by Jaym Gates
“I’m still sorry.” Charlie patted Fluffasaurus on the back, and said, “Let’s go, buddy.”
And so they left Philadelphia, their lockers lighter but their hearts heavier.
#
The eight of them that had survived the last battle with MouseCorp met the producers in a red-and-blue tent as the sun crept toward the coast. The producers were there, suits untouched by the dust, the winter rain, or anything, really. The tall one turned on a LCD Flatscreen. After a few seconds, the screen flashed to light, a BuncoNews bulletin filling the screen. A blandly handsome man with silvery hair and a square jaw smiled at the camera.
“Bunco, Inc. and MouseCorp have just completed a strategic merger, bringing an end to hostilities. In response, the controlling shareholders of CapeCo have asked to be bought out. As of 5:31 PST, the American Market Share Wars are over. The combined company is re-branding as America, Inc. On behalf of America, Inc., I would like to thank you all for your support. We look forward to working with our new colleagues on delivering the best in programming to each and every one of you. Thank you and good night.”
A golden-haired producer clicked the screen off and turned to the group.
“And now that the hostilities have ended, I’m terribly sorry to say that we will not be renewing your contracts.”
MouseCorp, with their hard-light projections, hadn’t pulled any of their shows. The Mouse and his friends would be fresh in viewer’s minds, still.
Charlie looked around at his friends, to Ms. Magpie and her razor-sharp wings, Rolly-Polly the Playful Pillbug, re-imagined as a rolling pillbox, the House Band — Johnny, Sonny, Funny, and Bunny, a rock-and-roll wetwork team, and in the back, Fluffasaurus, whose big eyes welled with tears. Charlie hadn’t known that Fluffasaurus could still cry.
We’re obsolete, Charlie thought.
A moment later, two squads of Bunco troops ran into the tent, weapons drawn. The tent was swallowed by gunfire, explosions, and screams. Charlie took a blow to the head and passed out.
#
Charlie had woken to the sound of Fluffasurus’ roar. His friend had tried to find the old gentleness, but the call came out so loud it shook his bones.
The soldiers were dead, along with the House Band and poor Mr. Scary. He heard Ms. Magpie caw a cough, and Charlie scrambled over to her, his head throbbing.
He lifted up her head, and Ms. Magpie clicked her chrome-plated beak.
“Charlie?” Her voice was weak.
“I’m here,” he said.
Ms. Magpie coughed again. Charlie’s fur was matted by the wire-blue blood. She won’t make it. “I want to go home, Charlie.”
“I promise. We’ll go home now. All of us.” She touched his snout with one wing. It was cold, but Charlie felt it like it was the soft feathers she’d been made with, the brilliant blue the same as her eyes.
She tried to say something else, but choked again, then stopped. She convulsed, then went limp in his arms.
We have to go home, leave this place forever.
But Charlie didn’t know how to get back.
#
Charlie and Fluffasaurus continued east. The powerful dinosaur was tired, his internal power plant running low. They moved slowly, but finally, one cold evening, Charlie saw the towers of the Manhattan skyline in the distance, covered by the sheen of an arcology dome.
Charlie didn’t want to go to Manhattan. America, Inc. owned the dome there. Instead, they went south through Staten Island. They passed several checkpoints without incident, even though Charlie could tell they were manned. He saw figures huddling behind cover, speaking in hushed tones. They were afraid of them, afraid of Charlie and Fluffasaurus.
Charlie didn’t want to scare anyone, ever again.
He took them through the checkpoints and across the broken skeleton of the Verrazano into Brooklyn. The few people they saw in the street quickly hid away, wary of corporate soldiers. They’d all been Bunco viewers, once upon a time, and their fear stung even worse.
As they crossed the bridge to Brooklyn, Charlie saw that the borough was in ruins. Most everyone had retreated inside the Manhattan arcology dome for protection during the war, and with the other boroughs destroyed, why would anyone go back?
