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When the prince was born, the word went out. When the world went out, the great hall filled. When the great hall filled, the king and the queen lined up with the heir for the most draining part of the whole damned thing: well-wishing.
“Congratulations! Please accept this humble gift of horses.”
“Thanks,” said the king, dead-eyed.
“Congratulations! Please accept this humble gift of gems.”
“Thanks,” said the queen, hollow-voiced.
“Congratulations! Please accept my blessing.”
“Tha-who are you?”
“I’m the witch you had burnt at the stake six months ago,” said the witch. Her claims seemed plausible, in light of her singed clothing, sinister air, and charred skeleton.
“Oh.” said the king. “What’re you doing here?”
“Giving your offspring my blessing. I’m fair, though. Ask me for it and I’ll give you it. Just be specific.”
The king thought about that.
“Maybe this is a bad-” began the queen.
“The world’s most captivating gaze,” said the king. “I always did have trouble with the ladies when I was young.”
“Done deal,” said the witch.
Then she cackled and evaporated into a foul wind, curdling all the milk in the castle.
The young prince was a happy and healthy little butterball, and within days had charmed half the castle staff, especially his nurse.
Which was good because the family went through nurses like a dog through butcher’s scraps. Once a month seemed usual.

At the tender age of twenty the prince’s parents both vanished and he was forced, alas, alack, to begin rule. He did so absently but not unwell, although he still had some odd difficulties in retaining castle staff. He was also unengaged, which was solved with the acquiescence of a local duke with the grudging aid of his daughter.
“I don’t like this,” she told her father. “What happened to his parents, anyways?”
“Extremely natural causes, I’m assured,” he told her. “Now shoo! Go be a queen somewhere else.”
So she did, and vanished a week later.
A baron’s daughter followed suit.
And a lord’s.
And a knight’s.
And finally nobody of nobility was willing to send any daughters to the castle, so the king had his men pull a random girl out of a hamlet and bring her to the castle.
“You’re royalty now okay bye have fun,” said her handmaiden, throwing a heap of clothing at her and running away.
The random girl examined the clothing and couldn’t help but notice that every item of it was from a completely different outfit, each sized for a different woman. Including each shoe.
“This isn’t good,” she said.
So she tore the clothing to shreds and made a rope, which she descended down the wall and into the arms of the guards, who brought her back to the king in her normal clothing.
“Bit merchant-y, isn’t it?” asked the king.
“I’m a merchant’s daughter,” she said.
“Not anymore! Now you’re the queen.”
“No I’m not.”
“Oh right! Brother Jacobs?”
The priest stepped forwards, face a swamp of sweat, stammered out “bythepowerinvsstinmiyoutwoarewedtildethuprt-hrk!” dropped his book and ran away whimpering.
“There. Now you are.”
The king smiled. He had a very ugly smile, but there was something else about his face that made it hard for the random girl to look away. Something that scraped at her brain and bounced off, leaving no memories but unease.
“Don’t be frightened to look at me,” he said. And then he sent her away to her new rooms.

The new rooms were like the old rooms but with higher walls and large bars in the window. The random girl began to ignore the king’s advice immediately, and also to pace. Pacing helped her think.
The window wouldn’t do. The door was barred. There was no way out, none at all. Nothing that could be a weapon – the heaviest things in the room was a tiny wooden stand holding containers of cosmetics, each of which was no larger than her palm.
“Ah,” she said.

The king came into the room smile-first.
It was still quite ugly.
“Hello, wife!” he said.
“Hi,” she said. “Can I leave?”
“Of course not! There’s nothing to be afraid of. Just look at me and stop worrying.”
The random girl looked at him. This was a mistake.
She DID stop worrying though. It was hard not to.
The king’s eyes were large and soft and damp and filled with soft colours that hunted and scurried, diving in and out of his tear ducts. Each pupil was a constellation; the irises were seas. And surrounding them a white blank that could swallow brains. Perfect. Pearly-white. Smooth ivory.
“Glrk,” said the random girl, waving her arms ineffectually.
“Yes,” said the king.
“Hlrp!” said the random girl, slapping her hands at thin air.
“No, not really,” said the king.
“Fk!” said the random girl, and at last her palm spasmed open and she shoved the little hand-mirror into the king’s face.
At this sort of moment it is traditional for the villain to scream, shriek, or gasp. The king had no such time to prepare himself and instead simply stared.
This was precisely the wrong move.
He stared. He stared hard, and he stared long. Inch by inch he stared, foot by foot, first his face then his neck then his body then his legs then his fingers and last of all his eyes, twitching, blinking, stuttering and fading away like stars in an overcast sky.
Then the merchant’s daughter was alone with a broken hand-mirror and a bad set of heart palpitations.
“Holy SHIT,” she said.

The king was never seen again, though few begrudged this. Even fewer, the idea of him seeing them again. He had been far too thorough about it.

When she was just a week from hatching, she was taken to London to visit the Queen.
“Emu?”
“Ostrich?”
“Moa?”
Brows furrowed. Brains throbbed.
“Indeterminate!” came the cry, and so she was taken away and placed in a little straw-stuffed box with just that one word written on it and an exceptionally large and fat hen was applied to her.
One week later, the hen raised a godawful fuss in the middle of the morning and down came the tenders and the keepers and whoever was standing around at the moment, overcome with curiosity for the big bulky lump.
She was already half out of the shell by then, wheezing and snorting and blinking and grumbling. The hen lurked at the far end of the box, glaring at her as if this chick was a personal insult.
She gasped for air, sharp little teeth wet in the candlelight, and someone said “oh! What an ugly bird!”

She looked much prettier a few days later, after she was patted dry and named. And fed, very fed, very frequently.
“More meat for Jane.”
“Jane’s crying again.”
“Better feed Jane.”
So Jane got bigger and glossier and somewhat sleeker.
Still, she was a VERY ugly bird. No beak, just blunt snout, and her downy plumage refused to blossom into feathers.
The tail was the oddest though. A long and sturdy thing.
“Her mother was a crocodile, her father was an ostrich,” someone said, and the analogy stuck somewhat, even if the science was wild. “Poor plain Jane!” someone else said, and that stuck precisely.
Jane might have been plain, but she remained devoutly abnormal. At five years of age she was bigger than most of her keepers and still growing, steadily but surely, bite after bite.
She also had been put in a larger pen, which everyone refused to enter. Her appetite for meat had not dwindled, and all examination had to be done from a safe distance. Nobody was quite sure what they’d do if she got sick.
At seven she was moved to a yet larger pen, and again at ten. Each time this happened a fresh crowd gathered to see how much more the little monster had grown.
Then she turned thirteen, grew just a little faster than expected, and hopped the fence.

Oh goodness had Jane grown! About a ton, but so nimble! She ran as fast as a horse through the streets (the horses did NOT appreciate that, let me tell you) and snuck out of London in the dead of night. She left behind only a few scattered footprints, some traumatized drunks, and a bit of an unappreciative horse.
The forequarters, to be specific.

After that it was all smoke and mirrors. Who notices if a single sheep goes missing?
Or a single flock.
Or a single shepherd.
Well, more people than you’d think, but not when they go missing here and there and all over the place.
Still, she was a growing girl, and that was what caught her up in the end.

