IGMS - Issue 17 Page 5

  He stared at his own hand for a long, lonely moment, unmoving, while Matt rattled and bounced in the next room, sounding like an elephant juggling freight trains. The rush of relief was worn away; there was only crushing exhaustion. How long had it been since he had last slept? It felt like months. He heard the thunder of Matt's feet, running, and lifted his own head an instant before he was tackled full-on, by a cannonball hug.

  "Dad," said Matt, breathless from running. Running! "Dad. Dad! Can we watch a movie before bed?"

  This was definitely not on the good-parenting list, but clearly Matt had homed in on the fact that today the rules were for other people. "Dad, can we?"

  And Steve, knowing himself for a coward, smiled and nodded.

  He reached out and ran a hand over Matt's hair, and pretended to be a strict disciplinarian, pretended he was going to be there tomorrow. "After your bath," he said.

  They had a bath, with bubbles, and they had a tooth brushing race. Matt got to wear his own pajamas again, and he leapt almost his whole body length to land sprawling and happy on the couch. They watched the movie, and had popcorn, because Matt was hungry for it. Matt ate two bowls and stayed awake through the whole movie, but as much as he wanted to, Steve couldn't delay bedtime forever.

  It was almost midnight, long past when Matt should have been in bed.

  It was story time.

  "What'll it be?" asked Steve, settling in with the customary unopened book on his lap. He felt giddy, almost drunk with happiness every time Matt laughed, or bounced, or made some idiotic joke. There had been an infinite number of fart noises included in the evening's entertainment. "How about The Juniper Tree? The long version?"

  His back was deliberately turned toward the window, but he was all too aware of the presence of the junkie on the other side. Her shadow cut across the room, sharp as a knife.

  "How 'bout I tell you a story, Dad?" asked Matt. He was smiling. Bright and beautiful. "I got a story for you! It's called Pandora's Ducks."

  "Pandora's Ducks?" said Steve. "That's a new one on me. Where did you hear this story?"

  "In the hospital," said Matt. "Not this time. The first time, when Mom died. A nurse read it to me from a book. But I still remember." The day or the story, he didn't specify. "At least, I remember the good parts."

  Steve swallowed hard and nodded. "Lay it on me, kiddo," he said.

  "Once upon a time," Matt began, beaming. "There was a lady named Pandora, and she was in charge of all the ducks in the world. She was supposed to keep them in this big box, but they kept on quacking night and day, all the time. The noise gave her a headache. So she opened up the box and all the ducks flew out everywhere, except one duck. She shut the box, and kept the one duck, and it didn't quack so much all by itself. The end."

  Steve laughed. "That's a good one," he said. He remembered the story of Pandora. She'd lost everything, except hope. That had been the thing in the box. Hope. All at once, he reached out and caught his son in a hug, fierce and tight. Matt held on, too, an uncharacteristic embrace. Steve shook his head, his eyes burning with unshed tears. It was all over. He couldn't stand it. How could he leave Matt?

  How could he not leave, if the price for staying was Matt's health?

  Matt was ready to end the hug. Steve closed his eyes, pressed a kiss to the top of his head before he let go. "I love you, Matt," he said. "Don't you ever forget that, okay?"

  "Okay, Dad," said Matt. His eyes shifted, glanced at something over Steve's shoulder, widened. "Dad --"

  The window exploded into a thousand shards of broken glass. The safety bars creaked and collapsed inwards. The lights in the room flickered and died, and the night air rushed in with the sound of beating wings. Steve crushed Matt to him, shielding his son from the blast with his own body. Turning his head, he saw the junkie, dressed all in white, standing on the windowsill.

  "Come away, Steven," she said. There was no need to shout. Her musical, mysterious voice seemed connected directly to his muscles. He was on his feet before he knew it. He stood, yes, but he stood between her and Matt. He guessed from the way her eyes flickered between them that this was not what she had expected.

  She said, "It is time to go."

  "Dad?" said Matt.

  Steve could feel her will working on him. She was strong in her power, her magic. She was beautiful, and irresistible. And yet, he could also feel Matt's hand in his and somehow, somehow, he resisted.

  "You gave me your oath," said the junkie. "Your stories, your love. Do not pretend you have forgotten. I kept my part of the bargain."

