Archaeopteryx

by Dan Darling

  His laugh was sharp. “I’m not a god yet. And I’ll never be one without your help. I once believed in heroes. Now I believe in monsters. You’ve seen seven of them―that’s just the beginning. I’m only getting started. By the time I’m done, this earth will face terrors that make the hydra look like a garter snake. And I need the greatest zookeeper the world has ever known to watch over them until they’re ready to walk free out in the world. You’ll be my Atlas, the pillar who holds the new world aloft.”

  I sat there with my hand on the gun.

  He didn’t even look at it. “Before you make your choice―either go back to a world that’s cast you out, or become my partner in crafting a new one―I want to show you my eighth chupacabra.”

  He rose from his chair and walked to the cradle. The matron gave him an absent frown and went back to her knitting. He picked up the bundle of pink and blue swaddling. It encased a form about the size of a loaf of bread. He carried it back to where I sat with the gun and lowered it into the crook of my left arm. I spread my hand to support it. It tilted lightly into my chest, and its warmth spread through me.

  I watched its face. My eyes met its eyes. Time slipped away.

  “It’s a girl,” I said after I don’t know how long. But she was much more than that.

  “Her last name is Stick,” White said.

  I understood why Marchette had been collecting my genetic tissue at the zoo. I sat with the baby girl―a being unlike any who had ever walked the earth. I don’t know how long I held her. When I rose, John White took her from me.

  I stuck the gun in my pocket. “I need to take a walk.”

  “We’ll be waiting,” he said.

  I hiked up the mountain. I walked among the tall spare ponderosas and the waxy needles of the firs and the cheery, bushy spruces. Every creature fled into the brush or cowered in its burrow as I passed. I walked along the Las Huertas Creek, which paralleled the narrow road that led from Placitas to Cedar Crest until I came upon a path that led uphill. The east side of the mountains was gentler than the west, with its steep slopes and cliffs. The grade was easy for the first hour or so, and then the path formed into switchbacks that zigzagged up the tougher spans. Near the top, I crossed a meadow still silent and brown with winter.

  Sandía Peak was deserted. I found a rock at the edge of the thousand-foot drop and the mile-high tumble beyond. I sat and dangled my legs over the abyss. A couple chunks of cosmic dust plummeted through the night, leaving fiery trails of destruction in their wake. I didn’t make any wishes. I didn’t delude myself into thinking they were anything but sad rocks that had been thrown onto a ruinous path. You could call it fate. You could call it design. Or you could call it a series of events and leave it at that.

  I sat atop the mountain and understood myself. I’d fallen in love with Melodía because she’d been a new version of my mother―broken, isolated, and sad, just like me. She was another cave for me to hide in. I’d liked my zoo job because it allowed me to bestow all of my human needs for care and companionship onto beings that wouldn’t judge me. I was an eight-foot tall cat lady. I understood all that. I’d been shoved beyond the comfort of my routine, and I could look at it from the outside and say, John Stick: pathologically traumatized. Does everything he can to avoid thinking about his problems. Uses all sorts of unhealthy coping mechanisms. Suffers from bouts of severe rage and depression.

  The goal of life crises is to see oneself truly and change. I saw myself. I’d learned what and who I was. I was a man who’d been standing in quicksand for forty years. I’d sunk in up to my armpits. It was real warm and snug. I had a long arm-span, and I could reach the bare necessities to survive. The question was whether I had the strength to pull myself out, or whether I’d sink until I suffocated. I had to decide whether to thank John White for showing me that my life was a sinkhole or kill him for not letting me drown in mud.

  I sat on my rock at the top of the world. I faced west and waited. The sun rose behind me, far across the flat eastern desert. It warmed my back and inched its yellow blanket over the mountains, casting their long shadow across the city. Slowly, that shadow shrunk and the sublime line of dawn swept across the city and showed Albuquerque that, yes, the sun had risen once again.

  The city sprawled brown and flat below. It spread across the river valley to the volcanoes, which were long dead. There was no order to it. The city had sprung into being on the whims of a few men with change in their pockets and the willpower to buy a mule or rent a bulldozer. Down the steep western slope of the mountains, the tumble of boulders, contours of pine forest, and handfuls of cacti arranged themselves in the same way. The structure of the world was a combination of will and chaos, competition and chance. It was purposeless, temporary, and imperfect.

