400 Boys and 50 More

What is there to say about the early years of any career, especially when they coincide with grade school, junior high, and high school?

Not much.

For some reason, I thought of myself as a writer almost as soon as I was aware of myself at all. Some of my earliest memories are of writing and illustrating (mostly horrendous) stories. My Dad sent my brother and me off to sleep with “The Telltale Heart,” my mother with encounters at the Moria Gate. The stories gave me nightmares. The nightmares gave me stories. I wrote quite a few about guests checking into Room 13 and being scared to death by nightly visitations from a bloody, glowing dagger which I had completely plagiarized from Rockwell Kent’s drawing of Macbeth in my parents’ copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare. That illustration is still my favorite of Shakespeare’s works.

When, in 1970, I turned 10, my grandfather gave me a refurbished Underwood typewriter, heavy as a bank vault, and I set out in earnest to pursue my professional career, armed with all the advice Writer’s Digest could offer, and also a briefcase full of paperclips. Through the remaining years of elementary school, on into junior high and high school, I churned out story after story, and visited them on various hapless editors listed in Writer’s Digest, including a bemused editor for The Elks Magazine. Yes, if your name was anywhere near the masthead of an obscure club journal, you were in danger of receiving one of my beautifully typed onionskin manuscripts containing shallow yet belabored tales of catastrophic futures, rocketship countdowns, and blob monsters. I read somewhere that the average writer collects about 70 rejections before making a sale. My records, which I kept assiduously at that time, reflect I was perfectly average.

Toward the end of high school, I began placing stories in fanzines which paid in contributor copies (no one had yet learned to call this “exposure”). I encountered many other young writers in similar straits, and at similar points in their careers; among them I now number some of my oldest friends. As I headed off to college, this career thing finally began to click, and I made my first actual sales involving cash money—and might I add, it went a lot farther then! Two paragraphs in Amazing Astronautical Adventures paid six month’s rent on a luxurious bachelor pad, with plenty left over for champagne, or so I was told. I bitterly regretted that school posed such an interruption to my imminent success, as I felt myself perfectly poised to be a wealthy and famous bachelor. Bestsellerdom was just around the corner, as certain as anything had ever been.

And then, just like that, the Seventies ended!

Out of a hundred execrable efforts, including several novels long since reduced to ash, I include here three pieces from the very end of this innocent age.

SPAWN OF THE RUINS

I was disturbed from my leisurely pursuit of Leandro’s The Abstractions and Essence of Kaufer’s “Basaltic Culture” As Related to Quantum Mathematics, by the irritating jangle of my telephone. Setting that exquisitely rare and absorbing tome aside, I reached for the phone with one hand, while relighting my pipe with the other—not an easy thing to do, I assure you, as I have very often severely singed my moustache and caused the skin of my face great pain in so doing.

I was not at all displeased to discover that the caller was one Miss Avander, a charming young lady who dwelled alone—and vulnerably, I might add—in a small house a short distance down the avenue from my own. I was somewhat more than acquainted with Miss Avander, as in the past we had spent the long evenings in fascinating and intellectually stimulating conversations, and as these visits had been conducted in both of our homes, I was well familiar with her location.

“Ah, Miss Avander,” I enthused, letting the warmth I felt blend with the fine natural resonance of my voice, “it is indeed enchanting to hear your lovely voice—for indeed it remains lovely even through this awful electrical convenience: the telephone!”

“You are too kind, Mr. Leandro, to a poor, lonely maid such as myself,” Miss Avander argued. “Why, how lucky I am to have one such as yourself for a neighbor.”

“Indeed. And how lucky am I!”

“But, Mr. Leandro, I call to beg from you a favor.”

“Ah, and what might this favor be, madame?”

“Oh, in truth it is no more than an overloaded fuse. The poor thing was simply not strong enough to bear the energy being used by my many electrical appliances; so it burnt out, and I have been plunged into the utter eternal darkness of this place.”

“Miss Avander, you have a delightful way with words.”

“Yes, as you yourself have on occasion noted. But what of the tragically burnt-out fuse? Have you a spare?”

“Indeed yes, I believe I have, Miss Avander—and I shall be entirely delighted to deliver it—in person—to your very door.”

“You are a kind soul, Mr. Leandro.”

“Thank you, Miss Avander. I think I shall now pursue that half-fabled box of fuses which I know lurks somewhere within my house—most probably within a kitchen drawer! Now I shall bid you adieu—”

“But to appear soon at my door, of course!”

“Of course.”

“Adieu, then, Monsieur Leandro.”

“Madame,” I firmly but gently reprimanded, “I am not a Frenchman.”

When I had finally uncovered the rumored fuses—buried beneath a clutter of unused tacks and rubber bands—I packed them safely into my pocket, where they thumped reassuringly in that reassuring way in which fuses thump. As I was merely out for a short jaunt through the darkness of the Ruins, I did not tidy myself up in any great manner. But as I expected to be later entertained by Miss Avander—at the completion of my task, of course—I did give my hair a swift combing-through, and apply a bit of my best cologne to certain strategically-located areas of my enviable physique.

