The Best of Talebones

by edited by Patrick Swenson

  They are, and take pride in the fact, a scruffy crew with bodies in roughly the shape of auto wrecks. Their minds and experience, though, are matters no one young and beautiful wants to mess with. “Worse,” brags Deke, “than messing with Texas.”

  For example, Miss Victoria-Elizabeth Simpson is a southern lady who wears pastel gowns, enjoys riots, and has caused several. From the tip-top of her head to the bottom of her chin (what with face lifts) she remains gorgeous, though, as she admits, “the rest has gone south, back to ma’ dear old Georgia.” Miss Victoria-Elizabeth stands 5’3” and looks back on a career as a television personality in days before Barbara Walters ever held her first interview (which interview, as Miss Victoria-Elizabeth explains, occurred at age 7, when Babs interviewed a cat: “. . . made poor kitty blush . . . it stayed stoned on catnip for a month.”)

  Deke sports a large tummy encased in checked pants, and clasped by red suspenders of the type used by pool hustlers — which Deke is. The gang also includes Janice Marie Jobravovich (Chicago cop), Maxie Stern (Reno bartender), Ms. Joyce Ann Summerfield (Fresno 5th grade teacher), and Winchester Morris (pawnbroker). It also includes a saintly creature (a goody-two-shoes) named Dear-Gwendolyn who (though opinions vary) is most likely a girl (or anyway, female).

  The gang lounged in the dayroom as television broadcast crud, and as Miss Victoria-Elizabeth sneered during commercials. Dear-Gwendolyn, in gown pink and diaphanous, fretted over fates of soap opera characters. Deke stood at the pool table, hitched up his checkered pants, snapped his suspenders, and studied a complex shot. “Remind me,” he said to no one in particular, “to tell about the time I cleaned Minnesota Fats in a night of nine ball. Only time anybody ever heard Fats whimper . . . brought tears to the Fat Man’s eyes.”

  “Tell that B.S. one more time . . .” Maxie felt in his back pocket for the sap that wasn’t there.

  “If anybody reminds him to tell that again,” Janice-Marie murmured, “what happens won’t be a misdemeanor.” Janice-Marie is largish, muscular, and still wears her cop pants. If she took it to mind, she could work Deke up so he looked like a pothole in Chicago streets.

  Beyond the windows sunlight dimmed. Ducks rose from the lake, shed a few feathers, circled, dropped back down to the lake. Ducks paddling. Ducks jumping back into the air. Duck confusion, lots of it; a stiff breeze beginning to bend pine trees, and storm clouds rolling in. The click of Deke’s pool balls sounded hollow, like tiny echoes coming from some bad place; mausoleum, perhaps.

  “Hush, now,” Victoria-Elizabeth whispered, although it was not necessary. Folks all had their flappers shut. Expectation filled the dayroom. The ticking of the clock grew louder, but it slowed.

  “He’s back,” Winchester-the-pawnbroker murmured. “Party time.” Winchester still dresses slick, like a college administrator, or a midlevel executive, or a high-level social worker. He wears polished and pointy shoes. His remaining hair is dyed black, and lies against his head like thickish paint. He spoke to the clock. “What are-ya? Chicken crap? Cold cuts? Or just confused?”

  Nickie stepped from the clock. He smelled only a little of sulphur. He and Winchester regarded each other like two pooches sniffing.

  “You,” Nickie hissed at Winchester. “You won’t set no high standards, but you’ll do.”

  “You,” Winchester told Nickie, “don’t know what trouble is.” Winchester turned to Maxie-the-bartender. “How soon do we bounce this guy?”

  “Give it a minute.” Maxie pulled on his left ear lobe, rubbed his nose, and for all the world looked like a man about to snap a bar rag. “It beats watchin’ television,” he told Winchester. “I mean, this guy don’t come around all that often.” Maxie is the slender, wiry type — fast with a bar rag.

  Deke set up a three ball com-bination and stroked the object ball into the right corner pocket. He snapped a red suspender. He looked toward Nickie. “Better a has-been than a never-was.”

