Clockwork Chaos

by C. J. Henderson

  The moment was too big for words. She gazed pleadingly toward me and I nodded an oath to follow until the end of the world. We descended into the cool, then cold, earth until blackness enveloped us. We went down perhaps fifty feet, but without images from the eyes, only the click of my internal gears marked time. It seemed forever we put one foot forward and below the other but then, there was light!

  Against all odds there was a ghostly glow that gained resolve as we continued. A sizzling sound skittered across the walls in echoing waves. Esmeralda recoiled and I put a hand on her shoulder, “What?”

  “Something died here. I can smell the rot, but it’s real old and faint.” She said. I did not ask her if she wanted to go on. In any case I would not have had the time. She pressed on to the base of the stairs where the flickering lights played against the wall. Ahead, glass balls contained fire that moved like smoke or water. Thin tendrils of blue and red flickered in all directions. Esmeralda touched the glass and the snakes of fire kissed her fingertips, crackling silently.

  “It’s electricity.” She said breathlessly.

  I reached forward to a large manual switch and threw it forward, causing row upon row of incandescent lights to spring into life. “A lot of electricity.”

  “But what’s making it?” She asked, but my eyes were sharper than hers. I pointed deeper into hall cut into the native rock. The sound of running water rose from a whisper to a little less than a roar as we followed the thick cables that ran all the way back to the rear of the artificial cave where we found the source.

  It stood as big as a house and shaped like a giant pot bellied stove, with one arm clearly made to shovel rock, the other holding a massive reciprocating iron spike to shatter rocks in its way. The colossal gearworker turned its head lazily to look at us, then dismissed us as unimportant.

  “Is it a miner?” I asked loudly enough to be heard over the sound of water, some instinct telling me I was wrong.

  “No, look!” And she pointed where water runoff from Storms Creek above was funneled down a sluice and into the back of the massive gearworker. The flow exited the expansive belly just above a grate in the floor dug just to catch the flow. Now that I knew what to listen for, I could hear the massive turbines inside the clanker turning. “It’s a hydroelectric dam.”

  “It’s amazing.”

  She nodded, “And it’s mobile. It can carve its own dam and settle into the flow of any stream. It can bring electricity to any town near water.” Esmeralda fairly leapt to a table in the corner where documents were protected in leather bound books. She pulled out the schematics of the beast and flipped through them faster and faster, “It’s here, it’s all here! We can build them. We can build them here in Ironton. Jobs, money, it’ll all come back, it will all be back!”

  But in her excitement, she did not notice the side passage carved out next to her. I caught sight of two shoes attached to two deflated legs, sitting ominously still on a waist high table. I touched her shoulder and she made a small cry, holding the schematics to her chest like a holy writ. I passed her as her victorious face fell, entering the chamber as quietly as brass feet would allow.

  The table was a simple affair. Once it had been covered with padding, but the wet air had long since eaten it away. In fact the clothes were stained beyond recognition, though they were obviously once of an expensive cut. The skull was showing through the black, sludgy skin in places, and electrical wires trailed from the mass to a complex machine made of dozens of rods, gears, motors, and etching needles.

  The result of all this effort, a handful of tubes lay forgotten on the floor. I picked them up. Some had been carved clear through. Others had been carved so quickly that the tube had melted and deformed. Still others had torn the tender copper foil that held the instructions. They felt like dead dreams laying in my hands.

  “What are they doing here?” Esmeralda asked.

  I picked up the last one off of the table. It was perfect, immaculate, and it bore the name: Agatha.

  “I am so sorry.”

  The words prompted a scream from Esmeralda, but when I turned and saw the man who spoke them, I felt very strongly that I should know him.

  “Daddy!” Esmeralda criedand dove into his arms.

  He was tall and once powerful, though drink and despair had robbed him of much of that. Now he was like a mountain crumbling under the weight of the weather. His hair was greasy and dirty, his beard unkempt and grown through sloth instead of fashion. I stood to face him as he moved his daughter around to place himself between us as if I were a danger.

  “I am sorry.” He said again.

  “Daddy? What are you doing here?”

