Tagged: Serial Saturday

Trembling With Fear

 by 

Serial Saturday: Where the Yellow Rose Blooms by Sarah Townend, Chapter Two

  1. Serial Saturday: Where the Yellow Rose Blooms by Sarah Townend, Chapter One
  2. Serial Saturday: Where the Yellow Rose Blooms by Sarah Townend, Chapter Two
  3. Serial Saturday: Where the Yellow Rose Blooms by Sarah Townend, Chapter Three
  4. Serial Saturday: Where the Yellow Rose Blooms by Sarah Townend, Chapter Four

Chapter Two: Marmos

                                                          

The journey isn’t far, just steep and rocky underfoot. Mother and I venture slowly up the mountain to where the village’s prophet resides. 

Marmos’s place is desolate and demarcated by a semi-circle of pampas grass brush and weathered stone pillars. Each pillar is etched with incomprehensible rune arrangements and topped with a lit fire staff. I’ve never been here before, but Mother has, before she met Father.

A low chant rises and falls on air currents as we move closer to the building. Mother complains about volume, plugs her curled fingers in her ears, but to me, the music’s barely detectable. 

The front door’s wide open. Mother tells me I must go in first, must present the offerings to Marmos, will probably be taken deeper into the building without her. She follows me through a tunnel roofed with billowing silk scarves. The air is rich with incense, a floral kind. Heady. We enter a small room, warm and lit only around its edges with flickering tallow wax candles in shades of crimson and gold.

Marmos sits humming, cross-legged, buckled forwards on a red velvet rug, his head hung. He wears a kilt of linen, the rest of his large body otherwise unclothed. There’s something chelonian about this ancient man. His skin’s the most leathered I’ve ever seen. A carapace covers his shoulders and back.

He appears to be lost in thought, maybe searching for his soul in his upturned hands. A misplaced step lands my foot on something crunchy. He stops humming, glances up.

Unable to hold his gaze, I look down at my own hands, in them clutched my sack of loosenings, the bag much lighter than it should be. My heart clacks fast. I worry. Will he notice? 

He draws me in closer with one slow arm movement. No hellos, no introductions. A wild sound bursts from his mouth, a noise that forces some of the darkness of the room into a hard ball that lodges in my stomach. “It’s time,” he says. I’m unsure if this is a question or a statement but all I want to say is, no, I am not ready, it is not time before grabbing Mother’s hand and running for the exit.

Marmos grins, exposing grey, toothless gums. The sight takes my breath like the driest wine. He stands and snatches the bag from my hands and coerces me into a side room. Mother trails behind. “Wait here,” he instructs her. 

Mother’s eyes are as empty as death, twin white pearls revealing nothing. Does she not care? Can’t she come with me? I run my hands down the sides of my arms in an act of self-comfort to find no quills, no thorns. I am, I realise, for the first time truly no longer a child. 

A fire crackles in the hearth. Sweat beads collect on the nape of my neck. Here must be the heart of the house, if such a house has any heart at all. Suspended over the fire, a copper pot on a hook rocks, squeaks, as Marmos tips the contents of my bag into it, then stirs the contents with a ladle. 

As the dropped protrusions that mark my youth tumble out, in my head, I regress. I recall my own entrance into the world, green placenta vine coiled dangerously around my neck, cut free by the doula, I hear my newborn scream. 

“Your offering is short.” His deep voice echoes like a clap in a cave. Once empty, he tosses the bag on the floor and stares at me, the only sign of lightness in his eyes, the reflection of licking flames.

“I’m sorry.” My voice quivers. “Some may’ve been lost.” 

Marmos growls. “Bring the rest when it is found.” 

He lifts the kettle from its suspension, tips its bubbling contents into a bowl. Offcuts of me thicken the liquid.  

 “Sit.” I sit. “Expose your spine, the skin of your back. Curl into a ball.” I untie the fastenings at the back of my smock, push my sleeves down, and huddle over on the sticky stone floor.

He gulps down the potion then looms over me. I press my cheek flat on the ground. The hard skin on his legs ripples. Dark brown, grey, then youthful shades: orange, pink. Then, like the mysterious near-telling of the ocean earlier, unobtainable images flash, twirl in and out of focus on his transmogrifying flesh. The shifting patterns on his skin slow. I focus on his ankle, his calf. There, I see, I feel, childhood memories. 

Mother holds me, a tight bundle, in her arms, her eyes bright and clear. She smiles at my father. He is humming for her, first and last time I ever hear Father sing. Mother inspects my thighs, counts the four nubs where my thorn tips will break through when I am off the breast, searches for a fifth. Her smile drops. 

With his palms inches from my spine, Marmos pushes and pulls air, yanks invisible strings. My organs distort. I dry heave as Marmos stretches and melds my liver and lungs into new positions, all without contact, like I’m a ragdoll.

He babbles in celestial tongue the patternations on my arms and back which suggest my future while I see my history flash by in his. A curl of vomit pulses up into my mouth.

Warm currents snake up my spine as Marmos weaves the void above me. This touchless violation hurts, yet it is not a sentient pain. This can’t be the pain that leads to bliss. I have not felt an ounce of pleasure, and no man has laid a hand on me.

Marmos growls and steps away. Relief. Distance between us. “Your offering was very short.” His words cut like razors. “Stand. Dress.”

My fingers fumble as I re-tie the ribbons that held my dress closed. 

*

Steam from the remnants of the broiling potion fills the room. Candlelight dusts the steam, makes kingdoms of glowing cloud, and Marmos steps through it towards me. He stretches out his arms, becomes the shape of a lightning-struck tree, as his joints and bones crack with indecision. I cower. Even though I’m now clothed, he sees through me, into me.

Marmos’s chest of leathered skin swirls with vivid, warmer sunset shades of youth. His eyes roll back, another guttural growl, one that scares the clouds of mist away. 

The surface of my flesh ripples, sharing information with Marmos, but I can’t translate the messages my body reveals. I stare, afraid and amazed, as Marmos’s skin patterns dance, shifting in time with mine, in response.

There it is, the face.

On Marmos’s chest, an undulating image. The face of my betrothed. The man I’ll be hand-fasted to before the next new moon. The vision is like a whip to my throat. Deep-set eyes, teeth like weathered gravestones. A large nose, askew—has it been broken in several places? A silvered scar stretches from his ear to his neck. Much older than I and with nothing familiar about it, I know this is the face of my betrothed, even though I’ve never seen him before. 

The mirage slips, glitches. His eyes narrow, and a grin too big for his jaw cuts into his mandible. A cruel face.

I stagger, tripping over my own skirt as I move, and fall backwards. Marmos collapses into a heap, the colour fading from him fast, his old, hard skin returning. I get up and run out of the room, find Mother, and leave.

Trembling With Fear

 by 

Serial Saturday: Where the Yellow Rose Blooms by Sarah Townend, Chapter One

  1. Serial Saturday: Where the Yellow Rose Blooms by Sarah Townend, Chapter One
  2. Serial Saturday: Where the Yellow Rose Blooms by Sarah Townend, Chapter Two
  3. Serial Saturday: Where the Yellow Rose Blooms by Sarah Townend, Chapter Three
  4. Serial Saturday: Where the Yellow Rose Blooms by Sarah Townend, Chapter Four

Chapter One: Before the Bliss

                                                          

I sit on sloped shingle and toy with my last keratinous protrusion to try and quell the itch. This thorn, barb-rooted to my femur, anchored to the meat of my thigh by a red cable, is part of me and has been there, growing, since birth. It stings. But soon, it’ll detach and fall, and I’ll be peach-smooth all over. All woman. 

In front of me, Alora crouches awkwardly so as not to hurt herself on her five small hip spurs. She rummages through her rucksack and takes out handfuls of something from where childish treasures—shells, sea glass, dead moths—are usually stashed. “What’s in your fists?” I ask.

“Nothing.” Doe-eyes. My little sister smiles sweetly, then runs off, into breaking waves. I shrug at Emmanuelle—my friend beside me—and yawn. At least we’ve the beach to ourselves this evening and the sun, low in the sky, feels warm on my skin. 

I stop twisting the thorn and, instead, hold it in place and imagine the snapped ligaments deep within my thigh re-attaching it to the bone of my leg. If only I could slow time. What lies ahead terrifies me: womanhood, the consequential trip to Marmos.

*

 “Don’t swim past the outcrop,” I shout after Alora. “Ah, do what you like.” Leaning back on a cobble bed, I snag my sore spot. “Ay—This one hurts.”

Despite my desire to remain a child, the perseverance of this fourth and final hip thorn—my fifth never emerged—frustrates me. It’s sore.

“But you’re glowing, ripening well,” Emmanuelle says. 

“Apart from this thigh and my tatty hands.” I show her my knuckles and palms, calloused from labour. But Emmanuelle’s right. Velvety dappling, swirls of tangerine and russet now cover my body, and for this, I’m grateful.  

