Halfway Down the Stairs

by Gary A Braunbeck

  “Please,” he says, “please forgive me. We were so young, and so scared, and we couldn’t tell anyone. Please forgive me—forgive us. We were so young and stupid and selfish … we had no idea what we were doing. No one ever knew. We didn’t even give you a name.”

  He shakes his head with great violence and goes back to the car, climbs in, and closes the door. He waits. Soon he sees the impression of tiny hands, tiny feet, appearing all over the hood, appearing like photographed images revealed for only a second before the film is exposed to the light for too long; there one second, gone the next. But there are so many of them, so many hands and feet, and now, now he can hear that the babies are no longer crying, they are giggling, laughing, squealing with glee. He hears the sounds they make as they crawl all over the car, the hood, the roof, the trunk, bouncing themselves up and down, rocking the car.

  The man rolls down the front windows and buckles himself in, then tightens the seatbelt until it hurts, making it difficult to pull in a full breath. He leans back his head and smiles as, outside, the babies jump and roll and giggle and bounce. The car too bounces up and down, rocks from side to side. The sound of the river becomes a near-deafening roar. The man can’t help himself, and begins laughing at the growing sound of the babies’ happiness and delight. He laughs. Below the car, the bridge groans. The bridge creaks. Wood begins to splinter.

  “…He Didn’t Even Leave A Note…”

  It has been a long day and the hour is late and you are impatient to get home. You stayed at the office a bit later than usual, tidying up some last-minute paperwork before leaving for the weekend, but as a result you missed your bus and so find yourself walking. Which isn’t really so bad, after all, is it? No, not in the least. It’s been ages since last you walked home from work, and at least the weather is nice.

  It has been a long day and the hour is late and you are impatient to get home, despite the lovely weather. You wonder if any of your friends are going to bother calling you to see what plans you have for the weekend. “You work too damned much,” they say; “We never see you anymore,” they say; “It’s not good for you to spend so much time by yourself,” they say, all the while knowing that your job takes a lot out of you—how else could you have secured the recent promotion, had not you put your career first? “And what’s wrong,” you say to them, “with wanting to spend my time away from work watching movies or reading or listening to music?”

  “Those are solitary activities,” they reply, “and too much of that can alienate you from the people in your life.” You love them all the more for their concern, but wish they’d get it through their heads that there are some people who don’t need the constant companionship of other human beings in order to feel that their life has meaning. It doesn’t mean you don’t care for them, but for some reason they don’t understand that. You are involved with them. You are involved with life.

  Still, it has been a long day and the hour is late and you are impatient to get home, but there is a man in the distance running toward you. He is a feeble and ragged creature, a depressing sight. There is another man chasing at his heels, screaming. You step aside to let the first man pass. Perhaps the two are running for their own amusement, a good-natured race; maybe they are both in pursuit of a third man you didn’t notice; it could even be that the second man wishes to harm or even murder the first and any involvement on your part would make you an unwitting accessory. Regardless of the circumstances, you remain standing off to the side, impatient for the whole incident to play itself out so you can get on home, pour a glass of whiskey, and relax to some music, forgetting about the pressures of the week.

  The second man nears you and you see that he, must, indeed, have murder in his heart because he’s holding a long and very sharp knife; the early moonlight glints off the blade with an eerie kind of beauty.

  The second man runs smack into you, thrusts the blade deep into your belly, and twists.

  The pain begins. You grasp the murderer by his shoulders and whisper: “Why?”

  He glances in the direction of the running, ragged man, and smiles sadly. “If you hadn’t stayed to tidy up the paperwork, you would not have missed the bus; if you had not missed the bus, you would have been home in time for Beverly’s phone call; if you had been in time for Beverly’s phone call, you would have known that she still loves you and wants to try again.”

  The first man stops running, turns, and shouts back: “You probably haven’t even thought of her in months, have you?”

  Then, with a last twist of the blade, the second man pulls the knife from your belly and runs back the way he came.

  You can no longer see the first man but, still, you call out to whomever may hear: “Don’t I have the right to be tired?” You crumple to the ground and watch your life ooze from your belly, staining the sidewalk. “I didn’t want to get involved. It was none of my affair. I only wanted to get home.”

  Then you die.

  Everyone calls it suicide.

  Attack of the Giant Deformed Mutant Cannibalistic Gnashing Slobberers from Planet Cygnus X-2.73: A Love Story

  Viewed through the fish-eye lens of the pod’s observation iris, Captain Brick Morgenstern thought the landing area of the Non Sequitur looked like a steel diamond peppered with ancient smokestacks, but what else should he have expected from a damn-near ancient mining vessel such as this? The area surrounding the pits and pads and terminal structures was a crazy quilt of rampaging colors—landing lights—to offset the cold blandness of the main terminus attached to it, slate-gray alloys macroscopically homogenized to resemble the space surrounding the massive vessel.

  The heavily-armed, one-man transport pod glided down, down, down into a designated pit, and the view from the iris vanished. Once the vessel settled into place, Morgenstern waited for some sign of life; a technician, and ensign, a mouse, anything. He’d come too far, shed too much blood, and seen too much blood shed to start getting the willies now. After several moments of still-life silence, he initiated communications.