Though I had heard rumors that it was the Time of Spawning in the Ruins again, I did not bother to arm myself with anything other than a letter-opener—the same which had been given to me by Miss Avander only a few months before. Though there were possible dangers of being confronted in the Ruins by maniacal, rogue Zhodes or Lymmpospophae in their mating frenzies, it is generally considered against gentlemanly principles (and one must always concern one’s self with principles!) to venture even into dangerous areas armed with anything other than a sharp object which had been the gift of a lady. Pistols at night cannot even be discussed under such circumstances!

Flashlights, too, I find ungentlemanly—so instead I placed a lit candle into an ornate metal holder, and used this as my guiding light. The Ruins, which lie at the utmost bottom of the Subterranean Chasms, have probably never experienced a draught of any natural kind in all their uncounted aeons of existence, and so I feared not that the candle might be extinguished by a gust of wind while I ventured to Miss Avander’s house.

And, so equipped, I stepped out into the fathomless dark, and traced my way down the avenue.

My house was built precisely at the edge of the Ruins, but Miss Avander’s place of residence had been erected in the midst of the Ruins themselves. Thus I set along that antique avenue—through the unimaginable blacknesses of this subterranean world—with but a single candle to light my way. I wondered if I would go mad should my candle blow out, as so many others had done in these depths—and to my dismay I then discovered that I had neglected to bring a single match with me. However, I resolved not to let this hinder me, and I continued without a thought to my personal safety—knowing that Miss Avander sat patiently awaiting me within the Ruins, her home plunged momentarily into darkness. How brave she had sounded on the phone. Certainly I could strive to be half as brave as to walk a short distance without a spare match!

And now the Ruins rose about the ancient avenue, and disappeared into the darkness overhead that the candle’s feeble light could not illuminate. They were like row upon row of black dingy storefronts, leering over the avenue with empty yawning windows. The avenue, I noted, seemed much reduced in size when compared to those prehistoric Ruins. But I proceeded, undaunted, past those eternally dismal Ruins—being sure not to quicken my step—and came at last to the more ruinous Ruins. Those were jagged pillars—teeth, if you will—that were the remnants of structures more ancient than those of the blocky buildings. They sprang from the ground at irregular but frequent intervals, and the flickering candlelight caused them to leap and caper annoyingly.

Soon, I knew, I would come to Miss Avander’s house. But first, as you shall see, I was to have a not entirely pleasant adventure.

For as I walked through the more disordered Ruins, I looked above and within them, and thus did not see that which caused me to stumble a moment later, almost extinguishing my candle. I set my candle upon the ground, and turned to examine the obstacle in the avenue.

It was a human body, bent at awkward angles, and unpleasantly mangled beyond recognition. Dressed, it was, in a white uniform with black stripes—now dreadfully stained and discolored—which I recognized as the uniform of a newspaper boy. Indeed, as I looked closer, I found that the body was sprawled atop the bag of the carrier. Within this bag I found a single newspaper—mine, as I was the last customer on the boy’s route—bearing the blatant headline: SPAWNING SEASON BEGINS.

It was all very tragic, for the poor boy had died—recently, judging from the date on the paper—in delivering my newspaper. Perhaps if I had canceled my subscription this might never have occurred, for I rarely read the newspaper, and almost never even checked to see if it had been delivered. But then, things are always much simpler in retrospect.

As I rose from the awful lich, I noted the six-taloned claw marks on its arm, and realized the full unpleasantness of the situation. The boy had obviously been killed by a Zhode in its mating frenzy. He should have paid closer attention to the headlines he carried, for all parts of the Chasms—though particularly the Ruins—are exceedingly dangerous during the Time of Spawning.

And that latter thought brought me to immediate alertness, aware instantaneously of my surroundings. There was a low hooting in the Ruins before me… and I recognized that hooting as the mating call of the Lymmpospopha!

Instantly my letter-opener was in my hand—and I shivered as the hoot was answered, from behind me, with the high- pitched “Da-li! Da-li!” of the courting Zhode!

With my admirable presence of mind, I turned parallel to the avenue, so that I could watch the Ruins on either side. Shadows moved within, approaching the avenue—and, simultaneously, me. To my left there was a final shriek of “Da-li!” and a huge, swollen Zhode jumped onto the avenue beside me. Thankfully, it didn’t see me immediately, as it was looking for its mate, the Lymmpospopha. And, a moment later, that infamous creature too lumbered heavily onto the path beside me, hooting through the single orifice in its tiny, bulbous head.

However, with the arrival of the Lymmpospopha, my presence could no longer remain a secret. This creature spotted me immediately, and gave an enquiring hoot in my direction, thereby pointing me out to the Zhode, who seemed rather disturbed that I should be observing this annual ritual. Thinking of poor Miss Avander—desperately waiting for my fuses—I slashed out with the letter-opener, and thus removed the Lymmpospopha’s tiny head from its gelatinous “shoulders.”

The poor creature staggered backward into the Ruins, spouting a pale ichor that was not exceedingly pleasant to the nose. Its enraged mate, the Zhode, now leaped at me, so that I was forced to deliver a rather cunningly-placed, fatal stab to its tentacular mass. It, too, fell shrieking into the Ruins, and in the distance I could now hear other things coming to investigate.

Thinking it wise to bring Miss Avander her fuses as swiftly as possible, I grabbed up my candle, smoothed down my hair, and dashed down the impossibly ancient avenue in the direction of that fair lady’s home.