I run the back of my hand over my lower leg. Of recent, something within me, my groin a bag of honey bees, finds enjoyment in self-touch. The flat terrain of adult, spike-free skin, the way my shoulders, waist, hips feel. New sensations ripple within at night, when I caress myself in the dark, alone, under my quilt. 

A twinge in my thigh. My fingertips return to my hip. I twist the thorn again, in time with the breaking waves. The irritation eases. Perhaps I do long for total smoothness, to be adult. Maybe I do want this last thorn out.

*

Alora, still so young, a bundle of spikes and quills, tumbles and splashes through wave crests and wades further into the ocean, giggling all the while. 

“Why can’t I remain carefree, like Alora?” I ask. Emmanuelle stares ahead.

And why must I work so hard? Since my first quill fell away, I’ve laboured each day, levering a diamond-tipped chisel in and out of the quarry face. All shedding adolescents stand and chip there, together, liberating precious resources from a millennia of geology for our leathered elders. And before and after each long shift, I care for Alora. 

*

I stare at the ocean. With each breath of the tide, a pattern hinting at what my future may hold, a heedance, comes into fruition on the ocean’s surface, then, before I’ve a chance to interpret it, the missive disperses back into loose liquid form, blue and white froth, and the vision becomes lost. 

*

“You’re bleeding.” Emmanuelle’s face contorts. Smooth for over a year, memories of shedding for her, I expect, are forgotten, like childhood dreams. She pushes my picking fingers. “It will drop when it’s ready, when you’re ready,” she says. 

Will I ever be ready? My body? Maybe. But, my heart? I yearn to play, skip, and swim in the water like Alora, not labour and care for others. What happens after Marmos petrifies me.

Emmanuelle squeezes my hand. She smiles, closed-lipped. “And you’re nearly ready, darling. The future’s nothing to fear.”

“But what about the pain?” 

“Pain? This final thorn will hurt no worse than the others,” she says. She must know it’s the other pain I ask of, because there’s something hidden, a whisper behind her eyes.

 “I mean the pain that comes after Marmos, before the bliss—” 

Emmanuelle takes my chin in her hand. “That pain is a gift. A blessing from the feminine celestial.” Her warm breath graces my cheek. “It’s more of a universal, all-encompassing . . . deep discomfort. At its peak, the sensation is almost . . . sentient.” I swallow hard. For a moment, the quickening of my pulse and the rush of blood around my cranium drown out the insidious alternative story the waves have been whispering. “But as with all in life, dearest, there is balance. Polarity.”

“Go on,” I say. 

“When the pain is nothing but a memory, a thing of no mass or matter, there will be pleasure.” She caresses the markings which dust her upper arm, then strokes mine. “My husband lies with me and thrusts as he sings until a bliss like no other fills my soul. Between his melodies, I hear the beautiful truth of his love.” 

A bolt, a longing, shirks down my spine to the place where bees buzz at night. She draws my face kiss close. “Womanhood brings equal measures of joy and despair. You’ll embrace it, darling girl, the pain. You’ll cope. Women do.”

She reaches for her water flagon. My fingers return to my thorn. Sharpness. It comes free in my hand. Warm red gushes down my thigh. “Dammit,” I say, and show Emmanuelle. “It’s out.” 

Root now exposed, the thorn’s longer than my palm is wide. The hole in my thigh gathers at its edges, puckers, starts to seal. Fresh epidermal tiles tessellate into a new holoscar of orange and pink. 

I’ll pass the thorn to Mother. She saves all my shed protrusions—countless flaked quills from my back and shoulders, the three thorns from the infantile frills that once decorated my thighs. Currency for Marmos.

Emmanuelle pays attention to my thigh. 

“I am now a woman?” I ask. 

A line forms between Emmanuelle’s brows. She speaks slowly, holding each vowel too long. “You’ll get there,” she says. Her eyes remain on my leg. “Patience.”

Where the sun touches the water, plums and oranges mottle, like the patternations swirling into place where my thorn shed from. 

“Listen to the waves.” Emmanuelle’s dulcet words. “There’s balm in nature’s rhythm.” She strokes the back of my neck and hums gently. 

And like this, like reaching a cliff edge, the path behind you having fallen away, my childhood is over. What will become of me? Relentless spring tide waves crash in.

*

 “Alora,” Emmanuelle shouts, stands and strides towards the water. “Where’s Alora?”

I stand too. “I can’t see her,” I say. Rushing towards the shoreline, one hand hat-peaked against my forehead, my other arm eagle-winged for balance, I scan the expanse of ocean all the way to where sea becomes sky. “She’s there,” I say and point. 

In the distance, the top half of my baby sister, smaller than she should be, too far out, her body a spiky mark against the shifting sheet of sea. Alora throws her arms in the air. An arc of water rainbows above her head. 

“She’s swum out past the rocks. How many times…” I tsk and cuss and cup my hands around my mouth and shout instructions to my feral sibling to get her sorry ass back to shore. 

“She’s okay,” Emmanuelle says. “She’s paddling back. All this exercise before supper is great to release her energy.”

I side-eye my friend and in exchange, Emmanuelle gives me another knowing smile. “Release her energy?” My voice high-pitched. “Alora is young, without a worry in the world, of a time before responsibility and fear. She does not need release, she’s already free.”

*

When Alora sets foot on the beach, I reprimand her. She apologises, then sulks. Emmanuelle says goodbye and heads home to her new husband.

I yank free a thick towel from my sister’s bag and hold it out for her. It ribbons in a breeze which marks the onset of evening. Her teeth and quills chatter as she reaches for the edge of the fabric. Wrapping the towel around herself, her protrusions catch. The tip of one of her baby hip thorns tears a hole.

I sling on my old sandals. A redness spots up on my ankle where the broken strap of my footwear rubs. I think back to the sentient pain Emmanuelle spoke of, the pain which must come before pleasure—could it match the agony of lugging a wriggly, quilled and thorned child several miles home, along a beach, wrecked shoes?

I lift Alora up, her thorn spurs jabbing into my waist, and carry her home for a supper I will have to fix.

*

I prepare a simple meal. After we’ve eaten, Father slinks to his study, I tidy away dishes and instruct Alora to ready herself for bed. Then, I guide Mother to her rocker. 

“Mother.” I show her my dropped thorn. “It fell.” Mother eases herself up and grapples for the thorn in my hand. 

“We go now,” she says. 

Tonight, I will be Mother’s eyes, hers aged, milky from too much sun, and she, as tradition states, will be my chaperone. “Your loosenings are in the cloth sack. A lantern is prepped in the hallway.” She gestures at the door. “I knew by the song on the breeze, the call of migrating swans, tonight would be the night, but first, put Alora to bed.”

*

Sat on the stool in Alora’s room, I call out instructions. She brushes her teeth and quills, tidies her petals, gets into her crib. Alora’s shelf is crammed with glass jars packed with puerile booty. Green and brown seaglass chunks glisten by the light of her bedside lantern. 

“I don’t want you to go,” she says. She beckons me over, wraps her arms around my neck, and kisses me on the cheek. 

“I must.” Her arms drop as I pull away. She passes Thalia, her favourite teddy, to me. 

“I know.” She breaks eye contact, then shuffles down beneath crumpled sheets. “And I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? For what?”

A silence follows. She squirms. 

“Marmos.” Alora finally speaks “And for losing you.”

“But none of that’s your fault.” I kneel by her, and stroke the spines on her shoulders flat for comfort. “It’s inevitable. Written in the ebb and flow of the sea. My skin patternations dictate my future, as yours will for you. What’ve you to apologise for?”

“Today. At the beach.” She pauses, sobbing gently. “I took a bunch of your quills and one of your thorns from under Mother’s bed and fed them to the ocean.”

I withhold a gasp. An odd gulp emits from my throat instead. “I see.” 

“It was all I could manage in my bag pocket, in my hands,” she says, and then more firmly, “I’d have taken them all if I could.” Alora pouts and yanks the sheet back over her face. 

“That was wrong, Alora, but . . . I understand. Please sleep.” I pocket the threadbare teddy. “I’ll be back later tonight to tell you a story, if you haven’t soothed yourself.” All I hear are muffled tears as I back out of her room, shutting her door in my wake.

Trembling With Fear

 by 

Serial Saturday: Lunar Colony Seven by Georg Koszulinski, Chapter Three

  1. Serial Saturday: Lunar Colony Seven by Georg Koszulinski, Chapter One
  2. Serial Saturday: Lunar Colony Seven by Georg Koszulinski, Chapter Two
  3. Serial Saturday: Lunar Colony Seven by Georg Koszulinski, Chapter Three

Chapter Three

                                                          

A few nights ago – how many, who knows? – I was awakened at gunpoint by an angry mob of lunar workers from one of the lower wards. My first thought was Boško was dead. Damn. I liked him a lot. A great sense of humor and loyal to the death. No way he’d let these fucks in here. He’d have to be dead. This was a very bad situation I was coming into but I had the thought this could be worked out. I’ve had my share of crises to deal with and this was just going to be another one for the books. These fuckers were going to have to die. No question about it.

