Short Stories/Novellas

A vignette of dream shimmers briefly in my mind. I remember I was crouched in a dark yard, this yard—staring at that same clothesline. I was cold, so cold, and frightened, and I didn't know why. It was far too dark to see anything clearly. I could tell only that there was something hung from the line. Approaching it, I saw how it swung back and forth in the night-wind heavily. It wasn't until I was close enough almost to touch it that I realized what it was. It was the pale woman's head. … but I don't want to think about that. It is a dream best forgotten.

"You're gonna smoke it with me, aren't you, Vic?" he asked, following me. I stopped in the living room and kicked off my hiking boots. "Huh, Vic? How about it?" He walked around me and plopped himself down on the couch, which was even greasier than the carpet, if that was possible. "It'll be just like old times." A towering, purple bong sat at his feet, ready to go. I sat down in the easy chair across from him, rubbing my temples. It's coming. "Sure," I said, finally. "Just like old times."

Three went out in search of the Sound—Seeker, Teller, and Winder (though they weren't called that then). Only Teller returned, living long enough, just, to tell the Tale.

A young man's "blooding" can haunt him for the rest of his life. Especially when he's not even sure what he killed.

I stare at her through the rain. Somewhere a siren is wailing. From the streets below, angry words rendered unintelligible by distance are being exchanged. Gunshots follow. Then screaming. Car horns are being honked impatiently. Somewhere a baby is crying. The Hard Mask seems to fit much looser than before. In fact, it doesn't seem to want to stay on at all.

Dr. Krantz served as a full professor of anthropology at Washington State University from 1968 until 1998. Though he was a popular teacher with an almost cult-like following and highly regarded for his work on Homo Erectus, it was his pioneering exploration of the Sasquatch phenomenon which won him praise as well as condemnation from the scientific community. Though the ultimate veracity of Dr. Krantz' Bigfoot hypothesis may never be known, the fact that he captured the popular imagination has never been disputed. Indeed, due to his numerous appearances on national television and in motion pictures, as well as his published articles, essays, and books, Krantz may be said to have joined the likes of Carl Sagan and Joseph Campbell as a "popularizer" of scientific and/or mythological enquiry. In doing so he has helped bridge the gulf between serious scientific debate and worldwide popular culture, and drawn the attention of thousands to the greater Pacific Northwest.

Now that the smoke had cleared, she saw that the bulge had burst open, and was hollow. Reams of tree sap dribbled from its fracture. She stared at it as piano music tiptoed up the hall—Maggie's radio, no doubt—resonating eerily amidst the sterile walls. Thinking she heard the ghost-voice of Karen Carpenter—what were recordings if not the voices of ghosts?—she noticed something different about the willow tree. Something other than the weird bulge, now split open. It was an odd configuration of branches, some thick as a person’s arms, others thick as legs. Had those been there before? She was pretty sure they hadn’t. She noticed there were unusual masses of vegetation growing from them; in addition to strands of weeping willow leaves, there were flowers, ferns, lilies, mushroom stools—she knew they hadn’t been there. Taken together, the branches almost formed a human shape—with shaggy shoulders and a mane of green hair—in profile. But since when did trees grow— Suddenly the shape turned its face to her, opening its eyes, and Tika shrieked.

"Take the fatal shot," said Horseshoe. He must have laid down his rifle because I remember him helping to steady my own. "Easy now, you'll own this forever—" I stared the thing in the eye and squeezed the trigger. It threw back its head, rising up. It gasped for breath, spitting more blood. It barked at the sky. Then it fell, head thumping against the deck. Its serpentine neck slumped. The rest of its blood spread over the boards and rolled around our boots and flowed between the planks. I was the first to step forward, looking down at the thing through drifting smoke. Its remaining eye seemed to look right back. I got down on my knees to look closer. The thing exhaled, causing the breathing holes at the top of its head, behind its eyes, to bubble. I waited for it to inhale, staring into its eye—I could see myself there as well as the others, could see the sky and the scattered clouds. The whole world seemed contained in that moist little ball. Then the eye rolled around white—it shrunk, drying, and the thing's neck constricted. And it died. Horseshoe slapped my back, massaged my neck. "How's it feel, little buddy?" But I didn't know what I felt. I could only stare at the eye, now empty.

