March 13, 2015

From “The Wandering Daimyō of Kyūshū.” by Nokin Kobeyashi, translated and adapted by Irene York

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As has been known since time immemorial, the reikon—the soul—departs the body upon death. If disturbed, or if it was a violent and unsettled death, the reikon may become a yūrei—a ghost—doomed to wander and haunt until the cause of its woes is addressed.

There are myriad categories of yūrei, from the noble goryō to the motherly ubume, but none is more dangerous or more misunderstood than the tsuihō, the banished. They are living reikon stripped from their bodies without death, for the purpose of filling the soulless bodies with demons to form a supernaturally efficient fighting force and binding the souls to power dark constructs.

It is typically a fate worse than death. The soulless bodies are consumed in battle or eaten from within by corrupting demonic influence, while the expelled souls are consumed as fuel in the bellies of mechanical horrors. If they escape that fate, the enraged and confused reikon turn on whatever is nearest, ripping it apart in an orgy of destruction. Only the truly mad or the truly desperate sorcerer or daimyō has ever attempted to create tsuihō, and they have been feared and reviled throughout the home islands as a result.

One can easily recognize a tsuihō; unlike most yūrei, they are not white but black, a deep and impenetrable black that absorbs all light and all warmth. No features save the outline of a humanoid body may be discerned, and due to their untimely separation from their mortal shells, they have full use of their arms and legs.

Towering above all other tsuihō in legend is the Wandering Daimyō of Kyūshū. Once daimyō of a small clan, he and every man, woman, and child in his realm became tsuihō as the result of a rival’s machinations. With the soulless army thus created, this evil man sought to wipe out one of his enemies and create a force that could march on Kyoto and install himself as shōgun. Instead, he was torn to pieces by the forces that he hoped to marshall, his wailing reikon carried off to parts unknown by infernal powers.

The tsuihō thus released ravaged the countryside for a year and a day before gradually dissipating…save one. The Wandering Daimyō alone among his family, courtiers, and clansmen was able to retain his will. Fashioning a suit of armor in the likeness of his former face, with plates reflecting the visages of those he had known and loved, he took to the wilds of Kyūshū.

His mercurial rage became well-known among the farmers and peasants there. If the mood strikes him, the Wandering Daimyō will aid passersby. If it does not, he will slay them without mercy and consume their soul to extend his time in this world. It is said that if he approaches with his mask down, revealing the likeness of his former self, he will deliver aid; if he approaches with his mask up, revealing the indecipherable depths of darkness that truly make up his form, he will deliver destruction.

One man met the Wandering Daimyō when his mask was half-raised, revealing only the barest glimpse of the horror below. This is his story.

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February 14, 2015

From “Ghost of a Valentine” by Savin Foth Eagleton

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“Happy Valentine’s Day, Auntie Allie.”

Long-range deep-space pilots like Allison were among the most highly-sought-after, highly-paid, and lonely jockeys in the cosmos.

“Did you get my valentine? I made it special for you.”

The relativistic nature of their travel meant that they were permanently sundered from kith and kin. Paid in advance, they often gave the money to the families that they were leaving behind forever during their lonely decades-long voyages.

“I made it out of thing that I found lying around.”

Loneliness and a longing for family that was aging and dying beyond their ken led to a lot of coping mechanisms. Some families would record years’ worth of holiday messages to be played out as the travelers went about their celestial vigils.

“I hope you’re not mad, Auntie Allie.”

Others went the highly illegal route of uploading personality engrams from their families into their ships’ computers before their departure. Allison had made just such an engram of her niece, Callie, before leaving for the voyage that was supposed to provide for Callie and Callie’s invalid mother for the rest of their lives.

“Have you seen Mommy?” I want to show it to her.”

Huddled in the emergency pod, drawing on its oxygen and power reserves, Allison watched fearfully through the porthole as Callie’s engram cried out to her from every screen, every speaker, every port, every network on her ship.

“I want to give her a valentine too, Auntie Allie.”

Carson had suffocated when the atmosphere had been blown out of C Deck. Patel had been asleep when those systems have been overrun with junk data; she was just a brain stem connected to life support now.

“I made valentines for your friends too.”

Atmosphere reserves were dropping, power was almost out, and the only surviving crew member was crying silently next to Allison in the dark.

“I hope they liked them.”

Allison pressed her hand to the porthole.

