He started forward, both hands gripping the half-assed crutch he'd cut, his M-16 slung over his left shoulder and banging against his leg as he moved. He made his way down the trail slowly, his breath labored and the sweat pouring down to sting on his wounded face and to blind his eyes.
His steps became a monotonous rhythm. The jungle on both sides of the trail blurred to walls of green, the maze of vines and underbrush that covered the path absorbed the full concentration of his mind. The scouts might have continued in this direction, or not, but they'd not cleared the trail. It would have been slow going, even with two healthy legs . . . as it was, it was unending torture, and Morado found himself retreating further and further from the reality of the moment.
He stopped suddenly. To one side of the trail, he saw a mound rising up from the jungle floor. It didn't look like a normal ground formation. There was little or no vegetation covering it, and the earth was smooth, as if it had been shaped by hand. It rose to the height of a man, then receded again as he made his way around it. His mind flashed on images of Indian burial mounds he'd seen as a child, but this was far from that land–another culture, another world. They did not bury their dead here at all. They burned them.
He knew that he shouldn't be worrying over a mound of dirt. He should be worrying about making it through this alive. Something itched at him, though, something old, and familiar, and even as he turned away and moved further down the path, he couldn't let it go.
He was weakening. He felt it in the shortness of his breath, in the nausea that swam through his system with each step. Another of the strange mounds rose to his right, and he headed toward it. He would have to rest. He thought he might have one of the stimulant capsules he'd brought still in his pack, if he could get to it, and if he could force it down his dried, parched throat. His canteen was gone–and in his delirium, he'd not thought to look for it before he'd returned to the trail. A mistake. He wouldn't be granted many of those in a situation like this.
The earth was softer on the mound than it had been on the trail, loose and obviously piled there recently. He fell back against it roughly and let his mind blank for a few seconds as he caught his breath. He shifted slightly, searching for a more comfortable position, and the motion sent the pain slamming through his leg once more. When he'd been up, concentrating on staying erect, he'd been able to block that pain. Now it came rushing back in to claim him, pushing aside his weak attempts at control contemptuously.
He felt himself slipping back into the blackness, and he let it happen. He had no strength left to fight it. He pressed into the softness of the dark, rich soil, and he left the jungles behind.
He was walking in a field near his Uncle's farm–he recognized it immediately. The air was warm, very warm, and there was almost no breeze at all. He'd been sent to visit his cousins that summer–his twelfth. They were an unruly, brutish lot, more at home with pickup trucks and cattle than anything else. His parents had deemed it a "growing experience." Morado–Gabe, as they called him, short for Gabriel–had called it hell.
They'd been on him from the moment he arrived, making fun of the way he talked, the way he walked and dressed. He'd had nothing to fall back on. He was in their world, and all he could do was play along and hope he survived. He knew that that particular vacation had marked the point where survival had become his creed. Not just because of his cousins, but because of everything that happened.
The field beneath his feet was of mown hay, and the stalks of the plants lay dry and matted against the earth like a woven blanket. In the distance, he could see the lazy curve of the river. That was his goal.
His cousins had assured him that, if he made his way to just the right bend in the stream, he'd find the spot where, on the far bank, the girls form the neighboring farm went to swim.
"They ain't spent a lot of money on swimsuits, if you get my meaning," Juanito had told him, leering. "You never seen nothin' like this in that city, Gabe."
It had been a dare, of course. Any reason he'd have come up with not to go and have a look would have branded him a sissy, or worse, and he'd have been beaten. This way he got away from them for a while, got out where he could think a little. If he got to see naked farm girls cavorting in a river, well, that was just icing on the cake.
But there was something odd about the air around him–something that hung just beyond his senses. At first he thought it was just the surreal shimmer of the heat rising from the ground, but as his mind focused on it, he realized it was a soft hum, a vibration. It seemed to come from everywhere at once. The sound was hypnotic, and as he continued toward the river, it ate its way into his thoughts, dispersing daydreams of the river, and of his cousins. There was something powerful in that sound–a hint of danger that he couldn't pinpoint.
The sound grew louder, and he stopped for a moment, searching the field for the source. Along one side was a line of trees, in front of him the river, behind and to the other side nothing but open land. He searched the air for some sort of jet, shielded his eyes from the sun to search the visible length of the river for boats, but he found nothing.
He shrugged and turned toward the river again, his steps quickened by the nervous fear that seeped up through his thoughts. He tried to dismiss it, but as he moved forward, the sounds grew louder once more, droning, beating against his senses.
He began to run just as the first stinger pierced his flesh.
They were everywhere, hundreds of them, maybe thousands, slender black bodies glistening in the bright sunlight, their wings a hazy blur. He ran, but they seemed unhindered by any amount of speed he could muster. They clung to his head, to his back and shoulders, stinging, injecting him with their poison, swarming before his face. He flailed his arms wildly, knocking them aside, fighting to keep them from his eyes.
