Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Who Needs Horror - We've Got History!




Hi, there!  Louise here - now it's my turn to offer some fare for the 2016 Fright Fest season.  And I thought that this year, I'd go back to basics.  Forget demons and zombies and werewolves and all that supernatural stuff - if it's something truly scary or horrible that you're looking for, then you don't have to seek it out in the Otherworld, or in fantastic realms.  Just open your front door and look around you.  Yes, I'm talking about the human race. You can't get much more horrible than us - we've been doing things that are mean, and nasty and downright horrific for thousands of years - just open a history book, and you'll see exactly what I mean.
Today I'm going to share an insight into the evil that men do.  It's a fragment from my second novel, 'The Gryphon at Bay:' the immediate follow-up to my historical novel 'Fire and Sword,' it's currently lodged with Hadley Rille Books.
The scene I've chosen to share with you imaginatively recreates an actual event which took place between October and November in 1489, so the timing is just perfect. History doesn't fill in many details: all we know is that the Lord Kilmaurs was slain by Hugh, 2nd Lord Montgomerie.  Was it murder? Was it a judicial killing?  And what of the aftermath? Can we assume that the real Hugh Montgomerie felt perfectly justified in his actions? Perhaps.  Did he think about it afterwards, and regret what he had done?  Who knows?
Such things are, of course, beyond the scope of historical sources.  But they are the meat and drink of historical fiction writers, of course.
So may I present to you an episode of true horror, from a time and a place which weathered more than its fair share of feud and war and casual brutality.  Perhaps that night, the Cunninghames might have been forgiven in thinking they were in the presence of the Devil incarnate: when we join the action, the Lord Kilmaurs lies dead, and for his brother Will Cunninghame of Craigends and his son Cuthbert, Master of Kilmaurs, the future is far from secure.



They followed the road for several miles, then Craigends changed course, heading off across the fields. By the time they slowed their pace, the horses were blowing and lathered in sweat.
Craigends cocked his head. He could’ve sworn he’d heard the bray of a horn. “Alright.” He halted near a small stand of trees. “Let’s leave the horses. They’ll find their own way home.”
“What?” Cuthbert demanded, disbelieving.
“Montgomerie’s after us.”
“Surely we can outrun him?”
“He has the instincts of a sleuth-hound. And the persistence.” Craigends was already dismounting. “Don’t give him the satisfaction of hunting you down. This way, we’ll leave him a false trail.” He cast the boy an anxious glance. “Can you walk?”
Cuthbert winced as he lowered himself to the ground. “I’ll have to.”
“Good lad. Now get on with you!” He lunged and hissed at the horses, waving his arms to drive them away.
“I don’t even know where we are,” Cuthbert whispered.
“Ah, but I do. If God wills it, we’ll get home in one piece, and in reasonable health, too. We owe it to your mother.”
“We could seek shelter until he calls off the pursuit?”
“He’ll search every byre and cottage. If he found us, he’d slay us. As it is, he’ll burn the poor souls out of their homes and kill their beasts.”
*           *           *
Mist hung like a shroud over the land. A reassuring sight, Craigends thought, for it meant that even Montgomerie might call off the chase sooner rather than later.
Sounds travelled far in the still evening air, so they heard the hue and cry in plenty of time. The thunder of hooves, the blood-chilling calls of their pursuers.
“We’ll find cover over there.” Grasping Cuthbert’s arm, Craigends tugged him over to a dense thicket of whin and brambles that overlooked the river. They ducked deep into its depths, oblivious to the thorns that snagged their clothes and tore their flesh.
Cuthbert was trembling. Craigends held him close, an attempt at reassurance. “Not a word, for God’s Sake...” Staring into the gloom, he saw two Cunninghame retainers approach, unhorsed and stumbling with weariness. They skirted the river, wading through reeds and sliding over rocks.
Cuthbert stirred. “We must help them.”
“Hold still!” Craigends growled.
The enemy soon appeared: a dozen Montgomerie men-at-arms, fanning out across the valley.
Craigends swallowed. Sweat settled chill across his shoulders and back.
The beleaguered Cunninghames were spotted. One of Montgomerie’s retainers shouted out to his companions, and spurred his horse in pursuit. Splashing through the river, he headed up the sloping ground at a lumbering trot. He drew his sword and swept past, bringing one man down. The other fled, back towards the jeering pack of men that waited below.
Craigends glanced aside, unwilling to witness the slaughter. As he did so, he glimpsed something from the corner of his eye, a flash of white.
A horse approached, walking shin-deep through the river. A grey spectral beast, bloodstained and terrible.
And on its back, Montgomerie himself.
Lord Hugh halted, just twenty feet away. He was bloodied and unkempt, his unsheathed sword resting against his shoulder. He lifted his head, a wild beast scenting the air for quarry, nostrils flared, a feral light in his eyes. His steel gaze fixed on the thicket and he stared into its depths.
Craigends screwed his eyes shut, briefly, praying for a miracle. Alongside, Cuthbert bowed his head and stifled a moan.
A twig snapped, a figure moved nearby. It was the Cunninghame retainer they’d dismissed as dead: he scrambled to his feet, staggered a few steps.
Montgomerie’s head jerked round. He sat quite still, watching keenly as the wounded man tried to flee. Then he stirred. Lifting his sword, he closed in at a canter. With one lazy sweep, he hacked the man down as he passed. He didn’t look back, riding onwards through the river with spray flying from his horse’s hooves. He called to his men, and soon they were gone.
The silence returned.

