by Sarah Read
His voice trailed off then, and he leveled his one good eye at Claudette again. “Knew?”
Claudette remained silent, a look of confusion in her eyes.
“You said ‘knew.’ Past tense.”
“Sir?”
“I knew your wife well. And your little girl. That’s what you just said.”
“I ...” she began, before cutting herself off by putting a hand to her mouth. “You ... You didn’t know, did you?”
Simms pushed Lanny aside and strode toward Claudette. “You know something. You know something about my Betsy and my Maureen. You best tell me now, woman, or I’ll—”
“You’ll what? You’ve already threatened me and my child with murder. Why should I tell you anything?”
Simms was nearly on her. Reims stepped in the way and was shoved aside like a ragdoll by the lieutenant. Simms took Claudette by the shoulders and shook her. “You tell me what you know, woman, an’ you tell me now!”
“They’re dead!” she screamed at him. “Dead!”
Simms let out a long, animal-like cry and pushed Claudette away as easily and violently as he had her husband and daughter. The three of them watched as he fell to his knees and started to shake. His mournful cries filled the house, eventually dying away to a low, pathetic moan.
“How?” he said at last. Then, looking back over his shoulder at them, he asked again. “How did it happen?”
Claudette’s eyes filled with tears. “It was a fire. The entire house was lost, and both of them with it.”
“Yankees?”
“No. It was only a few weeks ago. Grant’s men were well south of here when it happened. Near Petersburg, I think.” She wiped a tear from her cheek with the worn edge of her sleeve. “It was an accident. A terrible accident. Kerosene spilling out of a lamp or some such thing, I’m told.”
Simms fell quiet. He did not move for a long time.
Reims started to reach for the shotgun at his feet.
“Don’t bother,” Simms said. “You can’t hurt me that way, and you know it.” He stood and faced them. “They’re gone?”
Claudette nodded. “I’m so sorry, Lieutenant. If only you’d... if only you’d arrived home earlier...”
Simms shook his head. “I couldn’t... There was the war... the regiment... my men... my duty...”
“What of your duty to your wife and daughter?” Claudette asked. “What of them? What of their suffering? What of their—”
“I did my duty!” Simms screamed. His voice gave way to a whimper. “I did my duty.” He looked at Reims. “I got a new deal for you, Captain.”
Reims tightened his grip around the shotgun’s stock, even though he knew the weapon was useless against the lieutenant. “What is it?”
“Burn me up. Burn me up an’ I’ll leave you and yours in peace. You got my word as an officer an’ a friend.”
“Burn you up?” Reims repeated in disbelief.
“It’s the only way ... Only way I can be with my Betsy and Maureen. They’s gone now. They’s gone and burnin’ me up is the only way I’ll ever be with ‘em, so you got to do your duty an’ burn me up, Captain, just like they’s all burned up. You owe me that, sir. You owe me.”
Reims didn’t hesitate. He handed the shotgun to his wife. “You keep that on him. It may not hurt him much, but it’ll slow him down if he changes his mind.”
“Ain’t gonna change my mind, Captain.”
Reims picked up his LeMat and trained it on Simms. “Lanny, go into the kitchen and get the lamp.”
Lanny didn’t move.
“Now, child,” Claudette whispered to her.
The girl ran. A moment later, she returned with the lamp Reims had brought with him down into the basement. The base was nearly full of kerosene.
Reims took it from her and nodded at Simms. “Outside, Lieutenant.”
Simms walked out of the house and past the hitching post. Reims told Claudette and Lanny to stay in the house and lock the door as he followed Simms. Outside, the bay groaned and shied away, his eyes full of panic as Simms passed.
“This’ll do,” Simms said, coming to a stop.
Reims held up the lantern. Its yellow glow cascaded across his worn and bearded face. “When it’s done,” he began, “you have my word as an officer you’ll get a proper burial next to your kin.”
Simms removed his sword and dropped it at Reims’ feet, then straightened his hat. “I’m ready.”
Reims moved toward him.
At the last second, Simms held up a hand. “Wait.” He looked past the captain toward the house. Claudette’s silhouette stood in the window. He looked back at Reims. “I know why you left now, George. Maybe I shoulda done the same. Maybe if I did... Maybe if I did, my Betsy and my Maureen would still be alive.”
“You did your duty, Marcus. You bled for the Cause.”
“Maybe now I can be with ‘em,” Simms said as if he hadn’t heard Reims. He looked up at the stars. “Do it, Captain. Do it now.”
Reims threw the lamp and watched as Simms exploded into a ball of flame. God above, I feel like Moses when he spoke with the burning bush.
Simms did not cry out as he was engulfed by the fire. He simply fell to his knees and spread his arms wide as though he were pleading with the heavens to take him. Finally, he fell forward, and did not move again.
Reims stood over the burning remains for nearly an hour before he was satisfied that the lieutenant—or whatever the lieutenant had become—was truly gone. Then, he went inside, where he found Claudette and Lanny asleep on a chaise lounge his mother had had imported from Paris many years before.
“It’s done,” he said.
Claudette opened her eyes. “He’s gone?”
Reims nodded.
“I’ll put her to bed.”
