, locked in mortal combat with a snarling PC, all in a nightmarish neo-cubist style that would have made Picasso throw up into his paint bucket. She loves me.

McDonald’s provided my coffee, hash browns, and Egg McMuffin, which supplied my recommended daily requirement of cholesterol and gave me something to do while stuck in traffic. While I was sitting, sipping, and waiting for the light to change, I glanced around at my dining companions. A sea of import cars and SUVs surrounded me, all crammed with car pools and parents and kids and harried businesspeople, and almost every one of those frantic people was eating or drinking something behind the wheel. I noted a number of people singing and dancing and playing air dashboard in the mistaken belief that no one else could see them (or else they didn’t care, and good for them), and a couple of them were apparently listening to the same radio station because their gyrations, lanes of traffic apart, were in sync, which cheered me up for some reason. There was the usual number of nose-pickers. Several fellow commuters were using cell phones while eating with the other hand, presumably steering with a lower appendage. One or two were reading. The lady next to me was doing a crossword puzzle and chugging from a water bottle.

Breakfast in America.

I pulled into the PaRaNex parking lot five minutes late, which was my usual time. It was an astounding miracle of nature. No matter how early or late I left the house, I was always exactly five minutes late for work. If I left early, I got stuck in traffic or at the gas station, or I suffered a one-in-a-million chance meteor strike to the radiator. If I left late, the waves of traffic would part before my hood and I would sail to work unimpeded to arrive… five minutes late. My various employers through the years had dealt with this remarkable phenomenon with varying degrees of acceptance, hostility, and resignation, but I made up for it by being really good at my job. It helped that I was equally slack in leaving on time or taking breaks, so on the whole it balanced out in their favor. Probably.

The front entrance was for visitors, executives, and pizza delivery. I pried myself out of the car and headed towards the back, by the mailroom, where the Pepsi machine was waiting for me to grab my morning Mountain Dew. A healthy slug got my heart going for my morning cardio workout: the two flights of stairs up to my floor. I was slightly winded by the time I got to my office and I rewarded myself with one of the donuts from the ever-present box on Jackie’s desk. Jackie was the office manager for the programming department at PaRaCo and was our gatekeeper, babysitter, and Keeper of the Snack Jar. I leaned on the counter above her desk to see what the theme was for today, and to casually get my breath back. She was wearing black stockings, a black pleather skirt, black and white striped blouse, and a jaunty black beret.

“Are we French today?”

She raised a haughty eyebrow. “Oui. Today ze cafeteeria eez ‘aving veal parmeezhan, and I weeshed to be dressed, ‘ow you say, appropree-ately, no?”

“No,” I said. “Veal parmigiana is Italian.” I didn’t laugh, although it cost me. Instead I smiled, in a hopefully non-provoking manner. You never want to piss off the person who coordinates your vacation days.

“Really? Shit.”

“Sorry. Old Italian recipe. You look great, though.”

She preened. “Thank you! I swiped the beret from my daughter. You like?”

I kissed my fingers. “Eez magnifique! Mua! Don’t sweat it, maybe they’ll have French fries and vindicate you.”

he threw her pen at me and I retreated, chuckling and munching, back to my hole.

PaRaNex was one of the few dotcoms to thrive during the Rough Years, when all the daytraders simultaneously woke up from their happy dreams of mountains of wealth and stopped buying up anything with "online" in the name. PaRaNex specialized in computer security, virus protection, and cracker shields. We weren't as famous as Symantic or MacAfee, but some of our hackers had found and fixed several of the big name viruses before either of them, and we made a nice piece of change subcontracting code for both of them every now and then. There were some nasty rumors regarding how our hackers cracked viruses so fast (the "he who smelt it, dealt it" theory) but nothing litigious.

Besides, we had a better slogan then they did. “Paranoid? Get PaRaNex!”

My job was officially "Interface Designer," which just means that I got to figure out how all the different components of our software fit together and how to make a user-friendly-looking program that any idiot can use. I didn’t have to actually understand any of the virus hacking stuff, which was good because I hadn’t a clue. All I had to do was think of all the ways an idiot could screw up our program, and try to come up with ways to keep them from doing any of them. As luck would have it, thinking like an idiot was one of the few job skills I remembered from college, and I faked the rest. In a building full of frighteningly talented hackers, I was hired for my good looks, sparkling personality and my interface wizardry, and my coworkers worshipped me in a frankly embarrassing manner.

“Good morning, worshippers!”

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

See? They could barely restrain their orgiastic glee at my presence. I set my stuff on my desk, turned my computer on, and glanced around to see what everyone was working on (or avoiding working on). An unkind soul would have said we used cubicles, but they weren't the traditional Dilbert-ready cubes, the type that looked as though they may at one time have shipped refrigerators. We had a fairly sizeable office, separated by desks and low dividers, with the bulk of the room taken up by a large square pit. There was a workstation inside each corner and shelves and drawers and filing cabinets in between, so that we were always facing away from each other. It also meant we could easily see what everyone else was doing. This was probably intended to be a savvy psychological design to keep us working. Instead, we all alternated our goofing off so that at least two of us were working at any given time, in case of unexpected upper management visit or looming project deadline.

