Moon Over Prairie Fire, Part 1

“You’ll have to show me your photographs sometime.”

It didn’t sound like the wrong thing for Gus to say. In fact, it sounded like the exact right thing to say. It showed interest in her work, he was honestly interested in seeing what kind of photography could be done, exactly, in Prairie Fire, and it made sense to say it at that moment in the conversation.

And yet. Inez’s eyes immediately went far away, and a mildly depressed look turned her face down. She stirred her drink a little before downing the rest and making an effort to look at her watch.

“Damn, it got late fast, didn’t it?”

“No,” Gus said. “I think time is moving the same as always.”

“We should probably go back out, see if we can get some pictures after all.”

She stood up and started to walk away before Gus could say anything else. He followed her, feeling a little helpless and a lot confused.

“Come on, Addy, we need to go.”

At the other side of the bar Adelaide was sitting cross-legged on top. Jesse was on one side and Matsui on the other. In between them was some kind of game board and a handful of dice.

“What the hell are you doing?” Inez asked.

“Some game,” Adelaide said.

“It’s not just some game,” Jesse said, looking appalled. “It’s ‘Race for the Galaxy.’”

Inez looked at Adelaide with a look of such bizarre confusion it was easy to imagine Jesse had just stated they were doing lines of cocaine, what was wrong with that? Adelaide did not seem to care.

“It’s actually kind of fun,” Adelaide said with a shrug.

“Well, we’ve got our own…job to do,” Inez said, pulling on her coat.

“What, you think we should go back out there?”

“There’s plenty of full moon left,” Inez said. “Might get lucky.”

Adelaide didn’t move, only glared at Inez. Inez glared back. The other three could recognize that some sort of unspoken conversation was happening, although they could only guess what was being said. After a couple of seconds Adelaide sighed, apparently losing the argument, if there was one, and hopped off the bar.

“Okay, back out into the cold,” she said. “I was winning, too.”

“You were not,” Matsui said.

“I had a whole party planet, so I felt like I was,” she said, shrugging on her coat.

“At least let me walk you out,” Gus said. He followed them out the front door of the bar without putting on his own coat and almost immediately regretted it. The wind was terrible, and was pushing light snow into his face.

“So, you’ll be in town for a while?”

“No,” Inez said at the same time Adelaide said, “At least another few weeks.” They glared at each other again.

“We might be,” Inez said. “Just a few more days.”

Adelaide opened the passenger side of the van door as Inez patted down the pockets of her coat.

“I forgot my phone.”

“I’ll get it,” Gus said, but he didn’t even have the chance to move. Inez was already heading back towards the bar.

“No, no, it’s all right, I’ll be right back.”

Adelaide and Gus watched her hustle back into the bar. The wind gusted and they could hear her swearing, pulling the coat tighter around her.

“She really doesn’t like the cold, does she?” Gus asked.

“No,” Adelaide said behind him. “But she likes you.”

Gus turned to her. She was leaning against the open car door with a dreamy smile.

“She thinks you’re cu-ute,” she said in a sing-song.

He frowned. “I may be bad at understanding women, but I think I know a brush-off when I see it.”

“It’s more complicated than you think. If she didn’t like you, she would have stayed.”

“Wait, what?”

“I know, it doesn’t sound like it makes any sense, but…don’t move.”

Adelaide’s eyes, now almost round they were so wide, had drifted to her right as she had talked and landed in a very specific place. Predictably, Gus turned his head to see what she was looking at.

The parking lot in front of Hometown Lanes was long but not very deep. There were only three rows for cars, including one that butted up against the street. Inez’s van was parked in the middle, halfway between the front door and the street. All of which meant that the wolf standing in the middle of the street, just on the painted lines, was about thirty yards away from them.

It was tall. As far as it was, it looked to be the same height as Adelaide. Its fur was a mix of white and brown patches, and its tail swung back and forth slowly, almost lazily. Sharp yellow eyes stared at them quizzically, and tall, perked ears twitched at them like antennae looking for the signal.

Gus felt every muscle in his body tense up, which was good, because otherwise he might have peed himself. He forgot about the cold. His mouth went very dry.

“Is that-”

“Yes.”

“What is it doing here?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do we do?”

“Don’t move.”

Adelaide started moving her hand down towards her coat pocket.

“You said don’t move, you’re moving, why are you moving?”

“Slowly. I am moving very slowly.”

“Why aren’t we moving very slowly towards the bar?”

“Because we’d never make it.”

Next

Critter, Part 2

Previous

The sounds started off to their left. It was making a large circle around them. At one point it got close enough that they could hear it’s breathing, slow and thick, but then it faded again, and all they were left with was the sound of it squeezing its body through the trees and shrubs. They nodded at each other, barely able to see through the dark, and started after it.

Each step had to be precise. The dark swamped their eyes and muddied their vision, but they strained and squinted, taking care that each step was clear – or as clear as it was going to get. All it would take was one slip, one crash, and the dark wolf would have the jump.

A hand on Jimmy Ginn’s shoulder almost made him yelp in surprise. He turned and mouthed what the fuck at Deacon. Deacon only pulled him back slightly and pointed. His jeans had caught on a thin branch and pulled it. A few more inches and the branch would have released, snapping back and making the entire tree shudder. Jimmy Ginn only nodded at Deacon before they started again.

They couldn’t hear it anymore. Silence reigned in the woods.

“Did we lose it?” Deacon asked, his voice the smallest whisper he could physically make.

“I don’t think so,” said Jimmy Ginn, “Nothing else is making noise, either.”

Deacon jerked his head in the direction they had been going, and they started again. This time they went a little faster, and a little clumsier. They had lost it. If they ever actually had it. It could have just been a regular wolf, the dark woods amplifying its sound, making it larger only in their minds. Deacon suppressed a laugh. They had spent all this time in the wood and ended up paranoid, following what would probably end up as a stray dog. They’d probably walk around for a while more, go back to the truck, and agree to keep this night to themselves.

Jimmy Ginn put an arm out and hit Deacon, stopping him. Even in the dark Deacon could see the intensity in his wide eyes. He pointed, and Deacon strained against the dark to see.

Up ahead, maybe about fifty yards, was a thin stream. They could hear it bubbling and gurgling, still the only sound in the wood. Some of the trees split perfectly enough to allow them to see a small segment of it. There was a shape. It could have been a rock, could have been a solid shrub. Deacon squinted harder, so hard he might strain his eyes.

Above them, the solid clouds that had covered the night broke, and a half moon hovered almost directly above them. It wasn’t much, but compared to what they had, someone might as well as have trained a spotlight on them. They could see silver flecks reflecting thinly off the water in the stream as it bounced around rocks and fallen branches and the teeth of the dark wolf.

That had been the shape. Something drinking. Jimmy Ginn pulled up his binoculars. It was hunched and crouched down to reach the water. Its tail swished back and forth lazily. The fur, a calico combination of gray and brown and black, started out fairly normal, maybe a little matted, covered in a few burrs here and there, nothing out of the ordinary. Until you got to its shoulders, and then it became clear that it was covered in something, too dark to be water and too thin to be mud. It started as a spattering, and then grew, until its entire face was covered in the substance, except where the stream had washed it off.

Blood. It had killed something recently. And it was a messy eater.

This was the dark wolf. An ancient thing that was rare, and so killed plenty just to even things out. They both knew the legends of it, although maybe only Deacon knew the oldest was from over a millennia ago, a cautionary tale from a tribal oral story. A wolf, who may have been a man once, no one seemed to know, that slept for twenty-three years before coming to life. It was as tall as a man even when it walked on all four legs and had a jaw strong enough to cut down to and through the bone. Some legends said it took a forest for its own with clearly marked boundaries, others said it roamed where it wanted to. Either way it hunted whatever it could. Both said human was its favorite meat. It had a few things in common with a werewolf – silver was the only thing that could kill it, for example – but for the most part it was its own terrifying entity. If the people at the bar were telling the truth, it had already killed ten cows, a couple of horses, and three locals. And if Deacon and Jimmy Ginn were successful, they were going to be the first two to kill one in twenty years.