Now imagine my genuine surprise when, approaching Miss Avander’s tiny cottage, I discovered bright lights pouring brightly forth from all her windows—and even a porch light burning cheerily above her red door! I rang the doorbell, thinking it very peculiar that there should be electric bulbs glowing when the fuse had burnt out.

The door at last opened wide, revealing a very lovely Miss Avander dressed in a beautiful blue gown. Needless to say, there were electric lights burning within the house, too.

(And here I must make a very unpleasant statement—for it appears I have, most scandalously, lied to you. Miss Avander had not really burnt out a fuse—and I, you see, had not truly believed her story quite as much as I had hinted earlier. Indeed, I had not even brought fuses with me, for the thumping box in my pocket turned out to contain chocolate bon-bons, and these I duly presented to Miss Avander.)

“Ah, Mr. Leandro,” she smiled, “do come in. Did you have a pleasant journey through the Ruins?”

“Thank you, Miss Avander. As a matter of fact, my journey was very unsettling, for I discovered the corpse of a paper carrier, and have aggravated the spawning hordes without. Even now, I fear, they march upon your home—hoping to destroy us both.”

“Oh, do sit down, Mr. Leandro. What an awful tale. Care for a mint? And what do you suggest we do?”

“Thank you. I suggest that we flee from here, immediately, and return to my house, where I am properly prepared for such an attack. Unless, of course, you happen to have a cache of weapons hidden somewhere?”

“Here, let me help you loosen your coat. No, I fear I have no weapons aside from the letter-opener you gave me last year. But will you not stay?”

“Well, er, now that you bring it up, perhaps I could do with a short rest. We can certainly leave in a few moments, just as easily.”

“I’m glad… that you see it in such… a manner… Mr. Leandro.”

“Yes, I believe a few moments… will not hurt… Miss… Miss…”

“Avander.”

But then, just as we had begun an evening of fascinating, intelligent discussion, Miss Avander’s front door—the bright red one, you may recall—splintered into pieces. A six-taloned claw smashed through without any regard to the high cost of finely-crafted doors, and withdrew again.

“Well,” said I, “perhaps we would be just as well off to depart immediately. Miss Avander, have you a fresh candle?”

“I’m sorry,” Miss Avander admitted, “I have naught but a flashlight.”

“Well, all right, but you must carry it. And now, out the back exit!”

We hurried through Miss Avander’s home, and she opened wide that narrow door in her kitchen which led—by means of a secret tunnel—through some of the Ruins, and onto the avenue a short distance from Miss Avander’s house. For various reasons, this exit had proved indispensible on certain occasions when Miss Avander had still been “Mrs.” Avander.

We emerged, minutes later, onto the avenue, to see a mob of hooting Lymmpospophae and shrieking Zhodes overwhelming Miss Avander’s tiny home. To our dismay, we were spotted immediately by one member of the crowd, who hooted and drew us to the attention of the others.

“Now, Miss Avander,” I recommended, “we must run—and don’t trip on the newspaper carrier.”

We dashed off down the avenue, while behind us the actions of the spawning things were rechanneled to pursuing us. In a few minutes we came to the blocky, younger Ruins, and though we ran through these as quickly as we could, the sounds of pursuit grew ever louder behind us.

Moments later, we were out of the Ruins, and I saw, in the distance, the lights of my house. We raced up the walkway, flung open the front door, and locked ourselves within. I went immediately to a panel set in the wall beside the door, and flipped on all the outside flood lights—as the Zhodes and Lymmpospophae dislike light of any sort. Through the window I saw figures gathering in the shadows; hoots and cries of “Da-li! Da-li!” came repeatedly to my ears. The lights wouldn’t hold them off for very much longer, and now only my ingenuity—and preparation—would save us.

I found another button-dotted panel, hidden behind one of my more sensitive Leandro originals, and this proved the key to our salvation.

“Miss Avander,” I said, “what I might do is a very ungentlemanly thing, and utterly immoral besides. So I would appreciate it if you would press these buttons in my stead.”

Miss Avander graciously acquiesced, and placed her dainty finger one by one on each of the buttons, and pushed them. And one by one, coincident with the pressing of the respective buttons, there were unpleasant explosions outside in the shadows all around my house.

These were followed by utterly awful thumps on the roof as the hordes without were demolished by my carefully placed explosives, and flung every which way; it took us three days to clean up the resultant, widespread mess. As Miss Avander’s house had been destroyed by the enraged beasts, she remained as a guest in my house—and thus was able to assist with repairs, as well as provide engaging conversation.

We have not since been bothered by Zhodes or Lymmpospophae, and you people inform me that this is because both of these rare species are now extinct.

Certainly, I could not have foreseen that during that particular part of the season, the mass-migration that you call the Influx had begun, thus bringing all members of both species into the Ruins. And I certainly could not have guessed that they would all attack my home simultaneously, and hence be destroyed by my defenses.

Yes, I am sorry that they are extinct—for such an occurrence is always a tragic thing—but how can you blame me for their extinction? After all, it was Miss Avander who pushed the buttons!

TISSUE

“Here,” Daniel said, handing Paula the photograph. “Take a look at this, then tell me you still want to meet my father.”

