Fiction Vortex - September 2014

  "I'm ok," Millie said aloud. "You hear that, Thatcher? I'm ok."

  Thatcher kept pushing, reaching.

  "Of course you are," Ray said. Then in a more pleading tone, "We're here."

  "I'm ok," Millie said again.

  "Officer?" Ray said.

  Millie opened her eyes. They were at the checkpoint. A border patrol officer peered in the driver's window.

  "Name?"

  "Ray Starks."

  "Your friend?" The officer nodded to the back seat.

  "That's my buddy, Thatcher," Ray said.

  Millie nodded.

  Thatcher reached out to move his arms, his shoulders, his feet.

  Millie gritted her teeth and put her hands underneath her.

  "Purpose of your trip?" the officer said.

  "Pleasure. A day trip."

  "Passports?"

  Ray reached to the glove compartment and removed two documents.

  At least Thatcher's had to have been falsified.

  Thatcher tried to kick his legs.

  Millie let out a yelp and quickly suppressed it. She scratched at both her arms.

  The officer looked over at Thatcher and raised an eyebrow. "Your friend not feeling well?"

  "He just came down with something. Hoping to get medicine when we cross over. A lot cheaper over there, you know."

  The officer reviewed the passports and scanned the embedded chips. He handed the documents back after reading his monitor. "Head to the side over there," he pointed to a queue of cars and a half dozen agents on the right.

  "My friend's in pain, officer. Any way that...?"

  "Over there."

  Ray thanked the man and pulled the car slowly ahead.

  "Damn it, Ray," Millie said in a forced whisper, "this isn't working. He's back. I need those pills."

  "Listen—we're almost there. You just to need to chill until we get through. There's nothing I can do, Millie."

  Thatcher pushed out now, a rage that trembled, trying to get his body back.

  She grunted just as Ray pulled into the queue.

  Ray turned around and whispered loudly. "You're attracting attention."

  She screamed again. "He's back, Ray. I'm going to be lost."

  "We'll get you out of this," Ray pleaded. "I don't want to lose you again. Not when we're so close."

  Thatcher pushed again, an explosion of wrath as if pulling down the columns of a temple. Millie yelled again, and the piercing sound captured the looks of all the officers in the area.

  ~~~~~

  The people from the Howard T. Young Company arrived within hours. The border patrol staff said little to Thatcher during the wait. He and Ray were held in separate cells. Thatcher found himself slowly gaining control of his body. Not in a rush, as it usually did after a walking. His body ached, but only a fraction of what his head felt. The staff didn't respond to his pleas for an aspirin.

  He didn't recognize the Company employees who sat at the interrogation room table. They introduced themselves—a manager and a tech—and asked a few informal questions: name, current location, day and time. The tech then jacked Thatcher directly into a small box. Thatcher watched the tech's face, hoping to get a clue on what he was picking up.

  The tech reviewed his screen. "Millie's not in you anymore, is she?"

  "Jesus, I hope not."

  The tech nodded. "Rough time with it?" He fished in his pocket and produced a foil packet. "These'll take the edge off."

  The packet was unmarked; Thatcher felt two pills inside.

  The manager placed a sheet of paper before him. She was older than the tech, more formal, higher on the food chain.

  "A misunderstanding, Mr. Thatcher, one for which all of us at the Company are deeply sorry." She cleared her throat. "We are happy to see you well."

  "I don't know that I'm well. I feel like hell."

  "Take the pills," the tech said. He slid a cup of water over to Thatcher.

  "This happen a lot?" Thatcher asked, looking at the tech.

  "No, not a lot."

  "You should have some sort of safeguards, keep these things from happening."

  The manager smiled slightly. "As I said, we are happy to see you well. We regret this situation. Below is an agreement, stating such, and offering you a small sum," she pointed to a number in the third paragraph of the contract, "in exchange for your absolving us of any wrong doing."

  "Why would I sign this?"

  The manager let out a short breath. "You're not entirely innocent in this matter, are you, Mr. Thatcher?"

  He didn't respond.

  "While we were looking for you, we had time to review certain threads. There was an offer, was there not, Mr. Thatcher?"

  Thatcher broke eye contact with the manager. "It's not like that...Millie is...was...a free person."

  "No one said she wasn't. No one said you did anything wrong." She placed a pen beside the paper. "Only, it's not the Company's fault, is it? That's all you're agreeing to here. And the Company recognizes the pain and anxiety you incurred, and so would like to compensate you."

  Thatcher tried to read the contract, but his brain scrambled the letters and numbers on the page.

  "Sign it or not, this is it, right?" he said. "I can't even read this, you know."

  "That'll pass," the tech said.

  The manager stated the number on the sheet.

  That seemed enough. More than he was supposed to get from Millie.

  Thatcher scrawled his name on a line at the bottom of the page.

  The manager placed the form in her briefcase.

  "All the others as lucky as me?"

  "Walkers?" the tech said. "Some."

  Then the manager corrected him. "Almost all."

  "Is she really dead?"

  "She was already dead, Mr. Thatcher," the manager said. "But the self that crossed over into you, that self has dissolved. Can't stay in a body for long. At least, not with the body's original self still inside."