“I love you, Auntie Allison.”

“I love you too, baby,” Allison whispered. “I love you too. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

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January 23, 2015

From “The Untraveled Travel Agent” by Vern Galetta

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Maria Ramirez, owner and operator of Journeyman Travel Agency LLC, had helped people move all her professional life. Since she started the business in her garage just out of high school to the present day, she’d booked trips to Acapulco and Antarctica, to Zambia and Zanzibar, and all points in between.

But Maria never traveled herself. In all her years, she had left her state only once, for a wedding, and crossed a border only once, for that selfsame wedding. Most of her clients went further afield in their first trip than she had in her entire life.

Maria had a lot of excuses thought up to laugh the issue up when it was raised. She’d seen how ugly the industry could be, from jacked-up prices to stranded travelers, and that ugliness had turned her off ever leaving LA herself. She was prone to motion sickness and was afraid that any flight might make her violently ill, and the trains just didn’t run as far or as fast as they used to. She was waiting until retirement to unleash all her skills in a paroxysm of travel the likes of which few had ever witnessed.

She never told people about the dream, about the flames, about the cries hanging in the frigid air as bodies in motion tumbled, earthbound, end over end.

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January 21, 2015

From “The Neoteny Society” by Cheyenne Tosiyetto

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Taking Stephen Jay Gould to heart, the Neoteny Society was dedicated to the idea that humans, as a species, were just the larval stage of another organism. Neoteny, meaning in this case the sexual maturity of an organism still in its larval stage rather than the retention of juvenile characteristics in the adult, was held by the Society to be an evolutionary mistake preventing humans from reaching their true potential.

In response to the claim that their beliefs were scientifically unsupportable, the Society advanced the notion that the “adult” humans has been gossamer being, capable of flight and with no tissues suitable for fossilization. This, along with the regular experimentation of Society members with hormones they believed would trigger their metamorphoses into “adults,” regularly provoked ridicule in the press and in scientific circles. The Society was awarded so many “bad science” prizes that they were eventually disqualified from further competition–a sign of the laughingstock that they had become.

That is until one day, when a building inspector found the Neoteny Society building deserted save for a hole in the roof. None of the members were ever seen again.

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January 8, 2015

From “Midwestern Airlines N983MW” by Ernst Lins Wiedmaier

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All jetliners accumulate oily residue near their exhausts. It’s rarely a serious concern, being as it is mostly carbon that can’t be burned any further, but the vagaries of air travel in the jet age are such that planes can’t be washed often. It takes an eight-hour layover at an airport with the right facilities, meaning that hardworking airliners are lucky to get a bath once every two months.

Aircrew and ground personnel are sometimes known to scrawl graffiti in the residue, much like a merry prankster wiping the mud off a dirty car to write “wash me.” It’s frowned upon, obviously, and much more difficult in the post-9/11 era, but earlier aircraft often went aloft with a variety of crude or humorous temporary tattoos inscribed where (hopefully) no passengers could see them.

In 1979, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar belonging to Midwestern Airlines (MSN 1251, registration N983MW) had one such message discovered by its ground crew at 6:32 AM during routine preflight checks. The message, “LOOK OUT BELOW,” earned eyerolls from those who saw it. The pilot for the flight, Capt. Laudner Bellow, found it even less amusing: he’d been known as “Lookout” Bellow in his years flying Linebacker raids over North Vietnam. He angrily ordered the crew to scrub off the message before departing for Baltimore.

On its final approach to Baltimore/Washington International, a cargo door on N983MW blew open, scattering items from the cargo compartment over a wide area. The plane landed safely, and the incident was traced to a stress fracture in the locking latches. Despite some suspicion of Capt. Bellow for sabotage, the incident was quickly forgotten and N983MW was repaired and returned to service.

Six months later, another message appeared at around noon just before a trip to Chicago: “MIND THE BUMP.” The ground crew chief at Baltimore, Ernest “Bumpy” Washington, Jr., took the apparent joke in good humor but noted it in the log. That afternoon, N983MW encountered severe supercell thunderstorms midway through its flight, causing violent turbulence that injured three passengers whose seatbelts had not been properly secured. There was no question of “Bumpy” Washington having cause the turbulence, but rumors began to swirl among Midwestern Airlines staff about N983MW.