Monday, October 26, 2015

Usher's Well

She waits by the window. Behind her, the kitchen clock beats out the time. Seconds slip away into minutes; minutes pile up into hours. Strangers’ voices fill the room: the pips, the news, The Archers, drama, more news. She listens. Easier to listen than to think. Even today. Especially today.

Sometime after three she makes coffee. Drinks it, standing by the window, watching the last leaves tumble from the apple tree and a blackbird searching the leaf mould at its foot. The day lingers, sour and sad, a dull, grey afternoon as so many in that year. With the unabashed self-interest of his kind, Jeoffry saunters in in search of chicken. She points him to his bowl where the giblets are waiting. He eats, then twists himself around her ankles, leaps mewing to the windowsill demanding to be stroked. She obliges, and his purr fills the kitchen. His fur is soft beneath her curving fingers. So warm. So vital. So alive.

The light is thicker now. She checks her watch: half an hour until the sunset. She fills it with another coffee. The radio drones on and on, its empty words a counterpoint to Jeoffry’s purr.

She looks around. All is in order. The house is clean, the food prepared, the beds made up, fresh towels in the bathroom, fresh flowers on the table. Chrysanthemums: red and gold and yellow, each a splash of colour against the November day. All is ready. The house is waiting to be filled.

Jeoffry, sated, satisfied, slips away. She checks the clock again. Ten minutes left; nine. She reaches for her cup but her hands are shaking too much to hold it.

No colour in the world beyond the window. No pomp or glory in this sunset. Merely the thickening light, the silent fall of rain upon the garden. So had her tears fallen, she thinks in a moment of fancy, salt rain falling down to water the cold clay.

The car stops at the gate at the appointed time. Exactly to the minute, she marks, passing the hall clock as she hastens to the door. She throws it wide to the dreich evening and stands, heart racing, on her threshold.

The driver gets out and walks around the car. It is the man she’d met in the kirkyard, dressed now, as then, in black. He opens the rear door and three boys – her three boys – pile out onto the pavement. The driver touches the eldest on the arm and stoops to whisper in his ear. Will glances at his brothers, nods, answers. She is too far away to catch his words. And then there is no need to think at all. Three boys come charging up the path to throw themselves into her waiting arms and all at once the world is as it should be.

Despite the rain. Despite the falling rain.

The house is full of noise and light. Coats and boots lie discarded by the door but even so they have left clods of damp earth on the carpet, and a litter of yellow birch leaves. As she picks up coats, more leaves drift from their pockets. She shivers, shaking her thoughts away. They have come home, and that is all that matters. They charge about upstairs from room to room, dragging out old toys, scuffling upon the landing, setting the telly to full blast. She smiles and locks the door, draws the curtains fast against the night.

Jeoffry streaks down the stairs, eight pounds of furious tabby blown up into a tiger. She takes a step towards him, holding out her hand to soothe and stroke. He hisses, ears flat against his head, a wild thing at bay. She steps back and he hurls himself into the night, leaving the flap swinging behind him.