"Take the fatal shot," said Horseshoe. He must have laid down his rifle because I remember him helping to steady my own. "Easy now, you'll own this forever—" I stared the thing in the eye and squeezed the trigger. It threw back its head, rising up. It gasped for breath, spitting more blood. It barked at the sky. Then it fell, head thumping against the deck. Its serpentine neck slumped. The rest of its blood spread over the boards and rolled around our boots and flowed between the planks. I was the first to step forward, looking down at the thing through drifting smoke. Its remaining eye seemed to look right back. I got down on my knees to look closer. The thing exhaled, causing the breathing holes at the top of its head, behind its eyes, to bubble. I waited for it to inhale, staring into its eye—I could see myself there as well as the others, could see the sky and the scattered clouds. The whole world seemed contained in that moist little ball. Then the eye rolled around white—it shrunk, drying, and the thing's neck constricted. And it died. Horseshoe slapped my back, massaged my neck. "How's it feel, little buddy?" But I didn't know what I felt. I could only stare at the eye, now empty.

It was a moment that would stretch indefinitely until they lay naked and depleted in the over-cab bedroom of his fifth-wheeler, which was parked in the diner’s back lot, at which time she whispered, even while edging toward sleep, “Your ring. It glowed as we danced, did you know that?”His body stiffened immediately. “It what?”“Your hard-to-explain ring,” she said, and giggled a little. “It—it lit up. Where on earth did you get that thing? I’ve never seen anything like—”He sat up with a start, everything about him seeming suddenly electrified, suddenly rigid. “What color was it?”She tittered hesitantly. “And that matters because …?”He grabbed her by the throat—not particularly hard, but enough to hurt. “What color was it?”Her mind reeled. Hasn’t it always been just a matter of when? “Green. It was green. You’re—you’re hurting me.”He released her suddenly and looked out the window. “Green … by the gods. What shade?” He looked at her abruptly. “What shade, Sarah?”She began to inch away from him slowly. “Just —just green. Dark green, I think. It—it only did it for—”And then she was scrambling—disentangling herself from the sheets, tumbling dangerously down the thickly-carpeted stairs, climbing to her bare feet.A gunshot rang out as she reached for the door and wood chips exploded from the cabinets above her. “Open that door and we die—do you understand?”She looked to see him crouched at the top of the stairs, pistol in hand. “The best we can hope for now is to remain still … and pray they don’t find us. Now step away from the door—do it!”She stared at him for several breaths, her heart hammering in her chest, wondering if he would really shoot—if he was really that crazy.“Dark green, by the gods. Thazgul ...”Yes, she could see now that he was. Could see it just as clear as day. Could see that he’d always been crazy and had always looked it: she’d just been too stupid to see—too needy, too agreeable. Hasn’t it always been just a matter of when?

He looked up at his apartment window after he’d gotten out of his truck, he didn’t know why, and saw Sadie sitting in the sill, staring down at him, it seemed. Hey, you little psychopath, he thought, as the snow fluttered down and clung to his face. Have you been a good girl? He was relieved to find, a few minutes later, that she had: for nothing appeared amiss either in the kitchen or the living room. The bedroom, too, seemed in perfectly good order—although Sadie was no longer at the window, which did beg the question: Where on earth was she, exactly? He began calling out her name as he moved toward the bathroom, and was surprised by how little his voice sounded, how nervous. “Sadie? Saaadie?” He felt a wave of apprehension as he entered the bathroom, he wasn’t sure why, but was pleased to find it normal in every respect—there wasn’t even any discernible cat box odor. He laughed a little at his own paranoia. What had he expected? ‘REDRUM’ scrawled across the mirror in cat shit?

I watched as Aaron approached one of the workbenches and fetched an intricately-crafted gold box. “Ah, yes. The shem, you see, is what gives the golem its power—thank you, son, a sheynem dank. It is what gives it the ability to move and become animated.” I glanced at Aaron, who only looked back at me uncertainly, as his father approached the golem and opened the box, the gold plating of which gleamed like a fire before the candelabrums. “This one consists of only one word—one of the Names of God, which is too sacred to be uttered here.” He withdrew a slip of paper and placed it into the golem’s mouth. “I shall only say emet, which means ‘truth’ … and have done with it. And so it is finished. Tetelestai.” He turned and looked directly at me, I have no idea why. “The debt will be paid in full.” Nobody said anything for a long time, even as the birds tweeted outside and a siren wailed somewhere in the distance. We just stood there and stared at his creation. At last I said, “So are you going to enter in the Fair, Mr. Moss, or what? How will you even move it?” At which Old Man Moss only smiled, ruffling my hair, and said, “No—it is only for this moment. That is the nature of Art. Tsaytvaylik. Tomorrow it will be gone. Now run along and finish your lawn. I’ve involved you enough.” And the next day it was gone, at least according to Aaron, and both of us, I think, promptly forgot about it. At least until the first of the Benton Boys turned up dead, Sheriff Donner directing the recovery while his ashen-blue body bobbed listlessly against the Benedict A. Saltweather Dam. It was June.

