Kzine Issue 17 Read online

  She laid back, eyes closed and covered, as the first drops tickled her face. Gusts buffeted the great white oaks in the front yards of the neighborhood, pulling leaves from the drought-weakened limbs. The ground anticipated the rain as much as she did.

  The rain cooled the air, then soaked her through as it reached a crescendo. Just as she was beginning to lose hope, to believe that this was an ordinary rain, she felt a presence.

  “Hello?” she said.

  Something brushed against her hair.

  “Hello, Elizabeth. I’ve missed you.”

  His voice was softer than the touch, like the rain itself was speaking.

  She reached out, eyes still covered like she was warned to do the first time two years ago. The Visitor, as she had dubbed her nameless caller, embraced her. His arms closed around her with gentle tightness, stroking her hair and her back.

  Her hands roamed across his stubbled face, across a wide shoulder. What color were his eyes? Did gray streaks highlight his hair? How did he get here in the rain, and leave again before the clouds blew clear? Her questions died down as together they pulled off her soaked clothing.

  Her hand slid down his back, and he caught her arm with a hiss. “Sorry,” she said. She knew about the wound that never seemed to heal, some sensitive spot near the bottom of his spine. There were others, too. At times he seemed to dance away from her touch.

  They made love on the plastic deck chair while the rain sang their song, the ballad of Elizabeth and the Visitor.

  Elizabeth lay there in the deck chair, the Visitor somewhere next to hear, stroking her hair, but not alongside her like she desired. Already the front gave way to a gentle shower, soon to be gone.

  They talked. Well, she talked. She told him about fights with Eleanor, about a run-in with a rude neighbor at the hardware store, about her brother Paul wanting her to move. The Visitor asked simple questions, showing he was engaged, or perhaps keeping her talking.

  “Elizabeth,” the Visitor whispered in her ear, far too soon, “I must go.”

  She steeled herself. This brief contact, however intermittent, seemed to sustain her in this backwater town, but she could not ask for more from her Visitor. She nodded.

  The susurration of the rain faded into the patter of dripping gutters. Elizabeth pulled off her blindfold, naked, soaked, and alone.

  * * *

  “You should move out here, Elizabeth,” Paul texted. Not verbatim, but Elizabeth had been mentally editing her brother’s writing since grade school, and his sloppy thumbing at the latest available phone screen hadn’t given her cause to quit. Not the least because he hadn’t actually called her Elizabeth.

  Then there was a picture of an evening Seattle shower, with text emblazoned, “It’s gloomy almost every day, just like you.”

  Elizabeth put down her phone and glared through the dusty panes at fields the sun had stomped flat again after just a few days.

  “Just like you like, I mean.” An emoji appended this text, a goofy grinning yellow sphere. She felt like Paul was trying too hard to keep up with the younger crowd’s preferences. Her Eleanor strung emoji together like Rebus puzzles.

  Elizabeth called her brother, but it went to voicemail, like always. “I can’t. Leaving here would be like you trading Karen for a woman in Cincinnati.” She knew he wouldn’t understand, couldn’t understand what she meant by that.

  A few minutes later she got a voice mail. Not a call, but a voice reply. “I’m worried about you, Emo.” His old nickname for her, after her married name Morrissey. The marriage hadn’t lasted, but she kept the name, for Eleanor.

  “You two all alone out there. You really should move out here. You can write anywhere, can’t you? And the schools are better for Elmo.” Paul had come up with that one for Eleanor, and even Elizabeth used it most of the time.

  “Think about it, before you waste away like the Kansas crops.”

  * * *

  “What do you want on your half of the pizza?” Elmo was asking as she peeked into the kitchen. “Wait, what’s this?”

  “I’m cooking.” “Never mind,” she said into her phone, then tucked it into her back pocket. She leaned in the doorway, arms crossed, as Elizabeth hummed to herself and flipped the oven light on.

  “What’s with you?” Elmo slung her book bag onto the kitchen table.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You never cook, and you have three dishes going. Have you even fried chicken before?”

