Michael James McFarland

Michael James McFarland has written over 50 short stories, half-a-dozen novellas, and recently completed "Palouse", his first novel. Presently he is at work on a second novel as well as continuing to waste time with short stories. His work has appeared in Twilight Showcase, Sinister Element, Peridot Books, Alternate Realities, and The Fugue. He does not have a personal website, nor is he much interested in creating one at present.

A very special thanks to Mike for this perfectly creepy contribution.
To contact the author, click here.

X

A Countdown to the Unknown

Twenty-Five...

Old Jacob Frost narrowed his slinty eyes and gazed hatefully over the miasma of smog and city lights that comprised downtown Daytonville. Strip malls, fast food, gasoline quick-stops... all were viewed with equal contempt from the third floor turret of his luxurious manor house high atop Harmony Hill. His lip curled; such a blatant, sprawling infestation of ignoble humanity! A wasteland creeping slowly outward on its predictable grid, withering then consuming all it touched. Oh, how it pained him just to look on it; to know that it existed and that, for the moment, his hand was powerless to wipe it all away!
Oh, but soon...
He took up his whisky glass and turned his long back on the offense, contenting himself to walk slowly round the circumference of the gray stone tower until it offered him a more pleasing angle. Like a sweet antithesis to the westward sprawl, Harmony Hill Cemetery lay sedately to the east; acre upon acre of cypress, hedgerow and stone. Mankind at its most agreeable.

A throaty chuckle of pleasure, as warming as the whisky to his insides, bubbled up to fill the threadbare twilight. A secret thrill all his own to covet and keep. Inevitably, his eyes rose to the clockwork of the starry heavens and the calculations flew like calendar pages in his mind - no longer juggling time in years or even months, but in weeks now. Days.
A thin strand of saliva fell from his lips, spidery in the muted moonlight.
Soon...
A solitary star fell against the firmament and Frost nodded. A sign. A portent of what was to come. Nothing, he knew, lasted forever; not even the stars. One by one they would fall - deaths of quiet registration or of spectacular fury...
The cold starlight caught his toothy smile.
In the woods nearby, he heard the smooth purr of a powerful engine winding its way up the hill. Yellow headlights threading the cottonwood and pine. Frost dabbed his lips with a clean white handkerchief.
A scrape sounded on the balcony behind him.
"Yes? What is it?" he inquired without turning, reluctant to tear himself from his reverie.
A hunched shadow detached itself from the windswept wall and bobbed hesitantly in the silvery light. It spoke in a voice as dry and skittish as autumn leaves.
Frost sighed. "Very well, Willie. Make sure all is in readiness for our guest and tell Renfield to show them in. I'll be down directly."
The mossy shadow scuttled away.
Soon...

Twenty-Four...

"Porkfist" Al Monroe was not a happy man.
Thirty-seven years in the meat packing business, helping provide the good old U.S. of A. with all the juicy red meat it could stuff down its gullet, and for what? So it could develop a limp wrist and stick a knife in his backside. That's what it amounted to. Health Consciousness. Prostate Cancer. Cholesterol. Lite.
Lite... Porkfist winced, shaking his large, fat head. Why, it wasn't even a word! Just some snot-nosed young advertiser's fancy way of shoving a stake through his heart, pasting it across every flipping frozen food box in America.
Lite. A watchword for the decade, and Porkfist Monroe's epitaph.
The red meat business - once a stronghold, a tradition - was slowly dying. It had taken some time, but now the writing was on the wall, larger and clearer with each passing year, like a time/demand chart sloping steadily into the ground, further into the red each quarter. The time had come to cut his loses and run with whatever he could get.
Which brought him here, to the mansion of Jacob Frost, to a man whom he had yet to meet face to face; a man known only as a velvety gray voice over the telephone. He had money though; Porkfist had checked into that quite thoroughly.
A valise of six production centers was tucked protectively under his stout arm - holding yards, slaughterhouses, cold-storage warehouses and the means for transportation, one in all - all ready to drop into Frost's lap for the right figure. Say, somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 mil, give or take one or two. He wasn't, after all, an unreasonable man.

Porkfist was fifty-one. He'd started as a clean-up boy at the tender age of 12. Now he owned the company. He had, he conservatively estimated, a good twenty-five years of meat-eating life yet ahead of him and no heirs to pass on the remainder of his holdings once time caught up with him. A man could be happy given that amount of time to spend 15 million dollars.
But Porkfist wasn't happy. He felt his days of power slipping gracelessly through his fat fingers. He stared at the deep-rubbed grain of the towering double-doors and clenched his fists into dull white hammerheads.
"Al-honey? Ain'tcha gonna knock or are we just gonna stand here at the door all night?" He looked at the twenty-two-year-old blonde at his side. Skin-tight red sequin dress, cut high and low. Cleavage practically falling out on his forearm. Christmas... What was he doing? Fifty-one years old...
"Al-honey? Didn'tcha hear what I sa-"
"Shut up, Delores," he growled, fixing her with a penetrating stare. "You remember what I said in the backseat about your yap? Keep it zipped shut or you can walk home in those fancy heels, capice?" The Frost property was three miles from the outskirts of town.
"So what's the big deal?" she snipped, smoothing the fingerprints out of her gown, chewing peppermint gum.
"Very, very big deal, Delores," Porkfist said calmly, clenching and unclenching. "You're the bow on top of the cake tonight, all right? The bow that don't say nothing. If this guy Frost smiles at you, you smile back. If he's got an itch, you scratch it. Dig? But so help me, Delores, if you say one word to blow this deal, you won't be walkin', I'll send a car here for you. The shiny black kind with lots of room in the back. Understand? And take that frickin' gum outta your mouth!"
As she pitched the gray wad into the bushes, Porkfist straightened his tie and knocked on the door.
It swung open even before his hand dropped back down to his side, as if someone were poised on the other side, waiting, one ear pressed to the wood.

"Good evening," a tall, dour butler exhaled, blowing an antiseptic breeze against their faces. Mouthwash, Porkfist sniffed, wincing until it passed. Criminy. The guy must drink the stuff.
"Mr. Monroe and... guest?" he queried, a single gray eyebrow raised, looking Delores up and down as if she were a German Sheppard who had taken to walking upright and wearing dresses, something he should take into the back and offer a plate of scraps while the gentlemen were discussing business. After due consideration he stepped back and allowed them to enter.
"Mr. Frost will be with you momentarily," he announced, addressing the room in general, spreading the amber scent of his Listerine into every corner. "If you will follow me, please, to the west parlor, he will join you there." He looked blankly at Porkfist's valise, then at the man himself. "May I take that for you, sir?"
"I think I'll just hold onto it myself, Jeeves," Monroe grinned, adjusting his grip on the worn leather case.
"As you wish. This way, please." The tall butler - Renfield, by name - struck off at a tremendous pace, arms hardly budging as his black heels clicked alternately over rich carpets and marbled tile. A wealth of comforts wrapped and surrounded them from the first step - paintings, rare tapestries, enclaves of light and furniture should one tire in the journey from one room to the next - all new treasures weaving themselves around every corner.
Delores was staring, eyes everywhere at once; mouth hanging open, practically drooling. Porkfist could hardly blame her; it made his own place (no flop itself) look like some sort of fancified dog house. This place though... well, you could just about lay out eighteen holes without ever stepping outside. Sort of a rainy day country club.
Porkfist wondered (and not for the first time since driving through the gates) how many pies this Frost had his fingers plugged into. This sort of wealth was a little beyond his comprehension; but one thing he did know: step by step his asking price was going up and up. 17.5 million had come and gone a few turns back, right by that lacquered grand piano with all the fancy inlay, shoved in a corner like it was something the cat sometimes played with. By the time they reached the "west parlor", who knew, the meter might be up to twenty or more. The guy could definitely afford it.
At length - after more walking than Porkfist had done at a stretch in recent memory - they arrived at a large, windowed room on the extreme boundaries of the manor. The lights of Daytonville were clearly visible in the distance, reduced to starlike pinpoints and clusters between the moonlit trees. A fire burned hungrily in an ornate fireplace grate, bathing the room in rich yellow light.
"Make yourselves comfortable," Renfield commanded, taking up an iron poker to stir the fire into greater activity. He turned round to face them. "May I get either of you a whisky?"
Winded from the journey, Porkfist lowered himself into a leather armchair. "I'll take a bottle of beer if you've got one, Jeeves."
The butler's expression did not flicker. "We have whisky, sir. Irish whisky. Mr. Frost prefers whisky and that is what he serves to his guests."
"How about a diet Coke?" Delores wondered, speaking for the first time since entering the house.
Renfield turned with obvious disdain. "Madam, we have whisky and we have tap water. I would respectfully request you limit yourself to one or the other."
Perplexity twisted her finely-chiseled features.
Porkfist rolled his eyes. "She'll take water. And bring me one of those whiskies you're so proud of. A short one." Best to keep his wits about him tonight, he thought. His future might very well be cast within the next few hours. No sense throwing it away on a drunk.
"Very good, sir." Renfield replaced the poker in the wrought iron tree and wiped his hands on a white linen handkerchief. Then, with an unhurried step, he left them to wait.
"Damn priss!" Porkfist mumbled and Delores giggled, shaking like a firm red Jello treat, infinitely desirable. He gave her a magnanimous wink and leaned back, satisfied.
A moment later the butler returned, their drinks balanced on an ebony tray.

Twenty-three...