  ~~~~~

  After the money had been transferred, he tried to make plans, but he found decisions hard. At night, he'd wake in a sweat, thinking of Millie, his arms itching.

  He chalked it up to exhaustion. He'd get better.

  When it didn't, he called the tech.

  "No," he said, "there's no way that she's still in you."

  "Couldn't some part of her be inside, tucked away? Like where I'd been when she was in control?"

  A pause. "No. The readings were clear when I checked you. Why don't you come in, though...have some tests run?"

  Thatcher refused. No more tests.

  He considered whether it was withdrawals from not walking anymore, because it had been a part of him for so long. Whether it was the fact that he faced a juncture where he needed to step off from everything he knew. Or whether it was Millie.

  Europe didn't hold the same appeal as it had, and he looked up other paths that would take him afield: Thailand, Argentina, even Panama. On a whim, he booked a flight to Belize, no plan other than getting off the plane.

  The day before he was to leave, he surprised himself by looking her up. He didn't find much that was interesting. Millie had been an executive of a company that he had never heard of. Oddly, she'd lived only two towns away from him. Car accident at age 41.

  A little more digging, and he uncovered the cemetery where her body had been laid.

  A short drive and a hundred doubts later, Thatcher found himself there, walking amid gravestones and burial plots. He couldn't remember the last time he had been in a cemetery, but he was sure he didn't think of it then as he did now, questioning who here was really dead, and who still lived on. Did it make sense to have a life memorialized when that life still existed?

  He found Millie's plot. A simple granite marker on the ground, the grass trimmed neatly around it.

  Thatcher cursed her, apologized, said a prayer, wished her soul well.

