IGMS Issue 1

by IGMS

  "When I find you, Josh, you are going to be in so much trouble. I don't care how miserable you are, you have no right to scare me like this. You want pain? You want to grovel in pain, well by the time I'm through with you, you'll know what pain is. You'll wish you never left that crummy hospital. Those Nazi nurses and the interns who used you as a guinea pig for every test known to medicine are nothing compared to what I got in store for you, you sorry piece of self-pity. Oh Josh, where are you, sweetie? Please just let me find you."

  He was nowhere. She pulled over and put her head on the steering wheel. "Take it easy, girl," she thought. "You can do this. Josh is okay. You'll find him. No sweat."

  Later, she thought, "It's your marriage that's lost, girl, not your husband. Please, oh please, Josh, you gotta help me out here. You gotta. Help me find "us" again."

  She was near the park. Through the windshield, she thought she saw him. No, that was just a jogger. She pulled over and started to circle the park.

  Suddenly, there he was on the park lawn, heading for the duck pond. She turned off the ignition and lunged out of the car at the same time, tearing her jeans on the car door.

  "Josh! Josh," she cried.

  He stopped and turned. Megan saw him shake his head at her, and cry, "No solace here," before he ran away.

  "Josh, wait up," she shouted as she ran after him.

  Megan caught up to him easily, but before she even reached him, he sank to the ground breathing heavily.

  "No. No. Go away. No solace here."

  "Josh, sweetie, I'm here. It's okay. It's okay." Megan bent down to help him up.

  When she saw his face, she gave an involuntary gasp. "Josh," she said. "What happened? Oh sweetie. Oh, Josh, look at you."

  Josh's face was etched in torment. Hollow eyes darted back and forth. Deep lines scarred his forehead, eyes and the folds around his nose.

  Megan stepped back, then clutched her stomach. She couldn't take it in. This gray, worn and emaciated Josh looked as if he had dipped himself into the color palette of a haunted house movie and come out-.

  A ghost. That's the only way she could comprehend his appearance. Megan felt he might fade away into nothingness at any moment. And what was he mumbling? "No solace here." What in heaven's name did that mean?

  For only an instant, Megan was repulsed by the creature before her. Then she moved back to him, knelt down, and took him in his arms.

  He clutched her so hard her arm hurt.

  "Solace," he said, bearing his teeth and hissing slightly.

  "Josh, you need help. Let me get you to the car. It's just over there," Megan said as she helped him up.

  Josh gripped both her arms as he rose. "Solace, solace," he shouted.

  Megan was surprised at the strength of his voice. Then the park spun, and time exploded into misty colors of restless energy that engulfed them completely. Megan could feel Josh's fingers clutching her, but could not sense much else until the colors cleared and she found herself in a hazy clearing encircled by giant trees.

  "Solace," Josh repeated.

  The pressure of his fingers on Megan's arms increased.

  "Josh, you're hurting me," she said.

  But Josh's grip on her did not let up. Instead he locked her in a vice-like embrace.

  Megan couldn't breathe. And something in her chest began to hurt terribly.

  "Josh, let go."

  Josh wouldn't let go. She could feel him gasping near her neck. Then he let out as ecstatic a cry as she had ever heard, far more terrifying than his screams in the hospital had been. It was so intense that it seemed to summon the energy from her own body. She could feel the surge of power consuming her and rushing blindly to her chest, which was pressed so tightly to Josh that it could easily pass between them.

  "Solace," cried Josh again.

  Then Megan saw them from over his shoulder. Coming out of the woods. No, not people.

  Ghosts who looked like Josh.

  "Solace," they hissed as they approached, arms outstretched.

  "Solace," Josh shouted in ecstasy.

  Megan's fear was almost as overwhelming as her pain. Molten fire rushed through her. Her heart was exploding from the volcano in her chest.

  Then a new sensation. Josh's pain. It entered her, flowed through her and came back out again. She arched her back and almost passed out. She looked up at Josh's face. It was flushed and young again. He's so handsome, she thought.

