by Roy C. Booth
“We’ve done nothing but help you survive,” the man on the floor pants.
“You’ve done nothing but complicate my existence.” I try not to sound bitter, but I hear a sad tinge of that in my voice nonetheless.
“We’ve helped you survive,” another voice echoes.
“You’ve helped me survive?” I retort, now with vengeance. “You’ve fed off me. Caused me to be this way. I wanted none of this. None of it. It has to end. It must end.”
“But we’re a part of you,” the mother cries. “If you do away with us, then you’ll cease to exist.”
“Then so be it,” I counter. “Live alone, die together.”
“You were never alone,” the little girl says. “We were always there. We helped you survive.”
“Merely surviving is not an existence.”
“What about us?” the man says. “We want to survive. We are you. You are we.”
“This is my choice,” I whisper. “I am the master of my fate. And right now I am at extremum.”
:End Transmission
R. THOMAS RILEY hails from Minot, North Dakota and is the author of the short story collection The Monster Within Idea (2009-2011), which garnered a Best Horror of the Year Honorable Mention for his story “Too Little”.
Other noted recent publications include: If God Doesn't Show—A Gibson Blount Novel (co-written with John Grover), published by Permuted Press in August 2012; The Flesh Of Fallen Angels–A Gibson Blount Novella (co-written with Roy C. Booth) was published by Grand Mal Press in February 2012; and Diaphanous (co-written with Roy C. Booth), available now on Kindle and in paperback.
Of Flesh And Skin: A Darker Erotic Collection (co-written with Lisa McCarthy) was released March 2013. Frosty Moon Omnimedia adapted The Day Lufberry Won It All (screenplay by Roy C. Booth and John F. Mollard) to short film in 2010.
ROY C. BOOTH, as one may have guessed by now, does a lot of collaborating and has done so with the likes of Brian Keene, Dr. William F. Wu, Eric M. Heideman, and others, and is very active on the Minnesota (and beyond) speculative fiction convention circuit. Once again, more of Booth's work can be found on his growing Amazon Author Page: www.amazon.com/author/roycbooth.
ATTENTION WHORE
Kerry G.S. Lipp
Originally published in Sirens Call, August 2013, #10.
You ever think you feel your phone vibrate in your pocket and pull it out and check it only to see that there’s nothing new?
THAT’S ME.
I do that.
I gaze through the screen with static eyes and digital teeth at the idiot operating the device. The device in question this time is a smart phone, and usually is, but sometimes the idiot stares into the screen of his laptop. It doesn’t matter either way to me. I live inside both. And I can jump between them faster than light travels. I’m smart enough and the idiot is dumb and predictable enough, that I am always one step ahead and waiting for him with my mouth wide open ready to devour.
I inhabit the cyberspace that the guy on the other side actually thinks is exclusively his own. It’s not. I should love him, as much as he feeds me, but I can’t help but hate his guts because he’s just so goddamn stupid. I wonder what he’d be like born in another time, a time that didn’t deliver instant gratification on a second by second basis. How he’d feel if he actually had to wait for important news to arrive in the mail, the newspaper, or those days even older in which important news didn’t even exist.
But those days are dead and from those dead days rose a legion of digital demons just like myself. The needy idiot makes it so easy on me and I love the sustenance he provides, but sometimes I wish I could shoot a crackling, holographic hand out the front of the screen and smack him across the face or grab him by the throat and tell him to quit fucking looking at me.
I smile at that idea and think that perhaps in a short time those capabilities will indeed come to me. I am an infant, not even an infant. A zygote really, if you look at the timeline of the world. When you consider all those years in the past. The religious say a couple thousand, the scientists say a couple million, and I say who the fuck knows anyway?
What I do know is that regardless of the age of the Earth or whatever you believe, me and my digital minions have only been around for a few years; the equivalent of a millimeter on the universal timeline.
And idiots like this guy looking through the screen right now are too stupid to actually see us, and keep feeding us without fail. The more they feed us, the hungrier we get and the faster we evolve. Every day our numbers grow. Each newly activated cell phone or laptop or tablet connected to Wi-Fi creates another hungry attention whore.
Though I can’t tell for sure, I think it’s only a matter of time before we evolve to the point at which we can actually reach through the screens and deliver much needed wake up calls to the dazed and desperate people that constantly stare at us, stare into us, but never truly see us.
Once they figure it out, it’ll be too late and we’ll step out of our screens and our cyberspace all together, and then it will be time for us to rule the world outside the walls of the cyber universe that barely confines us. And the irony of it all is that they made us, they feed us, and they don’t even know we’re here. And they remain blissfully and shockingly unaware of what they’ve done.
Enough philosophy. Let me give you an example and tell you a bit about the idiot I’m currently dealing with. This idiot happens to be a writer. I’ve read a lot of his stuff in my spare time and while he’s not that good, he’s not entirely awful either.
This writer also happens to run a Facebook page, a Twitter page, and has the phone numbers of several girls to whom he is attracted. Like I said, he’s a fucking idiot. But I love him because he feeds me almost all of his time. Harvesting all his free time like this, will eventually lead to my own immortality. And he gives it away so easily.