I had the desk by the door, the one surrounded by and covered in Simpsons figures. To my right was Slash Bowles, production designer. He designed and wrote the extras that came with your brand new virus program – the registration card, the instructions, the cardboard insert, the promotional material, all the things that reassure you that you’ve bought a quality product. His main job was writing the documentation (he spent very little time designing the cardboard inserts, although we accused him of working on them over the weekends), but of late more and more of our sales were made online and downloaded, which was a constant worry to him. For that matter, so were USDA inspection standards, his blatant and conspiratorial disenfranchisement in the Gore-Bush election, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He strongly resembled a Cro-Magnon skateboarder gone to seed – big, hairy, wiry, but with a spare tire approaching mine in magnificence. His slackness of choice was flash games at sites like orisinal.com, and downloading movie trailers on company bandwidth.

Next to him (behind me) was Jay Hubart, amateurgrammer and my best friend. He’d be a programmer, his fondest wish, if his stuff ever actually worked, which it didn’t, which is why he did our graphics. Weird thing was that he really was a hell of an artist. If I had half his skills I’d be stalking Pixar executives and throwing my drawings through their bedroom windows, but his burning desire was to write code. Grass is greener, and all that. Last year he secretly rewrote our DriveVacTM program so that it cleaned users’ hard drives even better than before. So much so that our beta testers discovered they were now missing whole directories and essential programs. To his credit, machines cleaned with his nitrous-charged DriveVac did in fact run much faster afterwards, mostly because they weren’t dragged down by memory-hogging, behind-the-scenes programs like, say, Windows. We had no problem restoring the original, fortunately, or Jay would now be working somewhere that required a happy face nametag and a little paper hat. We were his closest friends, so we didn’t throw it in his face more than once or twice a day. He favored webcams (clean ones, at least during work hours) and usually had one or two open on his desktop at all times. When they did that reality TV show Big Brother and had webcams in it running 24/7, we couldn’t get him away from the computer, no matter how much we made fun of him. I suspect him of setting up a fan site for the girls on the show but he won’t admit it. Reality show junkie all the way. Never understood the appeal myself, but then I have a life.

I finished my donut and chugged some more Mountain Dew while I waited for PaRaNex’s NetNurseTM to finish checking my system. Pain in the ass, but since it was my employer’s product I didn’t feel right disabling it. It still had plenty of time left, and it occurred to me, as it did nearly every morning, that eating another donut would fill that time nicely. Besides, I had soda left, which meant there was imbalance in the universe. I stood up and immediately, involuntarily, emitted a low “ooooyyyy” noise.

Jay spun around, concerned. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, leaning on the desktop. Just a little winded.”

“From what? You jog in today?”

“Ha.”

“No, really. I don’t know why you don’t. If I lived as close as you, I would.” Jay was a health freak, by which I mean that he often ate non-fried foodstuffs. I’d even heard it said that he’s played racquetball without having to, but I tried not to believe such outlandish rumors.

Slash spoke up without turning around, a blessing to all of us. “Ken can’t jog in, his coffee would get all foamy.”

“But he should! You’re, what, ten miles away? Why do you even own a car?”

“Because I feel silly sitting in traffic without one. You guys want a donut?”

Slash spun around now and exchanged glances with Jay, who didn’t seem to know what to do with his. “Um, no, we’re cool,” Slash said. “Why don’t you wait, and we’ll grab some lunch soon.”

Little donutty sprinkles were already flashing before my eyes. “I’ll just grab one. What’s lunch today? Chinese?”

Jay sat bolt upright and pointed at my screen the way good guys in trouble point past the bad guy’s shoulder to fake him out. “Look! You’ve got mail!”

I dropped down into my chair to check it out, muttering under my breath about stolen pastry opportunities and people who make AOL jokes long after they’re funny, which was, I believed, never. He was wrong anyway, I didn’t have mail. I had an Instant Message from my boss telling me to come meet with him and his boss, which was worse. Dammit, I thought he’d wait until Tuesday.

I struggled back up. “So much for clean living and helping old ladies across the sewer. Dennis and Ben want to see me anyway. I knew that karma stuff was all crap.”

Both Jay and Slash seemed cheerful that I was going to get roasted, stuffed, and served. Maybe because they weren’t the ones that got called? I didn’t know, and didn’t care. All I knew was that, judging from past experience, I was about to get royally hosed without warning and without lube. Dennis was my immediate supervisor, which just meant that he was the guy in charge of pulling this particular project together. He generously left this hallowed and sacred duty to his underlings while he spent his high-pressure, backbreaking days of work playing UnReal TournamentTM online. Dennis was handy for one important reason, however – he was the hastily erected barrier between us and the suits. As long as he looked presentable (always), seemed calm and confident (usually, depending on his UnReal rankings) and could express the corporate desires to us lowly factory workers, we never had to see them and they never had to see us, except for company picnics and indictments, and this seemed to satisfy everybody.

