Eric T. Knight's Blog, page 38

Rental Child

“Finish up Johnny.�� The men are here.�� They don’t like to wait.”

“What men?” asked five-year-old Johnny.

“The men from the child rental place.�� They’ve come to take you back.”

“They’re going to take me away?” Johnny asked, his eyes growing wide.

“Of course!�� Goodness, you didn’t think we were going to keep you, did you?�� Silly boy.”�� Joan grinned at him.�� “Now hurry up.�� They’re very busy men and they don’t like to be kept waiting.”

“But I thought … ”�� His voice quavered and the brown eyes filled with tears.

Joan sighed a little.�� “So did I — once.�� But that was before Bill and I realized how much work you really were.�� New clothes, school, food, doctors when you’re sick.�� My word.�� Who would have ever thought one little boy could be so expensive.�� And the time you take up!”�� She rolled her eyes.�� “We’re not as young as we once were you know — and you’re really not a very good child.”�� She shook her head in wonderment.�� “It’s a good thing we went for the option-to-own agreement.�� Otherwise we might have been stuck with you the way the Smiths are stuck with little Joey.”

“But you’re my parents!” Johnny shrieked.�� “You can’t send me away.�� You borned me!”

“Borned you?�� Whoever gave you that silly idea?�� Probably that Joey kid.”�� She shuddered.

“But I came out of your stomach.�� Miss Jones said so at school!”

She laughed and ruffled his hair.�� “You are a funny child!�� That’s one of the things I might miss about you.�� But children coming out of women’s stomachs…!�� Well, that’s simply ridiculous.�� As foolish as believing in a stork.�� No, we picked you out at the child rental store like everyone else.�� Now hurry up and finish your soup and try to be calm about it.�� You don’t want them to have to put you in a sack do you?”�� She waved out the window.�� “You can come in now!�� He’s almost ready.”

When she finally had him settled down and asleep, Johnny’s mother stood over him smiling.�� She really thought she made a wonderful mother.�� Children were so much fun, she thought.�� The way they believed the most outlandish things.

And to think her friends had warned her that she’d find staying at home boring.

Watching the End of the World – 18

It was a news broadcast, but in a foreign language. The newscaster was a middle-aged man. He was speaking rapidly and was obviously very upset. Words in a foreign language scrolled across the bottom of the screen. One by one the contestants quit what they were doing and walked over to stare at the TV.

The picture changed, showing what appeared to be a room in a hospital. The room was packed with people. Some were lying motionless on the floor. The camera zoomed in on a woman slumped on a bench. She was coughing and there was blood at the corners of her mouth. Much of her exposed skin was an angry red and she seemed to have blisters. The newscaster was speaking in hushed tones now. While they watched, Santiago came into the room.

���Is that the virus?��� Nate asked.

���It couldn���t have spread that fast,��� Santiago said dismissively. ���Nothing spreads that fast.���

���I wish I could tell what he���s saying,��� Jordynn said.

���He���s saying, ���If only they hadn���t eaten that dead rat they found, they wouldn���t be feeling sick,������ Caleb said.

Jordynn turned a horrified look on him. ���What kind of racist shit is that?���

���Easy, lass. I���m just trying to lighten the mood. It���s Africa, right? Doesn���t this kind of stuff happen all the time here?���

Jordynn muttered something under her breath.

Caleb looked around, saw others looking at him shaking their heads and held up his hands. ���Okay. Sorry.�� No harm.���

���Try to use your brain next time you open your mouth,��� Jenna said. She walked over and sat on the couch. ���Try another channel. Maybe we���ll find one in English.���

There were three other channels. Two of them were news channels. One of those showed a line of police with batons and helmets, facing off against an angry crowd. The other one was carrying what appeared to be an interview with some government official. The last channel was HBO, but the movie was dubbed into a foreign language. Jordynn turned the TV off and they all sat there in stunned silence, each trying to grapple with what they���d just seen. Tony was the first to speak.

���No fucking way,��� he burst out. ���You gotta be kidding me. Could this day suck any more? Seriously, is this the worst fucking day in the history of the world? We almost die in a plane crash. Assholes show up and shoot at us. And now this. What���s next? Locusts?���

���Take it easy,��� Maha said.

���You take it easy,��� Tony said. ���For me, I���m planning on panicking and maybe later just giving the hell up.���

���I still say it���s nothing,��� Santiago declared. ���Just people overreacting.���

���Then you���re a dickhead,��� Tony told him. He got up and stomped out of the room, going back into the warehouse.