 These unmen probably figured out their comrades weren’t dying in surface accidents. I mean, they were, but these accidents were planned by yours truly so I could keep the remaining colony functioning at its optimal best. Increase caloric surplus, decrease mouths to feed, and do all this as systems became more automated, reducing the need for human work hours. It was simple math, people. Nothing personal. There was an elegance to my plan and it produced maximum joy. 

My math aligned with an accident rate that shouldn’t have raised any eyebrows, so what happened? I was taking on the burden required of me as leader of this lunar colony, as its founder and visionary. I know how that must sound. Visionary. It’s politically incorrect to call oneself visionary, isn’t it? But what else do you call it? As the person trying to protect these people from the realities of what had presumably happened on Earth, as the only person with the moral courage to do the things that needed doing, I stayed true to the vision. 

So I told them a lie. Not just any lie. The lie they needed to hear. It was a lie that kept them happy and secure, and living the best possible life on the Moon. The whole human civilization project was founded on a wonderfully creative tapestry of lies. The sooner one understood that, the sooner one could go about the business of keeping it afloat. 

Leaders work with what they have. Lies are a tool like any other. Slave away in this life, paradise in the next. For God and country. Make California great again. You know the deal. Very simple stories. Very effective. They were clearly beginning to wear off down here in the crater. But goddammit, progress is one grand narrative, and the lies are what keep us charging forward. 

Forge On.

Fiction is for losers, people who lack the vision and the balls to let their stories run free. Fiction is a failure of imagination. I was making history here. The simple story I gave them, worked wonders: 

Something had happened on Earth, communication was down, some kind of global meltdown, but we were working on it and when things went back online, everyone would be allowed to return to Earth. Forge On.

You’re welcome. I told them we were better off up here while this crisis, whatever it was, passed. Forge On. They asked about their families, why they couldn’t make connections with anyone, and I actually told them the truth. Forge On. Your families are most likely dead. We had to just remain calm, count our lucky stars, and wait for the systems to come back online and everyone would be able to return to Earth in an orderly way, once it was safe. You got it: Forge On. It had the monosyllabic symphonics of fuck you or fuck off, which wasn’t by accident. Forge On. It helped when I listened to their incessant complaining and I could just calmly say, ‘forge on,’ and be thinking, ‘fuck off,’ all in the same breathe. 

So your family was dead. Forge On. 

That was a pill they could swallow and none of these people really cared about family anyway. A lot of these surface colonists were men, socially incapable, had multiple families, young women that birthed them healthy children. They pretended to care about them because it was part of the story, and I rode along right there with them. We write it together and everything works out just fine. Multi-authored future. Forge on, you fucks. What more do you want from me? 

And now these animals are asking me to write a message here claiming I’m being held prisoner. No doubt they think this will serve as some kind of ransom letter. I’m typing it out with one hand here, and they almost certainly think this can be used as leverage to get what they want from Earth, trading me for the rockets and supplies that they need to get back home. The idiots have no idea what’s going on. It’s not their fault. I had them working the ice processors deep inside the South Pole, about as far away from Earth as you could get, literally kept them in the dark year-round.

My second thought, after realizing my head of security was kaput, as I was waking up from deep sleep with all these unmen in my room, was what these brown-skinned lower-ward workers were doing in my face and how had they gotten a hold of my prized collection of Smith & Wesson revolvers? Second and third thoughts, I guess. Those babies were tucked away in my private reserves, locked tight and only brought out on special celebrations, or on the rare occasions when I thought I might need to blow someone’s head off. It was part of my lunar cowboy persona. Never had to use them, but that was the point of having them. The animals had drugged me heavy. How long had they been here? Had they drunk all my whiskey? Fuckers.

Before I could ask what was going on or how they got my prized revolvers out of the reserves, I felt a sharp pain shoot up my right arm and saw my hand had been cut off at the wrist, neatly cauterized and completely exposed, the flesh around my nub inflamed red and charred black at the edges. Reflexively, I tried to scream but could barely breathe, let alone utter a sound. Fucking animals. They could have taken the tip of my index finger and gotten in just as well. 

Sick mother fucks.

The tranquilizers they’d given me were still in heavy effect, and I just stared at the nub and back at the angry mob stomping around my master’s quarters and the .44 magnum Smith & Wesson that killed Jesse James dancing right up in my face. My favorite fucking firearm pointed at my head by some skinny brown-skinned puke that I would have gladly murdered right then and there if I had faculties over my body. He was yelling something in Arabic. They were all yelling but I couldn’t hear anything. My legs and the good arm were chained to the bed. I could feel the resistance and the cold steel around my wrist and ankles because I was lunging for the guy’s throat with my swollen nub, the one with my Jesse James murder weapon. These idiots were so fucked. 

Now they were laughing hysterically. I think I must have said, because I remember thinking it, Boško, please kill these lower-ward slaves now. Get these fucks out of my fucking face. This is completely unacceptable, do you hear me? They were laughing and I think it was somewhere in that moment that I pissed myself, really let go, thinking these animals were going to kill me right then and there. Over the course of the last decade they had learned to speak English. Why not? Part of the genius of this colony was using language as a kind of keycode, English at the top, Spanish for the servant class, Arabic and really any other leftover immigrant population language at the bottom. 

But then a rational thought entered my brain. 

They were keeping me alive for something. Taking my hand had showed their hand, so to speak. They wanted me alive. I still had some cards to play.

As I scratch out this message locked away somewhere in the storage lockers deep within one of the lower wards – which one, I have no clue – I feel pity for these animals because the order and life I’ve provided these people is about to come crashing down hard. There is no ransom letter that’s going to get them off this rock. They could have had a life here under my supervision. That’s a fact. The last decade proved that to be the case. I had enough dehydrated protein and food rations to last me and the seventh colony a lifetime. Probably more, actually. So what if I supplemented those reserves with the occasional laborer, for fresh meat. There was no way they were all going to live anyway, and our resources were limited. We’re on the fucking Moon lockdown budget here, you know? 

Two hundred thousand calories extracted from a body up here is worth more than all the platinum and gold on Earth, you feel me? And did I hoard all those calories for myself? Of course not. I didn’t even take any for myself, just a taste to make sure the chefs were hitting their culinary marks. I took pleasure in the performance. The meals were the way to keep the English-speakers in order and that was enough for me. This was in the name of science. We never lost a day on the lunar arrays. Knowledge of the universe was expanding at a rate never before known in human history. It’s basic Dusky Seaside Sparrow logic I was applying here. 

I spread those precious calories and minerals evenly amongst the fine folks in Lunar Colony Seven. They paid me fortunes to keep them safe, sound, and most importantly happy, and that’s what I did. I was doing my job, fulfilling my contractual obligations to the shareholders who elected me. This was a democracy. I owned the companies, but they elected me to run them! It was practically in the contracts that you could be turned into food, and the unmen doing the work down here knew what they were getting into when they signed on the line.

They could have remained on Earth and starved away. No one twisted their arms. Nice slow deaths back on Earth, and I’m not even talking about whatever happened there at the end. At least up here they got to experience the Moon, walk its surface once a month, maybe, and know they were advancing the human race. They were a part of history in the grandest sense, like sailors on Columbus’s voyages, or the first people to walk across the Bering Strait. Did they think I would hand-hold them the entire time? 

I remember Carol saying once, all in a ‘theoretical proposition’ kind of way – her words, not mine – as a theoretical proposition, cannibalism is a deeply unethical and illegal act, and discussing it in any practical sense is both distressing and inappropriate. Well, fuck you, Carol. Did you really think there were that many ducks up here in the Seventh Colony? Really? Duck à L’Orange. Pan-Seared Duck Breast with Blackberry Sauce – blackberry sauce! Crispy-skinned duck breast served with a rich blackberry reduction, accompanied by sautéed greens and mashed potatoes. You’re welcome, Carol! Duck Confit. Slow-cooked duck leg preserved in its own fat, served with crispy potatoes and a side of frisée salad. Are you getting the picture yet, Carol? Duck Breast with Cherry Port Sauce. Great choice. Peking Duck. Duck Ravioli with Sage Brown Butter. The list goes on, Carol. 