  * * *

  “ … Captain Brick Morgenstern calling Command, do you read, Command?”

  “This is Command. Go ahead, Captain.”

  Morgenstern made his way around the tight enclosed space, albeit with extreme caution. “I have managed to keep possession of the Nonexistium samples from the mines of the planet, but suffered massive casualties.”

  “We were afraid of that after the com blackout, Captain. What is the level of casualties?”

  “The Away Team is dead, everyone except me. The ship is crippled but there is one functioning Transport Pod the enemy hasn’t gotten to yet. I managed to get to it and leave the planet surface. I am now in the landing area of the Non Sequitur.”

  “Can the Transport Pod be counted on to make the scheduled rendezvous with The Unity Gain?”

  “Still gathering intel on that, Command. Life Support systems took some damage from hostile forces on the surface.”

  “Do you have functioning weapons?”

  “Affirmative. Including the last portable plasma canon. I have three shots left before the canon will need recharging.”

  “Understood. All right, Captain, your orders are as follows: make your way to Level Five, Sector Nine. That’s the ship’s library. It is imperative, Captain, that you locate and take possession of the Cygnus Theocracy Log Files that are stored there. There will be twenty-seven non-digital volumes. None are very large, but you’ll need something to carry them in.”

  “I’ve got my supply backpack.”

  “That will be fine, Captain.”

  “Captain?”

  “I read you, Command.”

  “You are authorized to use one Nonexistium sample to re-power your plasma canon, should the need arise.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Godspeed, Captain. Contact us again when you’re back at the pod.”

  * * *

  There was no sign of life anywhere on the ship. It was as if the entire crew had
simply vanished in the middle of day-to-day operations. Morgenstern tried not to let memories from the battle on the planet’s surface replay themselves in his mind’s eye, but all this death was just too recent, too close. He saw his team members falling underneath the great elephantine mass of the creatures that had overrun Cygnus, saw them not so much open their mouths as dislodge their jaws—or what he assumed were their jaws—and devour each team nearly whole. The ones who weren’t swallowed at once were ripped in half, bloody half-bodies littering the ground at the creatures’ enormous feet.

  Stop it, he commanded himself. There’s not a damn thing you can do about it now, so just stop it.

  He readied the plasma cannon as the elevator doors opened, revealing Level Five. Sector Nine would be to his right. Pressing his back against the wall, Morgenstern moved stealthily along the hallway, cannon at the ready. He was far too aware of the sound of his own breathing, the beating of his heart, the screaming pain from his unattended wounds.

  He arrived at Sector Nine without incident and made his way into the ship’s library. Once there, it was easy to locate the Cygnus Log Files and slip the volumes carefully into his backpack. The things looked, smelled, and felt ancient. Containing all the cultural, scientific, political, and theological information of the now-vanished society of the planet below, these logs were and would always be the only documentation that their race ever existed, that they dreamed, hoped, strove toward … something. Anything. Before the creatures came and began taking it all away in bloody pieces. But at least these records existed, and the scientists and historians back on Earth would know how to translate them, and what to do with the information. That was something, at least. And in this place, at this moment, it was something that Morgenstern was willing to die for.

  Tightening the straps on his backpack so that nothing would accidentally come loose, Morgenstern started toward the door. He was almost there when he became suddenly, inexorably, frighteningly aware of another presence in the room. Activating the light at the end of the canon, he swept the surrounding area and for the first time saw the dozens—hundreds—thousands of cobwebs that fluttered down from the ceiling and attached themselves to every book, every computer, every thing in the room where information and knowledge resided.

  Tracking a few of them with the light beam, Morgenstern turned his attention up toward the ceiling. They weren’t cobwebs, but dozens of small shiny filaments, each one reaching upwards and out to hundreds of dangling membranous sacks. The sacks expanded and contracted in precise rhythm. Then he became aware of the pulsing of the floor; steady, strong, equally rhythmic. A heartbeat. The organic structure of this deck was changing; steel to tissue, wires to veins, fuel to flesh.

  Looking closer at the organic sacks, Morgenstern realized what they, as a whole, resembled.

  A brain.

  What the hell are you? he thought. I saw your kind down on the surface, saw the way those creatures worshiped you, how they … how they passed my crew members into you through your filaments like children blowing bubbles into glasses of milk through straws. Did you learn from them, from their deaths? Do you even care that you devoured more than knowledge, that you took away lives by the dozens with each victim? Do you think yourself so powerful that you’re indestructible? Let’s test that theory, shall we?

  Slamming the Nonexistium into the power chamber of the canon, Morgenstern opened fire shooting at the thing on the ceiling until he felt its blood and fluids spattering against his face.

  He liked the feeling. He liked knowing that he could still, however briefly, fight back.

  He continued firing until the canon could fire no more.

  * * *

  “Excellent work, Captain.”

  “Thank you, Command. I believe now that I have enough power and air to safely reach my rendezvous with the Gain.”