His steps were slowing, but he was near the river, and he focused on it, fought for it and blanked everything from his mind but that blue, shimmering surface. The hornets were frenzied, covering him like a second skin as he ran, piercing him, again and again. It was a dark, mind-rending race, his weakening strength and failing will against their relentless assault. The goal line was the water, the only hope of salvation.
He screamed once, but as he felt a soft, silky body slip past his lips and the stinger pass through the soft flesh of his tongue, he clamped down, crushing the insect between his teeth and forcing himself to swallow. His tongue swelled immediately, and he had to force himself to breathe, had to fight to get the air through to his tortured lungs. Despite the pain, there were no more screams. He'd learned an early lesson in survival.
Then the ground gave way beneath him, and only as he smashed bodily into the water beneath him did he realize he'd reached the bank of the river and fallen from the edge into the swirling water below.
As he fell, he heard screams from another source, other voice, saw a quick flash of tanned skin and long, blonde hair Then there was nothing but the water, dark–dragging him down–soothing the burning of his skin and finalizing his loss of breath. He dove deeper, then deeper still. Darkness even thicker and more cloying than that of the river reached out to claim him, and he fell into its embrace.
He never felt the hands grip his shoulders, lift him, and force him to the surface. He never felt the sudden cough of air that spewed river water and mud across his chest, emptying his lungs so a rush of warm, fresh air could bring him to a semblance of life. He remembered only the shining, black bodies, the droning of wings, and the darkness.
He felt the ground beneath him before he heard the sound, and he was at first unaware of the moment when the dream ended and reality returned. The pain in his leg dragged him from the dream, and he fought desperately to sort out his thoughts and open his eyes. He heard a droning buzz, and the vibration of the ground did not depart with his memories. The insects had clotted the side of his face, and with a super-human effort, he lifted one arm and brushed at them, clearing them as best he could. There was no way he could get to his feet agai
n.
The sound was deafening now, maddening. His attention fixed on it. Choppers. They were coming in; someone was coming in–he turned painfully to his chest and began to scramble up the mound of dirt. He had to get up higher, up to where they could see him, where they would find him.
He couldn't get a view beyond the overhanging trees, so he concentrated on the ground. Nothing he could do to help by looking up, either they would see him, or he would die, but all he could do to help them along was to keep moving. The pain was nearly more than he could bear, lancing up through his nerves. It wasn't just his leg now, but was burning like a fire up the length of his right side.
The mound wasn't very tall, about six feet, but it was broad, and the slope of the sculpted earth was mild. It took an eternity to reach his goal, an eternity of moments linked one to the next by bolts of pain, moments in which he knew with a certainty that the droning sound of the choppers would pass overhead, and recede, leaving him there to die, sick and alone. His fears were unfounded. The sound remained constant, if anything growing in strength and intensity.
He reached the uppermost point of the mound and collapsed for a moment–pressing his face roughly into the soil to kill as many of the invading insects as possible, and to try and soothe their bites and stings in the cool dampness. His mind was locked into the urgency of the moment, and before he'd had even long enough to gather his straying thoughts, he forced himself to press away from the mound once more, to lift and roll with his face open to the bright, blistering light of the sun. If they saw him, he wanted to see them as well. He wanted to see the face of his rescuer, or of his death.
It rose above him, at least his height and one half more, bright multi-faceted eyes glistening in the sunlight. Behind it the air was alive with impossibly large, flitting shapes, their long, slick abdomens ending in wicked needles, their antennae fluttering about them curiously. He felt the ground beneath him move more violently, felt the topsoil give way, the brush of slick, hard skin against his own feverish flesh as something slipped free of the mound and launched itself into the air..
He heard chattering voices–voices he knew–familiar words and phrases. The scouts. They were here. Then there was a searing, slamming pain as the stinger slashed through his forehead, pinning him helplessly to the ground and ending his pain. Darkness swallowed him whole.
He voiced a negation, and with strength he'd never called upon before, reserves he should not have possessed, he brought the rifle around and took aim. He didn't see what rose behind him, didn't know the dripping, venomous spike was whistling through the air toward his face. He saw the end of his rifle twitch, felt the recoil as it fired, and saw the glittering jewel-like eyes above him part, shattering and spewing a fountain of multi-colored gore.
The jungle breeze picked up a bit, and the scouts were able to make good time on their return. They had not stayed to witness the final carnage. It was too risky. They needed to get back and to report their success to their leaders, while bemoaning the failure of the mission to the rest of the world.
It would not be difficult to explain how the foreigners had blown the mission with their clumsiness. It was all-too common. None would question them. None would notice the odd, oozing scars on their backs, or the bright intelligence behind their strange, dark staring eyes. None would deny their urging toward another attempt. After all, funds were short, and dead mercenaries were free mercenaries. Another squad could be organized. They would do anything for money, and all they wanted, really, was the war.
THANATOLOGY
Dark Thanatos Looked out upon the Styx
His fingers steepled, looking for some kicks,
His sanctuary bleak and rather dim,
His tenants?–Well–the dead are pretty grim.