You had a good life while I was in charge. With the animals out of their cages, I expect the lies to become naked again. Soon enough you’ll be eating each other right out of the rib cages, you know what I mean? I gave you all a gift. Shackleton Crater and all the colonies will shit the bed when you kill me. So sure, send this letter back to Earth. Stick it up your asses for all I care. No one is coming to save you because nobody is home. The real joke is, even if the world were spinning as it always had, who did they think was going to pay to keep me alive? Who did they think I was? So, Carol, when they eat you, I just have one question: I wonder if you’ll taste like the Duck Ragu Tagliatelle you were bitching about, or something else?

Trembling With Fear

 by 

Serial Saturday: Lunar Colony Seven by Georg Koszulinski, Chapter Two

  1. Serial Saturday: Lunar Colony Seven by Georg Koszulinski, Chapter One
  2. Serial Saturday: Lunar Colony Seven by Georg Koszulinski, Chapter Two
  3. Serial Saturday: Lunar Colony Seven by Georg Koszulinski, Chapter Three

Chapter Two

                                                          

A FRAGMENTARY HISTORY OF TERRAN CULTURE

BY NOEL RODGERS

What follows in this volume are the lecture notes I gave to the residents of Lunar Colony Seven in the first season after our connection with Earth was severed. My intentions at the time were to create a space for us to come together to celebrate Earth culture, to calm our frittered nerves, in the hopes that we would be connected again to our mother planet soon. That day has not yet come. It may never come. The fate of Earthbound humans may not be known for some time, perhaps ever. It may be up to future generations to find a way to return to Earth. The Moon is our home now, and that has to be good enough.

Many of you know I remain a committed student to Earth’s history, and the contributions my corporations made to advancing human knowledge on Earth, beneath its oceans and on other planets, is something I have dedicated my life to. Our lunar arrays, and the work many of you have advanced, has deepened our understanding of the universe, provided a clear view of the vastness of space, unencumbered by the atmospheric disturbances of Earth. Our vision from the lunar array could not be clearer, and we persist still to look deeper into the unknown, to answer the questions that persist. It is our evolutionary mandate to continue to explore and learn about our universe. In the case of space exploration, I was not content merely to be the CEO of my companies, but the captain of a colony. That decision has proven to be the wisest one I ever made.

I share the original notes in this volume, as much a lecture on scientific inquiry and the history of discovery, as a reflection of my thoughts and desires during that early period of great tumult. Please be sure to include the lecture slides when you play back this volume, for a more complete immersion into the original talk.

Yours faithfully,

Noel Rodgers, Captain, Lunar Colony Seven

Shackleton Crater, Lunar South Pole

EY 2095/LY 59

***

Hosts, Phantasms, and Phantasia. 

Good evening, lunar colonists, and welcome to tonight’s talk. I begin this lecture with the word: host. As in the host that holds the virus, the holy host, or one who hosts his guests for an exploration of Earth histories. As in hostage, someone held against their will as currency in an exchange with one’s enemies. Hosts held hostage, but to whom? In Latin, hostis. Means both friend and enemy. Hostile even. Tricky business, you see? 

As the host tonight, I welcome you into my home. As the host of a would-be virus, I would certainly not welcome such an uninvited guest. Have our people on Earth hosted an uninvited guest into their corporeal bodies? Hostile takeover? Next slide please.

Phantasms. Ghost hosts. 

Friend or enemy depends on the context. I see some pregnant mothers in the front row. Surely they could share some wisdom on this host business. The antithesis of a virus hosted inside our bodies would be a woman’s right to bear children, to host the species across time, into the future. But let us expand beyond the body, the social network of bodies, and go big, to the expanse of the universe. Next slide please.

Ptolemy created a geocentric theory of the universe perhaps the greatest anthropocentric idea in the history of humankind.  Every man is the center of his own universe, and this image was projected outward. Ptolemy’s theory lacks elegance and must be continually revised to account for the planets’ strange trajectories around the Earth. Unholy hosts. Looking back to our ancestral species, this evolutionary flaw comes to be known as Ptolemy’s curse—man’s inability to see his own folly. Next slide please.

Copernican Mind Spasms.

In 1543 Copernicus’s heliocentric theory places the sun at the center of the universe, with the planets revolving around it. Some say this is the beginning of modern astronomy, and of the scientific revolution. Next slide please.

Invisible Adversaries.

Ninety-nine per cent of light and the electromagnetic spectrum is invisible to the human eye. For our species to progress, we needed instruments that could render the invisible visible. Next slide please.

Mapping Time.

The Soviet filmmaker, Dziga Vertov, calls the cinema the microscope and telescope of time. He was among the first philosophers to explore the archeopsychic realm, to truly understand the power of the cinema to cross grand time scales into the past and future. To enter our minds through the conscious hallucinations that the cinema brought to bear. Proto-feed was born. Next slide please.

Sensorial Overload.

Aristotle places phantasia between sensory perception and reason: “thinking is carried out by means of images, and the images have to be provided by the imagination”. Imagination becomes the engine of thought, a means of lubricating the harsh contact points between external sensorium and inner vision. “Imagination alone contains poetry,” and, “Imagination is the most scientific of the faculties”. For Baudelaire, imagination is what makes both synthesis and analysis possible. Next slide please.

Universe Man.

Ah, a man after my own heart: Giordano Bruno, philosopher, poet, magician, mathematician, astronomer. Believing magic was the result of phantasmic images, he dreamed the feed before it was born. Extended the conceptual theories of the Copernican model of cosmology. Giordano was among the first to claim the universe was infinite. He was burned alive at the stake for his heretical views, for which he was unapologetic to the end, even as the flames consumed his mortal core. Next slide please.

“It is not surprising that man, burdened with obsolete ‘knowledge’—his spontaneous reflexing conditioned only by past experience, and as of yet unable to realize himself as being already a world man—fails to comprehend and cope logically with the birth of Universe Man.”  R Buckminster Fuller, Utopia of Oblivion, 1969. Big year for mankind! Next slide please.

Time Travels through the Light Machine.

Edwin Hubble works in total darkness to adjust his eyes to the starlight. He fixes his gaze on the Andromeda Galaxy and three candidate novae, one being a Cepheid—a star that pulsates. The length of the pulse betrays its actual luminance, and its visible luminance when measured against its actual luminance betrays the star’s distance from Earth. Tonight the most significant photograph in the history of humankind will be taken.

It is October 4, 1923. Next slide please.

Documenting Terran Bio Destruction.

Many of Earth’s thinkers recognized the destructive nature of their species, and a form of salvage biology was conducted by its most radical thinkers. In 1843, botanist Anna Atkins published a collection of images, documenting Terran plants and algae. In less than two hundred Earth years, all of these species were functionally extinct. Some exist on Mars and here on the Moon but no longer live freely on Earth. It should be noted that Atkins’s work was funded by her husband’s business in the English slave trade. These tradeoffs of human suffering versus human knowledge form the bedrock of our great gains, I might add. Sometimes referred to as the Dusky Seaside Sparrow Paradox. Landing on the Moon must have been a hard pill to swallow if you were among the last of the coastal Florida sparrows. Something has to suffer for something else to gain, or the engines of progress stall. Next slide please.

Next slide please.

One solves mysteries of the universe through the trinity of observation, theoretical development, laboratory experiment.

Next slide please.

Moth Light Flame Terrain.

If splitting the atom invoked darkness, evolutionary biology would have prevented the threat of mutual destruction, nuclear holocaust, gamma radiation, unstable elements invading our bodies, the destruction of Earth systems’ ability to sustain human life. The paradox of light: mothlight. The movies, the internet, and the feed prepared industrialized society for nuclear holocaust, like the scientists who desired detonations at night. The feed prepared us for the spectacle of light against the dark, for anything is possible. Sunrise promises warmth, ruptures night, offers another chance at survival. Mastering the sun satisfies the primal evolutionary need for light, warmth, clear lines of sight, like crosshairs in a mirror! Are you with me, people? Next slide please.

Failure to Adequately Map Time.

Old-timey corporate thought patterns structured time on quarterly profits. Wrong! Profits should be structured on the hour! Time is our most valuable asset, why wait? As the Peruvian folklorists say, there is more time than life! The Soviets invented the five-year plan. Wrong! The concept of thinking seven generations ahead is said to have originated from the Great Law of the Iroquois. Okay, I concede the wisdom of this, but that is as anti-profit as it gets. 

Most Terrans tended to think on the human timescale, a lifespan, no more. The failure to think on grander timescales while also extracting profits by the second, geologic-time-real-time paradox indicates the poverty of thought that led to the destruction of the Terran noosphere, the planetary doom that was to overtake Mother Planet. Let’s not forget there’s a reason we’re living on the Moon people, and it’s not just the amazing views! Okay, let’s wrap here. I’m getting hungry. Duck Confit Crostinis with parsnips and figs, anyone? 