  “He knows this place.” I said, instantly feel it resonate inside me as the truth, “He has been here before.”

  Red eyed, blinking fiercely, Lucas Kuhn turned to his daughter and whispered, “You should go now, honey.”

  “No! Daddy, we found the plans for that giant gearworker.” She held up the book, “We can get you your job back! We can save Ironton.”

  But Lucas was glancing at me furtively as he tried to push his daughter back into the hall, “No, honey, you have to go honey. You shouldn’t take that.” And with each word he was getting more and more afraid, more and more insistent as weight and guilt and time pressed down upon him with more force than all the rock that lay between us and moonlight. “Put it down and go, honey. Just go. You should not have come here, go, go, go. You have to go.”

  I pointed a finger at him, spearing his remorse to the wall. “You built me.”

  And Lucas shook his head.

  I wanted to take a deep breath, but I was made of brass and bronze and gears and levers. I wondered where I would ever get the desire to breathe. I affixed the old gearsmith with eyes that did not—could not—blink, “I built me.”

  “Yessir.” Tension thrummed through Lucas like overwrought strings on an instrument.

  “I dug this cave, had it excavated.”

  “Yessir.” He pressed Esmeralda back further, waiting for the blow to land.

  “And here’s where I died.”

  And the fear of the father had finally been instilled in the daughter. She backed out of the room on trembling heels. Suddenly a stranger in this play, she looked back and forth between her father and I, “What are you two talking about? I don’t understand. Clankers break, they cannot die!”

  “I am the brass ghost of Løve VanMeek.”

  But this pushed Esmeralda from fear into anger as she exploded, “The brass ghost? Are you insane? That makes no—”

  “Yes.” Her father said.

  “You never assembled me.”

  “You were always so angry since our, since your wife died. You hated the town for taxing you out of the money you were trying to use to save people’s jobs. You hated that people would rather sit than work. You hated so much—”

  “I would have made you promise me.” I said.

  “Half of your memories were gone! Slagged or torn or broken. Your body was going to be faster than mankind could ever imagine. I had no idea what kind of monster you might become if I put you together.”

  I raised the tube marked ‘Agatha’ between two brass fingers. “Put it in.”

  “No!” he recoiled, “No!”

  I reached around my own skull and opened the access plate, exposing all the thinking parts of me to the world. I held out the tube again, “Install it, gearsmith.”

  “No, you old bastard, I won’t! I remember what you were like I remember it.”

  “I am not complete.” I reached over and with a horrible yank I pried the casing off of my right arm and tore the sword from its bracket. I held out the battered hunk of bloodthirsty metal in one hand and the simple copper tube in the other. I went down to one knee, bending my head to expose myself completely, “I need to be complete. I am not a person unless I can remember. I must remember. Install the tube or break me completely.”

  “No!” Lucas shouted.

&n
bsp; “CHOOSE.”

  “NO!” There was a sound of a leather bound book containing all the hope of Ironton, the fabled VanMeek treasure, hitting the floor. And then Lucas cried, “Esme! No!”

  A coolness washed over me as I remembered.

  She died, and she took all of the best parts of me with her. The way she wrinkled her nose when she laughed. The way she stretched every morning like a Persian cat. Her fondness for birdcalls and how she liked me to dress in my best every day of the week. The feel of her lips against mine, and the crushing loss when we learned she was barren. The oath I made myself from that day forward to love her even more every day from that day forth. And she died. She taught me to dance, and she learned Norsk, and she reached into my stingy old heart and taught me generosity and softness and faith. And she died.

  I wanted to burst I wanted to cry, but all I could do was tick and whirr as a God damned clanker.

  “Leo?”

  And I looked up into eyes that understood loss and understood pain and had braved every bit of my rageI had imagined and crafted and sharpened to a point. She had survived the traps, and the trials. She had assembled me and believed in me and treated me like a person.

  “Leo is it true?”

  I stood, slowly, wobbly. I looked around for my cane, but remembered I didn’t need it anymore. “Yes. It is true. I am the remains of Løve VanMeek. It is true that your mother and my wife died on the same night, sharing a doctor from too far away. It is true I spent far too much of my last years hating.”