Jacob Frost appeared in dark glasses and black tie, gliding through the doorway as if he were on wheels. White gloves covered his large hands and in one of them he held a drink. Listerine or whisky, Porkfist thought and rose from his chair to meet him.
"Mr. Monroe, a pleasure," Frost smiled as they shook hands in the center of the room. "So good of you to come all the way out here, and on your leisure time." Frost pronounced the word leh-sure.
"Not at all, not at all," Porkfist grinned, pumping away. He felt Delores hovering anxiously at his shoulder. "This here's Delores Sommers," he said, acknowledging her with a nod. "I hope you don't mind I brought her with me, but you know how women are, anything to get outta the house and put on a fancy dress, ha-ha."
Delores bubbled soft laughter and stepped forward, coyly offering the aged Mr. Frost her shapely hand.
He held it in his glove and kissed it. "Charmed," he breathed, delighted. Delores saw her smile reflected in the smoky black lenses, her image caught there like a tiny bird, trusting and helpless. A shudder of giddy anticipation ran down her bare back, spreading and tingling through her nerves like a low-grade electrical current.
With a grand wave of his hand, their host ushered them back to the hearth. Dressed as he was, Jacob Frost reminded Porkfist of an elegant magician - his shirtsleeves stuffed with colored silks and his jacket lined with flashpowder. The sunglasses were a little odd, but what the hell? If he wanted to get off by playing Mr. Mysterioso, what was the harm? Delores seemed pretty impressed; Porkfist smiled, he knew her act and this was the real thing. Money had a way of livening her right up.
Frost sat down opposite them in an antique Boston rocker. He folded his white hands against the black of his lap. "I won't keep you long," he said, creaking slowly back and forth. "I assume you've brought the necessary papers?"
Porkfist patted the case at his side. "Right here. Deeds to all six facilities."
Frost nodded approvingly. "Excellent. I've had a chance to look them over and am satisfied they are well-suited to my needs." He paused. "Which leaves only the matter of price..."
Porkfist felt a line of sweat trickle down his side from the heat of the fire.
"What were you asking, Mr. Monroe, for the complete package?"
Twenty million. Say it! There's always room to drop back. Say it! Twen-ty Mill-ion...
Porkfist cleared his throat. "Twenty million," he said without blinking.
Frost touched the tips of his fingers together, silently considering. The air turned to electricity between them. "A great deal of money," he said at last.
"It's my life," Porkfist truthfully admitted. "Thirty-nine years."
Again Frost nodded. He rose from the rocker and went to the mantle, picking up a crude stone statuette. He turned it over in his hands. "Every life has its price, doesn't it, Mr. Monroe?" Frost soliloquized, the broad plain of his back rimmed with fire. "Some are simply worth more than others, no?"
Porkfist realized that he was holding his breath.
Frost turned and smiled. "I think we can do business."
Delores gave his arm a squeeze and Porkfist exhaled, triumphant.

Twenty-two...

Ten days later, stars began to fall along the outskirts of Daytonville.
The skies were damp and overcast, torn with gray patches of rain, and the small fires that were set upon impact were quietly extinguished before anyone took much notice.
A corn farmer by the name of Coon Hickens out on County Road No. 7 lost a chicken coup but it had long ago outlived that function; he had, in fact, been considering tearing it down to make way for a second garage and so was spared the trouble...
Three-quarters of a mile north of Hickens' former birdhouse, a deep and strangely uniform pothole or crater appeared on the Interstate, not twenty feet from the scorched bumper of an abandoned pick-up truck. The truck's registered owner - one Jonathan Plough of Daytonville - had yet to be located; the truck, however, was duly impounded and the hole quickly smoothed over by a puzzled maintenance crew from the Department of Transportation...
On the far east edge of town, in Harmony Hill Cemetery, the eternal resting place of Mrs. Willamina Grantham - beloved wife and mother - was found disturbed after only fourteen short weeks of slumber. The casket, unearthed and vacant, lay open to the rain, the police at something of a loss to explain the grisly theft...
Further east, a lone tree burned somberly, almost reverently in a stubbled field near the Eastmore Grange...

Twenty-one...

At ten minutes to twelve, the night after the stars fell, Officers Wood and Castle were prowling the alleys just east of the old railroad station when a single bolt of green lightning lit the clouds overhead. Almost immediately, the police-band radio beneath the sculpted dash began to emit loud, white bursts of loose static. Ed Wood, three years on the force and seated behind the padded blue steering wheel, grimaced and glanced down at the offending unit.
"Now what the heck's the matter with that blamed thing?" he wondered aloud, his long face backlit with a green scowl; eyes narrowed and teeth on edge.
His partner - Bill Castle - leaned forward and began to twist the silvery knobs and dials at random. The high-frequency shriek climbed to an ear-splitting decibel and then cut abruptly as the radio started to smoke from its side vents. Ozone leaked into the car's interior. "Well hell's bells!" Castle swore and quickly snapped it off. A small shower of blue and white sparks fell onto the plastic floor mat and died. "Something sure shorted it out!" Bill declared, scratching his ear and peering uncertainly at the sky. "Brand new radio too!"
Ed glanced up too. "That lightning was awful close..." he ventured, eyes returning to the graveled alleyway , concentrating on the emerging shadows. It was another wet and foggy night, and the harsh reflections and misty eddies pierced by the cruiser's powerful headlights were playing tricks on his eyes again. Last night he'd thought he'd seen a figure as pale and hollow-cheeked as Death lurking out past the loading platform in back of the meat-packing house. It turned out to be nothing though, or else some scarecrow junkie that had managed to give them the slip. Tonight looked to be more of the same; not even two hours into the shift and already his head was pounding like a dull mallet.
"Sure was," Castle agreed, still star-gazing through the tint at the top of the windshield. An expression of perplexity reflected back. "Funny though... it seems awfully cool out for thunder and lightning. I wonder if-"
His next thought was neatly severed by a loose-jaw click as his skull bounced off the curved glass. "Holy Joe!" he shouted, falling back into the seat, the taste of his nipped tongue filling his mouth. Ed's feet were jammed on the brake pedal, as stiff as broomsticks, the car at an unexpected halt.
A body loomed in the headlights; in the alley thirty feet ahead, crawling with fog.
"#%*@," said Wood flatly, who almost never swore for real. At best (or worse), his language approached that of an angry Scoutmaster, fed up with his pack of rowdy boys yet still mindful of the example he set. To hear something as vulgar as "#%*@" come out of his mouth was almost as shocking as the sight of the corpse, which was very shocking indeed.
Not that it was particularly grisly; they both had seen worse, pulled in pieces large and small out of wrecked cars along the highway; rather, it was the overwhelming expression of terror, the wide eyes fixed toward them in the dark, that provoked such a gut reaction. It was the countenance of a man still focused on his fear as death had settled slowly into his joints.
There was blood puddled around his legs and midsection, but no easily discernible cause.
Wood reached for the hand-mic on the front of the radio, then remembered its recent demise. He pitched it angrily aside, struggling to control his rising frustration.
Castle pulled his door handle, his holster unclipped, and the smell of the alley crept in. His partner laid a cautionary hand on his shoulder.
"One of us is going to have to phone it in from a public booth," he said, nodding through the windshield. The bar of lights atop the cruiser, turning red and blue spotlights over their heads, threw the misty alleyway into a foreboding dreamscape. The fog was churning, covering and uncovering the dead man, the blood and the shadows. "The nearest one is back on River Street, in front of Midwest Power. That sound right to you?"
Castle nodded. "Yeah."
"First we'll make a quick sweep, just in case someone's still hanging around. Do you want to make the call or should I?"
Wood had his own door open now, his police-issue revolver tightly in hand. He recalled that a fellow officer had been shot within a stone's throw of where they sat; the bullet had nicked his spinal cord and he was not expected to regain use of his legs again, among other things. His assailant had never been found.
"You better go," Castle replied unhappily. "You run faster than me."
"All right. Let's go."
The two men took flashlights and left the safety of the car. Standing still, the maze of sidestreets around them grew eerily quiet, the drifting fog dampening every sound within its wispy veil. With a glance, they separated, making a wide, outward circle around the body, their guns jumping nervously from shadow to shadow, each protecting the other's backside. Their footsteps sounded softly upon the gravel and a moment later they closed the rough ellipse at the far end of the alley, having seen not so much as a stray cat.
The tall, vague shapes of darkened buildings, rows of blind windows and secret doorways pressed around them.
Tentatively, they holstered their guns and turned their attention to the body sprawled in the diffuse headlights. It was easier to approach from behind, not having to look into those screaming eyes.
Bill Castle knelt on one knee and pressed two fingers to the unmarked neck, directly over the carotid artery. He looked up at Wood and shook his head. A formality really, they had both known he was dead upon sight.
Wood patted his partner on the shoulder. "Hang tight," he said, removing his square-cornered hat and tucking it under his arm for the run. "Don't move him; I'll be right back." And with that, he turned and trotted away, past the car and into the mist. Only the sound of his footsteps followed and soon they too were greedily swallowed.
Castle rose to his feet, one hand on the butt of his pistol, watching nervously against the night. Blue and red lights lapped his perspiring face. He was a target, alone now, with only a dead man to keep him company. Standing on a stage of beacons and lights while the world moved in obscurity around him, always just out of sight.
Somewhere far down the alley (or maybe not so far - the fog had a way of twisting everything) he heard a crash like a garbage can overturning and thought of Ed. He prayed he would hurry.
With nothing to do but wait, Castle moved against the glare of the cruiser's headlights and squatted down to study the dead man's face. A thin, knife-edged shudder passed through him to the primitive, more instinctual core.
This was not a good way to die, he observed, staring into the sightless eyes.
What was it you saw before you finally surrendered?
He thought better of that. He didn't want to know. Couldn't even imagine.
The man was not especially tall, but he was thick-waisted, stocky; an altogether solid-looking specimen. In a fair fight he would have had no problem defending himself against the cast-off scum that generally inhabited this neighborhood - most ill-fed and so far wasted on the bottle that they could barely support their own weight. One good punch would fold them up and drop them like yesterday's mail. This one looked to be the type to carry a gun under his well-tailored jacket as well.
More than likely he had been dropped here already dead. Left for the vultures. The man stared in terror at the headlights. Secrets to keep, sealed away beyond an impenetrable wall.
A frown tugged at Castle's face. Somehow, there was a hint of familiarity - still nameless, still obscure - gazing out at him from the dead man's features. He thought that he should know this man, that he had, in fact, seen him before... pressed flat against a television screen or smudged with newsprint... he couldn't remember. If the face were only more relaxed, maybe it would come to him.
He looked with unease at the small pool of blood, almost invisible against the damp gravel, leaking out of the man's suit and pants pocket. When the lab boys allowed him to be moved they would no doubt find a slug hole in his ponderous gut. Or possibly a knife wound. Nothing of any real interest; just another dead thug (maybe a little more important than most) iced by a rival businessman. Executed with stone calculation. And yet, the expression on his face...
Perhaps they'd stumbled across a real mystery. Something beyond the usual domestic squabble or drug deal gone sour. The prospect caused Bill Castle's heart to beat faster, in tune with the approaching footsteps. He quickly rose to his feet, his true right hand straying to the walnut grip of his revolver.
"Is that you, Ed?" he called into the mist.
The footsteps slowed and his partner materialized into the halo of light. A siren rose in the distance.
Castle let slip a breath of relief.