Jane didn’t plan to eat the Queen. The Queen didn’t plan to be eaten by Jane. Nobody else had any hand in this. It was just a thing that happened.
It started happening during a particularly miserable downpour. The kind of sky that makes you just want to lie down and wash away. The kind of rain that turns the air into an ocean all its own. The kind of damp that makes your marrow soggy.
The kind of awful that you carefully package up and tell your children about every year for the rest of their lives.
It was too wet out even for sheep, which was what was puzzling the hell out of their shepherd, who would prefer to be inside his cottage. They were huddled under the spindly little tree outside his cottage, and no matter what he did they refused, they refused, they absolutely refused to take one step further towards the nice dry (ish) barn he’d left open for them.
“’Gwan!” he yelled and swatted. “’Gwan!”
Silence. Not even a bleat. They stared at him as if he was speaking French. Then again, they’d never quite gotten the hang of English either.
Cursing, stomping, overflowing from boot and coat, he walked up to the barn and banged on the gate. “C’mere!”
Then he saw the sheep were staring past him and he turned around and looked Jane in the eye.
Jane’s eye was half-opened and lazy and tired. It was an eye that just wanted to be dry for six minutes more than anything in the world, which was why the shepherd made it the whole ways back to his cottage and then back into town without being chewed on or anything even a little.
The shepherd came back with the army, who arrived with chains, and that would’ve been that if one of the men (the report said it was a private, the company said it was the lieutenant) hadn’t sneezed.
Jane couldn’t run as fast as she had back in the day, but she could still get moving pretty quickly. Took a bit of the barn with her too, and was over the hill and through the dale before you could say ‘galoshes.’
Now, the good thing was that the men had brought horses, and a few of them were being ridden by lunatics brave enough to lend chase. The bad thing was that Jane knew she was being chased, and it took an uncomfortably long time for the cavalrymen to realize that they weren’t so much pursuing her as driving her.
About three seconds later one of them realized that they were specifically driving her right back into London, but it was hard to explain to his comrades through the wind and the rain and by then it was much, much, much, much, much too late.

Jane had lived a good while outside of the city, being very careful of being seen. Perhaps she had grown bolder as she grew larger. Perhaps she was too fearful from the hunt to take caution. Perhaps the weather was so horrible that she couldn’t tell she was running back towards her old home.
Whatever the reason, she made a godawful mess as she went through the streets. She stood over ten feet at the shoulder now and had picked up an extra ton somewhere. Her feet tore up the road, flattened dogs, and sent the few deep-sea-divers bold enough to travel outdoors scurrying for cover.
Now, all of this made a very complicated mess. A dark and rainy evening; a lot of confused shouting people; the last few persistent cavalry officers hard in pursuit; upturned carts, everything making noise and blocking the way and so on. So it wasn’t like it was planned for Jane to trample onto the garden of Buckingham Palace. It really wasn’t.
And it certainly wasn’t as if Jane knew what she was doing. She practically fell into the garden’s lake, poor thing, and that was through no grand scheme. The limp it gave her? Utter chance. The stumble that led her to put her weight onto the palace steps? Compound bad luck. As for the fall that sent her entire skull smashing through the nearest window, snout-first, well. Who could’ve thought that the Queen would be sitting there? Or that she might be so startled by Jane’s (again, quite unpredictable!) entrance as to jump up and turn her back and try to run?
Nobody! Nobody at all!
And so it was that on the one hand, the outcome of all of this was horribly predictable; and yet on the other, the blame for it was manifestly alien to all, quite unsupported.

It was just all tremendously awkward, especially after Jane made a nest in the summerhouse.

Once upon a time, there was a small chick who had been named Chicken Little by very unimaginative (though kind) parents. And one day as that chick scratched in the dirt, pecking for seed, she felt a tremendous thump on her skull.
“OW DAMNIT SHIT” said Chicken Little. She looked up, up, up and saw that she’d been pecking under an oak tree.
“Ah!” said Chicken Little. “Must’ve been an acorn.”
Then she looked back down and on the ground before her little feet was a frozen, gnarled chunk of what looked for all the world like solidified water vapour.
“Well,” said Chicken Little, “that’s one hypothesis shot down.”

Chicken Little had been told by her parents to come to them if she ever encountered a problem.
So she did, with her little frozen bit of… stuff.
“And where did this happen, dear?” asked her mother.
“By the ol’ oak tree,” said Chicken Little.
“Seems pretty straightforward to me,” said her father. “Acorn whacked you on the noggin.”
“It’s out of season for acorns, and what was this doing on the ground next to me then?” asked Chicken Little.
“Out of season happens. What else do you think it could be? And this thing is probably just an icicle that someone’s kids kept in a freezer for a midsummer snack. You worry too much, Chicken Little. Go back outside and goof around.”
Which Chicken Little did do, because she listened to her parents. But she kept an eye on the sky. That bump had really hurt.

Time moved on and Chicken Little was forced to move with it. She grew up and got bigger, yet somehow remained small – and therefore, Chicken Little. The burden was shouldered with as much stoicism as she could muster. In the meantime she spent her days wandering around the farm pecking seeds with her coworkers.
“OW DAMNIT SHIT” screamed out Henny Penny.
“What’s wrong what’s wrong?” asked Chicken Little.
“This thing bounced off my head!”
And lo and behold, there in Henny Penny’s palm lay another chunk of cold, frozen vapour.
“That’s not an acorn,” said Chicken Little.
“No shit Sherlock,” said Henny Penny. “Who told you?”
“My parents,” muttered Chicken Little. “Listen, I’ve seen this happen before. Why don’t we get it to a meteorologist? They know about things that drop out of the sky.”
“You do it,” said Henny Penny. “I’m finding a damned aspirin.”
So Chicken Little took the chunk of stuff to the local meteorologist, Ducky Lucky, and was told that they were a bit busy but in a few years they’d get around to publishing a study.
“Alright,” said Chicken Little. “I can wait.”

Chicken Little didn’t mean to be a liar; her parents had raised her to believe that just wasn’t nice. But when two more bits of…whatever it was almost hit her…
…and three more bounced off the coop while she was sleeping….
…and a really nasty sharp one almost brained poor Cocky Locky…
Well.
What could she do but bring them all in?
“You’re filling up my fridge,” complained Ducky Lucky.
“Sorry,” said Chicken Little. “But this is starting to look a little concerning.”
“Right, right,” said Ducky Lucky. “Point made. I’m working on it.”
“Right, right,” said Chicken Little.
“Right, right,” said Ducky Lucky.
“Right,” said Chicken Little.
And a chunk of the stuff bounced off Ducky Lucky’s head.

It looked different these days. Bits of weird…blue were tangled up in it, like flies in spiderwebs.
They were getting more common every week. People didn’t even save them anymore, and nobody went outdoors without umbrellas. Turkey Lurkey had found a good thick hard hat, making him much the envy of the farm.
Chicken Little’s phone rang as she was home, shaking splinters off her umbrella.
“Hello?”
“It’s Ducky Lucky. Listen, I don’t want to alarm you, but this looks like a solid chunk of cumulus, mixed with big honkin’ lumps of oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen and also odd swathes consisting of nothing but robins-egg-blue.”
“Say again?”
“Bits of the sky are falling off. Within the next little while the whole thing’ll be gone”
“Uh. Should we do something about it?”
“Seems likely. We could go tell the king.”
“What’s the king going to do about this?”
“Maybe turn off the giant laser he’s been pointing at the sky for the past decade?”
“Oh. Yes.”

So Chicken Little and Ducky Lucky went door to door throughout the farm with Ducky Lucky’s completed research paper, asking for support and maybe some signatures on a petition or something or anything at all, really.
“This isn’t so bad,” said Turkey Lurkey.
“Oh, leave off,” said Henny Penny. “The king believes in his giant sky laser and I trust him. Anyways my sister works at the giant sky laser.”
“Maybe a big chunk of falling sky hit me on the head,” said Cocky Locky, “but then again, maybe it didn’t. Maybe it was just an acorn after all. I want to hear both sides out.”
“Never heard of it,” said Goosey Loosey, “sounds nuts.”
“I’m far too busy providing for my family to care about this even a little,” said Drakey Lakey.
“You’re very enthusiastic, dear,” said Chicken Little’s parents, “but maybe you should just stop worrying about this.”
“Hell with it,” said Ducky Lucky. “I’m going home. I’ll get more data and then we’ll prove this.”
“I’m going to go see the king directly,” said Chicken Little. “Petition or no. Lend me a copy of your papers.”
“Your funeral,” said Ducky Lucky. “And mind your head. It’s really coming down out there.”