Excerpt from��Watching the End of the World

(I’m still giving away promo copies until the end of the day. Click here if you want one. Lemme know what format, okay? Word, PDF, mobi, epub)

Ain’t A Soul Around (Or Too Many)

���This is a hell of a way to make a living,��� Tom muttered to himself as he hauled back the steel grate he’d made and set it aside.�� The irony of his words escaped him as he lowered himself once again into hell.�� But then, irony wasn’t one of Tom’s strong points.

The heat and familiar stench ��� he guessed it was brimstone ��� hit him as he paused on the top step of the aluminum ladder to put the surgical mask on and adjust his sunglasses.�� Hell could be damn bright and the smell wasn’t to be believed.

Tom wasn’t a thinking man, but if he had been, he might have thought back then, to the day not so long ago when he’d first discovered hell in his backyard …

* �� �� �� �� ��* �� �� �� �� ��*

Tom lived out on the edge of Tucson, in a place known as Three Points that was less a town and more a highway intersection, the desert dotted with cholla cactus and sagging mobile homes that wouldn’t go anywhere ever again.�� On this day he’d gone into his back yard and there, beside his rusted barbecue, was a hole.�� It sure wasn’t a rabbit hole, he saw right away.�� It was big enough for a man to crawl down into for one thing, and no rabbit hole he knew smoked.�� Tom went closer, not jumping to conclusions or getting excited, but strolling over to see what was what.�� The smell was bad, but that wasn’t what fixed him.�� Sounds came out of the hole, what sounded like screams and moans and such, drifting out with that little bit of smoke and the big smell.

A puzzled look came over his face as Tom lowered his lanky form to the ground.�� He listened and thought for a long while and then he did start to get a little bit excited.�� Not afraid mind you, but excited.�� Tom didn’t excite easily but then, it isn’t every day a man finds hell in his backyard.

Because that’s what he was thinking he had here.�� It all sort of fit, and he couldn’t think what else it might be.�� A hole into hell had opened in his backyard, right next to his rusted barbecue.�� He stood and carefully moved the barbecue a few feet further away.

After awhile he began to wonder what he should do.�� Birds hopped around in the dust and the ants went about their business like nothing, but he felt he ought to do something.�� This seemed to him like something pretty big and he figured that someone should know about it.�� I mean, who knew what kind of troubles could come out of having a hole into hell.�� He didn’t, but still���

So he tried telling old Karl who had the trailer next door and sat on his front porch all day spitting globs of brown tobacco juice at everything that moved.�� He barely got through the gate when Karl spit almost on his shoe.

���I just want to tell you something Karl,��� he said, hoping he’d stop.�� He didn’t like being spit on.

���You get back over to your place and do something about that sulfur smell!��� Karl yelled through yellow teeth.�� ���Smells like hell.�� A man can’t breathe.����� He took out his plug of tobacco and recharged.�� ���You moron,��� he added.

Now that wasn’t too nice.�� Tom didn’t think he was a moron; he just didn’t see things quite like other people.�� But he tried to explain.�� ���That’s what I came for, Karl.�� There’s this hole in my backyard.�� That’s where the smell is coming from.�� I think it might be hell.�� Maybe someone should do something about it.���

Karl cackled and spit on Tom’s right shoe.�� ���Yeah, something should be done all right.�� About you, you half-wit.�� Get out of my yard and get rid of that smell before I call the police!���

Tom left just ahead of another glob of spit.�� He knew Karl wouldn’t call the police ���old Karl didn’t have a phone any more than he did and he knew as well as Tom that the police didn’t like to be bothered by the trailer people unless one of them shot another.�� But it did start him thinking.�� Karl was a mean old cuss, but he knew a lot of things and he had the right idea.�� He probably should call the police.

That didn’t work out too good either.

He walked to the general store/gas station down at the highway that was the only thing there really was in Three Points besides cars whizzing by on the highway to Ajo or turning off to Sasabe, and used the phone there.�� Before the lady at the police station would even talk to him she wanted to know his name and address and once she knew where he was she got that sound in his voice.�� He’d heard it before; it meant she wasn’t going to believe him, whatever he said.�� Only once did she show any interest, and that was when he said it smelled like sulfur.

���You want to report a drug lab then.�� A methamphetamine lab?���

���No ma’am.�� It’s not a drug lab at all, least not one I ever heard of and I’ve seen COPS a lot.�� It’s just a hole in the ground and ��� ���

���Right.�� Thank you Mr. Holman.�� We’ll send someone out as soon as we get a chance.���

He could hear her laughing and talking to someone else before she hung up and he knew nobody’d come.�� Then there was nothing to do but go home but first he went into the store and bought a paper because he remembered that it was Wednesday and the new papers always came out on Wednesday.�� He thought about telling Jim, the owner of the store, about hell, but he didn’t.�� Jim was pretty nice to him, always smiling and yelling HELLO! and he wasn’t feeling like having anyone else treat him like a fool right then.