It is raining. That’s the first thing I notice, the first thing that tells me I am no longer in the cockpit. The second is that I’m bleeding—bleeding from the leg, which is making it difficult to press the attack. The third is that I’m dying—as is my opponent—dying beneath a blood red sky.“It is finished,” he says, stumbling forward and back—his blood flowing freely, his hair matted in sweat. “Look at you! Your broadsword is shattered. Your armor is compromised. Why is it you continue?”But I do not know why I continue—only that I was a Crash Diver once and will be so again, and so must face the vision, endure its consequences. Endure them so that future generations may bridge the gulf of galaxies!At last I say: “Are you better off? We die together, Sir Aglovere. Surely you—”But I am baffled by my own voice, so familiar and yet strange, and by my own words, which have materialized from nowhere.And then he is charging, hacking at me wildly, and I am forced back along the hedgerow: until I lose my footing over a protruding root and topple headlong into the mud and bramble—whereupon my opponent falls on what’s left of my sword and is promptly run through, his entrails unspooling like loops of linked sausage and his eyes turning to empty glass. At length he says, “We kill ourselves,” and laughs, even as I push him off me.And then we just lay there, staring at the sky, neither of us saying anything, as our blood pools together and spirals down the slope. As the clouds continue to rumble—pouring rain into our dying eyes.

The medical rocket is wasted—its consoles smashed, its stores emptied—to the extent that we have collapsed outside its open hatch in total exhaustion and despair. Worse, the air is filled with the roar of machinery—a roar with a band-saw edge—one we know all too well for it is the sound of Cap’s Big Track coming closer every second.And then he has arrived, riding his tractor like a chariot, goading it forward into the clearing, motoring directly toward us until Taylor jumps up in a panic and sprints for the next bridge—his dark skin shining, his heels kicking up sod—as the Captain veers toward him suddenly and seems to gun the engine.And then I am running, shouting at him to stop, as Taylor vanishes beneath the blades and the Big Track jounces, once, twice, the Captain laughing and throwing back his head, the iron tracks seeming to catch—until blood begins spewing like grass clippings from the mulch-vents and all I can hear is my friend screaming—gargling—dying beneath the Cap’s iron beast.

“Well, now we are getting somewhere,” says Sula, glancing him up and down, appearing victorious. “But she was not a witch like me, else she would not have done what she did. For that is exactly what happened, isn’t it? Jadis became infected by M24 and slew her own son, and your son too. And then you spent the next year and a half wandering a world you no longer recognized, a world where the dead were stacked on every street corner and the bonfires burned day and night, until you stumbled into a beer hall one night because they were offering free bread and heard a powerful orator talking about male superiority and cleansing the world; and you listened, at first just because it felt good to have something in your stomach, but later because you were swayed, and that orator’s name was Kill-sin, who would go on to found New Salem and rule it with an iron fist. Am I warm, Witch Doctor?”

They were the kind of musical notes men and woman once swayed to—even worshiped to—or so Jasper had told him, ground from an instrument called an “organ”—which had once been common, or so he’d said, but had vanished from the face of the world. So, too, were there cymbals, which echoed throughout the crew compartment of the War Wagon like tinsel—if tinsel could be said to have a sound—and mingled with the steely whispers of their muskets and tanks and other gear as the truck rocked and their harnesses held them fast.“When a maaan loves a woman,” sang a hearty and soulful voice both inside and outside the compartment, and Jeremiah knew they were close, else the driver wouldn’t have cued the music, and when he scanned the other Witch Doctors, strapped in six to a bench in the wagon’s cramped confines, he knew that they knew it too. What was more, he knew that, however fearsome they looked in their black jumpsuits and white flame-retardant vests, their goggled respirators, their buckled hats—they were frightened, too.But then the wagon ground to a halt and there was no time to be feel anything, much less fear, as Jeremiah unbuckled and piled out with the others. And yet, as he paused momentarily to take in the building—a ramshackle six-story brownstone which looked as though it had been built before the Betrayal, much less the Pogrom—a strange thing happened. He thought he heard a voice; not from without but entirely from within—a woman’s voice, a witch’s voice. And it said to him, as faintly as the cymbals at the start of the music, Why have you come for us, Witch-Doctor? And he found himself scanning the illuminated windows of the brownstone as if someone had perhaps shouted to him (rather than reaching directly into his mind), and saw behind one of the uppermost panes a figure so small and motionless that he might have thought it a piece of furniture, a lamp, perhaps, had it not slid to one side and vanished.Then he was activating his musket, which was connected to the tank on his back and shot not just explosive balls but streams of incinerating fire, and charging into the foyer—where a handful of witches already lay, writhing and smoldering. Fifteen minutes. That’s what they had before the Flyer lowered from the vespertine gloom and received them on the roof.