Paula hefted it in one hand; it was framed in dark wood, covered with a heavy rectangle of glass. A fringe of dust clung to the glass’s edges, under the frame, blurring the borders of the photograph into a spidery haze.

“What is it? Who is it?”

“Us. My family.”

“But there’s only…”

Paula’s words faded away as she stared at the photograph, trying to understand. Squinting her eyes, polishing the glass—nothing seemed to resolve it. It was merely a simple figure, a person, but as blotched and mottled as an old wall, with sharply ragged edges that unsettled Paula: she couldn’t focus, it was like looking through a prism. There was a disturbing disparity within it, too; abrupt internal changes of tone and texture.

“Your family?” she repeated.

Daniel nodded, looking straight ahead at the road as he drove. The shadows were lengthening, the gloom descending. Through the endless stand of trees along the roadside, fields and hills were visible.

“It’s a composite,” he said. “You know, like a collage.” He glanced down at the photograph and pointed at the figure’s left hand. “That’s my hand. The right one’s my mother’s.”

“What?”

“And the chin, there, is my sister’s. That’s my brother’s… forehead, I think, yeah—and that’s his nose, too. The clothes, I—I’m not sure.”

“And the eyes?”

“My father’s.”

“Daniel, what is this? I mean, why?”

His hands tightened on the steering wheel. Paula found herself staring at his left hand. The one from the picture.

“Daniel, why?”

He shook his head. “My father’s a madman, that’s why. No reason for it, he’s just… Well, yeah, to him there’s a reason. This, to him, shows us as a group—close-knit. “One optimally functioning individual organism,” he used to say.

Paula looked at the picture with distaste, then slid it back into the briefcase from which Daniel had taken it.

“It’s grotesque,” she said, rubbing dust from her hands.

“He sent that to me three years ago, when I had just moved away from home. Made it out of old photographs, begging me to come back. God, he must have worked on that thing for weeks—the joins are almost invisible.”

He fell silent, perhaps watching the road for their turn-off, perhaps just thinking. After a while he sighed, shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know why I”m doing this—why I’m giving in and going back after all this time.”

Paula moved closer and put her hand on his arm. “He’s human—he’s alone. Your mother just died. You didn’t even go to the funeral, Daniel—I think this is the least you can do. It’s only for a few days.”

Daniel looked resentfully thoughtful. “Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe that started the whole thing.”

“What?”

“Loneliness. He must be awfully lonely, though, to have come up with his obsessions. He used to play with a jigsaw puzzle, Paula, made entirely out of a shattered pane of glass. For hours. And then that… thing.” He gestured towards the briefcase, but Paula knew he meant what was in it.

“You’ll survive,” she said.

“Yeah. To survive. That’s the whole thing.”

There was another silence as he considered this.

“Funny,” he said presently. “That’s exactly what my father was always saying.”

The shadows had swallowed the old farmhouse by the time they found it, trapped in ancient trees at the end of a rough dirt road. The sun was gone, only a pale wash of orange light marking the direction in which it had sunk. Paula looked for a sign of light or life around the weathered building, but found only flooding blackness, shining where it was a window, splintered and peeling where it was the front door.

Daniel stopped the car and stretched back in his seat, yawning. “I feel like I’ve been driving for a month.”

“You look it, too,” said Paula. “I offered to drive…”

He shrugged. “I”ll get to sleep early tonight,” he said, pushing open the door. They got out of the car, into the quiet grey evening.

“Is anyone home?” Paula asked as Daniel came around the car.

“With my luck, yes. Come on.”

They walked through a fringe of dead grass, then carefully up the rotten steps. Daniel paused at the top, stepping back on the step beneath him. It creaked and thumped. Creaked and thumped. Daniel smiled nostalgically. Paula reminded herself that he had grown up in this house, out here in the middle of nowhere, far from the city and the campus where she had met him, where they were now living together. Daniel never spoke of his childhood or family, for reasons Paula was unsure of. He seemed bothered by his past, and perhaps somewhat afraid of it.

Across the porch, the door was a panel of emptiness, suddenly creaking as it opened. Paula tried to look through the widening gap; she jerked back as something pale came into view.

“Dad?”

The voice that replied was as worn and weathered as the house: “Daniel, son, you’ve come. I knew you would.” The dim pale head bobbed and nodded in the darkness, coarse grey hair stirring. Something white fluttered into view, lower in the frame of darkness: a hand. Daniel’s father was coming out.

“Um, I’m sorry I didn’t make the funeral, Dad. I was really busy with school and my job… uh…”

And here he came, swimming through the gloom, both white hands coming forward like fish, grasping Daniel. Paula saw the hunched dark figure of the old man only dimly; her eyes were fastened on those hands. They clutched, grabbed, prodded Daniel, exploring as if hungry. It was vaguely revolting. Daniel stood motionless; he had determined to be firm with his father, now he was faltering.

“Dad…”

Daniel pushed away one flabby hand but it was clever; it twisted, writhed, locked around his own. Paula gasped. The sluggish white fingers intertwined with Daniel’s. He looked up at her, aghast, silently crying for help.

“Uh, hello,” Paula blurted, stepping towards them.

The hands jerked, stopped. The old man came around.

“Who are you? Daniel, who is this?”

“Dad, this is Paula, I told you about her. We’re living together.”

