Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Seven levels of housing, two levels of recreation, two levels of indoor farming, and nowhere to play hide-and-go-seek.

With 71 people in the shelter personal space was at enough of a premium that no one wanted Sally or Jacques running through their living rooms. Especially those families, like Jacques’, that only had half a level to themselves. They’d saved a few million dollars up front when buying space in the abandoned missile silo turned shelter, but that surely must have seemed scant compensation once it was sealed and the only currencies were barter and chore tokens.

But with the rec facilities hogged by the older children and the adults, hide-and-go-seek was absolutely necessary. The elected Chair was the only one with the key to the storage levels, which would have been perfect, and after the unfortunate drowning of little Maria Gonzalez (#72) the cisterns were locked tight too.

That left only the old missile operators’ living quarters.

The door and passage that connected them to the main Atlas shaft and the shelter were ostensibly locked, but 15 years of rust and neglect had taken their toll and the lock turned easily when Jacques tried it. Better still, the lighting was still connected to the silo’s geothermal grid–it had been meant to survive a direct 50-megaton hit, after all.

It was perfect.

The game went on for nearly an hour, before Jacques found Sally in an alcove behind an old vacuum tube control unit. “How’d you find me?” she fumed; it had been, in her view, a perfect spot and not the kind of place someone would stumble on after one a minute or two.

“You were making a lot of noise!” Jacques replied, miffed. “I could hear you.”

“Was not!” Sally had been quiet as a mouse; she’d even held her breath.

Jacques cocked an ear. “Maybe you’re right. I still hear it!”

Sally, no longer concerned with quietude, listened carefully. “You’re right,” she said. “I think it’s coming from behind the wall…”

Both children pressed their ears to the wall behind the console. The noise, faint but audible in the echo chamber of the old quarters, resolved itself into a recognizable form.

The tapping of pickaxes against stone and soil.

Bethany Rutherford Wynn could trace her maternal ancestors to the Plymouth Bay Colony in 1631 and her paternal line was mentioned in chronicles as far back as 1591. But by the time she was born in 1911, the Hartford Wynns and the Bridgeport Rutherfords were in terminal decline; as the only child of only children, Bethany was quite literally the last gasp of her lineage.

She was raised mostly by her great-aunt, Ada Rutherford, as her parents were largely concerned with running the family’s remaining investments and attending to the proper social functions befitting an old Knickerbocker merchant family. Ada instilled the value of a Wynn pedigree in the young girl along with a puritanical adherence to a code of conduct that was already in decline.

As a result, Bethany never married and broke off an engagement after her suitor had reportedly visited a theatrical performance. Despite a reputation as one of New England’s great beauties stemming from her debut in 1929, she remained alone in the family home with only servants and family members.

In her later years, Bethany became obsessed with securing her family’s legacy and entertained a regular parade of genealogists and researchers she commissioned using her inheritance. Darker rumors spread that she had also hired private detectives to destroy public records that represented blemishes on the benighted history of her clan. Shortly before her death in 1981, she arranged for a monograph on the Wynn family history and genealogy to be privately printed and distributed to those members of the Social Register still residing in Connecticut.

The family home, which fell into disrepair near the end of Bethany’s life, still stands in what is now a rather run-down part of town, but local ordinances forbid its demolition. It is routinely broken into by treasure seekers acting on rumors of hidden millions or dark secrets, the thieves little realizing that nearly every cent the owner had was spent in her quest to catalog the history of her family as it fell down into darkness.

“Well, between the timestamp on the ATM camera and the one on the convenience store, we’ve got a general range, and forensics has been able to help us out a little bit more there.”

“Meaning?”

“Oke was murdered sometime in the window between 18:49 and 18:57.”

“Fine, that’s just what we need.”

“But…well, there is an inconsistency.”

“Inconsistencies lead to ulcers if left untreated. What is it?”

“We’ve got a witness that swears they took a picture of Oke that night, on account of the way he was acting.”

“So?”

“The picture is timestamped 18:52.”

The River Iceman was blamed for the overturned logging rafts, as he was blamed for most misfortunes on the river (and much of the mischief at the Boy Scout camp on the lake). The river pilots took to leaving little offerings at the cairns along the way–whatever they thought would placate such a spirit.

Raw meat was the most popular choice.

The attacks (or accidents) continued, often associated with the proper observances failing to be made. Then, two things happened which led to a complete reappraisal of the situation.