Charlie looked with his robot eye, and saw small figures moving at the far side of the bridge. Charlie hopped off to see if someone would stop and talk to him.
“Hello?” he called, trying to catch the attention of one of the many small figures darting between the rubble. No one came out, so Charlie walked along with Fluffasaurus, making their way through broken neighborhoods until they reached a park.
“This place looks familiar, eh Fluffasaurus?” Charlie asked.
Fluffasaurus roared in agreement. It’s here, somewhere.
They walked through the park until Charlie found a tree he recognized, a tall, tall tree they could see from the end of the Paprika Place neighborhood.
A block out of the park, Charlie fell to his knees, weeping.
Above them were tall walls with a large sign posted.
Property of Bunco, Inc.
No Trespassing.
Fluffasaurus tromped up to a loading gate, locked up by chains and gates.
This is it. Charlie cut several chains with his knives, and then pulled one chain out to hook to Fluffasaurus. The dinosaur strained against the chains, roaring again with the effort. The metal groaned, then the chains started to come apart, links breaking. Charlie pulled out loose chains one at a time, and the two of them cleared off the gate, facing a door taller than Fluffasaurus and twice as wide.
“Are you ready?” Charlie asked, mostly for himself. Until they stepped inside, he didn’t know what it would be like. It could be in ruins, or it could be sparkly and new, somehow exactly the same as they left it. Until he saw what it had become, he could always keep it safe in his memory, still the Paprika Place he’d known and loved, where Messy’s perch stood in front of Bob and Danny’s apartment, where Mr. Scary lived in the basement, banging on the floor with his broom whenever they sang songs in the living room, Ms. Magpie and the House Band and everyone else.
Fluffasaurus roared as softly as he could, and Charlie looked up, freed from his thoughts. The dinosaur nudged at the gate, which creaked and swung open.
Ruins. Charlie sighed, and walked with heavy feet into his old home.
The brightly-painted walls and roofs had faded, stripped away by acid rain or maybe even a Bunco sweeper team. They could have flattened the neighborhood easily, but leaving it in ruins was worse.
The playground was burned, the jungle gym scrapped and swings bare. The little garden was overgrown with tall weeds and small trees.
Charlie shuffled through the neighborhood, pulled along by the need to know everything, to see every corner, to find out if even one thing was still the way it was supposed to be.
As he turned the corner onto the main street, Charlie saw movement. More small figures, little glimpses of eyes and hands and feet.
“Hello?” Charlie called again. Maybe someone made it back. Maybe they re-made the ones that died, had extra copies left behind. Maybe the wounded we thought were dead were just sent back. Charlie knew it was a fool’s hope, but he was here, and it couldn’t all be gone.
A girl looked out from a window. She had big eyes and wild black hair, curled and knotted about her head. She met Charlie’s eyes and then dropped out of view.
“We won’t hurt anyone!” Charlie called, more desperation in his voice than he’d meant. He choked back a sob. “We used to live here. My name is Charlie, and this is Fluffasaurus.”
A teenaged boy with a baseball bat emerged from behind a trash can, with a little girl, probably four years old, behind him.
“You aren’t Charlie. Charlie wasn’t no cyborg.”
“Wasn’t a Cyborg,” Charlie said, correcting the boy automatically. “Two nos don’t make it right,” he sang without thinking, dropping back into an old skit. The boy raised an eyebrow at him, but
from his left, Charlie heard a laugh.
Another girl, older. They came from everywhere, wild-looking children and teens in scraps of clothes, holding bats, sticks, clubs, with threadbare sacks on their backs.
“You came back,” said the girl who had laughed. The younger children shied away from Fluffasaurus, who was flicking his spiked tail back and forth, excited.
Charlie put a hand on Fluffasaurus’ side. “Calm down, old friend. We don’t want to hurt our new neighbors.”
Another soft roar.
“We traveled a very long way to get home. Do you mind if we sit down for a while?” Charlie asked, noticing they were surrounded. Maybe sitting isn’t the best idea.