Twenty...

Flashbulbs popped in the alley and micro-evidence was gathered and sealed in ziplocked plastic; an outline in waterproof dye traced carefully around the body.
Officers Wood And Castle watched from an intermediate distance, memorizing details for their report.
At last the body was turned full into the light.
"My God!" somebody cried. "That's Porkfist Monroe!"
And Castle remembered. Porkfist the Butcher. The Tri-County Slaughterhouse King.

Nineteen...

Back at the station, a light rain now falling against the second floor windows, Wood entered with the Coroner's preliminary report. His face betrayed a curious mixture of puzzlement and incredulity, as if he were struggling to wring some sort of sense out of the document. Castle glanced up from his typewriter, paused, and let his hands fall limply to the table.
"Well, what's the verdict?" he asked.
"Shock."
Castle narrowed his eyes. "Shock? Where'd all that blood come from? He didn't get that falling down. Something tore into him."
Wood looked up from his daze. "Secondary," he said quietly. "It's true that he was bleeding, but it was the shock that killed him." He paused and Castle watched his Adam's apple bob with nervous hesitation. A bad feeling crept over him. "There were several... punctures - dozens, it says here - along his ribs and spinal column. Also down his hips and thighs... They go all the way to the bone."
Castle made a face. "Huh?"
"Well, no one's sure how or why, but it looks like the, uh, marrow's been tapped out of him in places."
"Marrow? You mean bone marrow?" Castle gaped. He felt like his chair had begun to slide down a hidden incline.
Wood nodded soberly.
"Lord..."
Castle pushed away from the desk and walked to the window. He looked out into blanketed night. Two stories below, the station parking lot was a hazy netherworld drawn in pale yellow lamplight. His own silhouette a silent and watchful specter. So many questions spinning around his head.
He turned back to his partner. "How? And why? What the hell do you do with bone marrow outside of a hospital?"
Wood held up the M.E.'s report and read aloud: "' depletion by external means yet unascertained.' That's all they've got for us right now."
"That's it! Hey, I figured that much out on my own! 'External means'... That's beautiful!" He uttered a short, humorless laugh.
Wood cleared his throat, not yet finished. "As to why..." he scratched his head, "well, from what I gathered from Dr. Lunch, there are two different kinds of bone marrow - what you call your red and your yellow. Rubra or flava," he discerned, consulting his notes. "The yellow is mostly made up of fatty cells, connective fiber... It's what dogs dig for when they're gnawing on a T-bone. The red, on the other hand, is geared more for white cell production and oxygen distribution within the bloodstream. It's what they take out for transplants. All right?"
"Yeah, okay," Castle agreed, amenable. For the moment.
"Once they do a complete autopsy on our Mr. Monroe - which is scheduled for eight o'clock this morning, by the way - they'll be able to tell exactly what was taken out of him, the red or the yellow, or both."
"I see. All of which will tell us what?"
"Why it was taken. Primarily for food, or utility."
Castle raised an eyebrow. "White blood cells?"
Wood shrugged, inconclusive.
"Any other leads?"
"Only this. It seems that Monroe sold his business not two weeks ago; lock, stock and barrel. Six meat-packing houses spread from here to Grand Junction." Again he flipped through his pocket pad. "To a Jacob X. Frost of Daytonville. Route One, Box 32 along the Old Daytonville Road. Close to the cemetery. A very big house, I'm told."
Castle stared thoughtfully at the ceiling. "Jacob X. Frost," he repeated. "What's the X stand for?"
Wood shrugged his shoulders. "Unknown."
"So what happens from here?" He resumed his position at the typewriter, set the roller back to "Cause of Death" and hunted for the S.
"It's out of our hands. Captain Dunnwich has assigned the investigation to Crawler. We're to turn everything over to him and keep our eyes open for, quote: 'anything of a similar nature' along the railfront district."
"Great. As if we weren't seeing enough of that hole already," Castle groused. "He expecting lightning to strike in the same place twice?"
Ed Wood tipped his head thoughtfully. Lightning. "Hey, that reminds me - you remember that strange flash we caught just before the radio went out - you put that in the report, didn't you?"
Bill swiveled in his chair. "Sure. I thought I'd throw it in just in case the Captain gets any funny ideas about docking us for the repair bill. Why?"
Wood opened his mouth, closed it, began again and concluded by shaking his head, disgusted. "Nothing. Never mind."

Eighteen...

Midmorning light, soft and gray, slanted through the high, narrow windows.
Geoffrey Lunch, the County Coroner, laid the newly-prepared slide under the microscope and peered intently down the barrel. A murmur of initial surprise cracked his thin red lips: what should have been a loosely-woven field of pale yellow ossium was, under high magnification, a blasted gray wasteland. What remained to be seen he likened to the lumps of raw calcium pulled out of a smoking crematorium. Bits of hardened structure - dry, cytoplasmic walls - somehow burst and depleted, leaving not a single untouched cell behind.

Interesting...
No, downright impossible.
Lunch blinked and adjusted his glasses. He exchanged the glass slide for one that should contain a high concentration of red marrow.
Eye to the lens, he gazed down into an altered world.
The oxygen-carrying erythrocytes, or red corpuscles, were abundantly represented within the sample, but the white cells, the leukocytes, were dramatically reduced. Adjusting the slide, hoping to find more, Lunch instead found an intruder in the mix.
He uttered a mild oath of disbelief. He seemed to have stumbled across the microscopic equivalent of a vampire at work.
Attached to one of the leukocytes was an alien cell, something he had never come across in all his twenty-seven years of medicine. Not precisely a parasite, the invader seemed intent on the destruction of its host, draining it by means of a slim, tubelike protrusion. Within the darkened mass, Lunch identified a hazy nucleus.
The white cell looked shriveled, its essence all but stolen away.
As Lunch looked on, alarmed and helpless, the leukocyte collapsed and disappeared. The alien cell flew like a bat from the microscope's rounded field.
He withdrew from the instrument and, frowning, turned to consider the body resting on the table behind him.

Seventeen...

"Can you tell us what you did see in Maggie's blood?" the handsome attorney pressed as dark, instrumental jukebox music poured over the bar and its three lonely patrons. In the windows, reflections of water moved with the gentle tide, as if the building were floating, or mounted to a section of dock.
Victoria looked concerned - a little girl lost in the darkness consuming the town - her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her drink forgotten on the table.
The doctor took off his glasses and, with due solemnity, addressed the camera:
"If I had to describe what I saw in that slide... in Maggie's blood... I'd say it was some sort of... unholy union."
The attorney and Victoria exchanged a look of puzzlement and alarm as the jukebox gave way to a crescendo of eerie mysterioso and the bar faded dramatically to black.
A commercial for a bartending academy appeared abruptly to fill the void.
Renfield glanced at his watch. It was 11:25. Dark Shadows was over for the day. He rose from his chair to turn off the set, but Willie was adamant. The small dark shape on the couch hissed and snapped its tiny razor-fangs. Its yellow eyes flashed venom.
"But it's over!" the butler protested, pointing at the face of his watch. "Look here!"
Willie's long fingernails reworked the upholstery and tufts of lint-gray stuffing began to fly. The end credits and theme music had yet to roll; apparently every bit as important as the show itself.
Renfield sighed. "All right, all right. By all means, watch until the bitter end!"
Willie resettled himself contentedly on the torn cushions. After several more commercials - most advertising a general betterment and salability of oneself by the immediate enrollment in some sort of business or trade school - the program resumed. A rote of now-familiar names rolled jerkily upward over a stationary shot of a misty graveyard. A voice-over announced that the People's Court would be in session momentarily and a tree fell over in the cemetery. Willie tittered, delighted, and threw himself off the couch as the music faded away. He skittered from the room.
Renfield leaned forward and switched off the set. He shook his head. For reasons neither he himself nor Mr. Frost could quite fathom, the gothic soap opera (now in reruns) featuring Barnabus Collins held a strange attraction for Willie.
Every weekday morning at eleven o'clock, the tiny assassin merrily found his way to the television room and could not be induced to move until the program had run its course. Time literally ground to a halt and for thirty minutes the household was thrown into a shadowy world of blackmail, family scandal and, of course, vampires.
Willie, who had been brought into Mr. Frost's service a nameless apprentice, had adopted the name of one of the show's characters - that of Willie Loomis, the vampire's reluctant assistant. Mr. Frost had been unusually indulgent; perhaps the notion of playing the vampire, of preying within the fold of men, secretly pleased him. And so long as Willie performed his duties...
A series of chimes sounded deep within the walls. Someone was at the front gate. Adjusting his pale, dry expression, Renfield walked to the wall and pressed the intercom.
"Yes?" he inquired, glaring into the mesh of the speaker.
A disembodied voice exhaled, coarse and raw from cigarettes: "Jacob Frost?"
"May I ask who is calling?" the butler demanded, managing to sound both respectful and offended at the same time.
"Daytonville Police," the voice answered, coughing with static. "Lieutenant Crawler. I'd like to ask Mr. Frost a few questions."
Renfield hesitated. The police. Mr. Frost should be consulted. "One moment, please." He cut the lieutenant off and buzzed his employer high atop the third floor. "Yes?" Frost said in a voice as gray as cobwebs.
"A visitor," the butler informed. "A representative of the local police department to see you. He has some questions. A Lieutenant Crawler."
Amplified silence, then: "Crawler? An interesting name... Very well, Renfield, let's invite him up. It may be that we can put his mind to rest."
"Very good, sir." Renfield deactivated the electronic lock and, at the foot of the wooded hill, the front gates creaked open. "Lieutenant? Mr. Frost will see you now. Please proceed along the drive to the front door."
"Thank-you," the detective's voice mumbled over the clatter of a badly-tuned engine. The engine opened its oily throat and roared.
A moment later the gates swung shut.
A grumbling in the basement.
Through a maze of ductwork corridors, past rooms resembling prison cells, a mute congregation watched and waited.
Coon Hickens stood in the remains of his hen house, brushing the gritty char from his calloused hands.
J.C. Plough bent to examine a crater.
And Willamina Grantham - beloved wife and mother - picked the dirt and splinters from what was left of her aged fingernails.
Still others - absent of Daytonville and its surrounding countryside - busied themselves with similar shadowplay. Daydreams of strange discovery.
And the seeds inside spread their glistening new tendrils.

