Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

The lawyer handed over the disc. “Here,” she said, expressionlessly. “All you need to know is on here.”

I opened it, letting the light play over the professionally engraved surface. Anthony “Prince” Guerino, last will and testament. “Do you have a place I can play this?” I said. “I don’t have a DVD player at home.”

“Of course,” the lawyer said, sounding about as pleased as if I’d asked for for bus fare. “Right this way.”

She ushered me into a small closet with a combination television and disc player, and I put the platter in. It played automatically, with no animated menus or any of the usual pleasantries.

A man in an oxygen mask appeared, propped up by velvet pillows on a bed that looked like it cost more than I made in a year. “Well, well, well. Look who it is,” he said in a heavy Chicago accent. “My last living relative that I don’t hate.”

I opened my mouth to say something in reply, and then closed it. Even alone, I would have felt like an idiot.

“So here’s the deal,” Prince Guerino said. “There ain’t a lot of us left, just two great-uncles, a cousin, and my kid sister’s kid. That’s you. Seeing as our cousin tried to kill me, Grunkle Paul is doing thirty to life, and Grunkle Mike also tried to kill me, you’re all I got left.”

A coughing fit ensued, a violent one, and it was a moment before he could continue.

“So I’m leaving it all to you. Everything. One hundred million bucks in cash, securities, bonds, and real estate.”

I choked, almost toppling off my chair.

“But there’s a catch.” Prince Guerino said, smiling. “Of course there is. There always is. I’m only leaving you one million bucks until you do me a little favor. Last page of my will is a list of guys who I want dead. And you’re gonna do it for me.”

“I’ll do no such thing!” I cried, before sheepishly realizing I was talking to a dead man.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking. Hell no. But here’s the thing: a lot of that money ain’t exactly legit. And you’ve been seen coming in here. I made sure of that with my lawyer friends. So if you’re too much of a wuss to do what I say, fine. But I think you’ll find my friends here have enough evidence to send you to the slammer for longer than Grunkle Paul if you don’t wanna play ball.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

Snatched up by France during the Scramble for Africa, the area now known as Agawej was inhabited by a number of largely nomadic tribes in the north and mercantile states in the south. All told, over a dozen ethnic and tribal identities were encompassed by the area when the Third Republic conquered it in a series of colonial campaigns and established a centralized administration.

Other than the exploitation of natural resources and the construction of a naval base at N’wadibu, the French invested very little in infrastructure. When they belatedly granted the territory independence in 1960, there were only ten doctors in the territory and no paved airstrips.

The first president after independence, Dr. Emile Ksar, invested heavily in building up N’wadibu and selling concessions to foreign mining companies to extract iron ore, uranium, and bauxite. His overthrow in 1962 changed little other than the chair in the presidential palace; Agawej continued to be dominated by foreign investment and chronic poverty through the course of the 27 presidents it had between 1963 and 2001.

President Youssouf Bodélé, the current leader, has clung to power for nearly twenty years. This is not due to any personal popularity but rather a combination of French paratroopers and an external focus for his military, namely the struggle with Imeyrib over Zemmour.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

Once part (albeit a backwater part) of the Ottoman Empire, Imeyrib was taken under Spanish “protection” beginning in the 15th century, largely to curb pirates operating from its coast that were preying on fleets plying the New World trade routes. The then-governor did not resist the occupation and in fact quickly aligned himself with the Spanish, who allowed him to keep his title and lands.

By the 1960s, however, discontent with the Spanish protectorates and begun to grow, especially given Francoist Spain’s intransigence on a number of religious issues, which culminated in the bombing of an under-construction cathedral in the territory in 1969. The crown prince of Imeyrib, Mahmoud VII, took the opportunity to depose his father and declared himself Sultan of the territory.

Following a series of short, sharp engagements with Spanish troops, the protectorate ended in 1975 following the death of Franco and the general disengagement of Spain from colonial affairs. Mahmoud VII has ruled as Sultan since then, with his absolute authority enshrined in the constitution. Many Imeyribis, however, see him as a puppet of the West and there has been increasing, if suppressed, interest in a more democratic Islamic republic to replace his rule if and when he dies, as Mahmoud has no heirs.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

“So the Zemmour is desolate?”

“Yep. A few tiny villages on the coast, where enough for rolls in that the locals can drink the dew, but the biggest of them is maybe five hundred people on market day. Maybe.”

Li stroked his chin. “Then why all the fuss?”

Guitarrez snorted. “Imeyrib and Agawej, that’s why. The Sultan of Imeyrib is hoping for oil in the Zemmour sands so he can join the club that his fellows in the Gulf are in, the one where you live in a mansion made of Bugattis.”

“And the President of Agawej?”

“Well, I’m sure he wouldn’t turn down the oil. But mostly he doesn’t want Imeyrib to have it, and he wants to keep his military brass happy lest they overthrow him, which happened to eleven of his twelve predecessors.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

“It is surely a most wondrous sight, is it not?”

The officer looked at his adjutant, and receiving no reply, continued: “The patterns of frost upon every surface, the delicate fibrillations of ice that grow as if by magic in the cool of the winter’s night…it is enough to make even the most hardened and godless man smile at the thought that his Maker is real and good and near.”

Smiling, the officer continued to look out over the shell-pocked battlefield, where frost clung to the bodies of his own men, and their enemies, locked together in a frozen hellscape of mud.

“We’ve done a good thing today, here, you and I,” the officer said, tapping his adjutant on the shoulder. “All these victorious dead, and enemies that shall not take up arms against us ever again.”

