Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest #9

by Apex Authors

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  Apex Publications, LLC

  Copyright ©2007 by Apex Authors

  First published in 2007, 2007

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  What Say You?

  Editorial by Jason B. Sizemore

  After publishing nine issues of Apex Digest, I still struggle with the question “What type of fiction do you publish?"

  I think I finally have an answer.

  Our fiction can be broken out into three categories. First is the application of technology to create horrific or terrifying visions. Indeed, I would count seven of our stories this month fitting that description. Then there's the unknown creating havoc. A simplified example would be an alien invasion. The third is the expansion of the human element, be it powers of the mind or of the body. You could argue this is more magical and should be defined as fantasy, but we're not going to pass on a fantastic story due to semantics.

  Now, sit back, and allow us to use the future to frighten you...

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  Jason Sizemore: Editor in Chief

  Gill Ainsworth: Senior Editor

  Deb Taber: Editor/Art Director

  Alethea Kontis: Editor

  Mari Adkins: Submissions Editor

  Jodi Lee: Submissions Editor

  Justin Stewart: Content Designer

  E.D. Trimm: Copy Editor

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  Subscription Rates: $20 for one year (four issues), or $6 for a single issue. International is $34 for a subscription and $11.00 for a single issue. Subscriptions and single issues may be obtained from Jason Sizemore c/o Apex Digest.

  Apex Science Fiction & Horror Digest is a publication of Apex Publications, LLC and is distributed four times a year from Lexington, Kentucky.

  Copyright © 2007 all rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reprinted in whole or in part without written permission.

  ISSN: 1553-7269

  Apex Science Fiction & Horror Digest PO Box 2223, Lexington, KY 40588-2223

  Email: Jason@apexdigest.com Website: www.apexdigest.com

  Kevin J. Anderson has more than twenty million books in print in 30 languages, including Dune novels written with Brian Herbert, Star Wars and X-Files novels, and a collaboration with Dean Koontz. He just finished the sixth book in his epic space opera, “The Saga of Seven Suns."

  Visit Kevin J. Anderson at the websites: www.wordfire.com and www.dunenovels.com

  THE SUM OF HIS PARTS

  By Kevin J. Anderson

  Lightning turns the castle tower into a silver silhouette. Energy collects in metal rods, floods into a crackling apparatus. Sparks fly from wires connected to a bandaged figure composed of cadaverous tissue assembled with thick sutures.

  The doctor studies his creation, the mismatched parts, the thick sutures.

  Spiderwebs of electricity flow like white-hot blood into the patchwork body, awakening the components like embers under an insistent puff of breath. The reattached hands twitch, the fingers flex. Transplanted lungs expel fetid air, unleashing a flood of memories.

  * * * *

  He drew a deep breath of the open air. The snow-capped Alps framed the fragrant meadows where his sheep roamed. He preferred to be alone in the mountain vales, away from his brother Stefan and his flock; he didn't like the sound of talking. In fact, he didn't like sounds at all.

  The wind spoke to him with breezes that whispered in his ears and taunted him like the hot breath of a wolf. The waving grasses hissed and rustled.

  One afternoon during a thunderstorm, he huddled next to a rock, wrapping his hands around his ears, but the thunder made his head ring. The wind was all around, plucking at his clothes; gasping, wheezing, shrieking. He abandoned his flock, ran to his hut, and slammed the rickety door. The wind moaned through the cracks, slipping inside to get him. Plugging his ears with beeswax only amplified the sounds of his own breathing, the blood pounding inside his head. There was no escape...

  When it was time for the two brothers to join their flocks and take them to market in Ingolstadt, he and Stefan climbed a pass that separated their grazing fields from the valley. His brother was lonely, loquacious, and pestered him with constant conversation, to which he received no reply. As the two hiked up the steep slope, Stefan began panting, louder and louder, breathing so heavily that he could not even keep up his inane patter.