  “What will you do?” she said, tears welling up in her eyes.

  I looked back at the rotten corpse on the table, then I walked past the humbled and frightened form of her father. I picked up the schematics for the giant clanker and pressed them to her. “I died, young lady. But I have learned a lot since then, so I make one, last, willing donation to the town of Ironton.”

  I turned to leave, but Esmeralda tossed aside my gift and embraced me in a fierce hug. “Will I ever see you again?”

  I gently pulled away and brushed a tear from her face, “You never saw me now, dear. I died long ago.”

  And I left her and her father there, where I imagine they made it back home. For myself I walked through the night, feeling springs inside me give up their store of precious kinetic energy, driving gears, flywheels and gyroscopes that kept me lurching over the broken terrain all the way back to Woodland Cemetery.

  I made it to the grave of my wife, and I sat down there at the foot of the weeping angel. I wrapped the tattered black cape more tightly around myself. Then my gears went silent.

  But Ironton lived.

  Author Biographies

  Jeff Young is a bookseller first and a writer second—although he wouldn’t mind a reversal of fortune.

  He received a Writers of the Future award for “Written in Light” which appears in the 26th L.Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Anthology. He’s been published in: Realms, Neuronet, Trail of Indiscretion, Cemetery Moon, The Realm Beyond, eSteampunk and Carbon14. Jeff has contributed to the anthologies By Any Means, Best Laid Plans, In an Iron Cage: The Magic of Steampunk, Fantastic Futures, The Ministry of Extraordinary Weapons and the upcoming anthology Gaslight and Grimm. Other short stories are available in ebook form online. He is the editor for the Drunken Comic Book Monkey line for Fortress Publishing as well as the anthology TV Gods. He has led the Watch the Skies SF&F Discussion Group of Camp Hill and Harrisburg for thirteen years.

  Richard Marsden is the author of over fifty short-stories and novels in the science-fiction, fantasy, horror, and historical fencing realm. He earned his Bachelors degree in Secondary Education, holds a Masters in Land Warfare from AMU, is a historical fencer, and has a loving wife who tolerates his many eccentricities.

  Matt Dinniman is an artist and writer. He is the author of The Shivered Sky, Trailer Park Fairy Tales, and The Grinding. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his wife, his family, and his zoo of animals. He is also the owner of Collage-O-rama, LLC which creates and sells original art online and through licensing agreements with greeting card companies and other retailers. He may be found at www.facebook.com/mattdinnimanauthor.

  Bernie Mojzes resides in a drab suburban neighborhood outside of Philadelphia with an improbable menagerie of creatures, some of which are neither human nor glass. He's responsible for a number of stories in such venues as Daily Science Fiction, Dead Souls, Crossed Genres, and Whispers in Darkness, and has a short, illustrated book entitled The Evil Gazebo. In his copious free time, he publishes and coedits Unlikely Story (www.unlikely-story.com). In the truly stupendous amounts of free time remaining, he reads, studies swordfighting, and tries to occasionally fit in a bit of sleep. To learn more (and/or register a complaint) visit http://www.kappamaki.com.

  R. Rozakis has the amazing superpower of causing professors and technicians to stare at her lab equipment and say, “I’ve never seen it do that before!” Her current job in marketing in New York City seems so much safer, really. Her biggest argument with her exceedingly patient husband is in what order they should show Star Wars to their brand new baby. Previous work has appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, From the Asylum, Every Day Fiction, and the anthology Substitution Cipher.

  Angel Leigh McCoy loves good story, and if it has Love in it, all the better! She's a tried and true writer, having written professionally for over two decades. At her day-job, she tells stories in the magical, mythical world of Guild Wars 2, an online fantasy game. Go visit her at www.angelmccoy.com.