He called to brother Hypnos from his throne,
And slapped a rhythm out with ancient bones
A second's light, dark Thanatos did splurge,
As Morpheus' new band cut loose a dirge
A green and glowing blight upon the dead,
Where each could see and know the other's dread
And no man shall ever see,
A lost textbook of Thanatology
Then silence fell and darkness swept away
The stain of light and joy and love–and day
And Thanatos, his hunger sated, said,
There's nothing like a party with the dead…
The Purloined Prose
With Patricia Lee Macomber
The Swan. To most the name conjured images of pristine white feathers, a graceful neck, motion so fluid it mocked the very water in which the bird itself swam. To Edgar, it was an oasis, a hideout, and his temple. He sat at the worn oak and brass altar, folded over a chalice so fogged from age that the light barely penetrated it. His thoughts were turned inward, though his ears were trained on the conversation four stools down. He had no idea he was sitting at the bar with a dead man.
Flickering gaslights dueled with the shadows, chased them across timeworn and tattered walls until they threatened not to exist at all, and then retreated as long dark fingers reached toward the tenuous threads of illumination and threatened to choke the life from them. Edgar's hand trembled, poised over a scrap of paper on which he occasionally scribbled hasty words, some of them his own, some gleaned from the hushed conversation that floated to him from the others. The barman drew near, though he paid no attention to Edgar at all, the scribbler of stolen words, turned on his stool and used his shoulder and arm to shield the paper from the man's sight.
"It has to be a heart, don't you see." The words were slurred and punctuated with spittle but the small, ferret-like man was adamant.
His companion, a large, hulking fellow in a dark coat, his hat slumped in a shapeless mass on the bar at his side, shrugged and downed the rest of his drink in one great gulp. "You are the wordsmith, not I. But I'll tell you this: You'd have a much better time of it if you actually wrote down some of your grand ideas instead of hammering me with them night after night."
"Ah, but I have!" the smaller man said with a wink, patting his jacket. Something crinkled beneath the pressure of his hand. He finished his drink and set the glass down with a clunk. "Every last one. And you'll be laughing out the other side of your face when you see them published, my friend." He slapped the big man on the back and withdrew from the stool, letting his body settle carefully onto his legs and drawing in a large breath to steel him against the effects of gravity.
"Yes, yes! So you keep saying," the big man retorted, eyeing his tottering companion with a mixture of amusement and concern. “Only if you are more adept at writing than you are at walking, though. Now, let's be on our way.”
The smaller man nodded. “And while we walk, I shall finish the tale of the heart."
Edgar watched as they made their way to the door, weaving among tables and chairs, dodging other drunken patrons and tilting inward until their shoulders nearly touched. He watched their backs as the door opened, and then slid his eyes around to the barman's pockmarked face. He pressed his hand to the bar for a moment, and then slid it into his pocket, the paper tucked neatly into his fist. He pushed the paper to the bottom and a wrinkled bill was neatly substituted. It was more than the drink had cost; a tidy tip left for the barman's keen inattention.
Edgar's mind whirled in a bourbon fog, but the small man's words had embedded themselves deeply in his mind, and they helped him to focus. Written down–all the stories–written down.
Edgar glanced down the bar and stared at the empty stools the two had vacated, then turned to follow them out of the bar. The words he'd collected rubbed against one another on the crumpled paper in his pocket. Edgar could almost hear their soft scraping, trying to get free and not quite managing it.
The man had talked about the beating of a heart–loudly, like a clock, like a drumbeat pounding behind plaster walls. Edgar never sat too close to the two men, so he never got entire stories–only stolen phrases and words. Now darkness had se
eped in that threatened to blot those out as well. If they were already written down, he was too late. If the words had been captured and structured, what was left for him?
The sun was long gone from the sky, and without The Swan's dim light to do battle with them, the shadows closed in tight. It was chilly. Edgar pulled his jacket up and turned the collar so that it wrapped about his neck and broke the wind. He kept his eyes to the ground, watching for potholes in the street, and he walked as quickly as the bourbon would allow. As he walked, his footsteps on the cobbled street found the rhythm of his heart. His pulse grew louder, rushing in his ears, and he stopped, closed his eyes, and tried to gather his thoughts.
He needed to get home. He still had enough oil left in his lamp to write for a few hours, until his bleary eyes could no longer sustain their own weight and the darkness claimed him. His head pounded with the deep resonance of a phantom heart. Edgar turned down an alley that cut off from the shadows of the street into even deeper darkness, and staggered toward his rooms as quickly as his thin, bourbon-clumsy legs could carry him.
Halfway down the alley's length, he caught sight of something lying in his path. It was too far from the walls to be garbage, unless some children had come by and toppled it as a prank. Edgar slowed warily, swinging his gaze to either side as he approached. Then he stopped and stood still as a stone. The pounding that had threatened to blank his mind grew louder still, pressing up into his throat and, thankfully, choking off a scream.
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