Thirteen

by Mark Teppo

  They would come down the tunnel, into the last chamber, and see the food. Marvelous stuff: cakes, and ham, cookies and cheeseburgers, plates of spaghetti piled high and shimmering with red sauce. Frothy mugs of beer. And they’d gasp or cry out in amazement, and then dig in, smiling and laughing at their good fortune, moaning with delight at the long-forgotten flavors.

  Then her minions would strike, disabling them quickly (knowing just where to cut), while the marvelous morsels turned to dust, mud in their mouths. And then the little elves would hang them up, preparing to make her meal, this one based firmly in harsh reality.

  And if she happened to be in the Dream, she’d see canvas bags, brimming with groceries: lettuce, fresh tomatoes, bread, cheese. Meat, neatly packaged.

  Then they’d see her—the witch—the last thing they’d see as their blood drained away into the reclaiming troughs . . .

  Once, she’d been like other people. She’d worked at a job—a Dream maker, at one of the Dream factories. Programmer. Artist. Number cruncher. It had been a pleasure to come to work; it had been her passion to create the worlds, the full sensory immersions wherein people could find relief from their lonely lives, their aging bodies, the hollow emptiness that seemed to dog most of them.

  Of course, she’d never thought about what people did with the Dreams once downloaded from the factory. Not then. But eventually she had lots of time to ponder the consequences of her work. Because the consequences were why she was the witch, doing what she did.

  Dreaming was a solitary pastime. People had taken their Dreams in private, in the comfort of their homes. Toward the end, most people Dreamed for many days at a time—addicted, diapered and hooked up to IV drips, so far gone that real life hardly seemed to matter anymore. It was no wonder that the end came as it did, when it did. Nobody cared about the outside anymore, at least not until it was too late. While they were tucked away, alone in their cocoons, the world ran down.

  But no lonely cocooning here, where the Dreams were made, where the drug was manufactured. Here, whole rooms had been dedicated to the collective experience—places where groups of artists and programmers could walk through the Dreams, critique them, improve them.

  So, it had been easy enough for her minions to rig the entire building, as well as a shallow perimeter outside, so that the anomalous tree could be observed by her intended victims. And now the building was the Dream.

  The witch’s tree.

  She’d never felt the need to lose herself in the Dream then, before the fall. The creation had always been sufficient escape for her. She’d always imagined she’d been one of the lucky few.

  Her specialty had been the recursives, fractals, things to do with Fibonacci numbers: foliage, gardens. Grass. Leaves. Trees.

  Especially trees.

  Now, it was dark everywhere, and the only light came from the remaining ceiling lights, the ones that hadn’t been smashed, back when it all went bad. Some feeble current trickled in from the solar panels outside. Enough to power the Dream maker, a few lights, and the water reclaimer (water had been one of the first things to go, even before the end).

  She tapped her lips with a finger and listened for sounds of movement in the corridors. Her stomach grumbled. Too bad you can’t eat sunlight, she thought.

  These days, she was as much an addict as anyone had been. The Dream kept her sane, at least what passed for sane now. Her only alternative was to lay waiting, clutching at the filthy blankets and coats that kept her warm, hoping that someone from the outside would find the tree. That someone would come inside.

  The prey were fewer and farther between these days.

  The little bots that had scurried from place to place in the old days, taking things from one worker to another, were for the most part still running, still keeping what they could in good order. Now, no other workers roamed the halls but her, so they did what she told them. Her minions.

  And in the Dream they were pointy-eared elves, or little bat-winged monkeys, or wise-eyed gnomes. And the building’s corpse was a beautiful manse deep inside the tree, decorated with pastel flowers along the walls, and where it was always twilight or dawn, she couldn’t tell which. A fountain burbled just around a corner somewhere, always just out of sight. She was beautifully wicked, bedecked in flowing black satin, perfumed and darkly lovely.

  And when she was hungry, the table was set with a delectable repast. Only this one didn’t turn to mud in her mouth.