  “Affirmative. You’ll find a hero’s welcome waiting for you.”

  “Thank you, Command. This is Morgenstern, over and out.”

  * * *

  The young man stepped out into the hallway, futilely trying to wipe the water from his face and clothes. A moment later a nurses’ aide came beside him with a towel in her hand.

  “Looks like he got you good, this time.”

  “I should have known that giving him a water pellet gun was asking for trouble.” He finished drying his face and handed back the towel.

  “Well,” said the young aide, “no real harm in it, I suppose.” She began walking with him as he headed toward the doors.

  “Can you do me a small favor?” asked the young man.

  “If I can.”

  “The books in his room. Can you make sure they get covered up at night with a towel or something plastic? Just in case he fires at them accidentally.”

  The young lady smiled. “We can do that.”

  They paused at the doors as the young man looked back in the direction of the room.

  “It’s so sad,” said the young aide. “I understand he used to be a famous writer.”

  “No,” said the young man. “He was once an almost semi-popular writer. Almost everyone’s forgotten about him now. Those twenty-seven books are his, everything he wrote. I had a helluva time finding some of them. His work is no longer in print. So, please, make sure they get covered at night. Or sneak the toy gun out when he’s asleep or … or something.”

  “Of course.”

  The young man nodded his head in thanks, took one last quick look in the direction of the room, and exited the doors, making damn sure as he did—as he always did—to not look at the words ALZHEIMER’S UNIT printed on the glass.

  “See you next weekend, Dad,” he whispered, and quickened his step.

  * * *

  Safely aboard the Unity Gain, in his private quarters, freshly showered, his wounds tended to, and with a full stomach from a hero’s meal, Captain Brick Morgenstern stood in his PJs and bathrobe before the carefully-stacked volumes of the Cygnus Theocracy Log Files, weapon in hand, eyes wide, senses alert. This knowledge the enemy would never get. It was all that remained. It needed a guardian. He was proud to be the one chosen for this most important task. He stood at attention. He would not fail.

  For J.N. Williamson

  Househunting

  The fence is tall.

  Good.

  The mother is typical white trash, too loud.

  But the kids … they seem frightened and quiet.

  Good.

  Easier that way.

  All the Unlived Moments

  “Secret of my universe: imagining God without human immortality.”

  —Camus, Notebook IV, January 1942-September 1945

  I found the guy outside one of the downtown VR cult temples just like the thin-voiced tipster said I would. He was around thirty-two, thirty-three years old, dressed in clothes at least two sizes too small for the cold December dusk. There were blisters on his forehead, face, and neck. One look in his eyes told me that his mind—or what might be left of it—was still lost somewhere in cyberspace, floating without direction down corridors formed wherever electricity runs with intelligence; billowing, coursing, glittering, humming, a Borgesian library filled with volumes he’d never understand, lost in a 3D city; intimate, immense, firm, liquid, recognizable and unrecognizable at once. The 21st Century Schizoid Man, in the flesh.

  I gently placed one of my hands on his shoulder. My other hand firmly clasped the butt of my tranquilizer pistol, just in case.

  “You okay?”

  He turned slowly toward me, his eyes glassy, uncomprehending. “Who’re you, mister?”

  “A friend. I’m here to help you.”

  “D-d-did...did he ever find that girl?”

  “Who?”

  “John Wayne?”

  He seemed so much like a child, lost, lonely, frightened. A lot of VR cultists end up like this. Sometimes I wondered if the mass-suicides of religious cults in the past were really such a tragedy, after all. At least then the cultists—sad, odd, da
maged people who turned to manufactured religions and plasticine gods—were released, were freed forever from the Machiavellian will- and mind-benders who turned them into semi-ignorant, unquestioning, shuffling zomboids. Worse, though, were the families who hired me and my partner to get their kids back and de-program them. They always thought that familial love and compassion would break through the brainwashing—and don’t try to lecture my ass, because brainwashing is the only thing to call it—but then they find out all too soon that you don’t need surgical equipment to perform some lobotomies. Seven times out of ten the kids wound up in private institutions; at least one of the other three are dumped at state-run facilities where they’re snowed on lithium for six months, spoon fed first-year graduate school psychobabble, then put out on the streets to join the other modern ghosts, adorned in rags, living in shadows, extending their hands for some change if you can spare it, and wondering in some part of their mind why the god they had worshiped from the altar of their computer monitor has abandoned them.

  “That’s my car over there. C’mon, I’ll take you someplace safe and warm. You can eat.”

  “...’kay...” His voice and gestures seemed even more childlike as he started toward my hover-car. “How...how come your car don’t got no wheels?” He seemed genuinely mystified, as if he’d never seen a hover-car before. Okay, so they weren’t exactly commonplace yet, but there were more than enough in the air at any given time that, unless you’d been on Mars since 2026, you’d have seen at least a couple.

  “It flies.”

  His eyes grew wide, awed. “Really?”

  I smiled at him. “Sure thing. Why don’t you get in...uh...what’s your name? Mine’s Carl.”