But when he got home it seemed his problem might be solved because there, right on the cover of his favorite newspaper was a story and a picture just like his.�� Now Tom loved his paper, even better than the TV.�� He liked the big headlines and the pictures and some of the stories were really incredible.�� They were always about two-headed babies and airplanes found on the moon and talking cows and he liked to read these stories, then just sit back and think that this must be a pretty marvelous world where things like this can happen.�� Anyway, the headline today said:�� MAN FINDS DOORWAY TO HELL IN HIS BASEMENT!�� And then it went on about some guy finding a smoking hole in his basement and how the firemen and police in his hometown in Iowa were amazed and it had quotes from them and a picture of the man standing beside the hole looking pleased and holding a Bible.

Tom put the paper down then and sat back to think.�� He thought for a long time and then he went into his backyard and looked at the hole and then came back in and read the story again and thought some more.�� And what came out of it was that the next day when he got off work from his job at the wrecking yard down the road he went to Jim’s store and used the payphone again.

The story didn’t tell the man’s phone number, but he thought if he called the paper they’d give it to him and he could call the guy and find out what he was doing about the hole and maybe he could do the same thing.

���We just did that story pal.�� Sorry, we’re not interested.�� Come up with something better and call us back.���

���Does this happen a lot?��� Tom asked.�� Who knows?�� Maybe having hell in your backyard wasn’t so unusual.

���Only when they open the doors son, only when they open the doors.���

But Tom could be stubborn too and he kept talking to the man and finally he said,�� ���Okay, look, we’ve got a man in Phoenix right now.�� That’s pretty close isn’t it?�� I’ll send him down.�� I guess we could call it an epidemic.���

The man showed up the next day in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a tie.�� He gave Tom a big smile and a business card and he talked fast.�� Tom thought he must be awfully important to have so much to say all at once.

���There we are, Steve Jones, Eye on the World on-the-spot reporter, nice place you have here my man, nice place.�� Very quaint, out of the hurly burly of the city, now let’s see, you say you found hell in your backyard.����� He winked and gave Tom a little jab in the ribs.�� ���Sure, this is the sticks, but it can’t be all that bad eh?����� He seemed to pause for something so Tom smiled and the man continued.�� ���Let’s see it then, just take me right to it, we don’t want it to freeze over now do we?����� He had a big camera and a tiny tape recorder and he snapped a couple pictures of Tom and his trailer then.

Tom took him around back and showed him.�� He figured it was a good thing old Karl didn’t hear too well and the next two lots were empty because the moaning and screaming and such had gotten louder in the past few days.�� The hole looked a little bigger too, with flickers of red light down at the bottom.

When they got to the hole the reporter’s words died on his lips and his face went pale.�� ���Holy shi ��� What the ��� ��� was all he could manage.�� His hands were shaking so bad Tom didn’t think he got any pictures of the hole.�� ���I think this hick really has…��� he mumbled.�� ���It can’t be.����� He seemed to have forgotten Tom.�� Then there was one scream, a little louder than the others and the reporter sank to his knees.

���Mo ��� mom?��� he quavered.�� ���Is that you?���

He left fast and Tom didn’t get a chance to say anything so a couple days later he called the paper again and got the same guy he’d talked to the first time.

���It’s you again, is it?�� I don’t know what you did, but Jones doesn’t work here anymore.�� Quit his job, the damnfool.�� Said he didn’t give a shit about my deadline.�� Can you get that!�� He didn’t give a shit about my deadline!�� The namby-pamby has the gall to go and have a nervous breakdown on my deadline.����� Then he hung up.

Some things happened after that, to make Tom think having hell in his backyard wasn’t such a good thing.�� Oh, nothing with the hole itself.�� That didn’t really change, though Tom made a big grate for it with his cutting torch and welder because it seemed to him hell probably had some pretty bad things living in it and he didn’t want them coming out unannounced.

But other things did change.�� Word got around Three Points that he was on drugs or something and claimed to have seen the devil in his backyard.�� People started avoiding him, even Jim down at the store, and kids threw stuff at him sometimes and laughed.�� His boss found out and fired him and now he had lots more time with nothing to do and not sure why.�� He went out and looked in the hole sometimes but that got kind of old after awhile.

LeAnn, one of his other neighbors, came over one day.�� She’d heard about it too.�� He’d known LeAnn for a long time but he didn’t really talk to her much.�� She said she was a witch ��� a good witch, mind you ��� and dressed in old baggy dresses and black eyeshadow all the time.�� She was always saying weird stuff about the spirit world and she made him uncomfortable, though he wasn’t sure why.�� She got real strange when she saw the hole.

