Pattern Masters

by Jeff Carlson

Sauber wasn’t crazy. He’d planned on never hitting the same place twice. He even kept a check-list — near the toilet, in case it needed to be destroyed in a hurry. But two hundred and nine days crawled past before he’d bagged every store in Berkeley and Oakland, so it seemed impossible that anyone would remember him at Greenwald’s, his favorite. His first.

Sauber was at the register before the girl stopped him. “Those are mine,” she said, reaching out.

He held the packet against his chest. “What?”

“Look at the label.”

Of course he’d already studied it carefully. Thirty-six exposures, regular 35mm film. Jennifer Crisp. The address, written in delicate cursive, was just two blocks from here.

The Book in the Earth

by Lavie Tidhar

“Excuse me,” said the old man by the door. He was hidden from view behind the bookshelves, and though Gerald had seen him come in, he couldn’t see who he was talking to. “Does the presence of this chapter make it the true first edition or the second state? I can never remember, you see, whether ‘Fathers’ is the missing chapter or the correct one.”

“The pulped version, of course,” said a gruff voice behind the books.

“Ah, of course. Thank you.”

Gerald sat behind the counter, wrapped up in a coat, wondering what on earth they were talking about. He applied for the job at the small bookshop just off Charing Cross the week before, and to his surprise the owner — a short, stocky man who looked more like a bare-knuckle boxer than a bookseller — hired him.

“You start on Monday,” he said. “And don’t let the bastards steal anything or spend too long in the basement. If they start tapping on walls, or doing any other strange shit, kick them out.”

Mr. Mendoza seemed to have a low opinion of his customers. After a week of being left in charge of the shop, however — Mr. Mendoza having left for an unspecified length of time on what he called, in his strangely accented English, a “trade trip” — Gerald began to wonder.

Geist

by Chandler Kaiden

At first, there was only numb horror.

He couldn’t move his arms, couldn’t catch his breath. Everything was black. The thick stench of mildew, of rust and minerals, coagulated in his nose and throat. Steaming water spilled over his forehead, rained into his eyes, seeped between his lips. Brackish, foul water, full of chemicals.

It seemed to go on forever.

He tried to move. But he was confined, his limbs pressed tightly against his body.

When the water stopped, he heard dull, heavy thumping, like the machinations of an enormous water-logged engine.

The air was thick with steam. The foul water collected around his eyes, spilled into his nostrils, packed his sinuses.

There, in the wet darkness, he tried to drown himself. He inhaled the water. Tried to hold his breath — that breath he’d been instinctively fighting to catch when he came to — and found that he could hold it and hold it and hold it, and nothing happened.

_I want to die._

Dear Killer

by Vinnie Hansen

When had the idea first possessed her? Victoria peered about the dim one-car garage and squatted to look under the counter along the wall. Pushed behind the containers of old paint, the new bag of concrete stared ominously back at her. Ben had hidden it like one would an Easter egg from a child. Did he think she was such a dolt she wouldn’t notice? She came out here regularly to do laundry.

Ben had not said anything about a project requiring concrete. Neither had his hunting buddy Jack. They always worked together. But there had been nary a word about fixing a fence post or repairing the walk. She dragged the bag from its hiding spot, proud of her strong, lithe body, even if Ben’s eyes constantly swiveled toward cleavage.

She forced herself to read the directions. She glanced around the garage for a water container and decided she would have to use something from the house—the thermos, maybe, or the plastic pitcher, but she didn’t want to return to the kitchen any sooner than necessary.

Homecoming

by B.J. West

“How long’s it been?”

“Almost a year.” She dabbed her eyes on her sleeve. “Seems longer though. Gavin joined the Army just after we got married. They transferred him to Fort Hannah when things started heating up with the Indians.”

Missy continued plucking clothespins. “My daddy was in the Army. I think I saw him two weeks out of every year, usually at Christmas time. My momma said that sometimes she felt like a widow.” Selena nodded again without looking up. “You must really be looking forward to seeing him tomorrow.”

Selena only shrugged. Missy stopped and put her fists on her ample hips. “You don’t look too excited about it. What’s the matter?”

“I’m scared.”

“What for? He’s still your husband.”

“I’m scared he won’t come.”

The Music of Erich Zann

by Howard Phillips Lovecraft

I have examined maps of the city with the greatest care, yet have never again found the Rue d’Auseil. These maps have not been modern maps alone, for I know that names change. I have, on the contrary, delved deeply into all the antiquities of the place; and have personally explored every region, of whatever name, which could possibly answer to the street I knew as the Rue d’Auseil. But despite all I have done it remains an humiliating fact that I cannot find the house, the street, or even the locality, where, during the last months of my impoverished life as a student of metaphysics at the university, I heard the music of Erich Zann.

That my memory is broken, I do not wonder; for my health, physical and mental, was gravely disturbed throughout the period of my residence in the Rue d’Auseil, and I recall that I took none of my few acquaintances there. But that I cannot find the place again is both singular and perplexing; for it was within a half-hour’s walk of the university and was distinguished by peculiarities which could hardly be forgotten by anyone who had been there. I have never met a person who has seen the Rue d’Auseil.

(Continue Reading…)

Photo Finish

by Adam La Rusic

A painful kick to my shin woke me. Squinting against the harsh fluorescents in the office, I bleared up to see Kim holding out my hat and coat.

“Come on, Gerry. It’s show time. Let’s ride,” she said.

The police scanner sputtered with the kind of staccato dialogue that indicated something big was happening. I leaned forward and cranked the volume, bowling over a collection of styrofoam coffee cups in the process.

“10-47. We’re going to need more units,” the scanner blurted. Hostage! Cruisers headed to the area like swarming wasps. Every other news beat in town monitored the police bandwidth and I bet they’d be clamoring at the bit for this one. We had to get there fast.

“What’s going on?” I asked, accepting the hat and coat, forcing myself awake.

“In the car,” she said.

“Hang on,” I said, but she didn’t. Grabbing my camera bag and checking my battery supply, I took off after her.