‘Boys,’ she calls upstairs, ‘boys – what did you do to Jeoffry?’

‘Nothing, Mum,’ comes back the chorus. ‘Nothing.’

She pauses a minute in the hall, wondering whether to pursue it. No need, she thinks, he’s a grown cat now, used to a quiet life. He has forgotten them, that’s all.

‘Supper in an hour,’ she calls.

No answer. Unless you can count the distant sound of Adam’s drums an answer.

Back in the kitchen she sets the final touches to the meal. The chicken waits, crisped skin brown and glistening. Mashed potatoes yellow with butter, heavy with cream; carrots glazed with sugar; peas dressed with chopped mint; chocolate fudge near an inch deep on the cake. Food to tempt their appetites.

The youngest drifts in, clutching a toy dog.

‘I can’t find Teddy,’ he says.

Cold fingers clutch at her heart. ‘Oh, Tom.’

She puts down the spatula and wipes chocolate from her fingers. Gathering him into her arms, settling him upon her lap, she breathes in the smell of him. Woodland. Leaf mould.

He presses his face into her shoulder, small hands clinging tight. So familiar this feel, small boy curling himself into her heart. He’s wearing the top she’d laid out for him: his favourite, red, blazoned with dinosaurs; its colour had burned in a world turned all to grey and halflight.

‘Better?’

‘Kiss,’ he demands, turning up his face.

She obliges, laughing. She wraps her arms around him, does not realise how tightly she is holding him until she feels him struggle.

She lets him go. ‘Tell your brothers supper’s ready.’

He skips out, dragging the dog by its ear behind him.

Beyond the window, the night is full of rain. Within the warm kitchen, she carves and spoons and dollops, fills plates with chicken, mounds of potatoes, carrots, peas, pouring glasses full of fizzy drink – the kind often begged for, seldom granted – a treat to mark the day. They talk and squabble round the table, her three boys, her flesh, her blood, her children. Before she takes her place she puts down a plate for Jeoffry.

She eats and talks, polices bickering, settles an argument between Tom and Adam over who would win: T. rex or ten – no, twenty! – ’raptors?

The food is good, she is hungry. It’s been a long time since last she took such pleasure in her cooking. The chicken was a gift from next door; well-set urbanites retiring to play the rural good life, their little flock the bane of weekend lie-ins. There have been many such gifts, these last months, from friends, from neighbours, from people who will hold her hand but not, quite, look her in the eye. Looking around the table at her sons’ faces, the months before this night are as a dream, a bad dream, from which she has now woken.

She stands to help herself to more. Jeoffry’s food remains untouched. No sign of him, despite the rain.

A clatter behind her. The eldest, carefully, is clearing plates, scraping unwanted food into the bin. He smiles, reassuring, suddenly so much older than his years. ‘It was lovely, Mum. Really. It’s just, we cannot eat.’

She smiles brightly, pouring flattened drinks away. ‘It’s the excitement, I expect. I could never eat after a journey.’

Will lays his hand on her arm. ‘Mum, you know. He explained it.’

Her mind flicks to the driver; their meeting in the kirkyard. She’d thought him first a minister in his black garb, holding his black book, and hurried past, avoiding his gaze. Even so, he’d come to stand beside her beneath the birken trees, besides the stone, and she’d seen his book no Bible but The Tragedie of HAMLET, Prince of Denmarke. He’d tapped its spine and told her, ‘There are ways, you know. He’d not tell you,’ a wave of his white hand to the minister’s house, ‘but I can.’

So she had listened.

She thinks, now, of the milk in the ’fridge, the bacon, the eggs, the unopened boxes of cereal, the pancakes she has planned for breakfast. She thinks of the man beneath the trees, of all he told her. Of her promise and her crooked fingers. The door is locked. The windows fastened.

‘He is not here,’ she says. It comes out more sharply than she means. ‘Only we are here.’

Will nods, biting his lip, turning away without an answer. She cuts the cake and gives each boy a slice. Tom looks from brother to brother, and shakes his head.

‘Just a little bit?’ she asks. ‘A mouthful?’

He shakes his head again, lips wobbling, a tear just spilling from his eye.

