A boy.
I panted, my breath shuddering.
A boy.
I'm not sure exactly what I felt at the moment. Shock, anger, sorrow. Anger, I suppose, the greatest of these. Not so much for the shadows who had killed him, but for the ruse he had perpetrated on us all. Callously I stared at his bloodied face and thought: you tricked me. Damnit, you tricked me.
Slowly I rose. I brushed the sand from my knees and walked swiftly back to the hotel. Just before I stepped into the lobby, I saw the whirling red light on a squad car, and I was glad I wasn't the one who had made the call.
The fourth floor, like the lobby and elevator, was deserted. I walked to the end of the hall and knocked on the Carrutherses' door. When there was no answer, I knocked again and turned the knob. The door opened to a darkened room, and I stepped in.
The man and woman were sitting motionless in identical chairs facing the room's only window.
"Mr. Carruthers?" I didn't expect an answer, and I received none.
I moved closer and gathered what nerve I had left to reach down and touch the woman's cheek, poised to snap my hand back should she flinch. The skin was cold. She didn't move, didn't react. She and the man stared directly into the moonlight without blinking. Carefully I rolled up her sleeve, and though the light was dim, I found the markings easily. There was no need to do the same to the man.
I was still standing there when the lights flicked on and Harrington lumbered in, followed by a covey of police photographers and fingerprint men. The detective waited until my eyes adjusted to the bright light, then pulled me to one side, away from the strangely silent activities. It was as if they were investigating a morgue. Harrington watched for a while, pulling out his handkerchief and again wiping his hands. I never did learn how he'd picked up that habit, but at that particular time it seemed more than apropos.
"You, uh, saw the boy, I take it?" he said.
I nodded dumbly.
"Didn't happen to see who did it, I suppose."
"Only some shadows, Harrington. They were gone before I got close enough to identify them. Any of them."
One of the men coughed and immediately apologized.
"Would it be too much to ask who called you?" I said.
"What call? I was coming over here to question the kid." He pulled a slip of wrinkled paper from his jacket pocket and squinted at some writing. "I checked on the, uh, parents, just for the hell of it, just to keep those people off my back. Seems he was fairly well off—the kid, I mean. He is, was, eighteen, and from the time he was six was shunted back and forth between aunts and uncles like a busted ping-pong ball." He shook his head and pointed a stubby finger at some line on the paper. "When he reached majority and claimed his money, he bought himself some guardians. Parents, I guess they were supposed to be. According to some relative of his, this was the first place he brought them. Trial run." He shoved the paper back into his pocket as though it were filth. "I'm surprised nobody noticed."
I had nothing to say. And Harrington didn't stop me when I left.
My people.
He had deliberately exposed the false identification on his arm and had never once looked me straight in the eye. It was all there, but who would have thought to look for it? He had been challenging me and everyone else, using the simulacra to strike back at the world. Maybe he wanted to be exposed; maybe he was looking for someone as real as I to stop the charade and give him a flesh-and-blood hand to shake. Maybe—but when I think of going back to a city filled with androids and angry people, I get afraid.
And worse … my own so-called liberal, humanitarian, live-and-let-live armor had been stripped away, and I don't like what I see. As much as I feel sorry for the boy, I hate him for what he's done to me.
That crowd of shadows could have easily held one more.
The End
© 1976 by Charles L. Grant. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1976.
God's Hooks!
Howard Waldrop
They were in the End of the World Tavern at the bottom of Great Auk Street.
The place was crowded, noisy. As patrons came in, they paused to kick their boots on the floor and shake the cinders from their rough clothes.
The air smelled of wood smoke, singed hair, heated and melted glass.
"Ho!" yelled a man at one of the noisiest tables to his companions, who were dressed more finely than the workmen around them. "Here's old Izaak now, come up from Staffordshire."
A man in his seventies, dressed in brown with a wide white collar, bagged pants, and cavalier boots, stood in the doorway. He took off his high-brimmed hat and shook it against his pants leg.