  “Not kind,” Dear-Gwendolyn whispered. “That was simply not kind.” Dear-Gwendolyn seemed torn between defending Nickie and following the tortured life of a soap opera character (who even at that moment, threatened to divorce his third wife whilst in the presence of his first and second). Dear-Gwendolyn’s diaphanous skirts rustled.

  It was then that Victoria-Elizabeth stepped forward, accompanied by fifth-grade teacher, Ms. Joyce-Ann Summerfield. Nickie found himself with a TV anchor on one side, and a K-12 teacher on the other. If between them the two had not seen everything, they’d seen most.

  Joyce-Ann waved Nickie toward a seat. She waved Deke back to his pool table, and she turned away from Winchester and Maxie. In a voice that had intimidated legions of eleven-year-old boys, she told Nickie, “Sit, and stay sittin’. Don’t move an inch.” To Victoria-Elizabeth, she said, “Do it.”

  The interview that followed fell into a conventional pattern: Part I, Early Life (Young Rebellion and The Fall from Heaven); Part II, Professional Development (Construction of the Seven Stages of Hell); Part III, Sexual Proclivities (Unmentionable); and Part IV, Future Plans. By the time Victoria-Elizabeth got Nickie to Future Plans, Deke chuckled, Maxie sneered, Janice-Marie snorted, Joyce-Ann tsked, and Dear-Gwendolyn twisted her hankie because of sexual proclivities. Nickie wept.

  He sat, a rather frail figure in what had become a frayed business suit. He shivered, although warm air gushed from heating vents.

  “Maybe things went too well for too long,” he whispered between sniffles. “I came to depend on promoting standard stuff, the oldies and goodies: murder, rapine, corrupt priests, torture. Historically, there’s a lot of promise in humanity.”

  “The good old days,” murmured Maxie.

  “I suffered a downturn.” Nickie sniffled. “I didn’t keep up with all the changes going on . . . but who would have ever thought of stuff like Stallone flicks and chemical weapons?”

  “Is that a problem?” Victoria-Elizabeth managed to look puzzled, although she already knew the answer.

  “Folks used to fear me,” Nickie sobbed. “I used to haunt their dreams. They smeared gargoyles all over everything. They hung horseshoes over their doorways. They actually feared my trolls, although a troll is so damn dumb that...and they wore garlic and smelled like Purgatory. And when it came to orneriness, which was mostly, they looked to me for guidance.”

  “And now . . .?” Dramatic pause from Victoria-Elizabeth. Her voice sounded soft, almost cuddly.

  “They do it all by themselves.” Nickie mourned. “And they do it better. I blame technology. I sort of blame myself. I mean, look around you for Hell’s sake. Even you people aren’t afraid.”

  “I been handling the human race for 80 years,” Maxie grumbled. “Nothin’ Hell can show me is more’n a walk in the park.”

  “Welcome,” Winchester sneered, “to Westwind Retirement Apartments.”

  The sum of it is that Nickie took up a vacation residence in the clock. For a while he traveled back to Hell most days, and reported on the power struggle that developed in his absence. Demons barbecued apostate Imps, and legions of renegade Imps tramped across burning plains and around molten pits, ignoring the customers while tearing the place to shreds.

  “There comes a time to rack your cue,” Deke finally advised Nickie.

  Nickie took the advice. He retired to the clock in Westwind Retirement Apartments, a clock that ticks everyone’s remaining seconds. Of course, sometimes Nickie slows the clock.

  And perhaps He has His regrets, since most folks do. And perhaps even now He enjoys lusts (after all, Dear-Gwendolyn has peculiar charms), and perhaps He grows a bit creaky in the joints because the clock is not all that comfy. Thus, does He for sure have sorrows. Plus, like everyone else at Westwind, He occasionally gets sick of hearing that story about how Deke once took Minnesota Fats to the cleaners, and made the Fat Man cry.

  Kay shares this anthology with Louise Marley, just as they shared issue #29. Kay read this story one year at the annual Talebones Live! readings, and wowed the audien
ce. Kay’s The Entire and the Rose four book science fiction series from Pyr is a must-read, by the way. Go pick it up, fast! Quite the novelist, Kay will hopefully write more short stories so I can ask her about a story collection some day. You listening, Kay?

