Arcane

by Nathan Shumate

  Mother must have transmitted an alarm telepathically by now. Every avenue of escape will be blocked. But I have another plan, one that would naturally occur to any Seattleite.

  I tell Banning to take us to a cafeteria. He looks at me like I’m insane, but to his credit doesn’t argue. He steers us to the Members’ Dining Room, which should be quiet with the House not in session, and around to the kitchen’s back door.

  While he calmly assures the staff that the heavily armed barefoot man and woman in her bra are not terrorists, I open cabinet doors until I find what I want. Lots of it, in four-pound boxes. It is the happiest I’ve ever felt to see my tax dollars at work, and to see that kid with her stupid umbrella. I grab a butcher knife.

  Carrying an armful of boxes each, Penny, Banning and I head back to the stairs. Fortune is with us, and we don’t encounter anyone as we descend.

  At the bottom, I peer around the corner and see two mirrorshades guarding Mother’s chamber. As I hoped, most of them are up top, cutting off our escape routes.

  Putting down our loads, Penny and I leap out of the stairwell, firing away, and the two guards drop.

  Once in Mother’s chamber, our first objective is the controls to the sprinklers. We find them at the corner furthest from Mother, which gives us a few seconds before she can try to smash us against the wall again. We shut the whole system off, then blast the hell out of it.

  Next it’s onto the scaffolding, praying it’s strong enough to bear the weight of the three of us. I hack off the tops of the boxes with the butcher knife, and we position ourselves at three points overlooking Mother, just as Alpha charges in leading a group of mirrorshades. They spot us in an instant and bring their weapons up.

  At the same moment, we turn our boxes over, sending dozens of pounds of table salt cascading onto Mother. A huge shriek fills the chamber. At first I think it’s Mother, but soon realize it is Alpha and the others, in sympathetic agony.

  Mother is shriveling up, her fluids rapidly diffusing through her soft skin and oozing onto the rubbery floor. The stench is awful.

  Yes, anyone from Seattle knows what to do with a big slug.

  ***

  Once we’ve made it out of the chamber, carefully avoiding the huge pool of Mother’s sticky fluids and confirming that Alpha and the maggots in the other mirrorshades’ heads are dead, I pull Penny to a stop.

  “So, Penelope, how do you think you would like planning a trip to Bermuda?”

  “Aw, Clarence, I thought you’d never ask.”

  I kiss her long and hard.

  “Not for us, babe. I mean we should convert our detective business. I think I’ll be happier as a travel agent.”

  THE WEB OF LEGENDS

  Damien Walters Grintalis

  Raksha left the village with slow steps, her walking stick held tight in one gnarled hand and a small black stone clutched in the other. The forest loomed ahead, shrouded in the twilight gloom. As she drew closer, wisps of white came into view. The spiders had begun their work. Silk veils covered the tops of the trees like snowy caps, obscuring the green within shrouds of pale. In the morning, the trees would resemble great clouds perching on sticks. With a sigh, she eased herself down onto a rock to wait.

  Behind her, the sounds of the celebration—laughter, singing, steady drumbeats—rang through the air, accompanied by the smell of spices from the cookpots.

  She felt the presence of someone else before she heard the patter of approaching feet.

  “Great-Grandmother Raksha?” The tiny voice was little more than a whisper.

  Raksha turned. Her granddaughter’s youngest, a girl of only five summers with eyes the color of charred wood, stood a few feet away. “Yes, little one?”

  “May I come and sit with you?”

  “Why aren’t you with the others, Tavishi?” Raksha asked. “The fires will be lit soon and Elder Dhiraj will tell the story.”

  Tavishi shrugged, glancing toward the trees. “Will they work all night?”

  “Yes, they will.”

  “Will you tell me the story, Great-Grandmother? I like the way you tell it best.”

  Raksha patted the rock. It was still early. “Come.”