Paula started to extend her hand. She remembered what might meet it, and drew away. “Hello.”

“Living together?” Daniel’s father said, watching him. “Not married?”

“Uh, no, Dad. Not yet, anyway.”

“Good… good. Good. It would weaken the bond, break the bond between us.” He did not even look at Paula again. His hands returned to Daniel, though not so frantically this time. They guided him forward into the house. Paula followed, shutting the door behind her, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark. When her vision had cleared, she could see Daniel and his father vaguely limned against a distant doorway; there was light beyond.

When she caught up, they were seating themselves on an antique sofa. It had been poorly kept; springs and padding spilled through in places. The room around them had been equally neglected; darkness lay upon it like soot. A single dull lamp glowed beside the sofa.

Daniel caught Paula’s eye when she entered, warning her away from them. She sat in a nearby chair. Daniel was shrugging away the proddings of his father, fighting off the creeping fingers. But they kept coming, peering around the long shadows, then hurrying across Daniel while he sat at last unmoving, silent.

“We… we were terribly sorry to hear about your wife,” said Paula. The sound of her words muffled the rustling noises.

“Hm?” The old man sat up, leaving Daniel for a moment. His eyes were sharp, intense. “Yes, it’s bad… bad. She and I, we were—close, towards the end. Locked. Like this.” He clasped his two puffy hands together before his face, staring at them.

Daniel took this opportunity to move to a chair beside Paula, where his father could not follow. The old man hunched after him, hands straining, but didn’t rise.

“Daniel, come back here. Sit beside me.”

“Uh, I think I’d better stay right here, Dad.”

“Ah.” The old man hissed like a serpent. “Stubborn. You were always stubborn—all of you. Your sister, your brother, they both resisted. Look what happened to them.”

Daniel looked nervously away from the old man’s black stare. “Don’t talk about Louise like that, dad. It’s all over now. And it had nothing to do with stubbornness.”

“Nothing? She ran away, Daniel, as you all did. She could not function, Daniel, she could not maintain herself. No more than the liver, the heart, the lungs, can function outside of the body. No more than the individual cells can function outside of the tissue that maintains them; even as this tissue is dependent on the organ it contributes to; as this organ in turn is dependent on all other organs to keep the whole intact.”

Paula had gone rigid in her chair, watching the old man speak. Suddenly that hanging black gaze turned to her.

“You,” he said. “Do you know how an organism survives?”

“Pardon me?” she said weakly.

“It survives because its components work together, each one specialized towards its specific contribution to the organism. Specialization, yes. Louise was specialized; she did not survive.”

Daniel sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Dad, it wasn’t specialization. It was drugs. She made some mistakes.”

“And your brother?”

“What about him? He’s doing fine. He has his own business now, he seems to be happy.”

“But he deserted us! He threatened the existence of us all. Your sister deteriorated. Your mother crumbled. And then you…”

“What about me?”

The old man shrugged. “You returned. We still have a chance.”

Paula, through all this, said nothing. But she was thinking: My God. My God.

“I’m going to be going home, Dad. I’m not staying very long.”

The old man snapped, “What?”

“I told you that in my letter. I’m only staying for a day or two.”

“But you can’t go back! You—you can’t! Otherwise I have no chance—not alone. Nor you either, Daniel.”

“Look, Dad—”

“Together we can survive, perhaps recover. And… and maybe your brother will return.”

“He’s raising a family.”

“Ah, see?” He raised one pallid finger. “He has learned!”

“Maybe we’d better not stay at all,” said Daniel, rising. His features had gone hard, faced with all this. Easier to run than worry about it.

“No!” This was a bleat, a plea, escaping from the old man as if he had been punctured. His expression, too, was wounded. “Daniel, you can’t…”

Paula rose and touched Daniel gently on the arm until he turned to her. Thank God he hadn’t pulled away from her touch.

“Daniel,” she said, “it’s really getting late. I don’t think you should do any more driving tonight.”

Daniel searched her expression, saw only concern. He nodded.

“We’ll stay the night then, Dad. But we’re leaving in the morning.”

The old man started forward, then sank back in apparent despair. His breath was loud and labored, wheezing; his hands crouched upon his knees, waiting for Daniel to stray near.

“You can’t leave me, Daniel. I need you to survive, I need you!” His eyes glimmered, turning to Paula. “You know, don’t you? That’s why you’re taking him from me… to strengthen yourself. Well you’ll never have him. He’s mine. Only mine.”

The words slid into Paula like a blade of ice, malevolent in their cold precision. She felt weak.

“I—” she began. “Honestly, it’s nothing like that. I don’t want Daniel that way.”

The worm-white head rotated. “Then you are a fool.”

“Paula,” Daniel repeated, “maybe we’d better leave right I now.”

“Haven’t you heard what I’ve said? You mustn’t leave!” Again, pain had replaced malicious insanity on the old man’s pale features. Paula felt sorry for him.

“Daniel,” she said, “just the night. It’s really too late to leave.”

Daniel looked once at the poised hands of his father. Then he sighed, tensely, and nodded. “But I don’t want to hear any more of this, Dad. One more word of it and we’re going for sure.”

He turned back to Paula. “Come on, I’ll show you to your room. Hopefully there’s something to eat around here.”

They started to leave, stepping towards another dark doorway.