The situation was not improved when, a month later, “OUT OF GAS” appeared written in the residue that had accumulated since N983MW’s wash after its Chicago accident. The crew, superstitious, insisted on a full preflight check, which uncovered nothing awry. The delay forced a temporary route reassignment, and as a relatively new jet N983MW was reassigned to fly the LAX-Honolulu route for a month. On its first flight, Hurricane Fico forced the aircraft to circle for hours before landing, and the captain estimated on touching down at Honolulu International (on two engines, to save fuel) with less than ten minutes of powered flight time remaining.

It becomes difficult to separate fact from fiction at this point, as it had become well-established around the Midwestern Airlines watercooler that N983MW was cursed and its misfortunes predicted by preflight graffiti. No doubt many pranksters took it upon themselves to add to the legend with their own scrawls, and jittery crew chiefs marked down patterns that may have, in retrospect, been mere coincidence. Midwestern, for its part, simply tried to ignore the issue and scheduled M983MW for more cleanings than usual.

What is known is that on June 2, 1981, the message “GOODBYE” appeared near N983MW’s tail. The captain and flight crew refused to board the aircraft, prompting Midwestern to fire them all for insubordination. Three other crews also refused and were written up for insubordination before the staff of N946MW out of Detroit agreed to swap. The flight, a short hop across the Chesapeake to Richmond, was widely known as a milk run.

N983MW disappeared from radar twenty minutes into its flight, and the first debris washed ashore several hours later. The accident, along with another on September 22 of that year, caused a fatal loss of confidence in the TriStar as an airframe, leading to slashed production orders and the eventual withdrawal of Lockheed from the commercial aviation business.

No cause for the crash was ever determined.

Inspired by this news story.

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December 12, 2014

From “The Last Days of Sizzler’s” by Fossey Stalls Izzard

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“I must say, you’re taking this awfully well.”

Gerry Michaels, owner and pitmaster at Sizzler’s BBQ, shrugged. “It was never about the money, Nate. It was about the meat, about doing it for love of the game.”

Nate nodded, wiping his hands on his embroidered Sizzler’s apron. “Yeah,” he said. “But even so, this is still taking it really well. I mean, when we close, that’s it.”

Gerry remained focused on the meat in front of him, basting it with spice and sauce as it cooked over a wood-fired grill. “It is what it is,” he said. “And I’m not letting any of this stuff go to waste. Sunk costs, you know? Can’t return it and the food pantry won’t take it, so might as well go out in a blaze of glory.”

Sizzler’s had a bad location, right off the highway; people were practically past it by the time they realized they could stop, and if they were westbound they were pretty much out of luck entirely. It was too far from town for the city crowd and too close to it for the country one, and the building had a ramshackle appearance–on the outside, anyway–that was a function of it being the largest place that Gerry could afford with his savings. The property crash hadn’t helped; Nate had gone with Gerry to the bank when they’d foreclosed, trying to refinance, remortgage, re-anything. He’d gone to the investors, too, all local notables Gerry had known in his former life as a jobsite manager for a construction company and a deputy Tecumseh County sheriff.

“Going out in a blaze of glory doesn’t preclude a few middle fingers to people that screwed you over, Gerry,” said Nate.

“Sure it does,” Gerry replied. “Waving fingers around doesn’t solve or change anything.”

Based on the way they’d been treated by men who they’d called friends, Nate had said at the time, if anybody had cause to be bitter it was Gerry Michaels. Instead, he’d declared a gala going-out-of-business event to use up the supplies on hand: one invitation-only event for the bankers and investors, and another for the general public. Both free, what few expenses there were covered out of Gerry’s small pockets and volunteer labor from Nate.

“I’m just worried about you, that’s all,” said Nate. “I don’t want you having a heart attack on me or anything. Stress doesn’t help, and you can’t tell me you haven’t been plenty stressed trying to keep this place afloat. I know I have.”

“Go home, Nate,” Gerry said with a smile. “If I’m taking it well, so should you. Go on. I can handle this place myself, especially with only a half-dozen people coming to eat.”

Nate, reluctantly, agreed. He made to hang up his apron one last time, but Gerry stopped him. “Keep it,” he said.

“Thanks, Gerry. Good luck with the meal. It sure is a decent thing of you to do. I’m sure it’ll be a feast to remember.” Nate left through the back door, and a moment later Gerry heard his car coughing to life and rattling away down the road.