  Elizabeth checked the chicken in the sputtering oil in the pan. Not ready to flip. “Is it such a terrible thing if I want to make my daughter a home cooked meal?”

  “No, it’s great. Suspiciously great.”

  “Either help or do your homework.” There was a rustling of paper and a clatter of books. Too much to actually be work, but Elizabeth ignored it.

  “Is that a hickey?”

  Before she could catch herself, Elizabeth’s hand went to the side of her neck. “No! It’s… a sore. Keep your mind on your homework.”

  “You’re not seeing dad again, are you?”

  Elizabeth spun around, pointing a kitchen spoon like a sword. “God, no. Don’t even talk about that before dinner. No, the last time was the last time between me and Morrissey.”

  That had been two years ago, just before the Visitor had started visiting.

  Elizabeth crushed potatoes to the soundtrack of clacking keys from her daughter’s keyboard, which plausibly could be for a school assignment. She was in too good a mood to doubt Elmo. She would be trusting instead.

  In half an hour she laid out a meal too big for the pair – rolls and potatoes and chicken and okra, ample servings all.

  Eleanor scooped heaps of food, even the okra, onto her plate, but soon was poking at it, head leaning in her hand.

  “What’s wrong, Elmo?”

  She didn’t look up. It took more prodding before she would say anything more than “nothing.” When she did answer, she gave a question. “Do you remember Hannah Sutherland’s mom?”

  “Jennie. Of course.”

  “She’s bipolar. Hannah says that she has these high days where everything seems great, and her mom is a lot of fun. They go out and shop.”

  “Do you want to go shopping more? We can drive into town this weekend.”

  “No, Mom, just listen. She a dynamo then. Cooks, cleans, does building and redecorating projects. Maybe it goes a little too far, sometimes, and they worry about it, but… But then come the lows. She doesn’t get out of bed, or if she does, it’s like all the color is drained out of her world. She drags from moment to moment, like she can barely stand to live.”

  “That’s terrible, Elmo, but what—”

  “Mom, are you bipolar?”

  “What? I’m fine, what do you mean? I just made us dinner.”

  “Which you do, what, once a month? Which is great, don’t get me wrong. But every time I see you like this, I get scared.”

  “Why, honey?”

  “Because it means that in a few days, you’re going to be a wreck.”

  Tears eked out at the corners of Elmo’s eyes. What pattern had she seen? Why hadn’t Elizabeth noticed? “It’s sweet of you to worry about your mother, but I’m fine, I promise.”

  Elmo just shook her head slightly.

  “Everyone gets sad sometimes, Elmo. It doesn’t mean they have a mood disorder.”

  * * *

  The next day was great. Elizabeth woke at five to start writing. She finished a spec piece before driving Elmo to school, then drove by home to write a blog post about the budget filibuster. It was pieces like this that kept the citizens of Colby at arm’s length.

  The day after that was when it hit. She smacked her alarm and lay bundled in her blankets instead of rising to write before dawn. Elmo had to get her up, tearing away the blankets and physically hauling out of bed. Her daughter even picked her clothes for her, because she’d been staring at the closet for five minutes.

  She pulled into
the school entry drive, and she tried to muster a cheerful goodbye.

  “Mom, will you think about seeing someone?”

  There was only one person she wanted to see.

  “Sure, I’ll think about it.”

  Elmo’s lips were pressed flat, but she got out of the car.

  * * *

  How long could it be? She left the weather channel running while she tried to write. She had two articles under contract, and six more ideas to write on spec. None of them were gelling. They were just piles of words that she couldn’t manage to arrange.

  No rain in the forecast. Day by day the sun beat the water out of the ground until the grass went limp and the leaves began to fall before an early autumn. Farmers in town struggled to get enough water to wet their crops’ roots before the thirsty deeper ground drank it all.

  No rain meant no Visitor.

  Elizabeth baked pumpkin roulades for the Autumn Harvest “Definitely not Halloween, because Halloween is of the Devil” Festival at the school, like she did every year. Elmo had long since stopped attending, after realizing that her babysitting money could buy much more candy than she’d get at the festival, and as a bonus she wouldn’t have to suffer the indignity of her mother’s public presence. But Elizabeth was still part of the Parents’ Association (she mentally corrected the perennially misapplied apostrophe), and she loved Halloween, even diluted.

  This year, she was tasked with manning the apple bobbing station, handing out raffle tickets to the successful bobbers. It was always a slow attraction. Who would want to disturb their costume (for the children) or their coiffure (for the adults) for a mere chance to win a gift certificate to the sizzler?

  A handful did, and she admired them. One such was a tall man, just going gray above the ears, with paradoxical eyes that were frosty blue but warm.

  “I’ve been warned to stay away from you.” He kept a straight face, but his eyes smiled.

  “And yet the siren call of the apples was too strong.”

  “It’s more that condemnation by the right people could mean high praise.”

  “If that were the case, I would be the most lauded woman in the state.”

  His smile blossomed. “Jason Culpepper. I teach science.”

  “The new immigrant. What shipwreck leaves you here?”

  “Parents. They live just outside of town and needed looking after.”

  They talked for the rest of the evening. No more bobbers came to risk the waters, perhaps put off by the gradually increasing flirting. The night ended with phone numbers and promises.

  Elizabeth and Jason had three dates before the next rain, a leaky November affair that barely wet the pavement. She knew the Visitor wouldn’t come in that.

  December brought ice, and in January it snowed. February was dry.

  Before the March rain, Jason and Elizabeth were engaged.

  * * *

  It was the day after Saint Patrick’s. Elizabeth drove Elmo to school under a gunmetal sky. Normally she would pop in to see Jason, but she as soon as Elmo stepped out and grabbed her bag, Elizabeth sped away, nearly peeling out in the lot.

  Her heart felt like a snare drum. How many months had it been since she had seen the Visitor? Since she had touched him, been touched?

  Of course, she wasn’t lonely now. She had touched another. But her body didn’t seem to know it.

  She pulled into the drive just as the first juicy drops splashed into her windshield. She ran inside, not changing, doing nothing but grabbing her blindfold from the drawer of the table beside her bed.

  She went and lay out on the deck chair, trying to slow her breathing. Some minutes past, until she was soaked through and shivering.

  How many others did the Visitor visit when he rode the rain? She pictured him atop the pillar of a thunderhead, watching the ground below like an ancient god. She had never asked him what he was. She had meant to, of course, but the questions always evaporated from her lips as they touched his.

  There. The air seemed heavier, and just a fraction of the splashing droplets changed their tone.

  A hand stroked her hair. “Hello, Elizabeth,” he whispered.

  An ache surged in her. She needed his warmth, his touch, which seemed to come from a dozen directions, engulfing her in a sequence of moments that added together to timelessness.

  She sat up.

  “I—”

  A finger touched her lips. Instinctively she kissed it. Then, shaking her head, she pulled back. She thought of Jason.

  “Look, I can’t.” She reached up for her blindfold, but the Visitor’s hands caught hers.

  “What do you mean, Elizabeth. I need this. You need this. Who is here to discover us?”

  No one. Was it even real? Was she sleeping on the deck chair? Hallucinating in a very specific, strangely consistent fashion all this time?

  She did need this. Even with Jason, there was some secret guarded place in her heart. A little vault she built after Morrissey, where only she and Eleanor could stay. But somehow without speaking, she felt that vault open with the Visitor. When they were together, she was herself. She did not fear to ask for what she wanted, or to give what was asked.

  Her hands drooped in his grasp, which he relaxed. He brushed hair from her face, then tilted her head up to kiss, a kiss that tasted faintly of anise.

  She pulled off her blindfold, then screamed.

  The head pulled back, then the arms. They flopped loosely at the lengths of seawater blue tentacles. Behind them huddled a creature, maybe five feet from head to tail, looking like an ice-blue praying mantis. Several other tentacles held body parts – legs, an abdomen, extra arms. Some of them male and some female. The tentacles weren’t just holding the limbs, but seemed to meld into them.