Trembling With Fear

 by 

Serial Saturday: Lunar Colony Seven by Georg Koszulinski, Chapter One

  1. Serial Saturday: Lunar Colony Seven by Georg Koszulinski, Chapter One
  2. Serial Saturday: Lunar Colony Seven by Georg Koszulinski, Chapter Two
  3. Serial Saturday: Lunar Colony Seven by Georg Koszulinski, Chapter Three

Chapter One

                                                          

A scruffy-looking man wearing a white undershirt and white shorts and thick white wool socks sat at a wooden desk with a radio receiver in his hand, held close to his mouth as he thought of his next words. Twice a day for countless years he sent a message across space, hoping to get some kind of response. None came. The man stared silently out the large window before him. In the foreground, the barren pocked moonscape disappeared into the horizon, and beyond that Planet Earth loomed large in the black expanse of the universe. 

The room was small, white-walled, and gave off a mid-century modern aesthetic with the elegant wooden desk and the three white chairs surrounding it. The walls were constructed of bricks made of lunar regolith and looked strangely similar to the walls of a 19th-century factory like one might have found on Earth in cities like Baltimore or Buffalo or Boston, or the cigarette factories in old North Carolina. The face of the desk was constructed from a single slab of multihued acacia wood, grown in the wild on the African savannahs. 

The sound of birds played through the invisible speakers embedded in the lunar bricks. A few plants with deep green ovoid leaves hung from the ceilings closest to the window, lit with artificial light that brought their lush growth into glittering focus against the cool white of the room. 

The air in the tiny room was crisp and clean. Cleaner than the air one might have breathed in Los Angeles or Mexico City or Tokyo or Beijing or Mumbai, Egypt, Vienna, Prague, Paris, Moscow, Madrid, Nairobi, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janiero, Taos, Toronto, or New York City if you were on a boat traversing the narrow waterways between the aging island skyscrapers of former Manhattan, which now belonged to the sea. You would have had to go to the far reaches of the Arctic Circle or Antarctica to find breathable air that came anywhere near as pure and clean as the air being breathed here in the white Moon room.

Deep within the lunar South Pole, on an embankment where sunlight never touched, the trapped ice was mined with large drilling machines, hundreds of them, that transported the ice to be heated in vast underground processing centers, manned by Terran refugees with engineering and aeronautical expertise who migrated from all over the world and almost never saw the surface of the moon, never saw natural light, never saw stars, never saw a smiling face, the landscape of the human soul. Only water and ice. And the pipes that led to the above-ground lunar colonies where the first- and second-class colonists lived and worked. The workers’ living quarters were deeper still, beneath the platforms where they worked in their waking hours. These were the unmen who kept the lunar colony afloat.

The heated ice transformed into vast amounts of water, pumped in through underground channels to electrolysis stations where the water split into hydrogen and oxygen, or viaducts that fed the greenhouse crops where the sun reached, or the lunar waterworks where drinking water and lakes and pools made life pleasurable for the surface colonists. Aquatic life existed in some of those waterworks above, and the colonists enjoyed watching them through the transparent walls of their tanks. 

Some of the subterranean pipes led to the rocket fuel processing centers. Others led many kilometers away to the lunar colonies above, where the breathable air extracted from ancient moon water was breathed and enjoyed by the lunar citizens of Earth. None of the colonists knew what had happened on Earth, so they continued to process the ice, produce the rocket fuel, drink the pure water, and breathe the clean lunar-manufactured air. Life on the Moon continued without disruption, despite the reality that they could not return to Earth, could not communicate with their home planet, could not answer any of the questions that had plagued them for almost a decade. 

The air pumped into the small white room overlooking Planet Earth, and the man at the desk continued staring into the vastness of space. A system many kilometers away and hundreds of meters below the lunar regolith kept this room in a state of perfect comfort and stasis, with the purest air one could ever hope to breathe. The value of this air here in Shackleton Crater on the Earth’s only moon was immeasurable. Without it, all the colonists would be dead within a matter of minutes. 

The man breathed the lunar air and enjoyed the gravity processors that kept his body tethered to the moon like a normal human being, not one of the unmen below who floated and bounced on the moon’s light gravity, their bones and muscles weakening and atrophying to the point where to return to Earth would crush their bodies, render them immobile. They were trapped processing the lunar ice until the end of their lives. There seemed to be no escape from this reality. Not even sunlight on the lunar surface to calm their nerves.

On the wall opposite the large window hung a number of priceless artworks, among them a small drawing of six symmetrical moons, framed in an ornate wooden rectangle. The drawing depicted detailed sketches of the moon in various phases of light, some checkered white on black squares, others floating orbs on the white paper. The sketches were highly detailed and could be read both as an object of study and an aesthetic rendering of Earth’s moon. The drawings, encased behind glass, were sketched by none other than Galileo Galilei himself in 1609 after having viewed the moon through his telescope. Here, those drawings were now staring back at the Earth itself from across the glass. 

Next to Galileo’s drawings, the imposing canvas of Jan Vermeer’s The Geographer hung. On the large canvas, a man stood hunched over his maps, facing the lit window of his painted world. Looked at from just the right angle, it was as if the man in the painting were staring out the glass window in the room, gazing out towards a distant Earth. 

In the far corner of the room, shrouded in shadow, an Egyptian sarcophagus laden in gold stood sentinel, and next to it, a grayed stone carving of the Egyptian goddess, Sakhmet. Her slender humanoid form was topped with the head of a lioness crowned with an orb above her head, the stilled image of the moon floating above the goddess of violence, disaster, and illness. Behind the sarcophagus and behind Sakhmet, hanging on the wall, was a blackboard. On the blackboard, this formula was hastily written out in chalk:

Beneath the chalkboard on a small white card affixed to the wall, the words ‘Einstein’s Chalkboard’ were neatly typed out in black 12-point Times New Roman font.

The man at the desk stared out the large window in absent gaze. His eyes were not focused on the moonscape, or the Earth beyond, only out into space. The man broke his trance, reached for a leaf, broke it off, and chewed on it slowly. He clicked the radio on and began to speak.

Hello? This is Noel Rodgers, is anybody home? Do you read me? I repeat, this is Noel Rodgers of Lunar Colony Seven. Do you read?

The man took a deep breath and swallowed.

He looked down on Earth and asked himself the same thing he had been asking for years, without ever getting a satisfactory answer: what have you done down there? 

Just then the intercom kicked on, muting the birds. A man spoke with a heavy Eastern European accent.

Mr. Rodgers, are you there? We’re about to start season two, Breaking Bad. Classic American television. Best stuff. Only gets better after first season. Should I tell them wait for you?

Rodgers put down the radio, grabbing another leaf from the hanging plant and shoving it in his mouth. He took a deep breath, stretched his arms, broke out of his inquisitive state.

Tell them I’ll be right there.

Very good, sir. We wait. 

The intercom clicked off and the birds resumed their song.

Trembling With Fear

 by 

Serial Saturday: A Touch of Fear by Zach Grant, Chapter Four

  1. Serial Saturday: A Touch of Fear by Zach Grant, Chapter One
  2. Serial Saturday: A Touch of Fear by Zach Grant, Chapter Two
  3. Serial Saturday: A Touch of Fear by Zach Grant, Chapter Three
  4. Serial Saturday: A Touch of Fear by Zach Grant, Chapter Four

Chapter Four

                                                          

“You have to let me in, Alan. I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”

Liz leans forward in her plush armchair and places a hand on my knee. Her soft green eyes emanate warmth, and her sharp chin wrinkles as she smiles.

“I can’t…” I mutter. “I can’t put that on you.”

“You’re my brother,” she insists. “If they’re hurting you, I need to know. Are they hurting you, Alan?”

I shrink into the couch and shake my head. She scowls, and the scene shifts. 

My arms are bound to the chair as a body is thrust before me—a young man, maybe twenty years old, with a stab wound in his abdomen. 

“Go ahead, Alan,” purrs Dr. Heart. “Do the ritual.”

They position the man under my cuffed hand so that I can touch his skin. I sob, salty tears pooling under my tongue. They tighten the restraints and I yelp. Sniffing, I swallow my tears and utter the choice words:

“Grant me permission to see—to share in your pain. Allow me into your soul so I might catch the one who did this to you.”

“How dare you!” shouts a woman in the background. It’s Liz being held by Dr. Li in the corner. 

“What do you feel, Alan?” asks Dr. Heart. “Are you scared? Is it you or the victim?”

I writhe and cry, trying to stop the reel of emotions that flicks through my brain—images of Liz mixed with the dead man’s fear, depression, and defeat. 

“You can’t do this,” Liz shouts. “I’ll call the police. You…”

Her voice wavers in and out of focus. The man’s final moments still echo through my body like an electric shock. 

“You can’t,” Dr. Li retorts. “We had a deal. You signed.”

“Screw your deal, you’re torturing my brother!”

“Alan,” Dr. Heart whispers as Liz continues to shout. “Please speak to your sister. She must calm down, or things are going to get complicated.”