���Oh, wow!�� Wow!�� I think�������� She stopped and rolled her eyes back in her head, holding her hands out before her.�� ���I sense the spirit world is very close to us right now.���

Tom shifted to his other foot and squeezed his hands.�� She was doing it again.

���Yes.�� They are heeeere.����� Her voice had gotten all distant and dreamy.�� She shivered.�� ���I sense pain.�� Much suffering.���

Tom shifted back to his other foot.�� Anyone could tell that, he thought.�� Couldn’t she hear all the screaming?

She rolled her eyes back and stared at him.�� ���We must hold a seance.�� We must find a way to communicate with the souls of the dead and discover the reason for their pain.���

Tom shifted again.�� ���Why?����� He shrugged.�� ���They’re right there.�� Why not just ask them?���

So he did.

Then she fainted and he had to catch her and take her inside and rub her forehead with a wet cloth.�� When she woke up she could hardly speak.

���They…answered you,��� she whispered.�� ���The spirit world is strong in you.�� They have chosen you as their messenger.�� You are blessed.���

���No, it’s not like that LeAnn.�� You could do the same thing.�� All I did was yell into the hole.���

But of course she didn’t believe him.�� She refused to even try and Tom gave up trying to convince her.�� Right then Tom had another one of those times when he wondered.�� He wondered if maybe it wasn’t that he was dumb or even slow, but that he just didn’t understand people.�� They refused to see things that seemed plain as the nose on your face to Tom.�� They didn’t make any sense to him.

He found out a little while later that even dead people didn’t make much sense.

LeAnn came by one day and asked him if he’d be willing to talk to the spirits again.�� She had this wispy little woman with gray hair and big mouse eyes with her who nodded a lot but didn’t say anything.�� Tom just shrugged.

���Marian here wants to talk to her dead husband.���

���Why don’t we just let Marian talk to him ��� ���

LeAnn pulled him aside and explained to him that Marian had come to her for help, she was a client and she was paying.�� Furthermore, she would give Tom ten dollars if he would just do this.�� Well, Tom did know that he needed money and so he said sure and went out into the backyard.�� The women followed but they didn’t come very close to the hole.

LeAnn told him the name and Tom just leaned over the hole and shouted into it.�� The moans got a little louder and then one voice spoke up and yelled back.

Well, Mouse-eyes just about fainted dead away but she managed to stumble closer to the hole and quaver into it.�� Tom listened to them for awhile but they didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, what with her crying and all the moaning and such coming out of the hole making it hard to hear and suddenly it all seemed kind of silly and sad to Tom that this woman couldn’t talk to her dead husband so he walked over to the back of the house, grabbed the extension ladder leaning there and dropped it into the hole.�� Saying, ���Excuse me, ma’am,��� he stepped around the woman and went down into the hole.

About this time Tom was feeling a little surprised at himself ��� the smell and the heat were a lot worse in here ��� but he went ahead anyway.�� The red light was pretty strong down at the bottom of the ladder and in it he could see all these people milling around like sheep in a pen.�� At least, they looked like people, but they were kind of wavery and ghostlike.�� They came up to him and around him but they didn’t seem to be able to touch him so after the first bit of nervousness Tom ignored them, remembering why he came down here, and hollered, ���Walter!��� real loud.�� They got pretty quiet then and one ghost came forward.�� Tom could tell this was him; he just looked like he would be married to Mouse-eyes.�� He tried to tell him that his wife wanted him up top to talk to him and if he’d just follow…but Walter interrupted and said,

���No.�� I can’t leave.�� I am damned here for eternity.���

Well, that made Tom a little mad somehow ��� maybe it was just the heat getting to him ��� and without thinking he grabbed Walter and dragged him right up the ladder with him.

Now LeAnn fainted and Mouse-eyes and Walter crowded together and she was howling about missing him and Walter was yelling that he’d been redeemed and looking at Tom like he’d done something special and it was all getting pretty embarrassing to Tom when Walter just sort of faded away like a puff of smoke.

* �� �� �� �� ��* �� �� �� �� ��*

And that’s how he got where he was now, going into hell again for someone else’s dead loved one.�� As Tom disappeared into the hole the crowd of people gathered in his backyard sent up a cheer that made his face turn red.�� Darn, he thought, I still can’t get any of them to listen.�� He’d tried too.�� He didn’t want this job, even if it did pay better than his old.�� Give him the peace of the wrecking yard any day.�� But his old boss still wouldn’t talk to him, no one in Three Points would ��� they were all still sure he was on drugs ��� except for LeAnn and she always sounded out of breath when she did talk to him.�� A good thing was that old Karl had stopped spitting on him but that was never so bad anyway.