  The hike back down to Typhon Industries went faster but was harder on my knees. By the time I’d walked along the creek to where it plunged into Mount Olympus, the sun shone strong, and I’d built up a sweat. Spring had arrived and with it, a whole new cycle of life, perpetuating itself for no reason except that it could. I walked around the front of the building, where I stood in front of a camera and waited for John White to open up.

  The outer doors parted. The blank man waited for me in the inner portal, his arms spread wide. Behind him, the pool smoldered in the center of Mount Olympus. The matron sat on her chair, rocking the cradle with one foot. Inside, slept a perfect little monster.

  I drew my gun. The metal felt cold and brutal against my skin.

  “You’ve made a choice,” the blank man said.

  I placed the gun in his outstretched hand.

  “I give up,” I said.

  woke before dawn in Hades. All around me in the great vaulted chamber, the chupacabras slumbered in their enclosures, dreaming of blood. I sat clutching a cup of black coffee in a chair too big for other humans but that fit me perfectly. The chair faced east toward where sunrise would creep into the world. Ralph, drowsy from a night of feasting, sat on my knee. Cerberus leaned against my leg and snuffled at my hand with his tripled-jaw mouth. I slipped a bottle from my pocket and let him suckle at it, telling myself that I didn’t care what the bottle held or where it had come from. Nobody out there in the world had ever done me any favors.

  An engineer had built a sliding window into the side of Cerberus’ cage so I could watch the sunrise. I’d established my daytime workspace there, where I could sit at the first desk big enough to house my legs and under a ceiling that would never ambush my head. After only a month in Hades, everything felt better. My joints and limbs hung looser than they ever had, and my spine had shrugged off its perpetual hunch. My physical self could finally stretch into the size it was meant to be.

  An orange halo rose above the eastern horizon, spurring a thrum in the harpy chamber. Even through the greenhouse walls, they could sense the coming of the sun. I’d learned a few hours after handing over my gun that John White had kept a few clans of harpies, a dozen hydras and gremlins, and that his team had rescued Cerberus from the wreckage that had turned Albuquerque into a nexus of new-world monsters. I found the drosophila-mosquito hybrid winnowed down to a few clans as well. John White later admitted to me that he’d released thousands of them after the military convoy embarked.

  Harpies were creatures born to fly free during the day, like any pollinator. I’d already gotten to know them. During my first week as the chupacabra keeper, I’d ordered strands of milkweed transplanted into the harpy den. The animals mobbed the pink globes of blossoms, desperate for nectar. They buzzed from plant to plant, spreading pollen. The harpies, just like any other creature, could play a role in keeping nature humming. I’d also started a project that would move the gremlins from singular cubbies to larger enclosures with cage-mates. Rats, I’d learned somewhere down my long history of obsession with animals, like companionship.

  A cafeteria worker set a tray outside Cerberus’ enclosure just as the sun breached the horizon. She’d received strict instructions not to speak to
me or even make eye contact, as had all Typhon Industries staff save for John White. He visited me every morning in the guise of Jacob Charon, and we met in Olympus in the late afternoon. In my new life, I never had to leave Hades, except via underground tunnel to a place called Elis, where I slept. John White had given me an opulent lair there, with a sitting room, kitchen, and bedroom featuring every brand-new luxury I could have imagined—and twelve-foot tall ceilings.

  Later, I’d do my rounds. I’d wash and train Cerberus. I kept two cute young bloodhounds in Elis, one male, one female. At night, the three slept on plushy dog beds. Every morning, I rotated the beds. Once everybody got used to each other’s smells, the initial face-to-face would hopefully be less horrifying. Eventually, I hoped to coax Cerberus into impregnating the female and accepting the loving embrace of the male. The two purebreds might need to get drunk first, but it was all in the name of progress.

  Every day in the late afternoon, I ascended to Olympus, where I took tea with John White. We didn’t have much to say to each other. He spent our time combing through paperwork or reading aloud reports of the latest chupacabra attack. The gremlins had thoroughly infested the Albuquerque drainage and sewer systems and used them as a base of operations to terrorize the citizenry. They’d creep up through a toilet or storm drain and sip from the eyelids and lips of babies or old folks in their slumber. Heavy sleepers would endure a day of mysterious sluggishness only to discover circlets of bites on their ankles. The hydras had taken possession of the stripe of forest that hugged the Rio Grande from Colorado to Texas. They terrorized outdoor cats and had massacred the beaver population almost overnight. But the harpies were the worst. They stormed across the desert in a scourge of stingers, speed, and thirst. They’d swarm a cow by the dozens, stinging it into submission, feasting on its blood, and implanting young deep into its skin. They’d attack ranchers and tourists out on the plains. There’d even been a case of a hiker pierced all over his neck and arms until the pain paralyzed him. He’d watched in horror as the wasps drank. John White read these stories with no inflection of pride, disgust, or remorse, but factually, as if they were statistics that required objective consideration.