“L-Liz,” I managed through my chattering teeth. “It’s okay. Don’t make them angry.”

I can barely see her face as it lingers just out of focus. But she’s shaking her head and trying to wrench herself free. 

“No!” she shouts. “You guys are monsters, you…”

I snap back to the warehouse as quickly as I left. Deja vu strikes harder than a bus as my hands remain bound against a wooden chair. Rachel is next to me, her mouth gagged and eyes wide with fear. 

“You’re back,” muses a familiar voice. Dr. Tyler rises from a small desk. She resembles her photo on the fourth floor—rounded face with piercing blue eyes and short black hair—but with additional age lines, as if carved through her skin with a scalpel. 

“Dr. Tyler?” I ask. “I assume you’re our killer.”

“Killer?” She scoffs. “I am the greatest mind of our generation.”

She drags her chair in front of me and sits so we’re face to face. 

“My, you’ve grown up since those videos,” she says, prodding my cheek with her sharp pencil. 

“Right,” I say. “You had a lot of those on your computer.”

I glance at Rachel again, who looks surprisingly calm. She must trust me to get her out of this. It’s not the prospect of death or being back in the chair again that makes my heart race. It’s her life at risk. 

“I’ve spent a long time studying you,” she says. “The others did the hard work, but their vision died when you left. It was up to me to continue their legacy.”

“And what legacy would that be?” I ask. 

She spreads her arms as if addressing a large crowd. “Fear,” she says. 

She rises from her chair and begins to pace. 

“Is fear really a weakness?” she poses. “Or is it a strength? You work with emotions, Alan, you tell me.”

I’m not in the mood for a psychology lesson, but keeping her talking is the only thing preventing my partner’s death. I remember Lara’s poster: “Fear: Poison or Prosperity.”

“Both,” I say.

“Indeed.” She claps her hands. “Fear is what drives our survival instinct. We needed fear to evolve fight or flight, yes? But what about all that useless fear that still lingers? The anxiety that drives modern society. See, that’s where fear becomes poison. What we need is an antidote.”

She pulls a thin syringe from the breast pocket of her lab coat. I’m so fixated on the instrument that all thoughts of escape drain from my brain.

“What do you mean, antidote?” I ask. 

“Haven’t you wondered what you felt when you touched Lara Henderson? I figured that you wouldn’t understand. If you did, you may have put it together faster.” She flicks the empty syringe. 

The terror re-enters my mind—a sensation of being dragged through the worst moments of her life all at once, just like the memories I experienced only moments ago. 

“You’re making a vaccine,” I manage. “Forcing people to re-live the worst moments of their lives, then harvesting their fear.”

“Look at you.” She grins. Her icy eyes dance like marionettes in the moonlight. “They said you were smart. Yes, I believe that a microdose of liquid terror would help our bodies cure themselves of fear once and for all. Humans will become limitless.”

“But why me?” I ask. “Your notes said I was the final piece. Why?”

“I thought that was the most obvious part,” she says. “From the start, I’ve been laying clues, Alan. After the terror gave Lara a heart attack, I wouldn’t have left her body in the street if I didn’t want your attention. I needed you here because you are the key. Your fear is unique because of all the outside emotions you’ve experienced. When I extract it from you, it will be the catalyst for my reaction.” She flicks the syringe again. “If you don’t mind, of course.” Tyler giggles at her joke, making my stomach churn. 

My mind works overtime trying to figure out a way around the end. Once she pricks me with that needle, we’ve served our purpose. I think I have a way, but it requires time. 

“This wasn’t your idea, though,” I say, slowly rubbing my wrist against the ropes. 

“What do you mean?” she snaps. 

“Wasn’t it Lara’s? I saw her poster. Seemed like excellent work.”

Dr. Tyler snarls and storms back to her desk. “Lara had no clue what she was talking about,” she says. “She was working under me. They were my ideas.”
 “So, why’d you kill her?”

“I didn’t kill her. Well, I guess I committed the act, but her ridiculous passion got her killed. She went digging where she wasn’t supposed to—learned about my plan, and you. So, I used her for my experiment.”

“Have there been others?” I ask. “Other people you’ve killed? Victims who died of fear?”

She nods. “A scientist with one subject isn’t bound to succeed. Lara was simply made public as my beckon to you.”

I keep sawing at my bonds, hoping Dr. Tyler remains at her desk. But the purpose of her trip becomes apparent when she snatches a note and marches back, shoving it in my face. 

“Proof,” she says, “that it was my idea first.”

I don’t bother reading the theories or scribbled formulas. Dr. Tyler just gave me all the information I need to widdle out of this. 

“Okay, sure, it’s you now,” I say. “But you weren’t there when I was being researched. You didn’t actually witness my abilities; you watched them on a TV screen. If anything, the other three doctors are at least equal in the discovery.”

As suspected, her pride gets the better of her. She growls and punches me in the face. I feel blood trickle from my nose. The metallic taste graces my tongue. 

“You really want them to get credit?” she snarls. “After what they did to your sister.”

I hear Rachel struggle as the doctor hits me again. I avoid my friend’s eyes. I don’t want to see how scared she is or how disappointed I didn’t tell her about Liz. 

“I have an answer for you,” I say through a mouthful of blood. “About fear. It’s not poison. Liz was scared for me, and that’s what made her so kind. I was terrified of those doctors, but I use that fear now to do good. I use it as a reminder of my responsibility to help people, even though I couldn’t help her. You would know what kind of person I am if you’d been there.”

She leans in, her eyes dark with rage. 

“You would also know that they bound my hands every night,” I say. “You think I’d go that long without learning a few tricks?” I grin and spew blood into her open eyes. As she stumbles back, I flip my chair onto its side. I grit my teeth in preparation for the pain. Then, I apply pressure and feel my thumb snap. I wrench my hand free just as Tyler bounds towards me. In one hand is the syringe, in the other, a thin blade. She pins me to the floor, knife to my throat. 

“Do you feel the fear?” she hisses. “Let me take it from you.”

She plows the syringe into my arm. In my desperation, I reach into her pocket to find the pencil she flicked me with. With no other option, I jam it into her neck. I close my eyes as the weight of her limp body sags on my weak shoulder. As the life leaves her, her skin presses against my broken hand and I can’t help but recite the sacred words, as I absorb her final moments.

***

“You okay, Alan?”

Rachel shoves through the crowd of officers who have been showering me with questions about how I killed Dr. Tyler. Even though my abilities didn’t save me, I’m still their magician putting on a good show. They disperse when my partner arrives and wraps me in a hug tight enough to suffocate a large bear. 

“I’m good,” I say. “How are you?”

“Alive.” She chuckles and squeezes me tighter. “Jesus, Alan. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“Everything that’s happened to you. I never knew.”

She releases me, a look of guilt and grief in her eyes, like I’m a wounded animal she doesn’t know how to address.

“I didn’t want to burden you,” I say. “Last time I did that, it was to my sister. And that didn’t end well.”

“What happened?” Rachel asks. “You promised to tell.”

I sigh. “When I was fourteen, our family was struggling. The doctors wanted to research my abilities, so the government set up a confidential contract allowing their experiments for compensation.”

“That can’t have been allowed,” says Rachel. 

I shake my head. “The original contract was never meant to include any of the experiments they ran down the line. The compensation wasn’t enough. When my parents passed, and it was just me and Liz, we needed the money. So, when the doctors offered an under-the-table deal, we took it. That’s when the torture began.”

“God, Alan,” she whispers. “I can’t even imagine…”

“I’m not done,” I say. “I was so scared of the doctors. I never told Liz what they were doing because I knew she would get upset. We needed the money, and I was also afraid they’d hurt her if she confronted them. But one day, I gave in and I explained how they forced dead bodies upon me like meals, and made me re-live their final moments and…” I trail off and clear my throat. “Anyway, one day, they brought Liz to the lab for a special test. They wanted to see how my body would react to my own fear—seeing Liz in danger while experiencing someone else’s, a dead man’s. Liz lost her mind. I was told I needed to calm her down before she breached the contract. I tried, but I couldn’t do it. I was so scared I could barely talk. And when I woke up, Liz was gone.”

“G-gone?” Rachel squeaks. 

“The doctors said a fire broke out in all the chaos.” I shrug. “But I think the truth is pretty obvious. I told them I’d never go back—that I’d call the police if they ever came near me again. I was the greatest scientific discovery of the decade. They weren’t about to kill me. I wish I realized that sooner.” I lean against a police car and massage my aching temples. “I felt her body, you know—Liz. I went through her final moments. She was so scared and angry. But beyond all, there was a sense of loyalty I’ve felt in no other victim. So, that’s when I accepted my responsibility. I spent the next fifteen years becoming who I am today. And I swore that no one would ever see me afraid again.”

“And that’s why you never told me,” says Rachel. 

