by Judith Field
STUPEFYING STORIES 1.12
March 2014
Editor: Bruce Bethke
Dotar Sojat: Henry Vogel
Technical Director: M. David Blake
Missing, Presumed Fed: Kersley Fitzgerald, David Yener Goodman
Cover, March 2014: "PHOOEY!" by Bruce Bethke
Published by: Rampant Loon Press, Lake Elmo, Minnesota
Special Thanks to: The Fearless Slush Pile Reader Corps. Erin, Guy, Barbara, Allan, Frances, Jason, Karen, Ryan, Arisia, Tyler, Ricky, Paul, Mike, David, and Alicia: we couldn't have done it without you. Thanks!
Copyright © 2014 Rampant Loon Media LLC
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March 2014: Vol. 1, No. 12
ISBN: 978-1-938834-14-1
STUPEFYING STORIES is a production of RAMPANT LOON PRESS, and is published in the United States of America by Rampant Loon Press, an imprint of Rampant Loon Media LLC, P.O. Box 111, Lake Elmo, Minnesota 55042.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright and Trademark Notices
Contents
From the Editor’s Desk
ANACHRONIC ORDER
by Christopher Lee Kneram
DRIED SKINS UNSHED
by Julie Day
A NUN'S TALE
by Pete McArdle
THEY FOLLOWED ME
by Carol Holland March
INTERREGNUM
by John J. Brady
FULL FATHOM FIVE
by Judith Field
BONE MOTHER
by Torah Cottrill
ALEPH
by Brandon Nolta
ALIEN TREATIES
by Randal Doering
About STUPEFYING STORIES...
From the Editor’s Desk
By Bruce Bethke
In the ancient Norse myths it’s called Fimbulvetr: the Mighty Winter, the winter that never ends, the winter at the end of the world. Now I’m not saying anyone needs to keep an eye out for Fenrisúlfr, learn how to pronounce Vafþrúðnir, or otherwise begin to prepare for Ragnarök, but in more than 40 years of living up here in the Great White North this is the longest, coldest, and most consistently miserable winter I can remember. As I write this, it is twenty degrees below zero outside.
Therefore, in celebration—no, in defiance of The Winter That Would Not End, STUPEFYING STORIES returns to regular production with nine wonderful winter’s tales. From a story of slightly mad science and a man who will stop at nothing to get fresh blueberries in December, to the tales of things that wash up on winter beaches that the summer vacation people never see, to a very different take on a very different Russian revolution, to a steel mill in the depths of the Great Depression, to a sleeping bag on a sidewalk in New York City, here are nine tales celebrating the idea that no matter how tough winter can be, we are tougher.
Hey, Old Man Winter? In your face!
Keep warm,
Bruce Bethke
Editor, Stupefying Stories
ANACHRONIC ORDER
By Christopher Lee Kneram
CHELLAH, MOROCCO. MARCH 1ST, 1897
The sun, thought John Katy, had forgotten its manners. Here in the Sala Colonia, in the necropolis, it was meant to be dark and gloomy. It was a haunted place, a place of death, a place forsaken by God and man, and ruined by time. It was not a place for bright, bold skies and a summery breeze that brought with it the cool, salty scent of the sea. But never mind—the thief had passed this way.
Chellah had been an educated guess, a calculated risk, and Katy was pleased to see it pay off. Over the past two months he had become a fixture at the Arabic Library in Málaga, as he delved ever deeper into his search. The thief could not have stopped after having burgled Katy, for that which was stolen was only one part of the whole. The thief would have to hunt down the others. And Katy would have to hunt down the thief.
The Arabic Library was enormous. Its ancient texts covered every topic under the sun, and then some. Katy found what he was looking for in a Middle German text on beekeeping, which mentioned off-hand that Abu Al-Hasan, the Black Sultan of Morocco, had been buried with the Hafsid Scepter. In Chellah.
The Scepter had many qualities, rumored and real, mundane and magical, normal and apparently apicultural. What those qualities were exactly was of no importance to Katy. What mattered was that it was a part of the whole that the thief sought, and that it was here. Or at least it had been here.
The ancient Roman roads through Morocco ended at the gates of Sala Colonia. As he approached the hill, he saw it in the mud—a distinctive print, like a soldier’s boot, but smaller, and missing a nail near the big toe. The same pattern as the one outside his home. The wind picked up and shook the trees, releasing a dozen birds into the sky. It carried the warm, hearthy aroma of pipe smoke, which he had also noted at the scene of his break-in, but mixed with something else—something heavy and acidic.
Katy wiped the sweat from his brow, tightened the straps on his pack, and headed into the heart of the necropolis. The city was of Roman design but local build, which added a classic feel to the earthy, squat architecture. He followed the foot prints under an intricately-carved stone arch which led straight into a stone wall. The heat here was more intense than ever. He put his hand to the wall, his ring clinking against it as he did so.