It would be hard to describe how elated I felt upon returning to our fishing spot and finding the trout gone, though in truth I couldn’t be sure if Ghost had gotten to it or some other predator—at least not until I stepped through (having had some difficulty in locating the portal, I confess) and saw the fresh prints. And yet of Ghost himself there was no trace, even after I’d called out to him—in the hopes he might recognize my voice— and laid the new fish down (a giant halibut which had cost me my entire allowance); positioning it halfway in and out of the portal so I could monitor it even while studying on the nearby rocks. Nor did I have to wait long, for I’d barely cracked my history book when I just happened to look up and see the halibut yanked all the way in, at which I stood abruptly and approached—but was beat to the mark by Ghost himself, whose snout emerged out of thin air and was quickly followed by his neck and body—even the entirety of his tail—until we were facing each other next to the Mohawk River: Ghost still swallowing and licking his non-lips, and both of us, I think, chilled by the November wind. “That’s it,” I said, rubbing my gloves together, splaying my empty hands. “No more. At least not today.” He cocked his head at this, his pink, rabbit’s eyes blinking, before rearing back and barking at the sky—like a sea lion, I thought—just yark, yark, yark! “Nope. All done. You’re just going to have to wait until tomorrow—when I’ll try to bring more. Can you do that?” He just looked at me, his little fore-claws opening and closing—a kind of prehistoric hand-wringing, I supposed. And it occurred to me—not for the first time—that, at least in the short-term, I might be his only means of survival; that, indeed, if I didn’t feed him he might very well starve. What did not occur to me, at least until he began sniffing the air between us and slowly moving toward me, is that I myself might be in danger—that, in lieu of more fish or perhaps even a big dragonfly, he might try kid. Might try lying little turd-wad who was going to start 7th grade next year. Might try Denial Boy who was still convinced his parents were marooned on a desert isle and would turn up any day. Which is when, having begun backing away, I tripped over an above-ground root and fell, sprawling, onto my back, at which instant the animal’s snout darted for my head and I screamed—only to find, seconds later, that it had not attacked me at all … but begun licking me; yes, licking me, sliding its great, pebbly tongue up and down my face, slathering my cold cheeks in gooey spit, breathing into my nostrils—filling the world with dinosaur. Filling it with heat and musk and stench. And filling it, too, with something else, something I’d been missing since the last time I’d seen my mother; a thing frowned upon in Grandma’s house (where the nape of the rugs always lay left to right and the plastic floor runners always gleamed and the books in their glass-faced cabinets always stood so silent, to be viewed and not read). Mere touch. Mere contact. Mere things coming into contact with other things. Like what I felt for Jenny or even my favorite T-shirt and wool blanket—the one with the U.S.S. Enterprise on it—like what I felt for my plastic model kits and comic books and beat-up fishing pole (even though I never used it). Something familiar, something secret. Something, I supposed, like love. Or what a boy could know of it.

Detective Rowe: Let’s go back now—to when you first saw it move. Is that all right?Westbrook: Sure. Like I said, I’d just woken up from the dream when I heard it, just rumbling across the field where they’d been working on the road—Detective Rowe: The I-890–North Schenectady Corridor.Westbrook: Sure, I guess. So I went to my window—you know, to see what was going on, and saw it sputtering to a stop near the office trailers and other equipment—which were all covered in snow—just shutting down with a rattle, like it had been running for a long time. That’s when I first noticed it, how clean it was—there was no snow on it at all. Like—Detective Rowe: But it was there when you went to sleep, isn’t that correct?Westbrook: Yes, of course. Covered in snow. It hadn’t moved since December, when they had that accident—you know, where the worker was killed.Detective Rowe: Clarke. The foreman. I seem to recall they had several accidents; including when they rammed into that layer of concrete.Westbrook: (inaudible)Detective Rowe: What?Westbrook: The Meyers. James and Mia. That’s where the concrete was at. I used to talk with them sometimes, before the accid—Detective Rowe: You knew them?Westbrook: Before the traffic accident. The one with the semi. Last summer.Detective Rowe: Yes, I seem to recall that too. Something about them accelerating out of control—Westbrook: I think they did it.Detective Rowe: I’m sorry?Westbrook: The bugs.Detective Rowe: The … bugs.Westbrook: (inaudible): In the concrete. Where the Meyers buried them. At least, until the road grader came along ...