It very nearly was Chicken Little’s funeral after all – Ducky Lucky had not exaggerated. The sky was coming down in sheets, and by the time Chicken Little knocked at the door to the king’s palace her umbrella had more holes in it than a pub dartboard.
“Heya,” said Gander Lander. “What do you want?”
“An audience with the king,” said Chicken Little.
“Sure, why not,” said Gander Lander. “Nothing going on right now anyways with all this lousy weather.”
“It’s sort of about that,” said Chicken Little. “The sky seems to be falling.”
Gander Lander rolled his eyes. “Right. Great. Go on in.”
So Chicken Little came into the castle of the king and was escorted to the throneroom and bowed before the chair which the king was dozing on, half asleep, with one hand gripping tightly to the controls of his giant sky laser. The furry scarf around his neck fluttered with his wheezing breath.
“Hello,” said Chicken Little. “I’m here about the sky.”
“The sky is fine.”
“I’m sorry?”
A small little sleek furry head popped up besides the king’s, and Chicken Little saw that his fur scarf wasn’t a scarf after all.
“The sky is fine,” said Foxy Loxy. “There’s no proof at all that anything is wrong with the sky.”
“Bits of it are falling off,” said Chicken Little.
“Nonsense.”
“Here’s one.”
“That’s not real.”
“Yes it is.”
“Is not. Look, we’re at an impasse here, so I say we compromise and say it MIGHT be.”
“It is, and I’ve got forty more and a compiled research study back home.”
Foxy Loxy sighed. “Okay, fine. Maybe the sky’s falling a little. That’s normal. To all things a season, and the sky must occasionally flake bits of itself off. You didn’t think that was the same sky out there all the time, did you? You didn’t think that one sky could last all the way from the beginning of the earth to the dinosaurs to you without a little wear and tear and polish and refurbish, did you? How naïve! Clearly you don’t understand the way the world works.”
“This isn’t normal,” said Chicken Little. “Within the next little while the whole thing’ll be gone.”
“It’s normal.”
“It’s not normal.”
“It’s NATURAL.”
“It’s because of the giant sky laser.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The giant sky laser the king installed, which his hand is currently resting on, which is, at this very moment, actively carving out bits of the sky.”
“Oh, that giant sky laser. I don’t think so.”
“I think so, because this chart shows that we went from no sky falling four years ago to nothing but sky falling right now, and you installed the giant sky laser four and a half years ago.”
“Correlation is not causation,” said Foxy Loxy.
“Yeah, but if you watch the laser you can see chunks of sky fall out at its focal point.”
“Look, what do you want from me?” asked Foxy Loxy in a very cross voice. “Okay fine, it looks like the sky MIGHT be falling; and yes it seems like this MAY have been caused by the king’s sky laser whichIsoldhim, BUT it’s way too late to do anything about it. The sky’s already falling. We might as well just roll with it and reap the benefits of this majestic giant sky laser.”
“There won’t be any sky left by next March,” said Chicken Little.
Foxy Loxy shook his head slowly. “You know,” he said, “I really tried. I really did. But you’re just completely unreasonable, uncivil, and unwilling to compromise. Gander Lander!”
“Yessir?”
“Please politely show her out and totally ignore her.”
“Yeah, no problem.”

As Chicken Little left, the king’s eyes fluttered open. “She gone?” he whispered.
“Yes,” said Foxy Loxy.
“Good. God that was boring. Now, what was this you were saying about TWO giant sky lasers?”

Now, what was I doing?
Oh yeah, feeding the goldfish.
Not sure why. I mean, it’s not MY goldfish. Crazy bitch can’t even ditch me properly – has to leave me with her crap. And her carp.
Heh.
Not like it’s going to miss her though. I mean, what’s its memory again? Thirty seconds? Three? I’ll miss her more than it ever will. Hell, I have to feed myself again.
Speaking of, time to get the oven going. There we go. Fish n chips in thirty minutes. Heh. It’s your cousin!
It looks like it’s glaring at me. Hell, it looks like it’s glaring at EVERYTHING with those eyebrows.

Now, what was I doing?
Oh yeah, feeding the goldfish.
Here you go little idiot buddy. Eat hearty. Dunno how many of these flakes you’re meant to get so have eehhhh a fistful and a half and a third and a little pinch. Don’t eat yourself to death. You do that sometimes, don’t you?
What, does it taste bad? Eat, you moron! You need to eat to stay alive!
Speaking of, I should get dinner going. Oh wait, oven’s already on. Brain like a leaky sieve.
Must be the weather. Or the shouting matches on the phone. Stupid hag should’ve come back when I told her to.

Now, what was I doing?
Oh yeah, feeding the goldfish.
Wait, I already did that. Woops. Don’t want to overfeed you. You can die of that, can’t you?
Well, not my problem. Should be hers’.
Hey, do I smell smoke?
Aw damnit, my fish and chips!
This is your fault, isn’t it? You’re distracting me, aren’t you? Trying to take revenge on me for eating your granduncle? Well fuck you. I’ll eat ‘em burnt, I’ll eat ‘em half-frozen. No fish with its fish brain gonna push me around.

Now, what was I doing?
Oh yeah, feeding the goldfish.
Not really a goldfish though, are you? Too big for that, and kinda shiny. It’s weird. But she called you a goldfish, so a goldfish you are.
Maybe you’re worth something. Could sell you.
Or just eat you. Man, I’m starving. Could use dinner, should turn the oven on and AW DAMNIT it’s BURNING JESUS

Now, what was I doing?
Oh yeah, feeding the goldfish.
Jeez, she took better care of this thing than me. It’s fat and happy and I’m fat and miserable. Where’s the justice in that? I should just pick this bowl up and throw it out the window. Not like it wants to live all that bad – look at all the food in there! Little bastard hasn’t even eaten since the last time I gave him supper. That’s gratitude for you!
Urgh, it’s dark in here. Wait, is something burning? Hard to breathe.

Now, what was I doing?
Oh yeah, feeding the goldfish.
Right, well I’d better get on that. I can’t even see through all this…smoke?
Fuck, did that crazy witch arson me? Did she sneak back and set a light at my door? I’m choking in this shit!
Screw the fish, I’m opening a window.
Screw the window, I’m breaking it!
With the fish!
Why not!
Up up and!

Now, what was I doing?
Oh yeah, feeding the goldfish. Wait, why am I holding it?
Weird. Looks like it’s smiling.
Lotta smok in hee

Get onto the sled get onto the sled get onto the sled get onto the sled geT ONTO THE SLED NOW NOW NOW NOW

Great!

There we are, we were! All of us! You can’t listen to that kind of urgency without being commanded, or you get countermanded or commandeered. On! Up! Aboard!
The sleigh was a million cubits tall and five hundred cubits wide and the horses were exactly so. Very proportionate.
“go,” said the man with the extremely confident voice.
And on and on and CRACK and everyone started moving. Inch by inch in tugs, then in short slides, and then on and on and

‘woo,’ said the man with the extremely confident voice.
And everyone else agreed with him, sailing along, gloriously. “WOO!” they said. “WOO-WOO! CHUGGA CHUGGA!”
And why shouldn’t they? They were picking up speed! Over hills and over dales and through towns and over bridges and over houses and over people and on and on and on. Nobody wanted to get off, everyone wanted to get on or at least get out of the way WOOOOOOO! Some people pointed out that the runners were catching fire but they were killjoy pricks and who cared? Take the ramp! Ramp it! Yessssss

I was born around here –>

The sleigh landed with a crunch after the sweet ramp jump and both the runners broke off at the base and started grinding the passengers on the bottom into shreds, which mixed with the snow in a really unsettling and colourful way.
‘better speed up’ said the man with the extremely confident voice.
“YEAY!” hollered everyone who wasn’t being pulped and they picked up their possessions and shoved them into the morass of increasingly desperate bodies beneath them and stamped on ‘em real hard with hands and feet and teeth and furious optimism. “RISING TIDE RISING TIDE WOO WOO WOO”

(Or maybe here?)
“We could probably fix the runners if we slowed down or maybe even stopped” said some joyless fuck who was shoved under the sleigh to many cheers and the applause of all. The whole thing jerked as they went under and a few hanger-ons went flying and hit trees which fell over and stopped living just like everything else.
The sky was curdling like, shit, month-old milk or something? Or clotted cream. Rotten cream cheese? Fuck, who knew! Blood was filling the air and it was getting hard to tell if it was from the spray below or the sky was starting to blizzard it. Also the air was getting colder. Started to boil in your mouth like it was a tea kettle.
KABOOM the left horse’s heart POPPED out of its CHEST just like THAT and shot into the snow like an artillery shell, detonating red snow in a mushroom cloud. The other horse staggered and wheezed and each leg ran in a different direction before the sleigh caught it and barrelled it forwards as it kicked in the air.
Aaaaaaiiiiiiiieieeeeeeeee went the wind, just the wind. Everyone underfoot was extremely quiet, even as the sleigh accelerated. Wow that was a big hill we were headed for. Covered in rocks.
“RAMP IT RAMP IT RAMP IT TAKE US HIGH!” shouted everyone on top and dang they were hard to hear now.
And as the winds circled into a screaming cyclone and the warm slush of bloody snow lapped around my ankles, I found myself saying aloud “maybe we should do something else? Or stop?”