Gerry turned away from the sizzling meat for a second to retrieve a small, locked box from beneath a nearby countertop. He popped the lock with his keyring, and removed three items:

His lucky butcher’s knife with the name of Harold’s burned into its handle–the old greasy spoon, long since closed after Harold’s death, where Gerry had learned many of his tricks as a spit-turner in high school.

A tub of arsenic-based rat poison.

A Tecumseh County Sheriff’s Department .38 special service revolver, oiled and loaded.

“A feast to remember,” Gerry said softly. “A feast to remember.”

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December 11, 2014

From “The Existence Runner” by Terrence Thuesen Nix

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Dilcher “Pipkin” Kidd had worked for the Internal Revenue Service as an auditor for nearly two years when his employers realized that he did not exist.

This fact came to light during a routine background check in the auditing department–an audit of the auditors, as it were. Pipkin Kidd’s file was found to contain a number of impossibilities, from his bizarrely unlikely name to his even more bizarrely unlikely nickname to his place of birth in a town that had been swallowed by the sea 100 years ago. The inconsistencies were too legion and too flagrant to be mere forgeries or mistakes; the IRS auditor general came to the inescapable conclusion, as did his colleagues, that Pipkin Kidd simply could not exist.

As a result, the auditor general called Kidd into his office and confronted him with the evidence of his non-existence. Kidd, unable to argue, obligingly ceased to exist at that very moment.

A thorough review of the case by special agents of the federal offices of inspectors general found no wrongdoing; as Kidd had not existed, no one could be held liable for his cessation of existence but himself. Furthermore, the inspectors general found that people like Kidd who did not exist constituted a security threat–they could be blackmailed, or maliciously cease to exist at inopportune moments.

The IRS therefore conducted a thorough existence audit and found 14 other employees, ranging from mailroom clerks to the Undersecretary of the Decimals and Fractions office. Each was duly confronted with the fact of their nonexistence, ceased to exist, and was replaced. Alarmed, the government instituted procedures to broaden the scope of the audit and began a program of thorough existence testing at regular intervals, as hiring procedures did not allow for such screening.

Critics decried this as the most vicious form of discrimination, but as the people so discriminated against did not exist, the Supreme Court upheld the decision (in a landmark case that led to three counsels ceasing to exist in chambers). In the years since, non-existence has become more difficult to prove, and accusing someone directly cannot be done without a thorough paper trail. In turn, people worried that they might be non-existent (existential crises do not seem to have the same effect as a direct accusation backed by proof) have taken to increasingly elaborate means to protect and disguise themselves.

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December 10, 2014

From “The Floating and Sorrowful World” by Nokin Kobeyashi, translated and adapted by Irene York

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The sect, which flourished in Saikyo between the wars, was based on Shigeyama’s idiosyncratic reading of Japanese history and Buddhist metaphysics. Shigeyama taught that there were two worlds: the Floating World of earthly pleasure and delight, and the Sorrowful World, which overlaid, veiled, and hid the former. It’s clear that the Edo-era culture of Yoshiwara, barely a generation removed from Shigeyama’s lifetime, was the inspiration for his “Floating World” just as the Buddhist cycle of death and rebirth inspired his “Sorrowful World.”

Shigeyama preached a sort of prosperity gospel to his followers, promising them that their dedication to pleasures of the flesh and rejection of the “Sorrowful World” and its denizens would bring unprecedented prosperity. It was a philosophy that found many takers, since the postwar prosperity in Japan had given way to the Depression and austere militarism was on the rise. To be fair, Shigeyama preached a very Japanese message in Saikyo, and the things he and his followers engaged in were versions of older art forms like kabuki, geisha, and the like (albeit generally racy, sexualized versions strongly influenced by Jazz Age debauchery).

Japanese authorities tolerated Shigeyama at first, largely because of the wealth and power of his followers. However, as his movement grew, the military grew nervous over reports that the sect was stockpiling captured weapons from China and attempting to extend its power into Saikyo’s government infrastructure. When the city moved to a mayor and council form of government, all of the new positions were dominated by Shigeyama men. This was enough for the Army to begin an investigation; the mysterious deaths of the investigators two weeks later caused the General Staff Office to deploy a regiment of troops to the city to “restore order.”