  The child’s face broke out into a wide smile and she climbed onto the rock beside Raksha. She curled her arm around Tavishi’s shoulders and drew her close. “A long time ago, when the river was wide, there was a young girl who lived in the village.”

  “Why doesn’t anyone remember her name?”

  “Because it’s a very old story and names often get lost in time, even when deeds do not. Now this girl was very clever and very brave. Her mother had sent her to pick berries, and when her basket was half-full, she heard a terrible wailing. A boy emerged from the forest, his bare feet dusty, his legs covered with scratches. He told her he must speak to the Elders, and she led him back through the wood.” Raksha took Tavishi’s hand. “Do you remember what happened next?”

  Tavishi nodded. “They came to a web, and the boy wanted to go through it, but the girl took him around a different path.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it was a moon-spider’s web and Father Moon gave them to us to eat the flies that bite and make the sleeping sickness.”

  “Very good. The boy told the Elders that soldiers had come to his village, soldiers from the east with sharp swords and anger in their eyes. They killed all the adults and stole the children.”

  “Even the little ones?”

  “Every single one. The boy was lucky, his father had hidden him well. The Elders dared not doubt his story, for his face wore fear and grief. It was not the first time they heard of the soldiers, but it was the first time they had come so far. The Elders were afraid. Their people were farmers and shepherds, not fighters, and there were many children in their village. But the girl had been listening and she had an idea.

  “She told the Elders they should hide the children in the trees where the soldiers would not see and the adults could wear mourning black and wail and tell the soldiers all the children had died from a strange sickness. The Elders did not think such a thing would work, but they did not know what else to do.

  “They sent runners to keep watch and one night, when the sky was purple and Father Moon a white shadow in the sky, the runners returned. The soldiers were on their way. The fathers and mothers draped themselves in black and sent the children to hide in the trees.”

  “Were they afraid?”

  “They were very afraid. When the wind blew, they heard the soldiers’ stomping feet, the cries from the children they had stolen, and the clanking of the chains holding them captive. Terrible, awful sounds. But the one brave girl swallowed her fear and whispered to the others, ‘Father Moon will protect us. We will be safe.’

  “And the soldiers came closer and closer.

  “Then the spiders came, creeping from behind the leaves, and they began to spin, their legs moving too fast to see. They spun many webs, all covering each other, from the top of the trees to the bottom of the branches, hiding the children within the silk. The trees looked like great hanging moons.

  “When the soldiers came, they found a village in mourning. As they were about to leave, one of the soldiers walked into the forest and saw the webs. He lifted a torch and the heat melted away the web, revealing the child inside. He shouted for the others. They tore the webs, dragged the children from the trees, and turned to the villagers with swords raised and ready.

  “But the spiders were angry. They fell down from the trees on the soldiers like drops of milk, spinning webs around their mouths and eyes and limbs, turning them prisoner. When they finished, the village men lifted the silk-wrapped bodies into the trees, cast the weapons into the river, and freed the stolen children from their chains.

  “And every year, on the day the soldiers came, the moon-spiders spin their great tree webs and we celebrate, for without them, we would all be dead. Or worse.” Raksha kissed the top of Tavishi’s head. “All right, little one, it is time
for you to return to the village. Father Moon is peeking out from his blankets. See?” She pointed to the sliver of white hanging in the darkening sky.

  “Aren’t you coming, Great-Grandmother?”

  Raksha waved one hand. “Go on now, before it is too dark for you to see the path.”

  Once Tavishi was out of sight, Raksha stood, leaving both her walking stick and the black stone on the rock, and hobbled deeper into the wood. The child was too young for the rest of the story.

  With creaking knees, she climbed into the nearest tree. Pale light filtered through the webs above her head; soon enough, the silken strands would cover the trees in entirety, hiding her within. She settled on a branch with a long sigh, her back against the trunk, and pulled a handful of heartberries from a small pouch hanging at her waist. The fruit was bittersweet on her tongue, the taste of sorrow mingled with hope. As the berries worked their dark magic, her limbs grew heavy, her eyelids heavier still. Next year, another Elder would draw the black stone and make the same journey to offer their body and blood in tribute. There was honor in the old traditions.

