Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest #9 Read online

  Then the flames curled in a different direction—maybe the wind changed, or maybe the fire simply chose to avoid him. When the villagers found him later, they considered it a miracle that the boy had survived, while his family was overcome by smoke.

  Though an orphan, he was old enough to be taken in as the blacksmith's apprentice, where he loved to toil near the blazing heat of the forge. When he pumped the bellows, he made the heat blossom like a flower. He was accepted by the blacksmith and his family, who were grieving over their missing daughter. They thought they understood the boy's “loss."

  The young apprentice went alone into the forest—an excuse to build secret fires, some of which (not unintentionally) got out of hand. One of his blazes nearly burned down the Baron's hunting lodge.

  Later, he was the loudest voice demanding that a tinker, convicted of being a warlock, be burned at the stake. The apprentice wanted to see a person tied to an upright log, the flames consuming clothes and flesh. He was furious when Victor Frankenstein insisted that the man be beheaded instead. Why did the Baron's son have to meddle? The fire would have been so glorious, a spectacle he could have remembered for the rest of his life!

  It was either irony, or divine justice, that the vengeful blacksmith had died while sharpening the headsman's axe. Now, the apprentice did not know his future. He was too young to work the forge himself, and he feared the distraught widow would sell the business and turn him out into the streets.

  The future did not concern him. The apprentice saw one way to make everything right. On the night after the tinker's head was chopped off, he lit a flaming brand from the blacksmith's forge and set the smithy building on fire.

  But that was only a start. He went to the jail and then the magistrate's home, setting them alight as well. It was sure to be the greatest fire in the history of Ingolstadt. The apprentice made no attempt to hide what he was doing. While the alarms rang and people rushed out to help douse the fire, angry men chased after him.

  The arsonist ran. One of them shot him in the back with a musket, and the ball lodged just beneath his shoulder blade. The pursuers were coming closer, shouting for his blood, carrying torches as they hunted him down. He staggered into the Baron's hunting preserve, until he reached a swollen, fast-flowing stream. He tried to cross it, but he was too weak. When he stepped into the icy, rushing water, he could barely keep his footing.

  The pursuing mob shot at him again. Another musket ball shattered his leg, and he fell into the water. As he was swept downstream, he caught a glimpse of Ingolstadt and the smoke rising into the air. He hoped his fire would burn for a long time.

  His head was dunked under the fast current, and he couldn't breathe. As the musket shots drained the life's blood out of him, the apprentice gulped frigid water, praying for fire, yet the spark within him was extinguished. The darkness was cold and wet, but finally his eyes saw a spark again, lights, life.

  * * * *

  The mosaic of a monster is alive, functioning, but without a mind it does not truly live.

  Victor attaches an electrode, unleashes a flood of condensed lightning. A sharp shock pours into the head, like a musket touching off a flash of gunpowder, the last surge of memories. A mind adrift, separate. Thoughts run like raindrops down an uneven pane of glass.

  * * * *

  Despite his wealth and bloodline, he had never been a strong man, the runt of the litter. His younger brothers—even his sister—spurned him, though the noble title was his by birthright. Years ago, as a boy, he had turned his feelings of inferiority against small animals—secretly killing cats, clubbing puppies. The young, helpless ones were the most gratifying.

  Copying the more eccentric European nobles, he had purchased exotic animals from foreign lands, darkest Africa, South Sea islands, the Americas. He kept a menagerie on his estate, and though the miserable creatures did not live long, he replaced them with other specimens as fast as they died. His son Victor delighted in having so many dissection subjects for his medical studies.

  The Baron's fondness for strange animals made him popular among the children. Generous and benevolent, he would let them stare at the creatures, even pet the tame ones.

  Most of the time he could control his urges. Most of the time.

  And when it became imperative that he follow his obsession, he had a special private hunting lodge deep in his forest preserve with secure doors and stout shutters. After he lured the children out to the cabin, just like in the story of Hansel and Gretel, he would lock them in so he could have his way with them over and over; then he would kill them and bury them out in the forest.