Sixteen...

The guy was wearing gloves. That was the first thing that caught John Crawler's attention when Jacob Frost walked into the room. The West Parlor. White gloves and a fancy London suit, like he was about to dash off for an evening at the Ritz. He looked at his watch. Hell, it wasn't even noon!
Juggling his cup and saucer to the table, the detective stood and reached for his badge. From experience he had found, incredibly, that most people didn't really believe he was a cop until he flashed them some silver. From experience, he found it was best to get that fact firmly established as introductions were made. It just saved on time and embarrassment. People watched too much damn TV nowadays. Not every detective looked like McCloud or Columbo. Sometimes they looked more like the ones behind bars: ragged around the edges and a little scary.
"Ahh, Lieutenant."
Detective Crawler put his badge away.
The second thing he noticed, as Frost moved past the large bay windows against the late morning light, was that the old guy looked dead. Really dead. His whole appearance reminded Crawler of a body he'd come across one day out near Miller's Pond. Some guy, no older than himself, dead as a stone and just as gray from a stroke he'd had while fishing. His body lay back in the tall grass beneath a cottonwood tree. And there were ants on it.
Now here again, walking toward him...
Jacob Frost smiled and offered his hand. Crawler clenched his teeth and imagined wood.
"Well now, to what do I owe this visit from one of Daytonville's Finest?" Frost wondered, seating himself comfortably beside the coffee table. He poured himself a whisky from a ready decanter. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant. Can I offer you a drink?"
The detective shook his head, indicating his tea cup. He carried a small cache of tea bags in the pocket of his jacket; not everyone in the world thought the beginning and end of tea drinking was Lipton's, but everyone in Daytonville did. Crawler, whose mother was from London and a stickler for such observances as proper tea, preferred something with a bit more character. Today it was China Black. So goddamned strong that his tongue began to buzz with numb indulgence after only half a cup. The butler, the one with the antiseptic breath, had already offered him whisky, and Crawler could see it was the drink of the house; he had asked for a cup of hot water instead and it had been delivered, rolling with steam.
Now he took out his note pad and the small stub of a pencil.
Frost, waiting patently, scratched his cheek and a long peel of dead skin fell into his lap. Crawler caught the motion from the corner of his eye and took a gulp of tea.
When he turned back it was gone, brushed to the floor (or eaten) and out of sight.
Hands pressed tightly in his lap, Detective Crawler began the interview:
"All right, Mr. Frost. The reason I'm here... You may have read in this morning's paper of the unfortunate demise of one Alphonse Monroe, also known as "Porkfist" Monroe?"
The older man crossed his thin legs. "Yes, I couldn't very well miss it, could I? Poor Alphonse! Laid out in that alley like a bundle of garbage for all to gawk at at 35� a copy!" He shook his head with obvious distaste. "Not a particularly agreeable sight to linger over one's bacon and poached eggs."
"I s'pose not. At any rate, I've been put in charge of the investigation into his death." He looked into Frost's eyes and cleared his throat, wishing for a cigarette. "I understand that you and Mr. Monroe conducted a fairly sizable business transaction just prior to his death. You bought him out, is that right?"
"Indeed it is."
Crawler scribbled a line in his worn notebook, then his eyes returned. "Would you mind describing the meeting you had with him? Was he alone? What was his general state of mind... did he appear over-stressed or in any way despondent?"
Frost leaned back, appearing to give the question serious consideration. His expression grew accordingly grave. "Not that I can recall. He seemed rather pleased with himself, in fact, and I suppose he had every right. His asking price was inordinately high, you see, and I conceded the usual round of haggling and tradeoffs for the sake of simple expediency and, frankly, because I can well afford it. I have more money than I know what to do with these days, Detective, and Mr. Monroe appealed to my deeper sentiment. It was, after all, his life I was asking for."
Crawler looked up. "His life?"
Frost laughed. "His words, Lieutenant, not mine. His life's work."
"Oh."
"As for the company he kept, I can't vouch for who he saw beyond these walls, but there was young woman with him on that particular night... seated right where you are now." He grinned and Crawler saw a thin streak of red on his teeth, like blood. "I can't quite put a name to her just now, but I don't think she spoke more than a half-dozen words all evening. She was young, as I said - about twenty-five - and very pretty."
The detective had his head down, busily writing.
Frost shook his head. "No Lieutenant... from my view, Alphonse had every reason in the world to rejoice. He left this room a very rich man, and with a lovely woman draped over his arm; other than that, I really don't know what more I can tell you. The meeting, as I said, was relatively short and uneventful. I had already looked into the prospective facilities and the contracts were ready to sign. All that remained was for Alphonse to name a final price so the bargain could be sealed."
Frost paused to sip his whisky. Something small and industrious seemed to be stirring within his thick crown of iron-gray hair, though when Crawler looked directly at it it was still. The urge for a cigarette reaffirmed itself, like an undeniable itch. He rubbed his eyes.
"This girl," he said, blinking Frost into focus. "Can you describe her please?"
In the far reaches of Frost's darkened cellar, something moaned. It shuddered.
Willamina Grantham, late and beloved wife and mother, went into the final stage of breakdown. As a host her decomposing tissue was no longer acceptable, and so she began to die a second and far stranger death. Brittle bones, drained of all their marrow, popped like dry branches and her thick, gray skin began to crack and ooze slow, black putrescence. Unable to support herself any longer, she slumped forward on the cool, flagstone floor.
Scores of calculating eyes swung in her direction, watching from their own deep shadows, as silent as rats.
Coon Hickens paused in the ruins of his hen house as her body shook with grim convulsions.
J.C. Plough saw her writhing as a poisoned snake at the bottom of his strange and fiery pothole.
Clayton McDougall, who lived alone in a shabby trailer three-quarters of a mile west of the cemetery, watched through his greasy, pleated curtains as a shaggy creature the size of his Dodge writhed in the damp of his neglected lawn, jaws open and snapping at the misty air...
Callie Western heard her dog begin to bark in the night as a knock sounded upon her door...
One by one, instinctively, they positioned themselves as Willamina began to expire. The danger was very close now... about to fly from the diseased host like a crazed wasp from the hollow of its fallen nest. Instinctively, like insects, they knew it would try to take another, to force its way deep inside before the atmospheric toxins caused it to weaken and die.
Willamina winked a lazy gray eye...
And a shadow slipped free. A thing so small and black it might have been a housefly. It ran at them.
Hands began to slap, voices turned to shriek and howl.

* * *

Detective Crawler stared at the rich patch of carpeting between his scuffed brown loafers and the lines of his otherwise rounded face drew sharply downward. Dimly, through the thick padding and floorboards rose a noise like the monkey cage at the zoo. Like someone had set it on fire or tossed in a gas grenade.
He set down his tea and looked at his host.
Frost hadn't batted an eye. A placid, almost tolerant smile played upon his gray and pickled face.
"Do you hear something?" Crawler asked, leaning forward in his chair as if the riot might burst through the floor at any moment.
The old man tipped his doting head and pretended to listen. He offered Crawler a slight and puzzled smile.
Something strong and deep raged among the great and quiet cacophony. A beast caught in the grinder. The detective flinched at the tortured sound of it. "That," he said, pointing limply at the floor.
A little laugh skipped across the table. "My dogs, Lieutenant," Frost chuckled, weaving his bony fingers together to form a sagging church and steeple. One eye strayed to the clock over the mantle while the other gazed steadfastly at the detective. "It's their feeding time."
"Dogs?" Crawler raised his eyebrows in obvious disbelief. "What kind of dogs do you keep?"
"Rottweilers, mostly." Frost's teeth sharpened. "Would you like to see? I could have Renfield to show you down?"
"No," Crawler declined, reaching for the security of his cup and saucer. For his tea. "I think I'll pass. Dogs don't usually take to m-"
He jumped. A fly was swimming in the tepid liquid.
No, he squinted, not a fly...
Frost, spying what was in the teacup, leapt screaming from his chair, his voice raw with rage. "Noooo!" He threw a large, round coffee table aside like it was a plaything, his long shadow writhing across the floor, over the lieutenant's lap. "He's not for you!" The detective looked up, startled.
The speck in his cup shot up, piercing the waxy membrane of his eardrum like a hot needle.
Teacup and saucer overturned and the carpet drank deeply of the strong, black tea. A thick fluid - clear, laced with threads of blood - flowed along the firm line of Crawler's jaw. He dropped to his knees, eyes reflecting a dull pain and wonder.
"NOOOOOO!"
Frost howled and threw his whisky glass against the wall in a helpless fury, his tight fists trembling as the amber fluid ran down the wallpaper and behind the wainscotting.

