Arcane II

by Nathan Shumate (Editor)

  “We might as well check it out,” Michael said.

  They began to walk in that direction. The season was autumn, and the air was brisk but not cold. The trees that lined the fences were changing color, turning red and yellow. The scene before them, with the farmhouse and the fields, was like a landscape painting unless one looked closely to see that the fields were no longer farmed, that weeds had grown up around the farm equipment, that most of the windows in the house were boarded up or broken out.

  Michael pulled off his gas mask, and Ashley followed his lead. The fog occurred most places they went, just patches of it, sometimes no more than a few feet, sometimes as large as a few miles around. It didn’t matter if the temperature was one hundred degrees or zero, the patches existed, thick and white, more like smoke than evaporated water, but with no odor. Michael didn’t know what the fog was, didn’t trust it, and that is why they avoided the patches if they could and wore the gas masks when they couldn’t. Ever since all of this started, he’d always taken extreme precautions, determined to keep himself and Ashley alive. But he didn’t know for sure that the air was any more dangerous inside the fog than out. After what had happened to Ashley, he didn’t know if there was any way to be safe in this world.

  ***

  He kicked open the door of the house and entered, shotgun ready at his shoulder. He lit the dark house with a headlamp and walked through like a policeman ready for an ambush. He noticed the floorboards in the living room were torn up, as if something had burst from the floor. He shined the light down in the hole to see a crawlspace filled with gravel. He decided to make sure the rest of the house was clear before he checked the hole further. Ashley waited outside, keeping watch, her rifle at the ready. The sun was setting.

  “Come inside,” Michael said.

  He stood at the edge of the hole, looking down. It was ten or twelve feet wide. Without the lamp, they couldn’t see the bottom in the fading light.

  “The rest of the house is clear,” he said. “Keep an eye out while I go down.”

  Without waiting for a response, he jumped in. It wasn’t a far drop, only five or six feet. He knelt and slowly turned, pointing his light and his shotgun into the dark chambers around him, making a full circle. The joists and block foundation hid parts of the crawlspace from him, so he crawled inside and explored for several minutes. He found at the back of the house a small hole through the block wall, no bigger than the thickness of a baseball bat, as if some creature the size of a snake or a rodent had burrowed through. He knew what had happened now, or had a good idea. Something small had come into the crawlspace, just a larva perhaps, and there it had grown to its full size before exploding out onto whoever had taken refuge in the home.

  “All clear,” he said, laying his shotgun on the floor at her feet before boosting himself up and out.

  She stayed in the house as he explored the rest of the property: the barn, a tool shed, two grain silos. When he was satisfied, he returned and found that she’d already gone through the cabinets looking for food. She found none. The house had already been picked clean by scavengers. The furniture had been smashed for firewood, likely burnt in the large brick fireplace that stood like a gravestone over the hole in the living room floor. The clothes in the closets had been taken. They could find no clues as to what happened to the people who’d lived there. Not even bones were left behind.

  “Can we have a fire?” Ashley asked.

  “Let’s wait and see what the night is like.”

  She knew what he meant because this was his typical response. If it was a cloudy night and vision was obscured, they could have a fire. But if the sky was clear, and the stars and moon lit the landscape, then the smoke from the chimney would be visible. They didn’t want anyone—or anything—to see that they were here.

  They ate from cans without warming the food. The labels had long since been torn off, so it was always a surprise what they would get each meal. Tonight, they split a can of beef stew and another of peaches.

  “Maybe we can stay here a few days,” Michael said. “Maybe I can shoot a deer.”

  “That would be nice,” Ashley said.

  Michael could see that she wanted a fire, that she was tired of sleeping in the cold with no comfort. He started pulling up floorboards, using the hammer he kept in his backpack. He piled the boards next to the fireplace and made a cursory inspection of the sky before lighting the fire. The sky was mostly clear, but the moon was just a sliver, providing little illumination. Lighting the fire was a rare moment of carelessness for him. Normally, he would tell her they couldn’t have a fire on a night like this. But the risk would be worth her momentary happiness.