The ring. It was back. He withdrew a small notebook from his breast pocket, noted the time on his pocketwatch, and marked it down. Taking the opportunity for a break, he drank from his canteen and munched on a fresh tomato from his pack. Moments later, the ring vanished. He chucked away the remains of the tomato, wiped his hands, checked the time, noted it, and put the notebook back. Unperturbed, Katy moved on.
The streets here in the middle of the city were dustier, and the prints were no longer visible. As Katy climbed over a small wall and turned a corner he began to recognize the smell of black powder. He heaved himself up and over another wall, towards the tower that loomed over Sala Colonia, and saw that a large mausoleum there had been blown open. The plaza before it was strewn with stone blocks, and a sulfurous choking cloud of black smoke still hung in the air.
Katy made his way through the rubble and into the mausoleum itself, where the atmosphere was more befitting of a necropolis. It was dark and it was cold; it smelled of sulfur and decay, of death. A tomb was crudely broken open; its occupant, peeking through a tattered and eroded shroud, was little more than skull and bones. The jaw hung open in an eternal expression of shock, for its fingers were broken, and its treasure, the Hafsid Scepter, was ripped from them forever.
The thief had come, and the thief had gone.
UNDERHILL, VERMONT. SEPTEMBER 29TH, 1895
Katy was sure the neighbors thought he was crazy. Every week or two another shipment arri
ved, bringing strange and mysterious bits of technology from far away places like New York, Stuttgart, and London, and all here, to a run-down barn in a run-down village. He cared little for what the neighbors thought, but still invited several of them over for dinner once a month to show that he wasn’t some kind of maniac. This was the country, he reminded himself, and people found themselves run out of places like Underhill if folk thought they were up to no good.
The device came about thanks to one of those dinners. The meal had been topped off with pêche Melba, a fashionable new dessert made of vanilla ice cream, spun sugar, and the last of Katy’s peaches for the year. While the natives talked about some nonsense or other, Katy demolished his peaches with gusto, only to find himself deeply saddened at their loss. It was nearly October, and there would be no more peaches until at least July. What a shame.
At that moment somewhere in the depths of his mind a non-sequitur of ideas coalesced, made connections and caused a whole and completely-formed concept to appear. Without a word Katy sprang up and dashed away, leaving behind him a knocked-over chair, a table full of confused guests, and a very empty bowl.
LUGANO, SWITZERLAND. JULY 14TH, 1898
The Cathedral of San Lorenzo should have been quite beautiful, all white stone and marble, but Katy was sick of looking at it. He had been renting a room across the street for three months, and spent day after day sitting at the window, watching and growing used to whatever that smell was that lingered in the room.
The landlady hadn’t even wanted to let him rent it. “Are you sure?” she said. She was a hunched little woman, full of noises—mostly sighs, creaks, and pops.
“Yes,” Katy told her, “I have money to be watching cakes all night, yes.” His Italian wasn’t great. Nonetheless, she showed him the room. It was a tiny space. The plaster had mostly peeled away from the walls and the ceiling leaked, even when it wasn’t raining, which left the floor perpetually damp. But it had a window facing the cathedral, and besides, it was cheap. After two years of chasing the thief, Katy’s fortune was starting to dry up.
“I’ll take it,” he told her. The landlady, Mrs. Martelli, brought him a bottle of wine and a crust of bread each day, at his request. He settled into his chair by the window, took a great bite of bread, and pondered how he had gotten there.
There was no further trace of the thief in Chellah, although Katy must have just missed him. He spent the next year chasing down false leads all over the world before finding a clue. A contact of his in Edinburgh wired a message saying that someone had broken into the High Kirk there and had ransacked the library. The thief had rifled through a number of Islamic texts which had been taken during the Crusades, but did not actually steal any.
The Hafsid Scepter, Katy thought, must not be working without its manual.
And so Katy spent half his family’s fortune finding the book that the thief targeted. Eventually he tracked it down to Switzerland, where it was said to be hidden somewhere in the depths of San Lorenzo Cathedral. Its exact location was unknown to Katy, and the priests, while kind, were unwilling to let him look for it. He kept vigil over the church, waiting for the thief to show.
Katy lifted the bottle of wine to drink from it, only to find it empty. They were going so much quicker than they used to. He tossed it aside and dug through the old bureau by the mattress where he slept. He soon found another bottle, dingy and half-empty, and drank deeply from it. Just the thing he needed on a night like this. A night like every night.
The ring appeared on his finger. He toyed with it absently. After a moment, it disappeared again.