Fifteen...

His initial impulse was to snatch up the detective's twitching body by its cheap lapels, drag him over to the fireplace grate, then pound his head against the bricks.
The selfish treason!
Careless! Unthinking!
He had the lieutenant dangling, ready to do just that, when the telephone rang.
Frost stared across the room at the desk. At the black bird that had just woke up.
No one called him. No one. Ever.
It rang again, warming to the sound of its own voice, then once more before Renfield picked up from a distant extension.
And still Frost could not move; greasy indecision ate like ulcers at his insides.
He stared into Crawler's vacant blue eyes.
Ah, yes.
Of course. His superiors would know his whereabouts.
Gently, he lowered the detective back into his chair.
"You want to exist upon this crowded world, my treacherous little friend?" he whispered roughly into the damaged ear, unfolding a handkerchief from his own pocket, draping it over the lieutenant's left shoulder, carefully daubing the sticky fluid from around the punctured ear. "Well then, we'll see how useful you can make yourself, yes?"
Something akin to fear registered in Detective Crawler's eyes; it caused them to dilate. To turn black.
Frost smiled, reassured. He bent over and unbuttoned the lieutenant's shirt, exposing wiry hair on a pale chest and belly.
Straightening, he took off his white gloves.
The magic was about to begin.

Fourteen...

In brooding buildings spread across three counties, fine adjustments were being affected inside ranks of still machinery. Men in stained coveralls moved like sluggish shadows, making wholesale alterations along the line, working in a sweltering half-light. Heavy gloves were stuffed like smothering hands in the mouths of their pockets.
A new floor for killing... never seen on this small blue world, was taking shape over the old one. Hungry yes, but no longer for the blood of cattle.
The long, extracting needles were fitted into place. A bristling cloister of patient iron maidens. Networks and tangles of reinforced tubing. Up, up into refrigerated storage vaults.
Outside the wind gusted. A draft blew up from the channels below the rusty grating.
The men wrinkled their noses, shuddered or sneezed - not knowing why - and resumed their work.

Thirteen...

Frost put his gloves back on.
Lieutenant John Crawler sank back with a sigh. Blood trickled from scores of tiny punctures along his ribcage. A faint spur twisted deep within the tissue of his brain and the noontime sun, uncovered by a freshening breeze, sliced through the long windows and reflected painfully in his newly expounded vision. Brown leaves blew by like sparrows and far beyond the blue of the sky he saw a deepening blackness. A void filled with pindots of sterile white light. And beyond that a presence: a cast off piece of himself.
In that moment he felt that he was dying, that some small yet vital essence had been taken away and without it he would surely perish. Slowly fall apart.
His eyes returned to normal and, with a note of alarm, saw Jacob Frost staring down at him, cold disapproval cut deep into the pores of his face. At once he understood that Frost was dying too, and it had something to do with...
White cells.
Yes. A count of white blood cells. A need that burned through his body like a raging thirst, never satisfied.
Cold and alien.
Yes... A man from a very dark star... one that no longer burned against the night sky. An alien man.
The spur twisted inside his head and the detective winced. The thought was driven from his mind. He sat upright, dizzy and afraid.
"Now then. I believe you are wanted on the telephone, Lieutenant."
Crawler looked across the room. The butler was standing in a shadow beside the desk, holding the plastic receiver at the end of its coiled leash, holding it out for him to take. He looked down at himself and saw that his shirt had come undone, that some sort of rash - like a bad case of prickly heat - had erupted on his chest and shed tiny droplets of blood like tears.
"Lieutenant," Frost repeated, scowling. A cloud shaped like a rainstorm passed over the sun and the room turned to sleet. Slowly he stood and walked across to the desk, feeling oddly off-balance.
"Yes?" he said, holding the receiver to his right ear. "This is Lieutenant Crawler." The detective visibly straightened at his captain's voice. He began to button the front of his shirt.
"We've had a second body turn up in the railroad district," Dunnwich informed him, using dry, clipped tones. "A woman this time. Early- to mid-twenties. Less than one hundred yards from where Monroe turned up last night. Same sort of wounds. I was thinking that you might want to get down there and have a look before they wrap her in a body bag."
"Yes, sir," Crawler affirmed, tucking in a loose shirt-tail. "I'll be right there."
"Lieutenant, did it ever occur to you to turn on your radio from time to time? Is that really too much to ask? I've had Steno calling you for damn near half an hour!"
"I've been away from my car."
"No kidding."
"It's true, sir."
"Well get back in it and get down there!" Dunnwich roared and rang off with an unceremonious click.
The detective handed the butler back the receiver. He looked down at the front of his shirt and sighed. Red pinheads had begun to flower against the face of the white fabric. "I, uh, have to go," he said, turning back to his host. "A new development has turned up in the railroad district. Another body, I'm afraid."
"Oh my." Frost had poured himself another whisky and sat sipping it, contented as an old cat. "Well it's been a splendid visit, Lieutenant. Please do come again if the urge strikes you. We don't get many visitors out this way, you know. Renfield will show you to the door. Good-day."
Lieutenant Crawler passed through the stylish French doors juggling helplessness and confusion.

Twelve...

Frost rose from his chair and walked to the windows. Daytonville stretched out beyond the trees, a picture-perfect postcard. Motionless at this distance. At peace with itself and everything it touched. Frost stared, brooding. He saw the insipid detective emerge far to his right, squinting into the sunlight, walking toward his car. One hand was pressed flat against his ear.
Frost drained the last of his glass and opened a valve down deep in his throat. A piercing litany of unintelligible clicks and whistles issued forth like an alien foghorn churning in the mist.
Willie dropped from the chimney - a hybrid of a gigantic spider and a steel-wool scrubbing pad. An odor like raw, dampened earth wafted in.
Frost nodded as the car started in the driveway. "Follow him. See that he minds his manners."
Willie disappeared and Frost was left with the impression of teeth smiling at him from the soot and black of the empty hearth. Outside, he turned as a shadow passed under the lieutenant's car. Very good.
The clock over the mantle chimed the hour and a wrinkle of dissatisfaction crossed his countenance.
Almost immediately the transplants below his feet began their chorus of yelps and incessant whines like starving pups. The marrow. Feeding time, Frost grimaced. He set down his empty glass with thoughtful contemplation. Ah, but weaning time was fast approaching. Very soon they would be on their own - as he himself had been all these years, watching and waiting - and then, then nature would weed the crop to more fitting proportions. He had been the first, always the strongest, and it rubbed painfully against his vanity that he needed help to establish a stronghold here on Earth, help to carry and wind the chains of subjectivity around this soft and temperate world, help to set up the processing factories for the meat and the marrow...
In his brief span on Earth, Frost had quickly discovered that a small organism had unknowingly been transplanted with him. A microscopic virus as alien to this world as he was. It lurked within the host's bone structure and fed off the body's leukocytes at an alarming rate, destroying the body's natural resilience to injury and disease. Without the defensive white cells produced by the native marrow, any number of common complaints or diseases might quickly cut them down.
Unless the marrow was constantly replenished, their fragile bodies would rapidly weaken and die. Every last one of them; his own included.
The folly was that when all was said and done, these same weak creatures which he now kept and nourished in the warmth of his cellar would one day rise and become his darkest adversaries, all struggling over the lands for supreme control. And while it was true that he was stronger by far than any one of them, he could not overlook the possibility that two or three might form a temporary allegiance to overcome him.
His current position was by no means assured.
How many times in the past few days had the temptation reared in his heart to throw open the wooden door, rush down the heavy steps and slaughter every last one of them? A hundred? A thousand? Surely it would save him a great deal of trouble in the end. But for now...
He was still weak. Yes, he could admit it. He needed them.
And they were calling him now. Treacherous little children, each one born with a knife in its hand, waiting only the chance to stick it in his back.
Frost barked Renfield's name impatiently.
Feed them, damn you! Feed them before I wade down there with a can of gasoline and a match!
He found himself before the mantle once again, the small statuette in his hands. A smile crossed his sagging lips. What looked like a relic was actually the future. A final terrible solution, and all his own.
"This is the way the world ends..." he whispered, quoting Eliot, a poet he'd taken rather a morbid liking to, setting the crude figure back upon its eroded legs.
It stared back at him through shallow cups, blind and uncomprehending.

Eleven...