The first was the overturning and death by drowning of Sal Waldow, a noted superstitious pilot who never failed to leave a little cairn jerky for the River Iceman.

The second was the interview that the River Iceman herself granted to the Cascadia Falls Intelligencer-Courier-Tribune.

Hannah was sitting in the local watering hole with Melody and Blanche; they were grazing on a pair of dilettante lattes and a couple of pastries and talking about metaphysics.

One of the other customers, an upperclassman with Greek letters on his jacket, came over to them just as Hannah and Blanche were beginning to get into an argument about dialectical materialism.

He sat down across from Melody. “Excuse me,” he said to her, “I think you owe me a drink.”

“Why?” Blanche asked in the most disgusted tone of voice she could manage.

“Because,” the Greek said, eyes still locked on Melody, “when I saw you from across the room I dropped mine. It was a rum and Coke, and I’m Gabe.”

Melody grinned and blushed; Blanche rolled her eyes. “We were in the middle of a conversation, you know.”

Gabe cast a sidelong look at Melody’s tablemates. “Your ‘friends’ here don’t let you say much, do they? You haven’t gotten a word in edgewise all afternoon, I bet. Want to come with me? I’ll listen to anything you have to say.”

Still smiling, Melody nodded with the giddy energy of a schoolgirl and got up.

“Don’t worry, ladies. I’ll bring her back on one piece,” said Gabe. He held open the door and they walked out together.

“That guy must be a brain surgeon, cuz he’s got a lot of nerve,” said Blanche, looking after them with a sour expression. She turned to Hannah. “How long do you think it will take before he realizes that Melody’s your imaginary friend?”

“Oh, I think he’ll find out soon enough,” Hanna laughed.

“Fire!” barked Künstler.

His artillery crew, a motley mix of hardened combat troops and milquetoast Freikorps thugs, looked at each other for a moment, unsure of shelling inside Peeneburg simply to neutralize a gymnasium student to whom gravity did not seem to apply. Perhaps they were thinking twice about the Weimar official ordering them around like a battlefield general.

In any event, they obeyed.

British poets had written in praise of the “five nine” 150mm howitzer; when the Freikorps cannon roared and collapsed a side of a butcher shop with a direct hit it was easy to see why.

Weber, though simply pirouetted–leaping off the side of the butcher shop to the facade of the old opera house across the street in an astonishingly graceful move. He continued running, perpendicular to the street below and in violation of all laws of physics, as bits of shrapnel and masonry filled the street.

“Again!” Künstler cried. “Hit him again!”

The crew hesitated again, but the veterans were old Western Front hands, and they chambered another howitzer round after only a few moments’ delay to adjust elevation and windage. This time, the shot hit ten or so meters ahead of Weber, and he vanished in smoke and dust–along with most of the ornate opera house which had survived two revolutions and two wars.

“Did we get him?” Künstler craned his neck at the ruins.

Weber was in fact face-down, ears ringing…on the ceiling inside what had once been the opera vestibule, concealed behind a mound of rubble that choked the entrance.

“Hey!” A whisper from the ground brought a flicker to Weber’s eyes. He looked down and saw a young man with a red armband gesturing at him. “This way! Come on!”

What he couldn’t see, though, was the pistol in the small of the man’s back and the folded orders in his pocket–secure the gravity-defier for the Revolution at all costs.

Agnes couldn’t help that teaching science at the tri-county school was a job that devoured her free time. She loved biology, loved chemistry, especially loved biochemistry, and a desperate desire to remain in or near her hometown. The latter was partially to care for her father, who had Alzheimer’s, and partially a response to the crippling homesickness she’d felt at State University.

Maybe it was that devotion to her job, her dad, and her kids that made her husband Lee pack up and leave.

Not leave town, though. No, he’d shacked up with Cassandra Kolzowski, the buxom and blonde proprietress of the local ice cream shop. In a small town, it was a major player–profitable as hell even with reduced operating hours.

Agnes struck back the only way she knew how–with biochemistry. There was enough rye on hand in the farm fields and the Ag Annex’s test fields to collect ergot and synthesize lysergic acid diethylamide from it.

LSD, for those without Agnes’ grasp of chemistry.

She added it to the premixed ice cream flavors at Cassandra Kolzowski’s stand one night.

Pipley chewed on a toothpick. “First day on the job, huh?”

Squaker nodded. “Yeah. Is it…that different from ordinary crime scene cleanup?”

