Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest #9

by Apex Authors

  The train rose in the air—

  And fell on the coffin maker's shop—

  There was the sound of a shot.

  The Man With No Name fell to the ground. His hand examined the round hole in the poncho. A tired, wondering expression appeared on his face, as he lay still on the sand.

  In the silence, the only sound was Michal's cries. “Raphael!” she shouted. “Raphael!"

  The time was one minute past twelve.

  Something moved.

  "Raphael!"

  The Man With No Name sat up. He shook his head and opened the poncho. Underneath was a block of metal. He untied it and let it fall to the ground. He looked towards the clock-tower.

  The gunslinger was lying on his back below the tower. He didn't move. When he approached him, the Man With No Name saw the small, neat hole between the gunslinger's eyes.

  The Man With No Name shook his head, turned, and went to Michal. He untied her and helped her stand.

  She looked at him admiringly. “I never imagined...” she said. “Not even in my most intimate dreams, that the day will come when you ... when I ... together..."

  "Michal,” Raphael said, “I, too ... I have, feelings..."

  "Raphael,” Michal said.

  "Yes?"

  "I'm grateful and everything, but, do you mind...?"

  "What?"

  "Leaving us alone?"

  "Come with me,” the Man With No Name said. He took Michal's hand in his and led her behind the corner. A black horse waited for them there. The Man With No Name helped Michal onto the horse and then climbed on its back himself. Michal hugged his waist and he led the horse, slowly and with confidence, through Main Street, where people had begun to gather, and to look at them, and to whisper, and point, and finally smile.

  Michal and the Man With No Name rode into the desert, towards the setting sun.

  The orchestra played.

  * * * *

  Raphael woke up and felt as though he had swallowed a frog.

  He hated it when that happened to him. He didn't know why he dreamed of frogs. He hated frogs.

  He sat up. He was in the car, in the back seat. Michal was driving. She was whistling an old, familiar tune. The end of the dream, he thought, and then, Ennio Morricone. Pain blossomed in his head.

  Then he remembered the rest. The headache grew. “Michal,” he croaked, then swallowed the frog and burped. That was better.

  "Raphael."

  "About what I said ... in the context of the dream ... I just wanted to say, I wasn't serious, you know?"

  "What?” Michal said. She had a dreamy look in her eyes. Again. “Fine."

  "Oh,” Raphael said. “Good."

  "Yes,” Michal said. “It was."

  In the end Raphael had to look for the pills on his own.

  * * * *

  Lavie Tidhar (www.lavietidhar.co.uk) was the winner of the 2003 Clarke-Bradbury Prize, the editor of Michael Marshall Smith: The Annotated Bibliography (PS Publishing, 2004) and the anthology A Dick & Jane Primer for Adults (The British Fantasy Society, 2006), and is the author of the novella An Occupation of Angels (Pendragon Press, 2005). His stories have appeared in Sci Fiction, Chizine, Postscripts, Nemonymous, Infinity Plus, Aeon, The Book of Dark Wisdom, Fortean Bureau, Clarkesworld Magazine and many others, and in translation in seven languages.

  Lavie's story “Letters From Weirdside” appeared in the Apex Publications’ Stoker Award nominated anthology Aegri Somnia in 2006.

  Mary Robinette Kowal is a professional puppeteer who moonlights as a writer. Her design work has garnered two UNIMA-USA Citations of Excellence, the highest award an American puppeteer can achieve. Mrs. Kowal is the art director for Shimmer Magazine. Visit her website www.maryrobinettekowal.com.

  Locked In

  By Mary Robinette Kowal

  As the ventilator pushed air into his lungs, Samuel savored the brine from the sea. He pretended that he controlled his breathing, but that was as much a fantasy as adjusting his wheelchair. He'd lost his last voluntary ability to Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis a year ago.

  For a moment, his nurse's hand interrupted his field of vision. She pushed down on his eyelids so he could blink.

  "Dad!” Jacob's voice startled Samuel, but he couldn't flinch. “I found a brain to computer interface that might work."

  The need to smile burned inside Samuel, going nowhere.

  Jacob looked at the nurse. “May I take him in?"