Shigeyama declared that “the forces of the Sorrowful World were at the doorstep” and his followers resisted the incursion with the very weapons they had been suspected of possessing. The incident was strongly censored in the Japanese press, who referred to it only as the “Saiko Anti-Gangsterism Police Operation.” Casualties are difficult to estimate thanks to the destruction of most major archival sources, but material compiled by American occupation forces after the war indicated that as many as 1000 people may have died in intense urban combat, with military casualties being assigned to units in Manchuria and China to cover up their loss. They also uncovered evidence of an extensive tunnel network beneath the much-reduced city of Saikyo, and evidence to suggest that an armed uprising against “the forces of the Sorrowful World” was in the early planning stages.

The sect leader Shigeyama was never located. A number of tunnels had been sealed from the outside by Japanese Army Engineers during the fighting using high-explosive charges, and it’s thought that Shigeyama remains there, entombed with his most loyal followers in an eerie preview of the fate that befell many of his attackers just a few years later.

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December 9, 2014

From “Scarecrow Fields” by Carl Coferd Weiss

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“They look like…scarecrows,” I said. They were more detailed, sure, and wearing newer clothes, but I could see bits of straw poking out here and there and traces of the wire armature holding the whole thing up.

“Yep, that’s what they are, more or less,” said Sandra. “Do you remember Abby Woodman?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Quiet girl. Real religious. Didn’t she move away after high school?”

“Was an accountant for a while, or so I hear,” Sandra said. She turned the car onto Sycamore, passing several more posed dummies including one that looked like it was waiting in the old bus stop for a service that had been discontinued for 10 years. “Came back to Deerton to take care of her parents. The farm out on US 13, remember?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” I said, still looking at the scarecrow out of the corner of my eye as we passed it. “The Baptist Church used to use their cart and crop for hay rides.”

“Well, there wasn’t much for Abby to do when she got home, other than look after her folks,” Sandra said. “So she decided to try planting a few crops to sell in the farmer’s market over in Cascadia. The scarecrow part of that you can probably figure out for yourself.”

“Well, yeah,” I said. We were driving past the site of the old Quick Stop gas station, which had been abandoned and boarded up with snacks and magazines still on its shelves. Through dusty and cracked windows, I could see a scarecrow-employee behind the desk and a scarecrow-customer opposite them. “But it’s a long way from there to putting them up everywhere.”

“Well, you know how it’s been in Deerton. Every year more of the young people move away and more of the old folks die. Abby thought the old McGruder place next door to her seemed lonely, so she made a scarecrow to liven it up. Dressed it in some of Earl McGruder’s old things from their attic. Before you know it, she was putting them everywhere.”

“Did people…pay her for them?” I said with a shudder.

“Some did. I know that the bank bought a bunch to put in foreclosed houses at night with light timers to try and cut down on Cascadia punks coming in and wrecking up the place. But a lot of them Abby just made herself. She got pretty good with the paper-mache, a lot of the scarecrow heads look just like the people that used to live there.”

We passed another group of scarecrows, this one in front of the old firehouse. “Well, Abby’s sure been busy,” I said. “I’d like to have a chat with her about all this.”

“Well, that can be arranged. But don’t expect too much of a response, since she’s dead.”

“What?” I cried.

“Yeah. Two months back. Cerebral hemorrhage, or so they say.”

I looked back out the window. “She must have been at it right until she died,” I said sadly. “How long have those firefighters been there?”

Sandra licked her lips. “A week.”

“What?” I said. “You mean she made them before she died, and someone else put them there?”

“A week,” Sandra said again, firmly. “Which is why you and I needed to have a talk.”

Inspired by this news story.

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November 29, 2014

From “Darker Shapes in the Anderton Dunes” by Peggy T. Killdeer

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“Apostle Alexandra?”

“I reckon that’s about what people call me.” From behind the kerchief, behind the darkness, the voice was husky but feminine. “I reckon I’m not much fond of it, either.”

“Well, tell me your real name, and I’ll see to it that it’s published.” Sands held out a pencil and stenography pad, gripping each by only two fingers to show his mild intent.

Each was torn away seconds later by a sharply-aimed shot. “And if you do that, there’ll be people after my gold within a week,” she snorted.

“You have gold?” Sands’ eyes glittered.

“Not a flake. But that’s not how rumors work. As soon as people know where I am, who I am, they’ll convince themselves I’m sitting on a goddamn vein of the stuff.”

“I assure you that-”

“Which is why,” she continued, “you have until the count of twenty to give me a very good reason not to gutshot you and leave you for dead.”

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