  Patrick Thomas writes the fantasy humor series Murphy’s Lore, which includes Tales From Bulfinche’s Pub, Fools’ Day, Through The Drinking Glass, Shadow Of The Wolf, Redemption Road, Bartender Of The Gods, Nightcaps and Empty Graves — as well as the After Hours spin offs Fairy With A Gun, Fairy Rides The Lightning, Dead To Rites, Rites of Passage, and Lore & Dysorder. His Mystic Investigators paranormal mystery series includes Bullets & Brimstone, From The Shadows, Once More Upon A Time, and Partners In Crime. He co-edited New Blood and Hear Them Roar and was an editor for Fantastic Stories of the Imagination and Pirate Writings. Patrick’s syndicated humorous advice column Dear Cthulhu includes Have A Dark Day, Good Advice For Bad People, and Cthulhu Knows Best. A number of his books are part of the props department of the CSI television show and have been spotted on the show. His urban fantasy Fairy With A Gun was optioned by Laurence Fishburne’s Cinema Gypsy Productions. Drop by www.patthomas.net to learn more or find out about The Patrick Thomas Show mockumentary.

  Gail Gray, Greenville, SC, is the author of a novel, Shaman Circus and two collections of short stories, Dark Voices and Memories and Monsters. Her short stories have been published in numerous national and international magazines and anthologies. She is the owner of Shadow Archer Press.

  Patricia Puckett is a graduate of the University of North Alabama with her degree in English. Her works have appeared—and are scheduled to appear—in the publications of Pill Hill Press (no longer available), Spencer Hill Press, Pink Narcissus Press, Wicked East Press, Hydra Publications, Lights & Shadows, Scribblers and Ink Spillers, and The Pedestal Magazine.

  James Chambers’ tales of horror, crime, fantasy, and science fiction have been published in numerous anthologies and magazines. In 2011 Dark Regions Press published his collection of four Lovecraftian-inspired novellas, The Engines of Sacrifice. Publisher’s Weekly described it as “chillingly evocative.” In 2012 and 2013 Dark Quest Books published his zombie novellas, The Dead Bear Witness and Tears of Blood, the first two volumes in the Corpse Fauna novella series, as well as his dark, urban fantasy novella, Three Chords of Chaos. Chambers is also the author of the short story collections Resurrection House, published in 2009 by Dark Regions Press, and The Midnight Hour: Saint Lawn Hill and Other Tales with illustrator Jason Whitley. His stories have appeared in the award-winning Bad-Ass Faeries and Defending the Future anthology series as well as Allen K’s Inhuman, Bare Bone, Deep Cuts, The Green Hornet Chronicles, Hardboiled Cth
ulhu, In an Iron Cage, Mermaids 13, The Spider: Extreme Prejudice, To Hell in a Fast Car, Walrus Tales, and many other anthologies and magazines. He has also written numerous comic books including Leonard Nimoy’s Primortals, the critically acclaimed “The Revenant” in Shadow House, and The Midnight Hour. He is a member of the Horror Writers Association, the chairman of its membership committee, and the recipient of the 2012 Richard Laymon Award. His can be found online at www.jameschambersonline.com and https://www.facebook.com/ThreeChordsOfChaos.

  N.R. Brown has a passion for books. During the day she is a librarian...while at night she is a horror and dark fantasy writer and blogger. Her work has appeared in Chiaroscuro. She is also a blogger on “Unleaded-Fuel for Writers", where she explores the pitfalls of developing her craft. Ms. Brown is a member of Donna Andrew’s Hellebore Writing Group, and CVS of Northern Virgina Writing Group, as well as a member of Sisters in Crime. She lives in Maryland with her partner Day, and one very spoiled yellow labs. See more at http://www.nrbrown.com

  CJ Henderson is the creator of both the Piers Knight supernatural investigator series and the Teddy London occult detective series among many others. He has written over 70 books and/or novels, hundreds and hundreds of short stories and comics and thousands of non-fiction pieces. He is a master of hardboiled suspense as well as raucous comedy, and is not shy about saying so even when sober. For more on this truly fascinating teller of tales, he encourages all to stop in at www.cjhenderson.com. He promises free short stories and more humiliate.

  A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, James Daniel Ross has been an actor, computer tech support operator, historic infotainment tour guide, armed self defense retailer, automotive petrol attendant, youth entertainment stock replacement specialist, mass market Italian chef, low priority courier, monthly printed media retailer, automotive industry miscellaneous task facilitator, and ditch digger.