Ante Mortem

by Jodi Lee, ed.

  “Kid?”

  The boy turned with a frown.

  “Is there something out in the street?”

  The middle-schooler examined the street with more attention than it warranted. The boy shrugged. “There’s a smashed paper cup.”

  Sam closed the door.

  He might still be tired from all the tossing and turning last night. But the manhole moved. Two or three times, he crept to the window for another look. In between those times he lounged, watching TV, eating cold mushroom pizza.

  When night fell, the neighborhood became a collection of floating rooftops. Sam had to convince himself bubbles weren’t wandering skyward in the racing blue shadows. His uneasiness was chased off when Barbara’s corvette bumped into the driveway. The brake lights flowed out behind like iodine wash.

  He waved. She didn’t see him. God, she was gorgeous. Not as smoking-hot as Constance, but few were. He waved harder to get her attention, then froze.

  Out in the street, in the iodine sea, a face peered from under the manhole lid. Long webbed fingers wrapped around the lid and its iridescent knuckles bent in a rancorous rainbow. The Nightlid had no hair on its head or face. When Barbara turned off the ignition, the red color drained from the creature’s skin, leaving behind flesh the color of marrow.

  Sam leaned closer to the window, trembling. The Nightlid’s eyes were diamond-shaped stones, black as the emotionless gelatin orbs of a shark. It looked just like what he’d written.

  He tried to open the window. Barbara bent inside to retrieve her purse. The manhole lifted higher and fog blanketed the street. Sam wrenched at the latch, pulling with both hands. What the hell was wrong with it? He shoved with his entire body. The window slid over.

  Another arm came out from under the lid.

  “Barbara!” he shouted.

  “Hey babe.”

  The manhole lid dropped; the sound was so loud Sam flinched but Barbara acted as though she’d heard nothing.

  “Is the front door unlocked?”

  Sam tried to speak, but could only nod. The world grew calm and quiet, only darkness and clicking stiletto heels.

  Unbuttoning his shirt so fast his fingers stung, Sam rounded the bed and approached Barbara. He briefly thought of the thing he’d seen in the street, but it was pleasantly distant in his tangled thoughts. He peeled off his jeans in a single swipe that brought them down to his ankles. His hand went to his boxer shorts, but Barbara’s deft fingers caught him.

  “Let me,” she said and kneeled. His boxers went down. Her lips parted in a wet ruby ring. She squeezed him. He put his palm on the back of her head, drawing that ruby circle closer.”You make me feel so good. I love you.”

  Her gray eyes hovering before his erection were not convinced, but she began pleasuring him nonetheless. Her teeth felt coarse around the ends, almost the texture of bristle. She’d never performed so poorly before. What was wrong? He wanted to yell, to tell her to go brush her teeth, or see a fucking dentist. But Sam Ruther knew where his dick was buttered. “I want you!” he cried instead.

  Barbara pulled back. She was gummy-lipped and breathless, but still lovely. “Harder than before,” she said. “Give it to me hard!”

  She was no Constance, but he entered her with relish anyway, in one great rush. “Harder!” she cried.

  Sam quivered. Could it be? Was he to orgasm? But not already, he despaired. Don’t you dare! He closed his eyes and concentrated. Something uncoiled, ready to blast free, but then sucked back inside, cold in his chest. His pleasure disappeared.

  Sam opened his eyes to a synergy of light and shadow breaking through liquid heavens, to rolling dunes on the ocean floor and finned forms gliding in the distant haze, and to blood. Lots of blood.

  He was kneeling on a stone dais in the sand. The water did not bring his body upwards. There was a strange gravity in this ocean. His groin and hips wore shattered guts, bone fragments and blood like fragile underwear. This too did not seem to wash away.

  A gray coral reef curled up a slope to the left of the dais. Computer monitor, keyboard and mouse had been integrated inside the rough gray husk. Sam drifted through walls of sparkling sediment. He walked in the throes of the abnormal pull and hunkered down next to the monitor.