... What on earth did you plan to do?Dunn: Well, the only thing we could do, which was to right the boat and continue on—while doing our best to bail, of course. And that’s when I first noticed it: way up there beyond the ridge; something moving, swinging, like the tip of a giant sword—only black against the sun—something which, after we’d scaled a nearby rockfall, turned out to be the blades of an industrial wind turbine—just one out of what seemed an endless array, spread out across the scrublands for as far as the eye could see, casting long shadows, like Cyclopean sentinels.Detective Shaw: Cyclop—cyclopean—what is that? Is that Latin?Dunn: Huge, Detective. Massive.Detective Shaw: Right. And then, what? You returned to your boat?Dunn: You know we didn’t return to the boat.Detective Shaw: Yes, I understand that, just as I understood they found a spiraled hole exactly one inch in diameter in the bottom of your canoe. But it’s better for the record if I pretend I know nothing, okay?Dunn: Okay. No, then we began walking, because we’d figured out where we were at—the Pyreridge Wind Farm just north of Edgerton, as you said. And we knew, also, that they gave tours there and even had a visitor’s center; a center which might still be staffed even though it was extremely late in the day, and which would have a telephone. Detective Shaw: A wise move.Dunn: Yes, it was as good as any. Or so it seemed—until we came to the wind turbine with the white service truck parked at its base; and saw … where we saw …Detective Shaw: Yes?Dunn: You’ve seen the pictures, Detective.Detective Shaw: But I need to pretend I have not. And I need to hear what you, personally, saw with your very own eyes. For the record, Dr. Dunn. Please.Dunn: Where we saw a man, a service technician, by his clothes, hung by his neck from his own safety line … from the back of the wind turbine’s nacelle. Just … just sort of swaying there, in the wind. A man who was missing one shoe. And who …Detective Shaw: Go on …Dunn: And who had no discernible face. Okay? (inaudible) He had no face. Isn’t that good enough?

“What I’m telling you is, this is temporary. Okay? Believe me. I may not be a scientist but I can tell you that. It’s temporary. In the meantime we got the best armed forces and police responders in the world keeping us safe. These guys, right here,” He indicated the soldiers. “Aren’t they great? Great guys.”“But, sir?” Elliott appeared starstruck as he stepped forward. “I mean, Mr. President. Isn’t it true that CNN was reporting that most of our military had simply disappeared? How do you account for that?”“Fake news,” said Tucker, and pointed at Carson, who had taken off his MAGA hat and raised his hand. “You. Your hat was fine, by the way.”Laughter.“Sir, I just wanted to know what you intend to do next; and what your thoughts are on the situation right here. Right now. We’ve got dead needing to be buried, for one—or at least moved to where those things can’t, well, you know, scavenge off—”“Like the head laying against the limo’s front tire,” said Rory.They all glanced out the windows—and at the little girl standing in front of them, who was looking out at the thing. She must have saw their reflections because she turned to face them as they watched.“It keeps staring at me,” she said—prompting Tess to hurry toward her, cajoling her, before quickly ushering her away.Everyone just looked at each other. “I’ll, ah—I’ll sit down and take your answer,” said Carson.

