Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

“Calm down,” Shaun said. “Harvey gives the same damn speech every quarter.”

His words didn’t calm Aaron’s shakes. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“Look, I’ll do a play by play if it’ll make you feel better. First he’ll tell us we’re the greatest thing since Jesus invented sliced bread.”

Harvey climbed up on one of the meeting room tables, using it as an impromptu stage even as it wobbled dangerously. “First, let me say I’m honored–privileged, really–to have such a solid sales team behind me,” he said.

“Then we’ll hear how we stink like a Manhattan dump on a hot July morning,” Shaun muttered.

“But our solidarity is meaningless if we don’t deliver results,” Harvey continued, pumping his fist in the air as if he’d scored some kind of touchdown. “I look at our numbers from the last fiscal year, and there’s a little disappointment there.”

“There’ll be a touch of a challenge next,” Shaun whispered. He paused, thoughtfully adding: “Maybe a little us-versus-them.”

“Rutherford’s team has exceeded their last quarterly profits for five quarters running. Are we going to let those pansies on the 57th floor take our lunch money?” Weak cries of “No!” issued from the assembled sales staff.

“Then the inane comparison to selling retail products and war,” said Shaun, “full of reminders that the closest he ever came to military service was owning a G. I. Joe.”

“All great battlefield commanders lead their armies personally, so I will be in the trenches along with you the entire way!”

The town was lit with a strange light, the sort that sometimes appears just before a sunset storm. Everything flashed an unhealthy shade of orange, nothing more so than the belfry of the old church.

Even though it’s been all but abandoned when the newer one was built, somehow the sinister twilight had buffed out the cracked and broken facade. It wasn’t a homely visage, or even an imposing one–rather, there was a deep and abiding feel of wrongness about the structure, the exact opposite of what one should feel upon beholding a small-town tabernacle.

Yet Fay had run in there, clear as day, before the light overtook the world, and the belfry had sent clouds of dust through its windows to mark her passage. Who could say what she’d do in her disturbed state?

There was only one way forward: up and after her.

Everything was bright colors, smiling faces, and infectious salsa music.

Donovan stood up on the bar to address the assemblage. “My friends!” he cried. “Through adversity and times of utmost trial, we have persevered. Now is the time to wash all that away with laughter.”

I weaved my way through the crowd, unable to keep from grinning or bobbing a little to the music. Sanderson was there, and Lowell, still arguing over their silly real estate development. Mary’d had her baby, finally, and Sean was beside her with pictures, flashing them to all passersby whether or not they demonstrated a speck of interest. Even Richard sat at the bar, having an animated conversation with some minor functionary while liquor flowed freely into glass after glass.

The person I’d most wanted to see, though, wasn’t at the bar or on the dance floor but on the balcony outside, alone.

“Tell me something, Bethany,” Karl said at my approach. “How do they do it? Celebrate in there, after everything that’s happened? Everyone we lost? Is it wrong that I don’t want to drink and dance after that?”

I handed over my drink, which he gratefully drained, and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “The way I see it, they’re all in there with everyone else. Kim’s at the bar ordering another one of those ridiculous mixed drinks of hers, the kind with no alcohol. Mark’s hitting on anything without a ring on as well as a few that do. The others as well. I think you can see it too, if you look hard enough.”

Karl nodded. “If there was anyplace out there they’d be, at least in spirit, it’s here,” he sniffed. “They wouldn’t want me out here moping like a refugee from a spring prom.”

“I don’t either,” I said. “C’mon, let’s go back to our friends. Alive or dead, everyone’s together tonight.”

“Why do you think everyone is being so cagey? They’re protecting something.”

Kevin waved his arm, but the fever-addled could manage only a feeble swat.

Fiona continued, never breaking her gaze. “This is bigger than you realize. Maybe bigger than you can realize.”

“You…you’re just a fever dream…” Kevin mumbled weakly.

“Who’s that you’re talking to?” Marcia said in the next room. “You need your rest!”

“No. This place, that’s the fever dream. The tortured hallucinations of something we can’t comprehend.” Fiona approached, hand outstretched. “Come with me.”

“No…no,” moaned Kevin. “I’m not listening anymore. Even my own subconscious won’t give me a straight answer.”

Her stare didn’t waver, but Fiona began to grow agitated. “I’m trying to save you, can’t you understand that? What does the truth matter if you can’t understand it?”

“No…”

Marcia entered the room carrying a stack of hot towels. “These’ll have you right as rain soon enough. Who were you talking to?”

“F-Fiona…”

“Well, you’re in a bad state now, but not so bad as to be talking to the dead.”

The city was beautiful at night. At precisely 7:00, the lights would switch on and shine into the darkness, creating an island of light. They glinted off the calm waters of the bay, they cascaded over the low buildings, and they cast eerie shadows on the hill overlooking the city. One structure in particular, tall and thin, cast a gigantic dark line over the hill and the complex of buildings perched atop it. Because of this, the inhabitants called the whole area “the Stripe.”

And standing on the Stripe, illuminated from ahead by the city lights and behind by the rising moon, stood a lone man, a sentinel. A casual glance would’ve revealed nothing aside from his alert pose, but a more discerning observer could’ve noticed his sharp military tunic and the rifle slung over his shoulder. A cigarette, its tiny glow accentuating the contours of his face, completed the picture.

He’d been on watch for hours, and wasn’t to be relieved for another three. No one in his unit wanted the graveyard shift; it was dull and cold. He always volunteered for it, though: the graveyard shift was quiet, and nothing ever happened. The “sunshine shift,” however, was another story. The guard smiled, thinking of his mates dealing with the crowds that invariably formed around the compound gates. Along with jeers and insults, the malcontents usually threw stones too.