The remains of Miss Delores Sommers lay like a broken bird on the roof of the Savoy Hotel. Three stories high and every foot of it brick, the Savoy was built to look run-down and self-defeated. A crumbling brown tombstone buried in the dark heart of Daytonville's tiny slum district whose foggy back windows overlooked the alley where Porkfist Monroe was found the previous night. Junkies, prostitutes and assorted other lost souls faithfully adorned its dim landings and walkways; the wasted, almost ghostly transients who wore a single set of clothes and displayed missing teeth like badges of honor.
A thin Latino girl with stiff, pillow-brushed hair stepped out of the mid-day shadows as Crawler passed the second-floor landing. In the stained brown light he caught a glimpse of bare midriff. Her ribs achingly clear.
"Hey mis-ter? You want a date?" she grinned in the dark.
Yes, he thought. Yes I do.
Instead, head down, he kept to the stairs, his loafered feet moving toward the roof. The girl sank away, back into the dull twilight.
Voices spoke and whispered as he ascended the last flight to the roof. Black girls, white girls... all skeletons inside the flesh, chattering away.
Cold daylight waited beyond one last door and he pulled it open.
* * * Officer Joe Dante looked like a pale gray sheet flapping in the brisk, rooftop breeze. Though the sun held steady in the distant sky, it was too small to dispel the clinging damp left in the wake of three relentless days of fog. Small puddles cast rippled images in the cracked tar roof: the face of a black desert plateau after an infrequent rain.
Dante was a rookie, compelled by some solemn or giddy impulse to stare into the dead girl's terrified eyes; to distill some small piece of the veil through small blue windows which had long since gone hazy and lost their potency to tell.
Delores Sommers looked like an empty shell left on the beach, still carrying the faint odor of ebb tide...
Johnny Carpenter, Dante's senior partner, saw Crawler coming and rose to meet him at the sober rim of the morning's activities. He shook his head in sad resignation. Over his square blue shoulder, Crawler could see that she had been left by her assailant in a windward corner of the roof. He could see blood too.
"You ain't gonna like it, Lieutenant," Carpenter cautioned.
"Right," Crawler agreed, patting his jacket for the cigarettes he'd left on the dash of his car. "So tell me something I don't already know."
Carpenter scratched the short, graying stubble that bristled under his cap. He glanced at the men working quietly behind him; at a long, shapely thigh that had turned to blue-veined marble in the quickening breeze. "Jane Doe #12. Mid- to early-twenties. Found just after eight this morning, although we didn't hear about it until about an hour ago."
Crawler gazed steadily into the passing wind. "Who found her?"
Carpenter nodded toward a young man with an ashen face. Shaggy hair and a moth-eaten sweater inside a stained overcoat, hands thrust deeply into his pockets to keep them from shaking. Perspiring in the cold. Crawler recognized the desperate nervousness of a junkie approaching the bare end of his ride.
"Name's William Graham." Carpenter shrugged. "At least that's what he claims. No I.D. on him though. He stopped Joe and me down on the street. Said he'd come up here to clear his head and found her just as you see. Dead, like Porkfist. I figured that you'd want to talk to him; he's been real anxious to leave our little party."
"Well then, let's not keep him waiting." The detective stepped forward, passing through the heart of the group to take a cursory look at the body. As they moved off, toward the figure slumped along the edge of the roof, a commotion broke out suddenly around the body. They turned, reaching instinctively for the safety of their guns (Carpenter's at his hip, Crawler's in his jacket), and saw Joe Dante down on the creases of his navy-blue knees.
On the roof of the Savoy, all activity took a breathless pause, fascinated.
"Dante! Get away from there!" Carpenter shouted, firing each angry syllable like a steel-jacketed bullet. Below the grim line of his out-of-date crew-cut, Crawler saw his neck turn leathery and red. "What the matter with you? Dante!"
The rookie looked down at the girl, then, to the horror and amusement of all present, he brought a heavy fist down on her speckled ribcage. Down on all fours, he tipped her head back, pinched her nose, pressed his lips to her mouth and exhaled.
All saw her chest rise and fall twice in quick succession.
And something in John Crawler's eyes widened with interest.
Dante was up on his knees again, rocking back and forth, massaging the hardened tissue above her heart.
Carpenter swore harshly then bolted forward, grabbing his inexperienced partner by the shoulders and throwing him to the cracked tar. "What the hell are you doing!" he screamed into Dante's pale moon face.
Dante shrieked and scrambled to his feet. Three strong men - Carpenter included - were required to hold him away from the body. Eventually, he was led away, still contending that there was life in her yet: that he had seen it in her eyes. Why wouldn't they listen, damn it? He had seen it trapped down there. Deep inside.
Crawler stared, frowning at the gray door leading down into the Savoy. Dante and Carpenter were gone, descending to the street below, but there remained a vaguely surreal quality to the scene. He was standing high on a rooftop, listening to the trains tick by, all the color and vitality drained from the day as a cloud blew across the face of the sun. The body sprawled out across the tar... And lurking beneath it all... the dreadful insistence (a twitch, buzzing inside his brain) that there was still marrow hidden inside her bones, deep in the brittle joints. That it was for him to take if he so needed. If he dared...
Marrow? What the hell...?
The sensation ebbed with the return of the sun and he set off through the crowd of photographers and rubber-gloved technicians. As he passed the girl he took a long look down.
Crazy.
Dante was mistaken. She was dead. Anyone could see that.
"All right," he sighed, dismissing her with a wave of his hand. "Let's take her to Lunch."
Someone snickered behind his back but the detective did not bother to turn and look. He was gazing off the end the building, to a place by the sooty concrete rim where he had been bound before Dante pulled his manic resuscitating act.
Young William Graham, the junkie boy, had slipped away.

Ten...

The Savoy, Crawler reflected, was like a great haunted ship resting at the bottom of a brown and polluted sea. Descending belowdecks, the ghosts and animal life - scared into hiding by the recent passage of excited men waving flashlights and trampling about - came out from all corners to look him over. Lost men and women, blanched gray from their time in the hole, floated in and out of the shadows, skittish and wary. They regarded him with timeworn expressions - curiosity and mistrust, menace and resignation - as he tread the rotting floorboards, moving slowly, deliberately.
A young man, dark hair, nervous or in a hurry? Has he been this way?
Badge held out before him like an enchanted shield, he poked and prodded the icy chambers.
Hello?
A mute giant of a Negro with one clouded eye. An old woman with a mangy cat pressed tight to her breast. A cocky huddle of black-eyed Puerto Ricans jabbering taunts at him in Spanish, following him along for a ways before he showed them his gun.
What did you see? Hear? Perhaps a scream last night?
Doors slowly closing in his face, heads shaking no; invariably no.
Something was following him, he imagined, pausing again to look over his shoulder. Faded sunlight. A patch of dayblue fighting through a dirty window. And so many dark shadows in-between.
A length he came to a door with the words:

SPACE BOY

sprayed in metallic blue against its splintered panels.
Maybe, he thought and quietly knocked. Long, thin legs - a dark nest of spiders - scuttled inside the hollow plaster and in a lonely room directly overhead a woman began to cry. He stared at the tiny dots of blood under his tie and when he looked up again the door was open.
Space Boy?
Not hardly. It was an old man. Plenty spaced but far detached from any stretch of boyhood. Crawler sighed; this was going nowhere. The building was full of sickness, he could feel it rubbing off on him the longer he stayed, taxing his marrow.
What if I died here? Would anyone ever know?
The buzz was back, that's all he knew. And there was a simple solution staring him right in the face.
Mechanically, his arm came up, holding the badge. "Police," he murmured. The word stirred a shower of sparks from the old man's yellowy eyes.
"Cops?" he whispered thickly, wetting his tongue around the word. A light of jubilation caught fire slowly, timidly, accustomed as it was to being quickly beaten and extinguished.
"You... you come about Shorty?"
Crawler raised an eyebrow. "Shorty?"
Suspicion cast a rude shadow between them. "Shorty," the old man repeated, eyes narrowed. "Shorty Tureen and all the others they took away... Vic McLaughlin, Jimmie Vedder... that Sanchez woman out on the street with her little girl... the others...I don't know who they was. I never seen 'em before. They're all gone now, sure enough. Gone out cross the way."
"What are you saying?" Crawler demanded wearily, letting his impatience slip. "Who are you talking about, old man? Who went where?"
This seemed to shake the man a bit, but after some consideration he opened his door and pointed out the rain-spotted window. The detective walked toward the chipped and peeling frame. Long down the dingy street, past gray-brown gray buildings and wild empty fields, one of Jacob Frost's newly-acquired meat-processing houses was in full production, evidenced from the plumes of white smoke and moisture pluming from the rooftop stacks.
The shaggy trees clustered around the shoulders of the low, cement-walled building shuddered on a distant breeze.
"Well I'll be damned," Crawler whispered, forcing the crusty window open on its rusted runners. He leaned over the sidewalk, his face catching the breeze... Marrow...
He could smell it from here.
He turned on the old man: a dirty, shuffling creature. Of no real importance. His vision blurred, then doubled.
"When?" he growled, moving stealthily over the damp floorboards. "How many did you see?"
Fear leapt into the vagrant's tired eyes, and Crawler thought that one that fit best of all. The stark realization. The adrenaline terror.
Ahh...

Nine...

The room became its own small nightmare.
Crawler was creepy, down on his ragweed knees. Sucking the broken pieces of bone. He heard the door squeak open to admit a furtive guest.

SPACE BOY

Something small and savage-looking flew into the room with him. Past the clicking shadows.
Junkies... needles.
Thousands, jabbing into his tender skin. That was all he knew.

Eight...

Sunlight crept over her body in a slow, lingering caress, leaping from the floor to the table in elongated bars. Miss Delores Sommers was enjoying its heat for one last time.
The wind was picking up outside, gusting at times against the glass, and if her eyes could see she might have watched the clouds being torn apart in the deep blue over her head. A world of motion and nothing there to be seen. So it was down below, where she waited patiently on the good doctor's verdict.
Rock-still, Dr. Geoffrey Lunch stared down the powerful barrel of his microscope and wondered what in God's name was happening in his quiet hometown.

Seven...