‘Never mind,’ she says with a bright, forced smile. ‘It will keep until you're hungry. Run away and play.’

The evening draws on into night. The eldest plays on the PS with his brother whilst the youngest has his bath. The house is filled with the crackle of gunfire, the crash and blast of heavy shells, with boys’ voices cheering on destruction. Tom sings and splashes, soaking the bathroom floor just as he’s always done. She looks out of his bedroom window, watching the rain run down the glass. Unlike Jeoffry to be without on such a night. He is a one for creature comforts. Ah well, she thinks, it’s his look out. He has a catflap, and knows well how to use it.

Tom comes in, sweet and small in blue pyjamas. His pale, bright hair, towel-dried, stands up fluffy around his face. He picks his way through the litter of toys strewn across his floor – How do boys wreak such havoc in so short a time? – and pulls book after book from the shelf until he finds the one he wants.

‘Read it!’ he demands, and so she does, snuggling up with him under the duvet. He smells of soap now; his neck has the milky smell she remembers from his babyhood. After a while there is a ceasefire beyond the door. His brothers wander in and settle themselves, Will resting against the pillow beside Tom, Adam lounging at the bedfoot.

‘Not too old for stories, then?’

They pull disgusted faces at such sentiment, but neither moves away.

The world dwindles down to this small room, bounded by the circle of lamplight; the only sounds beyond her voice the tick-ticking of the dinosaur clock upon the wall and the rain against the window.

‘I want Teddy.’ Tom’s voice is scarce more than a whisper, conjuring a flash of earth clodding down upon worn fur. Her heart turns over in her breast.

Will puts an arm around Tom’s shoulders. ‘Just tonight, okay. You’ll have Teddy again tomorrow.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise,’ Will answers.

The door is locked, she thinks to calm her racing heart, the door is locked and bolted. They are mine again, forever and for always.

‘Go on, Mum,’ Will says. ‘You’re coming to the good bit.’

She reads on, late into the night. Tom relaxes into sleep beside her, his slight body becoming a deadweight on her arm. The others yawn and stretch themselves. She wonders if she should turn them out, make them wash, send them to sleep in their own rooms. But it is late and she as tired as they. And besides, now they are here, she cannot bear to have them leave her.

Will’s head lolls against her shoulder and she too drifts into sleep, the patter-pat of rain running through her dreams.

At cockcrow, she wakes all of a start to darkness and finds the space in the bed empty beside her. She snaps on the light and three boys look around with wide, dark eyes. Will is crouching down by Tom, the red top ready in his hands to pull over his brother’s tousled head.

‘What are you doing?’ she asks.

Adam points to the clock. Half-past seven. ‘He’ll be here soon, Mum.’

Less than fifteen minutes, she thinks; the time of sunrise written ’cross her mind, for all there is no sign of dawn beyond the window, only the rattle of rain against the glass.

She shakes her head. ‘I’ll make breakfast. What shall we do today?’

‘Mum,’ Will says, quietly, ‘you know we can’t stay. A night. You agreed.’

‘The door is locked,’ she says. ‘He can’t come in.’

‘No, but if we’re missed –’ Adam begins. A glance from Will reduces him to silence. Wide-eyed, fearful, Tom looks between his brothers and then to her. She wants to run to him, to catch him up into her arms and hold him tight and never, ever let him go.

‘Please,’ Will says, ‘don’t make it harder than it is.’

‘Will,’ she holds out her hands to her sons, ‘Adam, Tom, this is your home.’

Will shakes his head and continues, carefully, gently, to get Tom dressed. Next door, the cock crows again, heralding the day. The clock ticks on, conscienceless, relentless, measuring out the minutes.

Downstairs, the door is locked; the key is heavy in her hand, memories of other mornings heavy in her memory: the rush to leave before the bus, the scrabble for forgotten books, for rugby boots and pencil cases, the nag and niggles over unfinished prep and untucked shirts. Today, they wait quietly for the door to be opened, washed, brushed, ready. So had they been last time she saw them, still-faced and silent, so clean and combed they had scarce seemed her sons. Only Adam’s tapping foot betrays impatience.

‘Adam,’ she has to ask, seeing him glance to the clock, ‘it wasn’t just me? This is what you wanted?’