  THE ACID TEST

  KAY KENYON

  It took her six years of searching, following every lead, pursuing shadows, hunches, and luke warm trails, until she found an alien that could help her.

  When she found him — not that it was necessarily a him — he was just leaving an office in a drab building with carpeting worn in the middle like a deer path. He paused, key still in the door, looking down at her.

  “No, don’t go,” she said, daring to touch his arm. He narrowed his eyes, but she held her ground. “I know what you are.”

  An ear flicked back. He wasn’t used to the direct approach.

  She could tell them from humans. Through years of practice, she’d taught herself to look past the surface, past the façade of nose, eyes, and face. If you trusted your intuition, you could pick them out. After millions of years of evolution, face recognition was a finely tuned human skill.

  This fellow had a beard and glasses; behind that, the face wasn’t quite right. Primed as she was for more subtle challenges, the pitiful disguise was almost disappointing. Well, in the end, you seldom got what you expected when it came to aliens.

  “I’ve found someone for you,” she said.

  He made no move to open up his office again, but he still had the key in his hand. “I’m not looking for anyone,” he said. His yellow-brown eyes flicked over her, perhaps sizing her up, as a candidate.

  The yellow eyes were bad. She’d read how they couldn’t see the color yellow, and didn’t realize their eyes and skin looked jaundiced.

  “It’s my husband. He’ll go. He wants to go.”

  The alien looked down the hall as though he’d rather be home nursing a beer than dealing with a disgruntled housewife at 4:00 p.m. on a Friday afternoon.

  “Please.” She tried not to sound desperate. “He’s young and healthy. College degree, business administration.” She thought that last might not help. “With a math minor.”

  After a weary sigh, the fellow unlocked the office door and gave it a little kick. It swung open to reveal a dark interior. Giving a very convincing jerk of his head, he directed her inside. They were going to do business. He had decided to trust her; trust that she wasn’t the FBI, the IRS, or yet another mother come to beg for a family member.

  Once they were sitting opposite each other, the alien came right to the point.

  “If he wants to . . . go, as you put it, why didn’t he come himself?”

  “He doesn’t believe you exist.” At his expression, she hurried to add: “He wishes you did, though.”

  His eyes glinted behind the thick lenses of his glasses, like carp swimming in a clear pond. “Doesn’t believe? Doesn’t he read the National Inquirer?”

  Through a tense throat she let out a chirping laugh. Was he making a joke? Or did the alien consider the Inquirer good publicity?

  “He’s just skeptical. You have to admit you’ve been mysterious.” She looked around her, at the chipped desk, the sagging blinds. This could be a seen-better-days insurance office instead of the local pod of alien infiltration.

  He shrugged — except the shoulder went down.

  She went on. “His name is David. He’s . . . a wonderful person.” She struggled to summarize her beloved David: kind, wise, compassionate . . . loving — in his way. But first she had to get one thing clear.

  “I’ve heard you don’t take unwilling people.”

  The eyes blinked behind the glasses. She realized he didn’t blink very much. Another flaw. It was fascinating how they managed to pass for human among the unwary public.

  “Do you?” she persisted.

  “Do I what?”

  “Take unwilling people?”

  The sneer was good. Right on the mark. “I suppose you think we insert alien tubes into body orifices for sport?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “But if we did?”

  He was toying with her. Maybe he was trying to fluster her. The stress interview. “I’m sure David would cooperate. He’s not squeamish. All for science.”

  “He thinks this is about science?”

  No, David didn’t. His interest was more basic, more visceral. It was the prospect of adventure. The stars, improbable worlds, civilizations stranger than we could imagine. She didn’t deny the allure. But she couldn’t share the urge. The urge to go.

  It had begun with a simple conversation. An idle question, one she wished she’d never raised. Some questions should never be asked. Why had she? But she knew why. For the same reason lovers everywhere ask for proof. Proof of love. Will you ever leave me? Do you think I’m beautiful? Would you go if you got the chance? To an alien world?

  “Sure,” David had said. “In a second.”

  In that moment, so brief, so heavy, it was still an innocent thought-experiment.

  “But if I wouldn’t go along?”

  “Yes, even then.”

  She was so surprised she hardly looked at the mine field into which she was running — at full speed.