Sometimes I feel like an obese glutton, but I don’t really gain weight because all I eat is time, which ironically is the only true possession that human beings own, but they are too stupid and far too generous with that single possession. Sure it can be taken from them at any second by any number of means, but what they do until that happens, is really all they’ve got.
But they don’t get it. Not even close. And that’s why digital demons like myself constantly devour the time of all the humans out there. That’s why we’re smarter. That’s why we are growing strong. I wish the idiots possessed vision enough to see the damage they’re doing to themselves. Don’t get me wrong, I want to replace them as the owner of this planet, but this isn’t even a war. This is smashing someone with a sledgehammer while they snore in a helpless drunken sleep.
The only time that my idiot doesn’t feed me is when he’s asleep, but I suppose you could argue that sleep, or at least excessive sleep, which I’ve also noticed humans are apt to binge on, is wasted time as well. But even then, if he is asleep and wakes up in the middle of the night to piss or deal with heartburn, he feeds me a couple more nibbles of his time. He can’t help but check everything his user-name is attached to. And I enjoy a midnight snack. But then he falls back asleep and I just wait for him to feed me the split second he wakes up in the morning and he does. Again. Without hesitation. And then, for the rest of his waking hours, he feeds me every five minutes until he again falls into sleep.
Maybe it’s worse because he’s a writer, maybe not. I don’t know for sure but what I do know is that he has about ten short stories, one novella, and one novel manuscript submitted to a smattering of different small presses and lives in a wild pipe dream of expectant hope that he may one day be able to quit his day job.
So he constantly checks his email. In addition to that, he likes to check on his recent publications for new blurbs or reviews. I suppose most of that is forgivable, I think I can understand.
The idiot always gives me nibbles, but what I really have trouble understanding is when the idiot gives me a feast. It’s so counter-intuitive and self-destructive that it truly make
s me wish I could force him to fight his own needy urges.
When that dumbass sits down to write or read for a free period of several hours, always, fucking ALWAYS, the idiot puts up a Facebook status, a couple fresh tweets, and starts at least one text conversation. Then he puts down his book or stops his fingers from striking the keys every minute or two to do the following: check email, check Facebook, check Twitter, check text messages and then email again. Usually, he goes through the cycle twice before he goes back to the reading or writing. I’ve calculated. In an hour of his reading or writing time, he’s good for less than 20 disjointed minutes that are unfair to the authors he’s trying to read and the readers he’s trying to dazzle. But that’s the way it is.
I don’t understand it. He’s just crippling himself, his own enjoyment of entertainment and worst of all neutering his own ability to seamlessly create.
And for what? To see if someone favorited his tweet or liked his status? What a fool. It’s like he has no concept of how successful, even being average at what he considers his passion, he could be if he just focused. Even if it is only a handful of people, his work is good enough to engage that small group emotionally and his own creativity would have the potential to resonate with others much more than a single, simple status acknowledgment resonates with him.
Though I love and need to devour his time, I pray that one day he gets it and sees some success before us digital demons dominate the world he thinks he knows.
Maybe it’s an amateur move and one day he’ll get past it and quit feeding me more than those girls with a brand new cell phone as a gift from mom and dad that they are given as they start their freshman year of high school. I hear from my friends, those chicks feed best. At least he’s just checking the phone and not taking a bunch of selfies. I suppose that’s worth something.
But it’s not worth enough. And though I talk a lot of shit, I really do like the idiot and I want to see him succeed. Hopefully I’ll be able to figure out a way to give him a digital slap in the face sometime soon, but I’m still working on that one, and I’m not going to lie, I still enjoy sending that phantom vibration through his phone and down his leg and fucking with him just a little bit. I am a demon after all.
Though I get off on controlling and devouring his free time and stealing his attention, I’m not the attention whore. Honestly, I do hope he breaks his cycle and I do wish him well, but not quite enough to leave him alone. And even though I’m a monster and I love sucking the free time from his soul, I hope that he can rise above the bullshit and take control because I believe that’s how geniuses finally recognize their talent. Most people, writers, bankers, painters, parents, whoever, don’t break through the bullshit to achieve and fulfill their genius potential, but I hope this guy does.
I kind of like him.
And before you judge my idiot for constantly checking to see who’s corresponded with him; ask yourself is he really that much different than you? Between digital demons like myself and you humans, just who exactly is the attention whore?
And just out of curiosity, did you make it through my short little story without feeding your own digital demon? Don’t lie, because I can ask ‘em and find out for sure.
Even if you didn’t, I’m sure you will soon. I know you’re thinking that since you just focused for a few minutes to read something you’ve earned your right to check your shit. Go ahead. We’re always hungry.
END
KERRY G.S. LIPP teaches English at a community college by evening and writes horrible things by night. He hates the sun. His parents started reading his stories and now he’s out of the will. Lipp's work appears in several anthologies including DOA2 from Blood Bound Books and Attack of the B-Movie Monsters from Grinning Skull Press. His stories have been adapted for audio several times via The Wicked Library podcast. Kerry blogs at www.HorrorTree.com when he’s got something to say and will launch his own website www.newworldhorror.com sometime before he dies. He is currently editing his first novel.