  ***

  She sat close to the fire, warming her hands, smiling. She slid close to him, which he tolerated, but when she leaned toward him and tried to kiss him, he pulled away.

  “Now you won’t kiss me?” she said.

  “You’re lucky that I even...” He trailed off, wishing he could take back the words he’d already said.

  She was silent the rest of the night, sleeping away from him, but not too far. She wanted to be close to the fire, even if she was angry with him.

  Michael couldn’t sleep. He lay awake thinking about what it means to love someone.

  And then he wondered about what might have torn through the floorboards of the house. As he stared at the flickering shadows cast by the fire, he kept imagining tentacles slithering up from the darkness and wrapping around him. Or perhaps clawed hands reaching up, scratching the wood, a guttural growl coming from below. Or perhaps if he did fall asleep, he’d awake to find her gone, pulled down into the darkness. This was no overactive imagination. This was the world they lived in.

  Near dawn, Ashley sat up and saw that he had not slept. She stood, readying her rifle, and said, “Go to sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

  He trusted her, and now he was able to sleep.

  ***

  He felt as if he’d only been sleeping briefly when Ashley shook him awake. The house was full of sunlight and the fire’s coals had turned gray, and he knew he had slept for hours.

  “Someone’s coming,” she said.

  He stood, awake instantly, reaching for his shotgun. They watched from a broken window. Three figures walking slowly toward the house, a plume of fog floating behind them. The figures were humans.

  When the three travelers were within about fifteen yards of the front door, Michael stepped out onto the porch, aiming Ashley’s rifle at the strangers.

  “Hold it right there,” he said, not trying to sound threatening, simply serious.

  The three stopped. A man, a woman, and a younger woman, thirteen or fourteen years old, no more. Their faces were dirty. They were dressed in rags. The wind was whipping stronger than yesterday, and the tatters of their clothes snapped frantically around them. The man had a crossbow but he didn’t point it. He held it out with one arm, stretching his other arm the opposite way, as if preparing for a hug.

  “My name is Cal,” the stranger said. “This is Jessie and Elise. We hoped we could take shelter with you for a spell.”

  “We don’t have any food to spare,” Michael said.

  “We understand,” Cal said. “But a roof over our heads would be nice. We saw your fire smoke last night.”

  Michael hesitated. He felt it was important to stay human in this new world, and that meant having humanity for others. He lowered his gun. “We’re well armed,” he said. “So don’t try anything.”

  Cal grinned broadly, showing off a mouthful of yellow teeth. His expression of happiness seemed genuine.

  ***

  With the hole in the room—bigger now because Michael had pulled up boards to burn—there was hardly any room for them to sit except up against the walls. They created two semi-circles: Michael and Ashley on one side, Cal, Jessie, and Elise on the other. Elise was the girl. When she drew back her hood, Michael could see that she was quite pretty. She didn’t look anything like Cal or Jessie, and
Michael wondered if she was their daughter or simply someone they’d picked up along the way. Cal was in his forties probably, his hair long and tied back in a ponytail, his stubble peppered with gray. Jessie might have once been pretty, but time had worn her features into ruddiness and wrinkles. She said nothing and kept her head down, as did the girl. The two females seemed drained by exhaustion, while Cal seemed energized to be among new company.

  Cal tried to start conversations, but Michael and Ashley were unused to socializing with others, and their responses to any invitation to talk were curt. Both sides saw no need to tell the stories of how they arrived here. Everyone had their own stories of how they went from the old world to the new, what they had done in their past to make a living to what they did now simply to survive. But each story was the same, too, in many ways, so Michael saw no need to give his and Ashley’s biographies. Cal didn’t offer his either.

  “It’s just the two of you, huh?” Cal said. “It’s safer to be in bigger groups, you know?”

  “We used to be in a bigger group,” Michael said.