  The shepherd squeezed his eyes shut, but couldn't block out the sound of the awful, heaving breaths. Each loud inhalation and exhalation was like the thunder, until he could stand it no more.

  He spun and wrapped his hands around Stefan's throat. His brother struggled frantically while he squeezed, but the shepherd focused only on stopping the noise, smothering it. When he let his brother's limp body tumble down the steep path, the world was peaceful for a time. A few moments of blessed silence. Then the wind picked up again.

  He fled toward the valley. When the shepherd reached Ingolstadt and left his sheep in the market pen, he passed an old woman sitting in front of her candle shop. She coughed incessantly, hacking, wheezing; she spat a mouthful of phlegm into the gutter and started coughing again. The sound was like hammers pounding on his nerves. The old woman breathed and coughed and wheezed and coughed and breathed—until he knew he had to silence her as well.

  She stood on creaking legs and tottered into the dimness of her shop, still coughing and coughing. Without hesitation, the shepherd stalked after her. She turned, no doubt thinking him a customer. Before she could speak, before she could cough again, he wrapped his callused hands around her thin throat. His muscles were strong, and he clamped down harder and harder until her struggles stopped, and the silence came back.

  When he reeled outside again, the streets of Ingolstadt were a storm of people, a constant din, far too much noise. He had to escape back to the high mountain meadows, but before he could run from the square, a town crier began to bellow at the top of his lungs, announcing a tax that old Baron Frankenstein had imposed. The crier's words broke through the air like cannon shot.

  The shepherd wanted to scream for silence. He needed the crier's mouth to stop opening and closing, to stop spewing words. Unable to control himself, the shepherd threw himself upon the man, shutting off the breath and the voice. It took four grown men from the astonished crowd to pull him away. The crier squawked and gasped, but his throat was so damaged he could no longer speak.

  After the strangler was dragged before the magistrate, he was convicted of killing the old candle-shop woman and his brother Stefan, whose raven-pecked body had been found by another shepherd. In addition, several children around Ingolstadt had disappeared over the years, and (since he was in custody) he was accused of killing them as well, though he denied that. He did not, however, deny the rest.

  While the shepherd sat in his cell, the mocking wind stole through chinks in the wall and laughed at him. One blustery night, he watched the Baron's son, Victor Frankenstein, come to talk to the jowly jailer. From where he huddled sullenly in his cell, he could overhear the conversation. Victor had an edginess and a calculating intelligence. “I am here on behalf of several medical students from the University. We are woefully short of cadavers for dissection."

  When the jailer's breathing quickened, it set the strangler's teeth on edge. Victor looked at the pot-bellied and
splotchy-skinned jailer; distaste was clear on his face, as if he dismissed him as a potential specimen. “If we are to become physicians, we must have material with which to practice.” He indicated the miserable prisoner. “This madman is penniless and without family. He will be hanged tomorrow. I would like to purchase his body afterward. At present, I have a particular need for a pair of hands and a set of lungs."

  The jailer pretended to be offended. “That's highly illegal, sir!"

  "But quite commonly done—as you well know.” Victor pulled out a pouch of gold coins. “Perhaps this will salve your conscience?"

  The jailer looked at the coins, looked at the Baron's son, then sneered at the strangler in his cell. “Done.” Victor's breathing was calm with satisfaction. Outside, the wind scraped past the walls. It never stopped...

  The following day, when the shepherd was brought to the gibbet in the town square, he heard the mob shouting, breathing.

  As the rough noose tightened around his neck, the strangler realized that the loudest sound that had haunted him all his life came from air passing through his own throat from his own lungs. Every waking moment he had been forced to listen to each breath whistling in and out of his mouth and nose. Finally, that noise would cease too!

  When the hangman hauled on the rope, lifting him into the air to dangle under the gibbet's crossbar, the noose squeezed off the sounds he made. All of them. The straining pulse grew to a roar in his head—and then he fell into blessed, total silence...

  Until now.

