The Best of Talebones

by edited by Patrick Swenson

  His words sounded shaky and uncertain now. I listened with silent interest as though all of this had happened yesterday.

  “Something woke me up, and I saw this dark blue coat standing over me. I couldn’t believe it. We were rationing blankets to keep from freezing after sundown and somebody’s standing there in a long coat. Then I saw the Swastika on his arm and his black shirt. There were dozens of others behind him. Dozens, all wearing black shirts. I’d heard about Waffen SS corps from my Sarge, but I’d never seen one until that night. I only had a few seconds, but I still remember how much they all looked alike. The guy looking down at me wore a skull and crossbones insignia, which means he’d been part of a death’s-head battalion. He had the coldest face I’d ever seen and an automatic pistol pointed at my chest. He told me to keep still, and I went for my rifle. I felt my lung explode before even hearing the shot. I got a few rounds off into the air, but it was too late. There were bullets ringing out and troops screaming all around me. I lost it. I lost the whole convoy because I was too tired to keep watch, and Waffen SS corps always found the weakest point inside.”

  “Oh, Brennen,” I breathed, not knowing what else to say. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Yes, it was.” He started nodding and kept it up. “It was and it’s going to happen all over again tonight unless we can find whatever’s keeping me tied to this house.”

  “What do you mean?” Josh asked.

  “Exactly what I said,” Brennen snapped back. “I’ve never seen this house. I’ve never even been to Oregon. But just before two o’clock this morning the whole scene is going to replay itself right here. It’s a punishment for my crime.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just do. I don’t know how. Just like I know that something from my past is tying me to this house or I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Did someone tell you that?”

  Brennen frowned. “Maybe . . . I don’t know. I don’t remember anything after being shot. But we have less than an hour to find whatever it is and get it as far away from this house and this town as possible. Maybe we can run it into the woods somewhere and keep anyone but me from becoming involved.”

  This was all getting too weird for me. Too much. Too fast. But Josh sat there as if soldier ghosts materialized into his bedroom every day. “Do you have any idea what we’re looking for?”

  “No.”

  “Before I bought the house, it belonged to a older couple named David and Margaret Banks. Did you know them?”

  “No.”

  “All right then. I’ll take the downstairs. Sherrie, you take Brennen back up to the attic and dig through everything. When we find it, he’ll know. I’ll call out if I see anything I don’t recognize as ours.”

  Brennen turned to me, his expression still tense but relieved to be taking action — perhaps even taking orders. “I’ll meet you up there.”

  “How did you manage to turn the light in the woodshed when you don’t seem able to touch anything else?” I asked while breaking into another trunk and pulling out half its faded contents.

  “I don’t know. It was dark and confusing. I wanted a light to see what was around me. Suddenly it came on. That’s all.”

  Our search of the attic had proven fruitless so far. The light up here was dim and flickering, casting dancing shadows across the plank board walls and slanted ceiling. We were working on the last chest and nothing appeared even vaguely familiar to Brennen. I’m not sure I really believed him, but it was quite clear that he believed every word of his prediction and each passing moment brought him closer to panic.

  “Oh, look,” I said. “It’s a 1920s flapper gown. This must have belonged to someone’s grandmother. I wonder why anyone would leave all this behind?”

  He barely glanced down. “Yeah, it’s pretty. Listen, when this starts, you get down and stay down, understand? I’m not going to be able to protect you.”

  Protect me? I stopped digging. “Brennen, I can take care of myself.”

  “Just do it.”

  Part of me understood his fear, especially if he honestly thought his own death was about to take place all over again. But something else he’d said in Josh’s room kept tugging at the back of my mind.

  “Whatever happens, you shouldn’t think you’re being punished.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said quietly.

  “Yes, I do. Everyone makes mistakes at some point in their life, sometimes serious mistakes. I can’t believe that fate or a god or whatever force is out there would make you go through all this again as some sort of penance or retribution.”

  “Then why am I here?”

  I don’t know how I would have answered that question, but the words never came. Instead, Josh called up from the hallway.

  “Hey, guys, get down here. I found a loose floorboard.”

  I jumped for the ladder and found Brennen below, waiting while Josh tried to pry up a rattling wooden board in front of his chair. Falling to help him, my fingernails slipped down the side and we lifted it to find nothing but dust and a worn nickel.

  “I’m sorry,” Josh sighed. “I’ve covered most of the downstairs already.”

  “We can’t stop, “ Brennen said as he stood up, then his gaze fell on the wall and he froze. “Oh, no.”

  Josh backed up. “What? What is it?”

  “Get out of the house!”

  “No, Brennen, you tell me what you see.”

  I stood there silently watching our soldier ghost choke again, as if he were trying to breathe.

  “The wallpaper,” he said. “I bought that wallpaper on leave in London and sent it to Hoboken as a present for Maggie. She always liked roses.”

  “Who’s Maggie?”

  “My girl. Now get out. Don’t you see? We can’t steam this off in time. He’s almost here.”