So he did this nearly every day now, going down and getting someone for someone else who paid him.�� All the dead people waited for him now and he could already see them gathered around the bottom of the ladder, same as the crowd up top.�� He sighed.�� There was no getting away from it anymore.

���Why don’t you all just go on and get out of here,��� he said, waving them up the ladder.�� ���You want to be free, then go.�� Then everyone’ll leave me alone.���

But they answered as they always did, crying and begging, saying how they were damned and only he could save them.�� It was no use arguing.�� They were no better than the people up top.

Tom took hold of the woman he came for and pulled her up the ladder.�� As the little crowd of people broke into another cheer Tom shook his head.�� This was too much.�� He decided something then, something he guessed he should have seen a while before.�� The hole had to go.�� It was just too much trouble.�� He did wonder if he should feel bad about all those dead people who were still down there, but then, he wasn’t sure he was doing the right thing anyway.�� He wasn’t any priest or anything and he didn’t have the training for this kind of stuff.�� After all, he wouldn’t go and try getting a job as a mechanic when he was just a junkyard hand, would he?�� The more he thought this way, the more sense it made.

That night he took his shovel and his digging bar and knocked in the sides of the hole.�� The hole was quiet while he did it and he wondered if maybe even the dead slept sometimes.�� Anyway, it didn’t take too long and then it was done and no more thinking about it.

The next day the same crowd of people showed up at his front door all crying and hollering for him but Tom was ready for them.�� He had the door locked and a sign on it saying:�� THE HOLE’S GONE.�� GO AWAY.�� He didn’t think it would work right away and it didn’t.�� They kept hanging around but he knew if he waited sooner or later they’d leave and he could get back to regular life like he was meant to.

In the afternoon he got tired of sitting inside and he snuck out the back door and climbed over the fence to Karl’s place.

���Hi, Karl,��� he said.�� ���It’s Tom.�� I quit the drugs everyone’s been worrying about.�� I feel better now.�� It’s just me again.���

���You’re a damnfool kid, that’s what you are!��� Karl yelled at him.�� ���I always said you’d be a worthless neighbor!����� He peeled his brown-stained lips back and spit on Tom’s right shoe.

Tom smiled.�� Some people he understood.

Watching the End of the World – Giveaway?

Indeed, you have read correctly. For a limited time you can receive a free digital copy of the book��The New York Times calls, “Unbelievable! If that Eric T Knight guy claims we’re recommending him one more time, we’re suing his ass!”

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Landsend Plateau

But now the wind sprang to new life. It shoved her and screamed into her ears. It cried and moaned as it whistled around her. She fought to keep it out, but she could not seal it away completely ��� not when she had so recently allowed it in ��� and as it blew through it pelted her with images that made her cry out: the Plateau splitting asunder in a savage spray of molten rock and fire. The Takare fleeing, dying. She saw a world made new in a terrible image, drawn in the ashes of the old. She saw a gray hand whose fingers stretched into every corner of the world, igniting violence, disease and hatred where it passed. She saw a ball of fire thrown down from the heavens into the center of the Plateau, shattering on impact, and from its center came a mighty being, a being that might be the world���s hero, might be its doom. She shuddered before it all. Her head bowed and tears sprang unbidden to her eyes.

Then she shook herself, almost angry, and wiped away the tears. She had never shied away, no matter the price. She would not start now. ���I���ll go!��� she shouted at the wind. ���Stop pushing me!��� She clenched herself and stepped inside.

The defile echoed with the crashing thunder of water on stone, louder than any scream. The air burned her lungs, thick with sulfur. A few steps forward and she staggered and had to reach out to the stone for support, as something else assaulted her.

Fear.

It came from all around her and it struck her with palpable force, pounding against her inner walls like storm-driven waves on a breakwater. It slammed against her, over and over, a scream that had no end.

It did not come from the men who preceded her. They were too small, too brief, for fear this immense. This was the fear of a god, an immortal being driven nearly mad with terror.

She wondered at it even as she knotted her fists, lowered her head, and pushed forward. Later, if there was a later, she would puzzle over this. For now she must act. The wind had not followed her in here, but she knew it still waited for her outside. There was no way around this except through it.

The walls of the defile soared far overhead, swallowing her. The sky was a thin, cloudy ribbon only sometimes visible. The river was a thrashing, hissing beast that snarled its way through the tumbled boulders it had chewed from the walls, slowly digesting them. The path was a mere scar on the rock beside the river, slick as new ice. One misstep and she would end up in the river to have her head dashed against a stone.

Shakre looked back the way she had come. The world outside was gone. The defile closed in about her. There was nothing but the river and the stone, sound and smell and fear all snarled together into an indistinguishable mass.