Immediately five hundred eyes were looking at me and I wished I hadn’t said anything because they all belonged to the man with the extremely confident voice, who picked me up in the palm of his brain and said
‘no. you idiot clown moron why would you think these stupid things. you will live out your life as an insignificant component of this extremely unsubtle blind idiot’s metaphor and you will learn to like it.’

“Oh good,” I said. Felt way better after that. Good to know where you stand, especially when you’re ankle deep in ribcages and torn debris. And then the runners caught my foot and dragged me under, where I died very slowly and painfully alongside everyone else who hadn’t already been turned into slushee material.

We were three blocks from the apartments when Mike sprained his ankle. There was a lot of ankle to sprain; Mike was six foot four and not dainty – the ankle had seen some shit in its time, and was built for it. So when it crumpled under him he dropped mouth open, already starting to wail.
“Leave him,” said Joel.
“What?” goggled Simon.
“He’ll slow us down. Like this, he’s a distraction. They’ll come to him and leave us alone. Keep walking.”
“But we can’t leave him,” whined Simon feebly.
Joel pointed his pistol at him. “One,” he said.
“C’mooon.”
“Two.”
“Ohokayfine.”
We left Mike there. And we didn’t look back.

The sky above was the colour of flatulent gods. Thunder let ‘er rip some miles away, but there was no rain, just this godawful sweaty air that smelled like rotten toast.
“I’m hungwy,” said little Ellie.
“There, there,” said Ellie’s mother. I didn’t know her name, but she looked like Ellie’s mother would. The same big damp eyes and the trembling limbs.
“Will they geddus?”
“No, no, no” soothed Ellie’s mother. “We’re safe now. We’re just going to go for a little walk.”
“You two shut up,” said Joel. “You’ll attract attention.”
“She’s-”
Joel pointed his pistol at her. “One,” he said.
Ellie learned faster than Simon.

Two more blocks and we hid in the shadow of a dumpster, staring at the intersection. Eight lanes of open air, making us sitting ducks – so said Joel, who was also the entire and only reason any of us were alive right now. We listened.
“I say we cut the kid’s throat and let ‘em bleed out a hunnerd yards back and across the road,” said gimlet-eyed Garry. His adam’s apple was flexing and rippling like a wrestler’s arms behind his camo-print jacket, and he fondled the barrel of his rifle in a very unseemly way as he spoke.
“Wouldn’t work,” said Joel. “Street’s too narrow to avoid attention.”
“Why don’t you all uhhhh….stay here…and I’ll uh. Go ahead and get aw get help, get help, that’s what I said, I’m sure of it,” said shifty Jenny, who’d already soaked through both her shirts and her jacket with terror sweat.
Joel pointed his pistol at her. “One,” he said.
“Oh jeez that’s not necessary,” simpered Simon.
“Two.”
Jenny collapsed to the ground in blubbering terror and pissed herself.
“Good. Now, here’s what we’ll do-”
“Aw, poor Jenny,” said Simon, and he bent over and helped her up and slammed the nearest parked car with his ass, sending its alarm off full-force.
“Fuckshitlizardspit!” hooted Garry. He pointed his gun around wildly and fired at anything moving.
“Go!” ordered Joel. And we all went, except for Simon, poor stupid, well-meaning, innocent, naïve, dead-man-walking Simon, who was wedged ass-first in the parked car, wailing hysterically and doomed.
“Oh that’s not good,” I said.
“Works out for the best,” said Joel. “He was going to do something stupid sooner or later. This just means he didn’t take anyone else down with him. Being soft out here gets people killed.”
“Augh!” said Ellie’s mother.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Stubbed my toe!”
“Look at me,” said Joel. When she looked at him he bashed her in the head with the butt of his pistol. She fell over, swearing.
“Leave her. Kid, if you try and follow us I will shoot you.”
“Huh?” said Ellie.
“Kids are dead weight. Slow us down. Stay with your mother, kid. Good luck.”
“Huh?!” said Ellie.
She didn’t follow us though.

We stopped for breath at the park. I was astounded by the natural beauty of the place, and wondered what strange new shapes it would take now, with nobody to tend it.
“I’m gonna forage for berries,” said Garry. And ten minutes later he turned up with a fistful of rotten crabapples.
“Eat ‘em,” he told us. Joel shoved his into his face without chewing. I fidgeted with mine.
“Now,” said Joel.
“Now?”
“Now. You need the calories or you’ll slow us down.”
I was beginning to think Joel wished he was a racehorse or an Olympic sprinter, but I ate the apple under threat of pistol and we moved on.

“Stick ‘em up,” said Garry.
We turned around. He was pointing his rifle at us, steady-handed, wild-eyed.
“I ain’t going another step with you bozos,” he said. “Pass your packs and get your ass outta my sight. Only the fit survive. I know all about how to dig a trench and piss in it and to scavenge like a raccoon and fight like a bear and howl like a wolf and live like a roach. You’re a soft girl and a dope. You’re gonna get yourselves killed. I’m really just doing the job nature intended.”
He belched twice and threw up, spitting rotten apple cores everywhere. Joel stepped up, bashed him in the head with the butt of his pistol, and took the rifle.
“We move on,” he said authoritatively. “Nobody sleeps until we’re out of the city.”
“Me,” I said.
“What.”
“It’s just me. You and me.”
“Oh,” said Joel. He counted us again. “Right. See, this is what happens when you have to make the hard calls. Don’t fall behind.”
“Okay.”

The bridge was clogged tight with cars. Their lights were on, their engines were breathing warm gases.
“We’ll go over their roofs,” said Joel, slinging the rifle on his back. “Quick hops. Don’t fall behind.”
“Excuse me,” asked a woman, “what the hell are you doing with that gun? And you’re stowing it upside do-”
“Another survivor,” said Joel. “You can come with us or stay here and die, the choice is yours. Don’t fall behind.”
“Die from what?”
“What?” I said. “It’s the end of the world! We all heard it on the radio.”
“Well….sort of,” said the woman. “I mean, yes? But like, it’s more like a moving deadline than a single event.”
“Speak clearly,” said Joel.
I shit myself. From the apple. I tried not to draw attention to it. Joel might think I’d slow us down.
“Stop interrupting me to give instructions; it makes you look like an asshole and slows me down. Look, the world’s not really ending, just getting steadily shittier and shittier until the various structures and institutions of our societies that we think of as fundamental wither and occasionally cease to exist.”
“Who did this?” demanded Joel.
“It’s sort of complicated. A lot of it was burning stuff. I think some of the worst came from methane. Y’know. Cow farts. Too many cheeseburgers.”
Joel’s eyes narrowed. “So… the cows did this.”
“What? No. Well, yes. But only because of everyone else. Including you.”
“Got it,” said Joel, unbuckling his eighth pistol. “Authoritative decision time. The rest of you will have to make it alone. I’ve got to make the hard choices. Don’t follow me, and stay on the left side of the road.”
Then he shot himself eighteen times in the head. I think he just meant to do it once but his finger sort of stuck after the first bullet.
“The left?” I said.
“I think he meant to like… Move with the left-lane traffic closest to you. For safety.”
“Ah. Wow.”
“Yeah. No offense buddy, but I’m gonna call the cops. Maybe stand right here and keep your hands in plain sight and just explain to anyone who asks that you just followed the guy around, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. I could do what I was told. Again.