Jimmy Ginn put down the binocular and looked over to Deacon to decide on a plan. Jimmy frowned.

Sitting on the front of Deacon’s left shoulder, looking almost like a lapel pin, was the largest beetle Jimmy Ginn had ever seen. It had to be at least three inches long, maybe four. The thin moonlight reflected dully off its back, its legs, and the giant pincer-like jaws it had. Its tiny antennae moved slowly in tiny arches. Jimmy reached out to brush it off so they could get down to business when Deacon looked down and saw it for himself.

The sound that came out of Deacon was somewhere between a little girl getting pushed off the swing and a poodle getting run over in the driveway. Jimmy didn’t think a sound that high pitched could come out of a man that size. The shriek pierced Jimmy’s ears and made him wince. Still Deacon screamed. He started to flail, apparently attempting to brush the bug off but not coming remotely close. Just as he finally ran out of wind to scream, Deacon took off in the darkness.

This was for the best for Deacon. The shriek was certainly enough to alert the dark wolf of their presence. Hell, probably everything in a five mile radius now knew exactly where they were. It was very bad news for Jimmy Ginn, though, because at that moment he was laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe let alone run for his life.

Part of his brain was telling him that he had to move or he was going to die. A larger part of his brain was telling him, Jesus Christ, he’s literally going to die from laughter. The rest of his brain, the majority of it, was replaying the scene over and over again, unwilling to part with the scene, the scream, the flailing, the utter terror on Deacon’s face because of a stupid stag beetle.

Something was coming at him fast, crashing through the woods and knocking down trees. Unable to get Donna unstrapped and still laughing, Jimmy Ginn pulled out his pistol and aimed at the direction of sound, keeping his hand as steady as he could.

Out of the woods came Deacon. He had not started running away to get away from the dark wolf, but rather from the beetle that had attached itself to his shirt. He had managed to run directly at the dark wolf, and had had to bang a sharp u-ey just to keep alive. Without stopping and barely slowing down Deacon bent a little, grabbed Jimmy Ginn at his waist, and threw him over his shoulder. With that he went back to full speed and continued running.

The dark wolf was gaining on them. Jimmy watched as it crashed and bounced off trees, its teeth long and gleaming. Each breath was a snarl and a growl. Its eyes, dull and angry, stayed on Jimmy’s face. With each step it gained a foot or so on them.

Jimmy Ginn lifted his pistol again, aimed as well as he could, and fired repeatedly, emptying the gun. And some distant God, perhaps as amused by the situation as he was, gave up a little luck. Some of the bullets connected with his target. There was no killing blow. He heard the wolf whimper and then slowing down. He must have gotten it somewhere in the neck or leg, maybe even on the side of the face. The last he saw of the dark wolf that night was as it came to a slow stop and sat, glowering at the two of them as Deacon continued to run.

Deacon had kept himself in the best possible shape, but he hadn’t run this hard for this long since he was on the football team and not just coaching it. Adrenaline pumped freely into his veins and fueled him once his regular store of energy gave out. They had done a lot of back and forth while looking for the dark wolf, and so only after ten or so minutes Deacon saw his truck, the parking lot, and the EZ Pit Stop. He hurdled the last row of thick shrubs, skidded to a stop in the gravel, and heaved Jimmy Ginn off his shoulder onto the ground. The two men stayed in their respective positions for a few minutes trying to regain their breath, Deacon from running a mile in the woods and Jimmy Ginn from laughing the hardest he had all year.

Finally Jimmy Ginn picked himself into a sitting position. He looked up at Deacon, leaning against his own knees and attempting in vain to slow his breathing. Jimmy Ginn’s eyes grew wide. Deacon cocked an eyebrow. Holding his breath, Jimmy Ginn lifted an arm and pointed.

The stag beetle was still on Deacon’s shirt, its little antennae going wild now, probably trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

Deacon gave another shriek, this one shorter and, if possible, even higher in pitch. With one hand he grabbed the beetle and threw it to the ground. With the other he pulled out his own revolver and aimed at the beetle now on the ground. Deacon then proceeded to empty the entire gun out at the beetle, the sound of each ricochet larger than the beetle itself.

It would take Jimmy Ginn exactly three tellings of the story of how John Deacon got to be called Critter to get it just right. The first would be to Susannah, who would agree to help Jimmy finish the dark wolf after Deacon would refuse to go back into those woods. The second would be to his mother, albeit tweaking the dark wolf to just be a regular wolf. The third time would be to Bern and the Cinq, and here he would perfect his ending.

“Now imagine,” he would say, after taking a sip of whatever he was drinking to make a good pause, “that you are the night manager at the EZ Pit Stop. You’re in your shop, minding your own business, doing whatever it is you do when it’s dead, when you hear a scream followed by six gunshots. Well, you go and you grab your own gun and you race out back to find out what the hell is going on. And what do you find? A six foot four hulk of a human being, all crazy eyes, heaving and panting with a spent gun in one hand, standing directly over a smaller guy who appears to be on the ground convulsing. You can’t tell he’s laughing because he’s got his face in the dirt, you just see him shaking and jumping. So you raise your gun and you say ‘freeze.’ And what do you think the hulking, crazy eyed guy is going to give you as an explanation?”

Here Jimmy Ginn will pause again and do his best Deacon impression as he remembers it, eyes wide, mouth tight, and a deep, almost growling voice.

“There was…a critter.”

Critter, Part 1

John Deacon killed the engine and stepped out of his pick-up, his boots rasping against the gravel that surrounded the EZ Pit Stop they had parked behind. He leaned on the open door and studied the woods his high beams were currently trained on. A thin barrier of shrubs and weeds that glittered with broken bottles and candy wrappers gave way to moss covered trees and ferns that Deacon couldn’t identify. Something small scuttled away into darkness. Above them, a bat cried out for its meal. A breeze picked up and a chorus of rustling made an unimaginative serenade. Chirps, coos, hoots, katydids and katydidn’ts played melody. It was, in short, like every other wood he had ever walked by.

To his right, Jimmy Ginn belched as he climbed out the passenger side.

“Sounds like normal to me,” Deacon said.

“Because you’ve been checking it out for all of four seconds,” Jimmy Ginn said. He closed his door and stood next to the hood.

“If they’re going to call it the Devil’s Woods, it should be ominous somehow. At least creepy. This is just…normal.”

“What do you know about backwoods, city boy?” he asked.

Deacon knew he was a better hunter than Jimmy Ginn (ten years older and three years more experience said he better be), but he envied the mystery that he and the others maintained. It seemed that a hunter was either a complete puzzle or an open book. Deacon was the latter. Everybody knew the details of Deacon’s life – born and raised in Atlanta, football coach at his old high school, spurred to hunting after the deaths of his downstairs neighbors at the hands of playful spirits, a deadly misnomer considering they were anything but. They knew it all because he hadn’t thought to keep it a secret and now everybody could and did use it against him. Mocking him for growing up in a city wasn’t the worst that could happen, but it was still a pain in the ass.

“I think we should hold off,” Deacon said.

“What? Why?” he asked, leaning against the hood, his voice echoing slightly against the stucco wall behind him. “You were all pistol waving ready ten minutes ago.”

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “what are we going on here? The word of a few drunks? They could have been screwing with us. I say we back off tonight, do some research and make sure we got a reason to go parading through the wilderness.”