His boss, Ben Parker, was one of the bigwigs of the company (he was the “Pa” part or PaRaNex) and was once a wizard programmer his ownself, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and everybody thought amber screens were way cooler than green ones. Unfortunately for us, he had long ago been seduced by the dark side: the gypsy curse of corporate perks. Every review in C-Net always mentioned him by name, the beginning profit margins had been enormous since in the old days all of his co-workers slaved ridiculous hours for Skittles and Star Wars action figures, and a ridiculous pile of cash was amassed, almost accidentally. One day it dawned on him that he was a fairly wealthy poor guy (or else his accountants finally got it through his head), and there’s something about heaping stacks of money that changes a man. A year after he started the business he started wearing ties to the office, a clear danger sign.

Then shoes.

A belt.

He was even seen toting a golf bag, with real gold clubs in it. By the end of the third year the unholy transformation was complete, and “Bendwidth” Parker was lost to us forever, trapped in eternal damnation in polo shirts and stock options. Even that would be no big deal, but now that he was paying more attention to his P&L statements then the latest code languages, he tended to be easily swayed by our sales staff, often (always) to the detriment of his other, human, employees.

I winked at Jackie and grabbed a donut to eat on the way to my buggering.

###

It was almost noon by the time I came back, sweating and weary, from On High. I hadn’t been wrestling with an angel but I definitely felt like I had gone three rounds with some sort of supernatural figure. For some reason, on the rare times I returned from being in the Presence I always felt like I should be carrying his edicts chiseled on two massive stone sticky notes, probably because I always left feeling like I had been cast into the wilderness at the whim of an all-powerful force far beyond my ken, which was more or less true.

1. Thou shalt have no other projects before mine.
2. Thou shalt not be efficient.
3. Thou shalt not make it easy, useful, or fun for the user.
4. Thou shalt observe all deadlines, which will change without notice, logic or pattern, but with lots of exquisitely timed ironic malice.
5. Thou shalt feed the insatiable desires of Sales, for I have given you unto their hands.

Dennis had been there as well, of course, but only in the same sort of advisory capacity as the cat the evil villain strokes in old spy movies.

Slash and Jay were in the same positions as they were when I left, typing and mousing to the exclusion of all else, up to and including small arms fire. This was not unusual, and may have been a job requirement. They did deign to look up when I entered, since after all I was coming from a meeting with Ben and might therefore be disgruntled and armed. It looked like Slash shut down a chat window. I understand people talk to each other in some offices. We usually just type to each other, rather than go to all the trouble of turning around.

Well, no reason to sugarcoat it. “PaRaNex Pro has to be ready to ship by August,” I said. Ooh, bad choice of words, I was still thinking about my planned pastry. I glanced back to see the donut-box-shaped emptiness on Jackie’s desk. Drat.

Slash exploded. “You gotta be freaking kidding me,” he screamed. “There’s no way!”

Jay stood up and wrung his hands, a nervous habit that in less deserving times we mocked mercilessly. “That’s three months early! We can’t do that!”

“We’ve already agreed to,” I said sadly. “Sales promised the Best Buys rep that we’d have copies shipping by November 15th so they’d have plenty for the day after Thanksgiving. We have to be done and ready by the end of October.”

“Damn it,” Slash said, and he smote his desk mightily. “Every damn time some jackass in Sales gets a wild hair from a retailer suddenly we have to jump through hoops! Just once I wish they’d check to see if we can do something before they pre-sell it.”

“On that magical day, my friends, truly we will be free. Right now I’m going to lunch. Want me to bring back Chinese, or you guys want to get out of the office?”

They did an impromptu and unintentional comedy skit, looking at each other and then me with strange expressions while simultaneously trying to appear nonchalant. I expected spinning plates and some sort of slapstick routine involving hats to erupt. Finally Jay said, hesitantly, “We were thinking maybe the salad bar downstairs?” Slash, an unapologetic and enthusiastic carnivore, nodded like a bobble head toy.

“You go right ahead, and may God have mercy on your souls. Salads are what food eats. I’m heading to the Donkey.”

Halfway out the door they caught up to me. “That does sound better,” Slash said. “We’ll go with you.”

“Yeah,” agreed Jay, in full sidekick mode. “That sounds great! And healthy, too!” Any second now I expected him to punch his palm and say something like “Holy General Tso, Batman!” Slash glared at him.

“It is healthy,” I said. “A billion Asians can’t be wrong. It’s the perfect food. With eggroll.”

Tossing a cheerful hand at Jackie, we made our way out.