  "Dad," said Matt again, more urgently. "Daddy?"

  Steve looked down and saw that small, scared, face looking up at him. A piece of glass from the window had caught Matt just above the eyebrow, and the cut was bleeding, a small trickle running down the side of his face.

  Steve knelt down, and managed a broken smile. Carefully he reached out and rubbed his thumb across the cut on Matt's brow. It came away with a glint of gold and crimson, smearing the blood away. He could see the cut; it was not as deep as he'd feared.

  "Just needs a Band-Aid," he said, and his smile of reassurance felt faded but genuine. "You'll be okay."

  "Don't go, Daddy," whispered Matt. His hands on Steve's shirt were white-knuckled.

  "Steven," said the junkie. "It is time. Would you have me take back the gift I gave?"

  "No," Steve said. "No, you don't have to do that."

  He gave Matt a last smile, though it hurt to do so. He wanted to howl and rage and weep. He wanted to pick Matt up and run somewhere beyond the junkie's reach.

  "Can't we reach some new bargain?" Steve asked. "Isn't there some way--"

  "No," she said. Sharp as a slap. "Remember what was said. Remember what was promised." She tried to make him rise, but could not. Not while he was holding on to Matt.

  "I'll go of my own free will, or not at all," Steve said. He thought she flinched. She clearly did not like being denied.

  "You leave my Daddy alone!" shouted Matt. He would have launched himself at the junkie, but Steve caught him up and held tight.

  The junkie used her magic to try and make him stand, and although Steve felt her power clutch and shudder in his arms and legs, she could not move him.

  "Dad," whispered Matt. "I love you."

  Steve smiled, and rested his forehead lightly against Matt's. "I love you, too," he said.

  "Now, Steven," said the junkie. Steve's head swung around, and if he could have, he would have glared holes right through that slim, white-clad figure.

  "Keep your promise," she said. "Come away with me." Her voice had gone soft, coaxing, sweet, with the first hint of springtime in it. She held out her hand, and her fingertips still shone with the glistening residue from their oathtaking. "Come away."

  Steve closed his eyes and drew a deep, slow breath, filling himself with the smell of that night. The smell of cold metal on the breeze, the remnants of spaghetti sauce and popcorn from the kitchen, Matt's shampooed hair. Gently, still cradling Matt to his heart, Steve rose under his own power, this time.

  "I did promise." He shifted his grip, tightened his hands around Matt's shoulders, ready to say something more, to defy her, to dare her to try and take Matt from him.

  Then he stopped.

  The air was cool, but his hands burned. Steve looked at them. The fingers that had been marked with the junkie's blood were newly stained . . .

  He'd used that hand to wipe Matt's bleeding face, and it seemed to him the blood had turned a strange color on his fingertips, something sun-tinged and luminous.

  Steve looked up again, met the junkie's eyes.

  "You promised not to harm him," he said.

  The junkie said nothing, frozen in place. Time seemed to stand still, but he could feel his heart racing, pounding until his whole body shook with it.

  "You promised," said Steve, and his arm wrapped around Matt's shoulders and drew him close. "You gave your oath that no harm would come to my son b
ecause of you."

  But it was she who had broken the glass with her magic. The copper scent of Matt's blood, like the glimmer of dawn outside the window, stained the air.

  "You gave your word," he said again. "And you broke it."

  "So I did," she said matter-of-factly. Afterwards, he never could be certain whether the light he saw in her eyes at that moment was a smile, or only the reflection of the streetlamp off her tears. "So. I did."

  She stepped away from the window and onto the fire escape.

  The breeze there was stronger, blowing the clouds out of the sky. It tossed and pulled at her clothing, her fair hair, and for a moment only, she stood there, watching Steve with Matt in the circle of his arms.

  Steve had the fleeting impression of her beautiful, pale face, and the flying tail of her long, white coat. Then she was gone, flown away, blown apart on the wind.

  Beyond the last of the clouds, the sky was growing light, and from the nest on the fire escape just above them came birdsong.

  And Matt, in his fuzzy, footie pajamas, with his hair sticking up at all angles, was grinning from ear to ear. Despite the broken glass, despite the pain, the bloodstains and the tearstains, he said: "Hey, Dad, look! Bluebirds at the feeder!

