September 19, 2011

From “The Pseudo-Hoc” by Harold H. Harrow

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Arthur “Hoc” Hocker Jr. was arrested for embezzlement on June 19. His gambling debts were such that he didn’t have the money to post bail, and the arrest came at the tail end of a long, slow slide from grace that had ultimately driven away any friends or relatives that could have helped him out. Even the local bail bondsmen refused, as several had been clients of Hoc’s accounting firm and therefore defrauded.

That much is clear: Hoc, undone, rotted in the city lockup until his trial. CCTV recordings, affidavits from attending officers, and interviews with myriad cellmates confirm this beyond a shadow of a doubt.

What, then, are we to make of Hoc appearing at his ex-wife’s house on June 21? Or his partner’s summer cottage the next day? In all, police counted seventeen appearances of Hoc in the outside world while he was incarcerated. Witnesses attest to this, but more concrete proof is offered in the form of voicemails (Hoc made no phone calls from prison) camera footage (Hoc’s wife lived in a gated and monitored community) and, most convincingly, fingerprints. The latter were found at the partner’s summer house, where Hoc had never been as a free man.

Strangest of all, witnesses report that Hoc explicitly apologized for his behavior to the people that he had harmed the most, and that he urged them to go on with their lives without regard for him or his fate. Indeed, at his trial Hoc expressed just such a sentiment, and bemoaned the lost opportunity to deliver it. He was, in point of fact, sentenced without ever leaving jail save trips to the courtroom.

But what, then, are we to make of that strange psuedo-Hoc?

 

September 8, 2011

From “Dusk at the Diner” by Altos Wexan

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This post is part of the September 2011 Blog Chain at Absolute Write. This month’s challenge is to respond to a picture.

Picture: Nighthawks (1942) by Edward Hopper

“So, is this the lady in red you were telling me about?” he said. “The one who wanted that book of yours, and the one who—might I add—I encouraged you to contact about it?”

“Allison Flint,” she said, extending her hand.

“Charlie Bulforth.” Charlie grasped and shook it. “Flint, huh?” he chortled. “Not likely. I know a Durant when I see one. We’ve still got some of the old posters in the station…the ones your dad put out when you ran away a few years back, remember?”

“I was fifteen,” Allison said coldly. “Hardly a few years ago.”

“Fair enough,” Charlie said, shoveling a forkful of pie into his maw. “I know you think you’re being clever with that alias, ma’am, but it doesn’t do any good. I hear society folks talking all the time about how scandalous it is that Mr. Durant’s only daughter’s gone over to the reds.”

“I see,” Allison said. “Do they also talk about how scandalous it was when your and your friends broke up our march the other year with clubs? I seem to remember you alternating between using your bullhorn to shout and to batter unarmed marchers.”

Check out this month’s other bloggers, all of whom have posted or will post their own responses:
BigWords
robeiae
pezie
Ralph Pines
Cath
AbielleRose
Darkshore
dolores haze
Alynza
pyrosama

 

August 25, 2011

From “The Author Vanishes” by Meyer K. Goldstein

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Cohen’s novels were characterized by intricate and intertwining multiple plots, and he had a remarkable ability to weave various complicated threads together despite prose that was often described as turgid or, charitably, plain. He wasn’t writing to the literati, of course–does anyone outside their number even aspire to anymore?–but rather for the lucrative disposable-book trade. People who needed something to read on the train, on the plane, or any of those other bottlenecks where the frenetic pace of modern life was unavoidably slowed would purchase a Maxwell Q. Cohen book and discard it like a candy wrapper after reading.

Most of the finer thrift stores overflowed with volumes stocked alongside Crichton, Koontz, and King. His were human stories, though, without a hint of the supernatural or the technological and crafted for those who were not of either bent. It was a formula for consistent success, if not renown, and most of the titles wound up selling very well. His latest, “Forest of Bloodshot Eyes,” had even debuted on the bestseller list and there was scuttlebutt of a Hollywood adaptation with the latest pretty-thing-of-the-month shoehorned into a role written for someone 20 years older and 20 IQ points smarter.