For a moment, only for a moment, she sees in the depths of his eyes something that should be in no child’s face, something more than she has ever dreamt of. She could have stood against the world, she thinks, kept the door locked fast, broken all her promises to the black-clad man, but for that. Will holds out his hand and she gives him what he needs.

Will turns the key and draws back the bolt. He kisses her good bye, then Adam takes his place, cold arms about her neck, cold lips against her cheek. She crouches down and buttons Tom’s coat, pulling up his hood against the rain. He is again clutching the toy dog.

Holding Tom’s face between her hands, she kisses him, then stands back to let them pass her by. Hand in hand, her sons step out into the rain and the halflight before dawn. The car is waiting at the gate, the black-clad driver by its open door.

As the car pulls away, as she crouches, weeping, just inside the door, Jeoffry stalks in, tail held high, heading for his bowl.


The Wife of Usher's Well (Child Ballad no. 79) is a ghost story. It's not a scary story - well, not in the obvious way - but a very, very sad one. You've just read my version: here's Karine Polwart singing another.

Harriet Goodchild

Friday, October 23, 2015

A Talk in the Dark

Hi folks! Mark here with a small offering to the fright-fest celebration. To be honest, I wasn't sure if I would come up with something. I think this is on the different or odd end of our common equation, but in retrospect I think it touches on some of the themes running throughout my Pevana novels. I will final judgment to you, the readers. I call it 'A Talk in the Dark.'  It reminds me of a very old story of mine, written back when I was 18-19 and trying to figure out how to survive at a big university. I might have to go back and dig through the notebook boxes and revisit it. There might be some seeds there. I hope this small bit suffices for now.


A Talk in the Dark

    I awoke again to darkness. At least, I think I awoke. Light, definition, shape and texture have begun to fade for me. All I know is I move my eyes because I can feel my lids and lashes. Like all the other times, I reach out to my right and touch the wooden bowl and jug of water. Someone puts them there when I sleep, I guess. I’ve tried staying awake to at least hear the sound of someone else’s breathing or a footstep—anything. But so far, nothing. I reach back in my memory to try to assemble the sequence of events that brought me here, but even that has become difficult.