  And wondered if she'd always be inside him.

  ~~~~~
br />   ~~~~~

  Todd Honeycutt resides in the wilds of New Jersey. He writes fiction in between conducting public policy research, civilizing two children, and brewing beer. This is his first published work of fiction.

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  Tenbe's Bones

  by Brenda Anderson; published September 16, 2014

  Tenbe pushed open the gate outside the Master’s shell-dwelling, wishing she could turn and run. Ever since he’d taken possession of this vacant lot, villagers avoided the street. Coiled into elaborate swirls that changed color, the shell’s hard, glittery surface housed a creature no one wanted as a neighbor.

  The shell flushed pale green. Good. That meant he hadn’t fully woken yet. Today would run its course. The Master would order her to collect certain objects; Tenbe would obey and in the evening return to her private hidey-hole.

  Only then would she count her own special objects: finger bones. Every night she touched them, counted them, found comfort in them.

  “Tenbe?”

  In spite of herself, she still shuddered at the glutinous sound of his voice. Perhaps he sucked air through mucous pooled somewhere inside that large shell.

  “Here, Master.” She’d learned to give short answers. Listen, and obey. Every day she handed over the objects she’d scavenged for him. He paid her, of course. While every other household in the village had to pay tribute in return for his protection, she received it free.

  “Get me dead fish and a child-size, broken bowl. Understand?”

  “Yes.” Tenbe scurried off.

  Once, instead of going home after her day’s work, she’d climbed the tree opposite his shell-dwelling and waited for darkness to fall. The village had gone quiet. People were afraid to leave their homes at night, fearful of the Master. Rumors had spread. Some claimed to have seen him lurching forward, like some disjointed insect continually losing its balance. Long legs and bleached skin, they’d said. Others swore he had no legs but rolled down the main street, curved like a strip of apple peel.

  As she watched late that night something long, white, and slug-like had nosed its way out of the shell-dwelling, twisted right and left, then reared up. Two pale probing fingers had emerged from the slug’s head and stretched toward the tree she clung to. Impossibly, the fingers lengthened and almost reached her. Tenbe dropped to the ground and fled. The next day the Master had asked if she’d slept well. She’d managed to lie, assuring him that she had an excellent night’s sleep. After that, she’d given up spying.

  The village itself found ways to endure. The Master emerged long after midnight to make his rounds, and left a telltale smear on certain front doors. Villagers who paid were permitted to live. Villagers who withheld payment died. As simple as that.

  Dead fish and a broken, child-size bowl. Tenbe set off. Outside the village, she took a shortcut through the forest.

  The pungent aroma of rotting leaves and undergrowth greeted her as she followed the small worn path. Not long now. Tenbe wished she’d been able to play here, like the village children. She couldn’t remember her parents. In fact, she had no memory of her childhood, except the day when strangers seized her and chopped away her eleventh finger. She could still smell the heated blade and feel the sudden pain. Blood had run down her newly-pruned right hand. Four years old, defenseless. Someone had patted her on her shoulder, to comfort her. Afterwards, they’d abandoned her. She wound up in this village, where the Master had claimed her as his servant. She never worked out how he found her. The hunting instinct, perhaps.

  After a while Tenbe pushed her way free of the scrub and stepped onto sand. Sunlight glinted off the river that snaked past. She scanned the riverbank. Sometimes, exposed tree roots at the floodwater mark held fish skeletons. She picked her way through the sand and fingered the curtain of roots.

  Wedged between riverbank and roots, she saw the bones of some large animal, its ribcage exposed to the air. A skull stared blindly at her, its teeth fastened on a dried fish skeleton. Tenbe exhaled. The Master would be pleased. With great care she wriggled into the tiny cavity behind the curtain of roots and reached for the fish skeleton. As she eased it from the creature’s jaws the air stirred and Tenbe looked round.

  It seemed to her that the curtain of roots shifted a fraction, and a long white tendril snaked down. She gasped. The Master? Surely not. She blinked and saw only roots. With great care she dislodged enough soil to expose the front legs of the creature and snapped off its paw bones, which she slipped into her pocket. Good pickings. Only then did Tenbe bag the dried fish, turn, and flee.

  She took her time walking to the village dump. When finally she reached the small mountain of rubbish, she heard a footstep. Turning, she saw an ancient, bent, whiskered man, and relaxed. Old Dog claimed to be one hundred years old and looked it. Under scruffy eyebrows his pale, unclouded eyes inspected her.

  “Collecting?” Some days, his voice sounded more like a growl.

  Tenbe nodded. The whole village knew what she did. No one opposed her.

  Sometimes she saw pity in the eyes of those hurrying past her.