“Okay, one, it wasn’t even nine o’clock. They were buzzed, maybe, not drunk. Two, you heard their stories. Classic dark wolf and they didn’t even know it. Three, I can assure you that at no point will there be parading. Marching, maybe, traipsing, most definitely, there may even be some light frolicking should we find a meadow or glen. But never any parading.”

If Deacon smiled, it was over. He forced a frown.

“Look, what’s the chance we actually find this thing on the first night? And if we do, we got the silver. It’ll be a snap.”

“We can at least wait until morning.”

“So it’s holed up in some hidden cave? We’ve never- oh. Oh, I get it,” he said, a smile on his face. “Deacon, you are thirty-six years old. You can’t be afraid of the woods anymore. It’s not allowed. What is it? Are you worried about the critters?”

“I’m not afraid of critters,” he said, shutting his door with force. “It’s dark. There could be deadfalls. I’m, what, fifty pounds heavier than you? If I break my ankle, you can’t carry me.”

“We got flashlights, we’ll go slowly. We’re just getting the lay of the woods here. Come on, Deacon. It’s a dark wolf. That last hunter to see one was Jesse, and that was twenty years ago. I’ve never seen one. Have you?”

Deacon sighed, then finally let himself smile.

“Let’s load up,” he said.

Perhaps more oddities would be expected of a place where the dominant religion handled more poisonous snakes than an episode of Wild Kingdom, but in fact the area provided few jobs for the average guy searching for the supernatural. So when it became clear that a local inn was being plagued by a poltergeist it was no surprised that two hunters in the area showed up on their own and ended up working together. Deacon and Jimmy Ginn cleared the place in a matter of hours, and ended up at a local bar, the Snakeskin, by eight. They had come to the conclusion that the night would be an encore of the last time they got together, drinking, playing pool or darts or whatever was available, and providing their own impromptu karaoke, perhaps including Deacon’s version of “The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA.” And then the bartender overheard the two of them comparing the articles that had brought them there (“Inn Trouble” from the Washington Times in Ohio and the incomprehensible “No Room at the Inn” from the Winchester Star), and suddenly everybody in the place was talking at once about the Devil’s Wood.

Whether Jimmy Ginn actually thought destroying a dark wolf would be a snap or not, they armed themselves to the teeth – knives strapped to their ankles and forearms, pistols in their belts, and Jimmy Ginn’s favorite shotgun, Donna. Jimmy took a pair of binoculars and both of them took flashlights. Deacon thought about tucking his pant legs into socks before going in, but decided Lyme disease was a better fate than letting Jimmy Ginn tell the world about it.

They had been in the woods for the better part of two hours. It was rather slow going. The woods on TV always seemed to be a little better kept, neater, with clear paths and plenty of space between trees. Here, though, everything was cluttered. The space between trees was not just clear ground carpeted with leaves and pine needles but instead filled with ferns, bushes, and prickles. Deacon could feel the thorns trying to get in through his denim. Once, he pointed the flashlight down, and found that below the knees his pant legs had become a science exhibit of burrs and cockles. He thought about stopping long enough to tuck in his pants and catch up before Jimmy noticed, but as he looked up he knocked his head on a low tree limb he hadn’t noticed, making the whole tree shake.

Jimmy Ginn turned around and pointed his flashlight at him, keeping the beam out of his eyes. “What the hell was that?” he asked in a low murmur.

“Nothing, uh, this tree was just giving me attitude,” Deacon said, rubbing his forehead.

Jimmy barked a short laugh and turned around again.

Utter silence knocked both men out of their thoughts. They hit it like a wall. One minute the woods were alive with nocturnal bird songs and chirping bugs, the last second of that very same minute there was nothing. The squirrels and chipmunks and such that had scuttled in the brush around them stopped moving, and Jimmy Ginn and Deacon could sense that they were hiding. Deacon didn’t have to have an intimate knowledge of nature to know that sometimes animals knew better than man. If you’re on a sinking ship, you follow the rats.

They both glanced at each other, and without a word spoken they turned off their flashlights. They stood in the darkness, waiting for their eyes to adjust so they could walk again. Then they heard it.  Rustling. But not like the rustling they’d heard all night. This was not some cute little baby animal looking for Snow White. This was a hulking mass, bigger than Deacon, even. It had clear cut steps, popping twigs, hell, maybe even entire bushes, under its paws. Jimmy Ginn and Deacon stood in the middle of a dark forest and waited for the monster to show.

Next

Teenage Dystopian Love

They stepped out of the darkness, bleeding and bruised and Renna’s ribs were definitely broken, but alive. They were alive.

“Guys,” Molly said, still breathing hard and leaning on Johnny. “We did it.”

For a few seconds, Renna only stood there. The cliffs in front of her. The cave behind her. The sun, hot on her face. The breeze running through her hair. She didn’t think she’d ever see either again. She hadn’t even realized that until right that second. Then she turned, looking at her friends. Her family, now. All celebrating. Well, with whatever energy they had left. It was then she noticed Luke, leaning against the rocks in the shade. He was watching her with those curious eyes. Eyes like deep pools, pools she had longed to swim to the bottom of. They stayed on her as she crossed, limping on her twisted ankle.

“You did it,” he said.

“We did it.”

“Maybe. But it was mostly you.” He picked up a rock from the ground and tossed it between his hands. “Renna, I’m sorry. I feel like I’ll never stop saying it. I…I feel like it’ll never be enough.”

But Renna waved a hand. “I forgive you.”

The startled look on his face was almost enough to make her giggle. Almost. Mostly, when she looked at him, she just felt tired.

“You do?”

“You helped us. In the end. How could I not?”

Luke dropped the stone and reached for her hand. He let her take it. “I’m so glad to hear that, Renna. Because…oh, shit…Renna, I love you.”

She had known it was coming, on some level. It still didn’t change the way she felt. The ice running down her back. The way her stomach flipped. The barbed needles of hatred pushing their way into her heart.

“I thought I loved you,” Renna said, taking her hand back. “You know, earlier. Before I found out you had been betraying us from the very beginning.”

Luke’s face fell open, and this time Renna had to clench her jaw to keep from laughing. She could hear the others behind her, their celebrations quieting as they heard the words between them.

“Renna, I…it wasn’t my fault. He’s owned my soul for so long before we met. I didn’t have a choice.”

“You could have told us. You could have your little change of heart before leading us right to him. Maybe then my ankle wouldn’t be the size of a melon. Maybe Molly wouldn’t have that head injury.”

“I couldn’t-”

“And you know,” Renna continued, shifting her weight. “Even if you had told us before, just the fact that you had sold yourself to him in the first place-”

Luke’s face turned dark, and he turned away from her. Over-dramatically, if you asked her. “You don’t know what it was like. My childhood…if you could even call it that-”

“Oh, come on,” Renna said. “Your childhood sucked so that excuses everything you’ve done? I’ve got news for you, buddy. Everyone has trauma. We’ve all got shit we don’t want to talk about. Not everybody sells themselves to the dark side because of it.”

Luke turned to glare. This was not what he was expecting. In fact, if Renna’s eyes were clear, she was fairly certain he was planning on doing something. Maybe ‘planning’ was too formal a word for whatever lizard-brain processes were happening. His eyes darted to spaces behind her. Molly. Johnny. Andre. All beaten to hell and back but certainly able to put skinny little Luke in his place. His face softened to practically a pout.

“You said you forgive me.”

“I did. I do. You betrayed us. But then you betrayed him, risking your own life and saving us. We never would have gotten out of there without you, and for that I’m grateful. But-” she continued, cutting him off. “That doesn’t mean I can love you anymore. Or even look at you for too long.”

Luke scowled, but there was something new there, hiding in those eyes. Fear. “What does it mean, then?”

“It means I’m letting you go.”

He snorted. “Go where?”