  “You’d go forever? Never see me again? You wouldn’t.”

  But he would. It was the only thing, he said, that he could imagine leaving her for. The greatest journey, the highest intellectual stimulation, the grandest opportunity imaginable. Yes, he admitted, there would be a terrible price: loss, loneliness, perhaps alienation (a suitable word if ever there was one). But he never wavered. Never a maybe, I think, perhaps. He was certain.

  And with that certainty her own security, her faith in him, vanished forever. She would never trust his love again.

  She asked him again, later. Same answer. It gnawed at her. She couldn’t match him, betrayal for betrayal. There was nothing that could induce her to leave him. That was real love, wasn’t it? His love was provisional. Until an alien came along. She tried not to think about it. In any case, he didn’t believe that aliens visited Earth. There was no proof, only the irrational beliefs of a lunatic fringe. It was entirely theoretical. Like love.

  Her quest had been to make the thought-experiment real. To put her fears and his claim to the test. The acid test. She knew it sounded extreme. She had never wanted to be demanding, needy, paranoid. But gradually the knowledge — that he would go — took root, penetrating her thoughts, the very web of her life, based as it was on her marriage and the love she shared with David — a powerful, sensual, and dramatic love. That love now held a canker.

  She hoped the alien would excise it, one way or the other.

  If David said no — if, in the event, he refused to go — the rift between them would heal, her heart would be at peace again.

  The alien was shuffling through a drawer. “There are some forms to fill out . . . .” He brought out a daunting sheaf of papers. “Unless you’d rather he did it himself?”

  She shook her head. David hated paperwork.

  “Date of birth?”

  She supplied all the information: prior medical conditions, family background, job history, education. And the personal: favorite foods, sleeping habits, sexual preferences, pet peeves. She knew his affection for good cheese, walnut salad, pistachio ice cream; how he held her left breast as they fell asleep, side by side. What he would fight for. What he would leave for.

  She and the bearded alien parted at the door. “Remember,” he said. “He must choose to go.” His yellow eyes darkened to amber. “His choice.”

  “That’s what I’m counting on,” she said.

  But now that the forms were filed, she wasn’t so sure.

  The next few days stumbled by in numb unreality. David quit his job and packed a small bag. He spent a lot of time in the back yard staring at the bird feeder, or tossing sunflower seeds to blue jays. The two of them didn’t talk much. What was there to say?

  “I’ll miss you
desperately,” David said one night, whispering into her neck. But she was unmoved. He was leaving, wasn’t he?

  Are you sure this is the right place?” David squinted into the shadowed woods.

  “Keep walking.” That’s what the alien had said. Midnight. The turn off at Swamp Creek Road. Then keep walking.

  David held her hand, giving her courage, support. Everything but the thing she wanted most: David himself.

  They plunged on, by the light of a half moon. Descending into a ravine, they entered a blacker woods. She released David’s hand to brace against the hillside, sliding down. At the bottom, she whispered his name. He didn’t answer.

  She called out, her voice a frantic croak. Turning, she squinted into the now hostile woods. But he was gone. They had taken him. “No fuss,” the alien had warned her. “No scenes.” They’d made sure of that, with this little maneuver. It didn’t speak well for them.

  Starting to shake, she sat down, collecting herself. This was no longer theoretical. The space craft was close by, ready to take David away forever. She had caused it to happen. Why, why? The craving for some absurd proof of fidelity? It was so foolish, built as it was upon her own insecurity and greediness. She loved this man, and she had driven him from her. She contemplated her descent into torment and obsession. Step by step, an incremental disaster.

  At length she stood up, determined to find David. By now her eyes were accustomed to the dark, and she could make out a shrub or two. At the top of the ravine she thought she saw a thin trickle of light. She scrambled toward it.

  A shape bulked up in front of her. Startled, she lost her footing, falling back. Someone grabbed her arm, stopping her fall.

  It was David.

  He knelt next to her, wrapping his arms around her. “My God,” he whispered. “My God, it was awful.”

  She clung to him. “David, David . . .”

  “The inside of the ship,” he went on. “So small, terrible tunnels, no windows. The beings are — not what I thought. And oh, the smell. Like, like Roquefort cheese — but wrong.”