“Not really. We still got the same ABRA/IICRC certified procedures we go through, and they’ll keep you with an old hat like me the first coupla jobs.”

“D…d’you have any advice?” Squaker asked.

“What am I, a shrink?” Pipley snapped. Seeing the startled, hurt look in the kid’s eyes, he softened a bit. “Look, it’s gonna seem pretty bad when we get there, but you just gotta keep some things in mind. We don’t do structural damage–that’s another outfit. Same with busted furniture. Only the stuff you gotta wear gloves to handle. We go in first so the other guys can do their job. Got it?”

“Yeah,” Squaker said. “Got it.” He seemed a little reassured, if still more nervous than a jackrabbit in a tumble dryer.

“Right then.” Pipley slid the van door open, revealing a scene of utter devastation. An entire block of apartment buildings and the surrounding residential neighborhood had been torn apart.

“Careful,” said Pipley. “Captain Tempest was fighting Dark Fusiona here. We’re pretty sure he scared her off by throwing ranch houses at her, but there could be traces of radioactive ooze or Tempest’s Enchancoblood around.”

This post is part of the April 2012 Blog Chain at Absolute Write. This month’s prompt is “dead bunnies” (!).

NEWSCASTER: And what do you have to say about the allegations that have been made recently that your firm was deliberately selling diseased rabbits as laboratory animals or pets, and that your grade-school dissection specimens were similarly unsafe?

DR. PIKE: I’d like to take this opportunity to assure you and the viewing public at home that these rumors are completely baseless. At Lapine Industries, we hold ourselves to the highest standards of genetic engineering, breeding, and overall cleanliness.

NEWSCASTER: And the reports of Lapine Industries rabbits, both live and cadaver, attacking customers and schoolchildren?

DR. PIKE: As I said, completely baseless.

NEWSCASTER: We have some footage here acquired through our affiliate WRBT in Cascadia, Michigan.

[grainy image of a elementary school science classroom]

SCHOOLCHILD: What’s wrong with Mr. Fluffy?

TEACHER: Get back, children!

[a blur of white streaked with crimson flashes in front of the camera followed by a scream]

TEACHER: My God, it got Jeannie!

[sound of a 12-gauge round being chambered]

TEACHER: Chew on this!

[gunshot; dark fluid coats camera, obscuring visuals]

TEACHER, CHILDREN: [indistinct screaming]

[recording ends]

NEWSCASTER: Dr. Pike?

DR. PIKE: Those could be anyone’s rabbits.

NEWSCASTER: Looks like we’ve got our first caller. Hello, you’re on Soft Copy 360.

CALLER: [frantic and out of breath] We heard that there might be a problem, so we buried our dissection rabbits meant for seventh-grade biology.

DR. PIKE: Now, I can assure you that was an unnecessary-

CALLER: [interrupting] They came back! Do you hear me? THEY CAME BACK! They’re at the barricades right now…I don’t know how long we can hold them off! I think they infected some of the local rabbits too-

NEWSCASTER: Caller, can you speak up? We’re having trouble hearing you.

[indistinct screaming, growling, gunshots audible]

CALLER: Oh God, they’re everywhere! Drooling green slime, faster than we can track them or shoot…please, send help! Call the National Guard! We’re about to be overrun with killer zombie rabbits from hell!

DR. PIKE: Now, I don’t think that’s a fair characterization of a Lapine Industries product. We have rigorous safety procedures in place and offer 24/7 online customer support. Have you tried reading the storage and care instructions that came with your rabbit cadavers, and are you sure that they were sourced from Lapine Industries?

CALLER: [panicking] No, no, aim for the head!

[more growling, screaming; line abruptly goes dead]

NEWSCASTER: Dr. Pike, any comment?

DR. PIKE: Clearly an isolated incident, probably caused by improper handling.

Check out this month’s other bloggers, all of whom have posted or will post their own responses:
KatieJ
Ralph Pines
kiwiviktor81
Nissie
SuzanneSeese
pyrosama
Bogna
dclary
randi.lee
julzperri
Penelope
AFord
Araenvo
areteus
magicmint
Joliedupre

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she thought: still it had VERY long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.

“Cheshire Puss,” she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. “Come, it’s pleased so far,” thought Alice, and she went on. “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where—” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

“—so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. “What sort of people live about here?”

“In THAT direction,” the Cat said, waving its right paw round, “lives a Hatter: and in THAT direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.”

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.

“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”

“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.

“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”