"Good evening, Charles, Percy, Mr. Marburton," he said, his grey eyes showing merry above his full white mustache and Vandyke beard.
"Father Izaak," said Charles Cotton, rising and embracing the older man. Cotton was wearing a new-style wig, whose curls and ringlets flowed onto his shoulders.
"Mr. Peale, if you please, sherry all around," yelled Cotton to the innkeeper. The older man seated himself.
"Sherry's dear," said the innkeeper, "though our enemy the King of France is sending two ships' consignments this fortnight. The Great Fire has worked wonders."
"What matters the price when there's good fellowship?" asked Cotton.
"Price is all," said Marburton, a melancholy round man.
"Well, Father Izaak," said Charles, turning to his friend, "how looks the house on Chancery Lane?"
"Praise to God, Charles, the fire burnt but the top floor. Enough remains to rebuild, if decent timbers can be found. Why, the lumbermen are selling green wood most expensive, and finding ready buyers."
"Their woodchoppers are working day and night in the north, since good King Charles gave them leave to cut his woods down," said Percy, and drained his glass.
"They'll not stop till all England's flat and level as Dutchman's land," said Marburton.
"If they're not careful they'll play hob with the rivers," said Cotton.
"And the streams," said Izaak.
"And the ponds," said Percy.
"Oh, the fish!" said Marburton.
All four sighed.
"Ah, but come!" said Izaak. "No joylessness here! I'm the only one to suffer from the Fire at this table. We'll have no long faces till April! Why, there's tench and dace to be had, and pickerel! What matters the salmon's in his Neptunian rookery? Who cares that trout burrow in the mud, and bite not from coat of soot and cinders? We've the roach and the gudgeon!"
"I suffered from the Fire," said Percy.
"What? Your house lies to east," said Izaak.
"My book was at bindery at the Office of Stationers. A neighbor brought me a scorched and singed bundle of title pages. They fell sixteen miles west o'town, like snow, I suppose."
Izaak winked at Cotton. "Well, Percy, that can be set aright soon as the Stationers reopen. What you need is something right good to eat." He waved to the barkeep, who nodded and went outside to the kitchen. "I was in early and prevailed on Mr. Peale to fix a supper to cheer the dourest disposition. What with shortages, it might not pass for kings, but we are not so high. Ah, here it comes!"
Mr. Peale returned with a huge round platter. High and thick, it smelled of fresh-baked dough, meat and savories. It looked like a cooked pond. In a line around the outside, halves of whole pilchards stuck out, looking up at them with wide eyes, as if they had been struggling to escape being cooked.
"Oh, Izaak!" said Percy, tears of joy springing to his eyes. "A star-gazey pie!"
Peale beamed with pleasure. "It may not be the best," he said, "but it's the End o' the World!" He put a finger alongside his nose, and laughed. He took great pleasure in puns.
The four men at the table fell to, elbows and pewter forks flying.
They sat back from the table, full. They said nothing for a few minutes, and stared out the great bow window of the tavern. The shop across the way blocked the view. They could not see the
ruins of London, which stretched, charred, black and still smoking, from the Tower to the Temple. Only the waterfront in that great length had been spared.
On the fourth day of that Great Fire, the King had given orders to blast with gunpowder all houses in the way of the flames. It had been done, creating the breaks that, with a dying wind, had brought it under control and saved the city.
"What the city has gone through this past year," said Percy. "It's lucky, Izaak, that you live down country, and have not suffered till now."
"They say the fire didn't touch the worst of the plague districts," said Marburton. "I would imagine that such large crowds milling and looking for shelter will cause another one this winter. Best we should all leave the city before we drop dead in our steps."
"Since the comet of December year before last, there's been nothing but talk of doom on everyone's lips," said Cotton.
"Apocalypse talk," said Percy.
"Like as not it's right," said Marburton.
They heard the clanging bell of a crier at the next cross street.
The tavern was filling in the late afternoon light. Carpenters, tradesmen covered with soot, a few soldiers all soiled came in.
