Imaginary Friends

by John Marco

  He stared past her, and his face tightened. “He says he doesn’t know yet.”

  Dierdre grabbed his hand. Small fingers clung to hers.

  “I don’t want to die, Mom.”

  “You—” You won’t. But even Death didn’t know what would happen. “I don’t want you to die either.”

  After a while, Paul pointed to Death again. “He looks like a muppet.”

  Dierdre’s startled laugh sounded more like a hiccup. She reached down to retrieve the second item she had brought, a copy of The Complete Dreamscapes, 1972-1976. She had taken it from the museum gift shop. The cover was bent and grass stained from being tossed out of the attic, but that didn’t matter. She would leave an anonymous donation to cover the book and the damage she had done, but that could wait.

  Paul opened the cover and flipped past the introduction until he found the first page of comics. He cocked his head before pronouncing, “Grandpa was weird.”

  “Yes, he was.” She sat down on the bed and carefully pulled Paul onto her lap. The book went on the small table, next to the Kleenex box and an unused bedpan. “Would you like me to tell you about him?”

  Paul started snoring before she had said more than a few words. She reached back with one hand, adjusting the pillows to support her back. Her leg brushed the stolen picture of Death.

  Could she change the picture now? A part of her longed to blot out those arms, to free herself and her son from Death’s grip, if only for tonight.

  She kissed the top of Paul’s head and closed her eyes. A twitch of her foot knocked the print of Death to the floor.

  About the Authors

  Rick Hautala has had more than thirty books published under his own name and the pseudonym A. J. Mathews, including the million-copy, international bestseller Nightstone, and Bedbugs, Little Brothers, Cold Whisper, Four Octobers, The White Room, Looking Glass, Follow, and Unbroken. More than sixty of his short stories have appeared in a variety of national and international anthologies and magazines. His screenplay Chills was recently optioned by Chesapeake Films. Born and raised in Rockport, Mass., he is a graduate of the University of Maine in Orono with a M.A. in English Literature. He lives in southern Maine with author Holly Newstein and Kiera, the Wonder Dog. Visit him at www.rickhautala.com.

  Anne Bishop lives in upstate New York where she enjoys gardening, music, and writing dark, romantic stories. She is the author of eleven novels, including the award-winning Black Jewels novels. Her most recent novel is Tangled Webs, a story set in the Black Jewels world. Please visit her website at www.annebishop.com.

  Jean Rabe is the author of more than twenty novels and more than forty short stories. In addition, she has edited several DAW anthologies. When she’s not writing (which isn’t often), she delights in the company of her two aging dogs, dangles her feet in her backyard goldfish pond, and pretends to garden. She loves museums, books, boardgames, role-playing games, war-games, and movies that “blow up real good.” Visit her web site at: www.jeanrabe.com.

  Juliet E. McKenna has always been fascinated by myth and history, other worlds and other peoples. This ultimately led to her studying Greek and Roman history and literature at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, as well as to a lifetime love of SF and fantasy fiction. She is the author of the acclaimed Tales of Einarinn series, currently translated into more than a dozen languages, as well as the highly praised The Aldabreshin Compass sequence. Her current project, The Lescari Revolution, is a trilogy exploring divided states, personal conflict and the rights and responsibilities of power. She is one of the leading lights of The Write Fantastic, a UK authors’ initiative promoting the breadth and depth of current fantasy fiction. Living in Oxfordshire, England, with her sons and husband, she fits in her writing around her family and vice versa.

  Kristine Kathryn Rusch has sold novels in several different genres under many different names. The most current Rusch novel is The Recovery Man: A Retrieval Artist Novel. The Retrieval Artist novels are stand-alonemysteries set in a science fiction world. She’s won the Endeavor Award for that series. Her writing has received dozens of award nominations, as well as several actual awards from science fiction’s Hugo to the Prix Imagainare, a French fantasy award for best short fiction. She lives and works on the Oregon Coast.

  Kristen Britain is the author of the bestselling fantasy novels, Green Rider, First Rider’s Call, and The High King’s Tomb. She grew up in the Finger Lakes region of New York. After earning a BS in film production with a writing minor from Ithaca College, she served for several years as a national park ranger, working in a variety of natural and historical settings, from high on the Continental Divide, to 300 feet below the surface of the Earth. Currently she lives in Maine with a cat, a dog, and her imaginary friends, Ian and Sven, where she continues to work on the next book in the Green Rider series.