I nod. 

“Alan, I…”

I hold up a hand and allow myself a smile. She looks so much like Liz in this moment—her rageful eyes and proud posture, like she’s ready to take on the world for me. I clap her on the shoulder. 

“Don’t apologize,” I say. “It’s in the past.”

She rolls her eyes and smiles back. “You really take no pity, Alan. Won’t even let me be sorry for you.”

“Nope.”

We laugh, and the joy in her eyes is enough to tell me I did the right thing. 

“At least let me be there for you,” she says. “Promise you’ll talk to me from now on.”

“Okay,” I say. “You’ve earned that. Coffee?”

She snorts and looks up at the moon. “Sure, why not? Can I ask you something first?”

“Go ahead.”

She shifts on her heels, the purple bruises on her cheek shining in the white glow of the night. 

“Did you feel Tyler’s final moments?” she asks.

I incline my head. 

“And?”

I follow her gaze to the moon and stars above—the same stars I cursed every night I was dragged to the lab. The sky I screamed at when Liz was taken, and poured my fear into after every case since. 

“She was scared.”

Trembling With Fear

 by 

Serial Saturday: A Touch of Fear by Zach Grant, Chapter Three

  1. Serial Saturday: A Touch of Fear by Zach Grant, Chapter One
  2. Serial Saturday: A Touch of Fear by Zach Grant, Chapter Two
  3. Serial Saturday: A Touch of Fear by Zach Grant, Chapter Three
  4. Serial Saturday: A Touch of Fear by Zach Grant, Chapter Four

Chapter Three

                                                          

I had hoped never to return to the university in my lifetime. As I approach in the dead of night, memories of guards and their strong arms wrap themselves around me like handcuffs. Sometimes, I wish those experiments never ended. That way, the accident wouldn’t have happened. She’d still be here. 

I follow the familiar route to the side entrance, locked by a fob scanner. A quick stop at home had allowed me to pick up the copy I made ten years ago when I managed to steal one from the head doctor. The punishment for my theft was twelve hours of searing pain, but those appear to have paid off. I scan the old fob, and with a flash of green, I’m in. 

The stairwell to the fourth-floor lab remains painfully similar to my day. Purple flowers speckle the off-white paint, leading up towards my agony. I focus on my feet, one step at a time, as I forge my path to the grand laboratory. The stairs open to a large plaque that’s new to me. The glass is clear with fine navy letters naming the researchers on the floor.

 

Dr. Ivory White

Dr. Desmond Li

Dr. Richard Heart

Dr. Brie Tyler

 

Pictures are displayed next to their titles, each smiling in a frustratingly professional manner. I recognize all but Dr. Tyler, who must have been hired after my time. I resist the urge to spit on the plaque and continue down the hall to the lab and offices. I peek into each dark room, my badge ready in the event of any caretakers or night dwellers. For all I know, the doctors have another subject they’re torturing once the moon rises. As I creep down the hall, a poster catches my eye—a research project by none other than Lara Henderson, dated a few years back. A bold title sits above the cluster of neuronal diagrams and charts: 

Fear: Poison or Prosperity? 

I scan the text for anything helpful in solving the author’s murder—any illicit references or backhanded comments towards faculty or research organizations. There’s nothing of the sort. It just appears to be a fine project about whether fear is useful in developing the human mind. I can certainly attest to its usefulness in solving murder cases, though I suspect that’s not what Lara had in mind. 

All that remains is the large oak door at the end of the passage—a door that’s plagued my nightmares for the past fifteen years. I draw my revolver, the metal cool against my sweaty palm. My breath comes in short rasps as I edge toward the lab entrance. My legs tremble and beg me to turn back or to call Rachel and insist she join me—anything to avoid entering that room alone. But I drain all anxiety from my brain with an image of Lara’s sightless eyes. It’s my responsibility to do this for her. I push open the door. 

The main lab is just as I remember it—normal. Standard benches poke from the walls, with shelves bending under stacks of pipette tips, beakers, and solutions labelled in black felt marker. The pungent stench of ethanol lingers as if someone recently disinfected the entire workspace. This is where the students do their work and, most likely, where Lara spends her days. But the door into the back is where I’m most familiar. 

The hidden laboratory is a freakish display of machines pulled straight from a horror movie. Long hospital beds and chairs with restraints sit beside large devices with nodes sticking out like strands of hair, slithering along the dark floor. A desk is situated near the back, where I picture the doctors sitting and observing my strapped body—listening to my screams of terror. There’s a wall of cubbies to my right, empty now, but that used to hold the dead bodies that they would force upon me. Corpse after corpse, they would flash at me, forcing me to relive hundreds of final moments—thousands of emotions evoked by every method of death imaginable. The despair re-enters my mind, as if it never left, weighing so hard on my soul that I stumble into a rolling bed. I take a deep breath and wipe the tears from my eyes. Now is no time to cry. 

I wade through the equipment to the main desk, scattered with notes. I refuse to sit where they’ve sat and choose to stand over the workspace as I inspect the scrawls. They don’t make much sense—just observations and ideas about fear and its roots. But there is one note that proves useful—a password. I enter it into the desk computer to discover folders of notes and videos. The first I see is labelled “Alan River.”

My finger hovers over the mousepad. Afternoon coffee creeps up my throat, stinging my tongue with acid and vomit. I click the first video. 

“Please! No more. I don’t want to do this. I want Liz. Please. I want Liz!”

My blood congeals at the sounds of my fourteen-year-old voice wailing. I close my eyes and exit the file before I can see anything else. Then I vomit into the trash can. Blood rushes to my head. My eyes pop from their sockets as tears and saliva drain down my chin. 

“Get ahold of yourself, Alan,” I mutter. “Find Lara.”

It takes all my strength to look back at the screen. I work some computing magic to locate the most recent open tab, or rather video. This one is labelled “Henderson.” 

I watch through squinted eyes as Lara screams at the top of her lungs. She’s strapped to the bed, her eyes closed with nodes protruding from her hair. A woman stands above her, inserting something into her victim’s arm. It’s the needle of a syringe. I can’t see her face when the doctor turns, but I’d know three of the four with my eyes closed. It isn’t any of them, which means it must be Dr. Tyler. 

I shut down the computer and scour the notes one last time. They’re all gibberish. I curse and swipe them from the table, blood pounding in my ears. Then, I spot one on the floor. It’s simple, only two sentences. But the few words still scare me worse than anything I’ve seen so far. 

 

It all comes back to River. He is the final piece. 

 

I scramble to dial Rachel’s number. Each ring hits me with a train of terror as my heart beats like a racehorse. She doesn’t answer. I call again, and this time someone picks up. 

“Rachel!” I stammer. “This is so messed up, you will never believe…” But I’m interrupted by an unfamiliar hiss that does not belong to my friend. 

“Hello, Alan. Solved the case already?”

I freeze as my ears buzz. “Who is this?” I demand. 

“I think you know. I need you, Alan. Stop poking around my lab. I think it’s time we had a little chat in person. Sending you the details. Come alone, or she dies.”

The line cuts to static. I’ve never heard that voice before, but I can guess who it belongs to. The same person I just saw in the video—the one at the bottom of the plaque, and the name of the Supervisor on Lara Henderson’s poster. Dr. Brie Tyler.

***

My sister Liz taught me more than anyone about the consequences of being afraid. Dr. Tyler has my only friend, and I’m frozen with fear, just like I was that day all those years ago—the day of the accident. The difference is that I refuse to remain paralyzed today. I swore an oath to Liz, and it’s about time I kept it. 

Tyler summons me to a warehouse thirty minutes out of town. I inform the department, but I have a head start, meaning that if Tyler bests me before they arrive, Rachel and I might both be done for. Perhaps it’s for the best, as her instructions were to come alone, but if I can’t beat her, we’re screwed.

The warehouse in question is the most stereotypical hideout I’ve ever seen. Graffiti decorates the exterior with painted murals depicting blood, bodies, and murder. A rather gruesome scene of a woman screaming sends a shiver down my back despite the warm summer breeze. I replace the paint with chalk drawings in my mind, imagining Liz colouring all over the grotesque designs. The thought gives me strength as I plow into danger.

The inside is dark and damp, with boxes stacked in sky-high piles, creating a cardboard maze. Mould clings to the corners and ceiling, spreading like leaking oil. I wind through the labyrinth, gun in hand, ready to shoot at every turn. The stench of rot, blood, and decay infiltrates my nostrils to join the aroma of fear. A small light peeks from the final turn. I raise my gun, but the force comes from behind. A figure emerges from the shadows. I see the whites of her wide eyes before everything goes dark.