It was odd, he thought. His unit guarded the Stripe, but no one knew what it was they were really protecting. He had his own ideas, of course, but they were of the un-soldierly type: research lab, weapons development, government offices, and so on. That was one odd thing about the job, the guard thought again. No one knew what they were guarding.

A sudden movement to the right caught the sentry’s eye. Unslinging his rifle, he took one last puff on his smoke and crushed it with his bootheel.

“Who’s there?” he demanded.

As if in response, a loud clatter sounded to his rear. Whirling around, he fired blindly into the darkness. Cursing himself for wasting ammunition, the guard fumbled for his flashlight. Its brutal, high-powered beam revealed a metal can, old and rusted, lying on its side with a bullet hole through it.

He’d only been staring at the can for a moment when he heard a soft but distinct “whump” behind him. The guard turned, only to see that a small dart had embedded itself in his forearm. He yelped and ripped it out, trying to illuminate it with the flashlight’s beam. Even as he did so, his eyes began to water, and a feeling of calm passed over him. He struggled to aim as a figure stepped into the beam, but collapsed in a heap as another figure appeared at his back.

The day’d left as it’d come in: hot as hell and twice as stuffy. Anyone with the cash and the knowhow had their AC on, which meant a moment of disorienting fog when passin’ from inside to out.

Jake gave his sunglasses a thoughtful rub and replaced ’em. Some people said he’d be a damn fool to wear sunglasses at night, but he always enjoyed the sheen they threw over the world–amber ‘n hyper-real.

Outside, it was silent and dead. Not a whisper o’ wind nor a soul to be seen, not even a car windin’ down the access road. Only flashes of distant lightnin’ did anything to break the calm.

Jake hefted his umbrella over one shoulder. There was gonna be trouble that night. You could feel it in the air, see it in the sky, hear it in the buzz and chirp of the nearby marshy patch.

Yep, there was gonna be trouble that night. And Jake aimed to start it.

Mikey was going to come up with something that his brother couldn’t explain.

During the long, late summer days they often spent together in the house, waiting for their parents to come home from work, Mikey would flit from TV to bookshelf in pursuit of the new and the interesting, drinking in hours of programming on Dad’s favorite channels and leafing through the family’s handsome encyclopedia set. It was an exploration of the rawest kind, filled with new wonders and mysteries, and he would always burst into the living room, where Dave was usually camped with a comic book in the nook of one arm or hunched over the family computer.

“Dave, did you know that there’s a whale that grows a horn like a unicorn does?”

Dave would look up. “Yeah. The narwhal. I touched one of those horns once, in a museum before you were born. Go back and watch your kiddie shows.”

“Dave, did you hear about the lost colony they had in Virginia? They disappeared hundreds of years ago, and nobody ever found them!”

“Wouldn’t be much of a lost colony if they found it, would it?” Dave would respond. “Roanoke didn’t disappear, they were starving. Went and lived with the Indians. Some of them still have blue eyes, you know. Now leave me alone.”

Time and again, some great discover or fantastic mystery would be delivered to Mikey, and time and again Dave would swat it down with a casual hand. There wasn’t a thing Mikey could say that his brother couldn’t grab and squeeze and wring the magic out of. Sitting there, thinking he was so smart and so wise—Mikey was sick of it.

They were playing this beautiful waltz when we first met.

I don’t even know how we were invited to that cotillion, full as it was of glitz and glamor and last names tracing back to the Mayflower. But we were, and both standing aloof, when the live instruments struck up the tune. The next thing I knew, we were together, lost among the beautiful melody and motion of the moment.

Even after the original, volcanic “us” became the prosaic, everyday “we,” I still think of the waltz when I see you. But I never did learn what it was called, even though I can still hum it to this day, and often do.

I’ve hummed the bars I can remember to the few musically inclined people I’ve met on my travels, always to the shaking of heads and the shrugging of shoulders. Over time, the trail grew fainter as the day to day took its toll on what had once been. Sometimes I think that the impromptu waltzes that sometimes break out in the kitchen, untrained voices substituting for clarinet and string, are the one thing that we can still share unadulterated by the pettiness that so often creeps into our lives.

So when I heard those lilting strains drifting out of the old State and across the street, I had to investigate. I had to know, though sometimes I now wish I had continued on my afternoon walk.

“Lower!”

The helicopter bucked and dipped in the volcanic wind. “We’ll be torn apart!” Jesse cried.

“Lower, damn you!” Lowell slipped out of his harness and into the cargo hold, sliding the door open.

He could see her on the low slope below, lit intermittently as lightning arced from the dark clouds overhead.

“Anne!” he cried.

She shouldn’t have been able to hear him over the whirring blades or the death throes of Kjeho’s peak. But Anne looked up, her soot-streaked face breaking into a frightened smile.

Lowell was down on his stomach, hand outstretched, as Jesse brought the chopper as low as it could go without landing.

For a moment, Anne seemed torn, as if she were considering leaving herself to die rather than take Lowell’s proffered arm. Then her hand was around his wrist, and they were airborne.

Seconds later, the ground collapsed as the side of Kjeho blew out, rushing toward the sea in a massive pyroclastic flow.

“Hang on!” cried Lowell, as Anne dangled from his grasp over a scene of unparalleled devastation.

“Aliens, fantasy, in-jokes,” Gary sniffed. “Kid’s stuff.”

“We all knew that when we signed on,” said Ken. “People love our games, and they’re willing to show their appreciation by buying them.”

“I’ve told you this again and again: they were always a means to an end. Always a way to get our foot in the door so we could do something meaningful, something that’ll change the world.”

“You don’t think a line of video games about wisecracking gnomes is world-changing enough?” Ken said.

“We’re being serious here, Ken,” said Gary. “I wish you could be too.”

“I am being serious,” came the reply. “A relational database made by a video game company…that’s the joke.”