  Then hands touched her head and shoulders and legs - every part of her that wasn't attached to Josh.

  "Solace," cried the sufferers, latching onto Megan and beginning to feast.

  Each time Megan felt a hand touch her, it was a new center of pain. Their torment was flowing freely through her now, using her up, tearing her apart. She wouldn't last much longer.

  She didn't understand why it was so quiet all of a sudden, why she felt so peaceful, why the pain was subsiding. This must be what it's like to die, she thought happily. But what would Josh do without her? Josh needed her. She couldn't leave him yet. The pain returned. It made her scream, but it cleared her mind. It took her entire will to raise her head back beside Josh's. She barely had the energy to whisper in his ear.

  "Josh, help me," she said and fainted in his arms.

  Josh had never felt so free of fear. "This is what I've been missing," he thought. "I could go on forever just like this, loving Megan, holding her tightly. Arms around each other, never letting go. Sharing joy and sharing pain. I'm a lucky guy, he thought. I've got it all."

  "Josh, help me."

  A voice. Megan's voice. In pain? "Don't worry babe," he thought. We'll always help be there for each other. That's what it's all about. You taught me that. You've always been there for me. I couldn't have made it without you. You're my angel, girl. I took you into my nightmares more than once. Never would have come out alive without you, angel girl."

  Josh felt Megan's face next to his. "Josh, help me," echoed somewhere in his heart. He felt a sudden tenderness for Megan. He held her more closely, but she was limp in his arms. Why was Megan so limp?

  A crack of thunder awakened him. What was that? He saw sufferers all over Megan like ants. For a moment he didn't know where he was or what he was doing.

  The sufferers stopped. They smelled his compassion. "Solace," they hissed as they released Megan and swarmed on Josh.

  Josh slashed at them with a free arm, holding Megan with the other one. His fear for Megan grew as he fought off his attackers. Megan was in danger. How did she get here?

  It struck him that he had played out this scene before. Megan's face was cradled under his arm, just as in the nightmares, and he was dodging bullets of pain as the sufferers tried to rip his flesh with their ghastly nails.

  "Stop," Josh shouted.

  But the more angry Josh grew, the more the sufferers could taste his strength. There was no escape from their hunger to be saved.

  Josh dragged Megan to the far end of the clearing. The sufferers advanced looking like they had found their salvation.

  Josh pulled a branch off of the tree behind him and flung it at them. He looked down at Megan. He saw her face as he had seen it in his delirium. Lovely and haloed.

  The sufferers moaned in pleasure.

  "Please, no," Josh pleaded as he dropped to his knees. Behind him, Megan was barely breathing. Josh looked at the turbaned woman crawling towards him like a spider and said in a broken voice, "I think she's dying."

  The woman stopped and tilted her head at an odd angle.

  Josh knew then how to stop the attack.

  "No solace here," he murmured, letting his sorrow of losing Megan engulf him completely.

  The sufferers stopped aghast, repelled by Josh's helplessness. He saw some of them turn to Megan, but she wasn't moving any more.

  "No solace here," they cried.

  Josh let out a final stream of agony more vivid than any he had shared with the sufferers before.

  He was crying now for Megan, not himsel
f, and at last recognizing the difference, he wasn't surprised when his sorrow grew into a sweeping wind that descended into the clearing through the giant trees and hurled the sufferers back into the grove.

  Another crack of thunder announced a downpour. The colors blurred and ran together, and Josh and Megan were back in the park.

  The jogger saw them as silhouettes between the trees, the figure of a man staggering across the wet park lawn holding a lifeless woman in his arms.

  "Solace. Solace for Megan," the man wailed.

  The jogger took out his cell phone and called 911.

  The man was still holding her when the ambulance arrived.

  "It's my fault, " the man said as he handed the woman to a paramedic. "I needed her too much. I think I killed her."

  And then he collapsed.

  Josh only vaguely remembered the drive to the hospital or lying next to Megan in the emergency room, both of them surrounded by specialists. He didn't know why they bothered. He knew she was dead.