  Steve nodded, and tightened his hold around Matt's thin shoulders: "I guess the sparrows decided to leave well enough alone."

  Sister Jasmine Brings the Pain

  by Von Carr

  Artwork by Nicole Cardiff

  Canticle 1: De Profundis

  Sister Jasmine was three miles outside the safe zone when she saw her first zombie. There was only one in sight: a tattered shambler that the disposal patrol must have somehow missed. She revved the Silver Stallion's motor to draw the zombie's attention, and waited for the corpse to stumble in range.

  "Hey, hey," yelped Einstein, her K9 Antizombie Unit, as it bounced excitedly in the passenger seat. The robotic dog loved nothing better than a chance to fulfill its original function. "We're going to get you, deadite!"

  The shambler cocked its head. If Sister Jasmine hadn't known better, she would have sworn it was parsing through the robotic dog's yaps, trying to identify the words. The thought gave her chills.

  "It's looking at us!" the K9 unit said, tail wagging. "Signs of intelligence! Oh boy oh boy!"

  "Pray for us now and at the hour of our death," Jasmine muttered as she hit the gas. Einstein wailed with disappointment as the shambler bounced off the reinforced windshield.

  "You killed it!" Einstein said. He hopped into the rear seat and leaned up against the rear window, titanium claws clicking against the glass. "No fair! It could have been a smart one, too!" Like most of the later models of K9 units, Einstein dreamed of the day when the Restored UN's fear of zombie tacticians would come true, and give him more challenging enemies to tear and rend. But Einstein was also a creature of the moment. "We killed you!" he yelped back at the corpse twitching on the road. "We killed you good!"

  "Eyes on the road, Einstein," the Sister said. "The Lord rewards the vigilant." The Lord also rewards those who keep their weapons close at hand, she thought. Zombies were like pre-apocalypse cockroaches. If you saw one, there were probably a thousand more somewhere nearby.

  Where there were zombies, there were also probably wild K9 units, their programming scrambled during the onslaught of the first robot uprising. And then there were the natural predators of the wasteland: radioactive ants; intelligent rat armies; triffids. Even a well-trained nun like Sister Jasmine, armed to the teeth against the byproducts of natural and supernatural apocalypses, knew better than to hang around outside the safe zone.

  So she kept driving, making a mental note to set the radio to call in a zombie report. The zombie's look of intelligence might have been illusion, but she didn't want to take any chances.

  "Read me the list again," she ordered, and the dog halted its yapping long enough to recite the list of reported supplies. "Wal-Mart, three clicks northeast," it said, in the dry tones of the Mother Superior. "Investigate and collect: crossbows; canned food; medical supplies; diagram of light bulb."

  Sister Jasmine sighed. She didn't know what Our Lady of the Serpent's obsession was with the collection and illumination of electrical diagrams, but hers was not to question why.

  In the old days, back before the zombie plague and the attack of the mitochondrial nanobots, back when Sister Jasmine had been merely Jasmine Brown, yoga instructor, she'd hated going to Wal-Mart. It was the kind of place her parents shopped at because it was cheap, and which Jasmine refused to enter because of its politics. She recalled telling her father that mega-corporations like Wal-Mart were going to ruin the world. Ironic, she thought, that nowadays the Wal-Marts of the earth might be its salvation.

  But who could have anticipated any of this? In the old days people had -- maybe -- worried about one apocalypse. At most, two. Global Warming and an ice age. Vampires and zombies. Nobody had expected all of the apocalypses to happen at once. They got them all anyway.

  So when Sister Jasmine pulled into the starkly empty lot of the Wal-Mart, she was on the lookout for a multitude of apocalyptic troubles. The road had been ominously clear on the way here, a sure sign of robot scavenging. And the dim interior of the former bastion of low prices could be a perfect haven for everything from vampires to sadomasochistic Australian biker gangs.

  "Anything on the scanner?" she asked.

  Einstein obliged by shifting the dish antenna. "No signs of life," said the dog. "I hope there are zombies."