“Wherever you want. You’ve started back on a better path, Luke. Follow it. Become the better person I think…I hope…you can become. Maybe you’ll find yourself a new place. A new woman. One who has the energy to deal with your shit. Because, honestly, I don’t.”

“I can change, Renna. I…you make me want to be a better person.”

“Yeah, and that’s great. But like I said…I can never trust you again, you get that, right? I almost died. Because of you. Ugh. That’s…that’s all I can take. We’re leaving. Maybe you should go down the other side of the cliff.”

Renna turned around and found Andre ready to help her down the beaten path. If Renna had had any doubts about what she was saying to Luke – and she didn’t, not really, but if she did – they were all gone at seeing her friends’ faces. Happiness tinged with relief.

“I love you, Renna!” Luke called after her.

“That’s nice,” she called back.

“You won’t find anyone else like me!”

“Hooray.”

And still he kept shouting after them, although he very much did not try to follow thanks to the glares Molly and Johnny were giving them. Renna really did hope he would find a way to be a better person. Almost as much as she hoped she’d never see his stupid face again.

The Horizon Zero Dawn Blanket: Oseram Sparkworker

The HZD Blanket

Well, that took forever. Once again, not because the pattern was hard (spoiler: it wasn’t) but just because Life Stuff kept coming up. Life Stuff. Always interrupting my sitting around time. Anyway, this is the first of two patterns for a new tribe, so let’s meet…

The Oseram

The Vanguard, AKA Tanks without Treads

You never actually get to go to the Oseram’s actual territory, the Claim, in the game, but pretty much every woman from the Oseram will tell you that you wouldn’t want to go there, anyway. The Claim is north of Carja territory, which would put it squarely in Idaho. Make of that what you will.

As a people, the Oseram are almost diametrically opposite to the Nora:

  • They are a patriarchal society, which is why the women are telling you not to go. Once a woman gets married in the Claim they’re essentially considered property of their husband, even going so far as to tack wife at their end of the last name. Now that the border between the Claim and Carja territory is open, every woman who doesn’t feel like dealing with that shit has come south, and they cannot wait to tell you all about it.
  • Besides having this vague belief about a ‘world machine’ the Oseram are largely without religion and think most of it is petty bullshit that gets in the way of logically running a society, which is hilarious when you find out that the Oseram are actually kind of terrible at running a society because the essential building block of their government is just perpetually arguing with each other.
  • They’re less a centralized society and more a loose collection of ‘clans,’ hence all the constant fighting.
  • Not only are they not afraid of what’s left of the ‘old ones,’ they actively delve into ancient ruins to find stuff they can use. They don’t hold any lofty ideals about the old world being felled by some metal devil or whatever. As far as the Oseram are concerned, the old ones couldn’t keep their shit together and fucked everything up and now all their toys are free for the taking. They’re also the only tribe who doesn’t just use old machine parts but actually forge their own metals.
  • I lied. They do have a religion, and that religion is drinking. Every Oseram child learns how to maintain a buzz at an early age. As you go through the game, just assume every Oseram you meet is at Tier 1 Drunk (loosy-goosy but not quite tipsy) and everything will make just a little bit more sense.

Oseram Style

The Carja, who we will meet later, would insist that ‘Oseram style’ is an oxymoron, but the Carja are snotty bitches to every other tribe and each other so we’ll let it slide. The Oseram dress to their practical sensibilities, so their clothes favor function over form.

Their facial hair choices are a different story.

If the Oseram had their druthers the entire world would be covered in leather and steel. Leather to protect from sparks and flame, steel to protect from machine and arrows, and lots of room in the armpits so they can stoke a flame with one arm while drinking with the other. There’s also an inordinate amount of bare skin for what they’re trying to accomplish with their clothes, but I imagine any burn or arrow injuries to the arms just get a lot of moonshine poured on them.

The Outfit

Every game deserves a photo mode with cheesy borders.

Mostly leather with a cloth shirt and a little bit of steel embellishment, the Sparkworker is the way to go when you need – I know, it’s a surprise, you’ll never believe it – shock protection. Basically, you want to go after a Storm Bird, you better be wearing Oseram.

KWEH.

Along with the Nora Silent Hunter, this is another outfit with a super cute Light version that I like to walk around in. Look, it’s not my fault that Aloy has the bone structure to make every tribe’s fashions work. It is my fault when I forget to change her into something that actually has protection and the Storm Bird knocks her on her ass.

The Oseram Squares

The Oseram don’t give a flying French fart about fashion, so obviously the way to go with their section is very basic stitches. I decided I wanted no more than two colors for each square, and by colors I meant plain browns, grays, and maybe a silver to highlight the metal. I also looked for plain square patterns, ideally utilizing as few stitches as possible. Again, these are not people getting crazy with their couture. Any time spent trying to figure out how to hide their shame is time not spent fighting, smithing, or drinking. The Oseram have their priorities.

The Sparkworker Square

Look at how fucking simple that square is! It’s so broken down into the basic elements of the outfits it’s practically abstract. Any Oseram would belch proudly upon looking at it, before telling me to scram because they have work to do.

I only used the two colors here, Marble Heather for the shirt and Grizzly Heather for the leather apron. I wanted a flatter brown than I used for the Nora because while the Nora also utilize a lot of leather, they’re also just a little more creative in their attire. This Marble Heather is my favorite gray that I’ve come across. It’s made of white and black mixed together and if I were in charge of naming things, I would have named it Cookies and Cream, which is why I’m not in charge of naming things.

The stitch is very basic, alternating double front post stitches and double back post stitches. I had to look up a YouTube tutorial to even figure out what the difference was, but once I understood it was very easy. I absolutely love how textured and thick this stitch is, and I plan on using it for sweaters and dish scrubbies later on. The interesting part of using these stitches together is as you go the entire fabric tightens. The first square I made had the usual twenty-seven stitches across and ended up being too short. I unraveled the whole thing and added four more stitches to get the correct end width. You can see here how much the stitch brings in the sides.

Because I only needed half as many of these squares as I did of the Nora squares, I decided to make a couple of plain black granny squares for each Sparkworker square (the granny squares will be going in the negative space on the map and I need over sixty of these puppies). You can see in this picture how thick the Sparkworker squares are compared to the granny squares: thirteen Sparkworkers (including the blackout squares for the border) next to twenty-six grannies.

And that’s it! One more square down. Next up we’ll be doing the other Oseram square, the Oseram Arrow Breaker, and discussing which of the Oseram are totally DTF.

Previous Next

Anyways

Anyways, Spucky knew it was going to be a bad day when he woke up forty minutes before his alarm went off because there was some kind of super being or some shit standing at the foot of his bed.

It was tall. And, uh, it had hair. Like, you know, long hair. For a dude. Which it definitely was, despite being a super being. It had pecs and arms and shit. Fucking Adam’s apple. That chin-ass thing. But it was glowing. And floating, you know, like, bobbing up and down at the foot of the bed, but just real slow like. Spucky blinked a couple of times. Probably he was still dreaming, but if it was a dream it was hyperreal. He could hear his mom puttering around in the kitchen upstairs, and his bullshit neighbor mowing his lawn like he always did at way too fucking early on a Saturday. Shit, was it Saturday? Fuck, man, he had work in a couple of hours. Anyways, everything was just, like, super normal except for this super chiseled, fucking radiant dude hanging out at the foot of his bed.

“Um.”

“Robert Reginald Williams! I-”

“Shit, man, you can just call me Spucky, man. Shit. Nobody calls me Robert, man, even my mom calls me Spucky.”

The super being frowned. It clearly wasn’t expecting to be interrupted. It’s voice was all deep and loud and shit, Spucky couldn’t believe his mom couldn’t hear it upstairs. It was echoing, too, but, like, what was it echoing off of? The basement was full of so much of his shit his mom had threatened to set fire to the whole thing. Anyways, this super dude’s face just got so shifty, man, like Spucky had shoved shit in his mouth or something, and he was super pissed, and Spucky hadn’t even gotten to drain the lizard before he was angering some sort of transdimensional traveller or whatever the fuck. Fuck, man.