And that just left me, the lone survivor. Standing on the street with a backpack full of granola bars and water bottles and a pretty unattractive sunset that was mostly blocked by big ugly buildings.
Well, uh, I guess that taught me something about the human condition. Maybe?
I mean, maybe I was the real monster.
Or something?

The sun set and I sat there feeling like a dumbass for a good ten minutes before the police arrived. The rest of my evening was really long and boring and I kept waiting for the denouement.

When I woke up the next day, the next year, the next decade, I still was.

The compost bag was round and throbbing gently with life. It seemed to only take encouragement from the grip of Sarah’s fingers on its neck, and oozed affectionately at her as she dragged it to the shed.
Slam, bam went the door. Thud, scrape went the boxes.
Lid open. Woooosh! Goodbye compost, gone forever! Live somewhere else.
Sort sort drop sort drop sort drop sort sort drop. Fare thee well, recycling, in parts both paper and plastic and or metal and or glass! May you be repurposed in peace – although Sarah had the sneaking suspicion she’d heard that they just set it all on fire somewhere far away.
Lid open.
“Oh fucking hell. Piss. Shit. Goddamnit. Who does that?”
And this was the most rhetorical question of all, because Sarah knew exactly who did that.
Above her he lurked. Maker of muffled footsteps. The 2 AM shuffler. The One Who Flushes.
Bruce.
Angels, gods and demons, she cursed him.

The garbage can was full.
Full was such a small word. Overfull was too derivative.
Overflowing would do nicely.
What even WAS all that stuff? Packaging and wrapping and pizza boxes and pounds of mashed up what-looked-like-aluminum-foil and ham bones and wood shavings and a crumpled up ripped t-shirt and half a box of snotty Kleenex and a deflated basketball and a box of broken dog treats.
Bruce didn’t own a dog.
Sweet jesus, and that was just the top layer. What the hell. What the everfucking hell.
As she stood there, garbage bag held haplessly in hand, eyes roaming for an empty spot in the can, Sarah was counting. Counting weeks, counting months, counting trucks.
Not once. Not one time in the two years she’d lived beneath him. Not ever once had this not happened.
The battle was resolved in the usual manner – half the bag was crammed into the can, half the bag was surreptitiously sneaked into three unsuspecting neighbors’ cans – but the war was not ended.
Sarah had begun to think. This is normal and fine thing for a human to do, as long as you don’t point it at anyone else. Which she was.

On Wednesday, there was a knock on her door. On the other side of the knock was a Bruce.
“Yes?” said Sarah, eventually.
“Hi,” said Bruce.
“Oh.”
She opened the door and looked up at Bruce. He stood well over six feet, but in a way that was impossible to be intimidated by. He looked like a scarecrow’s emaciated and impoverished cousin. His wrists were almost as thin as his fingers.
“Uh…” he began, and continued in this vein for some time. His sentences had a habit of starting before they formed. “Well…it’s…not to be a bother, but….uh…. Well…there’s a lock on the garbage can.”
“Oh!” said Sarah. “Yes, that was me. Raccoons got into it last week.”
“Oooh. Uh, did you uhm. Did you really need… a padlock?”
“They’re very dextrous, can break into just about anything that doesn’t need a key. Can’t be too careful. I’ll give you a copy.”
“Oh! Thanks.”
They stood there.
“I’ll give you a copy when it’s made,” said Sarah patiently. “I’ve got to go visit the locksmith.”
“Ooooh,” said Bruce. “Ah. Sorry. Thanks. Sorry. Thanks. See you.”
He shuffled off.
Sarah gloated for a few hours, then snuck off to check the shed.
The lock showed some half-hearted signs of tugging, but the chain was well affixed. Excellent.
The same couldn’t be said of the recycling bins. Mounds rose out of them. Highly unselective mounds.
“Ssssshit,” she whispered. Adaptation. Well, she could adapt too.
So she hid the recycling bins under the porch.

On Thursday, there was a knock at her door. Sarah carefully ignored it and avoided making any and all noises for the rest of the day, which she spent smiling softly to herself. Upstairs all was quiet, save for the odd crunching footstep and a faint sob.

On Friday, the garbage went out, just before pickup.
Extremely just before pickup. Five minutes before the truck stopped in front of the building, the chain was removed. Thirty seconds afterwards, it was reapplied.

On Saturday, Sarah’s door was hammered on for ten minutes straight, accompanied by faint but heart-rending sobs, which she cherished deeply.

On Sunday, the compost bin, in a show of pure desperation, had four pizza boxes crammed into it. Sarah bought a chain for it too.
“Raccoons,” she said to herself. “Obviously.”

On Monday, there was no sound at all.
On Tuesday, there was no sound at all.
On Wednesday, there was no sound at all.
On Thursday, there was no sound at all.
On Friday, Sarah executed the fine-timed garbage pickup, patted herself on the back, put everything away, and stopped at her door.
Something smelled.
Was he hoarding up there? Hell, if she’d driven him to that, maybe she could get the landlord to boot him entirely. Worth a try!
The smell grew stronger up the staircase. Thicker. Foggier.
She knocked. The sound was smothered against the doorframe.
“Bruce?”
The door groaned.
“You there? There’s a smell downstairs.”
Knock. Knock. Thump thump.
Nothing but the busy stillness of fermenting air.
Sarah kicked the door once as three things gave way: her patience, the doorframe, and the floor of Bruce’s apartment, which was directly above her own.
It had been very compacted inside Bruce’s place. It was eager to fill new lands.

It was thick and damp and crumby and oozing, all at once, all in different places. And no matter where you clawed, it wouldn’t give way.
Sarah clawed anyways, clawed like a mountain lion. She clawed and clawed and wished she could scream without letting whatever was stuck on her face into her mouth and clawed and clawed and was dragged out of her apartment by her leg and the noble efforts of three men in sanitation overalls.
“Thanks,” she spat out, wiping the Styrofoam from her lips.
“The garbageman is dead,” they told her.
“Sorry?”
“The garbageman is dead,” they told her. They were triplets, and they were all very beautiful in the face and body – fine, strong bones that lay close to the skin, and soft eyes that loved unconditionally. “Who will consume now? Who will take upon themselves the task of accepting the waste of our labours? Who will buy expensive toys and discard them? Who will eat the food of six people? Who will recycle all the soda cans we stock upon our shelves? The garbageman did and now the garbageman is dead. Without garbage, the circle of consumption is stalled, as an axle knee-deep in snow.”
And they bowed before her as one.
“Garbagewoman,” they said.
“Garbagewoman,” they said.
“Garbagewomen,” they said.
And then they turned on their heels and walked for the door.
“What about my apartment?” asked Sarah.
“Best get shoveling,” they said. And were gone.

“Fine,” she said. “Fine.” She could do this. Bag it all. Sort it. Needed to sort it first.
Right. Sort it first. Then bag it. Then put it out in the shed.
Then she wondered where the key to the garbage can might be, and she started swearing and never stopped.

The car was a blaze of glory. Emergency alarms, horn, airbags, headlights – a riot of sounds and sights. A real shame the driver couldn’t appreciate it.
I’d do it for him. Especially when keeping my eyes forward distracted me from the snickers already starting at my heels.
Focus, Norman. Focus. Look at the lights, at the sights, listen to the chief talking to himself as he looks at the wreck. Don’t listen to the names and the giggles; school was a long time ago.
“-and that’s a wrap,” said Chief Moonlight. The tiny little goblin at his side finished taking notes and walked off, dodging his aimless swat at her ass as she went. “Oh, look who it is. Good ol’ Norm. Come to look for conspiracy theories again?”
“N-”
“Gonna tell us how little overall’d men abducted the driver’s engine and put it in backwards on return?”
“I-”
“Or maybe you’re just here on a social visit, to tell me that leeching is a scam or someshit.”
“I just want to help.”
The Chief sighed. “Yes, Norman. You always do. And we repay you by ignoring that, just like we ignore your name.”
“Yes, Chief.”
“I mean, seriously? How nuts were your folks?”
“Very, Chief. Let me see the body.”
I had a hunch, and the corpse only verified it. Still fresh enough that the blood hadn’t drowned out every detail. I checked the fingers with my kit, then took that extra little step.
I sniffed its breath.
“Chief? What’d you peg him with?”
“Soma,” said the Chief, accepting a cup of unicorn broth from one of the milling rookies that had clustered around us out of boredom and curiosity. “One of the crime scene bozos tried to tell me it was pixie dust. Pixie dust! No pink under his fingers, his third eye was fully dilated… what kind of morons does the academy let graduate these days?”
“Same as always,” I said. “But you’re off too. Smell that buzz on his breath?”
The Chief shrugged.
“That’s booze. Your man here was drunk driving.”
And as I waited for the laughter to subside, I wished, I really wished, I really truly wished that I’d never been raised honest.