  Jasmine pulled out her case of supernatural weaponry. As a post-Vatican V nun, she had some distinct advantages in this area. She opted for a heavier weapon, the modified M4A1 carbine with holy water and napalm capacity, and holstered her Glock. She tugged her silver crucifix to the outside of her robes, and made sure her Star of David was also in place, in case any Jewish vampires got too friendly.

  Most religiously-minded supernatural beasts tended to falter at the sight of a well-armed nun. The Glock would do for the atheists.

  She sent Einstein in to scout. When the dog sounded an all-clear she followed him inside, trying to brush off her growing sense of unease. A Wal-Mart run outside the safe zone was never a cakewalk. For a brief moment she wondered if lack of overt dangers was a good sign, if maybe it meant that the world beyond the safe zone was getting safer. But she dismissed the thought. It was dangerous to speculate; better to assume that this Wal-Mart, like every other one in the Wasteland, sheltered hidden dangers. Zombies in the freezers. Vampires in the basement. Cockroach hive-minds plotting beneath the compost in the produce aisle.

  For the first few minutes, everything went smoothly. The dusty linoleum was strewn with cans, and while Einstein trained his shoulder missiles on the occasional corpse, nothing moved. They were alone.

  It was the light-bulb diagram, of course, that caused the problem. Wal-Mart didn't exactly sell light-bulb diagrams. The Mother Superior's report had come from a bearded peddler who claimed he'd seen one in the corner office while sheltering from a radioactive sandstorm. But as Sister Jasmine edged along the wall, she realized that the man's tip was probably too good to be true. Who nowadays would recognize a lightbulb diagram? Something was wrong.

  She halted, feet away from the door, and took it all in: the empty mega-mart with canned food strewn invitingly across the floor; the closed office door.

  "Einstein," she said quietly into her comlink. "Retreat."

  As she turned and sprinted for the entrance, the trap sprung. Shadowy figures dropped from the ceiling. Jasmine ducked under an overhanging shelf and reached for a flash-grenade.

  "Ninjas!" howled Einstein from a corner. "Awesome!"

  A black object struck Sister Jasmine on the face and she collided with the wall. Her flash-grenade fell uselessly from her fingers. Spitting blood, she scrambled to her feet in time to see the silver K9 unit go down under a barrage of black forms.

  "Hey!" yelped the dog as its red bandana was torn away by unseen hands. "N
o fair! Give it back!"

  Somewhere in the space between Sister Jasmine's anger and her utter despair, a thought formed. Blood. Use it. Glancing downward she saw the drain beneath her feet.

  "Mary, Mother of God," she whispered, and before she could even complete the prayer she was pressing her hand into the broken glass that clung to her radiation habit, watching the dark droplets fall toward the earth.

  And somewhere down in the drainage systems beneath Wal-Mart, the vampires responded.

  Their earsplitting screeches gave even the ninjas pause as they turned to face a new set of enemies. Knowing how little time remained, Sister Jasmine stumbled toward one of the darkened panels of glass at the end of the aisle. "Einstein! Parking lot!" she yelled, not knowing if the dog would have enough time to respond.

  Behind her she heard howls of fury as the undead burst into the room. Ninjas might be quick, but vampires were quicker. And they were also one of the few wasteland creatures that would not attack a nun on sight.

  Sister Jasmine's 9 mm Glock took out the window, and she threw herself into the dazzling sunlight of the parking lot. There was no time. She pressed a bloody palm to the touch lock and pulled herself into the driver's seat.

  Despite her training, she did not pull her Stallion away from the store. Not immediately. She waited outside the dark hole of the Wal-Mart for seconds longer than was necessary, listening to the shrieks inside. But there was no sign of Einstein.

  A few minutes later she was on the road again, blazing a path back to the safe zone, a med-sponge pressed to her bleeding hand. She had no idea why ninjas would try to capture a member of the Weeping Orders, but it didn't really matter. She'd lost her supplies and her dog. In the finest tradition of her holy order, there was going to be hell to pay.

  Canticle 2: Actus Contritionis

  Sister Jasmine recited her sins before the green glow of the Badger Grove auto-confessional. She could not, of course, be forgiven for her violations of the fifth commandment: she was not genuinely remorseful, and given the perils of the wasteland travel, she would probably kill again. Nor could she genuinely repent of her anger and grief over Einstein.