“…Spucky,” the super dude intoned. “I am Loredo, emissary of the gods, and I-”

“Hey, Loredo, nice to meet you. Look, do you mind if I just hit the head real quick, man? I just woke up and I’ve got to piss like a racehorse, you know what I’m saying?”

“…I…yes, I know what you’re saying?”

Loredo looked upset, but, hey, man, when nature calls you can’t really ignore that shit. Do you know the health problems you can give yourself down the line if you try to hold it in? It can get gnarly, man, some dude died from holding it in, man. Not chill. While Spucky was in the bathroom he brushed his teeth, too, just out of habit. Actually, he had forgotten all about Loredo by the time he came back out.

Loredo wasn’t floating anymore. He wasn’t glowing anymore, either. He was sitting behind Spucky’s drum kit, tapping out some rhythm on the snare.

“Oh, sweet, man, do you play? My band is looking for another drummer.”

Loredo looked at Spucky. Then he looked at the drums in front of him for sort of a long time. And then he looked at Spucky.

“Don’t you play the drums?”

“I did, bro, I did, but I’m trying to move into singing and rapping now.”

“Rapping?”

“You want the Soundcloud, bro? Shit, there might be a mixtape around here.”

“No,” Loredo said, standing up. “No mixtape, please…please. Look, Spucky, I’m here with a message.”

Spucky’s eyes got big. “Yo! Like a birthday message?”

“What? No. Why would I be here with a birthday message, your birthday isn’t for another four months.”

“Whoa. How did you know that?”

“I’m trying to tell you, I’m a messenger from the gods. I’m kind of omnipotent.”

“Oh, sweet. Hey, do you know Sharon Crossley?”

Loredo squinted at him. “Yes. I’m omnipotent.”

“Is she into me?”

“What?”

“I can’t tell, man. She’s been giving these weird signals. Like, go, sometimes, and then stop, and I don’t want to make a move until I know, man. I don’t want to get into an accident, if you know what I’m saying.”

The look on this super dude’s face was getting, like, super messed up. Like, he still looked normal, but damn, did he look mad. And confused, maybe, but Spucky didn’t know what he could be confused about if he knew everything.

“I’m a messenger from the gods. I showed up in your bedroom, floating and glowing, at the foot of your bed. I’m trying to tell you something…from the gods. And the only thing you want to ask me is if your coworker at the Gulp ‘n’ Go has any romantic interest in you?”

Spucky knew that the weird super dude was getting frustrated with him, but honestly, fuck him. He wakes up him before his alarm on a Saturday he has to work and expects Spucky to give a shit? Fuck that. He was getting some answers.

Loredo threw up his hands. “Yes, she’s ‘into you.’”

Spucky pumped his fists into the air.

“Do you want to know why I’m here now?”

“Not particularly, dude. Thanks for dropping by, though.”

“Spucky, I am here to discuss…your destiny.”

“I don’t have one of those, man, I drive a Cutlass.”

“I…No, I mean, your future.”

Loredo started floating again, and the glow came back even stronger before. Like, it was making Spucky’s eyes burn and everything. Then he started talking again and his voice was really fucking loud, too fucking loud, bro, his mom was going to flip.

“Robert Reginald Williams-”

“Spucky, man.”

“Shut. Up. I am here to impart upon you…your destiny. A darkness is coming. A swiftly moving calamity that will shake the earth to its core and send shivers of fear through the spines of every human on the planet. The Fates have seen it. And they have prophesied that you are the one who will stop it in its tracks.”

Spucky didn’t really know what to do with that information. It was kind of a lot. And it was so early. The last time someone had said a lot of stuff like that in a voice like that in front of him, he’d had his car taken away by a judge. The whole thing was total bullshit, anyways, man, he was just sleeping in the back and literally didn’t know where the keys were.

Anyways, Spucky just did what he always did in times like this: laughed nervously and said, “That’s crazy, man.”

“You must come with me, and-”

“I really can’t, man, I’m sorry. I got work today, and if I miss another shift at the Gulp ‘n’ Go Preston’s gonna fire my ass, man.”

Loredo was getting real antsy. “Didn’t you hear what I just said?”

“Yeah, dude. You said there was a prophecy that I was going to stop a coming end-of-the-world situation. And that’s cool, man. But until that happens I still have to go to work.”

“We need to train you-”

“Look, a prophecy is kind of a ‘set in stone’ thing, isn’t it? So, if I’m prophesized to stop something, or whatever, doesn’t that mean it’s definitely going to happen, no matter where I am?”

“I mean, well…see…you have to come with me!”

“I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do, dickcheese. Except go to work, because if I get fired my mom’s going to kick me out. Don’t worry, bro. I’ll keep my eye out for this darkness or whatever, and I’ll figure out what to do when it shows up.”

Anyways, Loredo kept yelling at Spucky and following him around and shit, and it was really annoying, but apparently Loredo couldn’t actually do anything without Spucky’s permission and no one else could see Loredo so it was pretty much just a really annoying weekend followed by a quick apocalypse on Monday that Spucky handled easy-peasy and then he was back to getting baked with his two dudes Paulie and Broseph on Tuesday.

The Party Car: A Body of Thieves Story

A Body of Thieves

The earpiece fit so snugly into Vinnie’s ear canal you couldn’t see it. At least, he hadn’t been able to see it no matter how he moved his head around in front of the mirror. Of course, there was still something jammed in his ear. It was like he had a particularly big piece of wax stuck and it was making his hearing lopsided.

“Stop messing with your ear,” Verna said. “And stop gawking.”

She was on the other side of the party, hiding her lips moving behind a cosmopolitan. Her voice had come through the earpiece, making it sound like she was just behind him.

“I’ve never been on a luxury car before,” Vinnie said, putting his hands down at his side.

Duane’s voice rolled through the speaker. “Tell us something we don’t know, little man.”

This job had a few differences from the ‘kiddie shit’ test job they had done the month before. Instead of being in a hotel, the party was on the Transcontinental SaeLuxe Southern Line, currently rolling across the sand and scrub toward Jewel of the Desert. Vinnie had been riding trains his whole life, but always in the back half of the cars. He’d never had the money for a first class ticket, let alone enough money to get into one of the infamous party cars. It had been hard not to stare at the hotel, but here it was nigh impossible. The chandeliers that shook with the train, the crystal wine glasses with all their carvings, the diamonds and gems on both the women and the men. It all made the hotel look like his crappy apartment.

The other difference was the earpieces. Tin ears, Hannah called them, for absolutely no reason Vinnie could see. Expensive little gadgets, and Vinnie still didn’t understand how they worked, that let them talk to one another and coordinate. Verna was here with him in the party cars. Joey was in a sleeper car somewhere toward the back. Hannah and Duane were also in the back, in a passenger car, waiting. Yet through the tin ears he could hear all of them like they were standing behind him.

Maggie…well, he didn’t know precisely where Maggie was, and he hadn’t heard her through the tin ear yet. Some things hadn’t changed, he guessed.

Their goal was the room in the last car of the train, before the caboose. He hadn’t seen it yet, but Joey had given them all the gory details. Two sets of guards, two at the front of the car, and the other two in front of the door. A locked door. Inside that room was a shipment of metal. Rhodium. Vinnie had never heard of this metal before, but when Joey had named it the others’ eyes had all lit up. Expensive, useful, easy to move. If there was as much in there as Joey thought, they’d each have four to five figures by the end of the month.

Upon hearing the number, Vinnie had thrown up and then hyperventilated for half an hour.