  And if she slept afterward, she’d wake from the Dream with her belly full, fresh meat between her remaining teeth, blood on her fingers and mouth. And then (no, no, no, this is not my reality, I am the witch) and then, right back in, from sleep, to cold reality, to the Dream.

  She’d had to show the minions what to do, those first few times. But they’d caught on quickly. They’d watched her stealthily dispatch the last few workers left in the building, back at the beginning of the end. The writing was on the wall, and nobody had seen it but her. Unfortunate, but unavoidable. She’d done the math, after all. There were only enough resources left for one. Maybe. If the resources could be replenished occasionally.

  The little bots had watched her eviscerate her victims, carve and dismember using the set of razor-sharp knives she’d found in the ransacked cafeteria kitchen, watching with dispassionate, glowing gazes.

  And now, she didn’t have to deal with such unpleasantries.

  Sometimes the wretches from outside didn’t come for a long time. She’d subsist, then, on the dried and stored-away pieces. But she could have anything she wanted, in the Dream. Cherry pie and turkey sandwiches. Red beans and rice.

  She came out of the Dream less and less, but couldn’t stay in it forever: it would fry her brain eventually. Catatonia followed by coma, followed by death.

  So she had to come out from time to time, for as short a time as possible, hating it when she did, needing to be the witch again. Needing it. She couldn’t remember her real name anymore. Perhaps the brain frying had already begun.

  Sometimes weeks went by without any visitors to the tree. When that happened, she’d imagine the worst: that the last one had come, and now she would ration out the last of the dried flesh, eating less and less of it until she too was eating delicious dust. And then, finally she would fall into the Dream from which she would not wake.

  This was one of those times, and hunger gnawed at her stomach. She could eat what she had left, gamble that someone would come along to replenish her stores. But she knew better than that. She called a minion and Dreamed a little bowl of oatmeal with bananas, and felt a little better.

  She got up and stared out the tall, open window that overlooked the forest and the river beyond it. A castle rose out the mist in the distance, across the water, high walls and turrets.

  She much preferred this view from the tree to the alternative, the tableau of gray ruins through the smashed windows.

  The witch stood there for a long while, smelling the air filled with herbal scents and vegetal rot, feeling the gentle breeze and listening to the faint susurrations of the leaves.

  And then she heard her minions scurrying through the hallways.

  She listened for the familiar sounds, the giggles and whoops of delight. But there were none of the usual indicators, just quiet from the dining room.

  Cautiously, she wound her way down through the labyrinthine corridors of the tree, to where her minions should be making their preparations.

  When she got to the dining room, there was no sumptuous feast laid out for her prey, no victim enjoying a last, imaginary meal. Instead, she found her kitchen knives arrayed neatly across the white linen. A regal pair dressed in medieval finery, a handsome man with chiseled features and a tall, patrician blonde woman, sat calmly at each end of the table. They turned to her and smiled, the man hefting a large carving knife, and the woman a thinner, longer blade more suited to boning.

  Her minions sprang up from the floor, and pinned her expertly to the wall.

 
The pair were inexperienced, so it took a little while. The process was slow, and painful. The Dream faded as she bled out, and for a moment, she saw the two filthy, emaciated killers standing over her, panting . . .

  "We got—the bitch," the bug-eyed man whispered between breaths. His hands dripped blood and viscera. His mouth was rimmed with blood.

  "My god," the woman said, "I’m so hungry. So fucking hungry . . ."as she plunged her hands back in and ripped off another morsel.

  Now the man was giggling uncontrollably. "I knew I could key in. Miles of code—line by line! Dream took so long to hack. Months! Months of hiding in that basement. But I did it. I did it."

  "Oh. Oh. I see." the woman said. "Did you hack the bots? Without them bringing us crumbs from her stash, we would have died a long time ago. And don’t forget who finally got them under our control."

  The man stopped giggling and ate some more.

  Afterwards, sated, they leaned back against the wall, both looking at what they’d done, at what they had become. Neither wanting to see it.

  So they did what their predecessor had done, and fell into the Dream.

  The elves cleared away the remains of the feast, and the king and queen sat with their goblets of wine, leaning back in their chairs. Savoring the silence.

