Hitherby Dragons

Jesus steps onto the stage.

“I’ve got a message for all y’all.”

Jesus draws his gun. It’s got ‘Jesus loves you’ written on it in sparkling silver letters.

“I want you to love your neighbor or—”

Jesus whirls, takes aim.

“I SHOOT THIS PUPPY.”

The puppy’s eyes are very wide and sad. Its ears are floppy. It has a long history of being used by deity figures as a message for someone else.

“Look,” says Jesus. “You know that guy? You know, who got his skin caught in the printing press and ripped off to form a special edition of the Enquirer? And that other guy? You know, the one who died of AIDS? Well, a lot of people thought that was divine vengeance against them. But it’s not.”

Jesus squeezes the trigger. BANG! He spins around to point at another puppy.

“Look, mofos, it was a message for you. It’s the universe telling you, wise up, love your neighbor, do good works in the world, because you don’t know how long anyone else’ll be around.”

Jesus shoots another puppy. I guess you weren’t paying enough attention.

Do a better job, or the fluffy German shepherd gets it.

“Surprise!” says Jane’s mother. “We got you an early Christmas present.”

“Ooh!” says Jane, and tears off the wrapping. “It’s a burning bush action figure, with real prophetic action! And it sings!”

“That’s right!” announces Jane’s mother. “I knew you’d like it. I couldn’t wait for Christmas!”

“That’s very bad, mother,” lectures Jane. “Presents should wait until Christmas Day!”

“I’m sorry,” admits Jane’s mother, and hangs her head. “Here, you should light it on fire and see what action figure God says!”

“Okay!” says Jane, who can’t stay angry at her Mom long. Fwoosh! The bush catches on fire.

“I AM THAT I AM(TM),” the bush announces. “I’m a burning bush with real prophetic action!”

“Wow!” says Jane. “It’s even better than I imagined.”

“You must be Jane,” says the voice of the plastic Yahweh action figure. “That’s good! I need you to save the world.”

“I’ll do it!” Jane exclaims. “But I have to be in bed by 8.”

“You must push every software CEO in town,” explains the burning bush action figure. “PUSH! Otherwise I’ll have to blow everything up, and that’s bad.”

“That’s very bad, plastic God,” lectures Jane. “Pushing people is impolite! A good girl never pushes. Not even people with MBAs.”

“Very well,” concedes the burning bush. “You may give them a bouillon cube instead, if they do not want to be pushed.”

“Yay!” shouts Jane. “I’m going to save the world.”

“Be careful!” cries the burning bush. “You will have many enemies!”

It’s no good, burning bush action figure! Jane’s already dropped you and bolted out the door. She’s a hasty heroine!

Jane visits three CEOs. She gives two of them a bouillon cube. The third, she looks over. He doesn’t understand the importance of Ops. So she says, “Excuse me, sir, but can I push you?”

“Only if it’s necessary to save the world,” says the CEO. He laughs to himself. He’s so clever! She’ll never push him now!

PUSH! Jane runs away. You always have to get permission before pushing someone, but if it’s to save the world, they just might give it to you. That’s the lesson!

Jane’s at the mansion of a software CEO. You can pick which one! It’s guarded by fierce attack dogs. They snarl and slaver at Jane. She makes faces at them. They can’t cross the invisible fence! But Jane can’t cross it either — they’d snap her up! She pokes her finger over the fence. SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! go the dogs.

Jane falls over backwards. She’s got all her fingers, but that was close!

“Oh, Heaven,” she says, looking upwards. “I have to give this CEO a bouillon cube. Or maybe push him! But I can’t — his dogs are too fierce!”

Heaven is silent. Jane gets up. She pokes a finger past the invisible fence again. The dogs look shifty. Their eyes shift back and forth! They’re discussing a suspicious plan in dog language. Jane can’t speak dog language, so she doesn’t know. All she knows is, they’re not biting her.

Slowly, she steps forward, past the invisible fence. The dogs don’t move. They just wag their ears and tails. Dogs speak in semaphore! That’s their secret.

Jane steps forward again. Suddenly, the dogs lunge! LUNGE! LUNGE! LUNGE! They look like they’re made of teeth and claws! Their eyes burn like fire and blood! Jane screams and falls down. Bouillon spills from her bouillon pocket and scatters across the ground. Oh no! She can’t give the CEO a dirty bouillon cube, can she? Plus, the dogs want to bite her in half. Jane closes her eyes.

The teeth don’t bite.

“You can chomp all you want, but you can’t bite me!” That’s a mysterious voice shouting. “No one can bite me! I’m Evasive Angel!”

Jane opens her eyes. She’s surrounded by four angels. One’s standing in front of the dogs, but every time they try to bite Evasive Angel, they miss.

Evasive Angel’s a girl. She’s wearing a jacket. It’s got holes for the wings. It’s got a big logo on the back that says “Evasive A.” She’s got a halo. The dogs can’t get a hold on her. It’s not that they’re bad at biting. It’s not that they don’t want to bite her. It’s just a part of who Evasive A is.

Jane looks at all the angels’ jackets. “You must be Realistic Angel, Forbidden Angel, and Magic Angel!”

“Probably not,” says Realistic A.

“Ignore her,” says Magic A. “We’re the Angel Four, and we’re here to make sure you can push this naughty CEO!”

“That’s very bad, Magic Angel,” says Jane. “You can’t push people just because Heaven wants you to.”

“Actually,” says Forbidden A, “that’s kind of a knotty theological question.”