“Daniel.” The voice was cold again, chilling. They stopped and looked back at the old man.

“You forget,” he said, eyes narrowing, face hardening. “I’m stronger than you. I always was. You cannot resist the organism.”

Paula felt Daniel’s muscles tighten beneath her hand.

“Good night, Dad,” he said. They walked out.

Much later, in the darkened hallway upstairs, Daniel apologized again.

“He’s gotten worse, Paula—worse than I had ever expected.” Daniel was nervous, his expression intensely bothered.

“It’s all right, Daniel, really. Things happen to people as they get old.”

Daniel pulled her closer to him. It was cold in the drafty darkness, only the feeble grey moonlight trickling in through the window at the end of the hall. But the embrace was not warming; Daniel seemed to be protecting himself with Paula.

“It’s as if he wants to swallow me—the way he keeps touching and grabbing. So… so greedy! I wouldn’t have come back if I thought he’d be this way.”

“What did he used to be like?” Paula asked.

She looked up at Daniel, but he wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were fixed on the door to his father’s room, where a narrow fringe of light spread into the hall from under the door. His gaze seemed clouded, distant; he was remembering something. Something unpleasant.

“What is It, Daniel?”

He shook his head, slightly disgusted. It was the look he always got when she asked him about his childhood. She could feel his heart pounding against her breasts.

“Daniel, please, what’s wrong?”

“I—I never told you. I never thought I’d tell anyone.” She began to urge him on, but he continued without prompting.

“When I was a kid, I came out here one night—I’d had a nightmare, I think. It was late. I thought I heard noises in my parents’s room; the light was coming out just like it is now. I knocked, but no one answered, so I opened the door—just a little, you know?—and started to go in.

“They were—they—just lying there, my mother and my father, wrapped around each other, and the light was so bright I wasn’t sure that—that it was my mother there—

“I thought it was my sister, Paula!”

Paula caught her breath, then instantly relaxed. Daniel had been young—he’d seen his parents having sex. Such experiences often led to traumas, delusions. She could imagine it lurking in his mind all these years, breaking free now. Daniel was trembling.

“I yelled,” he continued. “I remember yelling. But… they didn’t even move. They just lay there until I ran away.”

He paused. Then, “It wasn’t my sister, of course. It couldn’t have been, I can’t believe it. She and my mother had the same color of hair, and that was all I could see; the light was so bright, they were so close together… not moving. But I thought, for just a moment, that he…” Daniel looked towards the door and shuddered again.

“Daniel, do you want me to stay with you tonight?”

“What? Oh, no, that’s all right.” He forced a laugh. “Might be a little too hard on my dad. Maybe later, when he’s asleep, you can sneak over…”

She yawned uncontrollably. “Maybe. If I can stay awake.” They kissed and said goodnight. Daniel parted with obvious reluctance, then went through the door into his room, closing it softly behind him. Paula looked down the hall, where light still spilled from beneath his father’s door. Thank God she was on the other side of Daniel; he was between her and that old man. Daniel’s story was ridiculous, of course: a childhood hallucination, magnified by the years. Things like that… incest… just didn’t happen.

She slipped into her own room, and was somewhat dismayed to find that the lock didn’t work. It needed a key that was nowhere to be found. Just another inconvenience among many. She was surprised, actually, that this place even had electricity. The room itself was dusty and suffocating, but she supposed she could stand it for one night.

In a minute she was in bed, trying to warm herself, the small table lamp shut off. When the sounds of her settling in had faded, the darkness swarmed around her uncomfortably, creaking and breathing in the manner of such old houses. She tried to ignore it, suddenly glad that they had stayed the night. Another nap in the car and she would have gone mad. At least she had been able to shower here. The old man was bearable when she didn’t have to confront him directly.

Presently she drifted off, breathing with the house, her thoughts muffled by its thick atmosphere. But her sleep was restless, uncertain.

Paula was never positive she had slept at all when she realized that she was wide awake again. The stillness was incredible. The house was holding its breath. She sat up, certain that something had jarred her from sleep. A noise.

There. Perhaps from Daniel’s room, perhaps from the hall. Perhaps trailing from the hall into Daniel’s room…

Suddenly Paula was certain she’d heard a door shut. And—footsteps? But where were they going? Where had they been?

Those sounds were clear in the swollen darkness. But after a moment came less certain ones—rising and falling, always soft, as deceptive as the rush of blood in her ears. She was hearing things. No. Paula shook her head. She did not imagine things. Straining her ears, the sounds resolved themselves.

Voices. From Daniel’s room.

They stopped.

Paula waited; heard nothing. A slight dragging sound that might have been the night passing through her mind. A dull footstep. And then, quite distinctly, three words, in the old man’s voice:

“I need you!”

And creaking.

Paula was out of bed in an instant, hurrying quietly across the floor. She didn’t trust that old man, not for a minute, not alone with Daniel. She found the door, jerked on the knob—

It was locked.

Paula remembered the sound that had awakened her; it returned very clearly now that she could place it. It had clicked, metallically. A lock engaging.

She pounded once on the door. Again, louder, tugging at the knob.

And still not a sound from the other room.

“Daniel, Daniel!” Paula began to sob, wishing that there would be another sound, Daniel’s voice.