   I was a soldier. Just a ranker with a spear and shield. Nobody important. I’m not sure why I’ve warranted such special attention.
   Or is it special neglect?
   There are times in the dark when I talk to myself. I natter away with my memories to dispel a little of the nothing with noise. I can tell my eyes are open, can feel the dryness when I’ve bugged them out for too long, striving against the Nothing for a hint of Something. I have to actually tell myself to blink.
     But all I have are tactile sensations and the monotony of my own voice, and even that pales over time. I can tell I’m dirty. My hair has grown long. I do not know for sure how long I have been here, whether I am young or old. I can stand and move with relative ease but only cautiously. In this absence of landmark, I inch about more careful than a truly blind man, toes and fingers hyper-sensitive to any change, any alteration in the air currents caused by my breathing that might suggest…something.
     Change. I keep reaching for it; I can’t say looking because I have all but forgotten what shape is other than my own limbs and body. I know I hug myself constantly, as though I were some catatonic holding on to insanity.
     Or sanity. In this place I do not think there is much difference.
      I have memories of light, faces that I still recall as family, and others I vaguely remember as friends. But more and more I find the images harder to conjure. Mostly now all that comes easily to me are the sounds of fighting, cruel faces in strange garb thrusting spears and blades, leering faces, bearded, sweaty, disfigured by tattooed designs and ritual slashes. I remember the smells of burning wood and flesh, the choking, retching horror of defeat and displacement.
     And then a spear butt smashing into my forehead, followed by darkness.
     This same darkness, unchanged, ever since. And the silence, which I break with my hesitant breathing and snatches of odd conversation with my terrors, rubbing at the slowly healing scar, which is the only tangible tie I have to what went before.
    I walk out of habit but afraid of what I might bump into, and I talk in a whisper, which still seems loud to me, out of fear that someone or something might be listening. Oddly enough, I never come up against a wall, or a pit, nothing.
    But as for that, I cannot make out why. I have all but forgotten who I am. Or was.
    And that is what terrifies me the most and keeps me huddling and whispering and dry-eyed in the darkness: who am I that I should suffer so, and who are they that would do this to one so insignificant? Such thoughtless power serves to intensify the dark and make my gibbering all the more hapless.
   In a dark such as this, it is difficult to maintain pride and dignity.
   “I’ve had enough!”
    The sound of my own voice, croaking and broken, scares me back to silence and I crouch down, waiting for a blow.
    But nothing. Nothing ever responds. At least, nothing that doesn’t come from inside me.
    I wonder if this is what death feels like, then I catch myself. What if this is what death IS?
   “Then who keeps feeding me?” my faltered self asks. “I’m not dead. That much I can claim. I smell my own excrement and sweat. The dead don’t eat and drink.”
     “Ah, but who is to say?” responded my better self. “You’ve cracked too much to reason it out, admit it.”
     “I will admit no such thing!”
     “It doesn’t matter what you will or will not admit. You’ve no choice in the matter, anymore.”
     “But why?”
     “Because your side lost.”
     “Don’t you mean ‘our’ side?”
     “Don’t try that old game. You will just make it worse.”
     “But how can you live without knowing?”
     “How can you know without living? Answer me that, why don’t you? Perhaps if we could draw some conclusions, ha, ‘draw’, that’s good, as if we’d be able to see them.”
     “Stop it with your stupid irony.”
     “Why don’t you stop it with the crouching and the whining? You make us smell like a savage.”
     “But I am, ‘we’ aren’t savages! Oh, blast you! I remember a city of white stones on a hill above the sea. Flags and towers and song drifting on the breeze.”
      “Fine and pleasant illusions.”
      “But you knew them, too!”
      “Yes. I knew them. We knew them. Everyone knew them. Can you see them here? Smell them? Hear them?”
      “No,” my faltered-self quavered. “All there is here is nothing.”
      “Yes, like I said, all pleasant illusions.”
      “I cannot accept that.”
      “I know, but we both know we are out of options. Defiance means nothing in the Nothing.”
      “I hate it when you make sense.”
      “I don’t do it to anger you. It is who I, ‘we’ are, what they have made us—those painted, bearded victors. We never had a chance once they broke the wall.”
      “Wall?”
      “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that part, too! Are we so fractured, then?”
      “No, I remember now. We’ve had this talk before, haven’t we.”
      “Many times, one time, doesn’t really matter now. Time is not for me, ‘us’.”
      “You think you know something, don’t you. Tell me. You know something. You remember more than I do. Tell me!”
       And then silence, as though in my madness my better-self thought better of the answer. I blinked, waiting, hugging my dirty, scrawny limbs. I felt small. So small.
     “Tell me,” my faltered-self whispered.
     “I think I am,” came the answer, final, sepulchral. “ Or ‘we’ are, culture, all but forgotten save by the scribes and keepers of records. We are the words of the poets fallen on all but deaf ears, recalled as an afterthought, shelved.”
     “So what are we to do?”
     “Wait.”
     “But this is the Nothing!”
      “Yes, it is the Nothing. We might wait long…”
 
10/18/15
 
Mark Nelson
The Poets of Pevana
King's Gambit
The Poet King
Pevanese Mosaic

    

 

 