No way out but forward.

Shakre continued on, concentrating on the placement of each step, trying to block everything else from her mind. As she rounded a sharp corner something loomed up before her suddenly, a huge indistinct shape in the gloom. She put her hand to her heart but it was only a rock formation jutting out from the wall of the defile. But for just a moment it had been a hunched creature waiting there, stubby wings protruding from its back. There was a flash from one of the hollows where an eye should be but it was only the trick of a stray beam of sunlight that was quickly gone. She hurried past it, careful not to touch it.

After that she saw them everywhere. Some were only dark eyes and mouths in the walls above her. Others were like the first, predatory things that crouched on stone outcroppings or lurked in shallow caves. But all of them were stone. Whatever they had once been, Shakre told herself, they were only stone now. They could not move. They were not watching her. But her steps grew faster and she tried to avoid looking at them.

She came to a place where the defile opened up and the river settled into a large, somewhat circular pool. The only way forward was a tiny ledge that circled the pool on one side, only a hand���s width above the water. She looked down at the river, up at the looming walls. No way but forward. Taking a deep breath, she stepped out on the ledge. She was halfway around when she became aware of another presence, there in the defile with her. Its Song probed along her barriers with cold tentacles. She gasped and drew back from their touch. The Song was alien, unlike anything she had encountered since the night, long ago, when she entered the poisonwood.

Frantically she scanned the dim walls around her, looking for any hint of movement. Only at the last moment did she look down.

A dark shape was rising up out of the water.

Shakre turned and ran.

As she hit the far side of the pool, she slipped and fell hard on the rock. Behind her she heard a single splash. She clambered to her feet and ran without looking back.

Only after she felt the strange Song recede did she slow to catch her breath. Her ankle throbbed and there was a pain in her chest. What was that thing?

The realization came to her all at once, as something clicked open inside her and jumbled pieces fell into place. She knew where the fear came from now:

Tu Sinar.

A god whose fear was so strong it poisoned the very air. A god who feared so much that he built a fortress around his dwelling place, and filled it with guards to protect him.

Shakre stared around her in awe. The hunched, frozen shapes, the twisted faces gaping from the stone walls ��� they were Tu Sinar���s guards. But they had fallen asleep at their posts. Only now were they beginning to rouse themselves, alerted finally by a closing danger. But it was not she who was the danger. It was the men she followed. Of course. They came as the agents of Melekath, Melekath who would have reason to hate Tu Sinar as much as any of the old gods. Tu Sinar had fled to this place, hidden himself in a fortress, all because he feared Melekath, and what would happen if Melekath ever freed himself from his prison.

Excerpt from��Landsend Plateau

Watching the End of the World – 17

Then Caleb said, ���Is that what I think it is?���

Akila looked at him. ���What do you think it is?���

���I think it���s heroin. But what is this much heroin doing in Africa? Heroin doesn���t come from Africa.���

���Maybe it���s not heroin,��� Jordynn said.

���I saw something on CNN about this,��� Jenna said. ���They said with all the pressure on the heroin trade in Afghanistan that more and more of it was being produced in Africa.���

���That���s a lot of heroin,��� Tamara said, her eyes getting big. ���I���ve never seen that much at once before.��� Caleb gave her a look but didn���t say anything.

���Hijo de la Madre,��� Santiago swore. ���If that���s heroin we got real problems.���

���I don���t understand,��� Jordynn said quietly.

���This must be a transfer point for a drug operation,��� Akila said. ���That���s why this airstrip is here in the middle of nowhere. The money from the drugs is probably being used to finance one of the rebel armies fighting to overthrow the government.���

���She means we are in a very bad situation,��� Santiago said.

���They���re going to come back,��� Tamara said. ���No one leaves this much drugs behind. They���re going to kill us all.���

���What are we going to do?��� Nate asked.

���Maybe we could just put it outside,��� Jordynn said. ���Maybe they���ll take it and leave us alone.���

���It doesn���t work that way,��� Santiago snapped. ���Not with drug dealers.���

���What if we just leave? Get out of here before they get back?��� Tamara asked.

���Really?��� Santiago said. ���Are you stupid? We���re in a middle of a fucking jungle. How long do you think we���ll last out there?���

���You don���t have to yell at me! I���m just trying to help.��� Tears ran down Tamara���s face, smearing her makeup. She turned to Caleb. ���Why are you letting him talk to me like that?���

���Just ease off, mate,��� Caleb said. ���We���re all a little tense.���

���We have to fight,��� Santiago said, ignoring Caleb.