  The webs trembled around her and the air filled with the sound of whispering movement. The spiders came, their legs moving in a delicate dance across her skin, and when Father Moon took Raksha by the hand and guided her into the next world, they began to spin.

  REYES RIDES THE DEVILLE

  Dan Cavallari

  The car’s upholstery was pockmarked with holes. Cigarette ash burns and tears and rips from dog claws, worn spots from butts sliding into position. It smelled bad, too, like old cups of coffee and chewed cigar corpses long forgotten underneath the seats. It was a bitch to steer and the gas mileage was shit, but once it got going, it kept going, inertia’s very best friend. The exterior was, shockingly, rust-free, thanks to the dry California and Arizona desert air, and the paint was a sun-faded white that looked like coffee-stained teeth. But it smelled like farts and feet, and it often took ten minutes or more just to get the bastard started. Reyes hated the car, but when he got out of town, it was the only car left. A town full of sports cars and Hummers and jacked-up jeeps with winches and lift kits, and all that was left for Reyes was a ’74 Deville with no hubcaps and a hole in the floor on the passenger side. People had left in a hurry, but they still had high standards.

  Reyes, however, had no high standards. Had no standards at all, really, unless you counted survival as a standard. He had left Malibu a day and a half ago, and he was now cutting across Arizona on Interstate 40. He had gone through Kingman. The gas station was all that was left, and good luck for Reyes, too, because the Deville went through gas like Reyes went through cigarettes. He filled up and left without seeing another living person. By the time he got to Williams, he needed gas again. But Williams was gone. Nothing left. Just those stubborn pine trees (which Reyes was quite surprised to see in Arizona) and what was left of the downtown. There wasn’t much.

  He did see people along the way. There were other cars on the interstate, in fact, but too many people were in a hurry. No more cops meant no more speed limit, and people took advantage. Reyes, however, drove slower than he usually did, since so many abandoned cars were scattered on the highways. You never knew when one might just be stopped in the middle of the passing lane, and in the darkness of a desert night, the abandoned heaps of metal came up quick. Reyes passed a lot of wrecks, survivors who had taken too many liberties with the absence of a speed limit, survivors who made it out alive, only to crash into an abandoned Lexus or Chevy Cavalier stopped in the middle of a dark highway. Reyes never cracked sixty-five during the day. Fifty-five was where he topped out at night.

  He got a flat tire in Flagstaff, and that was where he caught his first glimpse of the aftermath, the real aftermath, the stuff the television stations wouldn’t talk about—back when there were still television stations, or televisions, or people to watch them. That was almost a week ago. Reyes laughed when he thought about it, but it wasn’t really that funny. Not really. In Flagstaff, many buildings still remained—in fact, Reyes rolled through town and, if he closed one eye, or almost closed both, or just tried to imagine hard enough, it almost looked like this town was a normal place, just another day, same ol’ same ol’, thanks very much. But with both eyes open, it looked like everywhere else Reyes had visited in the last week. It looked dead. It looked like a beaten wife, a weary soldier, a bullied wimp. This town, like all the others, had lost its weak attempt at fighting back and had been stuffed in a locker like the rest of the tortured nerds.

  He changed the tire at a gas station just off the highway, and after going inside to scavenge for cigarettes—there were none left—Reyes drove on toward town to see if he could find a grocery store with anything left on its shelves. As it turned out, he found three grocery stores. After visits to all three, he scavenged enough food to last him two days. A good haul. The best yet.

  Beyond the three grocery stores, Reyes found the downtown. He pulled the Deville into the streets that were crowded with cars and trucks and bicycles and motorcycles and the occasional body slumped over a steering wheel or sidewalk bench. He did not stay long; while many of the buildings had already fallen or been destroyed, some still stood unharmed, or at least looked unharmed. Back in Kingman, he had seen a building simply collapse, as though it had been rigged to a timer. Reyes knew he had gotten lucky: he had been inside that building not two minutes earlier, looking for anyone still alive. He had found no one.