From his high stone turret, Jacob Frost watched the colors of twilight sink down into the lamp-lit streets of Daytonville. A blackened caul of inching doom and paralysis to hold them down in their beds for one last night.
A lone jet plane droned overhead.
He clasped his hands behind his back and contemplated the work that lay ahead, watching as the stars came out from east to west; each one in place, in perfect position.
He smiled and icy moonlight fell from his lips.
Oh how I have waited for this above all else, this new beginning...
On the still landing behind him, metal scraped on metal, drawing his thoughts back to the surface. He turned to regard the small figure waiting inside the shadows. Restless and grinning. Two faintly luminous eyes.
Frost pursed his liver-colored lips. A love-offering - a bag of China Black tea - lay on the tempered glass tabletop. Tea, yes. Detective Crawler. He nodded in appreciation; his little assassin was developing quite a sense of style, quite an endearing sense of humor.
"Thank-you, Willie. That will be all. You will tell Renfield to meet me down in the cellar," Frost instructed, walking slowly into a splash of warm yellow light. The decay, the deterioration was happening quite rapidly now. The skin was dying, developing long, dry ruptures. His fine clothes no longer fit so finely and beneath the thin, gray mantle of hair, his skull looked oddly disconnected.
A wolf in rotting sheepskin.
He watched Willie scamper away, then picked up tea bag. The lieutenant, it seemed, had let himself slip. Given in to his new-found hunger.
Jacob Frost counted one less cloud on his limitless horizon.
An omen of things to come this night? he wondered.
Smiling, he set down the bag and moved toward the door.

Six...

Shorty Tureen, late of the Savoy and parts unknown, took his place in line and shuffled with the herd through a poorly-lit maze of steel doors and concrete bunkers. Rows of sweating machinery coughed gasoline and diesel into the air and Shorty felt himself getting sleepy, losing the will to struggle. His hands were bound with tight knots of twine and a scrap of old burlap sat on the stale surface of his tongue.
His feet shuffled over noisy grates and a warm wind, repulsive and stale, blew up his nose. In-between the floors shook with a sinister heartbeat.
A coppery storm raged just ahead; he could hear it, smell it...
Rough hands pulled a musty hood, filled with screams, over his head and shoved him through the final doorway.
For a moment he felt himself standing alone, free from his tormentors, his blind head high and exposed.
(o Lord)
Mechanical arms closed around him. They latched and locked.
(??!)
With a sudden hiss of hydraulics, Shorty's bones were pierced by a thousand hollowed needles and a brittle helplessness passed into him. Marrow shot into extracting tubes and he was left a dry and empty puppet; shocked, numb, but still alive. The whole process took just over ten seconds.
The arms blew open and he was removed for further processing...

Five...

Frost descended the steps into his cellar with Renfield at his heels, taking a flurry of dictation; notes for deliveries in the dark. The air that rose up to meet them was moist and swampy, touched lightly with the scent of decay. Mrs. Willamina Grantham - Beloved Wife and Mother - had been removed some time earlier but her memory still lingered. A faint outline lay in her cell like the atom-blasted shadows of Hiroshima: sprawled and doubled-over but still eerily human.
She had been a education, Mrs. Grantham... showing up as she had on his step, fresh from Harmony Hill, caked with dirt and the light from a fallen star in her shriveled sockets. Of course he had let her in with the rest, given her room to grow in the hothouse cellar out of simple curiosity.
Ultimately the experiment had failed, but it had been interesting all the same.
Something he might want to try again, under different circumstances, different variables...
He pulled a string at the bottom of the stairs and a light came on, casting long shadows around him in a circle. The others were standing at their doors, watching him with a cool and stony patience. Eyes in the dark. Pieces of his own kind. Enemies one and all.
He memorized their faces well, pausing as he turned the key to each small room; not that they would stay the same over time, but if he found one lingering behind, plotting in his undisputed corner of the world, he would not hesitate to kill, and not as he had with Crawler - by emissary - but with his own two hands, capable as they were.
Renfield made his way down the long corridor, turning a heavy key, unlocking thirteen doors. One by one Frost sent them away.
Coon Hickens was bound for Quebec.
J.C. Plough for the Orient.
Plans of Argentina were whispered to young Callie Western.
Clayton McDougall would visit the Pope in Rome.
Airline tickets and passports in hand, he let them out into the night, where Renfield waited in an idling car.

Four...

Bill Castle and Ed Wood waded in up to their ankles.
Wood slipped and swore, just catching himself before he fell. He looked at his partner. "This is the limit The absolute, %#@& limit!"
Castle nodded, his face blanched and his lips pressed tightly together, fearful what might come out: a high scream or the meager remains of his lunch.
There had to be at least two bodies by the size of the mess. They waded further, spreading out a wake of shocked explicatives; not even profanity, however, could begin to wrap its arms about the sheer broad spectacle of what they were seeing.
Room 113 at the Savoy Hotel had become a chamber of horrors.
Wood felt his stomach tighten and groan, his skin shrivel and crawl out of reach of everything he saw.
Kingfisher, an alcoholic fixture of the Savoy and the railfront district in general, stood in the doorway behind them, watching with a kind of pride and relief. He had been the one to find the bodies; now it seemed that he was going to be difficult to shrug off.
"See there!" he pointed. "What'd I tell you fellas? Door was right open just like that! Horrible mess in here! Horrible!"
Castle could agree with that sentiment. He found he could get himself behind it one hundred percent. Turning to the door, he put a hard finger to his lips. An audience of gawkers and hysterical tenants was something they didn't need right now.
Wood shuffling through the tacky debris. His shoes were going into the incinerator once all this was over. No question about that.
"Aw, no..." he whispered huskily, turning over a detective's badge.
Castle turned sharply. "What?"
Wood nudged something with the tip of his shoe. "This is Lieutenant Crawler!"
"You're kiddin' me!" Castle declared, shaking his head in vehement denial.
"I wish I were, Billy-Boy. Come take a look."
As Castle picked a clear path across the room, Kingfisher raised a long and bony finger to the door.

SPACE BOY WAS HERE

His finger trailed through the last two words and came away wet.

Three...

For the third time in a single day, a large and somber-faced group of Daytonville's Finest met in the squalid street outside the Savoy Hotel, this time to pick over one of their own: Lieutenant John Crawler; fallen (apparently) in the line of duty.
A carnival crowd collected and swelled against the thin yellow barricades, their faces eager and alert, lit by rounding pulses of red and blue light. Men in dark uniforms circulated quickly through the building and against the edge of the crowd, soliciting information from any who had it. Anyone who had anything at all.
No witnesses stepped forward. None but the deaf and blind, it seemed, lived around here.
Captain Dunnwich himself put in an appearance. A rush and murmur moved through the streets, his tall figure and grim countenance easily recognizable among the bright lights. He wore a hat and long gray coat to hold back the blowing wind and at times could be heard shouting out his bitter frustration. At one point he put on a pair of rubber gloves to leaf through a small black notepad brought to him by one of the smocked technicians. It came out of a plastic evidence bag. Soonafter he sent two men away from the scene in a hurry, then departed himself at a more leisurely pace.
Unnoticed and to the west, thick plumes of steam and smoke billowed out of the distant slaughterhouse, glowing ghostly and white against the night. The revamped facility keeping to production well after hours...

Two...

On the outskirts of Daytonville, well away from the whirling lights and clamor of the Savoy, Jacob Frost's manor house sat like a tombstone on the eastern slope of Harmony Hill, utterly dark, with not even a lonely security light burning along the woody perimeter. In the front seat of their patrol car, Ed Wood and Bill Castle glanced uneasily at one another. The place looked dead. The gates loomed before them. Wrought-iron and chiseled spikes turned up toward the heavens, ready to spear anything that happened to fall. A rounded stone kiosk stood sentinel at the edge of their headlights - empty except for a glowing intercom panel.
Voices sputtered from town on the newly-installed radio.
"Well?" Castle wondered, frowning through the windshield. "Should I ring the buzzer?"
"Captain Dunnwich is going to be awfully upset if you don't," Wood guessed with characteristic acuity. Their orders, in fact, had been quite specific: bring in Frost for questioning, immediately. They had surmised that something in Lieutenant Crawler's notebook had been the deciding tip. Some bit of scribble, pointing out to here as effectively as a dead man's finger. A message scrawled in blood.
"Doesn't look like anyone's home, does it? All the light's are out."
"Yep," Wood conceded, fingers drumming the wheel. "Could be that he's expecting company too, playing possum. Used to try it myself when Barbara's folks were coming over to visit. Why don't you go ahead and press the buzzer... see what happens."
Castle sighed. "All right." He climbed laboriously from the warmth and safety of the car and hurried to the kiosk, his body tipped forward, shoulders against the wind.
Thank God, he thought, that miserable fog has finally lifted.
Fog had a cheap way of deceiving the senses; muffling sounds, voices... showing this while hiding that. Here, tonight, he wanted no mistakes, no illusions. He had a bad feeling, a sketchy premonition gleaned from a bloody room at the Savoy and an icy rage in his captain's eye. When he had seen the house, so completely shut up inside the gates as to appear faceless, the feeling solidified into a lump of clay in the pit of his stomach. Gooseflesh crept over his shoulders from behind. There was something very unsettling about such a large house sitting there, every light doused. Two distinct possibilities sprang immediately to mind: that the house was already dead (with another body curled inside) or it was waiting for them like a hunter crouched in the bush, well camouflaged.
"Crazy," he muttered, quite in agreement, and pushed into the narrow kiosk. Fresh cobwebs clung to his face in stubborn streamers and the tiny space immediately filled up with shadows around him, his body blocking most of the glow from the headlights. In the false twilight he smelled old leaves and a lingering damp, the odor of dirt and cheerful neglect in the stony cracks beneath his feet.
One button, the size and shape of an ordinary doorbell, floated in the eclipse of his shadow. He pressed it and the light, soft and orange, winked out.
Does that mean it's working? he wondered, allowing a few seconds before he took his finger away. The moonlike circle reappeared, tiny and harvest red, but not so much as a crackle issued from the speaker grill, much less a voice to pin his fears to.
He pressed again, this time allowing a full five seconds to pass up in the house. The long legs of a resident spider capered across the lid of his five-cornered cap and a small shudder, completely unaware, rattled his weary bones. The crowded little space was beginning to get to him. He tried the button one last time, working it like a space blaster in an arcade game, sending an impatient telegraph straight up the connecting line.
That's it, he exhaled, feeling justified and anxious to be rid of the place. It was a sepulcher, torn open and standing on end. Creepy, like a walk-in bedroom for the living dead.
Outside, Ed gave the horn an impatient tweak.
"Nice try, old buddy," Castle saluted, thinking the sound had no hope of penetrating the high stone walls. They could try the gates now, but they were bound to be locked. Of course they would; that's why rich people like Frost had gates - to keep the rest of the world firmly out.
He tried and failed to suppress a thin chuckle of relief; the captain's stormy displeasure would likely be the most fearsome thing they'd face from here on out. A known quantity as opposed to that on Harmony Hill. Happily, in this case a search warrant was the only key to a locked door and that would take time, until morning (he reckoned), when both he and Ed would be off the clock and home safe in bed.
Too bad.
Grinning back into the halogen headlights, confident in his stalemate with the imposing Frost estate, Bill Castle stepped outside and felt his legs shuffle to a surprised halt. The smile left his face.
The tall gates were standing open, welcoming them inside.
* * * "They opened up right after you went inside," Wood answered, negotiating the narrow drive with a balanced hand upon the wheel. Outside, their headlights swept the thick groves peppering the folds along the hillside, weaving in and out as the drive twisted nearer the sleeping giant. Every once in a while Castle caught a fleeting glimpse of it against the sky, eyes blackened. Dead or waiting. "I couldn't figure out what you were doing in there so long."
"Waiting for someone to answer," Castle replied, pale and faintly green in the instrument backwash. "I thought they'd answer over the intercom before they opened the gates. Most people want to know who they're letting in, you know."
Wood smiled. "I guess they don't care much who comes in, just so long as they're good enough to ring the bell." He craned his neck as they rounded a thicket of sycamores. "You'd think they might turn on a light though. Criminy!"
"Maybe no one's home," Castle offered weakly.
"That's nuts," Wood spat back, glancing at his partner. "Who opened the gates?"
Bill shrugged. "I guess you're right." He lapsed into thoughtful silence.
As they passed the last low overhang before the drive split into a prolonged roundabout, something small, furry and angry dropped onto the hood of the cruiser. It crashed through the windshield in a silvery blur, all needles and stinging fur.