  It was his computer. All of his programs and story files were there, even the Nightlid story, but he bypassed looking at any of them. All the disgusting pornography he’d been too scared to download was now open for examination. He gleefully masturbated. The jism hit the water and parted in loops of white silk. Still, there was no pleasure with the coming. The ecstasy was taken from him, even in his dream.

  The thing in the street, he thought. That goddamn Nightlid! He wrote about one stealing a sailor’s lust—only a story, only a story, only the truth. No! He began to stroke himself again.

  A burning sword crashed through his skull, pulling him from the dream. He shrieked, made a move to reach up, but pitched over. Reality returned. Barbara held the broken neck of a vase—his favorite imitation Ming—its jagged white edges like a hundred chalky knives.

  “You filthy shit!” Her dress hung from her shoulder in a slant, as though she’d hastily pulled it on.

  Blood sheeted into his eyes. He put his palm there to stop the rush.

  “I told you it hurt! You made me bleed, you rapist!”

  “Barbara I was dreaming—”

  “I almost let it go.” A disgusted sob caught her words for a moment. “But you go over and start jerking off to that!”

  Sam looked at his monitor. Five opened windows showed a variety of graphic car wrecks. For a moment, one of the photographs looked like his mother, smashed between a telephone pole and three feet of Cadillac steel, in her mouth a penis torn from its scrotum. Sam’s stomach pitched. “I don’t know what’s wrong,” he struggled to find his breath. “With me, I mean.”

  He tried to stand but Barbara stabbed at him with the ceramic shard.

  “Don’t follow me or I’m calling the police!”

  Barbara grabbed her purse. He didn’t watch her go.

  It took a long time to get to sleep. Around 2 AM, Sam slipped into a deep, meaningful slumber and dreamed of a woman using him. He prayed it was Constance, but never had the chance to see the woman’s face.

  The next morning the toilet was red and overflowing.

  There was a diving supply store just north of the Sports complex. If he was going down into the sewers, he wasn’t risking noxious gases. Three hours and four thousand dollars later, he returned home with a trunk full of diving equipment, everything from fins to tanks.

  He’d considered bringing a gun, but he had no idea if there were flammables in the sewers, and he didn’t feel like testing the theory out. Instead, when he got home he retrieved an aluminum bat and a flashlight from the back seat of his car. There wasn’t time to think up something better.

  Dressed in his SCUBA gear, he walked out into the street. With each step, the world around him changed, the air deepened with bubbles and trees became swaying bands of green in a rocking sea. A yellow sandbar led to a sunken cruise ship that had landed on its side like a gunshot victim.

  He climbed the side of the indistinct deck, bat and flashlight held tightly under arm. On top he found a large porthole and took a few minutes twisting off the glass before lowering himself into a corridor.

  He thumbed on the flashlight, casting an indolent crescent of light ahead of him. Fish floated through the space, red and black starfish hugged the walls, plankton drifted through the thick ether. This place, this dreamland, was home to the Nightlids.

  Sam saw a pair of tits poking through a nest of starfish and a series of smiling vaginas along the walls. He wanted to fully explore the wall-vaginas, but what might they be in the real world? Sewer laterals?

  Instead of probing, he continued on.

  The corridor opened to a wide, oaken ballroom. Torches lined the walls of massive wooden stairwells that slipped inside dark hallways.

  His eyes found
the bodies and he could hear his breathing intensify behind his mask. The nightmare wasn’t truth, but the bodies looked real. Two lay draped across the stairs, ripped open east to west, flesh and bone raked into the stone. Another had fallen sideways against the wall, her head split all over in a savage highway.

  Sam knew her. He knew all these women. His ex Trixie, and Barbara, and a city hooker from last month. He could tell each woman from her nude signature. These bodies were not dream-induced.

  His body shook and his heart blasted in and out. “What did I do?”

  The hallways scraped with invisible claws. Slim figures seeped out of dark spaces, their surreal, gleaming white bodies touching the torchlight. First it was ten, then fifteen, and then dozens more. The Nightlids grouped at the top of the stairs like a welcome party.