The Flashback/Dinosaur Apocalypse continues ... That’s when I heard the strange sound: a kind of forlorn mewing, like the note of a horn being drug out too long, coming from just around the corner, just beyond the liquor store—and paused, holding up my hand. “What? What’s going on?” I waved her into silence, dropping the rein, then hustled to the edge of the building—where, after peeking around the corner, I saw a juvenile sauropod of the Diplodocus family (meaning it was the size of a typical school bus) collapsed in the middle of the street—its right front leg stuck in a manhole. “What is it? What do you see?” I looked from the sauropod to the corner of a nearby building, where something had moved, then across the street to an overgrown alley. Yes, I thought. There. And there. Between the tattoo parlor and the marijuana dispensary … “Allosaurs,” I said, gravely. “An entire pack of them. In desert camouflage. They—they’ve got something trapped.” “Omigod. It—it’s not your dog, is it?” I returned and picked up the rein, began leading Blucifer forward, into the intersection. “No.” “Wait … what are you—” “We’re going through,” I said. “But what if those things—” “They don’t care about us; they want the bigger game. For now. Just hold on.” The horse’s hooves went clip-clop, clip-clop as we passed, the bluish-gray sauropod coming into full view ... A moment later she said, “It—it’s stuck. In the manhole. Do you see that?” I eyed the predators warily, continuing to lead. “There’s nothing we can do about it.” “But she’ll be helpless against—” “That is the way of it,” I insisted. “The way of the—” “Look, would you stop with the Indian clap-trap? I’m not even sure—" There was a thwomp as the allosaur by the building leapt into the road—not by us but about fifty feet away, near the sauropod. “Jesus, can’t you do anything? What about your bow?” “And risk bringing them down on us?” I intensified our pace, sprinting toward the Stratosphere. “No!” And then they were coming—the allosaurs from across the street—passing so close we could smell the meat on their breath; closing in on the frightened herbivore … until we passed the scene completely and sought refuge in a nearby gas station (its storefront had long since collapsed) and gathered there trembling as the sauropod cried out—for it wouldn’t be long now until they fell upon her. “Jesus,” said Essie, listening. “What a world.” “Yes,” I said, remembering. “My father used to say it had a demonic sublime; every tree and every rock, every animal, including man, down to the lowest insect.” I listened as the sauropod moaned, seeming already to give up, to resign its fate. “And yet.” “What do you mean?” “What?” “You said, ‘and yet.’ What did you mean?” I un-shouldered the compound bow—rubbing my aching deltoid, stretching my arm. “Nothing. It’s just that … maybe it doesn’t have to be this way.” When she didn’t respond I looked at her—found her already looking at me: calmly, meditatively, her eyes seeming to glimmer. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” “I mean … that I could end it. Her confusion and terror. That I—could prevent her from suffering.” I looked at the bow and the dark, poisoned bolts attached to it. “That it’s in my hands to do so.” The Flashback/Dinosaur Apocalypse Cycle Flashback (re-printed in Dinosaur Apocalypse) Flashback Dawn (re-printed in Dinosaur Apocalypse) Tales from the Flashback (re-printed as Dinosaur Rampage) Flashback Twilight (serialized as A Dinosaur is a Man’s Best Friend; re-printed as The Complete Ank & Williams, Dinosaur War, Paladins) A Reign of Thunder (serialized as Heat Wave) A Survivor’s Guide to the Dinosaur Apocalypse (re-printed as Dinosaur Carnage)

Welcome to the future, where women have been infected with a virus that turns them into witches and men have formed a militarized cult to exterminate them—the Witch Doctors. You can survive here, if you’re lucky; but only if you swear to one of the dominant practices—Puritanism or witchcraft—and are willing to check your humanity at the door in the process. Because in the future, being a man means donning black and white and carrying a fire-breathing musket—the better to incinerate witches by—while being a woman means to live as the undead or a white-eyed practitioner of the black arts. Either way, humanity is doomed. That is, unless a single man or woman can resist—and in so doing, find the courage to cooperate, even love, again.Will it be Satyena, the beautiful young witch prone to kindness and compassion? Patrobus, the salty platoon sergeant with a secret past? How about Aluka, the intersex witch-doctor caught between worlds? Dive into these tales of the Sex War to find out—tales told in the dystopian tradition of Fahrenheit 451 and Logan’s Run—stories at once brutal and beatific, halting and surreal. Do it today, before the future they portend becomes shocking reality …We are close enough now that the driver has activated the loudspeakers: Ohhh, myyy love, my darling, I’ve hungered for your touch … It is time; there’s a riot of clicks and ca-chinks as everyone primes their muskets, pressurizes their masks. I double check my grip reservoir (crucial in the event one gets separated from their tank): it is full. And time … goes by … so slowly … I notice a few disconnect their arm hoses—Malachi, Ishmael, Artemas—against regulation but a favorite hack, for it allows the musket to be switched from hand to hand or spun like a wheel from its ring lever. The problem is that witches have been known to use telekinesis to snatch the weapons away—that and the fact that the grip has limited capacity and reseating it can take precious seconds. And then we are there, we are at the former hospital—the wagon lurching to a stop, the rear doors banging open—and everyone is unbuckling, piling out. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” shouts Jeremiah, even as the first charges are thrown and detonate against the doors—blasting them to smithereens, rocking the grounds like an earthquake. “Aluka, Malachi, Lazarus—levels 3 through 4, go! Ishmael, Silas, Artemas, come with me.” Ohhh, myyy love, my darling … We enter the foyer—fanning out like black specters, winding up staircases, pouring into hallways, as the first of the witches are lit up like little suns and a collective gasp echoes throughout the building. Seconds later the screaming begins, the shrieks, the mournful wailing, like mothers over dead children. I focus on locating the lab—knowing Malachi will clear the floor; knowing he will leave nothing standing. The truth is I don’t know if I can still do it: kill witches, murder women. The truth is something has awakened that I cannot put back to sleep— something ghostly, elusive, something I cannot parse or ration away. I push it from my mind, ducking into a side corridor, an inner voice seeming to tell me what to do, where to go, as if a kind of third ear has opened, a third eye—a window into the world of the witches. The blue door at the end of the hall, the voice seems to say, the voices, rather. Do you remember? We put it in ourselves—the witches of Scarth Coven—put it in to withstand the blast of their muskets. But you know the code; it is embedded in the hive. Just use your intuition, and let thy hand by thy guide. And then I am there and am punching in the code—66-67-66—understanding not at all what has happened; as the lock mechanism buzzes and the bolt retracts. As the door swings open and the lab, so long and white and evenly-lit (precisely as it appeared in the spy photos), so incongruous with everything we thought we knew about the witches, appears ...