That’s why Cohen’s unannounced disappearance from his lakeside home had been such a bitter shock.

 

August 24, 2011

From “Jackknife of Fate” by Ainsley M. Strommann

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It was nobody’s fault, really.

The transit company that owned the trailer had furnished it with retread tires because they were the cheap option. The rig owner wasn’t about to replace them given how slim her margins already were, to say nothing of the punishing schedule that had her in Seattle Sunday night and Atlanta Monday by the stroke of twelve AM.

The forecaster had called for high temperatures after the front blew in, but it wound up being a cold snap. Even in early spring, it was bad enough to turn patches of rain into black ice. Nobody who had been on the road during the unseasonable warmth was ready for that, and there had been fog enough that prepared or not they were unlikely to see it.

So when the retread peeled off the semi’s rear wheel on a bridge outside of town, the driver had no way of knowing that hitting the brakes would lead to a jackknife. And the cars in the other lane, coming around a blind corner onto ice, never had a chance.

Anyone who read an ounce of malice into the truck driver, the transit company, or even the weatherman was just lashing out, looking for scapegoats in an unpredictable world. And, given the murders that followed, I have to believe that’s exactly what happened.

 

August 18, 2011

From “Khyber Pass Psychometry” by Sonya G. Goldman-Haines

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Mayotte gingerly examined the revolver with gloved hands. “British issue Webley Mark I, 1887, pocket model, .38 caliber.” She worked the break action, which wouldn’t latch due to damage–it looked like a round had exploded in the chamber, mangling the top of the cylinder and tearing off the rear portion of the upper frame. “I’d say whoever fired it last got a nasty surprise.”

“Why would Aaron have had a gun that old, and that British?” Cynthia asked.

“It’s a Khyber Pass copy,” said Mayotte. “Afghanistan or Pakistan. See this marking here?”

“V. R. 2007,” Cynthia read.

“That’s the cypher for Queen Victoria, who died in 1901. The gunsmiths out there are working out of their backyard, making copies from a master. They don’t know or don’t care what the cypher means, they just slip in the current year. Aaron was in Afghanistan?”

“Yes,” Cynthia said. “The gun came back with his things.”

“Let’s see what it has to say, then.” Mayotte pulled off a glove and pressed her hand to the checkered grip. Immidiately, she was overwhelmed by a flood of memories.

 

August 12, 2011

From “Amur’s Cave” by Hollister Philips-Morely

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At the height of his powers, with around 5,000 cloistered followers and perhaps 10,000 or more admirers or loose adherents to his philosophy, Amur declared that it was time to reveal the great secrets of his movement. The Amurite press duly printed and distributed pamphlets with their prophet’s revelations:

1. Heaven lies not within the skies above but in the earth below.
2. Those who lack the spirituality to ascend to heaven through earthy denial must seek it physically.
3. A connection exists between earth and heaven at the deepest part of the earth accessible by man; anyone to reach it and return will be blessed by the wisdom and riches of heaven.

These “revelations” caused mass defections from Amur’s cult, even though he displayed an item of wrought gold he claimed to have been retrieved from the earthly entrance to heaven. Not long after, his community was broken up by government troops, Amur himself disappeared in the chaos, and his gold was seized and put on display in a museum.

Bizarrely, some adventurers (inspired by the appearance of what has come to be known as Amur’s Crown) have sought the entrance to heaven that he prophesied. Some claim it is near the great Sakhalin borehole; others hold out for Voronya Cave in Abkhazia, or one of the many caves in Sarawak. But many who have sought Amur’s Cave have never returned.

Until now.

 

August 1, 2011

From “The Qaus Run” by Melina al-Maghriz Durston

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“No, I’m not going to that address,” Nasir said. “Not again.”

“Look,” sighed Dispatch. “He’s a good tipper, and you get a lot of business in his neighborhood so you’re always closest. Take the fare. If he bugs you, monkey with the meter a little to get time and a half.”

“It’s not the money. I’m not doing it.” Nasir cried.