  Finally the king spoke. "So, what now? What do we do now?"

  The queen sighed, dabbing at her mouth daintily with a large linen napkin. "Isn’t it obvious? We do what she did. We maintain the Dream. Wait for them to come from the outside. Spider and the fly." She smiled grimly.

  "That’s it?" he asked.

  "What else have you got?"

  And now that it was done, the king and queen sat across from each other on their gilded thrones, and looked out across the wide forest, and across the river to the castle in the mist beyond.

  From time to time, they stole glances at each other, and occasionally, their eyes would meet.

  And then, even the Dream could not disguise the feral, cold calculation.

  The witch hadn’t looked so good.

  And they’d both done the math.

  Chrysalis

  — Richard Thomas

  John Redman stood in his living room, the soft glow of the embers in the fireplace casting his shadow against the wall. He wondered how much money he could get if he returned all of the gifts that were under the Christmas tree—everything—including what was in the stockings. The

  wind picked up outside the old farmhouse, rattling a loose piece of wood trim, the windows shaking—a cool drift of air settling on his skin. Couple hundred bucks maybe—four hundred tops. But it might be enough. That paired with their savings, everything that his wife, Laura, and he had in the bank—the paltry sum of maybe six hundred dollars. It had to be done. Every ache in his bones, every day that passed—a little more panic settled down onto shoulders, the weight soon becoming unbearable. Upstairs the kids were asleep, Jed and Missy quiet in their beds, home from school for their winter break, filling up the house with their warm laughter and echoing footsteps. The long drive to the city, miles and miles of desolate farmland his only escort, it pained him to consider it at all. Video games and dolls, new jeans and sweaters, and a singular diamond on a locket hung from a long strand of silver. All of it was going back.

  It had started a couple weeks ago with, of all things, a large orange and black wooly bear caterpillar. He stood on the back porch sneaking a cigarette, his wife and kids in town, grocery shopping and running errands all day. The fuzzy beast crawled across the porch rail and stopped right next to John—making sure it was seen. John looked at the caterpillar and noticed that it was almost completely black, with just a tiny band of orange. Something in that information rang a bell, shot up a red flag in the back of his crowded mind. He usually didn’t pay attention to these kinds of things—give them any weight. Sure, he picked up The Old Farmer’s Almanac every year, partly out of habit, and partly because it made him laugh. Owning the farm as they did now, seven years or so, taking over for his mother when she passed away, the children still infants, unable to complain, John had gotten a lot of advice. Every time he stepped into Clancy’s Dry Goods in town, picking up his contraband cigarettes, or a six-pack of Snickers bars that he hid in the glove box of his faded red pickup truck, the advice spilled out of his neighbor’s mouths like the dribble that used to run down his children’s chins. Clancy himself told John to make sure he picked up the almanac, to get his woodpile in order, to put up plastic over the windows, in preparation for winter. For some reason, John listened to the barrel-chested man, his moustache and goatee giving him an air of sophistication that was offset by Clancy’s fondness for flannel. John nodded his head when the Caterpillar and John Deere hats jawed on and on by the coffeepot, stomping their boots to shake off the cold, rubbing their hands over three-day old stubble. John nodded his head and went out the door, usually mumbling to himself.

  Christmas was coming and the three-bedroom farmhouse was filled with the smell of oranges and cloves, hot apple cider, and a large brick fireplace that was constantly burning, night and day. Laura taught English at the high school, and she was off work as well. Most of the month of December and a little bit of the new year would unfurl to fill their home with crayons, fresh baked bread, and Matchbox cars laid out in rows and sorted by color.

  John was an accountant, a CPA. He’d taken over his father’s business, Comprehensive Accounting, a few years before they’d finally made the move to the farm. The client list was set, most every small business in the area, and few of the bigger ones as well. They trusted John with their business—the only history that mattered to them were the new ones he created with their books. Every year he balanced the accounts, hiding numbers over here, padding expenses over there, working his magic, his illusion. But Laura knew John better, back before the children were born, back when their evenings were filled with broken glasses and lipstick stains and money gambled away on lies and risky ventures. Things were good now—John was on a short leash, nowhere to go, miles from everyone—trouble pushed away and sent on down the road.