The first little girl walked down the steps of the house that had been Mr. Scary’s, and offered Charlie half of a stale pastry. Charlie knelt and took the powdered treat from the girl and gave his best smile.
“Thank you.”
Charlie turned back to the crowd.
I’m home. And we’re not alone. A whole new generation. They’d need to learn, learn how to count, how to spell and read. Bunco won’t do anything for them, so he and Fluffasaurus would. They’d count like we did with Mr. Scary, and learn about sharing like with Ms. Magpie, and learn to sing like the House Band and not to be scared …
Charlie held the pastry up for all to see. “She was very nice to share. I know a song about sharing. Does anyone want to hear it?” Silence. Charlie looked back to the little girl, who blushed, hiding her face.
“Go ahead,” said the boy with the baseball bat.
Charlie smiled wide, and coughed, clearing his throat. How long had it been since he had sung to anyone but himself? His voice faltered at first, but he saw the sharing girl’s eyes light up, and his voice grew stronger. After the first verse, the boy with the baseball bat joined in with the enthusiastic tone-deafness of youth. By the last verse, Paprika Place was filled with song for the first time in who knew how long.
Charlie kept singing, his voice growing strong. Fluffasaurus sang along, his roar as soft as it had ever been.
When you care,
and when you share,
you’ll find that there is lots to spare.
Chosen
Anton Strout
October 31, 20xx. Raspail Estate. Western Massachusetts, commonly referred to as ‘The Berkshires’
Upon cursory research of the estate in question, please note that the most local historians refer to the old mansion as being in a terrible state of decay. A fitting end for the home of a renowned but long dead cultist and his equally long dead followers. The main house — which I have yet to see in my approach — is situated further back from the road by at least a quarter mile and the now-broken paving stones beneath my feet are in disrepair and overgrown with wild grass. My classic Bentley Saloon was only able to make it a certain distance up the drive itself until I found the way no longer passable by vehicle.
As much as I hate leaving the safety and comfort of my automobile, I fear I must stow my journal away and proceed towards the mansion on foot, my forward journey powered only by my nerves and the light of my trusty Mag-lite. I remain hopeful my research will yield a trove of valuable arcane information that my colleagues and I can add to our collection at Messianic University. By wits and wisdom alone, I continue on.
Something stirred to the left of the path, and I clicked off the light, shrouding myself in the shadows of the night. The trees loomed over the path, blocking all sight of the star-filled sky I knew sparkled above. I stood stock still as my eyes adjusted. Slowly, I closed the journal I held and slid it into the satchel at my side.
“Nice and easy,” a gravelly man’s voice growled out from somewhere in front of me. “You want to keep those hands where I can see them.”
I did as the man instructed, not daring to move. A hulking shadow prowled into sight, the smell of gun oil thick in the air as it approached, arms raised.
I waved the unlit flashlight in my hand gently back and forth. “Might I shed a little light on the situation?” I asked.
An affirmative grunt came from the man, and I flicked the switch, illuminating him. The man — in his forties, at a guess — looked the picture of what I had heard Americans call a ‘doomsday prepper,’ from his long, camouflage duster to the shotgun pointed at my chest to the flag bandana he wore on top of his head. He gave another grunt, this time of pained dissatisfaction.
“You couldn’t have waited half a second?” he said, as he reached up with one hand and yanked a pair of night vision goggles from his eyes. Even half blinded, his other hand stayed steady, holding the twin barrels of his shotgun steady at my chest.
Distracting as that was, I took the time to look my foe over. His face was hard and chiseled, a black horseshoe of a mustache and matching sideburns filling him full of menace. A small arsenal of muzzles poked up over his shoulder where several other weapons lay strapped to his back.
“I know you,” I said. “Well, of you, anyway.”
His eyes fixed on me and he took his gun up in both hands, lifting it until it sat inches from my face.
“Yeah, well, I don’t know you, stranger,” he said, peeking out from behind his shotgun, screwing his face up. “You talk funny.”