"Why, the whole city seems full of chimneysweeps," said Percy.
The crier's clanging bell sounded, and he stopped before the window of the tavern.
"New edict from His Majesty Charles II to be posted concerning rebuilding of the city. New edict from Council of Aldermen on rents and leases, to be posted. An Act concerning movements of trade and shipping to new quays to become law. Assize Courts sessions to begin September 27, please God. Foreign nations to send all manner of aid to the City. Murder on New Ogden Street, felon apprehended in the act. Portent of Doom, monster fish seen in Bedford."
As one, the four men leapt from the table, causing a great stir, and ran outside to the crier.
"See to the bill, Charles," said Izaak, handing him some coins. "We'll meet at nine o' the clock at the Ironmongers' Company yard. I must go see to my tackle."
"If the man the crier sent us to spoke right, there'll be no other fish like it in England," said Percy.
"Or the world," said Marburton, whose spirits had lightened considerably.
"I imagine the length of the fish has doubled with each county the tale passed through," said Izaak.
"It'll take stout tackle," said Percy. "Me for my strongest salmon rod."
"I for my twelve-hair lines," said Marburton.
"And me," said Izaak, "to new and better angles."
The Ironmongers' Hall had escaped the fire with only the loss of its roof. There were a few workmen about, and the company secretary greeted Izaak cordially.
"Brother Walton," he said, "what brings you to town?" They gave each other the secret handshake and made The Sign.
"To look to my property on Chancery Lane, and the Row," he said. "But now, is there a fire in the forge downstairs?"
Below the Company Hall was a large workroom, where the more adventurous of the ironmongers experimented with new processes and materials.
"Certain there is," said the secretary. "We've been making new nails for the roof timbers."
"I'll need the forge for an hour or so. Send me down the small black case from my lockerbox, will you?"
"Oh, Brother Walton," asked the secretary. "Off again to some pellucid stream?"
"I doubt," said Walton, "but to fish, nonetheless."
Walton was in his shirt, sleeves rolled up, standing in the glow of the forge. A boy brought down the case from the upper floor, and now Izaak opened it and took out three long grey-black bars.
"Pump away, boy," he said to the young man near the bellows, "and there's a copper in it for you."
Walton lovingly placed the metal bars, roughened by pounding years before, into the coals. Soon they began to glow redly as the teenaged boy worked furiously on the bellows-sack. He and Walton were covered with sweat.
"Lovely color now," said the boy.
"To whom are you prenticed?" asked Walton.
"To the company, sir."
"Ah," said Walton. "Ever seen angles forged?"
"No, sir, mostly hinges and buckles, nails-like. Sir Abram Jones sometimes puddles his metal here. I have to work most furious when he's here. I sometimes don't like to see him coming."
Walton winked conspiratorially. "You're right, the metal reaches a likable ruddy hue. Do you know what this metal is?"
"Cold iron, wasn't it? Ore beaten out?"
"No iron like you've seen, or me much either. I've saved it for nineteen years. It came from the sky, and was given to me by a great scientific man at whose feet it nearly fell."
"No!" said the boy. "I heard tell of stones falling from the sky."
"I assure you he assured me it did. And now," said Izaak, gripping the smallest metal bar with great tongs and taking it to the anvil, "we shall tease out the fishhook that is hidden away inside."
Sparks and clanging filled the basement.
They were eight miles out of northern London before the air began to smell more of September than of Hell. Two wagons jounced along the road toward Bedford, one containing the four men, the other laden with tackle, baggage, and canvas.
"This is rough enough," said Cotton. "We could have sent for my coach!"
"And lost four hours," said Marburton. "These fellows were idle enough, and Izaak wanted an especially heavy cart for some reason. Izaak, you've been most mysterious. We saw neither your tackles nor your baits."
"Suffice to say, they are none too strong nor none too delicate for the work at hand."
Away from the town there was a touch of coming autumn in the air.