  He hadn't believed the paramedics when they told him Megan was alive, and he didn't believe the doctors when they told him Megan was in a coma but had a good chance of pulling through.

  He finally believed the night nurse, though. Rose Connor was one of his nurses from before, during his own hospital stay. Her humor and common sense had been his salvation then, and her gentle reprimand now was the beginning of his new life.

  "I don't want to hear any more mumbo jumbo about sufferers and solace," Rose said. Truth is, you must have carried Megan a mile or more after that lightning bolt hit the both of you. You think you have a right to stop now when you brung her this far? She'll be depending on you to see this through same way she done for you last year. It's your turn now, Josh."

  After that, Josh never once left Megan alone.

  There were black days when he thought he might lose her forever. During those times, the guilt twisted through his gut, but he refused to retreat into the terrifying fog of fear and remorse that had started it all. He knew where that led.

  And so, on the day Megan suddenly blinked open her eyes, Josh was there looking tenderly down at her.

  "Welcome back, babe. You made it."

  Megan didn't speak, but Josh noticed the right corner of her mouth curl upward the way it did sometimes. Then she closed her eyes again. He squeezed the hand he was holding and added, "I made it back, too."

  Megan's hand returned the squeeze.

  Josh knew then that Megan would take his face back with her into whatever place she was inhabiting and hold it as a light against her pain, just as he had once used her face as a charm against his own suffering, and that was enough to give him a little peace.

  Taint of Treason

  by Eric James Stone

  Artwork by Glen Bellamy

  * * *

  "Just be sure of your stroke, son."

  Only I could hear my father's words over the jeers of the crowd. He knelt down before me and nodded to indicate he was ready. Calmly he raised his head, extending his neck to give me a wider target.

  My right arm felt suddenly weak, and my grip on the sword my father had given me for my fifteenth birthday was becoming slippery with sweat. I knew he was no traitor. No one had served King Tenal so faithfully, so long, as had my father. Even as others whispered that the king had fallen to madness, Father's lips formed no ill word. He had lived to serve the king, but now stood condemned to die, convicted of treason by the mouth of the king himself -- no trial necessary, no appeal possible.

  I did not feel I could do this. But what choice did I have?

  The son of a traitor has the taint of treason in his blood, which can only be cleansed if the son executes his father. If the son cannot do it, he proves his own treason and joins his father in death. But my father had foreclosed that option: "You must remove the taint of treason from our family so that you can care for your mother and sisters. It is your duty to them, and the final duty you owe to me."

  Perhaps the king was mad, but my father was his oldest friend and closest advisor. King Tenal had been like an uncle to me; as a child I'd sat on his lap countless times as he told me stories of the battles he and my father had fought together. He wouldn't really make me kill my father. I refused to believe that.

  Turning away from my father, I knelt before the king. "Your Majesty, by your word is my father condemned to die at my hand. He has accepted your sentence, and has not spoken against it. Does this not prove he is loyal to your majesty? Will you not show him mercy?"

  The jeers trickled to silence. The king's eyelids closed, and he muttered while bobbing his head. Snapping his eyes open, he said, "Are you . . . questioning the justice of our sentence?"

  My heart fell. There was no mercy in that stare. Knowing I was a knife's edge from joining my father, I said, "Your Majesty's word is law. At your command I will slay my father."

  Suddenly, King Tenal's eyes rolled up, his eyelids fluttering. A shudder ran from crown to boot and his back arched in a spasm. Two of his guards reached out and grabbed his arms to prevent him from falling out of his throne, while the royal omnimancer swiftly clapped a hand to the king's forehead and began muttering.

  Then, as abruptly as it had started, it was over. He returned his gaze to me as if nothing had happened. "You spoke of mercy," he said. "Yes, perhaps it is time we showed mercy."

  I stood motionless, hardly daring to breathe. Was it possible that the omnimancer's treatment had brought the king back to some measure of sanity?

  Standing unsteadily, he seized a goblet from a courtier. "We will let the gods decide whether this traitor deserves mercy. We will pour this goblet of wine over his head. If he does not get wet, we shall spare his life." The king giggled and snorted as he came toward my father and me. Courtiers laughed hesitantly, but the crowd roared as the king upended the goblet, the wine spattering like blood over my father's upraised face.

  "Well, it appears the gods have spoken. Execute him." Dropping the goblet, the king returned to his throne.

  I stood before my father. Though wine ran in rivulets down his face, there were no tears to dilute it. "Tell your mother I love her and was thinking of her. Now carry out your duty." His voice was low but steady.

  Blinking the tears from my eyes so I could see clearly to strike, I positioned my sword by his neck and drew it back. If I struck swiftly and cleanly, he would feel no pain.

  I held my sword high, waiting hopelessly for a final word from the king to stay me.

  "Do it." The king's words were taken up as a chant by the crowd.

  I swung my sword. My father was not a traitor. The blade sliced smoothly through his neck. My father had not been a traitor. His head fell back as his body toppled forward, his blood spraying my legs -- his blood untainted by treason. For generation after generation, my family's blood had never been tainted by thought of treason.

  Never.

  Until now.

  Eviction Notice

  by Scott M. Roberts

  Artwork by Jin Han

  * * *

  Another eviction notice. Not really a notice, though -- a note. Just a couple of lines scrawled out in Ernesto's handwriting, amounting to little more than, "Hey, Mr. Rick Manchester, you're a filthy, lazy, S.O.B., get out in four days." That's all it was. A note and a signature, Ernesto Ruiz Montalvo. The fourth this month, counting down the days. And then, he'd have to abandon Tommy. He'd have to leave his little son here alone.

  Rick's fingers shook as he closed the front door. He needed a drink, but last night's bottle was half gone. If he drank it now, he'd have nothing left after he visited Tommy. Rick brushed his hands over his beard and stood and trembled at the weight of the eviction note in his hand until he let it fall to the floor. Upstairs, that's where he had to go now. Tommy would have to see him now, wouldn't he? Because it was all about to end. Everything was about to be torn to pieces by Ernesto Ruiz Montalvo and his damn eviction notes.

  He touched the wall reverently as he made his way up
the stairs. Even though he'd put plaster over every spot, he knew right where to lay the tips of his fingers. This was where Tommy's head hit the wall. This was where his Dukes of Hazard watch tore into the wallpaper. This was where Rick picked his little son up by the neck and threw him down the stairs. The top step. It squeaked today just as loudly as it had fifteen years ago. In four days, he'd never be allowed to touch these walls again. Never hear the squeak of the step that warned him too late to save Tommy.

  The bedroom. He'd had his last dream here. The very last one. Sergeant Davies screaming in the rain while men were flashed into gore by Vietnamese bullets, and poor, scrawny Private Rick Manchester curled up under a bush, too scared to scream or run, and he knew it was a dream because Sergeant Davies had been killed by a grenade outside Dong Hoi, but here he was impaled on a stake, and Timmons and Rosas were trying to put their guts back in their stomachs, but in that other Vietnam, that real Vietnam, they had been crushed underneath a jeep that flipped, and all their blood was running down toward him in the rain, and it was pooling at his feet, and it hissed and something dark and cold as iron rose up from out of it, but that never happened in the real Vietnam, and this thing coming out of their blood and pain, it was worse than war and Hell, and if it touched him, Rick knew he'd spend all his soul's days devoted to it, and then a hand on his neck, a little hand like Charlie's hands were, and now he screamed at last, and leaped on his attacker, strangling him like he was about to be strangled, only he realized too late the hand was soft and the fingers weren't just little, they were tiny, and the step squeaked, and Marie screamed and Sergeant Davies screamed and little Tommy opened his mouth but didn't make a sound just like Private Rick Manchester. But the thing in the pool of blood laughed.

  No more dreams. Not even on the lonely, angry nights in the mental hospital. Not even when they put him on suicide watch and doped him up so much he couldn't do anything else but sleep.