���Fight?��� Jenna asked. ���How are we going to fight them? They have guns in case you hadn���t noticed.���

Santiago looked around the warehouse. ���They must have some guns stashed here somewhere. All we have to do is find them.���

Excerpt from��Watching the End of the World

Guatemala – 1999

The trip starts badly.�� Josh is hours late, already on Mexico time.�� I pace the house and curse the dogs.�� Josh called ten hours ago, said he was out the door.�� Just had to pick up the photographer, that the editors had come through with one for us at the last minute.

Then they show and the doubt in my stomach turns to dread.�� They don’t look good.�� Josh is alternately grim and nervous.�� Umberto, the photographer, is either very drunk or insane.�� What the hell am I doing anyway?�� I am a seemingly normal, happy family man with more bills than I can pay.�� Why leave the beautiful wife and smiling baby to race down south with people I hardly know?�� Why risk jail, or worse?

I mumble goodbye and jump in the car.�� The photographer made a bad impression.�� He looks like no one you send your husband south with and my wife’s no fool.

The car doesn’t do much to inspire confidence either.�� It’s a black, ’86 Volkswagen GTI.�� The broken odometer reads 564,985 miles.�� The right headlight dangles, pointing at the ground.�� The passenger door doesn’t open.�� It idles rough or not at all.�� Five miles out of town the driver’s side wiper breaks free and hangs out over the road like a dislocated limb.

It smells bad too.�� Something died in the back seat I think, and it didn’t go easily.�� I turn and see our photographer hunched back there.�� He thrusts his sole camera at me and asks me if I think I can fix it.�� I wonder aloud where the 16mm movie cam is that’s supposed to capture this epic, where the multitude of equipment is that all real photographers carry.

“It’s a bad subject,” the photographer says, one of his few lucid sentences in our short time together.�� “All my gear, stolen in Panama.�� You think you know people.�� Then, wham! up against the wall, the knife at your neck and it’s all gone.�� Months of work.”�� He slumps back in the corner and opens another Bud tin.

Josh grips the wheel and says nothing, but the car speeds up.�� His black hair is stringy already, the church camp basketball T-shirt loose on his bony frame.�� It’s one of the things I like best about Josh, that he’s skinnier than I am.

We race on into the night, stops for gas and beer and tacos.

(an excerpt from my journal kept on the trip to Guatemala, so long ago)

Wreckers Gate – new back cover copy

Quyloc knows it���s a trap as soon as he hears the screams of the tortured man. Every man in the squad knows it too, including their commander, Wulf Rome. Quyloc also knows there���s no point in arguing: Rome will lead them in anyway and not a single soldier will refuse. Wulf Rome doesn���t leave men behind. It���s what his men love about him.

Somehow Quyloc, Rome and a handful of soldiers survive the trap and flee into the lifeless dunes of the Gur al Krin desert where, when the wind blows, the sand burns. But the Gur al Krin isn���t completely dead. Something lies waiting, buried deep beneath the sand. A voice calls to them ��� promising them power, promising them revenge ��� and they follow it deep into the heart of the desert. A firestorm forces them to seek shelter in a cave and during the night a huge, monstrous creature bursts up through the floor of the cave, killing the rest of the soldiers and delivering to Quyloc and Rome a simple message: He waits.

They follow the thing deep underground to a massive, ancient wall. There is something sticking out of the wall, what looks like a shriveled, clawed hand. Ignoring Quyloc���s warning, Rome pulls it free, not realizing that he has just cracked a prison built thousands of years ago to hold a god and his immortal followers.

In the war to come, Rome and Quyloc will learn that allies who offer aid cannot always be trusted, that the weapons given to them to fight a god cut both ways and, ultimately, that their enemy is not who they thought he was.

Wreckers Gate

Watching the End of the World – 16

���That���s a machine gun,��� Caleb said. Nate began backing away. This wasn���t right at all.

The men jumped out of the truck, shouting something angrily in a foreign language and gesturing at them.

���What are they saying?��� Tamara asked, moving in close to Caleb.

���I don���t think we���re supposed to be here,��� Jenna said. They were all backing up now, except for Santiago, who stood facing the men with his arms hanging at his sides. He looked somehow like a man preparing for a gunfight.

Then one of the men pulled a pistol from a holster and raised it. The other one followed and they began shooting.

���They���re shooting at us!��� Jordynn cried.

Pandemonium broke out. Some of the contestants simply froze. Others ran toward the jet or simply away from the gunfire. Over the sound of the gunfire came Akila���s voice, yelling, ���Over here! Come on!���

Akila had reached the warehouse and was standing in the open doorway, waving to them. Nate started to run, saw Omisha standing there motionless still, and grabbed her arm. Bullets spattered around them. ���Come on!���

At first Omisha just stared at him as if she had no idea who he was. Then Nate began to drag her and suddenly she came to life and started to run.

