Cheating Death

by Henry Herz

I didn’t join in as my surviving family members conversed over dinner. Usually, the aroma of hearty pork and cabbage bigos stirred my appetite, but today it reminded me of the past, knotting my stomach. I winced—the clinking of utensils on plates like needles jabbing my brain.

Father gently pulled me aside. “What is wrong, my little Marya?” But he knew.

My sigh almost became a sob. “It’s been years, but I still miss them in the worst way, Tato.”

“Me too, Marya.”

Since the passing of my Roman Catholic mother, my father, a brilliant math and physics teacher, no longer suppressed his religious skepticism. By the age of fifteen, I too had lost faith in a deity who’d allowed disease to rip apart a loving family.

Science became my religion, defeating disease my Holy Grail. I vowed I’d wield science to cheat Death itself . . . for I still believed in it.

Father wrapped a strong, comforting arm around my shoulders and led me into the study. Boxes of laboratory equipment cluttered the room.

“What’s all this, Tato?”

He scowled. “My Russian supervisor barged into my lab at school and ordered me to shut it down. Sadly, we have no space to set up a lab here.”

My heart leaped. “Even so, will you teach me how to use the equipment?” It was a rhetorical question, for Father loved nothing more than encouraging his children to learn.

He smiled. “Yes, of course, Marya. Now help me carry these boxes to the shed out back.”

I did not receive a typical education, but then again, I was not a typical girl. Gradually under Father’s guidance, I gained familiarity with the equipment, supplementing my foundation in theoretical science. I filled a notebook with calculations and equations in my ungodly crusade to fight disease and repel Death. But I had no way to conduct experiments . . . yet. (Continue Reading…)

Sea Curse

By Robert E. Howard

And some return by the failing light
And some in the waking dream.
For she hears the heels of the dripping ghosts
That ride the rough roofbeam.
—Kipling

THEY were the brawlers and braggarts, the loud boasters and hard drinkers, of Faring town, John Kulrek and his crony Lie-lip Canool. Many a time have I, a tousle-haired lad, stolen to the tavern door to listen to their curses, their profane arguments and wild sea songs; half fearful and half in admiration of these wild rovers. Aye, all the people of Faring town gazed on them with fear and admiration, for they were not like the rest of the Faring men; they were not content to ply their trade along the coasts and among the shark-teeth shoals. No yawls, no skiffs for them! They fared far, farther than any other man in the village, for they shipped on the great sailing-ships that went out on the white tides to brave the restless grey ocean and make ports in strange lands.

Ah, I mind it was swift times in the little sea-coast village of Faring when John Kulrek came home, with the furtive Lie-lip at his side, swaggering down the gang-plank, in his tarry sea-clothes, and the broad leather belt that held his ever-ready dagger; shouting condescending greeting to some favored acquaintance, kissing some maiden who ventured too near; then up the street, roaring some scarcely decent song of the sea. How the cringers and the idlers, the hangers-on, would swarm about the two desperate heroes, flattering and smirking, guffawing hilariously at each nasty jest. For to the tavern loafers and to some of the weaker among the straightforward villagers, these men with their wild talk and their brutal deeds, their tales of the Seven Seas and the far countries, these men, I say, were valiant knights, nature’s noblemen who dared to be men of blood and brawn.

And all feared them, so that when a man was beaten or a woman insulted, the villagers muttered—and did nothing. And so when Moll Farrell’s niece was put to shame by John Kulrek, none dared even to put into words what all thought. Moll had never married, and she and the girl lived alone in a little hut down close to the beach, so close that in high tide the waves came almost to the door.

The people of the village accounted old Moll something of a witch, and she was a grim, gaunt old dame who had little to say to anyone. But she minded her own business, and eked out a slim living by gathering clams, and picking up bits of driftwood. (Continue Reading…)

The Yearning of the All-Devouring Earth

by Marianne Kirby

It’s always when we find a moment of peace that the universe remembers we exist—or maybe it’s less that the universe remembers, and more that it feels bored in our general vicinity and has to do something about that.