Trembling With Fear

 by 

Serial Saturday: A Touch of Fear by Zach Grant, Chapter Two

  1. Serial Saturday: A Touch of Fear by Zach Grant, Chapter One
  2. Serial Saturday: A Touch of Fear by Zach Grant, Chapter Two
  3. Serial Saturday: A Touch of Fear by Zach Grant, Chapter Three
  4. Serial Saturday: A Touch of Fear by Zach Grant, Chapter Four

Chapter Two

                                                          

As the emotional necromancer of the police department, everyone expects me to have power over fear—to reach deep into my soul and extinguish any sign of anxiety that comes with the job. My relationship with fear has taken years to establish, and by no means am I void of the pestering bug. Years of scouring neurobiological research to understand the workings of the human mind, coupled with my dives into the hearts of dead victims has granted me important perspective. Whatever fear I feel is no match to the terror of someone seconds from death. 

When I flashback to the lab—the experiments—I remind myself that it’s nothing compared to the dead. My pain doesn’t come close to comparing to those I read. So, when we arrive at Conrad Henderson’s home, I shove my anxiety from my mind and focus on Lara.

It takes three knocks for Conrad to open the door. The bags under his bloodshot eyes and the slight tremble of his hand might seem like grief to some, but I know better. The signs of regret are all too familiar.
“Hello, Mr. Henderson,” says Rachel. “I’m Detective Hillcrest, and this is Detective River. We’re here to talk to you about your sister.”

Conrad doesn’t ask for ID. He just nods and allows us into his dank living room. The stench of beer and sadness fills the space. Mysterious stains laden his small couch, which is atop a faded rug and most certainly infested by pests. I avoid his offer to sit, leaning against his kitchen counter instead. Rachel follows suit. 

“What do you wanna know?” he grunts. 

“Is it correct that you reported Lara missing yesterday at around three?” asks Rachel, taking out her notepad. 

“Yeah.” He rubs his nose and looks longingly at an open bottle on his coffee table. 

“You can have a drink after we’re gone,” I say. 

Conrad wrinkles his brow. “What else?”

“You reported her missing yesterday, yet claimed she’d be gone for two days prior. Can you explain that?”

Conrad shifts uneasily, his eyes on me. I hadn’t noticed my balled fists. 

“I didn’t know until two days ago,” he says. “The university called and said she’d missed work two days in a row. Asked if I knew where she was. Assumed she was just home sick or something.”

“Did you try to contact her?” I ask. 

“Obviously,” he drawls. “When she didn’t answer for twenty-four hours, I called you guys. I don’t see the problem. She doesn’t live here, so how the hell am I supposed to know what happened?”

“What did she do at the university?” asks Rachel. “Was she a student?”

Conrad shakes his head. “Lab assistant. Worked under a bunch of people. It made fine money but wasn’t as posh as she made it out to be.” There’s a hint of bitterness in his voice that boils my blood.

“How can you talk about her like that?” I demand. “She’s dead, and you’re going on about how she flaunted a successful career?”

Conrad glares at me, tears forming in his rugged eyes. 

“How dare you,” he spits. “Do you know how she treated me? Like a waste of space. Ever since our parents died, she never once tried to comfort me. Instead, she just shoved it down my throat how pathetic I was—how great her job was and how I’d never amount to anything like her.” His voice cracks, and he collapses onto the couch. “I loved her so much,” he mutters. “Despite everything.”

My mind is blank as I stare at the weeping man. I don’t need my ability to sense his heartbreak, grief, and overwhelming regret. My own heart sags with the weight of his tears, and my anger begins to sizzle away. 

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I say. “If it helps, I think she would have liked to apologize. I’m sure she loved you.”

Conrad looks up from his hands, cheeks dowsed. 

“How do you know?” he asks. 

I couldn’t help but reassure him, but now I have to lie. My affinity for the dead isn’t a matter of public knowledge. 

“I have a sister,” I say. “Just a guess.”

But his eyes narrow at my vague explanation. As I watch his gears turn, I wish I could take back my sentiment. 

“You’re Detective River,” he says. “Like Alan River? Did you feel my sister’s final moments?”

My heart stops. His words freeze me to the floor.

“How did you know that?” I ask.

“Lara talked about you sometimes. Said your case was fascinating—your ability to sense dead emotions or something.”

I grip the counter until my knuckles turn white. Waves of fear slam into me, clogging my lungs with thick saliva. Rachel grabs my arm.

“Alan? What is it?”

“We need to leave,” I mutter. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Henderson. We’re going to solve this case. For Lara.”

We leave Conrad bewildered in his rancid living room and storm back into the fresh air. 

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Rachel asks.

I pace up and down the sidewalk. My mind whirls like a Ferris wheel, with too many thoughts sliding out of reach. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. Lara Henderson experienced the worst fear of her life before it was taken from her. If she endured that, I could overcome this wave of anxiety. 

“Lara knew who I was. Knew about my ability. That’s classified information.”

“Are you saying she had connections to the police department?” asks Rachel. “Wouldn’t we know about that?”

“The department aren’t the only ones who know.” I stop pacing and round on my partner. “Lara was a lab assistant working for the university. As a teenager, they used to run experiments—classified, of course—on my abilities.”

Rachel’s eyes widen. Her next words aren’t what I expect.

“You were experimented on?” she whispers. 

In my shock, I forgot my secret from Rachel—one of many in my questionable past. I swore never to put that weight on her shoulders. At least my other secret is still safe.

“Yes,” I say. “Do you know what this means? It means that she worked for the people who studied me.”

From Rachel’s stiff shoulders and worn face, it’s obvious she wants to question me about my childhood. I shoot her a sharp look, and she concedes.

“What does that imply?” she asks. “How does that help us?”

“It means that Lara could have known other things, too. Perhaps things that a lab assistant isn’t supposed to know.”

“You’re saying someone had her killed?”

I run my fingers through my tangled hair. I witnessed the signing of the NDAs, and the analyses ran in the dead of night to avoid lingering eyes. They were some of the worst months of my life—all to study the grand magician with his unholy powers. I remember the disgust in their eyes—the fascination but also the disapproval that anyone like me could exist. But the most terrifying memories were their faces. Even though I couldn’t see into their souls, it was clear how far they would go to push the boundaries of discovery—how far they’d go to protect their secrets. The worst memory begins to surface, but I shove it out of sight with the force of my trained mind.

“There’s only one way to find out,” I say. “We have to go to the university. We must find out what they’re working on—what she could have seen.”

Rachel folds her arms and stares at the setting sun. Darkness begins to engulf us as the orange glow fades into the horizon. 

“It’s late,” she says. “I have dinner with my family tonight.”

“Please, Rachel. Just call Wilson.”

I don’t notice the plea in my voice until Rachel grits her teeth. The fine lines of her forehead etch deeper into her skin as if my request ages her twenty years. A pang of guilt sinks into my stomach.

“I promise I’ll explain everything once this is done,” I say. “Please, Rachel.”

She approaches me in the darkness, her face shadowed by the evening. She squeezes my arm, and my heart leaps.

“Fine. But you owe me an explanation,” she says and steps away to call the commissioner.

I collapse onto the cold curb and bury my face in my hands. Conrad’s grief grinds through my body like tiny razor blades. I imagine his sister yelling at him—insisting that he’s a piece of garbage. I shiver in the warmth of the evening. I’m glad that Rachel can’t touch me and sense my emotions. 

I picture my sister’s face—her dimpled smile with eyes brighter than Jupiter in the night sky. She runs around the street in front of me, sliding her chalk along the concrete like we used to do every day. A fresh wave of guilt arrives, but it’s dull and lived-in—nothing new. I will solve this case for Lara and Conrad, even if it means confronting the monsters of my childhood. They’re not allowed to hurt anyone else. Never again.

***

Commissioner Wilson won’t let us investigate the university without a warrant. Though it’s standard procedure, it still makes me slam my toe against the curb. 

“Did you tell him what we learned?” I ask. 

“Yes,” Rachel insists. “He said to hang tight.”

The moon has taken the night, casting a looming shadow across the quiet street. Conrad’s drapes are closed, but I swear I see them rustle every few minutes. 

“I don’t know if time is on our side,” I say. “You don’t know these people like I do.”

“Alan, what did they…?” Rachel catches herself. “Look, I don’t know what to tell you. We can’t just break down the front door. You know the rules.”

Rachel’s calm demeanour scratches me with clawed nails. I want to shake her—to scream that this is the only way. Ever since Conrad spoke my name with such familiarity, my terror has been off the rocker. 

“I’m going to go see my family,” she says. “You should come. Then, if Wilson calls, we can go straight to the university.”

I shake my head. “You go. I need some time.”

She nods and moves as if to hug me. She halts, seems to think better of it, and waves. 

“I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything,” she says. “Don’t drive yourself crazy, Alan. Please.”

I watch her drive into the night, squinting at the beam of her headlights. She may be able to go home now, but I can’t. Warrant or not, I need to get into that university.