First came the time-storm, which erased half the population. Then came the Dinosaur Apocalypse … How did it all begin? That depends on where you were and who you ask. In some places it started with the weather—which quickly became unstable and began behaving in impossible ways. In still others it started with the lights in the sky, which shifted and pulsed and could not be explained. Elsewhere it started with the disappearances: one here, a few there, but increasing in occurrence until fully three quarters of the population had vanished. Either way, there is one thing on which everyone agrees—it didn’t take long for the prehistoric flora and fauna to start showing up (often appearing right where someone was standing, in which case the two were fused, spliced, amalgamated). It didn’t take long for the great Time-displacement called the Flashback—which was brief but had aftershocks, like an earthquake—to change the face of the earth. Nor for the stories, some long and others short, some from before the maelstrom (and resulting societal collapse) and others after, to be recorded. These are the stories of a group of experienced survivors and their incredible machine, Gargantua: How they came to possess it, and what they did with it after. This is the recounting of a heist in Seattle in which they barely escaped with their lives ... and a journey to Lost Angeles to find their forever home--which just happened to be occupied when they got there. These are their Travels With Gargantua ...

Cooper "Coup" Black--yes, yes, just like the font--has a couple problems. Well, who doesn't? For one, his book deal has fallen through, leading him to do something, well, unfortunate. To its publisher. Two, he's picked up a hitchhiker--a hot, young (too young; as in half his age) available hitchhiker, whom he doesn't really know what to do with. And three, he's in the wrong place at the wrong time--as in a truck-stop on the Mexican border ... surrounded by shadowy predators. More, it soon becomes evident that something is at work to reverse time itself; something which makes people vanish--seemingly at random--and ancient trees to appear out of nowhere. Something against which Coup, Tess, an unravelling President of the United States, and others, will make their final stand. From A Reign of Thunder: He squeezed her shoulders and gently moved her aside, peering out the window, peering into the rain. “I don’t see anything,” he said, even as the others joined them, crowding around the glass. “Just a bunch of gas pumps … and some vehicles.” He stiffened suddenly. “Wait. There is something. Lights—” “That’s them! That’s their eyes,” said Tess—as Ashley stepped forward to calm her. “They, like, glow or something. Like that borealis in the sky. They’re right there, Coup!” “No …” he said, in a kind of drawl, “No, these are flashing. Some of them are headlights—I’m sure of it. There, behind the electrical pylons—coming closer. Look,” She looked, no longer seeing the— well, let’s have out with it, she thought, the dinosaurs, and saw instead a line of what indeed appeared to be headlamps—preceded by flashing blue lights—winding along a road she hadn’t even known was there, coming toward them through the rain. “Might be the cavalry,” said Elliott, sounding excited—a notion that was quickly dashed when the modest number of vehicles became clear: two police motorcycles followed by a black limousine and a sport-utility vehicle, also black—followed by one more cycle. “I’ll be goddamned,” said Rory. “But that’s a motorcade. Like the kind you see in the local parade.” “Regular Apocalypse Day Cavalcade,” said Coup. “Jesus, the President,” blurted Carson. “He was golfing at Rancho Loreto—did you know that? It was all over the news today. I mean, just before—” “No way,” said the tank commander—Bo. “It’s too small, for one.” He wiped the glass, which was beginning to fog. “The Presidential motorcade numbers, I don’t know, like, forty vehicles, at least, most of them specialty rigs. Look, there’s not even a decoy.” “Maybe it’s been disappeared,” said Ashley. “Yeah, like those drivers on State Route 87,” said Elliott. And then the vehicles were there, they were pulling up under the huge pump canopy, and the flags on the limo’s fenders proceeded to droop—but not before it had become obvious what they were: the flag of the United States of America and the Presidential Seal—at which Rory could only shake his head, saying, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” “But there’s more,” said Tess, yanking away from Ashley, locking eyes with everyone who was close. “Because it looks like they’re going to fuel up. And whether you believe me or not—I’m telling you: there’s something out there. Several somethings, as I said.” “Jesus, we’ve got to warn them,” said Elliott, even as Coup shoved against the door—and found it to be jammed.