The local middle school flooded over the summer. The afternoon rain we expected regular as clockwork arrived and didn’t stop for what must have been two or two and a half weeks before the clouds disappeared completely. Then, on the first day back to school, a sinkhole opened up in the parking lot. It looked like someone had come along with a giant ice cream scoop and dipped out a portion of the asphalt and the dirt underneath it and the limestone underneath that, leaving the edges clean and sharp.

Everyone in town went to look at the sinkhole, to peer into the deep pit. I gazed down into the shadowy basin and I heard that man whispering to me, warning me. (Continue Reading…)

The Hollow Temple (Part Two of The Dain Curse)

by Dashiel Hammett

VI

It was tall, yet not so tall as it seemed, because it did not stand on the floor, but hovered with its feet a foot or more above the floor. Its feet—it had feet, but I don’t know what their shape was. They had no shape—just as its legs and torso, arms and hands, head and face were without shape—without fixed form. They writhed, swelling and contracting, stretching and shrinking, not greatly, but without pause. An arm would drift into the body, be swallowed by it, come out again as if poured out. The nose would stretch down over the gaping shapeless mouth, shrink back up, into the face until it was flush with the cheeks, grow out again. The eyes would spread across the face until they were one enormous eye that had blotted out all the upper face, then contract until there was no pedestal, then three, then two again. The legs became one thick leg, like a pedestal, then three, then two again. And no feature or member ever stopped its quivering and writhing until its contours could be determined, its shape recognized.

It, or he, was a thing like a man, who floated above the floor; with a horrible grimacing greenish face and pale flesh that was not flesh, that was visible in the darkness, and that was as fluid, and as unresting, and as transparent, as tidal water. (Continue Reading…)

The Hollow Temple (Part Two of The Dain Curse)

by Dashiel Hammett

IV

I spent most of the day fidgeting in and out of my room. The general vagueness of my job in this Temple hadn’t bothered me much before—I had had plenty of even more aimless operations in my twenty years of sleuthing—but now that Dr. Riese had found something to worry about—even though it was probably a medical worry and out of my field—I began to get restless, uneasy, irritable.

Dr. Riese did not show up that evening as he had promised. I supposed that one of the emergencies that are a regular part of a doctor’s life had held him elsewhere, but his not coming annoyed me.

I sat in my room from half past six on, with my door open, looking at Gabrielle Leggett’s door. Mildred took a tray into the girl’s room at a few minutes past seven. When she brought me mine I asked her how Gabrielle Leggett seemed to be.

“She’s all right, I suppose. I don’t think there’s much the matter with her but showing off.”

“What was she doing?”

“Sitting at the window, looking out, posing, if you ask me. How is it you’re not going down to the dining-room tonight?”

“Tired of eating in the graveyard atmosphere.” (Continue Reading…)

The Hollow Temple (Part Two of The Dain Curse)

by Dashiel Hammett

I

Eric Collison came into my office. There was too much pink in his eyes and not any in his skin. He sat down and said:

“She can’t go. They can’t let her go. You’ve got to go with her.”

His voice, like his face, was dull and tired and hopeless and bewildered.

“Miss Leggett?” I asked, though I didn’t need to; and then: “How is she now?”

“You’ve killed her.” (Continue Reading…)

The Man With A Serpent In His System

written by Jane Marciano

He darted into the alleyway as the thud of heavy boots clomped straight on past him up the road. Jordan panted for breath, chest heaving, eyes bulging. Only as his breathing returned to normal did he realize that he was still clutching the old woman’s bag. Collecting his wits, Jordan felt inside for the purse and chucked the bag over his shoulder into the road behind him.

Only sixty quid! It hadn’t really been worth the effort. It wasn’t compensation enough for the curses and clawing she’d given him before Jordan had finally knocked her down with a right that’d sent her head bouncing on the pavement. She’d lain there, bleeding and whimpering that if her husband had been alive, he’d have been sorted out. Huh! That was a laugh, he was a match for any man. Gingerly Jordan felt his torn cheek and his fingers came away bloody from the deep scratches. Bloody old hag! Still, he doubted the bitch’d last the night.

The footsteps were coming back his way at a gallop. The policeman must’ve realized the perp couldn’t have got that far so quickly and had retraced his steps. If Jordan was caught, he knew it would be a long, long stretch for him this time. (Continue Reading…)