“Look, I’m through arguing. You take the fare or you find another cab company to drive for. Plenty of Arabic speakers who can drive stick would do the Little Mecca loop for half what you’re pulling in.”

Nasir turned off the radio in disgust and made his way to Dr. Qaus’s apartment. The good doctor was curbside, loaded with satchels and papers.

“Good morning,” he said. Nasir glanced at his dash clock: 2:53pm. “Take me to the university cyclotron. I’ve a set of equations to test and there’s only a few hours’ window.”

“Which university?”

“I don’t have time for all your questions! Drive!”

 

July 23, 2011

From “Fragments of a Dream” by Curtiss Wentworth Deens

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It’s not that I don’t try to remember my dreams. I really do. I even keep a journal.

Most of the time the forgetfulness is too strong, a tidal wave of colorless oblivion eating away at the edges of every image.

Sometimes, though, I wake early and write some notes intended to help me remember and fully transcribe the dream. Often, it’s simply not enough, and I find these ghostly reminders of something I can’t quite recall endlessly fascinating:

to the ends of the earth / magnolias / a sister’s song / skeletons

we were completely wrong / mysterious city / been through this before / i just can’t

tomatoes / candy cigarettes / heist / milkman / 10 degrees

internet / snatches /done it all before / the real fails me

 

July 12, 2011

From “Submerged in a Dying River” by McGraw Ellis Nash

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Sean Ross had been born in a missionary family that had fled China during the communist revolution when he was only six years old. Since then, though decades of life in the United Kingdom and the United States, through the rejection of his parents’ faith and his embrace of Marxism, China had exercised a strong and romantic hold on Sean’s mind.

When the mainland opened up to foreigners during the Deng Xiaoping era, it was natural that he’d seek to travel there. As a geologist, albeit one who had formulated some radical notions, the Chinese made eager use of his talents both in the field and training students. He spent part of nearly every year there, despite a disillusionment evident in his writings as China liberalized economically.

As Sean’s specialization was endorheic basins and desert topography, he often did work in and around the Lop Nur salt pans in Xinjiang–a marsh in the final stages of drying into a desert and fed by a dying river. The topography, alternately wet and dry with vast and mutable sand formations, fascinated him, and the distance from Shanghai and Beijing seemed to appeal to his Maoist sensibilities.

All in all, he was an undeniable asset to the Chinese, and a powerful advocate for them abroad. This made his sudden and inexplicable disappearance from a survey team campsite all the more troubling. It was something of a mark of respect, albeit one tinged with a propagandistic need to save face, that led to an entire battalion of troops and an air wing being lent to the search.

The Chinese even arranged, at great expense, to bring in Sean’s ex-wife and a group of former students to consult with the search parties.

 

June 20, 2011

From “The Obsidian Talisman” by Jan C. Wisniewski

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After the great victory before the city gates during  the Second Siege of Vienna, King John III Sobieski of Poland, whose hussars had helped to carry the day, captured the Ottoman baggage train. He wrote effusive letters home about wagons heaped high with the wealth of the Orient that had attended Kara Mustafa Pasha and his troops.

One of his letters never made it to the Polish court at Warsaw; its courier was waylaid and robbed, either by Ottoman stragglers or the troops of Imre Thököly of Hungary, who had tried to profit while Poland was virtually bereft of troops. The letter made its way to Budapest, where it was lost in the former royal archives until a researcher uncovered it in 1916.

The king’s letter described the contents of Kara Mustafa Pasha’s personal saddlebag, with particular attention paid to a small object described as a “spiral of black obsidian or other polished black mineral.” None of the prisoners could identify the bauble or recalled seeing it before, but its place so near the Pasha, intermingled with mementos of home and family and precious jewels, intrigued the king. He declared his intention to take it with him to Warsaw.

That same researcher, granted access to the Polish archives after the fall of Warsaw the previous year, was able to trace the obsidian talisman’s path. It had followed Stanislaw II August into Russian captivity, been held at the Tsar’s court, and then captured by a German unit.

The object, whatever it was, seemed to presage the decline and eventual doom of whichever realm held it.

 

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