  Back on the highway, Reyes moved eastward. He was thinking about the diabetic man in Malibu, the one who was shoving hard candies into his pockets as though he would never have the chance to get more. It turned out he wouldn’t ever have that chance again, but it also turned out he wouldn’t need it. Reyes had run next to the man as he explained himself. “Diabetes, man. I shouldn’t even be running. It gets my heart going, and I need—”

  That was where his voice cut off and the man disappeared behind Reyes, who ran on without looking back. He had not really been listening anyway, not until later, not until he found the Deville and thought about that moment over and over again. The diabetic’s voice cut off, and that was it. No scream. Nothing dramatic. Just his voice, then nothing. That was what life had become: just voices, then nothing. Just the road and blown-out towns.

  By the time Reyes reached Winslow, the sun had dipped below the horizon and the shadows had grown long enough to warrant a feeling of necessity in Reyes, a need to find a place for the night. He pulled off the highway at Hipkoe Road, turned right, then left, and thought momentarily about stopping at the gas station on the corner. One look at it, however, told him there was nothing inside for him, especially not cigarettes. He drove on. The air had cooled considerably, and Reyes hung his arm out the window to feel the warm-but-not-hot air rushing past. The speed limit sign read 35, and thirty-five was exactly what Reyes drove. He passed a row of houses that looked like houses in any of the other towns he had seen over the course of the last week, but he suspected these houses had looked just as shabby before all the chaos had begun. This town was dead long before the people died.

  Reyes pulled the Deville over to the curb and got out. Across the street was a bronze statue of Jackson Browne standin’ on the corner, leaning on his acoustic guitar. The statue alone looked sad and desperate, like a puppy in a cage. Reyes walked across the street and stood next to it, surveying the town in all directions. Yes, this town looked the same as other towns, but the buildings and streets were strangely clean. The Winslow Movie Theater looked empty, abandoned like everything else, yet Reyes stared at it as though at any moment someone might come sauntering out, talking to his date about the silly movie they had just paid to see. The gift shop across the street from the statue also looked abandoned but still somehow fresh. Knick-knacks still adorned the window, the CLOSED sign still hung straight in the door.

  A sort of nervousness bubbled up in Reyes and he quickly crossed the street again. He got back in the Deville and started the engine. This town
was different than the others. It had not suffered the same fate as Flagstaff or Kingman or Malibu, or all of California, or all of the western United States. This town was as alive as it was before last week, and even if it had only been marginally alive a week ago, it was still marginally alive now. Someone was here. People were here.

  And perhaps something else, too.

  Reyes sat with his hands tightly curled around the steering wheel, his breath quickening its pace. Part of him was anxious to see other human beings still alive, but another part of him knew what desperate human beings were capable of doing. He had seen enough of that back in Malibu. He put the Deville in gear but did not drive, did not take his foot off the brake at all. If he could just see what kind of people were still here, if he could catch a glimpse and make a better judgment…

  But he did not have that kind of time. In his rearview mirror, Reyes watched as a tow truck pulled onto the street from an adjacent turnoff. It was a huge, black truck, the kind of hauler that rescued eighteen-wheelers instead of k-cars. Reyes spat out a curse and pressed the gas pedal to the floor, speeding to a stoplight and taking an immediate left turn, off in the direction of where he thought the highway on-ramp might be. Intersection after intersection encouraged him to believe he was heading in the wrong direction, but most of the street signs had been torn down, so he had no way of being sure. He was breaking his rule—he was speeding through this town—and he dipped and weaved through cars parked at odd angles, most broken down or burnt out, until he zipped through another intersection and was broadsided by the black tow truck. His left arm flopped madly from the force of the crash, and it collided with his face hard enough to shatter his nose.