  "Five more minutes. He likes watching the sun slip over the edge."

  No. Forget the instructions that he'd given when he could still communicate. He wanted to see this thing his son had brought.

  The sun seemed to push the horizon away. Inside his mind, Samuel beat against the wall. Go!

  His body took regular breaths.

  His heart beat, unconcerned with his thoughts.

  His nurse touched his eyelids. Blinked.

  Finally, the sun vanished and she wheeled him inside. In the living room, his wife and son stood at a computer. Samuel imagined kissing Madelaine and whispering, “I love you."

  "This is the BioDym 3000. It's helped other families like ours.” Jacob placed a mesh cap on Samuel's head and connected an umbilical cable to the computer. “It uses biofeedback to allow communication."

  A red ball glowed in the middle of the monitor. “Think about making the ball go up or down. Up means yes, down means no. Got it?"

  Yes. Oh God. Samuel strained, imagining the muscles in his arms standing out. The ball moved up.

  Madelaine voiced the delight trapped inside Samuel.

  "Can you move it down?” Jacob asked.

  Again, Samuel focused on the ball and pushed, wanting to grunt with effort.

  The ball fell.

  Madelaine wrapped her arms around him, weeping. “I knew you were still in there."

  He wanted to make the ball rise to answer her, but couldn't focus past his joy.

  Jacob cleared his throat. “We have some questions. Is that okay?"

  How long had it been since he could answer a question? Of course it was okay.

  The ball rose.

  "Are you happy?"

  He loved his wife. He loved watching the sunset and seeing Jacob every day. Up!

  The ball sank.

  No. He hadn't wanted that. Samuel thought, up, but the ball didn't move.

  "Do you want to live?"

  The ball sank on its own.

  Madelaine squeezed his hand. “Do you mean that?"

  The ball rose.

  No! His body took slow breaths as he tried to force the ball down.

  Nothing.

  While he wrestled, knowing the ball wouldn't move, Madelaine wept and ran out of the room.

  Jacob looked at the nurse. “Give us a moment?"

  The nurse nodded and left the room.

  "I tried everything, Dad.” Jacob fished a remote control out of his pocket. “I know you wouldn't want to live, locked in like this.” He held up the remote and pushed.

  The ball went down.

  Daniel LeMoal lives and writes in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His most recent short story, “An Obtuse Argument Against Foreign Products,” appeared in the summer 2006 issue of On Spec.

  Projector

  By Daniel LeMoal

  There is no such thing as a hit man in The Pegs. There are undercover police officers putting the sting on bitter husbands and wives before they cash in on life insurance. There are liars and lowlifes trying to make a quick and lasting impression on other criminals. And then there are people like me.

  I'm not a bad person. But I am a drug addict. I've spent most of my adult life taking money and never paying it back; it's one of the few things I've ever been good at. But somehow, I always knew the business end of running an addiction would bite me in the ass. I'd end up in jail. Or worse.

  Somewhere along the way, I made the mistake of borrowing money from a man by the name of Napur Nospharrat. Nospharrat routinely loans out five hundred doll
ars to losers like me and considers it a hidden investment. Looking back, I would have been better off robbing fuel depots.

  Here's the thing: when a man like Nospharrat calls you on your cell at 2 a.m. and says that he has a job for you—and then asks how your mother and father are doing—you realize that you have been bought—body and soul. Make no mistake: I've burned my parents for years. I've stolen their money, their car, and even my mom's few pieces of jewelry. But I still love them, in my own marginal way.

  "Are you crying, Andy?” Nospharrat asks, his voice sounding low, rich, and well rested. I'm surprised to find I still have a few tears left in the tank, or maybe it's because the last of the Ursa Major ran out hours ago. I look around my mold-encrusted hotel room and watch the walls push in towards me. Nospharrat is everywhere.

  "Don't be afraid,” he continues. “This is a good opportunity. If you do this favor for me, I'll freeze the interest and cut your principal in half."

  This means nothing to me. I can't keep ten dollars in my pocket for more than fifteen minutes; that other two hundred fifty might as well be $2.5 million. But maybe I can earn my family a few weeks of living.