  “Yeah, there used to be more of us too,” Cal said.

  Michael knew that Cal had misunderstood him and was glad for it. Cal had meant that the creatures had killed the rest of his party; Michael was happy to let Cal think the same of him and Ashley. He didn’t want to tell Cal that they’d been exiled, and that they both saw banishment as a gift. They’d expected to be killed by the group.

  “Well,” Cal said, pointing to Ashley’s belly, “I see you got another person you’ll be traveling with before long.”

  Neither Michael nor Ashley responded.

  “I bet that was an accident.” Cal laughed. “Unless you all are crazy enough to think raising a child in this world is a good thing.”

  “We’re not crazy,” Ashley said.

  ***

  In the late afternoon, Ashley dozed off to sleep. Michael had wanted to go hunting today, but he didn’t want to leave Ashley alone with these strangers. And he didn’t want to leave the shelter of the house just yet. He hoped that these strangers would shove off tomorrow morning and that he and Ashley could have the house to themselves for a few days. He could rest, hunt, perhaps get some strength back. Sitting in this room with these strangers wasn’t the best use of his time, but he felt trapped. If he forced them to leave, he was being inhuman. But he didn’t trust them enough to let them stay.

  After at least an hour of silence among the five people, Cal pulled out a faded deck of cards and asked Michael if he wanted to play.

  “For fun,” he said. “No real gambling.”

  Michael agreed. This would pass the time, and he wouldn’t have to engage in conversation. But Cal kept talking as he passed out the cards. Michael tried to keep quiet without being rude, as if to signal to Cal to shut up. But Cal didn’t listen. He beat Michael over and over at poker, but didn’t seem to need to concentrate at all to do it. His mouth talked and his hands played cards. The wind outside howled through the cracks in the boarded window frames. The sun was going down, and the light in the room was just beginning to fade. It would be time to light the fire soon, if they were going to.

  Michael was tiring of the game when Cal, as he dealt another round, leaned forward and said, “That’s a fine-looking woman you got there.” His eyes gestured toward Ashley, and Michael’s head turned to look at her too.

  “My wife,” Michael said, believing this should be enough to end the direction of this conversation.

  “If you wanted to,” Cal said, leaning back and nodding with his head toward Jessie and Elise, “we could negotiate some sort of trade. Just for the night, if you know what I mean.”

  “No,” Michael said, rising from the floor and walking back toward Ashley. His shotgun leaned against the wall next to her.

  “You’re probably sick of doing it with a pregnant woman,” Cal said. “But I won’t mind.”

  “That’s enough,” Michael said, not trying to hide the anger in his voice.

  His tone jerked Ashley from her sleep and she blinked her eyes, trying to orient herself.

  “Oh, come on,” Cal said, his eyes on Ashley. “We can barter. I’ve got things to tr—” Then his eyes went wide. “What is that?”

  Michael had been watching Cal, but now he turned his head to Ashley. A tentacle had slipped out from the bottom of her shirt—green and sinewy like a snake—and then another worked its way out. She tried to push her shirt down, looking up at Michael apologetically.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “You know I can’t always control them.”

  “What the fuck is that?” Cal shouted again, jumping from the floor and scrambling backward.

  Michael reached down for his shotgun as Cal grabbed the crossbow. They brought the weapons up at the same time, Cal aiming at Ashley, Michael aiming at Cal.

  “Drop it!” Michael shouted.

  “Is she one of them?” Cal gasped, his face red.

  “Drop that weapon!”

  The mess of tentacles growing from Ashley’s belly was squirming now, and she tried to pull her coat around her stomach to cover them up. Jessie and Elise remained seated on the floor, both watching the event before them as if it was a TV show that disinterested them.

  “She’s not pregnant!” Cal shouted. “She’s a fucking mutant!”

  “Put that crossbow down right now!” Michael yelled.

  Cal ignored him, focused solely on Ashley. But then the girl, Elise, softly said his name—“Cal”—and he heard that. He turned to look at her, keeping the crossbow pointed across the hole at Ashley.