Monday, October 19, 2015

The Candidate by Gustavo Bondoni


“I’m sorry sir.  Nothing personal,” the driver said as the car pulled to a stop along a deserted stretch of mountain road.  The gun in his hand kept Emery from moving.
“What’s happening, Tim?”
“Better offer from someone else.” The driver shrugged. “Hush, now.  They’ll be here soon.”
Almost immediately, a Hummer pulled up in the roadway behind them.  Black.  Sinister.  Unmarked.  Three men descended and approached the limo.
Tim ordered Emery off.  They stood facing the men.
Emery had expected Arabs, or Russians or Chinese.  He was disappointed.  The three men looked like a cross section of middle-class America.  The thin black guy in the conservative suit and pencil mustache seemed to be in charge while the two big white guys, one blond-haired, one dark moved to either side of Emery.
“Good work, Tim,” the leader said.  “We’ll take it from here.” 
Tim nodded and handed over the pistol.  As soon as the gun was out of sight, blond guy took a step forward and punched the driver in the face. He went down in a spray of blood and stayed there, kicking feebly.
Emery was enraged.  “Do you know who I am?”
The black guy just smiled.  “Of course we do.  And we can’t let you win today.  And the only way to stop you is to kill you.  Goodbye, Mr. Emery.”
Emery struggled, but the big guys stuffed him back into the limo. They put the semiconscious driver into the front seat and locked the doors and bullet-proof windows from the driver’s compartment.  He was trapped.
Emery had been suspicious from the outset.  It had all been too easy.  His party had made it seem perfectly rational.  His approval rating in his home state was through the roof.  He had the ideal physical characteristics – strong enough to be respected by men, handsome enough to be trusted by women.  They gleefully pointed out that the opposing party had been making a huge mess of things for the past four years.  It would be a landslide.  The polls had upheld this view.
So, if everything was so peachy why wasn’t he the least bit surprised that, instead of being on his way to vote for himself, he was trapped inside a limo awaiting God knew what fate?
The car shuddered.  The Hummer had come up behind it and was pushing the limo forward.  Through the window and the partition, Emery could see a sharp turn approaching a few hundred yards ahead.  Nothing but a long fall awaited on the other side of the guardrail.
He pulled desperately at the door handles as the car gathered speed, but it was no use.  The doors were locked from the driver’s cabin.  He pounded on the glass, trying to get Tim to react.  The driver seemed sluggish, looking back in confusion.  Emery frantically gestured for the man to look forward.
The driver turned and sat there, uncomprehending, for precious moments before he reacted.  He gripped the steering wheel with both hands – just as the limo hit the guardrail and went over it like it wasn’t even there.
Silence filled the cabin as the car sailed through the air, all road noise gone.  Emery could see the ground hundreds of feet below as the nose of the vehicle pitched forward to face it.
The driver scrambled madly – hopelessly – to steer the car back.  The realization that this was it, he was going to die took root in Emery’s soul.  He silently watched the screaming driver, fascinated, horrified.
His own self-control deserted him with the ground less than forty feet away.  He began to scream, but cut it off when a sudden unexpected deceleration slammed him into the glass partition seThe Candidate