His adjutant again did not answer, for the young man had been dead for some time, carried away by a machine-gun bullet that had cleaved clear through his helmet. In fact, the officer that had led the charge was now its sole survivor, beaming at his handiwork stretching away through no-man’s-land, as the day began.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

King tapped his fingers. “I’m in the market for a nuclear weapon. Hans, what have you got for me.”

“Oh, is that all?” Dr. Ottomeyer said. “Would you perhaps like a space station as well?”

“If you have one,” King said, smiling. “But I am serious about the nuclear weapon.”

Hans sighed. “There are approximately 45 nuclear weapons unaccounted for since 1945. I suppose I could recover one for you, given my usual–astronomical–fee. But it might be easier to just build your own.”

“No, not since Kim’s last check bounced,” King said. “What have you got for me?”

“Well,” Dr. Ottomeyer said. “There is a Mark XV thermonuclear bomb off the coast of Georgia. Probably buried in 50 feet of bituminous ooze, but theoretically recoverable.”

“Bomb?” King said. “Like a gravity bomb? That sounds old.”

“1958,” Hans confirmed. “And you’ll need a strategic bomber or a very large hand cart to deliver it.”

“Pass. What else you got?”

Hans rubbed his nose. “If 1970 isn’t too disco for you, the Soviet submarine K-8 sunk with four nuclear torpedoes.”

“Listen to yourself,” King cried. “Nuclear torpedoes? What a laughingstock I’d be. That is all wet, literally.”

“Hmph. How about an R-21 thermonuclear ballistic missile?” Dr. Ottomeyer said. “34 of them are missing, stolen from the wreck of K-219.”

“I thought the American government salvaged it,” King said.

“You’re thinking of K-129,” said Hans. “Stay out of any ex-Soviet sub with a 9 in its hull number. I can scientifically prove that it’s doomed.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

They call it the piloted woodpecker
Because it is in fact just a biomech
Piloted by a tiny being, relentless
Used to hollow out trees for insects
Not because it’s practical, oh no
But because it’s awfully impractical
That is why it can only be true

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

“I have laboriously documented every interaction. Every moment, every word, every subtle feeling that passed between us. It’s all here, in these diaries, cross-referenced and indexed.”

“It is a very impressive achievement. But why?”

“Are you familiar with the idea of breeding back an extinct animal?”

“That’s when you try to find all their descendants that mixed with other animals, right? And you try to bring out the traits of the extinct thing through breeding?”

“That’s right. But the original thing has been lost, forever; you are merely gathering up as many pieces as you can, in a vain attempt to simulate the whole.”

“I don’t follow.”

“She is gone. These are the pieces.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

As a result, all of the major zombie TV networks, from ZNN to ZBC to Zomb News, have called the 2020 election in favor of challenger Medulla “Dully” Oblongata. With 306 votes in the Encephalic College, Zombie President-Elect Oblongata easily possesses a majority, and has begun his presidential transition into the Blight House.

However, at press time, Zombie President Brayne had not conceded the election. Instead, Brayne insisted that he had won and that all votes cast for his opponent had been “brainless” and that millions of living voters had illegally “crossed over” to stuff ballot boxes for his opponent. ZNN and Zomb News have not found these allegations to be credible, especially considering that Brayne’s political party, the Mortician Party, gained seats in the Charnel House and Deadnete. This was contrary to widespread polls indicating a Necrotic Party sweep.

In his first remarks as Zombie President Elect, Dully Oblongata emphasized his desire to return to former Zombie President Omerta’s policies. “Rather than the wholesale eating of living brains, we will return to a more measured, deliberate pace of brain interaction,” he said. He declined to provide specifics as to how many, if any, living brains this will involve consuming.

Pundits blame the Red Death for Brayne’s historic loss after only a single term, as it has led to hundreds of thousands of new zombies rising from their graves, filling the rolls with first-time voters who do not support Brayne’s hard-line, zombies-first policies. The Mortician Party in particular has been outspoken in denying that the Red Death exists and branding the new living dead as “illegal decadents.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

As per the (unusual) request from the Director, the Research Division has completed its analysis into the license plate, “TAMMY 5,” that the Director saw during his commute. As license plate numbers require a fee to the DMV for specific information lookup, and the Director declined to provide this fee (despite paying the Division’s salaries), this report is, necessarily, speculative.

Possibility 1
This is the fifth car owned by a person named Tammy, sequentially. The previous for cars would be Tammies 1-4 in this scenario.

Possibility 2
This is the fifth car owned by a person named Tammy, concurrently. The owner possessed four other cars or motor vehicles licensed as Tammies 1-4. Since the car in question was, quote, “a sucky Chrysler,” this is considered less likely than Possibility 1.

Possibility 3
This is the fifth car registered to a Tammy in this state, with Tammies 1-4 belonging to unrelated Tammies. This is also considered unlikely, as one would expect for Tammy’s middle or last initial to be substituted.

Possibility 4
This car belongs to someone named Tammy whose middle or last initial is S, and “Tammy S” was already taken, leading to the alphanumeric substitution of “5.” One member of the Research Division raised the point that it is, theoretically possible, if staggeringly unlikely, that the person’s actual middle or last name begins with the numeral 5, so that (remote) possibility is duly recorded here.

Possibility 5
One member of the Research Division raised the point that is is, theoretically possible, if staggeringly unlikely, that the owner is, quote “a gynoid of some kind, possibly a sexbot” and that Tammy 5 is, as such, her model designation, with Tammies 1-4 being earlier or collateral models in the same line of gynoids (or “sexbots”).
This is theoretically possible, if staggeringly unlikely, so that (remote) possibility is duly recorded here.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!