  "All right. I'm in,” I say, feeling the first pang of withdrawal in my guts. “Just tell me what you want done."

  "No. You and I don't talk ever again. Get in the car downstairs and you'll meet with middle management."

  "Thank you, Mr. Nospharrat."

  "And one more thing, leave your cellular and wallet in the hotel room."

  I stare at the curtains as the wind pulls them out the open window. I could easily make the jump; it's only a second-story room. But to be honest, I don't care one way or the other anymore.

  Mainly for my parents, I write a quick note and shove it in the waistband of my boxers:

  My name was Andrew Jessop. I was 26 years old.

  * * * *

  I half-stumble down to the lobby and promptly get collared by Stokes, a low-level meathead that Nospharrat keeps on the payroll. Like every other associate of Nospharrat's, Stokes looks like he's just walked out of a boardroom. I haven't met one piranha yet who doesn't like to play dress up.

  "Cotton Andy,” Stokes grins, leading me through the front doors by the collar of my T-shirt. “What's new?"

  "Lay off,” I snap, pulling out of Stokes's grasp. “I already told him I would do it."

  "And your word's as good as fucking gold, right Andy?"

  "I'm not stupid,” I say. “It's not like there's anywhere to run."

  "If you weren't stupid, neither one of us would be here,” Stokes says. Yawning, he points me towards a taxi.

  When I get into the vehicle—a Zulooc 350—I find myself in a car full of people like me. There's Albert, a runny-nosed “cub” who is a complete write-off. He won't be alive come two months from now. Greenway, by contrast, is in it for the long haul. He's probably at least ten years older than me, hiding a perpetual smirk under an overgrown mustache. Audrey, the last member of our little band, is a hard one to peg. She's young. There are still braces on her teeth and she's managed to keep most of her looks. Her bright green eyes are hidden by a massive layer of black eye shadow and stringy brown bangs. But she has that non-committal stare that's all too familiar. Six months? Six years? Hard to tell when she'll check out.

  The thing with Ursa Major is that you know it'll end up killing you. Some might drop out early, but there is the chance—if you're lucky—that you'll get a good ten years or so. All you have to do is maintain your balance. I was good at that. Binge if you must, but make sure to eat often. Sleep and shit at least twice a month. I was able to churn out the bulk of the CGI for two Northern Star movies under that simple formula. Of course, after seven months I was unemployable: in full psychosis and headed for the first of many crashes.

  Once a bearhead loses their job, they usually take up other hobbies to consume their hyper-productivity. Mine was storyboarding—not on a computer of course, that was sold off ages ago—but by hand, on any shred of scrap paper I could find. My planned animated opus didn't have a real title yet. I just called it Untitled Ursa Major Project. I still remember the day when I stared at my accumulated storyboards completely straight, fresh out of rehab. Each drawing was a precise mini-masterpiece, a shining example of the bear's autistic perfection; but if there was a story in the collective whole, it was lost on me. I tried for days to figure out what the drawings meant, before I finally relapsed.

  * * * *

  Stokes gets behind the wheel and crams the rest of us in the backseat, like he's taking his kids to the movies. He elevates the Zulooc into a glide and drives straight from the Boons to the lower-lying flood districts, flying by endless streets of river silt and water-damaged stilt-houses. It all looks like wet cardboard to me. The withdrawal is coming on full force now, so I close my eyes and concentrate on trying not to vomit.

  Audrey is the first one to get edgy, tiring of our seemingly endless tour of the city's lowlights.

  "So what exactly are we supposed to be doing, then?” she says, her voice implying the bearhead's usual threat: you wouldn't like me if I was bored.

  "Wrong W,” Stokes says. From my vantage point in the back seat, he's just a set of teeth floating in the rearview mirror. “Not what—who. Who, in this case, is Bob Keeney."

  At this point, Stokes may as well be speaking Japanese. A string of drool oozes from Albert's lips. If you listened closely, you might be able to hear the faint buzz of four brains trying to connect the dots.

  "You want us to kill somebody?” Greenway finally sputters through his mustache, the smirk gone now.