“I’m sorry sir.  Nothing personal,” the driver said as the car pulled to a stop along a deserted stretch of mountain road.  The gun in his hand kept Emery from moving.
“What’s happening, Tim?”
“Better offer from someone else.” The driver shrugged. “Hush, now.  They’ll be here soon.”
Almost immediately, a Hummer pulled up in the roadway behind them.  Black.  Sinister.  Unmarked.  Three men descended and approached the limo.
Tim ordered Emery off.  They stood facing the men.
Emery had expected Arabs, or Russians or Chinese.  He was disappointed.  The three men looked like a cross section of middle-class America.  The thin black guy in the conservative suit and pencil mustache seemed to be in charge while the two big white guys, one blond-haired, one dark moved to either side of Emery.
“Good work, Tim,” the leader said.  “We’ll take it from here.” 
Tim nodded and handed over the pistol.  As soon as the gun was out of sight, blond guy took a step forward and punched the driver in the face. He went down in a spray of blood and stayed there, kicking feebly.
Emery was enraged.  “Do you know who I am?”
The black guy just smiled.  “Of course we do.  And we can’t let you win today.  And the only way to stop you is to kill you.  Goodbye, Mr. Emery.”
Emery struggled, but the big guys stuffed him back into the limo. They put the semiconscious driver into the front seat and locked the doors and bullet-proof windows from the driver’s compartment.  He was trapped.
Emery had been suspicious from the outset.  It had all been too easy.  His party had made it seem perfectly rational.  His approval rating in his home state was through the roof.  He had the ideal physical characteristics – strong enough to be respected by men, handsome enough to be trusted by women.  They gleefully pointed out that the opposing party had been making a huge mess of things for the past four years.  It would be a landslide.  The polls had upheld this view.
So, if everything was so peachy why wasn’t he the least bit surprised that, instead of being on his way to vote for himself, he was trapped inside a limo awaiting God knew what fate?
The car shuddered.  The Hummer had come up behind it and was pushing the limo forward.  Through the window and the partition, Emery could see a sharp turn approaching a few hundred yards ahead.  Nothing but a long fall awaited on the other side of the guardrail.
He pulled desperately at the door handles as the car gathered speed, but it was no use.  The doors were locked from the driver’s cabin.  He pounded on the glass, trying to get Tim to react.  The driver seemed sluggish, looking back in confusion.  Emery frantically gestured for the man to look forward.
The driver turned and sat there, uncomprehending, for precious moments before he reacted.  He gripped the steering wheel with both hands – just as the limo hit the guardrail and went over it like it wasn’t even there.
Silence filled the cabin as the car sailed through the air, all road noise gone.  Emery could see the ground hundreds of feet below as the nose of the vehicle pitched forward to face it.
The driver scrambled madly – hopelessly – to steer the car back.  The realization that this was it, he was going to die took root in Emery’s soul.  He silently watched the screaming driver, fascinated, horrified.
His own self-control deserted him with the ground less than forty feet away.  He began to scream, but cut it off when a sudden unexpected deceleration slammed him into the glass partition separating the driver and passenger compartments.  The car was still again.  The mounting wind noise had subsided along with the screams, and Emery could see that they were, impossibly, floating just a couple of yards off the grassy slope.  As he watched, it descended gently to the ground, twisting slowly in midair to position itself wheels downward.
The three guys who met them when they staggered out of the car could have shared the other three guys’ tailor – conservative grey all around – but they certainly didn’t look like Americans.  It wasn’t anything specific which set them apart – all three were Caucasian – but it might have been the pallor of their skins or the deadness of their eyes.
As they approached, Emery found himself chuckling.  Those dead eyes, almost matte brown in appearance, reminded him of his vice-president to be.  And then he stopped laughing.  They really looked like his vice president’s eyes, somehow flatter than they should have been.  He’d never really liked Kristoff, and those eyes were probably the reason.
“Ah, Mr. Emery,” the nearest said.  “I’m so glad we got to you in time.” His voice had the same unemotional nasal quality that had insured that his own running mate would never make any of the truly important speeches.
“What? How did you-”  Emery gave up and just waved in the general direction of the car, the cliff and the broken guardrail.
“That’s classified, I’m afraid.”
“But it was you?  Not divine intervention?”
“Yes.  We’re friends of your vice-president.  We were keeping an eye on you.  If anything happened to you, his candidacy would have been ruined.  New elections would have been called and your party would have selected a different formula.”
“Then you’re not with the guys on the hill?”
“Oh, no.  We need you to win this election Mr. Emery.  We can’t allow you to be involved in any accidents.”
“Oh.” 
“Well, at least not yet,” the leader said, and flashed him a smile that showed way too many teeth.  “Please come with us.  You need to cast your vote.”
parating the driver and passenger compartments.  The car was still again.  The mounting wind noise had subsided along with the screams, and Emery could see that they were, impossibly, floating just a couple of yards off the grassy slope.  As he watched, it descended gently to the ground, twisting slowly in midair to position itself wheels downward.
The three guys who met them when they staggered out of the car could have shared the other three guys’ tailor – conservative grey all around – but they certainly didn’t look like Americans.  It wasn’t anything specific which set them apart – all three were Caucasian – but it might have been the pallor of their skins or the deadness of their eyes.
As they approached, Emery found himself chuckling.  Those dead eyes, almost matte brown in appearance, reminded him of his vice-president to be.  And then he stopped laughing.  They really looked like his vice president’s eyes, somehow flatter than they should have been.  He’d never really liked Kristoff, and those eyes were probably the reason.
“Ah, Mr. Emery,” the nearest said.  “I’m so glad we got to you in time.” His voice had the same unemotional nasal quality that had insured that his own running mate would never make any of the truly important speeches.
“What? How did you-”  Emery gave up and just waved in the general direction of the car, the cliff and the broken guardrail.
“That’s classified, I’m afraid.”
“But it was you?  Not divine intervention?”
“Yes.  We’re friends of your vice-president.  We were keeping an eye on you.  If anything happened to you, his candidacy would have been ruined.  New elections would have been called and your party would have selected a different formula.”
“Then you’re not with the guys on the hill?”
“Oh, no.  We need you to win this election Mr. Emery.  We can’t allow you to be involved in any accidents.”
“Oh.” 

“Well, at least not yet,” the leader said, and flashed him a smile that showed way too many teeth.  “Please come with us.  You need to cast your vote.”