The door. Quieting, she returned her attention to it. The lock didn’t seem terribly strong, it was old. For a minute she considered throwing herself against the door, but it opened the wrong way. Chanting Daniel’s name, she wrenched at the knob, pulling it back with all her strength. It seemed to give a little. Paula glanced back into the room, hoping for something useful. Her hand mirror glimmered on the table, reflecting moonlight. It was heavy, had a sturdy handle.

In a moment she was cracking the doorframe with it, chipping away the splintered wood, ripping and tearing. There was a grinding, and she yanked on the doorknob and the door crashed open, stunning her. She stood for just a second, considering the darkened hall beyond, then moved forward, into it, the mirror dropping from her fingers.

No sound from Daniel’s room. None at all. Not through all her screaming and pounding and thundering… nothing.

“Daniel?” she called softly. She stopped outside his door, listening. Everything was grey and dim, shrouded in shadows. “Daniel?”

Before she could reason with herself, she had turned the knob, had found it unlocked, had opened the door and entered.

Entered.

“Daniel?”

On the bed, something grey, tangled in blankets, two shapes. God help her, she was going forward, approaching the bed.

“Please, Daniel, are you all right?” The words came as a whimper.

She was at the bedside, eyes squinted with fear, so that all she could see was the two of them, vaguely, Daniel and his father pressed close together as if… as if kissing, or making love, his father on top.

Down in the gloom, a huge spider, almost filling the bed.

Her eyes closed.

“Daniel—”

Her hand went forward, to touch. Gingerly.

“Please—”

And there, on top, was the back of the old man’s head, his hair coarse around her fingers. She moved her hand down, consciously, forcing it to touch his ear, and pass around it, still down. Over a rough cheek, withered skin. Skin that abruptly smoothed; skin that continued, unbroken…

Unbroken…

Straight to another cheek, another ear, and the back of Daniel’s head.

RATTLEGROUND

Crawling down the fire-scarred steel corridors of the enemy’s lair, he says to himself, So,evil dogs… I see you quake in dread at the mere thought of my arrival!

They have apparently fled before him. The corridors are empty and silent, crackling with the energy of anticipation. The walls are smeared and gleaming, perhaps with the blood of his foes. There has been an earlier flash-attack on this sector: a flushing of the rabbits from their warrens, with humble garden hoses replaced by the searing whitefire of dissembler-grenades. He smiles at the thought, grinning from a nearly toothless mouth.

Vile pig-things, stinking scrambler bastards. Imagining my approach, you wet your pants with fright! Ho, triumph!

For an instant he tries to stand, basking in his power but it is a hopeless endeavor. His chubby thin legs are unstable, the muscles lacking all but the faintest vestiges of tone.

Somewhere, he hears a ticking.

Then the clatter of footsteps. Footsteps!

No, it is too soon!

He scrambles for all he is worth, at last sighting an adjoining corridor. His training becomes reflex and he hurl himself toward the opening, into shadows, rolling like a ball. At the last instant before slamming into the wall, he drops open like a pink flower and presses into a corner.

The steps pound louder. Voices:

“—attack on 9. We’ll need every unit in there.”

“That’s cutting it too close. If we weaken the other sectors—”

“They’re not exposed, damn it! 9’s been peeled paper-thin.”

The footsteps are thunder all around him, the voices tumbling from high above. Squeezing back into the shadows, he glares up at the giants who have come into view. They are red-faced, panting, turning into the corridor where he is hidden.

So, must I make my stand here? Then I shall take you down with me, you filthy—

The looming figures start toward him, high, so high above. Their eyes, hidden behind shining grey lenses, do not detect him among so many shadows, but now they are moving in his direction, stalking like a storm down the corridor.

You too will die! Yah!

He leaps. He will fight until his strength is drained. He is ready to fight and die with only his small nails and nearly nonexistent teeth as weapons.

But his body betrays him. His leap, though packed with all the power he can summon, takes him a matter of inches. He falls short of the tromping enemy heels and sprawls flat, gasping for air, tears starting at his eyes, his head throbbing in a halo of pain, his little pink face twisting up.

As the footsteps fade away, he realizes that they did not even see him.

Defeated, he begins to cry.

Damn them, damn them, damndamndamnthebastards!

When the sobs die down, he is breathless and shivering. He consoles himself with the thought that soon enough, his time will come. They will feel terror then. Yes! Terror! Then!

He is moving again, once more taking up the rhythm of reflexes for which he was trained. He is a hunter, yes! Mighty conqueror, strength and champion of his own people.

Crawling, he riffles the list of his weapons and defenses.

Nails, yes: finger and toe.

Limbs? No, they are not yet strong enough. None of them.

Head? For butting, perhaps? Unfortunately not. The circular scar is still tender, the bones of his skull not fully reset; they have been expanded by surgery to accommodate his new brain, and they strain at the skin. Besides, his neck is infirm… wobbly.

Teeth? No, they are but a few pale slivers on his gums.

What else? What else? There is not much, true, but he does not doubt that his training will see him through. The enemy stands no chance before me!

Now he slinks, his eyes devious slits, his pink mouth twisted with clever determination. His little fists clench as if holding knives. The concentric pain rings at his skull for just a second, and again the ticking sound seems to grow. Both of these irritations soon subside. He moves on.