  John made a mental note of the caterpillar, to look it up later in the almanac. Right now he had wood to chop, stocking up for the oncoming season. He tugged on his soft, leather gloves, stained with sap and soil, faded and fraying at the edges. Surrounding the farmhouse was a ring of trees, oak and maple and evergreen pine. For miles in every direction there were fields of amber—corn on one side, soybeans on the other. John picked up the axe that leaned against the back porch with his left hand, and then grabbed the chainsaw with his right—eyeballing the caterpillar, which hadn’t moved an inch, as he walked forward exhaling white puffs of air. One day the fields were a comfort: the fact that they leased them out to local farmers, no longer actual farmers themselves, a box checked in the appropriate column, incoming funds—an asset. The next day they closed in on him, their watchful stare a constant presence, a reminder of something he was not—reliable.

  John set the axe and chainsaw next to a massive oak and looked around the ring of trees. There were small branches scattered under the trees—he picked these up in armloads and took them back to the house, filling a large box with the bits of wood. This would be the kindling. Then he went back to look for downed trees—smaller ones mostly, their roots unable to stand up to the winds that whipped across the open plains and bent the larger trees back and forth. A fog pushed in across the open land, thick and heavy, blanketing the ring of trees, filling in all the gaps. The ground was covered in acorns, a blanket of caps and nuts, nowhere to step that didn’t end in pops and cracks, his boot rolling across the tiny orbs.

  "Damn. When did these all fall down, overnight?"

  John stared up into the branches of the oak trees, spider webs spanning their open arms, stretching across the gaps, thick and white—floating in the breeze. He looked to the other trees and saw acorns scattered beneath them all, and more spider webs high up into the foliage. Spying a downed tree, he left the axe al
one for now and picked up the chainsaw, tugging on the string, the bark and buzz filling the yard with angry noise.

  Several hours later the cord of wood was stacked against the side of the house, the tree sectioned down into manageable logs, which were then split in half, and then halved again. It was a solid yield, probably enough to get them through the winter—the box of kindling overflowing with twigs and branches that had been broken over his knee. They would keep an eye on the backyard, and over the course of the winter, they would refill the box with the fallen branches and twigs. The winds picked up again as John took a breath, a sheen of sweat on the back of his neck, night settling in around the farm.

  When he finally went inside, the wife and kids home from their errands, the house smelled of freshly baked cookies, chocolate chip, if John knew his wife. The kids were up on barstools around the butcher block island, hands covered in flower, their faces dotted with white, his wife at the kitchen sink washing dishes. In the corner of the window was a singular ladybug, red and dotted with black.

  "Daddy," Missy yelled, hopping down off her stool. She ran over to him, painting his jeans with tiny, white handprints.

  "Hey, pumpkin," John said. "Cookies?"

  "Chocolate chip," she beamed.

  "Jed, could you get me a glass of water?" John asked. His son didn’t answer, concentrating on the cookie dough. "Jed. Water?" His son didn’t answer.

  "I’ll get it, Daddy," Missy said.

  "No, honey, I want Jed to get it. I know he can hear me."

  John lowered his voice to a whisper, his eyes on Jed the whole time. "I’m going to count to three," John hissed, his daughter’s eyes squinting, her head lowering as she crept out of the way. "Get me that water, boy, or you’ll be picking out a switch." Jed didn’t move, a smile starting to turn up his mouth, the cookie dough still in his hands."

  "Daddy?" Missy said, her face scrunching up. "He doesn’t hear you, don’t . . ."

  "Honey, go," John continued. "One," John peeled off his gloves and dropped them by the back door. "Two," he whispered, unbuttoning his coat, pulling his hat off and dropping it on the floor. He inhaled for three, a thin needle pushing through his heart, this constant battle that he had with his son, the grade school maturation placing in front of John a new hurdle every day. The boy got off the stool, leaving behind the cookies, and tugged on the back of his mother’s apron strings.