  The little rosebud wallpaper decorating our halls. I thought about the names, David and Margaret Bond. Maggie. She must have married sometime after Brennen’s death and moved from New Jersey to Oregon with her husband, taking this paper with her. How had she felt when the news first reached her? I couldn’t imagine.

  Brennen groaned suddenly as though in pain, and I turned from the wall. I’m not sure what any of us suspected would really happen, but the sight of his hand stunned me. It was solid, flesh and blood, the dark tan tone was moving up his arm toward the sleeve of his t-shirt. He staggered backward.

  “Sherrie, get that shotgun.”

  I bolted toward the kitchen, cutting though the living room, but stopped in my tracks when a huge green truck materialized right in front of me. The couch disappeared inside it, but through the army green transparency I could still make out the velvet burgundy lines. I went to the window. There were trucks and tanks and sleeping soldiers on the back lawn. All of them slightly translucent, as Brennen had been. Peering inside the living room truck, I saw crates of supplies and a young man, about eighteen, shivering inside a thin brown blanket. He looked like a child in the dark. He was awake, but didn’t notice my presence, as if he couldn’t see me.

  “Josh,” I called. “Come out here.”

  Instead of Josh, Brennen walked slowly out of the hallway entrance. He was darkly tanned and completely corporeal by now. He had some sort of rifle slung over his left shoulder; it appeared to be as solid as he was.

  “Why can’t they see us?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer and went to the very edge of the room. First he dropped to a crouched position, leaning on the gun. Then he slid all the way to the ground and began breathing lightly. I started toward him.

  “Don’t,” Josh said from behind me.

  “We have to wake him up.”

  “No, just get over in front of the truck, by the window.”

  That didn’t make sense. Did Josh want Brennen to die all over again? I moved over in front of the truck, and he pulled me down in a tight huddle. Why were we hiding? None of the soldiers could see us.

 
“Josh —”

  “Ssssh. Be quiet.”

  We stayed like that for five minutes, then new movement blurred across the hallway. Black shirts. They were all on foot. The small platoon had probably been tracking this convoy from a distance for days, waiting until exhaustion set in. Whatever vehicles they travelled in had now been left somewhere behind. I remembered what Brennen said about the land offering no cover.

  Josh gripped my wrists to keep me from moving. Then I saw the blue coat. No experience in my life prepared me for the sight of that SS officer when he slipped in. I’ve often heard emotionless people being compared to reptiles, but I’d never really understood the image before. His face had no movement. It was smooth and motionless, like some perverted Michelangelo statue come to life. He was about fifteen feet away from us and I could make out every detail clearly, just as Brennen had described. His men followed closely, silently. There were only two differences between him and them. He was wearing a long, blue coat over his black shirt, and he was solid. That’s why Josh had hidden us. The Waffen officer was real.

  And so was his gun.

  But then he took a step toward Brennen, and I struggled in Josh’s grasp. “You can’t let him die again.”

  My brother’s hands felt like bone manacles. “Quiet,” he whispered. “Brennen’s already dead. Just watch.”

  The SS soldiers moved like coyotes in a narrow fan, their eyes clicking back and forth. There had to be more outside the camp. The officer was standing over Brennen now. Everything shifted into the past.

  The young private opened his eyes.

  “Don’t move,” the voice above whispered.

  Brennen jerked up his rifle, and part of his chest exploded. He fired into the air, and two bullets caught the Waffen officer, one in the shoulder and one in the face. Rapid fire burst from the back of the truck. Five of the SS soldiers dropped like wheat being mown down. The others didn’t even flinch and began firing back. The element of surprise was lost; now it was simply down to a fight.

  White bullets and screaming and running feet surrounded us. But all I could concentrate on was the gasping sound near the wall where Brennen still fought for air, his gaze locked on the ceiling. Josh let me go.

  Crawling across the carpet, I suddenly found myself staring down in the open eyes of a black-shirted soldier. He was about nineteen and he wasn’t breathing. Somehow the concepts of right-side/wrong-side, good and evil don’t make very much sense when you’re kneeling over a dead kid.

  Brennen was still gasping when I reached him. I pulled his head into my lap. I couldn’t see any part of his chest for all the blood. The black shirts who still lived were running away now.

  “Can you hear me?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  “You didn’t lose the convoy. You warned the others. It’s safe. It must have reached General Montgomery.”

  There was no joy or sense of victory or honor inside me. Men had died over a mass of inanimate objects. I was ashamed, but I still turned Brennen’s head toward the Waffen officer. “Look, you killed him. He was standing too close.”

  His face was incredulous when he turned back to me, gasping even harder, making wheezing sounds in his throat. He gripped my arm.

  “Sherrie, who won the war?”

  Why had he never asked me that before? It was the one question I most expected. The one I kept waiting for him to put to me. I hate ticker-tape parades that celebrate death. The very essence of the belief that two or more countries can solve their problems by sending young people out to kill each other makes no sense to me.

  But holding Brennen’s head in my lap filled me with a sense of despair that went beyond ideals or governments.

  “We did, Brennen. We won.”