They reached the shelter of the warehouse and ran inside. Akila slammed and locked the door while the rest stared at each other in stunned disbelief.

���Why did they do that?��� Jordynn asked in a small voice. ���What���s going on?���

No one answered. What was there to say? What had started as a normal enough day, filled with anticipation and excitement, had turned into a nightmare.

Akila went to the small window and looked out. ���They���re leaving.���

Others crowded around the window. The men seemed to be arguing as they went back to the pickup and got in. The vehicle sprayed dirt as it spun in a tight circle and headed back the way it came.

���Somebody doesn���t want us here,��� Akila said quietly.

���No shit,��� Tony said.

���Are they going to come back?��� Tamara asked. She had a tight grip on Caleb���s arm.

���What do you think?��� Akila said. There were a couple of light switches by the door and she turned them on. Rows of overhead fluorescent lights buzzed and came to life.

One end of the warehouse was mostly filled with stacks of boxes and crates on wooden pallets. Along one wall was a row of cabinets and metal lockers. The other end of the warehouse had been framed in and walled off. There was a door in the center of the wall.

���What the hell?��� Caleb asked.

Akila walked over to the nearest crate, which was sitting on the floor, its lid partway off. She pushed the lid back and looked in. ���I think I know why they were shooting at us.���

Excerpt from��Watching the End of the World

Watching the End of the World – 15

At the end, the cabin became strangely quiet, the screams and sobbing and praying seeming to pause. It was so quiet Nate could hear the landing gear going down.

Thumping and cracking from below as they began to strike the tops of the tallest trees. Any second now. Nate braced himself.

The snapping of tree limbs stopped abruptly and a split second later there was impact. The jet struck the ground with bone-jarring force, bounced into the air, then struck again. It started to slide sideways, then the pilot straightened it out. There was a crash off to the right. The jet jerked that way���

And then it stopped.

���Oh my god,��� someone said.

���Is everyone okay?��� someone else asked. ���Is anyone hurt?���

All of a sudden Nate wanted nothing more than to get off the jet as fast as he could. It took him several tries before he could work the catch on his seat belt, his hands were shaking so badly. He stood up and almost fell right back down, he was so dizzy from hyperventilating. He had a vague impression of others around him getting out of their seats also.

Before he could reach the door, Caleb had opened it and punched the button for the inflatable slide, which popped out with a hiss of released carbon dioxide. The big man jumped on the slide and disappeared from sight. Kelly was yelling something but no one paid any attention to her as they surged after Caleb. Nate wasn���t all the way off the slide when someone crashed into him from behind. He stumbled and fell in the dirt and just stayed there on his hands and knees, waiting for the shaking to pass, utterly relieved to be back on the ground.

Slowly he became aware of the others around him. Tony was lying flat on his back making a sound that could have been crying and could have been laughing but was neither. Jordynn was on her knees, eyes closed, tears streaming down her face. Caleb was kind of staggering around, rubbing his arms. Omisha was standing there, staring blankly at nothing, shivering. Tamara was weeping loudly. Santiago alone seemed unmoved. He stood there with his arms crossed, looking at them with disgust.

After a minute Nate got the shaking under control and he stood up and looked around. They were on a narrow dirt strip carved out of the thick trees. The trees were huge and dense. The sun was setting. The jet sat at an angle at the far edge of the runway, pressed back into the trees and tilted slightly. One of the tires was flat.

Jordynn stood up. She grabbed hold of Santiago���s arm. ���I thought we were going to die.���

He ignored her, his attention on something off to the side. Nate turned to look.

��������������������� ��������������������� ��������������������� ���

On the opposite side of the runway was a warehouse. The sole window was dark. On the roof were a satellite dish, an antenna and two rows of solar panels. On one end of the warehouse were a large propane tank and another metal tank. At the other end was what looked like a water tank.

Tony stood up. ���What���s that doing here?��� he asked.

���I think I hear a car,��� Jenna said. She looked a lot calmer than Nate felt. She was standing next to Maha, who looked thoughtful, as if he���d just been through an interesting experience, rather than a terrifying one.

At the far end of the runway was a dirt road. The thick trees hid whatever was approaching but the sound of the engine was getting louder.

���Help is coming,��� Tamara said. She wiped at her tears, patted her hair into place and straightened the short skirt she was wearing.

A minute later a beat up Toyota pickup appeared, two men visible in the cab. The Toyota slid to a halt in a cloud of dust at the far end of the airfield. As the dust settled, Nate noticed something in the bed of the truck. An alarm went off in his head. ���Is that a���?���

Excerpt from��Watching the End of the World