  “Master’s good and mad, today.” Old Dog smacked his lips together. A fly buzzed past and settled on his threadbare jacket. His dirty, tattered trousers and sandals always seemed at odds with such watchful eyes.

  Tenbe waited for more. Old Dog’s ramblings sometimes enclosed a kernel of truth, sometimes not. Once he invited her to join him while he watched a fire die down. One man seated in a circle of dogs, watching the embers grow cold while the dogs studied her. Then he suddenly rose and disappeared into the night, followed by his retinue. Tenbe hadn’t minded.

  Though publicly the villagers avoided Old Dog, they sought his help to heal their injured dogs and muttered complaints against him afterward. A nuisance. Dirty. Up to no good.

  “Be sure and get exactly what he wants, girl. Don’t worry. Bad first, good riddance,” Old Dog said. With an uncharacteristically friendly wave, he shuffled away. Tenbe called after him but he didn’t look back. An unpleasant feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. In the unseen world that held her fast, something had tilted, but not necessarily in her favor. Bad first, good riddance? What did that mean?

  She shivered, and tried to guess what might connect fish bones and a broken child’s bowl. Death? The Master might be planning some new terror. Old Dog was up to something, too, but at least he seemed to be on her side.

  It was all too hard. Do the work, she told herself. A broken bowl shouldn’t be hard to find. She circled the rubbish piles and saw the long, pointed nose of a dead dog sticking out at eye level. Tenbe sighed and kicked the pile. The dog had belonged to one of the village girls.

  A thought hit her. That particular young girl had a younger sister. She grabbed a stick and prodded the rubbish. At last it hit something hard. With a grimace she reached in and drew out half of a child-size bowl. Well, well. She wiped dirt from its grimy surface. It had obviously lain there for a while.

  The glazed eyes of the dead dog seemed to rest on her, and Old Dog’s words came back to her. Bad first, good riddance. On an impulse she prodded the nearby rubbish again, harder, but found nothing. A fly buzzed past her. Already the afternoon was drawing on. By the time she got back to the Master, it would be evening. With a backward glance at the dog, she slipped the broken bowl into her bag and almost stumbled over something.

  Bones.

  Small, fragile bones, the size of a small animal, or perhaps a small child. Tenbe knelt down. The longer bones lay half covered in dirt. She scuffed the soil and gave a start. Child-size bones. She reached down, smoothed the dirt away, and snapped off the finger bones, dropping them in her pocket.

  She kicked back the soil and smoothed it over with the tip of her shoe. Good pickings today.

  Tenbe ran back to the village and pushed open the Master’s gate.

  “You’re back.” The glutinous voice sounded suspicious.

  As answer, Tenbe laid the fish and bowl on the
ground before her. The Master’s shell-dwelling flushed a dark red that quickly faded to rose-red, normally a sign of his appreciation. Good. She could go now.

  “Wait. The rest, too.”

  Tenbe’s heart constricted. Was he following her, spying on her? Did he pay someone to spy on her? Anger rose in her throat. “I brought you what you asked.” It wasn’t fair. Her collection of bones didn’t belong to him. Suddenly, Old Dog’s words came back to her: Be sure and get exactly what he wants.

  Maybe he knew about her collection and wanted it, too.

  She gasped and ran, using short cuts to get back to her hidey-hole as fast as she could. Trembling, she snatched up her bag of bones, tied a knot, and slung the coarse hessian bag over her shoulders. She’d have to make a run for it.

  Something moved. At the entrance of the cave, a long slender white tendril swung down from somewhere above. Her blood ran cold.

  “Come out.” It was the Master’s voice. Tenbe froze. Had he followed her here, in no time at all? If so, his powers exceeded anything she imagined. Maybe she should hide. Useless. He’d find her easily. She’d have to brave it. Her life was barely worth living anyway. What did it matter?

  “If I come out, show yourself.” Tenbe forced her voice to sound normal, even firm.

  “You really want to see me?”

  No. Not really. But I’ll fight for those bones. I’ve spent years collecting them. They’re mine! Out aloud, she said, “I collect horrible things for you. I’m not afraid. Show yourself.”

  “First, the bones.”

  Tenbe gave herself up for lost. “No.”

  “I’ll reach in and take them.”

  Tenbe felt around for a long, sharp blade she kept beside her makeshift mattress. “No!”

  Two long white fingers probed the entrance of her hidey-hole and immediately withdrew. So, she thought, his fingers are also eyes. She looked outside. A shapeless white mass hugged the dirt several feet from her entrance.

  “Little girl,” the Master gurgled, “I possess another bone to add to your collection: your own. That’s why you were named Tenbe, wasn’t it? Those villagers knew that eleven fingers should be ten so they cut off the extra one, didn’t they ... Tenbe? I was there. I watched, and I collected. Give me the other bones, and I’ll return yours.”

  Tenbe held up her right hand. Her remaining five fingers served her well, but the gap between the index and middle finger had never closed.