“Norman,” my mother had told me, “you have a gift.”
“What kind?” I asked her.
“You’re really boring,” she told me. “And it takes a boring sort of person to get at the truth.”

“Norman,” said the Chief.
“Yeah?”
“Are you still seriously on this alcorhal thing?”
“Alcohol.”
“Amazing. Great. Okay, so you believe this guy obtained your unmythical substance, drank it, and then spontaneously lost all control and slammed into the streetlight here because of an ingested ‘toxin’ interfering with…his ‘bodily functions.’”
“Yes.”
“Wow. Great. You know Norman, I value your input.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s always nice to have a member of the Round Earth Society nearby to cross-check things with. Keeps you sane. Case’s closed, soma’s on the sheet, going home now, have a nice time. Shut ‘er down!”

That had gone relatively well. Normally he started swearing at me.
I stared out at the city from my car. It avoided my gaze.
It needn’t have bothered. I was thinking. I was thinking about the things my mother had taught me, when I was young and stupid.
“It’s a gift passed down from your great-grandmother, Norman,” she had told me. “It’s called ‘Occam’s Razor’”
“A magic sword?” I asked.
“No.”
“A spell?”
“No.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a basic mental tool.”
Even then, I’d known that sort of thing was for nutcases. But she was my mom, and she sounded sincere. I’m a sucker for sincere. Bad trait in a detective.
Chief Moonlight had deduced that the victim had ingested too much soma, rocketing them through too many levels of enlightenment too fast until they appeared in the mundane world and rammed the streetlight with their car out of philosophical bliss.
Fine. But what then of the tyre tracks?
He’d been taking the corners at unnecessary speed, and the patches of rubber would lead me to the last place he’d been. And I was willing to bet that was where I’d find his booze.

Shamefully enough, the victim’s tracks ended only a block and a half away. It had gone straight to his head faster than trollblood – unusual by my grandmother’s reckoning, but explicable. He might’ve been drinking on an empty stomach. He could’ve been a lightweight on his first real binge. Most people in this town didn’t believe in booze or medical impairment, even the real hardcore guys that got Asimov verses tattooed on their chests. An easy mistake for a first-timer to make.
The door was open. An old neighborhood then, where people still put their trust in guestright over modern wards.
“Evening,” I said to the gloom. “Police. Here to ask a question or two.”
Some of the gloom shuffled over to me. It was an elderly man, a retired warlock by the glint of his little stardust eyes and the twitch of his nose. He walked hunched, held up by the gentle nudging of his familiar, an old-fashioned lamp that had surely been out of style for decades.
“Eh?”
“A question or two.”
“Three!”
“Sorry?”
“Three! You must always ask THREE questions! It’s proper!”
Ah. A real staunch traditionalist here. “Yes. Three. What’s your name, mister…?”
“Clock! Wellspring Clock! And you?”
“Norman. Just Norman.”
“Your parents scientists or something? Bah!”
“Yes. Have you seen a confused or disoriented man recently, mister Clock? Not large, slight build, elfin around the eyes and with a spring in his step.”
“I don’t hold with elves! Never heard of him!”
“Understood. Do you mind if I have a look around? It’s possible you may have had a trespasser recently.”
Clock gave me a nod that was as good as an upraised finger, and I relaxed. Good. Now I could get some work done. The place was a mess, but there were only so many places a drunk would’ve been able to get into, as trashed as he must’ve been. Cabinet. Closet. The fridge.
I pulled a little packet from my coat, along with a brush.
“What’s that?”
“Magic,” I lied. My mother had found an old tome of trivia that explained the secrets of fingerprint dusting, and the applications had immediately become obvious. If I could confirm the drunk had been here, the next step’d be to
“Ain’t seen that before at the shop.”
“It’s new stuff. The commissioner approved it recently.” Damnit, those little eyes were glittering. I’d have to come a little cleaner than that. “Truth be told, it’s almost half-mundane. Checks for the perp’s fingernames.”
He blinked. “Mundane?”
“Only a li-”
“Fellow said he knew a man.”
“What?”
“Fellow who was in here earlier. Said he knew a man who was all about that dull stuff. Didn’t look like your description though. Shorter. Fatter. Looked dwarvish.”
A second man? I hadn’t bargained on any of this. “What did the man want?”
“Just to trade. I pawn, you know. Rings for favours, beans for cows, you know, you know how it is. Once you’re out, you’re never quite out. Still have to eat, eh?”
“Did he trade you anything?”
“A funny sort of bottle, yes. Said it was a potion. Standard rate. It’s in the cellar, if you want to try your fancy powder on it.”

It was a bad idea.
The stairs were rickety.
The bricks were stained.
The air was thick and buzzed on my tongue.
And then, right as I laid eyes on the massive, creaking apparatus that filled half the cellar’s guts, I knew the idea was even worse than I’d guessed, right as the dead weight slammed me between the shoulderblades. I fell over like an ogre had axed me.
The old man’s eyes were shining, and from more than spellwork. He’d had a nip of something, and I bet I knew what. His familiar was already on me, shade bristling, but there was something else, something else.
“Fellow can’t retire in peace,” he hissed at me as the lamp lashed for my eyes. “All those years in grief and they can’t let me have a little nip, eh? Not even a little nip, not even between friends! So what’s it to be then, nosy man! So what’s it to be!”
I pulled out my badge and stuffed it into the lamp’s body, let the wards do their work and peeled its spirit out. But Clock was still swinging, and that was no staff in his hands. It was flat, it was hard, it was
Oh my god it was a lead pipe.
How the HELL had he found that?
Protocol said to raise the badge forcefully and trust in the departmental blessing to disperse all hostile forces and powers from your person, bolstered with the incantation of the law.
Department standard said to pull my wand, toast Clock inside out, then take a paid leave for a few months until it died down.
I ducked. The pipe shot over my head, I grabbed the old man’s arm, and the rest was gravity.

What a goddamned night. A drunk driver, a moonshiner, and an intact and functional alcohol distillery (with lead plumbing – weaponized lead plumbing!) in a residential neighborhood. The Chief wasn’t going to like any of this. It’d all end up buried – in the departmental scrolls, in the lockup vault, and under this basement. My head already hurt, although a little of that was from the staircase.
Just the usual signs of a job well done.
My name is Norman. Just Norman. I’m the most successful, capable, and only detective in this burg that investigates mundane crime. Nobody believes me, but they come to me anyway.