  Sam’s knuckles cracked as he gripped the aluminum bat. It felt light and inadequate. All of those solemn, black diamond eyes were on him, but none made a move. They stared—and he stared back. “Well come on!” he yelled. “I’m through with this, so come on!”

  Only stares. Several flicked eager smiles, showing no teeth in their lipless mouths.

  He grimaced at them. “What the hell are you?”

  “Our children, Sam.”

  He felt faint at her voice.

  Constance stepped out of the shadows, wearing a sequined, royal blue gown that flowed back into the watery corridor behind her. It looked like the sea had lovingly dressed itself around her tender body. “It’s nice to see you where you belong, Sam.”

  He stood there, the unspoken question too apparent.

  Constance favored him with a dainty smile. “You never finished the story, so I chose to find the source of all sources. You’re a bottomless well of creation and your ideas will offer many more children before we’re through.”

  “Children?” Sam pointed his bat at the group. “Those things?”

  The half-smile came to her face again. He wanted to bash her head in with the bat, but he waited. “Why did you kill the other girls?”

  “Your energy belongs to us,” she said. “Your toys always sought to take it away. Besides which, you don’t need them any longer.” A malicious twinkle caught in her eyes.

  He could hear the steps of the Nightlids coming down the stairs. Constance laid a hand on his shoulder and with the other she held out her index finger. “Come on Sam, you’ve let me stick it up your ass before.”

  From tiny holes in her finger seeped a pale blue fluid. “Let’s fuck one more time.” A thrill went through her glazed eyes.

  Sam swung the bat hard. A clawed hand caught the end and tore it from his grasp. Slithering forms fell upon him. The Nightlid children ripped his clothes from his body as he struggled to break free.

  In his mind Sam saw a bloody toilet bowl and understood the truth. Those painful bowel movements had been deliveries. All the unseen eggs floating on the vermillion surface, waiting for him to send them to their new home.

  He lashed out, but his hands were cinched. He snarled at Constance, “I’ll die before you put those things in me!”

  “The eggs have always been inside you, dear,” she said. “I’m just fertilizing them.”

  “No!” Sam got a hand loose. He reached up and ripped off his rebreather. His lungs took in the heavy, rotten atmosphere of the sewer. Everything melted in his vision. Clarity returned through a series of whistles. The sound rose on the air from the gaping mouths of the Nightlids.

  “The children will breathe for you,” said Constance. Her voice purred in his ear. He felt clean air push into his lungs from out of nowhere.

  Constance had lost her gown—she looked like the others now, only bigger—braided muscles running from neck to slimy arms. She stroked his face and moved behind him. The porous index finger slid easily into his asshole and began to saturate his colon with her vile seed. Sam moaned as the pressure built in his abdomen and the taste of shit layered his mouth. The torches guttered and the temple darkened. He sobbed in the failing light and finally, wretchedly, came to grips with love.

  It was his first time.

  * * * *

  The Dubious Magic of Elliot Prince

  KV Taylor

  Elliot found his prey—or rather, his project partner—under the brightest lamp. Tim leaned against the wrought iron gate, reading a thin paperback in a puddle of light. The guy always had some esoteric little tome; kept one carefully askew on his desk during lectures and sticking out of the pocket of his backpack on the quad, like he was waiting for someone to notice.

  Elliot had done that too, back in high school. No wonder freshmen were like babes to the slaughter.

  Still, he was feeling charitable tonight. He might ask about the book; it’d probably make Tim’s night. Maybe he’d even let the guy show him painstakingly underlined passages and tell him why they were brilliant.

  He sauntered into the light, strangling the knowing smile on his face. Dropped his cigarette, jammed his hands deep into his leather jacket and toyed with the camera in the right pocket. He let his eyes dart to Tim’s book to create some initial goodwill.

  Tim shifted his weight from one foot to the other and stuffed his book into his backpack. His face seemed flushed, but it was cold outside, and Tim was always faintly freckled and pink. Maybe he wasn’t blushing, but he looked fucking awkward, either way.

  Definitely a passage under-liner. Perfect.

  “Cold tonight, man,” Elliot said.

  Tim shrugged, hiking his pack onto narrow shoulders. “I’m used to it.”

