No luck.
I’ve stopped drinking now. For good. I couldn’t look a bartender in the eye without wondering whether he might have another life, another shape . . . whether he was eyeing me for some predaceous purpose. It seems ridiculously clear at times that I simply went too far, drank too much. Saw the dreaded “pink elephant.” Perhaps that’s all it was. I don’t really know.
But the fact is, I never saw Frank again.
G. Wayne Miller
CHOSEN ONE
FLYING back from London and the 1988 World Fantasy Convention to Rhode Island, the author of the new William Morrow novel, Thunder Rise, heard the captain say, “We’ve lost our primary hydraulic system. Do not panic, but there are fire trucks waiting on the field.”
Thunder, and the sun, are not the only things that rise. Try terror.
G. Wayne Miller, whose often-praised ghost story “Wiping the Slate Clean” appeared in Masques //, survived the perils of acquiring an agent, placing Novel One, and that landing. He wasn’t asked what frightened him most, but this wry eastern journalist/Boston Celtics buff expressed the thought that he’d only imagined he understood horror in the past.
He knew plenty when he was writing the deceptive and chilling “Chosen One.”
CHOSEN ONE
G. Wayne Miller
HER VOICE WAS SILKY. SO INCREDIBLY silky. That was the only reason she’d been able to come on to him successfully, that extraordinary voice.
He remembered how it used to be. Late at night—her time to rule the airwaves—he’d lie back, smoke a joint, close his eyes and listen to that voice, fantasizing what she looked like. Blond, he imagined. A Nordic face, with high cheekbones and ice-blue eyes. Blush-red lips that pursed perfectly for every word. A body to make a man a kid again, like the first time in the backseat of his daddy’s car. If he felt bad about anything, that was it: that someone with a voice so magical, so powerfully seductive, had to be destroyed.
But it was a fact of life now. Her blood had to be splattered, pooled in pretty red patterns across the floor. Maybe before it dried he would dip his finger into it, then put his finger to his mouth, savoring victory at last. Maybe that would be most fitting.
He hadn’t set out to be a hero. He’d only meant to survive. That’s why, early on, he’d lined the walls of his apartment with aluminum foil. That’s why he’d bricked up the windows, sealed the bathroom ceiling vent, disconnected the phone, pulled out the wall switches, the TV cable, those two tiny wires that went to the doorbell. Anything—anything at all—that might conduct electromagnetic radiation, the means she used to get inside his head.
How silly it had been. He knew that now.
Because nothing kept her away, not for long. Such meticulous precautions and her voice was still strong and clear inside his head. Cajoling him to surrender, pleading with him to give in and join her in conquering the world . . . before drastic steps became necessary.
Only now was he in true awe of her power.
No question, he thought, feeling his bulletproof vest, fingering the .44-caliber Magnum he’d bought from a sunglassed dude who did business out of a Cadillac trunk. It’s past the crisis stage. Stop her tonight, or there will never be another chance.
Mankind will be lost.
Already it may be too late.
It had taken almost a year to get to tonight.
In the beginning, there was only a new show, a new disc jockey, an exciting new voice. It was inevitable they’d get together. He was a late-night person, a Pink Floyd fan, a thinker, philosopher, a loner with a master’s in computer software. She was a companion. A friend. She understood the cruel things girlfriends and bosses had done. She understood the terrible odds men like him labored under, making their way through the heartless world.
More than that, she agreed.
It’s not you, she assured him on an early visit inside his head. It’s them. Let’s be friends. Us together, the rest be damned.
Beguiled by that audio silkiness, he welcomed her. And at first, they got along swimmingly. A purely platonic relationship, two soulmates helping each other through the long, lonely night Even when she was off the air, she’d sometimes seek him out. In the company men’s room, on the subway, on his noontime walks through Central Park, she would drop in to chat. How thrilling, being singled out like that. How special he felt.
He remembered the first danger sign.
It was a Saturday, the day she discovered the Dirty Thoughts he’d begun to have. There he was in the privacy of his own bathroom, kneeling by the mirror, towel in one hand, violent erection in the other. He was thinking about her. Thinking about having her from behind, where you wouldn’t have to look into the depths of those ice-blue eyes. Thinking how he would blindly cup her breasts, kiss her neck, ease slowly inside, the passion escaping like steam . . .
In the sharpest of terms, she’d told him how disappointed she was, finding those Dirty Thoughts. He tried to explain that his thoughts were meant as tribute. What higher compliment was there than showing how desperately he wanted to merge their flesh, their souls, by taking her from behind?
Get rid of them, she ordered, her disgust tearing through him like shrapnel.
He had tried. For a day or two, they were gone. But the Dirty Thoughts always came back, stealing into his head like rats through a darkened alley. She began to use the power of her voice to nudge them out. Sometimes—most times—she succeeded. The thoughts faded. In their place was black, hollow pain that Tylenol with codeine couldn’t touch.
It wasn’t long before he understood: she was no different than the rest. She didn’t want to share; she wanted to control. A simpleton could see the distinction.