  All the servants at Castle Frankenstein were familiar with their master's habit of slipping off for solitude. No mere peasant would dare to accuse, or even suspect, Baron Heinrich Frankenstein. A wandering band of gypsies or a suspicious stranger could always be blamed for the latest disappearance. Over the years, many were arrested; a shepherd had been hanged and a tinker had been beheaded that very day, both accused of the same crime, providing a convenient excuse for the little “lamb” he had just stolen.

  Back at the Castle, he regularly told the cook to prepare veal, suckling pig, a fine tender lamb, or fresh kid spitted over a fire. Innocence seemed to give the flesh a better flavor. Thus, once a new idea had occurred to him, he couldn't drive it out of his head. What might be the taste of another sort of tender flesh?

  Only two days ago, he had wandered the streets of Ingolstadt in a filthy disguise, until he saw the chance to snatch an infant, still breast-fed. After roasting all day over a slow fire, the flesh would be succulent, better than veal.

  Now, as the forest darkened around the hunting lodge, the Baron was glad to be away. The meat was still on the spit over the fire, almost ready for an evening feast, when he heard the shouts of searchers outside, musket shots. From the window of his cabin, he looked down the steep slopes to Ingolstadt. The city itself seemed to be on fire!

  Alarmed, the Baron went to the door and threw it open just as the constable and six guards rushed up the path. “My Lord Baron, beware! There is an arsonist in these woods. We are hunting him—"

  Then the constable saw what was on the fire. One of the guards cried out in horror before he began to retch. The old Baron could not slam the door quickly enough...

  Locked in the jail—the same cell that had held a strangler only two days before—the Baron confessed. Despite his admission, the torturers still wanted to break his arms and scourge him. The townspeople howled for his blood, ready to lynch the old Baron, and only a contingent of guards reluctantly prevented them from doing so. His noble rank would not save him. The magistrate had no choice but to sentence him to death by a slow garrote in the public square.

  Victor—now the new Baron Frankenstein—came to see him. Oddly, the intense young man showed no revulsion at his father's crimes, no greed for the position of power he now held. He looked at the older man clinically, as if he was already making plans.

  Victor turned to the jailer. “It is a pity what my father has done. He always had such a fine mind."

  * * * *

  The beating hearts grow stronger. “He's alive!” Victor cries. “Alive!"

  The yellow eyes are open, the patchwork body twitches and trembles. Victor unwinds the gauze to reveal the scars on cadaverous flesh. He unstraps the restraints binding the arms and legs. The creature is awake now, aware.

  "I made you. You will be greater than the sum of your parts!” He looks at his creation with pride. “Can you hear me? Do you know who you are?"

  Yes, the pieced-together man knows who he is. The hands and lungs of a strangler, the legs of a thief, the head of a hired assassin, the torso of a vengeful blacksmith, the eyes of an arsonist, one heart from an axe murderer and the other from a wrongly executed man, the mind of a child molester and baby killer.

  * * * *

  Voices clamor through him, so many identities roiling in a single body. Fusing the cacophony into a consensus, he remembers the B
ible he read in his blacksmith persona, a particular verse from the Gospel of Mark. The other converging memories and lives know it as well, and they all agree.

  His voice crackles out like a dry wind. Victor, face shining with perspiration, leans closer to hear.

  "My name is Legion,” the creation says. “For we are many."

  He grabs Victor's throat with the hand of a strangler. With all the lives inside him, he finds it very easy to squeeze.

  * * * *

  * * * *

  Kevin J. Anderson on the origin of THE SUM OF HIS PARTS...

  "When I began working with Dean Koontz on our novel, FRANKENSTEIN: PRODIGAL SON, I developed a lot of fictional “background” of the famous monster, brief biographies of all the various criminals that made up his component parts. During the actual writing of the book, Dean wanted to keep the focus entirely in the present with very little extraneous background or flashbacks. However, I felt that all those little vignettes could be “stitched together” into a very interesting story, and Dean gave me permission to use the material as a standalone piece."