From behind, enemy tread sounds again. They are coming on to challenge his might.

This time you’ll not escape! Prepare to die!

He feels no need to seek shadows. In the center of the corridor, he turns on hands and knees—ignoring a thousand tiny pangs—and faces the enemy. Faces them.

Rumble of voices, thunder of monster footsteps. Three mountains, dark and goggled, silver in their flashing uniforms, crash over him. Boom—boom—boom—boom—BOOM!

Die!

They stop.

Petrified with horror, are you? I crush your fates in my very hands. Your master rises before you, and your master… is I!

But… why are they not screaming? Why are they not turning to flee, albeit futilely, for how can they escape? Can they not see him for what he is?

One mountain is stooping, extending its hands, smiling.

Touch and you die, foul one!

“Why, look—” it begins, booming.

Die!

“—a baby!”

Die! Now, die! Die, do you hear me? Dissolve into ashes—wither up and blow away! Damn it, why aren’t you dying?

The others speak. “A baby?”

“Where the hell did he come from?”

“Poor thing must have been abandoned during the attack.

“We’ll have to take it to the nursery.”

“What? Dian, we’re heading into combat, we can’t bring a goddamn baby with us!”

“We can’t leave him here. He’ll be safer there than here.”

Listen to me! You must put me down

“All right, but he’s your problem.”

Listen, I—

“Fine. Let’s get going.”

And then: “Hello there, fella. What’s your name?”

He lies cradled in the hideous arms of a colossus, numb with disbelief. They do not hear him. They do not fear him. They… they seem to like him!

This cannot be happening, not to him, not to the conqueror, the commando, the merciless warrior-slayer, not to him!

“Deedledeedledee! Deedledeedledee!” The fiend’s huge digits prod and tickle him. “There’s a honey, yes!”

He lunges for the throat of his assailant, but his hands are smaller than he had judged; he is mercilessly beaten back and exhausted by the pounding gait of his enemy, who is running. He collapses, limp, sobbing, and sees himself reflected in the grey insectoid goggles: tiny and pink and… God, so helpless! Can it really be him?

And now he understands….

They are fooling him! These are clever ploys designed to make him doubt himself, to weaken his mind.

It won’t work! I’m too smart for you! But you will burn for this—burn!

“Don’t cry,” says the voice in soothing mockery. “There’s a good boy, there we go. Whoops!”

The voice of another breaks over him: “Keep it low, we’re almost there.”

With these words, a sudden flash of light licks at them, coupled with a roar ten times as mighty as that of the giants, nearly as powerful as his own imperial bellow. The blinding pain of it makes the fragmented bones of his skull throb and the scar beneath his scalp tear with agony; makes the ticktickticking suddenly bloat within his ears. He winces, writhes, twists within the titan arms and—

“Down!”

Another explosion bursts over them.

His carrier rolls, nearly crushing him as the ground comes up beneath them. He is dropped. His vision flashes and his thoughts dull for an instant. Before he too can roll and come up fighting, his captor once more incapacitates him, holding him close, pinioning his limbs.

He sees the ruins of a corridor before him. Its entire side has been ripped away. Beyond gapes a night that blossoms with light. Out there are his own people, firing on this place where he is held helpless… helpless in the stronghold of the enemy!

He cries out in frustration.

“It’s all right, babe, it’s okay. There you go!”

Voices are shouting nearby, giving directions to scurrying figures that move through the ragged shadows like perambulating worlds. Occasional explosions throw them into silver-etched relief. There are dozens, firing plumes of light into the darkness, diving away as grenades burst outside. He writhes again, struggling against the grasp of his captor, wanting only to join his own people in this pivotal battle.

Let me go!

The giant is relentless. He sags into himself, weeping. What is his purpose here if not to fight, kill, conquer? Why have they sent him on such an impossible task? Why?

Another giant moves to where they lie in darkness.

“Dian, where’d you find that?”

“In a corridor. Isn’t he cute?”

I am not cute! I am not cute! But he falters, now uncertain.

“Odd. That’s really odd.”

“What is?”

“Someone else found a baby about fifteen minutes ago, wandering down near Data Central. It was—well, the damn thing was trying to crawl behind the main library core.”

And now he remembers.

He remembers his brothers and sisters.

Another shape moves closer, clicking charges from its weapon, adjusting its goggles. “Yeah… and they found three in sector 7. Just crawling around….”

Ginger hands set him on the ground, with respect. The three figures back away, and now there are eyes on him. Goggled eyes, yes, but he can sense the fear within them as they back off, move away, into the growing silence. The battle itself seems to still for this moment.

My brothers, yes! Do you hear me now?

“Hey, man, something’s going on here. I don’t like it.”

He cannot count the eyes on him, riveted to his tiny, pink body.

Yes, see me for what I am: your master! Kneel, I say, for I and my brothers and sisters are your conquerors!

“But it’s only a baby…”

He hears the ticking surge, louder.

“Oh my God, what’s it doing?”

“Let’s get out—”

It is time!

The ticking stops, echoing in his ears. Into the vacuum he feels the rush of fire, swelling within him, swelling and growing, blowing and burning and cleansing.

My supreme moment! My triumph! My—

Spreading warm wetness.

His excitement is too great. The instant of victory is shattered as he wets himself…

And only then explodes.