  Elizabeth retched into the grass, then noticed a thin tentacle garlanded gently across her neck. She screamed again and tried to knock it off. She grabbed it and tugged. It came loose with a wet pop.

  “Elizabeth,” the thing said. “Listen to me.”

  She prodded her neck at the spot where the tentacle had stuck. Her finger came away damply red, as though the blood were leaking through, but not bleeding freely.

  She needed a knife or a gun or something. Why didn’t she allow guns in the house again? Morrissey always had one.

  “Listen to me. Listen to my voice.”

  The voice wasn’t coming from the head on the tentacle, or even from what appeared to be the creature’s own head. As it spoke, wide blades on its hind legs rubbed together like a grasshopper’s.

  She stood up, but the Visitor skittered in front of her. Where had these body parts come from? They were warm, but maybe the creature kept them warm somehow.

  “It’s time for you to come with me, Elizabeth. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  The words seemed to pour into her brain like a warm syrup, just like the first night when she heard his voice behind her in the dark as she ran out into the rain to put away Elmo’s bike. It was a voice that twined around her spine, that sung in concert with her soul.

  “We could ride the skies together.” It took a step toward her.

  The Visitor moved the parts of the man together like a morbid jigsaw puzzle. Now the voice seemed to come from the face – an attractive man, lean with hooded eyes and a jawline emphasized with trimmed beard. He reached out a hand and took hers. It was so warm.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Crap, it was going to drown in all this rain.

  Elizabeth shook her head and backed up a step.

  The thing hissed.

  She ducked down into a ball as the arms and feet swung at her, beating on her back. A boot heel caught her in the kidney, almost bringing her to tears. But the blows were not as strong as a man’s might have been, and so she crawled to the deck chair, accepting the hits as they came.

  An arm wrapped around her neck as she put her knee down on the crossbar footing and hauled up on the deck chair, pulling the bar free.

  She couldn’t brea
the, but the arm wasn’t tight enough to cut off her blood. She twisted and swung the steel bar through the tentacle wielding the arm.

  The thing made a chittering noises and pulled back.

  “Elizabeth,” it said again. “Please, I just needed to feed.”

  She ran forward and lunged, swinging the bar with the hooked end forward, hoping to gouge the thing’s gelatinous flesh.

  It pulled back just in time, chittered, and leaped into the sky. Seconds later, the arms and legs and other assorted body parts rained back down into her yard. The handsome head narrowly missed Elizabeth.

  Elizabeth dressed herself in her sopping wet clothes and took a shovel from her shed. She buried the bodies of six strangers in the corner of her property in the drenching rain. Had those strangers been seduced, too? If she hadn’t resisted, would her hand have ended up stroking the cheek of some lonely man a thousand miles away?

  Finally finished, just as the rain tapered away, she went inside to warm herself with a pot of tea. There would be more tears, perhaps, but for now she was too tired.

  Belatedly, she checked her phone. A testament to the case she bought it, the phone was fine. The buzz had been a message from her brother.

  A picture showed a shining sunrise sparkled over the city streets. The text read (in its corrected form): “It’s like the line from your favorite movie as a kid, Elizabeth. ‘It can’t rain all the time.’”

  Outside the sun broke the clouds and already began to steal the water from the ground. Elizabeth picked up her tea and went out to the front porch to dry in the sunshine.

  FLESH

  by Gary J. Hurtubise

  The hum. I still haven’t been able to place it – two nights and a day into arriving. It buzzes and vibrates, just underneath the chink of sterling silver cutlery on fine bone china, the tink of fine crystal glasses as we made mimosa toasts, and the warm, low laughter of a patio packed with us: the near deceased.

  We’d been given three days up here. Three days to… well, prepare, I guess you could say. The unpleasant arrangements had been made back on Earth. That had been one of the conditions: arrive at L5 with all your ducks in line. So here we were, a gaggle of giggling geriatrics, with our ducks lined up, ready to die.