  Katherine Sparrow is a social worker who lives in Seattle. Her writing drifts between the shores of science fiction, young adult, and fantasy. She's sold stories to the Glorifying Terrorism anthology, Cleis Press, and Son and Foe. She was also a finalist in the Writer's of the Future content and attended the Clarion West Workshop in 2005.

  The End of Crazy

  By Katherine Sparrow

  Allison sucked in the cigarette smoke all around her and closed her eyes. She hated doing this, but it was required. She spoke as quickly as she could, not looking at any of the people in the circle.

  "Hi, I'm Allison. I started hearing voices when I was sixteen after I was raped by my brother. I used to hear them constantly. I saw things too; none of the meds helped. Cops scared me a lot. I used to bite people and threaten them with knives. I used to take babies that I thought were mine. I refused to take Sanify at first; I was sure it was poison, but a social worker convinced me it could make all the bad stuff stop. I have been sane for five years now.” Allison took in another ashy breath and stared at the floor. They're just words, don't think about them, don't remember, don't let it touch you.

  She said flatly, “Everything's terrific now that there's a cure. I thank Sanify every day for the end of Schizophrenia."

  "Thank you, Allison!” everyone at the Beyond Schizophrenia support group said.

  Her hand slid into her jacket to check, again, that the package was still there, hidden. It was.

  The man next to Allison started talking. He held onto his own shaky hands. The cure didn't take away the shakes, the night terrors, the anger, or the mood swings. It just made you not crazy: not psychotic. There was a look to everyone in the room—an invisible uniform—that marked them. They were all too skinny, jittery, rotten-toothed and ill-fitting in their skin. It was like ‘I used to be crazy’ was psychically tattooed on them, along with all the scars and real tattoos.

  The wolfish eyes of the psychiatrists watched the shaky man speak, and for his sake, Allison hoped he wouldn't mess up. People who didn't say the right thing ... there were all kinds of stories floating around about what happened to them. Crazy stories.

  Allison sat through the twenty-minute speech on the importance of never missing the Sanify shots for your own health and safety. The meeting ended with everyone putting one hand towards the center of the room and saying, “Sanity's for everyone, Sanify's for me!"

  The slow bus ride home was full of noisy high school kids. A drunk sat next to Allison and kept leaning against her, then apologizing. She was two days late for her Sanify shot, and it made her nervous.

  If all goes well, she thought, I'll go to the clinic and get it tonight. She watched the rain roll off the greasy windows, and gazed at the gray sky beyond.

  Allison climbed the four floors to her apartment; the elevator had broken down a year ago. Let the formerly mentally ill hoof it, they need the exercise, she could almost hear the public housing manager say. They're cured, why are they still here? he seemed to think but would never say out loud.

  Flip was making pancakes and the microwave dinged just as Allison came in. She took out the hot plastic strawberry syrup bottle and put it on their small table, then flopped down on a chair. The mirror from the hallway door was angled so she could see both herself and Flip. Both of them were really thin these days; he with his short black hair and fine native-Macah looks, she with short, red hair and freckles everywhere. Allison studied her young-old face in the mirror—thirty-two, but she looked older.

  After the cure, they had left each other and tried to return to their families. But no one knew them anymore. No one wanted them, except each other. Flip and Allison, two people who didn't look like they belonged together, unless you could see from the inside.

  "Hey, you,” she said.

  "Hi, how was your meeting?"

  "I love Sanify and every wonderful thing it's done for my life, exclamation point, exclamation point,” Allison said. “I'm so glad I don't see Nazis anymore, now I just see assholes."

  Flip held the tip of his tongue between his teeth as he put down the rubber spatula. He walked behind her and laid his hands on her shoulders. “Did you buy it?"

  "Yeah.” She patted the package in her coat pocket.

  "Can you take the test right away? Or do you have to wait?"

  "I can do it now."

  His hands tightened on her shoulders. “Go do it, then. You want some flapjacks? I'll have a whole stack of them ready for you."