  Elliot noticed, upon closer inspection, that Tim wore only a thin Adidas track jacket. Right, he was from... Boston or something. Somewhere they couldn’t pronounce the letter ‘r,’ anyhow.

  But back to business. “Best place to jump the fence is around the side here.”

  Tim looked up at him through a fringe of dark bangs. “That’s how I did it last night.”

  Elliot tried to stop his face from falling, but didn’t quite make it. “Why’d you come then?”

  “Scouting. The groundskeeper came around once or twice…”

  When Tim trailed off, Elliot smirked. “Can’t outrun a 75 year-old, shovel-wielding hunchback?”

  Tim set his jaw, stood a little straighter.

  “Come on, man. This place is amazing. You go in far enough, you’ll come out a changed man.”

  Clever little joke. Too bad Tim can’t appreciate it. Yet.

  Tim screwed up his face, a comical determination taking over, ending with his eyes. He almost looked angry, and it suited him. Made him less little-boyish.

  Elliot just kept smiling. This might be his easiest one yet.

  You go in far enough, you’ll come out a changed man.

  Tim had used all his self-control in the split second after Elliot said it. Watching the back of that pretty blonde head retreat around the corner, he felt like he’d been rubbed all over with sandpaper on the inside.

  Funny to think how a few days ago, he’d been happy about this assignment. Fate handing him the answers, the chance he’d half wanted, half hoped wouldn’t come. Timothy Maclaren and Elliot Prince, slips of paper drawn at the same time. And then, just when it couldn’t get any better, Elliot told him he wanted to start their project with a long night in a dark, secluded spot.

  Sure, it was illegal. But Tim didn’t mind unexpected luck, as a general rule. Now he had warring urges to laugh and cry. Cold dread seeped into him, nothing to do with the weather.

  He’d do what he had to do, though.

  Half a league, half a league

  Half a league onward

  Right?

  Elliot reached through the fence for Tim’s pack, while Tim hauled himself up the wall behind the caretaker’s house and disappeared into the foliage of the nearby oak tree. Elliot peeked at the title of the book in the outer mesh pocket.

  101 Great Poems

  Huh. He’d expected Kerouac or Hesse or something else that seems brilliant in high school. Something
a pseudo-intellectual like Tim would think made him look smart and deep. He had carried Shakespeare himself, back in the day. Fucking embarrassing.

  Elliot was about to extract the book for a closer look when a blinding halogen glow cut the night, the spotlight in the caretaker’s yard. He froze for a stuttering second.

  The branches of the oak rustled, emitted an audible “Hell!”

  The sound startled him into action; he shouldered the pack and raced for the nearest patch of darkness against the wall. When he slammed his back to the bricks, Tim dropped out of the tree in front of him, landing in an awkward pile on the long grass.

  Elliot barely suppressed a laugh.

  Tim launched himself toward the safety of the wall. When he got there, he was biting at the inside of his cheek, and he had a leaf stuck in his hair.

  Elliot couldn’t stop himself, he picked it out and waved it in Tim’s face, laughing silently.

  Tim’s cheeks puffed out; he looked away, obviously trying to quiet his own laughter.

  A door slammed on the other side of the wall.

  Right, better get moving. Elliot dropped the leaf and whacked Tim’s arm to get his attention, then nodded to the nearest mausoleum rising from the sea of gaudy grave-markers.

  Tim, still looking torn between abject horror and laughter, nodded.

  They heard slow footsteps beyond the wall, and ran as fast as they could.

  Tim tried to concentrate on the sensations; long grass swishing against his ankles, cold air heavy with the smell of rotting leaves crushing into his lungs. But there was Elliot just ahead of him, running too fast, too effortlessly, to remind him what was wrong with tonight.

  All so easy for a guy like him, isn’t it?

  That made Tim feel a little better. And if Elliot thought it was the groundskeeper that scared him, that made it better too. But now it was close, and they were only running closer. Closer and colder with every step.

  He didn’t know if he was happy or sad, but he hoped Elliot wouldn’t make him laugh again.