Night fell, the moon rose, the cathedral emptied. A lone figure, a small figure, approached. Katy perked up. Over the past couple of months he had followed and confronted quite a few innocent people, but this was different. This person, a young woman, as it turned out, moved like no other. She had command. She moved with purpose, but she did so silently, artfully. She didn’t so much walk down the street as she did slip between molecules of air. Without even the tiniest of pauses the woman sprang up a tree and slid through one of the cathedral’s windows.
Katy rose, wobbled as the world shifted, and bolted out the door and down the stairs. Outside, the moon shone brightly off the lake and cast an eerie light over the street. Katy swung open the great wooden doors of the cathedral and ran inside, then stopped to listen. Hearing nothing over the deep panting of his breathing he bent over, hands on knees, and tried to catch his breath.
Moonlight streamed through the clerestory windows high above, striping the floors light and dark. Katy held his breath and listened intently. Hearing nothing, he proceeded down the nave, towards the center of the area. This was the crossing, where the main body of the church met the two arms, the transepts. Katy squinted into the darkness. At the far end of the north transept, past the pillars and arches of the aisles, the door to the chapter house was ajar. He crept along, sticking to the shadows. He was moving slowly, leery of making a sound, when a loud crack echoed through the dark. Abandoning his cover, he raced towards the open door.
The chapter house was a circular room at the end of the transept, ringed with stone steps and decorated every bit as ornately as the rest of the cathedral. From where he was standing, Katy could see the traces of a pair of boots, missing a nail in the right toe. They led straight to an ornate cabinet, doors shattered into splinters, a mess of books heaped about inside. From there, the footprints went straight out the other door of the chapter house and onto the street.
Outside, Katy once again noticed the familiar scent of the pipe smoke. A small mark on the side of the door frame caught his attention. Looking down, he found a match, mostly burned, still hot. He was just running out after the thief when an arm reached out and grabbed him.
“Signor Katy.” It was Father Zanelli, the caretaker. “Again, we find you sneaking in at night. And look at this destruction. We are concerned for you. For your health. For your mind.” He patted Katy on the head. “You have been drinking.”
“But...” What was the Italian word for thief? “Going the... windy... uh, fish shower.” He pointed out the door. Two other priests approached and dragged him away. “Fish shower! Windy fish!”
After six months of sweeping the church and doing odd jobs in order to pay for repairs, Katy was finally released, his mind consumed by a single thought:
Trovare la ladra.
Find the thief.
UNDERHILL, VERMONT. DECEMBER, 1895
The device was not an immediate success. For ten weeks he worked on it to the exclusion of all else. John Katy ate little, he slept little, he got little in the way of fresh air or sunlight. At any hour of the day or night the old barn he worked in would emit steam, or crackle with electricity, or create booming sounds so loud they could be heard all the way in Plattsburg. Most unusually, on what had been a particularly cold night in November a summer lightning storm suddenly struck, drenching the town with warm rain and wind. The next morning, Katy’s neighbors found lightning bugs, bats, and summer flowers dead in the frost. Things were starting to become worrisome.
So the device worked, but not perfectly. It was a cylinder, brass, eighteen inches long, about four in diameter. Gauges, dials, readouts, all unlabeled, littered the surface. There were release valves, and two switches, one on each side.
The first tests were promising and troubling at the same time. The first time Katy switched on the device it was with the intention of sending his ring thirty minutes into the future. The process was tedious. Katy checked his watch at five minute intervals, making annotations on a pad of paper as he did so. He did a number of calculations and made more notes using first an astrolabe, then a barometer. Finally, he adjusted the dials on the device, set his ring on the table, pointed the device at it, and flipped one of the switches. The ring winked out of existence.
At the same time, several hundred miles west of Tasmania, on the other side of the planet, a rift opened. Unknowable, unfathomable dimensions peeked in on the s
unny, calm sea.
The ring did not appear again for seven months, and even then it only stayed for 45 seconds. After that, Katy guessed that the ring was skipping through time, appearing every six to eight months for three-quarters of a minute at a time, and as such probably wouldn’t settle down and stay put for over twenty-three years. From the ring’s point of view, this would only take a half an hour. For now, he made some adjustments to the device.
The thief struck a week before Christmas. By that time, Katy had already used the device successfully several times, and, in an attempt to make some sort of peace with the people of Underhill, he had invited several of his neighbors over for brunch.
First, there were the tomatoes. Vine-ripened, scarlet-red, swollen to near bursting. Rotund, juicy, summer-flavored beauties, stuffed full of freshly-caught Maryland soft-shell crab, tossed with mayonnaise, with celery, green and crisp, and with a splash of just-squeezed lemon juice. Each ingredient was at its peak of flavor, and all together they sang a symphony of scrumptiousness, of tastes both unimagined and unexplored, of deliciousness, pure and simple.
On a not-unrelated note, a second, larger rift in the fragile fabric that is reality had recently opened a few miles north of Underhill, sending a whole village into the unknown, never to be seen again.