  I barely listened. I had an infant to dandle on my knee. John White could talk for hours and I wouldn’t retain a word. Language had little meaning when I was staring into the face of my daughter. Over the month, her eight eyes had begun to focus on distinct objects rather than straying aimlessly. Her large pair, the anterior eyes in the center of her face, would zero in on me for breathless minutes, while her median and posterior eyes would rove around the room, making me wonder what a human with 360 degree vision could accomplish. As I cradled her, she would grasp my thumbs in two or three of her dark hands while her lower limbs pedaled in quadruplet motion. The only thing softer than a baby’s skin is the smooth, supple chitin on a freshly born arachnid. Holding her gave me the deepest feelings I’d had since my mother passed away.

  Cerberus lifted his head and howled at the new day’s sun. Half an hour after breakfast, the first feeding of the day would begin. I stayed upstairs for feedings. After a month, I’d almost become accustomed to the screams of terror that eddied from the vents in the floor.

  At least that’s what I told myself.

  Many people nurtured the long gestation of this book. My fellow MFA students at the University of New Mexico supported the first version, called Blood Heist: Melanie Rodriguez, Rudolfo Serna, Chris Boat, Nari Kirk, and Kyle Churney. Jesse Aleman changed the way I think about borderland folklore. Julie Shigekuni taught me about storytelling and connected me with Laurie Liss, who helped me navigate the publishing process. Dan Mueller taught me writerly craft and accompanied me through the painstaking process of the first few drafts.

  The following books deepened my understanding of New Mexico: Pueblos, Spaniards, and the Kingdom of New Mexico by John L. Kessell; The Adobe Kingdom by Donald L. Lucero; We Fed Them Cactus by Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert; Manifest Destinies by Laura E. Gomez; New Mexican Lives edited by Richard W. Etulain; Albuquerque by V.B. Price; Trees and Shrubs of New Mexico by Jack L. Carter; and A Field Guide to the Plants and Animals of the Middle Rio Grande Bosque by Jean-Luc C. Cartron et al.

  Jeff Schrandt, my cousin and closest friend, did field research with me at the Bosque Del Apache, around Albuquerque, and in the Sandia Mountains. My extended family has long supported me, as has my new family, especially Kent and Linda. Mr. Carlson sat with me for many long hours of revision. Colleagues at Normandale lent me their advice, particularly Tom Maltman. Doug Bessette was fiercely supportive of the book throughout its revision, as was Sam Ocena, my writing soul-mate, who gave me endless sage advice. Betty, my daughter, has given me renewed drive to write books that address serious problems.

  Above all, thanks to Curiosity Quills, which is taking a big chance on a weird and tragic story, and the editorial dynamic duo of Lisa Gus and Matt Cox, whose feedback improved the book immensely. And to my parents, who financed and inspired the education and empathy necessary to become a writer: a huge and heartfelt thank you. Finally, my deepest gratitude goes to my wife Brianna. She believes in me like no other: she has provided me with space, time, enthusiasm, and encouragement, without which the book would not exist.

  Dan Darling is a native of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Before becoming a writer, he was a comet, rocketing around the world in long, haphazard, parabolas. While traveling through twenty countries and many states, Dan made a living as a circus performer, bartender, café manager, IRS agent, graphic designer, and magician. In his prime, he spoke Swedish, Spanish, and Mandarin and has studied half a dozen other languages. Dan received his BA in English from the College of Wooster and his Master of Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico.

  Gravity having reined him in, Dan settled in Minnesota, where he labors over novels that fuse the language of noire detective fiction with the imagination of magical realism. His greatest influences are Haruki Murakami, Salman Rushdie, and Raymond Chandler. Besides working on novels, he teaches writing and literature at Normandale Community College and is an avid bowler. He lives in the Twin Cities with his wife and daughter.

  Archaeopteryx is the first novel of a trilogy about Albuquerque. The next novel, The Twelve Labors of the Chupacabra Hunter, will emerge in the near future.

  For more news about Dan, including information on public readings, interviews, and more, visit www.dandarling.net.

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  Appetizer:

  Book Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Main Course:

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen