The Book of Apex: Volume 2 of Apex Magazine

by Jason Sizemore

  (“See, if you hold a candle and look in the mirror while you say her name thirteen times, she’ll come.” Amy had been talking nonsense, but they were taking her seriously because after you’d seen your teammates fried by giant alien squid with ray guns, ray guns, for God’s sake, nonsense didn’t sound so bad. “She’ll scratch your eyes out. That’s the bad part.”

  “So what’s the good part?” demanded Maddy.

  “If you tell her you’re the one who killed her son, she’ll kill everybody she can get her hands on.”

  They’d gotten very quiet after that.)

  “Bloody Mary.” Amy wasn’t cheering anymore. It was just Maddy, and the sound of blasters. “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary.” That was ten, and Maddy screamed, just once, before the cheering from outside stopped completely. That horrible slithering sound was everywhere, coming from every direction. They were inside the gym. They were inside the gym.

  (She was really going to die. No last minute reprieve. No third-act hero. She was going to die with her Fighting Pumpkins cheer pants on, and she wouldn’t even get one of those stupid yearbook memorials, because there was no one left to write it.)

  “Bloody Mary.” Eleven. The mirror was definitely getting blurry, and it definitely wasn’t tears. “Bloody Mary.” She could almost see the face behind her own, and oh, God, if she was going to stop, it had to be now, but how could she stop, when she’d heard the squad gunned down, and the slithering just kept getting closer? Alien or evil ghost-witch-woman from inside the mirror?

  Bloody Mary might be evil. But this was homecoming weekend, and on the Planet Earth, she by-God had the home team advantage.

  “BLOODY MARY!” Bridget shouted, abandoning all pretense of quiet. “BLOODY MARY, I KILLED YOUR SON!”

  She only saw Mary for an instant as she lunged out of the mirror, hands hooked into claws and descending toward Bridget’s eyes. Then came the searing pain, and she was falling, candle wax covering her hand in a spray of burning droplets. Her head slammed against the tile floor hard enough that she heard bone cracking.

  “Go Pumpkins,” Bridget whispered, as the sound of the blasters started up again. A new sound came with it, dentist’s-drill sharp and inhuman. She smiled despite the pain as she realized what it was. The sound of aliens, screaming. “Gimme a ‘B’…”

  Bridget kept cheering in a whisper as she bled to death on the bathroom floor, not caring that there was no one left to hear her. The sound of Bloody Mary laughing and the screams of the aliens stood in well for the roar of the crowd. She died with her cheer pants on, knowing to the last that she’d done what every cheerleader dreams of.

  She’d cheered the home team to victory.

  SEAFOAM

  Mark Henry

  I showed up at the 49th Street Annex prepared to take a verbal beating from Klein and the rest of the Weekday Obsessives—they go after relapses like dogs on dead pheasant. Normally, after I screwed up, it’d take the group a few sessions to figure it out, but this time I couldn’t hide what I’d done. There was no way. The thick pads of white gauze and bandages started just beneath my elbows and grew to ridiculous cartoonish mitts where my fists should be, a couple of conversation pieces if there ever was.

  “You get into a fight or somethin’, Jer?” Klein’s pipe reeked of seaweed. The smoke wrapped around his face like an Eskimo’s furry hood.

  “Nope.” I nodded to Fatty, who oddly enough wasn’t a member for his clear problem with food, but because he couldn’t stop counting. He’d count everything and probably knew how many floorboards were beneath the circle of chairs, definitely how many Oreos were left in their little plastic cells. He shook an extra cigarette from his pack and stuck it between my teeth, lit it.

  “Thanks, man,” I said.

  “So you gonna tell us what happened or what?” Fatty leaned back in his creaking metal chair, his fleshy palpate drifting out from under his shirt and over the front of the seat like an apron. “Inquiring minds wanna know.”

  “Yeah, Jer.” Klein grinned. “What he said.”

  I took a drag, let the cigarette dangle from my lip and started.

  “Remember Beverly?”

  Three months ago, Al Graibel, my self-proclaimed P.O. with a P.A.—which is not short for personal assistant, in this case—referred me to this lousy twelve-step group as part of his release maintenance plan. By referred, I mean he threatened me with a revocation if I didn’t show up and stare down Dr. Klein and his neuters daily. With no intention of going back to the can simply ‘cause Al got a bug up his ass, I went. A week after I started, I had a little relapse that came with a warning from my pierced friend.

  A month after that, she showed up.

  She sat in the shadows at first, a single leg, green as the sea jutting into the cone of light framing the group in the smoky auditorium. Her high-heeled mule balanced on the pad of her foot like a worm on a hook. She was silent the first two days then, on the third, just as Klein got in gear haranguing me about making a habit of sabotaging my recovery—a habit, like it’s a new addiction, trading up, I’m sure he thought—she leaned forward, dark hair falling off her shoulders in waves.

  “I’m Beverly.” Her voice was crushed velvet, falling off her tongue and up my arms, the lightest fingertips. Gooseflesh rose, something else too, but you don’t need to know that.

  Everyone knew what she was the minute she left the shadows. The tint of her leg could be explained away as a trick of the light, but the neck scars where her gills used to be stood out like…well, gills.

  She was a Beneather. Though they’d started going by ‘Neather and that doesn’t much matter ‘cause she was beautiful, but I’ll tell you anyway.

  The ‘Neathers rose from the trenches and faults under our oceans nearly ten years ago now, showed up on the shores of just about everywhere, a thousand deep and with just as many problems. They used to look more fishlike than they do as though they’re mimicking us the longer they’re above water. I suppose that’s exactly what they’re doing. Can’t blame them, who doesn’t want to fit in?

  Took them a couple of years to develop an audible language but after they did, you couldn’t shut them up. Not that you could tell it from how quiet Beverly kept.

  I never imagined the aliens would show up any other way than in big metal saucers or some shit. The fact that they were here all along and just too deep under the water for us to realize was creepy as hell. And not just to me.

  A moment after she introduced herself was the last time we saw Chet the Paper Eater.

  “I’m not sharin’ secrets with no squid,” he said, and stomped out of the room.

  Klein started to protest, but then must have thought better and just waved as Chet slammed the auditorium door behind him. I can’t say I missed the guy. It was nice to have an intact napkin to set my donut on, or one that wasn’t wet with saliva.

  Beverly didn’t offer up anything that night, but kept coming, each time in a sexy pair of high heels. It got to the point I didn’t notice the hue of her flesh, not with her ankle popping.

  The most she ever said was, “I have a bit of an addiction problem that I’m working on to the best of my ability.”

  “Is the group helping any, do you think?” asked Klein.

  She nodded.

  Right after that session, I was leaving and barreled into her like some clumsy ox, or Fatty or something, which is completely unfair—I have no idea whether Fatty is clumsy, but I certainly was.

  “Excuse me, Beverly. I’m so sorry.” I held onto her arms till she gathered her balance.

  “It’s really not a problem, Jerry.” She pulled her arms back and hugged her wool coat around her.

  “It’s Jeremy, actually. Klein calls me by the wrong name on purpose. He knows it bugs me. Said he likes to keep me on edge so I’ll be quicker to learn new strategies of coping.” I laughed. “It makes absolutely no sense, whatsoever.

  “And it’s rude.” She pursed her lips. “He should be taught a lesso
n.”

  “He should,” I agreed, I think I even chuckled.

  She smiled and bared teeth as shiny and iridescent as Mother of Pearl, an aurora.

  “Listen,” I said. “Do you want to get some coffee? I meant seaweed tea. Of course, I mean tea.”

  The ‘Neathers were masters of evolution but couldn’t stomach certain chemicals, caffeine being one of them. Kind of ironic considering my favorite coffee shop, The Pot Authority, was owned by one of the seafolk, a guy named Bill Sutcliff, serves Cuban coffee in little cups with stirrers shaped like cigars that you select from a wooden box.

  I loved that place, still do.

  We sat at a table by a sweaty window, a fake flower veiled in dust poked from a Pellegrino bottle and fingerprints dotted the lacquered surface like a pattern. Soft jazz filtered in from ceiling speakers, but the whirring of the blender and hissing of the milk steamer were the real music of the place.

  “What did you do, Jeremy?” she asked.

  “Huh?” I glanced at her foot—a mere inch from my own—not noticing her eyes had followed mine. I blushed as she arched one feathery brow.

  “Klein refers to your issues…” Beverly wrapped the word in air quotes, “Like he would if he meant jail.”

  I startled a bit. In all those days, listening from the shadows, she’d been paying attention. To me.

  “Public indecency. Made the mistake of filling my bladder full of beer nowhere near a bathroom. Cop started yelling at me the second I started to go and didn’t let up until long after I’d left a wet line up his state trooper trousers.” I chuckled. “Boy was he mad.”

  I waited.

  Then it came. A smile curled on her lips first, then Beverly’s hoarse little laugh, somewhere between a whine and sigh, came in curt but pleasant barks.

  Then I was calm.

  She’d bought the tale, hook, line and sinker. Didn’t know a thing about who I really was. I’d practiced that speech a hundred times, complete with the flinching humility and the little nods of acceptance. It sure beat telling her, or anyone, that I was famous.

  Or infamous, I guess.

  People around here use the story to frighten each other, kids mostly.

  “Heard the story of The Licker?” they’d ask.

  Everyone has, but you never know which version, so you say, “Nope.”

  Then they’d go on to tell you about the teenage girl who’s home alone with her dog, parents away for the weekend or something. She either gets a phone call, or watches a news story or hears a radio report about an escaped murderer on the loose. She locks her house like a good little girl and goes to call for the dog but he doesn’t come, so she leaves the little floppy pet door unlocked and settles into bed to read a book. She drifts off and, later, feels the dog’s familiar breath on her feet, its tongue lapping her soles happily, as it always does, alerting her to its return. She pulls away and turns off the light for the night. In the morning, the first thing she sees is the dog’s battered and bloody body hung from the door knob, or a nail in the wall or something and on the dresser mirror, or wall, or wherever, written in the dog’s blood, or lipstick, depending on who tells it, the words “Humans lick, too. “

  That’s me.

  I’m The Licker.

  Only the story is a little exaggerated, like most. For one, I’m no murderer, never even been in a fight. The police were after me on theft, got a little sloppy with the cuffs and I bolted.

  Two, I love dogs. I would never hurt one. That girl’s pooch was more than happy to gnaw on a raw t-bone while I squeezed through its dog door and locked him out (and, no, it wasn’t cold out, so don’t even worry about that).

  Other than that, it’s pretty accurate.

  I licked her feet. It’s my thing. Doesn’t hurt anybody and I’d have been perfectly happy to be up front about it and ask Susan Charlette, the girl, if I could simply clean off her feet with my tongue, if that were an acceptable thing to do in today’s society. It’s not my fault people have hang ups, now, is it?

  Just thinking about it made my mouth fill up with saliva. I swallowed and shot a glance at Beverly’s feet.

  “That is ridiculous. There’s no doubt the officer who cited you has urinated out of doors. Silly.” She smiled and sipped at her tea. A bulb of seaweed floating in it like a marshmallow bumped her upper lip, and she giggled sweetly.

  “You’ve got a little sea foam.” I pointed to her lip, where it clung.

  She blotted it and smiled.

  “Why are you attending the Wednesday Obsessives? I mean, if you don’t mind me asking.”

  Beverly set the cup down and looked at her watch. “I guess we have time.” She cringed. “I have a bit of a shopping addiction.”

  “Shopping?” I whistled. “That could get expensive.”

  “Especially with what I shop for.” She smiled and tilted her hips, uncrossing and crossing her legs so that her foot was clearly in view. “Shoes.”

  “Shoes,” I gulped.

  “Shoes. I know it’s silly, isn’t it? Ten years ago I wouldn’t have even considered applying a piece of leather to my feet, but now that we ‘Neathers are out of the trenches…” Her words trailed off and she reached across the table to touch my hand, fingers brushing across mine. “Oh, it is silly, isn’t it?”

  I forced myself to look at her eyes, my cup, the couple at the table across the coffee shop, anywhere but those high-heeled shoes and the tiny cleavage of toe above the leather point. “Uh, no. I don’t think so.”

  “Well, it is.” She gathered her purse from the floor and stood up, extending her slender green hand. “It was nice talking. We should do it again sometime.”

  I slipped my hand into hers and felt her tense as if I’d shocked her with static electricity, only I hadn’t felt a zap, figured it was a ‘Neather thing and let it go.

  Her smile blossomed, and a jaundiced flush drifted across her cheeks.

  “That was the first night I followed her.”

  “You followed her?” Dixon slid to the edge of the folding chair, resting his elbows on his knees, mouth still open from the last word. The rail-thin mechanic was always on the verge of a relapse. Hanging around the front windows of department stores ogling mannequins. Most of the mall security guys knew him, called him the doll baby. I don’t feel entirely comfortable explaining why.

  “You know what I’ve said about cues, Jerry.” Klein tapped a pen against his clipboard. “Your story is full of them, though for the life of me I can’t remember a call coming in from you. The steps only work if you work ‘em.”

  The rest of the group nodded their agreement.

  “You wanna hear this or not?” I pointed one of my cottony fists in his direction.

  “I do,” Fatty said, shoving a donut in his mouth.

  “Me too,” said Rosa the Internet addict from behind her lapful of knitting. I was glad to see her working at the scarf, her nervous pointing and clicking on her thigh bugged the shit out of me. “Go ahead, Jer.”

  Klein crammed the pen in his maw with a grating scrape and nodded.

  I hung back in the alcove of the coffee shop’s door, waiting until Beverly turned the corner before darting up the street after her. She was nearly to 23rd when I peeked around the building, and to 24th by the time I slipped behind the column in front of the Venture Bank.

  The streets were quiet and few cars spoiled the sound of her heels clicking against the concrete, jumping the shallow puddles of rain with loud clops. Her every movement reminded me of her exquisite feet, the sharp curves of tendons and muscles straining just under the supple flesh, and nails painted and slick, or so I imagined—I couldn’t recall ever seeing her toes, just the clefts, those dark mysterious creases. I wiped a bead of drool off on my sleeve.

  Beverly lived in a three-storey row house on Winston, a big brick monster with a black door and matching black awnings over the first floor windows. She looked around before she dug in her purse for her keys, jingling them in her fingers before letti
ng herself in and closing the door behind her.

  I waited a moment, watching for her to flick on the lights, for those eyes to open onto the street. I watched the first floor windows intently, but it was a window on the third that lit up.

  Blood red.

  And as soon as it turned on, it was gone. I stayed about twenty minutes longer, sitting on a stoop a few houses down and building a castle of cigarette butts between my feet and a sore, tarred throat.

  That was the first time.

  “Jesus, Jer. How many times you follow that squid?” Klein asked, jotting notes or doodling or whatever it was he did on that clipboard of his.

  “I don’t know.” I spat the cigarette from my mouth and ground it into the floor with my heel. “Ten. Twelve, maybe.”

  “That’s sick, man.” Fatty said, grinding his teeth. “Why not eleven? You couldn’t even say it, could you?”

  I nodded, didn’t want to get Fatty riled, he took his numbers seriously, after all. “Maybe it was eleven times. You could be right.”

  “One, two, three…” Fatty counted out the numbers to eleven, though his voice fell into mumbles with a mouthful of jelly donut, raspberry dribbling down his chin like gore.

  Klein coughed a wad of spit into his fist and stood up. He sauntered across to the refreshment table and snatched a napkin, wiping the phlegm off with a scowl. “Why is it you’re telling me this, exactly?”

  “Thought we were supposed to be honest here, Klein. You want me to be honest, don’t you?”

  Klein slouched back into his chair glaring. “Yeah. Honest. Keep goin’.”

  Two pieces of my puzzle were in place—the feet and the location—only one piece left on the table, I had to figure out how to get in there. I didn’t figure Beverly had a dog door. Didn’t seem like a dog person, maybe cats, something that didn’t require a lot of care. What she did have was an alley.