  Elise slowly pulled the gloves off her hands and held her fists up in the air for everyone to see. She opened her hands to expose her palms. They looked almost normal at first, with small lumps on each palm, but then the lumps opened up, revealing an eyeball in the center of each hand. Narrow black retinas on red irises stared out from the girl’s hands.

  “I’m changing too,” Elise said.

  Cal’s eyes widened even more and his mouth dropped open. He gasped, the noise a high-pitched shriek. In a blur, he turned the crossbow on Elise.

  “And you let me...?” Cal shouted. “You’re dead, you f—”

  Michael squeezed the trigger of the shotgun just as Cal pulled the trigger of the crossbow. The blast knocked Cal off his feet. The arrow from the crossbow hit the wall a foot from Elise, sinking in to its fletching. The smell of gunsmoke filled the air, and Michael’s ears rang. He pumped another shell into the chamber and turned the gun on Jessie and Elise. They looked at him, both seeming dazed. Michael realized for the first time that their weariness was probably drug-induced.

  “Was that your father?” he asked Elise, who was putting her gloves back on.

  She shook her head.

  “Your husband?” he said to Jessie.

  “He was just somebody with weapons,” she said.

  Michael lowered the shotgun. He looked at Cal, lying sprawled on his side, his leg still twitching like a dog flinching in its sleep.

  “Well,” he said, “his weapons are yours now.”

  With this, Jessie and Elise rose—slowly, dreamily, as if they were walking underwater—and went to Cal. They ransacked his backpack, searched his clothes for articles. Jessie took a necklace from his pocket that Michael assumed had once belonged to her. Elise took a small pistol—a .38 Special, it looked like—from inside Cal’s jacket and hid it inside her own clothes. Jessie found a sheath knife that she strapped to her belt. She took a bottle of pills from another pocket, which disappeared into the folds of her own clothes. When they were done, most of Cal’s outer clothes were gone; all that was left were his jeans, shoes, and a tank-top tee shirt, once white but now greasy brown and stained with blood. Michael walked over and measured his foot against Cal’s. Seeing that his feet were bigger than the dead man’s, he left Cal’s shoes on his feet. He grabbed the body by the leg, pulled it over to the edge of the canyon in the floorboards. He shoved Cal over into the hole where a creature
had once come from. He disappeared into blackness before they heard the sound of his body hitting the gravel.

  Michael walked over to Ashley, who still sat on the floor. She wiped tears from her eyes. He reached down and offered her his hand. She took it, and he helped her to stand. The tentacles were under control now, intertwined and resting, making the bulge in her shirt look like she was pregnant again. Jessie and Elise stood looking at them, Elise now sheltered in Cal’s coat, Jessie holding the crossbow at her side.

  “We’ll sleep in the barn tonight,” Michael said. “Then we’ll head out tomorrow. You can go with us. Or you can go on your own. Whatever you want. You’re not prisoners.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he and Ashley—still holding hands—walked outside. Jessie and Elise followed behind them. The wind had finally died down. The sun sat on the edge of the horizon, seconds from setting, casting a beautiful orange and pink glow through the clouds. Michael looked at Ashley. Her face seemed to glow beautifully in the fading light; her expression was relief and hope and doubt. He leaned toward her and kissed her on the cheek.

  His City

  Craig Pay

  He walks the city streets in an army surplus long-coat, listening to the whispers of the concrete and red brick. Each of his shoes is a different size, a different brand, both now sullied to the same sooty grey. His hair is matted and frayed. Stubble never much more than that.

  This is what he does: walk. To keep warm at night, to find shade in the summer, to use his sly words on the faces in the crowd to liberate a coin or two. Mostly, though, he just walks to find new voices.

  The city is home to so many souls, each telling its own part of the story. He still hasn’t heard it all, even after all these years. Something about a boy who lived here once. A long time ago. A boy who died and became trapped within the city.