Of course, Krystal discovered that thought, and when she did, she came clean: Perhaps sharing secrets is better than angry tirades to make an ally out of such a fine, strong man. I am not a DJ, she admitted. I am an extraterrestrial, beamed down to begin my species’ takeover of the world. The first phase, she informed him, was subjugation; that would be followed by colonization. Electromagnetic radiation—a refinement too complex for humans to comprehend—was their secret. And while it took time to deploy such an awesome weapon, Central Control had no doubt victory would be theirs.
Once Krystal clued him in, he had seen things in a whole new light. Where once he was scornful of his fellow humans, he saw them now as innocent victims, deserving of pity and salvation. Through no fault of their own, they were being conscripted into Krystal’s army—an army of zombies. Now he understood that you didn’t have to tune in to her show to be taken over. If that were the case, you could simply have turned your radio off. No, she was infinitely more clever. Electromagnetism—in the air, passing effortlessly through walls, silent, damn near inescapable—was how she worked.
Now do you comprehend the true nature of her threat? he wrote in the diary he prayed would be cherished someday by millions.
Now do you understand why I had to act so drastically?
Now will you thank me?
Over the next week, he did what any good citizen would do: he called the police. He typed long, fact-filled letters to the White House, the governor, Congress, NASA, the FBI, the Air Force. “For humanity’s sake,” he ended each letter, “Krystal must be stopped.”
He received several responses. Someone identifying himself as an agent of the Secret Service called, asked a stream of highly personal questions. Someone else in the governor’s office chatted amicably for over ten minutes. But nothing changed. No one arrested her or canceled her show or blew up her station or set out to find her spaceship. It made him realize how deeply she’d infiltrated the fabric of society.
It was only then that Apocalypse occurred. One night, alone in his apartment, another voice—a voice he’d never heard before, would never hear again—announced that he had been Chosen.
“Go on and laugh,” he wrote the next morning to the editor of The New York Times. “Get it out of your system, then listen carefully. The hour is late.
But there’s still hope. I am Chosen . . .”
The letter wasn’t published.
His arrest was next.
It came comparatively late in the game, but before he understood what radical measures had to be taken. He was still leaving his apartment, making the rounds of politicians and agencies, trying desperately with a sandwich board, a bullhorn, and pamphlets to get his message out. That is not to say he was entirely reckless. He knew enough to wear a lead bib he’d stolen from a hospital. To protect his head, he wore a football helmet customized with asbestos and foil.
He was dressed that way the afternoon he attacked a remote-broadcast van belonging to Krystal’s station. He spotted it there in Washington Square, a crowd of zombies gathered around. Wielding a baseball bat, he’d smashed through the windows and was bloodying a zombie-technician by the time the cops dragged him away.
In jail, a zombie-cop gave him a tranquilizer, a zombie-sergeant read him his rights, a zombie-matron tried to make him eat zombie food. He was taken in handcuffs to district court, where a zombie-judge released him to the custody of a mental health center.
Why you? one bespectacled little zombie-turd wanted to know.
It wasn’t ego, he explained calmly. It was part of a larger plan. He had been anointed, if you wanted to look at it like that. Chosen. No one might ever know why it had been he and not, say, a gas jockey from Perth Amboy or Larry Bird. If you knew anything, you knew that was sometimes how it happened. Look at Joan of Arc. Who, back then, would ever have guessed a milkmaid would be a Chosen One?
Why can’t she conquer you as easily as other people?
He almost laughed, that was so stupid.
But he didn’t. Patiently, he explained that it was a tribute to his strength of character that she couldn’t succeed behind his back. He had to be faced. He was the enemy, her most formidable enemy.
By now, almost certainly, her final one.
Because I am anointed. I am The Chosen One.
That’s what The True Voice said.
Praise The Voice.
Hallelujah.
In the end, he was no fool. He allowed them to give him any intramuscular shot of Thorazine. He signed the form agreeing to return voluntarily in two weeks for another one.
He didn’t, of course.
He vowed not to leave his apartment until he had a plan. How long that might take, he had no idea. He’d devote every waking hour, but it could be days . . . months. An awesome responsibility saving his people.
In the meantime, there was no choice but to go full battle alert. He stockpiled food and bottled water. He lined his apartment with a second layer of aluminum and brick, and a third, and a fourth. He started drawing a half-pint of his blood every day, storing it in bottles in his refrigerator, which he kept packed with dry ice. The blood was for contingencies; exactly which contingencies, he didn’t know yet. But it was better to be overprepared than caught short. Any soldier worth his salt would tell you that.
It was 2:15 a.m. now. A Tuesday morning. Twelve floors below him, the streets of lower Manhattan slumbered.
Krystal had been on the air two hours and a quarter.
He hadn’t been listening.
He’d learned, through the most incredible concentration, that he could keep her out of his head for as much as an hour or two. He’d been very careful in drafting his plan. Careful never to think of the great task ahead of him without first blocking her out. He prayed it had worked.
He fingered his handgun, patted his bulletproof vest and ammo belt. It might get very ugly in there. Krystal had confided that twenty-four hours a day she surrounded herself with security forces armed with Uzis. The standing orders were shoot first, ask questions later—if any were to be asked.
Again, he thought of the risk. There was every chance he was going to get his guts sprayed all over the walls before the night was done. Any other man would say it was 99.9 percent certain that’s how it was going to go down. What gave him strength was knowing that any other man would have backed out by now.
Suddenly, a knock on the door. A voice said he was from the mental health center’s mobile crisis team. Could it possibly be coincidence? Or had Krystal succeeded in reading his thoughts after all? Was closing in at the zero hour?
“We know you’re in there,” the voice repeated. “Neighbors have been calling.”
He didn’t move.
“We only want to talk.”
He didn’t answer.
“You missed your appointment. Can’t we just talk? We won’t harm you. I promise.”
Any second he expected the firing to start. He fingered his gun. They wouldn’t get him without a fight.
“If we have to come back with the police, we will.”
No answer.
And then, retreating footsteps. A trap? Minutes passed. The pounding in his head built to thunder level. He felt dizzy, hot.
Finally, he had no choice. The night was getting away from him. He cracked the door and peeked up and down the corridor. It was deserted. Gingerly, he stepped outside.
It must have been luck.
Finally, a well-deserved stroke of luck! Using alleys, he made it to the station without being seen. Jimmied the lock to the door without being seen. Up the elevator without being seen. Past corporate offices without being seen.
He was crouched outside her studio now, squinting through the glass door. From somewhere, he heard a janitor vacuuming.
She was alone.
She doesn’t know, he dared think, giddy with the thought. I’ve been able to keep her out!
He stared, transfixed. She was smaller than expected, but in every other respect exactly what he’d imagined. Her hair was blond, straight, sweeping down over her shoulders. High cheekbones. Steely blue eyes. Perfectly round lips.
And her body . . . The sight of that body took his breath away.
He walked on sneaker-silenced feet through the glass door.
“Krystal,” he said.
She turned but didn’t answer. For a moment, her face was blank; then an expression—a mixture of surprise and fear-crossed it.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “How did you get in?”
“You know who I am,” he said.
“I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
“Don’t play games with me,” he shouted. “You know me. You’ve been inside my head.”
“I . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No games, Krystal.” He moved toward her. “It’s over.”
“W-what do you want?”
“You know what I want.”
“Is it money?” She reached for her pocketbook. “Here, take it all, take the credit cards, take—”
“DON’T MOVE!” he shouted. He was too supercharged to notice her foot, making contact with the emergency button under the console.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she whimpered.
“Back away from the console!”
Trembling, she did.
“Put your hands on your head.”
She did. Her hands were shaking; she could not control them.
“Now walk toward me. Slowly.”
She started toward him.
“Turn around. Back into me.”
She hesitated.
“AGAINST ME OR I SHOOT.”
She made contact. Her body recoiled in disgust. He ran his fingers through her hair and the first tears fell.
“I wouldn’t have thought it was possible anyone could be so beautiful.”
“Please . . .”
He was tempted. The Dirty Thoughts eddied and swirled, beating against the inside of his skull. She was in there with them, stoking them. He felt her then, her last-gasp shot at defeating him. Such sweet promise, taking her from behind she allowing him, encouraging him . . . His head began to pound.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she pleaded.
Grunting, he pushed the Dirty Thoughts away. “Before I end it,” he said “I want you to apo
logize. Apologize to the people.”
He forced her to the boom mike. She began sobbing.
“Apologize and set them free!”
He didn’t see the back door open. He didn’t see the guard come in. He didn’t see the guard draw a bead on him with an Uzi.
“Say ‘I’m sorry.’”
“I . . . I’m sorry,” she cried.
“.. .for enslaving my people.” He squeezed her violently. “Go on—say it.”
“F-f-for enslaving my—”
The bullets traveled through his head on a line between his ears. Blood gushed. His grip on Krystal loosened. She wriggled free as the gun tumbled harmlessly to the floor. No more Dirty Thoughts now, nothing about salvation, only a kaleidoscope of white noise and pain. He collapsed to the floor as if deboned.
The only sound was the turntable, spinning emptily.
Krystal slumped into her chair. The tears were flowing freely.
With effort, she brought herself to look at him.
There was nothing left of his ears or the sides of his head, just mangled gray tissue and matted strands of hair. His body spasmed and a crimson froth decorated his lips. His chest heaved as he drew his last breath. His eyelids fluttered and were still. She noticed a sudden purplish tinge to his cheeks, and wondered if that was normal under the circumstances.
She stared up at the security man. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said. “You saved my life.”
“It’s my job,” he answered.
The tension started to drain away. Krystal would have nightmares for ages, but life would go on.
Her show would, too.
She gazed at his body again. She couldn’t help herself. The final death twitches had passed. The joints already were stiffening, his temp dropping. Around the studio, his blood was splattered in pretty red patterns. Krystal dipped her finger into it, then brought her finger slowly to her mouth. She hesitated, then licked it.
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