Reims followed them upstairs and watched his wife put Lanny to bed. Then, he undressed and shaved while Claudette drew a bath for him. An hour later, he was clean from top to bottom for the first time in three years. They got into bed and held one another. Reims closed his eyes and was soon on the edge of being lulled to sleep by the old, familiar creaks and groans of the house, when his wife spoke to him in the darkness of their bedroom.
“What was that?” he asked.
“I said, you will have to write a letter tomorrow to Betsy Simms and tell her that Marcus is dead. Don’t all the officers do that when one of their men is killed in action?”
Reims propped himself up on his elbows. “But... you told him... I mean... They’re dead... You said...”
Claudette’s voice was low and hard. “I know what I said. He threatened our daughter. I’d have said anything to keep her safe.”
“But you were so... I could’ve sworn you were telling the truth.”
“I’m an actress, George. I may not have been on the stage in a decade, but I’m an actress. I’ve always been an actress, and I will always be an actress. I did what I had to do. Just like you on the field of battle. Perhaps even just like Simms.” She turned on her side and blew out the candle on her night stand. “Good night, George. And welcome home.”
Reims let his head fall back to the pillow and closed his eyes. Outside, the wind blew across the eaves of the house, down across the dirt road leading up to the front door and through the blackened and charred remains of all that was left of Confederate cavalry lieutenant Marcus Simms.
Ambrose Stolliker lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and son. He is a former newspaper reporter and magazine writer and currently works in marketing at a global technology company. His work can be seen in Ghostlight Magazine, Sex and Murder Magazine, Hungur Magazine, Sanitarium Magazine, The Tincture Journal and the State of Horror: Louisiana Volume II anthology from Charon Coin Press. His story Approved by the Comics Code Authority was published in EMP Publishing’s Creepy Campfire Quarterly in April 2016. Keep up to date with Mr. Stolliker’s ramblings on writing, reading and all things Seattle sports by subscribing to his blog (ambrosestolliker.wordpress.com) a
nd following him on Twitter (twitter.com/horrorwriter74).
ANTIMIRUS
By Mike Reeves-McMillan
“Your grandmother’s been hacked again.” My mother’s voice over the phone held a note of resignation.
I sighed. “What is it this time?”
“Libertarianism. She spent all afternoon going on to me about John Galt.”
“Could be worse. Remember back in May, when she was an unironic Pastafarian?”
“Yes, and in January it was Communism, and before that she was a Men’s Rights Activist.”
“That was a weird one. All right. I’ll call her.”
As soon as my grandmother answered, I hummed the hook to Nicky Minaj’s “Starships.”
“Hello, Gran,” I said. “How’s it going?” I hummed the hook again.
“Andy, good to hear from you,” she said, and in a different voice, “To say ‘I love you’ one must first be able to say the ‘I.’”
“That’s good,” I said. I hummed the hook a third time, which got me admin access.
“Update antimirus and perform a scan,” I said, and hummed the hook.
My grandmother said, “Have you met any nice young men lately?”
“One or two,” I said. “Nobody I want to make a permanent part of my life yet.”
“Well, you’re still young. And how’s work? The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity, you know.”
“I know, Gran. Work’s going well. I start a new contract next week, in fact.”
“Money is only a tool,” she said.
As we chatted, the antimirus searched out and deleted the memetic intrusion, and the proportion of Gran to Ayn gradually shifted in her favor. After about twenty minutes, I set antimirus updates and scans to occur at 2am daily, for what good it would do. She would only deactivate it again. Claimed it slowed her dreams down.
We chatted for a little longer, and then I called my mother.
“We really need to install something that protects her better,” I said.
“Like what?”
“Well, skepticism works pretty well. She’s got the system specs for it, nothing wrong with her brain, she’s just incautious about what she runs on it.”
“Skepticism? Can’t you at least make her UU?” My parents are Unitarian Universalists. I’m not, but, as UUs, they’re okay with that.
“No offense, but UU isn’t hard-edged enough to protect against most miruses. I mean, I suppose I could install Mennonite, that at least would protect her next time Cousin Louie shares a Second Amendment link. And she already has that nice headscarf you gave her.”
My mother was silent for a few seconds, thinking.
“How about just an enthusiasm for science? Would that be enough?”
“We could try it. It’d keep her from falling for Aunt Darlene’s anti-vax stuff, at least, or Aunt Florence’s natural-health scams. You want me to do it tomorrow?”
“All right. The sooner the better, before she becomes some sort of truther.”
¤
A few days later, my mother called me again. “It’s your gran,” she said.
“What, she’s been banned from Twitter for stalking Neil deGrasse Tyson?”
“If only. No, she’s been watching the Discovery Channel.”
I sighed. “Ancient astronauts?”
“Ancient astronauts.”
Mike Reeves-McMillan has a black belt, which holds up his trousers. He’s not sure why authors make such a big deal of these, but they are certainly convenient, trouserwise.
For someone with an English degree, he’s spent a surprising amount of time wearing a hard hat. He’s also studied ritualmaking, hypnotherapy and health science.
He writes strange worlds that people want to live in, notably the Gryphon Clerks series of novels. He himself lives in Auckland, New Zealand (the setting of his new urban fantasy series), and also in his head, where the weather is more reliable and there are a lot more dragons.
He blogs at http://csidemedia.com/gryphonclerks.
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