"We might find nothing there," said Marburton, whose spirits had sunk again. "Or some damnably small salmon."
"Why then," said Izaak, "we'll have Bedfordshire to our own, and all of September, and perhaps an inn where the smell of lavender is in the sheets and there are twenty printed ballads on the wall!"
"Hmmph!" said Marburton.
At noon of the next day, they stopped to water the horses and eat.
"I venture to try the trout in this stream," said Percy.
"Come, come," said Cotton. "Our goal is Bedford, and we seek Leviathan himself! Would you tempt sport by angling here?"
"But a brace of trouts would be fine now."
"Have some more cold mutton," said Marburton. He passed out bread and cheese and meat all round. The drivers tugged their forelocks to him and put away their rougher fare.
"How far to Bedford?" asked Cotton of the driver called Humphrey.
"Ten miles, sir, more or less. We should have come farther but what with the Plague, the roads haven't been worked in above a year."
"I'm bruised through and through," said Marburton.
Izaak was at the stream, relieving himself against a tree.
"Damn me!" said Percy. "Did anyone leave word where I was bound?"
Marburton laughed. "Izaak sent word to all our families. Always considerate."
"Well, he's become secretive enough. All those people following him a-angling since his book went back to the presses the third time. Ah, books!" Percy grew silent.
"What, still lamenting your loss?" asked Izaak, returning. What you need is singing, the air, sunshine. Are we not Brothers of the Angle, out a-fishing? Come, back into the charts! Charles, start us off on 'Tom o' the Town.' "
Cotton began to sing in a clear sweet voice the first stanza. One by one the others joined, their voices echoing under the bridge. The carts pulled back on the roads. The driver of the baggage cart sang with them. They went down the rutted Bedford road, September all about them, the long summer after the Plague over, their losses, heartaches all gone, all deep thoughts put away. The horses clopped time to their singing.
Bedford was a town surrounded by villages, where they were stared at when they went through. The town was divided neatly in two by the doubled-gated bridge over the River Ouse.
After the carts crossed t
he bridge, they alighted at the doorway of a place called the Topsy-Turvy Inn, whose sign above the door was a world-globe turned ass over teakettle.
The people who stood by the inn were all looking up the road where a small crowd had gathered around a man who was preaching from a stump.
"I think," said Cotton, as they pulled their baggage from the cart, "that we're in Dissenter country."
"Of that I'm sure," said Walton. "But once we Anglicans were on the outs and they'd say the same of us."
One of the drivers was listening to the man preach. So was Marburton.
The preacher was dressed in somber clothes. He stood on a stump at two cross streets. He was stout and had brown-red hair which glistened in the sun. His mustache was an unruly wild thing on his lip, but his beard was a neat red spike on his chin. He stood with his head uncovered, a great worn clasp Bible under his arm.
"London burned clean through," he was saying. "Forty-three parish churches razed. Plagues! Fires! Signs in the skies of the sure and certain return of Christ. The Earth swept clean by God's loving mercy. I ask you sinners to repent for the sake of your souls."
A man walking by on the other side of the street slowed, listened, stopped.
"Oh, this is Tuesday!" he yelled to the preacher. "Save your rantings for the Sabbath, you old jail-bird!"
A few people in the crowd laughed, but others shushed him.
"In my heart," said the man on the stump, "it is always the Sabbath as long as there are sinners among you."
"Ah, a fig to your damned sneaking disloyal Non-Conformist drivel!" said the heckler, holding his thumb up between his fingers.
"Wasn't I once as you are now?" asked the preacher. "Didn't I curse and swear, play at tip-cat, ring bells, cause commotion wherever I went? Didn't God's forgiving Grace …?"
A constable hurried up.
"Here, John," he said to the stout preacher. "There's to be no sermons, you know that!" He waved his staff of office. "And I charge you all under the Act of 13 Elizabeth 53 to go about your several businesses."
"Let him go on, Harry," yelled a woman. "He's got words for sinners."
Sci Fiction Classics Volume 4 Page 4