Embark on a Haunting Odyssey in The Wine Dark Passage... In the eerie shadows of a post-apocalyptic world, where time has unraveled into chaos, emerges a tale of survival and awakening as the nuclear submarine Sarpedon follows a private canal to a mysterious destination ... The Silent Protagonist Meet Pang "The Mouse" In-Su, a 13-year-old Korean deafmute girl, whose silence speaks louder than words. Pang grapples with the weight of a disordered world, haunted by memories of loss and the relentless pursuit of survival. The Enigmatic Captain and His Companions Captain O'Neil guides the USS Sarpedon through the wine-dark waters. Alongside him, Enge Puckett, a steadfast companion, adds a touch of humanity to the stark reality of survival. Together, they navigate through the remnants of a world that has succumbed to the whims of time, where primitive people and dinosaurs roam in the shadows. The Elon Musk-like Enigma Enter Steve Dannon, an Elon Musk-like figure, whose private compound, Chryse Planitia, beckons like a forbidden sanctuary on Vashon Island. Dannon, reminiscent of Conrad's Kurtz, hides secrets that echo in the whispers of those who dare to challenge his fractured reality. As the crew embarks on this odyssey, Dannon's enigma looms large—a force that can reshape destinies or plunge them into deeper darkness. A Heart of Darkness in the Pacific Northwest In this Pacific Northwest dystopia, the crew must confront the perils of a distorted time, facing not only the remnants of a lost world but the shadows of their own morality ... From The Wine Dark Passage: We watched as he gestured to what appeared to be a large hand crank near the edge of the lock. Do it, O’Neil seemed to indicate. And he moved toward it—even as something moved with him through the shadows; something sleek and dark and stealthy as a panther. Something which was joined by three other somethings as Jarnel took up the big, iron handle and began to crank it—pausing to take off his coat and roll up his sleeves, completely oblivious to the fact that he was being watched. That he was being stalked. What happened next happened fast; so fast that I was still shaking Puckett’s shoulder, telling him to fire, fire! —when one of the things leapt onto Jarnel’s back and just held on tight: curling its talons so that they dug into his thin, wet shoulders, seeming to rake his back with its sickle-clawed hindlimbs, closing its jaws about his neck and jugular. Nor did it stop there but only got worse, as the other velociraptors, the other murder birds, descended on him like flies, like jackals—knocking him to the ground, burying him as if in quicksand, making it impossible for anyone to even shoot at them for fear of hitting Jarnel himself. Not that there would have been any point—he was clearly dead already—as Captain O’Neil spoke into his mic and the sub moved on through the now-open gates. As the raptors snarled and fought over Jarnel’s corpse and I looked toward the sky at the fat, bloody moon (which was partially obscured by the semi-luminescent clouds; the so-called Flashback Borealis, which shown red as Abaddon); noting that the world hadn’t remarked on his death in the least but only continued to look on in perfect silence: impenetrable, inscrutable, having nothing whatsoever to say—nothing to add or take away—like we ourselves, I supposed. And then it was time to get ready—as we were more than halfway there. Time to go over the plan once more and to steel ourselves, steel our shivering stomachs, for what was yet to come. To get square with our gods and Buddhas so we could go ashore at Camp Burton—where there was a small port tucked into a heavily forested cul-de-sac—and do at last what needed to be done.