"Hell's bells!" Ed shouted, displaying his newfound proficiency at swearing. His foot ground down on the brake pedal and his hands fought the wheel for control of the skid. Slipping onto the thin shoulder, the car wavered with a moment's indecision, then veered back into the drive once more.
The house thundered suddenly nearer. Wood found his foot firmly on the gas pedal. The wheels tearing up gravel.
"What are you doing!" Castle screamed, his arms braced against the seat and dash. "Are you crazy?! Pull over!"
Wood jerked his foot back and something as rough as steel wool brushed his pantleg. A snubbed, batlike face leered up at him from the legwell, its eyes lit with gleeful intent. It scaled his body in an instant, claws dug deep into his chest. Ed jerked upright, his foot pressing back down on the accelerator and an agonizing scream filled the cabin, threatening to blow out the remaining windows.
Bill Castle started to scream: a high, shrill sound that caught on the broken windshield and trailed out behind the car in long, ragged tatters.
The car picked up speed. Ed turned his head lazily - his eyes glazed, losing their focus.
"Barbara..." he whispered thickly, invoking his wife's name before he collapsed against the steering wheel. The horn sounded, winding up and away into the night. "Nooooo!"
The car left the road and began to roll.

One...

With midnight came a long string of police reinforcements and emergency vehicles up the curled black tongue of Harmony Hill. The smashed, overturned hulk of the burned-out cruiser came into view off the crest of the hill, quietly smoldering; too late to save the men trapped inside. A faction split from the body of the string, swirling red dots swarming about the wreck, armed with large fire extinguishers, eager as children to begin combing the ruins.
The county morgue was fast filling up with Daytonville's Finest. Three so far and the night was still young. Voices of outrage and confrontation moved toward the steps of the nearby mansion.
Jacob Frost looked down in darkness from the top of his tower, watching with rueful fascination as half a dozen hyperactive police cruisers screeched to a halt in a defensive circle around his door. Cars flew open like angry jacks and tiny men dressed in Kevlar black swarmed over the asphalt, their guns drawn to lay siege to the place.
Hand-held spotlights appeared and roamed the darkened walls. A witching breeze blew over the ragged teeth of his stone turret as Frost smiled and turned away.
So this was it. One spilled domino overturning years of work, of waiting.
Some things, alas, could never be foreseen. The stars had little to say on the subject of happenstance.
His body was failing, plain rotting away in places and, underneath, the new shell was still tender and vulnerable, not yet ready to stand the test of an all-out assault.
Renfield was away, still casting the seeds toward distant lands... and that was the worst insult of all. The one thing he could not bear. Others taking the glory for his painstaking groundwork...
Outside, Captain Dunnwich arrived and, standing fearlessly at the head of his army, megaphone in hand, calmly demanded an unconditional surrender.
Why not? Frost wondered, dimly glowing eyes leading him down in the dark. It might be interesting at that.
Willie was waiting for him in the west parlor, scared and shivering amid the restless shadows, far away from the commotion. Frost glared across the room and felt his resolve slipping helplessly away. He couldn't bring himself to destroy such an exquisite creation; really he couldn't. Willie had become something of a pet to him - so faithful in his duties, so eager to please. A spaceman's strange version of a golden retriever.
He beckoned the creature nearer and whispered words of gratitude into its ear, releasing it into the world with one final directive: to find out and uproot the seeds he had so carefully kept.
To seek them out and tear them apart.
He turned and took the statuette from the mantle.
It was time to pull the plug on this.
The front door opened and he walked out center stage into the harsh spotlights.
A collective gasp swept the ranks and Captain Dunnwich took an involuntary step backward. Jacob Frost was falling apart. His teeth grinned crookedly and he regarded the proceeding with an air of calm expectation.
White gloved hands cradled something small and gray.
"Drop your weapon!" Dunnwich demanded, regaining his composure.
Frost shrugged. "As you wish," He gave the statuette a hard twist, neatly separating the head from its body. A tiny captive shadow - infinitely small - fell free from the hollowed innards. A microcurrent winked out inside the broken shell as the pieces tumbled down the steps.
Then they rushed him.

Zero...

Captain Harry Dunnwich was acutely aware of the passage of time, of the seconds slipping through his fingers and piling into minutes. Never to be granted again.
He glanced again at the clock, willing the hands to slow. To give him the time he needed to understand what had happened on Harmony Hill before federal agents - en route to the hospital now - stepped in and whisked his prisoner away. Before the case quietly closed as far as the Daytonville Police were concerned.
So many questions!
Jacob Frost lay wrapped like a mummy on the bed before him, expatiating warmly on the topic of Doomsday, an event he confidently predicted for the planet Earth within two to three years. Among other things, Frost confessed to being something of a foreigner to these parts; his actual place of origin being somewhere within the constellation of Cygnus.
"But don't bother to look for it," he had cautioned with an enigmatic smile. "It's not there anymore."
"Is that so?" Dunnwich replied, meeting the man's penetrating gaze with some difficulty. "What happened to it?"
The smile never wavered. "It was swallowed by a singularity. The same as will happen to your little blue world,"
"A singularity?"
"A black hole, Captain."
Dunnwich found himself laughing despite the odd feeling creeping along the back of his scalp. In the room's dim light, Frost's eyes shone steadily from a long slit in the bandages. Standing there, just the two of them (not counting the heavily armed contingent shuffling and breathing outside), Dunnwich could almost believe...
He extracted an evidence bag from the lining of his coat. It contained the broken pieces of the statuette. Dead microcircuits winked like flecks of silver mica inside the hollow stone. "This device," Dunnwich nodded, indicating the bag. "I saw you break it open. What is it?"
Frost shrugged as if the object held no interest. "Nothing of consequence... broken eggshells. An empty box, if you like," he answered cryptically, enjoying the game.
Dunnwich glanced at the clock, minutes ticking. "A container, then?"
"Yes," Frost conceded. "Strictly speaking."
Dunnwich paused, considering. "What was in it?"
"A piece of my homeland, Captain. Microscopic, yet unbelievably dense. It is now orbiting the core of this planet, eating it away from the inside, gathering mass. Soon it will develop an appetite which your precious world will find impossible to resist."
Outside in the hall, Dunnwich heard the murmur of voices and, in a helpless glance, caught sight of an unfamiliar face beckoning him through the narrow window. Young and cleanshaven, dressed in a dark suit and tie.
His time was nearly up. Only enough for one last question...
Why?
"Why did you do it? For what possible gain?"
Frost grinned. Black teeth in a rotting skull. The agents were knocking at the door, insistent.
"Why dammit?!"
Frost sighed, tiring at last of the role. "Conquest? Vanity?" he offered, head dropping back against the pillow, looking small and shrunken in the pooled lamplight. "I'm a poor loser, Captain. Anyway you like, it was time for me to take my ball and leave."
Dunnwich shook his head, dumbfounded.
"That's it?" he whispered, horrified. "That's your justification?"
Frost looked puzzled.
"What more do you need?"

Michael James McFarland

X

A Countdown to the Unknown

Twenty-Five...

Twenty-Four...

Twenty-three...

Twenty-two...

Twenty-one...

Twenty...

Nineteen...

Eighteen...

Seventeen...

Sixteen...

Fifteen...

Fourteen...

Thirteen...

Twelve...

Eleven...

Ten...

Nine...

Eight...

Seven...

Six...

Five...

Four...

Three...

Two...

One...

Zero...

END