  Donald J. Bingle has had a wide variety of short fiction published, primarily in DAW themed anthologies, but also in tie-in anthologies for the Dragonlance and Transformers universes and in popular role-playing gaming materials. Recently, he has had stories published in Fellowship Fantastic, Front Lines, Pandora’s Closet, If I Were an Evil Overlord, and Time Twisters. His first novel, Forced Conversion, is set in the near future, when anyone can have heaven, any heaven they want, but some people don’t want to go. His most recent novel, GREENSWORD, is a darkly comedic thriller about a group of environmentalists who decide to end global warming . . . immediately. Now they’re about to save the world; they just don’t want to get caught doing it. Don can be reached at and his novels purchased through www.orphyte.com/donaldjbingle.

  Tim Waggoner’s novels include Pandora Drive, Thieves of Blood, the Godfire duology, and Like Death. He’s published close to eighty short stories, some of them collected in All Too Surreal. His articles on writing have appeared in Writer’s Digest, Writers Journal, and other publications. He teaches creative writing at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio. Visit him on the web at www.timwaggoner.com.

  Paul Genesse told his mother he was going to be a writer when he was four years old, and has been creating fantasy stories ever since. He loved his English classes in college but pursued his other passion by earning a bachelor’s degree in nursing science in 1996. He is a registered nurse on a cardiac unit in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he works the night shift keeping the forces of darkness away from his patients. Paul lives with his incredibly supportive wife Tammy and their collection of frogs. He spends endless hours in his basement writing fantasy novels, short stories, and crafting maps of fantastical realms. His novel The Golden Cord: Book 1 of The Iron Dragon Trilogy was released in 2008, but his current project is Medusa’s Daughter, a fantasy set in ancient Greece. He encourages you to contact him online at www.paulgenesse.com.

  Russell Davis has written numerous short stories and novels in a variety of genres under several different names. Some of his most recent work can be seen in Fellowship Fantastic, Man Vs. Machine, and Under Cover of Darkness. He lives in Nevada, where he writes, rides horses and spends time with his family.

  Bill Fawcett has been a professor, teacher, corporate executive, and college dean. He is one of the founders of Mayfair Games, a board and role playing gaming company. Bill began his own novel writing with a juvenile series, Swordquest, for Ace SF. Anticipating cats, he wrote and edited the four novels, beginning with the Lord of Cragsclaw featuring the Mrem, which appear in Shattered Light as a hero class (all rights owned by Bill). The Fleet series he created with David Drake has become a classic of military science fiction. He has collaborated on several novels, including mysteries such as the Authorized Mycroft Holmes novels, the Madame Vernet Investigates series, and edited Making Contact, a UFO Contact handbook. As an anthologist, Bill has edited or coedited over fifty anthologies. Bill Fawcett & Associates has packaged well over two hundred and fifty novels and anthologies for every major publisher. Bill is the editor of Hunters and Shooters and The Teams, two oral histories of the SEALs in Vietnam. His most recently
published work is as coauthor of It Seemed Like a Good Idea: Great Historical Fiascos; You Did What?; How To Lose A Battle and It Looked Good on Paper, all fun and informative looks at bad decisions in history and the folks who made them.

  Fiona Patton was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and, grew up in the United States. In 1975 she returned to Canada and now lives on 75 acres of scrubland in rural Ontario with her partner, Tanya Huff, six and a half cats and a tiny little chihuahua that thinks he’s a great dane. She has written six fantasy novels for DAW Books, the latest being The Golden Tower. She has also written more than two dozen short stories, most of them for Tekno Books DAW anthologies.

  Jim C. Hines began writing more than a decade ago, but he tries not to think about that. He is the author of three humorous fantasy novels, Goblin Quest, Goblin Hero, and Goblin War, all from DAW Books. His next novel, The Stepsister Scheme, will start a new series from DAW in January 2009. Jim lives in Michigan with his wife and children, all of whom have been amazingly supportive and tolerant of his writing career. He has never been all that fond of writing author bios, so he asked his children to help finish this one. From his six-year-old daughter: “Daddy likes Snoopy, and I just lost a tooth.” From his one-year-old son: “,po ;l[;=[pl,8yu8 thh bbbbbbbbb V$# v Ecv”