  * * * *

  Storm electricity floods the muscle tissue. The bandaged legs twitch, as if remembering how to run.

  "Just nerve impulses,” Victor says, checking his apparatus. The legs spasm again, trying to break free and bolt from this hellish place...

  * * * *

  He loved to run. As a servant in Castle Frankenstein, he preferred being sent to town to perform errands for the old Baron. He was fleet as a deer, and his muscles sang with the satisfying ache of tired legs after a long and glorious run.

  His main duties were to tend Baron Frankenstein's menagerie of exotic animals on the castle grounds: peacocks, a wildebeest, an aardvark, a spotted ocelot, even a lemur. The Baron's noble friends marveled at the private zoo, while his son Victor studied the creatures with a scientist's eye. The Baron also indulged the boys and girls from Ingolstadt who crept onto the estate to look at the animals.

  The runner was a happy-go-lucky man with many flirtations, and the young women did not mind his attentions, especially the innkeeper's plump daughter. The old Baron paid his servants well enough, but coins did not stay long in the servant's purse. He cheerfully bought food, wine, and friendship for his companions, though the generosity usually went only one way.

  The innkeeper's daughter chided him for his spendthrift ways, especially in the evils of gambling, but he simply laughed her off, then pinched her substantial bottom. He frequented the dicing tables, invoking the name of his master to gain special privileges or to increase his line of credit.

  Unfortunately, his luck was never good, even in the best of times. Finding himself out of money and in debt, he assumed that his fellow gamers (who had been happy to accept his coin when he bought food or bottles of wine) would be sympathetic to his plight. But his supposed friends vanished like smoke, and the gambling-house proprietors demanded repayment.

  Twice in the past four months, the old Baron had lectured him to be careful. “Because you work for the House of Frankenstein, you have a responsibility not to cause shame and scandal.” So the servant knew he could never ask his master for a loan. Baron Frankenstein was a hard man, not unjust, but not softhearted either.

  Owing so much money, the runner didn't know what he could do. Collectors had cornered him in an alley, describing in great detail what they would do; first they would tie a gag around his mouth to stifle his screams, then they would beat his boots with iron clubs until his ankles shattered. Afterward, they would slowly pull off his boots, drawing out the pain. Once his broken feet were bare, they would take a set of curved tongs stolen from the local blacksmith, and twist his toes one by one, bending them backward and up until the bones snapped. He would never run again.

  He could not allow that to happen. He couldn't! Therefore, when the old Baron went off to be alone in his isolated hunting lodge deep in the forest preserve, as was his habit, the runner slipped into Castle Frankenstein. He bundled up four silver candlesticks and hurried out the servants’ entrance, beyond the squawking and grunting creatures in the menagerie, and ran down the path to Ingolstadt as fast as his legs could take him.

  The candlesticks were more than enough to pay his debt, but his tormentors showed no sympathy. They accepted the stolen silver and looked at him as if they knew he would gamble again, that this was only the first theft he would be forced to commit. But they had their money, and the servant was free of his tormenters. Relieved but not at all interested in the pleasure of running, he stayed the night with the innkeeper's daughter, who did not know of his troubles. In the morning, shaky with both relief and guilt, the runner went back up to the castle, glad to have a fresh start.

  When he arrived, the household staff were distraught, and young Victor Frankenstein glared at him with angry eyes. His voice was cold. “We know what you've done. Those candlesticks were my mother's heirlooms, fashioned out of the purest silver from the mines of Transylvania."

  "I ... I did nothing. I didn't take them."

  "You were seen!” cried the head housekeeper, her face streaked with tears. “I saw you, and so did two others!"

  Victor said, “You are hereby discharged from service."

  The runner stood aghast. “I will make up for it, sir. I'll pay you back. Please don't tell the Baron!"

  "I am in charge while my father is away. You cannot repay this debt. You have stolen from us. You have betrayed people who trusted you. Leave Castle Frankenstein before I call the magistrate."