“The same could be said about you, with your drawl and aggressive manner,” I said. “As for me, I talk ‘funny’ as you say because I’m English. Born and raised, although I haven’t been back to Mother England in ages.” I held out my hand. “Professor Edgar Starkwood. Occult Studies. Messianic University. Tenured.”
The man’s eyes narrowed with recognition. He lowered the shotgun, but not completely. “Raven Starkwood?”
I nodded with a tight-lipped smile. It was always pleasant when one’s nickname preceded him, especially when it got someone to lower the gun pointed at him, if only a little.
“One and the same, yes,” I said. “And by moustache alone, I can assume you are Harlan Embry, the self-proclaimed ‘Soldier of MisFortune.’”
The man’s face lit up with a grin and he lowered the shotgun completely. “Shit, old man, ain’t this a small world?” he said, taking my hand in his. “I should have known by the bow tie … was wondering when we’d cross paths.”
I shook his hand, wincing from the vicelike grip and vigor with which he pumped my arm. When he let go, I reached up and adjusted my aforementioned tie. “I admire your work,” I said, with the utmost sincerity. “Your take down of those sewer dwelling monstrosities in Manhattan is legendary.”
“I hate city folk,” he said, his drawl sounding more and more as if it were straight out of one of those Lynyrd Skynyrd songs popular among so many Americans, “but I hate things that tear people to shreds and feast on their blood even more.” He nodded his head up the drive leading to the Raspail Estate. “You here about the cultist thing?”
I nodded.
Harlan Embry looked me up and down with disapproval on his face, shaking his head.
“Hate to break it to you, Jeeves, but this kill’s mine,” he said. He patted the long barrel of the shotgun. “Me and the Thunderbitch’s, anyway. What are you packing, Professor?”
I reached into my satchel and drew the sacrificial dagger from within, the feel of the carved runes of its handle comforting in my hand. I held it up for him to examine.
“Jesus Christ on the cross.” He laughed with such force that it echoed up and down the drive. “Leave it to a Brit to bring a knife to a gun fight.”
My face reddened, and I could not hold my tongue. “You’re a fool if you think something as mundane as gunfire can take on what lurks on these grounds,” I said. “And as far as this being your kill, I have studied countless dark and arcane tomes at Messianic for over a decade in preparation. The prophecies written within have told of this day and my role in it as savior. The stars have aligned. It would do you well to stay out of my way and try not to die. Is that understood?”
The grin remained on his face as he raised both hands, but there was a nervous
ness behind it.
“Easy there, Raven,” he said, then turned up the path and settled the gun upside down over his shoulder. “I guess we’ll see what we see.”
Harlan Embry walked off and I fell in silent step behind him. Let that Southern fool storm into danger first. Let his folly and American bravado be his undoing. Studious research and caution would surely win the night.
Harlan journeyed forward with the utter silence of a professional sportsman, stepping on not even a twig as we worked our way along for another half mile up the drive before we were met with a large open clearing with the shadowy shape of the Raspail mansion at the center of it.
As we converged on the building, the surrounding darkness fell back, giving us our first true glimpse of the manor proper. What had once been a quite pleasant country home was now a mere shadow of its former glory. Vicious looking ivy ran up the outer walls in a furious tangle, shattered glass glinting in its leaves from the smashed windows it had left in its wake. Had this manor been a living creature, I might have thought it was intentionally trying to appear as uninviting as possible.
It was at that precise moment that the wind picked up. Branches rattled like bones as the last of their changing foliage swirled around the yard. The sound so much resembled a host of chattering, whispering voices that it caused me to pause as my foot reached the first step up to the manor.
I looked to Harlan to confirm whether the sounds were a trick of the night, but the expression on his face gave no comfort.
Harlan kept his gun raised, circling around as he checked the perimeter of the clearing. “You understand this shit we’re hearing, Jeeves?”
I nodded, fighting to make out the words. “Some,” I said. “It is a dark and ancient tongue, a litany of forbidden words; words I have only seen in books, ones I have never heard spoken out loud before.”