  His grip relaxed and he smiled. Bit by bit, his form changed back into transparency, and then he just faded away, still smiling. I touched the carpet where he’d been lying.

  It was still warm.

  Paul Melko published six stories with us, and “Ten Sigmas” was the fifth. At the time this story came out in issue #28, Paul had been selling just about everywhere, his short stories selected for best-of-the-year anthologies. As it turned out, this story was picked up for Gardner Dozois’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction, and although the magazine had several close calls during the years, Paul’s story was the only Talebones story to be reprinted in that anthology. Frank Wu did the art for this cover.

  TEN SIGMAS

  PAUL MELKO

  At first we do not recognize the face as such.

  One eye is swollen shut, the flesh around it livid. The nose is crusted with blood, the lip flecked with black-red, and the mouth taped with duct tape that does not contrast enough with her pale skin.

  It does not register at first as a human face. No face should be peeking from behind the driver’s seat. No face should look like that.

  So at first we do not recognize it, until one of us realizes, and we all look.

  For some the truck isn’t even there, and we stand frozen at the sight we have seen. The street outside the bookstore is empty of anything but a pedestrian or two. There is no tractor trailer rumbling down Sandusky Street, no diesel gas engine to disturb the languid Spring day.

  In some worlds, the truck is there, past us, or there, coming down the road. In some it is red, in some it is blue, and in others it is black. In the one where the girl is looking out the window at us, it is metallic maroon with white script on the door that says, “Earl.”

  There is just one world where the girl lifts her broken, gagged face and locks her one good eye on me. There is just one where Earl reaches behind him and pulls the girl from sight. In that world, Earl looks at me, his thick face and brown eyes expressionless.

  The truck begins to slow, and that me disappears from our consciousness, sundered by circumstance.

  No, I did not use my tremendous power for the good of mankind. I used it to steal the intellectual property of a person who exists in one world and pass it off as my own in another. I used my incredible ability to steal songs and stories and publish them as my own in a million different worlds. I did not warn police about terrorist attacks or fires or earthquakes. I don’t even read the papers.

  I lived in a house in a town that is sometimes called Delaware, sometimes Follett, sometimes Mingo, always in a house on the corner of Williams and Ripley. I lived there modestly, in my two bedroom house, sometimes with a pine in front, sometimes with a dogwood, writing down songs that I hear on the radio in other worlds, telling stories that I’ve read somewhere else.

  In the worlds where the truck has passed us, we look at the license plate on the truck — framed in silver, naked women — and wonder what to do. There is a pay phone nearby, perhaps on this corner, perhaps on that. We can call the police and say . . .

  We saw the girl once, and that self is already gone to us. How do we know that there is a girl gagged and bound in any of these trucks? We just saw the one.

  A part of us recognizes this rationalization for the cowardice it is. We have played this game before. We know that an infinite number of possibilities exist, but that our combined existence hovers around a huge multi-dimensional probability distribution. If we saw the girl in one universe, then probably she was there in an infinite number of other universes.

  And safe in as many other worlds, I think.

  For those of us where the truck has passed us, the majority of us step into the street to go to the bagel shop across the way. Some fraction of us turn to look for a phone, and they are broken from us, their choice shaking them loose from our collective.

  I am — we are — omniscient, at least a bit. I can do a parlor trick for any friend, let another of me open the envelope and see what’s inside, so we can amaze those around us. Usually we will be right. One of me can flip over the first card and the rest of me will pronounce it for what it is. Ace of Hearts, Four of Clubs, Ten of Clubs. Probably we are right for all fifty-two, at least fifty of them.

&n
bsp; We can avoid accidents, angry people, cars, or at least most of us can. Perhaps one of us takes the hit for the rest. One of us is hit first, or sees the punch being thrown, so that the rest of us can ride the probability wave.

  For some of us, the truck shifts gears, shuddering as it passes us. Earl, Bill, Tony, Irma look down at us, or not, and the cab is past us. The trailer is metallic aluminum. Always.

  I feel our apprehension. More of us have fallen away today than ever before. The choice to make a phone call has reduced us by a sixth. The rest of us wonder what we should do.

  More of us memorize the license plate of Earl’s truck, turn to find a phone, and disappear.

  When we were a child, we had a kitten named “Cocoa.” In every universe it had the same name. It liked to climb trees, and sometimes it couldn’t get back down again. Once it crawled to the very top of the maple tree out front, and we only knew it was up there by its hysterical mewing.

  Dad wouldn’t climb up. “He’ll figure it out, or . . .”

  We waited down there until dusk. We knew that if we climbed the tree we would be hurt. Some of us had tried it and failed, disappearing after breaking arms, legs, wrists, even necks.

  We waited, not even going in to dinner. We waited with some neighborhood kids, some there because they liked Cocoa and some there because they wanted to see a spectacle. Finally the wind picked up.

  We saw one Cocoa fall through the dark green leaves, a few feet away, breaking its neck on the sidewalk. We felt a shock of sorrow, but the rest of us were dodging, our arms outstretched, and we caught the kitten as it plummeted, cushioning it.

  “How’d you do that?” someone asked in a million universes.