  "I want some Flipjacks."

  He grinned at her, worry not far beneath his madrone-brown eyes. Two people playing at being fine.

  Allison sat on the toilet and peed on the tip of the pregnancy test. She waited for a plus or minus to emerge, to tell her what her life was going to be about.

  "Pancakes are ready!” Flip yelled to her, a question in his voice, Do you know yet? She came out of the bathroom and sat down at their table. Alison stared at the dingy, cracked wall beyond Flip, their small kitchen painted an ugly green, and the frayed wall-to-wall carpet on the floor. Not much, but it was hers. More than she had ever had before. Flip sat across from her and tried to look strong. Allison cut into the pancakes and put a big bite in her mouth. If I don't say it—before I say it, it isn't true, she thought. She swallowed the pancake and told herself that was stupid—magical thinking. Crazy thinking.

  "Well?"

  "Yep."

  Flip nodded his head and stared at her serious as stone. What did he see? Allison always saw two images of him, superimposed upon each other—the sane Flip, and the crazy one. The earnest, trying-to-be-strong Flip, and the tattooed-neck, manic-eyed Flip. He whistled as he breathed in, then out, the pitch changing with his breath.

  Allison slathered her pancakes in margarine and red syrup, then felt sick as she looked at the food and pushed it away. She bit at a stray flap of skin around her thumb's cuticle until she drew blood.

  "How did it happen?” Flip asked.

  "You were there."

  "I mean..."

  "The depo-provera's not 100%. Neither is your pill,” Allison said.

  "We can't keep it. We can't get rid of it. What are you going to do?” The stoic facade fell off his face, and he looked like he was going to cry.

  Allison stabbed at her pancake and pretended she was cutting skin. “Thanks, Flip, I hadn't thought about it. It hasn't been running in an endless loop over and over in my head that I signed five hundred legal documents saying I wouldn't have kids if I took Sanify. Or that abortion is totally illegal. Thanks for pointing out how screwed I am."

  "We are. I'm with you. It's not our fault. They can't blame us ... If we go to them they can't blame us,” Flip said.

  "Right, just like cops never beat you up for being a crazy Indian. They've never arrested us for being homeless, or locked us up for being psychotic. Why would they blame us now?” Allison held a scream inside of her. Violence w
as not normal. Rage was not normal. She filled her mouth with pancake to keep it inside of her.

  "I'm sorry. I'm here, Allison. I'm right here with you.” Flip had a bad look to him. Allison remembered all the times when he had burned himself, back when he was crazy. When she would yell at him, and later she would find cigarette burns on his body. That had been part of the attraction, hadn't it? She didn't even have to cut Flip. He hurt himself for her all on his own.

  No, that couldn't happen now. There was no insanity. Everything was fine now.

  "I'm sorry, Flip. It's too much. I don't have any answers. I don't know what the Sanify would do to a baby, and I don't know what would happen if I stopped taking it. There are so many weird stories out there about what happens if you stop. I don't know where to get an abortion where it's not some Christian front trying to catch people like me. I don't want to go to jail. Jeez, things were going so good,” Allison said.

  "No they weren't. We've been getting by, pretending we know how to live like normal people, but it's so empty,” Flip said.

  His words hurt. Allison hated the truth in them. She put her hands over her face and pressed on her eyelids.

  Flip leaned across the table and said, “Something has been coming toward us for a long time. Now something is here, that's all."

  "That's crazy talk."

  "Crazy is over, Allison. Whatever is coming, it's not crazy. Something new. If this wasn't complicated, what would you do? Pretend we're normal for a second.” He looked at her like she might hurt him. Not with knives, the other kind of hurt.

  "Tell me what you would want, first."

  He shook his head and wouldn't answer.

  "Fine. I'd keep it,” Allison said.

  That made him smile. “You would? Me too. We could be real good parents, Allison. We could have so much love."

  "But it's not simple,” she said.

  "People disappear all the time. We could. It's not so hard."