  "Good guess,” Stokes says. “And the answer is yes. Keeney's a projector, an employee of ours who went AWOL."

  A projector. That explains why Nospharrat wanted four druggies for this assignment. The only brain a projector can't play with is one that's already fried.

  Stokes hands me a small slip of paper with an address (White Horizon Apartments, Room 519) and a shiny new cellular phone. He also passes around a small photo, a headshot of Keeney, I assume. Keeney doesn't make much of an impression. He has the sort of face that would try to sell you insurance. By the time I've passed the photo over to Greenway, I've already forgotten what he looks like.

  "Is he a 360?” I ask.

  "That's not important,” Stokes lies.

  When it comes to dealing with projectors, that's all that matters. There are plenty of low-rez types who can hit you with the odd hallucination for a few minutes. But a true 360 can pull a whole city block of people into a full-blown movie. A projector can't read your mind. They don't have to. You're going to read theirs, and that's just all there is to it.

  "Why are we killing him?” Albert asks.

  "That's not your problem,” Stokes says. “All you need to know is that he walked out on an exclusive contract with Mr. Nospharrat. End of story."

  "I don't want to kill anybody. Can't we just beat the shit out of him or something?” Albert says to Stokes, obviously still confused about the nature of our employment. I cringe and shrink down in my seat, seconds before Stokes turns around and punches Albert square in the face. Despite the blood spurting out of his nose, the blow doesn't appear to have registered in Albert's brain.

  "Just do what everybody else is doing and you'll be fine,” Greenway says, obviously feeling sorry for the kid.

  "Fucking druggies ... real nice vibe we've got going on in here now,” Stokes complains to himself, before snapping out of it. “Never mind that. The good news is that you're all going to get nice and wet before we send you in. Compliments of Mr. Nospharrat."

  Despite the fact I'm sick and scared out of my mind, I feel a lurid grin of anticipation spreading across my face. Which says a lot about why I ended up here in the first place.

  * * * *

  We make a pit stop at a Chitalian restaurant, the kind that's always closed. Definitely one of Nospharrat's many properties. Stokes orders us a round of beers and promptly seats himself at another table for a midnight
snack.

  "Eat well, you elitist fuck,” Greenway mumbles, glaring over at Stokes, while Albert stuffs a paper napkin into his nostrils to stop his nosebleed.

  I have to admit that Greenway is low class, even by druggie standards (I guess I'm a bit of an elitist myself). But he's funny. He has a dozen different theories as to why Nospharrat is using projectors. One is that Nospharrat needs at least three to help run his whorehouse on the north end. A quick illusion makeover can patch a banged up prostitute in seconds.

  "He might not even be using actual humans in that place,” Greenway says, obviously troubled by the thought that's just crashed into his brain. “Maybe he has the place filled with farm animals ... or mannequins ... or has the johns doing each other. Nobody'd know the difference..."

  And then he starts talking about the convenience of using a projector in the fast-paced world of narcotics. Place a projector adjacent to the buy area and you could sell a suitcase full of flour for a million. Most traffickers get a junkie to test the product on site. With a few well-placed hallucinations, no one would be the wiser. Other budding entrepreneurs run strings of shooting galleries on nothing but projectors and placebos.

  "These are vile times,” Greenway says to himself, shivering. “They should shoot every last projector in the head. Or give them all a lobotomy at the very least. Public safety and all of that."

  "Too much money to be made,” I tell Greenway. “C'mon, are you telling me you wouldn't drop a few dollars for a nice, clean hallucination?"

  "That's what drugs are for,” Greenway laughs, exposing a mouthful of half-rotten teeth.

  Disgusted, I turn away and look at Audrey, who's slumped halfway under the table.

  "He's going to kill us,” she says, glancing over at Stokes.

  "Not yet,” I say. “Not when Nospharrat can still fuck us for a while longer."

  Stokes seems to sense the negative mood from our table. He pushes his chow mien away and strides over to us.

  "All right kids, it's time for your medicine,” he says, emptying a small pill bottle onto the table. Eight small, white tablets roll out. “Take two each."

  "What is this?” I ask Stokes, as I separate out two pills with an index finger.