The first part of the job was his, and it was time to start. They had all gotten onto the train separately, and would leave separately, so Verna was not on his arm like last time. She was across the car, at the bar, wearing a stunning silver dress that left little to the imagination and trying to glare daggers at him without anyone noticing. Vinnie swallowed. Finger by finger he pulled off his black gloves and tucked them in his jacket pocket.

It was time to get to work.

There was a woman in front of him, speaking to a well-groomed middle aged man. It was hard to figure out how old the woman was. She’d had – and here he was remembering the voice of his college theater professor – ‘so much work done she’d become the ship of Theseus.’ Not a line in her face, a sag to her breast, or a shade of gray in her hair. She still didn’t look young. Vinnie walked toward her and gasped lightly to get her attention.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt,” he said. “But I was walking past and I noticed your rings.”

The woman beamed – as much as her frozen face could, it was really all in her eyes – and she held up her hand so he could see better. He gently took her hand-

Pretend they’re everyday rings, make him think you wear these rocks every day, just walk around in diamonds, in Swinson diamonds all the time

An image flashed in her head, so it flashed in Vinnie’s head. He let go of her hand and smiled at her.

“This year’s Swinson Holiday Collection. Am I right?”

“They are!” the woman said.

The man looked at Vinnie up and down. “You have a good eye. Are you in the business?”

“No, I just-” Vinnie put his hand on the man’s shoulder.

Better just be looking at the diamonds, my friend, the rings, my friend, I love her so much, I love her, I can still fight, I can still hit someone going after my wife

“-have an interest in the finer, delicate things,” Vinnie finished, taking his hand back. “I hadn’t seen those in person yet, I was quite excited. Please excuse my intrusion, have a good night.”

He almost looked over at Verna. Remembered at the last second he didn’t have to. It was a good thing neither of them were who he was looking for. He’d forgotten about the code.

Vinnie worked his way through the train car, finding little excuses to touch people. Sometimes the train would hit a bump or a curve, and he could play off the touch as balancing himself. Jewelry kept working, too, or a gentle arm touch while he laughed uproariously at an okay joke. He made it through a little more than half the car before he found one.

All’s quiet, not too quiet, boring quiet, nothing is going to happen, I hate this detail, I hate this dress, why can’t I wear a pantsuit, suits are nice, I can barely hide anything in this dress

“Sorry, I see your watch there, do you have the time?” Vinnie asked.

The woman made a forced smile and looked at her watch. Now that he knew she was an undercover guard it was obvious, but he never would have noticed on his own. It was the subtle touches. Muscular arms hidden under a shawl. The way she had been talking to people. Not as a way to advertise herself, but as a way to get others to talk. She gave him the time and he thanked her before moving on, working very hard to keep his eyes way from Verna. She had heard the code, she’d be working her way over to the woman now.

He found the other two guards in the next party car. Not a second too soon, either. He’d been practicing when they all went out for drinks together, just leaving his gloves off and letting strangers’ thoughts roll around in his head. It had helped. A little. After two cars his head was still swimming, and he found himself holding onto the wall for support. The little swishes and jolts the train was making had been magnified, and as he watched Verna work her way to the second guard he sipped on a ginger ale he’d taken from a waitress to steady his stomach. His gloves were already back on.

It wasn’t until this job he fully understood the difference between the Face and the Smile. He’d initially believed it was just one man, one woman, and maybe that had been part of it. But in their little body, at least, there was a more important distinction: Vinnie had been sold as the people reader. Verna was the pickpocket.

“Oh, wow, Emmy?” Verna put her hands to her cheeks, and then let out an absolute ripper of a squeal before going to embrace not the woman Vinnie had pegged as the guard, but the woman standing just behind her with the increasingly afraid look on her face.

“I’m not-”

Verna had already wrapped her in a hug, pushing her back a little. The woman pushed Verna, working to regain her balance, and Verna took the momentum and stumbled back into the guard. 

“I haven’t seen you in years!”

“I’m not…Emmy,” the woman said, dripping the name with so much scorn Vinnie knew immediately the woman’s real name was probably four or five syllables and wouldn’t have been out of place in a gothic romance novel.

“Are you sure? You look just like her!”

Not-Emmy smirked. “Maybe you need a club soda or something. Settle your head.”

The guard, now recovered, had watched all of this with something like mild amusement. Or maybe it was gas. Either way, as Verna burped an apology and came toward the bar, the guard walked off in the other direction, toward the corner where a three piece string band was doing a bang-up job playing through the train’s wobble.

Whatever she had done had been so smooth Vinnie didn’t even see her do it. She leaned against the bar, facing away from him as though she were trying to get the bartender’s attention.

“Two badges,” she said.

Vinnie kept the smile on his face. “On to step two.”

Previous Next

I Shall Have the Last One

I almost missed it, too.

I’d come to Myrtle for the vintage and thrift shops. It was well known for that. Folks would come in from all over to browse. That’s why I went during the middle of the week. Took off from work. Told ‘em my mother died. It wasn’t really a lie. I just neglected to tell them that she had died six years ago. They might want her death certificate, but it’s not like I haven’t changed the dates on it before. One more time won’t be any bother.

Apparently Myrtle is also known for its mini golf and the ocean. I’m not particularly fussed with either. I hate salt water, and you need friends for mini golf. This is my own trip. A business trip, really, although nothing to do with the bank and Mr. Hallard and his suspicious glares as I cried over my dead mother. What a prick.

This store was much like the rest of them. A large rectangular building painted purple for  one particular reason: to be quirky. All these vintage stores want to be seen as ‘unique’ and ‘folksy’ and so they do things like paint the walls weird colors, give themselves offbeat names, just kind of toss everything they’re trying to sell together. Make you wander through all of their rooms, hope you find some other piece of crap you’re willing to drop ten bucks on. Not this lady, no sir. This lady has her eyes on one prize only.

I’d learned a long time ago, even if one of these stores pretends to have their stuff split up into sections there’s still stuff everywhere. So even after I had scoured the right room and came up with nothing I didn’t leave. I went through it all. Room by room by room by room. Sweet Christmas, how do these junk shops afford buildings this big? My feet were starting to get sore, and my stomach had already processed the motel Danish and was growling for more. But the universe doesn’t reward quitters. No, it rewards persistence. And I was nothing if not that.

I almost walked right by it. It was a whole shelf full of rotary phones. Battered ones. Green ones. Even one of those really old ones, the kind that latched to the wall like a kind of leech and probably came with a party line. I was looking at these things, and wondering, who buys them? What use could anyone have for these things? A theater, perhaps, but once you buy one isn’t the theater good on prop rotary phones for a while? Maybe-

That’s when my eyes bulged. My hands froze. My spine stiffened and I swear I almost peed myself. I’d walked by it, and I was afraid to turn back, to find out I had only seen what I had wanted. But when I finally gained enough courage to turn back, there it was. My prize, tucked in the coils of a red phone cord. I snatched it up, turned it over and over in my hands, half afraid it would turn to sand. But it stayed, my precious porcelain baby. It was real. It was mine. All I had to do was fix my face and hide my excitement so the owner of this rotten place didn’t triple the price. I stood in the back, caressing its face, until I thought I could be trusted.

Beginning in 1972, the Sally Sweet Snack Cakes Company began releasing one porcelain figure a week. Their size and how well they were painted varied wildly depending on how well the company was doing. Some were roughly six inches tall and looked meticulously hand painted. Others were about half that size and were sometimes not painted at all. It was all a celebration of America’s upcoming bicentennial, and each figure represented a different year in America’s history. They’re cheap and prone to breaking, which isn’t a surprise since they were initially released with boxes of chocolate cupcakes and fried apple pies. They’re also racist, mostly by only depicting white Americans, and white men at that, but there are a few I hide in the closet. The 1927 figurine showing Al Jolson from The Jazz Singer springs to mind.