In the very very very very very old days, the gods didn’t like people much, almost as much as they don’t like them now. So they kept to themselves, all alone in their palaces on the tops of the mountains, and watched the humans scurry and shiver in the dark and cold. Sometimes they threw lightning at them for fun.
It was in the middle of one such long, chill night that Three Crows walked into a human town and also a human face-first. It was hard to see where you were going.
“Ow!” said the human.
“Sorry,” said Three Crows. “Hard to see around here at night. You ever thought of putting up lights?”
“What, like putting the sun and moon on a string?” asked the human. “Seems difficult, I don’t think we can do that.”
“Nah, I mean like, fire.”
“What’s ‘fire’?” asked the human.
Three Crows tried to explain fire, but it was really hard. Back then humans didn’t have a lot or know about a lot of things, so most of the things she could compare them to weren’t helpful.
“It’s sort of like a lot of little stars, except it eats sticks and bites things,” she said.
“Woah. Can we have some?”
Three Crows considered this. On the one hand, the humans were asking her to steal a special treasure from the tops of the mountains where the gods lived, and she didn’t know them that well. On the other hand Three Crows was very nearly a god herself and so knew that they were jerks.
“Hey, why not?” she said.
It was a long walk up the mountains. The cliffs were steep, but that’s not a big deal if your fingers are strong; and the winds were fierce, but hairy people can push through that; and the way was guarded by many terrifying and ugly monsters, all of which Three Crows was on a first-name (and sometimes pet name) basis with. Finally, she came to the kitchen window of the palace of Fire, which she broke with a rock and let herself in through.
“This one looks good,” said Three Crows, selecting a particularly shiny flame.
It was around then that Three Crows realized she hadn’t actually brought anything to carry fire back in, but she was very nearly a god herself so she made up a new way to carry fire on the spot and hustled it out of there.
It was a little complicated. The trick was to get the fire out of your hand before it could be burned, then put it into your other hand.
“Hey, learned something new today,” said Three Crows. “’Juggling’ is just ridiculous enough to be a good name for this.”
She was so pleased she didn’t look where her feet were going, which is particularly important if you don’t have eyes in your feet, which she didn’t.
“Woah! Shucks.”
The fire flew out of her hands, bounced off a rock, down a cliff, over a river, through a marsh, and landed safely in the middle of the human village.
“Oh, okay.”
Three Crows relaxed a little and took the rest of the trip down the mountain real slow. She even made up a few humming tunes for the trip, about how clever and incredibly handsome she was. Unfortunately, by the time she came to the village nobody wanted to listen to her. They were all busy running around and waving their arms and hooting.
“Hey,” said Three Crows, “want to hear a hum?”
“Aaaugh! Oh nooooooooo! Aiiieee!” said the humans.
“They aren’t THAT bad. They’re about how clever and incredibly handsome I am.”
“Everything’s on fire!” wailed a human. “We don’t have a lot or know about a lot of things, but everything we have and know about is on fire!”
“Put it out,” said Three Crows.
“How?!”
“Throw some dirt on it.”
“We don’t have shovels yet!”
“Oh. Throw some water on it?”
“We don’t know what that is!”
“Ah, fudge,” said Three Crows. “I guess I better help out.”
So Three Crows ran up the mountain this time – and with no breath to hum with, which annoyed her – and passed the cliffs and the winds and the monsters without even enough time to say hello, making many of them very put out. She knew she’d have to apologize later, and that made her cross. She HATED apologies, at least when she wasn’t getting them. It made her so annoyed that she kicked a hole in the palace of Water, pulled out a nice fat current, and threw it down the mountain without looking twice.
“There,” she said crabbily. “Job done.”
And she stomped back down, apologizing through gritted teeth the whole way.
It was a long way to stomp, which gave her time to notice things, like when she stopped stomping and started splashing.
“Aw, pumpernickel,” she said. “Not again.”
And indeed it had happened again. The village was now a lake, and it was filled with extremely splashing and drowning humans.
“blorg,” they burbled at her. “blub, gasp, cough, sputter, boggle.”
“Fine, fine, fine, fine,” sighed Three Crows. “Gosh darn it.”
So she walked past the cliffs and the winds and the monsters – who accepted her (now much more contrite) apologies – and let herself in to the palace of Dogs using the key under the mat, where she stole a set of paddles.
“Here,” she said when she got back to the (patiently) drowning humans. “Do this with your hands like this.”
And they did. And just like that, they weren’t drowning anymore.
“Thank you,” they told her.
“Hey, it’s fine.”
“Except our entire village is still flooded.”
“Well, aren’t we hard to please?” said Three Crows in a somewhat insincere and snotty voice.
“Not really.”
Three Crows sighed in a needlessly dramatic fashion and walked off again.
This time, she was thorough. She checked every palace, looked under every bed, opened every cupboard, pried into every vault. In total, she stole bailing, dam-making, sailing, stilt-walking, parasailing, kayaking, windsurfing, canoeing, canal-making, surfboarding, ditch-digging, surfboarding, inner-tubing, and when her arms were full she gave up, stuffed it all into a palace, stuffed all the other palaces into THAT palace, and hurled the whole thing down the mountain, making it roll very nicely.
Then she took a nap before heading back down because man that takes it out of you.

When Three Crows finally made it back to the human village, she was pleasantly surprised. The knotted-up ball of palaces and manses had completely displaced the water from it.
“Hey,” she said. “How’s it going now?”
“A goddamned mess, fuckface,” said a nearby human. “Why don’t you piss off?”
“Woah,” said Three Crows. “Those’re some impressive words. What are they?”
“Swears,” said the human. “The gods have gifted us with them. They finally found someone they hate more than us.”
“Is it me?” asked Three Crows.
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“Wow,” said Three Crows. “I’m very humbled by this.”
“Go away.”
And Three Crows did.
But not before helping herself to some of the juicier swears. She figured they owed her that much.

It was ten o’clock and all was very much not well oh god they were going to be here any minute.
The hedges weren’t trimmed. The snow was half-shoveled. I hadn’t spiked the punch yet. I wasn’t even finished getting dressed, and I couldn’t remember how many of them there were going to be which was sort of important.
Four? No, there was a single one – three. Wait, there were two couples. Five! It must be five. Probably.
This is what getting old is like. ‘It’s just like riding a bike’ is only said by people who have never ridden one.
Knock knock knock knock oh damnit out of time to panic it’s time to breathe.
I put on my outfit.
Giant lumpy hideous sweater. Yes.
Conspicuously loose ski mask. Good.
Red gloves. Done.
Now, time to oh right the punch shit shit shit.
I jumped off the side of the staircase (ah! Ankle! Ow! I’m not twenty – or thirty! – anymore!), sprang over to the fridge, shoved two bottles neck to neck and squeezed like they owed me money.
Ka-clik.
Key in the lock. That’d have to do.
The door handle turned.
I slid open a window.
Creak.
I jumped out the window.
“HOME, SWEET HOME!” sang out the joyous guests and I slammed the window shut as quietly as I could and ducked into the hedges.
Jesus. My heart was pounding and my ankle hurt. Not my best start to a day.
Well, I had time to breathe now. They wouldn’t need my attentions until at least two o’clock. Time to kick back, relax and
Oh. I’d left my e-reader upstairs. Shit.
Okay, time to sit under a hedge staring at the backs of my hands for a few hours. Times like this I almost wished I’d taken up smoking.