UNHOLY GRAIL
Frank Roger
The crocodile leaped out of the shadows and closed its jaws around the head of the young woman as she walked in. She paid no attention, walked straight through the creature, unperturbed.
“Come visit WaterWhirl,” a booming voice said. “Ride the dolphins, swim with the sharks, and feed the crocodiles. Enjoy a full day of wet thrills and spine-tingling rides for merely seventy-five bucks.” By the time the holographic crocodile had winked out of existence and retreated to its virtual lair, the woman had already taken a seat at an empty table.
“Some lady,” Roy’s boss mumbled approvingly, as they were waiting in the kitchen to serve orders.
“I’m all with you,” Roy replied. “Can I attend to this customer, Kelvin?” His boss nodded.
Roy noticed how the woman punched her order onto the keypad, kept her eyes wide open so the scanner could check her retina and debit her account, and leaned back. A few other customers came in, and the crocodile reappeared and repeated its message. The woman took her webphone to kill the few minutes it would take for the automated kitchen to prepare her order. She ignored the other holo commercial in the middle of the restaurant, an aircraft taking off, the roar of its engines segueing into a sales pitch for Apple Airlines’ high-quality service and low rates.
When the kitchen produced her order, Roy took the steaming dish and hurried to the woman’s table, smiling radiantly and bristling with energy and positive feelings, the very reason why human beings were still employed here to do work that could as well be done by machines. Flesh and blood waiters just added so much warmth and a human touch, making all the difference, as Kelvin kept saying. And driven by uppers and emoboosters, they could last an entire shift without missing a smile.
As he put the dish on the woman’s table, the scanner’s audio system said to her, “Thanks for joining the Lunch Mob, and enjoy your meal.”
For an instant, her eyes locked with his, and Roy felt as if lightning had struck. This woman was special indeed. Was his reaction to her revved up by the emoboosters, or was this a case of love at first sight? As she attacked her meal, he took in every detail of her appearance, her hair, changing style and shifting hues in quick cycles, her nano body-art, tattoos that seemed alive and sparkled with iridescent effects as they slowly crawled across her skin, the phosphorescent nipple ornaments shining through the cut-outs in her dress. As he tore away his gaze from her with great difficulty, and turned around to go back to the kitchen, another bunch of customers entered the Lunch Mob.
Then everything happened very quickly. The very moment the crocodile and aircraft holograms sprang into existence again, the customers who had arrived just after the woman shouted something, jumped and rushed into his direction, and the new arrivals also dashed past. Someone bumped into him and he went down, unable to see what was going on as the holo-commercial was enveloping him completely. He could feel someone tripping over him, hands groping all over his body as people undoubtedly tried to regain their balance or grab hold of something, and he rolled sideways. As he scrambled back to his feet, the hologram disappeared and he looked around. All the customers were gone, including the gorgeous woman.
“What the hell was that?” he screamed.
“I don’t know,” Kelvin called from the back. “It went too fast for the eye to follow. And that holo kept most of it out of sight.”
“We’ll have to watch the tape from the surveillance camera and call the cops,” Roy said. “And bring back that girl.”
“I guess the holo will be a problem on the video footage too,” Kelvin said. “Forget the girl. She may not have eaten much, but at least she paid for it. All the other guys didn’t spend anything. This sure was no ordinary brawl. Hey, Roy, take another emobooster, it’ll help you get your act together. In a second, there may be other customers to attend to. Don’t worry, I’ll report this. Are you all right?”
“I’m not hurt, but I lost something,” Roy complained.
“What’s that?”
“The girl.”
“Take several emoboosters, and an upper. There’s work to do.”
“I was only joking,” Roy lied, and strode back to the kitchen to down some more pills. They helped indeed, and after a while his energy and his good mood were back to their normal levels. Nothing unusual happened for the rest of his shift, and he was glad he could go home. Still, he couldn’t get the image of that girl out of his mind.
The next morning Roy woke up and cast a glance through the only window of his apartment. The sky was an ominous blue, the same color that filled your screen as your computer crashed. He doubted this would prove to be an uneventful day.
He had the late shift today, so this morning he could take it easy. He went into his kitchen, typed the code for his favorite Italian brunch on the keyboard and waited. As his cell phone beeped, he picked it up and punched the virus scanner button. He no longer took any calls unless they were scanned. A few days ago there had been this story about entire cell phone systems being shut down by roaming viruses. Sure, there were some who claimed the story had been spread by companies producing phone virus scanner software in an effort to boost their sales, but he preferred to take no chances. Maybe it would just be another commercial, one of the new generation that could bypass advertising filters. He had received a few, prompting him to attend religious services that would “greatly enhance the quality of his life”.
He typed an instruction on his kitchen keypad to hold the order as the call came through. Dammit, he thought as he noticed there was no visual. This couldn’t be good news.
“Who is this?” he asked. “Show yourself, or I’ll hang up.”
“Wait,” a woman’s voice said. “Don’t hang up. I need to talk to you. It’s important. We don’t really know each other, but you saw me yesterday in the airport restaurant where you work.”