They’re also a true collector’s item. Not like today, with those awful plastic bobble heads I see everywhere now. Funpops? Popkos? Something like that. That idiot teenager across the street ‘collects’ those. Keeps them in the box. Thinks he can pay for college with them. How is he supposed to make any money off a bobble head that looks like Freddy Krueger when every other stoner has one and they’re still on the shelves at every book store? Doesn’t matter, that kid’s too stupid for college, anyway.

The Sally Sweet’s figurines, though, are the real deal. By the best estimation only two or three thousand of each figurine was made. Most were thrown away, or broken. Simone Thatcher, that sanctimonious broad who runs findingamericansallies.com, did the math and figures there’s a scant couple hundred of each somewhere left in the world. She may be a cold, conniving bitch but she’s done the legwork and I believe her.

I drove the ten hour trip back to Cincinnati with the Sally Sweet’s figurine wrapped up tightly in paper and bubble wrap and enough packing peanuts to fill up the rest of the suitcase. Then I seatbelted the whole thing into the back seat. I’m still traumatized from a few years ago, when I was driving home from St. Louis after finding the 1801 figurine (Thomas Jefferson sworn in as President in DC) and got sideswiped on the highway by some moron who thought blinkers were for chumps. I was fine. The car had minor damage that his insurance ended up paying for (through the nose, I made sure of that), but poor Mr. Jefferson ended up in so many pieces I couldn’t even glue him together. Took me two and half years to find another one. I think my heart didn’t stop skipping beats until I was home, and the new figure was in its proper place on the shelf. 1876. Colorado is admitted as the 38th state. A man in a straw hat and a poorly painted Colorado flag draped over his shoulders take his place on the shelf.

I’ve built all these shelves myself. I’ve decided I can’t trust anyone to shelve my Sallies. Everything is cheap pressboard these days, even the stuff that’s supposed to be nice. So I went to the hardware store and figured it out myself. Took weeks. The shelves are along every wall in my one bedroom house. Living room, kitchen, bedroom. There’s even a few in the bathroom. It’s hard to house two hundred of the little Sallies in such a small space.

Nearly two hundred. 1876 is the second to last. There’s only one more I need. I can see that empty spot on the shelf in the kitchen from nearly every place in my house. Even when I’m in the bathroom I can feel it. Calling me. Mocking me.

1945. V-Day. I’ve seen pictures of it. A little solider holding an American flag and holding up the peace sign. That rotten bitch Simone Thatcher has one. I may not be allowed to talk on the forums anymore but they can’t keep me from reading them anyway. I have a couple she doesn’t have, anyway. Once I find my own 1945 I’ll make a new account. Post all the pictures. Then reveal it’s me. I only regret I won’t be able to see the look on Simone’s pinched face.

I spend all my time on the computer. Always have a few tabs open. Ebay. Etsy. Craigslist. Constantly scrolling. Constantly refreshing. I’d heard something on the news about a ‘dark web.’ Gave the neighbor kid five hundred bucks to show me how to get on there. He said it’s mostly guns and porn, but I have to look everywhere. I’m out of sick days, and I think my boss is onto me about my mom’s death. For the rest of the year I’m stuck with weekends and holidays to do any in-person searching, and I’ve already searched everywhere I can get to in that time frame. Now online sellers are my best option.

I’ve gotten a few online before. The problem is that most people selling them online actually know how much these things are worth. Usually when you find one in the middle of a junk shop it just got dropped there after some old bird died. The kids didn’t know. The shop doesn’t know. They think it’s just some crappily painted piece of cheap porcelain, and as long as I can keep my face straight and my mouth shut I can get it for a couple of bucks.

The people online know. The cheapest I’ve gotten one online is fifty bucks. Mostly I pay in the five hundred range. I found the 1976 one from some old farmer in Nebraska six years ago. I’m still paying off the credit card on that one.

My friends used to worry about me, but they don’t come around much so I guess they don’t anymore.

I got fired today. I knew my boss was gunning for me, I just didn’t think he’d have the stones to do it. Didn’t even bring up my mother. Said I was constantly late. Tired. Snippy with the customers. Started to say something about appearance but the HR lady shook her head. On my phone all the time. He doesn’t understand. No one does, really, but he especially doesn’t. He spends all his time with his kids and his wife. Always taking vacations to Disney and the Grand Canyon. He has his babies. He doesn’t understand I’m still missing one of mine.

I’m on the sites now all the time. Still nothing. How can there be nothing? No one needs quick cash? Needs to sell? I’ll pay. I’ll pay whatever I have to. I’ve sold other things for the Sallies before and I’ll do it again. Looks like I’ll have to soon, anyway. I’ve got money in savings, but that’s for the 1945when I find it. I could apply for another job, probably get one as long as I don’t try to be a teller again. But I just keep thinking about all this free time I’ll have now. I can spend all day on the sites now. All night. Won’t have to leave the house for nothing.

I passed out today, getting up to go to the bathroom. Just got dizzy, and then everything got dark, and then I fell. Woke up a little later. Don’t think I hit my head. Don’t have time to go to the ER anyway. Need to keep searching. 1945 is out there somewhere, and I’m going to find it. I can splint my own arm. Maybe I should eat more. I just keep forgetting.

The Sallies call me Momma now. Don’t remember when that started. Sometimes they’re cheering for me. Usually they’re crying. They cry all the time now. They miss their brother. They want their brother. I tell them I’m working as hard as I can, looking all the time. But they cry harder. I need to find their brother and then they’ll stop crying.

That bitch. That monster. That stuck-up, bottle-blonde, piece of fucking work. I’ve screamed myself hoarse. I threw myself at the ground and pounded at the tile and now my hands are bleeding. Fuck. FUCK. FUCK HER AND HER LIFE.

She has another 1945 Sally. I don’t know how she found it. She keeps posting pictures of her smug face between the pair of them. She must have gone out of the country. I’ve heard collecting Sallies has gotten big in Japan and South Korea. She must have gone international. She keeps talking about ‘bringing the boy home.’

It’s not fair. That rotten, broken woman has two and I have none. It’s not fair. The Sallies are crying all the time now. So loud. It’s so loud. I can’t stop hearing them cry. I can’t sleep because of it. I haven’t eaten in days. They need their brother.

It turns out it’s really easy to find out where someone lives if you have access to the dark web and a credit card that still works. There’s no regrets now. I shall have the last one. And she’ll know it was me.

In a Laundromat

“Hey.”

Tina pushed herself up on her elbows, carefully keeping her balance as the washing machines underneath her muttered and bucked. Nestor was sitting cross-legged in one of the silver carts, the one with only one wild wheel. He had been pushing himself across the room, back and forth, reaching the bank of dryers only to turn around and push back toward the folding tables. Now he was drifting to a stop in front of her, three wheels clicking over the tile and the fourth spinning half an inch in the air.

“What are you going to do?”

With the best eye roll she could make, she laid back down with an arm under her head.

“Ugh.”

“What?”

“That’s all anyone wants to talk about.”

“It’s kind of a big deal. Isn’t it?”

“It will be a big deal. When it happens.”

“Yeah, in, like, three months.”

“Right.”

Tina didn’t have to look to know the way he’d be glaring at her. The same way they all had been. Her mom and stepdad. Her dad and Krista. Her teachers. Mrs. Whitefield, always with that sharp chin and eyes that had become more and more disappointed as the year went on. They all wanted the same thing from her. The same thing she wanted from herself. The thing she couldn’t give.

When Nestor still hadn’t argued with her she turned her head. He wasn’t looking at her after all. He was looking through the front window of the laundromat. She couldn’t really see what he was looking at, but she knew anyway. The trailer park was across the street, and you could see his from here, up in the front row. Her own was in the back, closer to the highway.