Giggles, laughs, titters, chuckles, snide commentary, cattiness. Yes, they were already in full swing in there. Party starting early. If I’d guessed right they’d spend a little bit unpacking while alternating between flirting and fighting, then go out on the slopes.
Except for one. That’d be my in. I’d knock, and then circle around back. Leave the kitchen door open and hide in the closet, then sneak up behind them as they investigated the draft. Classic.
What would I use? A kitchen knife was a little pat, a little flat…but maybe if I did it ironically. Yeah, maybe I use the knife, but it breaks in the process. That’s a Statement. Yeah, I could do that.
Or I could do a ski po no no no. No. The line between classic and cliché may be thin, but it’s violent. Not the ski pole. Not now, maybe not ever.
No. The knife. I was far enough into my career that I could substitute a little irony for a lot of novelty.
The door opened. A little early, surely? I hadn’t been woolgathering THAT long.
No, out they came. The jock first – yes, that made sense. Snowboard over her shoulder.
Then next came..
Next came…
Well.
Wait. What?
“See ya! Pricks.”
They were going out there alone? Damnit, this was EXACTLY why novelty got less fun as you got older. I’d planned for one earlybird special and plenty of time to prep for four returning guests; this was going to throw my pacing completely out of whack. How long had it been since I’d dealt with a full house right off the bat? Six years? Eight? And that was on purpose! I‘d just have a fourpack sprung on me by surprise and I hadn’t even warmed up yet!
Fuck. Fuck, fuck fuck. I pulled out the tiny jar of caffeine pills, jammed half the bottle in my mouth, and tried to focus. Well, you play the hand you’re dealt, even if you do stack the deck and cut the cards.
Enough metaphors, time for improv.
I needed them to split up. How? Should I cut the lines? No, that’d be stupid. Cell phones were a thing now; all I’d accomplish would be making them phone the cops faster. Preserving and prolonging the uncertain period would be my goal. The moment the panic set in it’d have to be hard and unrelenting. 911 isn’t hard to remember, but it gets a lot trickier to dial it if you’re sprinting from room to room being chased by an axe.
I could really use an axe right now. Knife probably wouldn’t cut it.
Just a little peek in the window. How’s everyone doing? Okay, one of them’s taking a call – she’s going upstairs. Could start with her – the other guy says he’s going to the bathroom. That leaves two in the living room with the TV on. Gotta get upstairs. Gotta get upstairs fast. How?
One moment a time, same as always. Get on the deck, feet on the railing, WHY IS THE DOOR OPENING AGAIN OH SHIT.
“See? Look at the stars.”
“Wow…”
“Toldja we’d be far enough from the city.”
“So many of them!”
Had they even had a chance to drink the punch yet? Oh thank god they didn’t see my feet. Now I just had to walk very quietly over all of their heads, on shingles, and open the attic in less than twenty seconds before the phone call is over, then get out of the attic and get her before she makes the stairway.
And I didn’t have an axe. Or a knife. Or anything. Is there anything in the attic? Look around look around look around.
Well, there’s some old ski poles.
No.
There’s a…fire extinguisher? No. Blunt trauma never really sings.
Okay, I was going to pick the next thing I walked by. Reached out aaaaand
Ski pole.
Fuck.

I just made it. She hung up right as I opened the bedroom door, turned around, gasped, and then as she opened her mouth to scream I grabbed her neck and shoved her out the window and slammed it on her head repeatedly.
Great. Blunt trauma, no weapon involved, and no thematic resonance. Zero stars. Mother would be proud.
Sometimes I hated this job. People expect so damned much from you. At least nobody had heard anything.
Then I heard a flush behind me, spun about, and watched the bathroom door creak open across the hall, leaving me face to face with…
Huh. I hadn’t had any time to check this. Was this the nerd? Or did I just kill the nerd? He couldn’t be the jock, she’d gone snowboarding or skiing or whatever by herself. Was this the jock’s boyfriend? Or was the jock single? I knew ONE of them was single, was the single one cheating with one of the couples or were the couples mutually unfaithful?
He screamed his lungs out.

It was a good scream. Full-force, powerful lungs, diaphragm action, long-running – and he didn’t just stand there, no, he kept it full-tilt even as he bolted for the staircase. I hadn’t seen a scream like that since my first night out.
A real pity that it was blowing my whole night to shit with every decibel. Too soon, too soon even midspree. The jig had barely started and it was already up.
Wait, I could salvage this. One scream – even a great scream – meant confusion, panic. A hunt for answers and missing friends. Yeah. That’d do it. Yeah
All I had to do was stop him.
I jumped forwards, reached out, missed his shoulder, missed his waist, missed his entire leg, and tugged pathetically on his sock, which came off in my hand. The nerd(?) pitched over, still screaming, and descended the entire staircase in one go. Head-first.
Well, it stopped the screaming. Worst kill I’d had in years, even counting the one upstairs, but hey, it stopped the screaming.
I ran downstairs, grabbed his leg, looked around. A closet, perfect. I hoisted the body over my shoulder, heard the door slam open, and immediately jammed myself and the corpse inside.
Fuck.
“Where is he where is he where is he?”
“I don’t know. Quick, get a phone.”
“Where’s your phone?”
“Coat. Get my coat!”
I used my free hand to explore the closet a little and confirmed that the soft objects hanging around me were exactly what I thought.
Well. This could have gone better.
No matter.
I put the body in front of me. I breathed. It’ll fall out on top of the phone-hunter (was the phone hunter the nerd? Maybe he was the slut and the guy I’d tripped down the staircase the nerd), then I could step out and get him. Fine. That was fine.
What would I get him with? It’d have to be fast.
Well, there wasn’t just coats in here. Something’s handle was pressed against my back. A mop? A broom? Hell, I could work with a broom.
I hefted it. Ski-pole.
The closet opened. The body fell out. The nerd(?) jumped back and shouted something like “Fuck!” Fuckbutter? Fuckshit? I wasn’t listening.
I lunged out, pulled the coat over his head, and threw him into the coathooks. It sort of worked. I guess. Lots of thrashing but I reckoned I got his jugular on there.
Lucky. Lucky lucky lucky.
And then the slut(?) attacked me from behind. Or wait, was that the romantic.
Either way, it wasn’t good. You don’t have to be a black belt to mess someone up, you just need to mean it, and the people I’m working with usually do. The closest I’d come to death before was at the nails of a five-foot-nothing and wow everything was still spinning.
What was that, a vase? Whatever it had been, the bagginess of the ski mask wasn’t enough to stop it ringing my bell pretty good. Something had burst on the back of my skull and even if it wasn’t my brain it sure FELT like it. I wished I had more protection back there, but it wouldn’t have fit. Wouldn’t have fit into the gimmick.
God, how long had I been doing this? What on earth made me decide that my shtick would be ‘ski resorts’? Well, I had shaken it up a bit – the time when I moved into an ice castle, the hot springs resort spree, and of course that one classic trip I took down to Hawaii – but still. How many times could I NOT stab someone with a ski pole and make it look good, or at least like I wasn’t trying too hard?
Oh, he was taking my mask off. Better shut my eyes.
I got a good gasp off him. Hey, thanks kid. Took a lot of careful work to make scars like that. The one across the nose was line of duty from an angry brunette with a blowtorch, but the rest? All me.
I’d knew I’d have to open my eyes inside the next half-second. That’d give me a freezeup for a moment, and then whatever was in my hand would be a weapon. Just once. Just once tonight. It would look good.
I opened my eyes. That got me the second gasp.
I sat up, hand moving.
It reached.
It closed.
It thrust forwards.
With god as my witness, I impaled that (nerd? Slut? Romantic? Wait, what if this was the clean-cut?) like a shish-kebab with the ski-pole, hoisting him as a flag.
And you know what?
It looked pretty damned good.
Marty Matthews, the Ski Stabber. Unmasked, framed against the black backdrop of the open closet. A body at his feet, a victim held overhead, a ski-pole in his red gloves.
You could stir hearts with this. You could sell copies of this.
Then I saw someone standing in the doorway.
Oh. It was the jock. Right, the stargazing corpses had left the door open. That’s why I hadn’t heard it. She must’ve finished skiing or snowboarding or whatever early.
Wait, what was she holding? That didn’t look like snow equipment.
Oh. A bowhunter.
“Fuck you,” she said, and she shot me.

That lumpy sweater was my pride and joy. Stitched and reknitted, it had seen me through more kills and laundry cleanings than my own eyes.
The bullet-proof vest underneath, however, was my practicality and common sense. A lot more replaceable, but a lot more useful.
Except bullet-proof vests are meant to stop little round angry things, not sharp blades. B’jezus that hurt.
Well. One out of four ain’t bad. Time to quit. I spun around twice and fell out the nearest window, face-first, and really wishing I still had my ski mask on. I waited until she looked outside, listened for the crunch of footsteps turning away, then rolled behind one of the shrubs and goddamnit legged it.
See, that’s the part the audience never appreciates. How good a runner you have to be. All those sprints between kills never get noticed, but they’re at least implied. The end marathon, when you need to put miles between you and the stage as fast as possible? That’s entirely omitted, from sight and mind both.
But it was over. I was unwinding even as I ran. One hand on the arrow wound – ow, ow, ow – the other pumping, pumping, working as hard as my legs even as it sang and snapped at me and oh okay my arm hurt a LOT.
A LOT.
I stopped running.
“Oh,” I said. “Maybe that was too many caffeine pills.”
Well, I tried to say that. Instead I just went ‘aaaugh’ and fell over into a lot of extremely grey mist.

Great.

And you know what really made the whole thing unfair?
They didn’t even try the punc