  The runner went dejectedly to town. Hearing of his disgrace, all those who had laughed and played games with him, all those who had delighted in his generosity, now did not wish to be seen in his company. Very hungry, he begged the innkeeper's daughter for food, and she scolded him for gambling despite her warnings. She slammed the door in his face.

  As he left the inn, the runner turned into a narrow, dim street where he hoped to curl up and sleep undisturbed. At first, he didn't see the shadowy man following him, but once in the alley, the stranger came close. He had sharp eyes and a broad face with a thin dueling scar on his left cheek. The man said, “I have a gift for you from Victor Frankenstein."

  The runner felt a sudden irrational hope. Perhaps he was forgiven after all! Then he saw a long stiletto with an ivory hilt. With a swift jerk of his arm, the other man slashed his throat. “There, not a scratch on the rest of the body, especially the legs. Exactly as ordered."

  The runner gurgled, feeling hot blood pumping onto his skin, his shirt, and the cobblestones. The assassin leaned over him with a feral smile. “Now Victor says your debt is paid."

  The heels of the young runner's boots beat an erratic drumbeat on the ground. His legs stuttered, then stopped running forever.

  * * * *

  The thump is faint at first, then louder. Stronger. No other sound is such a powerful symbol of life. Victor lifts his head from the bandaged chest, raising his triumphant voice to the storm. “One of the hearts is beating!"

  Thump. The blood begins to circulate through quiet blood vessels. Thump.

  * * * *

  With a loud thud, the silver smile of his sharpened axe bit deep into the trunk. Pine chips sprayed as the woodcutter swung again, using his mighty biceps. The impact rang through his hands and wrists, up to the shoulders, absorbed by a sturdy chest. His heart was pumping heavily.

  His old clothes carried the healthy smell of sweat earned through hard work. The axe handle was stout oak polished by the sweat of his palms, smoothed by years of use. His muscles ached after
a day of such labor, and it was a good soreness.

  Five more swift strokes, and the gouge had gone to the core. The woodcutter checked the angle, judged where the tree would fall, and struck again. Splinters flew; with a groan of wood and a whisper of scraping boughs, the pine toppled. He stood back with satisfaction, then guided the old horse and cart around fresh stumps to the site of the felled tree. With a saw and a hatchet from the cart bed, he trimmed the branches and cut the trunk into smaller pieces. He could sell the load in Ingolstadt. He would never become a rich man, but he had a cottage in the forest, food to eat, and a beautiful wife, Katarina. She was the most important part of his life.

  He'd been gone from home for weeks, chopping wood in the dense and untraveled forests near Baron Frankenstein's isolated preserve. The loneliness of the forest only made the time sweeter whenever he went back to Katarina. When he was home, he liked to carve little animals out of scraps of wood. Since he and his wife had not yet been blessed with children of their own, he gave the toys to girls and boys in town. The woodcutter loved children.

  As night fell, he saw the glow of a nearby fire. Wanting company, he entered a clearing where another man had stopped his wagon and built a camp. “Y-y-you are w-w-welcome to share my f-f-fire,” the stranger said, his words slurred both by a severe stutter and a foreign accent. “I h-h-have vegetables, but no m-m-meat."

  The woodcutter offered some smoked venison that was chewy but edible. “I can add this to the pot."

  The other man was a tinker named Goran, from Budapest. His wagon was full of oddities, pots, tools, trinkets, and five cages of birds (three doves, two songbirds). A gray wolf circled the campsite, making the woodcutter uneasy. Goran introduced it as his pet, named Odin after a Norse god.

  As they ate their stew, the woodcutter talked wistfully of Katarina. “I met her in Ingolstadt, a dark-haired beauty. Her eyes are the color of roasted chestnuts, her lips as full as fresh berries, and they taste as sweet when I kiss them. I don't understand how such a beautiful woman could have married a man like me. But one does not spit in the face of good fortune."