“They’re kicking me out,” he said.

The air conditioning kicked on and a torrent of freezing air struck her bare shoulders and belly at the same time. She sat up, dropping her legs over the side of the washing machine, and wrapped her arms around her middle. The air conditioning was the only reason for the chill. That’s all.

“Did they find out?” she asked.

Nestor turned back to her, shaking his head as he did. He always had those sad eyes, the kind that turned down at the corners and sparkled like there were tears about to drop. Even laughing there was always this feeling he’d turn to sobs any second. Now his eyes were dry, his full lips pressed together.

“No. If they found out, I’d already be on my ass,” he said. “I offered to pay rent, but it’s not the money. It’s the space. Trailer’s too small. They said I could move in with my grandparents, but…”

Tina nodded so he knew he didn’t have to keep going. She wouldn’t chose to live with those stuffy, bigoted loudmouths, either.

The washing machine beneath her stopped its spinning and let out its electronic scream, making them both jump. Tina hopped off and Nestor got out of the cart and they filled it with the wet clothes and rolled it over to the dryers, ignoring the dripping on the floor.

She didn’t like thinking of graduation, and it wasn’t because she didn’t know what she would do next. She did. She had for years. She just didn’t like thinking of it. There would be no college. Even if she had the grades for it they didn’t have the money, and even if they had the money she didn’t want to go. But she didn’t want to be a waitress either, and that was the way things would go if she didn’t try, at least according to Mrs. Whitefield. She was already a waitress, over at Dale’s, and she knew once she graduated they’d bump her up to full time and she didn’t really want it but there was nothing else to do.

“You know what I want to do?” she asked, feeding quarters into the dryer. “I want to be a forest hag.”

“What?”

“Yeah. A forest hag. I want to walk into a forest – doesn’t matter where, just so long as it’s deep. And old. I want to walk into that forest and leave everything behind. I’ll build a cottage with my own hands. I’ll forage for mushrooms. I’ll plant my own food. I’ll grow my hair wild and never wear makeup. They’ll call me a witch, but I won’t be. I won’t have the energy to deal with any devils, because I’ll be dealing with my own shit. But I’ll let them think I’m a witch, so they’ll stay out of my hair.”

Nestor grinned at her, and her nerves began to wobble. She hadn’t said that out loud to anyone, and knew how it sounded. Now he would mock her, gently at least, and she would be forced to think about a real future.

“I want to be a fisherman,” he said. “Not like for a big company or boat or whatever. I just want to have my own little boat, somewhere out in the islands. I’ll live on the boat, just me and the water, and I’ll fish. I’ll bring my catch into the marina and sell it all and buy what I need and then go back out to sea. Maybe sometimes I’ll stay, have a drink at the bar, catch someone’s eye. But I’ll be gone by the morning, and when I come back again with fish I’ll pretend we never met and he’ll do the same.”

She was grinning back at him, a little to keep from saying something stupid. Nestor had never even been to the ocean and surely didn’t know how to fish. But Tina had never been to a forest and definitely didn’t know how to build a cottage so…

“What did you want to be when you were a kid?” she asked.

“A firefighter. You?”

“Pop star.”

Nestor shuddered. “All of that just sounds like so much work.”

They finished the laundry talking about nonsense, movies and gossip, and carefully avoiding talking about the future that would come for them whether they were ready for it or not.

Unfair: A Biddies and Broken Hearts Story

The Biddies and Broken Hearts

Birdie had spent the night pacing in front of her bed, tossing this way and then immediately getting uncomfortable and turning back the other, pacing some more, being mad at Wendy, and then being mad at herself, staring out the window at the stars like some kind of sad movie heroine, and finally falling into broken, unsatisfying sleep as she gripped a pillow to her chest. All the while June slept a deeper sleep than he had since he had stumbled into town, not even waking when she had stubbed her toe while pacing.

It was the unfairness of it all. ‘Unfair,’ what a childish word. She’d stopped expecting things to be fair at a young age, as soon as she had realized her brother would get whatever he wanted, and also whatever Birdie wanted, too. Funny that as they had grown up it had been her brother complaining about things being ‘unfair’ the few times she had gotten what she had wanted, or even just the same thing as him. The word ‘unfair’ made her think of him screeching it, over and over, as they had sat in front of Missy’s Ice Cream, because her scoop had come with three peanut butter cups and his had two and a half. Of course their mother had made them switch, and he’d eaten those three peanut butter cups staring her down, that bulldog grin on his face.

She kept imagining whoever had brained June had done it with that look. What had happened to him wasn’t ‘unfair’ the way different amounts of peanut butter cups was unfair. It was practically cosmic. The world ended, and then on top of that he’d gotten a massive head injury. Or maybe it was the other way around? No, his book had come out mere months before the Blues, it must have been after. And if he’d been roaming with those two assholes like that, there was no way he was untested. Benjamin Hooper, Junior had been a physics professor with dogs and hobbies and a promising career. And then all that had been dashed by the Blues, and then in the early days of this new world he’d been clobbered in the head. In truth, it was a miracle he’d survived at all. Had he been with those two monsters this whole time? Two or three years of being used as bait?

Unfair, unfair, unfair.

She woke up a few hours later, early morning sunlight streaming through the window. Technically, she’d slept in, although she must have only slept for a couple hours. Every muscle ached from clutching the pillow, and then there was that all-over malaise from getting such short sleep. Across the room June still slept, red hair splashed across his face.

Unfair.

She’d been treating him unfairly, too. He’d gotten a little better once he’d been off whatever junk he’d been given, and then there had been weeks of no improvement. Looking at him now, holding the book in her hands, Birdie realized she hadn’t thought there could be any. How do you recover from something that left a dent in your skull? So she had been treating him like a child. No, not a child. A child you expected to grow and get smarter. She had been treating him…oh, it was so terrible she didn’t even want to think it…she’d been treating him like a dog. Taking care of him, and never expecting anything better.

“Me.”

He’d seen the bookstore. He’d left them to go into it. He’d known his book would be in there. He’d been able to find it, and recognize himself on the back. He’d spoken.

June was in there, at least a part of him was. She just had to get him out.

He woke up as she was getting dressed, yawning and rubbing at his eyes and padding off to the bathroom like she wasn’t even there. She was finishing putting her hair up in braids when he came back, standing just inside the door. Waiting.

“I’ve never done this before,” she said to him. “Rehabbed someone, I mean. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m going to try, so if I mess something up, just…give me a little grace. Okay?”

He sort of looked at her. Not quite at her eyes. Maybe her chin.

“Okay, good start,” Birdie said. She glanced at the book, now sitting on her bedside table. “Should I be calling you Benjamin?”

No response.

“Ben? Benji?” she asked, giving pauses between the names. Still no change. “June?”

That got him to look at her, square in the eyes. They weren’t as awake as they had been in the book store, but they weren’t quite as empty as before, either.

“Okay, we’ll stick with June. Maybe that was your nickname before? There was a character on The Sopranos named June, did you ever watch that? Maybe you didn’t have time. Or maybe you just didn’t like television. I think on the show they spelled it J-U-N, though, and I keep thinking of your name as J-U-N-E, like the month.”

Birdie hated talking this much, she felt like she was babbling. But as long as she kept talking, June kept looking at her. And was there a new spark in his eyes, or was she imagining it? Had the key been talking this whole time? If so, terrible. Birdie didn’t talk more than she had to. If someone else had found him, pulled him from those jerks, he might be better by now. Instead, he’d taken to Birdie, the woman who went most days saying fifty words or less.

Unfair.

“Unfair,” she said out loud, forcing her tongue against her mouth. “I need to learn to think out loud, I guess. We’ll start with that, anyway, and see how you do.”

Previous Next