“Can you even apply standards like that in the modern world?” wonders Realistic A.

“No one can defy me! I’m Evasive Angel!”

Jane looks confused. “How does that work?” she asks.

Evasive A takes a moment to think about it, then snaps her fingers. She doesn’t have to answer that question. She’s Evasive Angel. “That’s not important,” she declares. “What’s important is, we have a CEO to trouble!”

“Then let’s go!”

“I’ll stay here and distract the dogs,” says Evasive A. She’s scared of what awaits Jane inside. She’d rather distract the dogs. She likes dogs, and they can’t bite Evasive Angel!

Jane and the angels rush up to the mansion.

“Be careful,” says Forbidden A. “There are lasers strafing the entry hall.”

“Lasers?” asks Jane.

“Worse!” says Forbidden A. “Heat-seeking lasers! And exploding robot butlers on the other side.”

“That’s bad,” concedes Jane. “Do any of you have any special powers?”

“I can provide a pragmatic evaluation of any situation,” says Realistic A.

“I can do anything, but only sometimes,” answers Magic A.

“You aren’t supposed to think about me,” says Forbidden A. “Although people do anyway.”

“Her special power sucks,” notes Realistic A.

“Realistic Angel, how can I get past the heat-seeking lasers?”

“I’d recommend distracting them with something hot, like the sun.”

Jane searches her pockets. “I don’t have it on me!” she wails.

“Or a burning bush?”

“That either!” Jane sits down. Her lip trembles. She might have to cry. The angels are no help at all! But then she has an insight. “I know! The burning bush has an omnipresence mode. When you activate it, the burning bush is everywhere — just like in the Bible!”

“Go Jane!” says Forbidden A. Forbidden A is pretty cool, but remember that you’re not supposed to think about her!

Jane reaches out and activates the omnipresence mode. Soon, her burning bush action figure is everywhere. She turns it on. It lights on fire. “I AM THAT I AM(TM),” says the bush.

“Action figure!” commands Jane. “Distract the heat-seeking lasers.”

BURN! The burning bush action figure flares up. It’s omnipresent, so it’s in the hall too. The heat-seeking lasers all fire. Silly lasers! You’re just helping action figure God burn!

Jane and the angels dash through.

“Oh no!” cries Jane. “Exploding robot butlers!”

“That’s right,” says the chief robot butler, twirling his steel moustache. “I’m going to serve you tea, and then explode, showering you with thermonuclear radiation! No one will be able to live near you for generations!”

“But I have to push the CEO!”

“I won’t let you!” The chief robot butler laughs manically, boiling water for tea with hideous mechanical efficiency. Jane watches the pot, but how long can that save her?

Forbidden A steps forward. “Hey! Robots!”

The robots all look at her.

“Oh no!” says the chief exploding robot butler. “I’m thinking about you, but I’m not supposed to! This is an error in my programming!”

“Oh no!” say all the other robot butlers. “Us too! We’re just as bad as our boss!”

“01010101001110100101,” exclaim the robot butlers, and deactivate. Thank Heaven for Forbidden A! And then stop thinking about her!

“Let’s go!” cries Jane, and rushes onwards. But then she comes to a giant pit. It’s all that’s between her and the CEO — he’s standing on the other side. He looks lonely. No one’s come and pushed him or given him bouillon since he bought the heat-seeking lasers. He wanted to be safe, but now he doesn’t have any friends!

“I can’t jump that giant pit,” says Jane. “Can you fly me to the other side?”

“Hardly,” says Realistic A. “My wings are far too delicate.”

“I oughtn’t,” admits Forbidden A.

“Of course,” says Magic A. “But only if it works.”

“All right,” says Jane. “Then I’ll have to trust you!” She leaps into Magic A’s arms. It’s a leap of faith! Magic A backs up, then runs for the pit. She jumps!

“Hey,” says the omnipresent burning bush. “Don’t you four have tickets to a show?”

“Eep!” says Evasive A. “No one can make me late — I’m Evasive Angel!” Evasive A vanishes. Realistic A vanishes. Forbidden A vanishes.

Magic A soars with Jane across the pit, but in midair, she looks at Jane. Her face is very apologetic. “It won’t work this time,” she says. Her wings give out. She falls. Jane falls. They’re going to hit the far wall. It could break their heads! But Magic A shoves Jane back towards the center of the pit and vanishes.

Jane’s still falling. She’s thinking this: “I just wanted to give bouillon to every software CEO in town, or push them. Now I never will. I guess my burning bush action figure will have to blow up the world tomorrow.”

No, Jane! It’s not that way. The bottom of the pit is covered in stock certificates. The CEO has so many, he has to use them to pad his pit — otherwise, he’d be covered in them from head to toe! Sploosh! Jane splashes into the stock.

“Hey,” she cries up. The CEO comes curiously to the edge of the pit and looks down. “Would you like some bouillon?” she shouts.

“No, little girl,” says the CEO. “I’m too important for your dirty old bouillon. Also, please stop swimming in my stock.”

“If I can’t give you bouillon, can I at least push you?”

“I don’t see as how you have any alternative,” says the CEO, who is a realistic man.

Suddenly, Jane rises from the pit. She’s standing on the head of a colossal stock squid! If you leave stock sitting around too long, you’re going to have colossal squids — that’s just how spontaneous generation works. The stock squid rockets skyward. Jane leaps down to stand in front of the CEO.

PUSH! Then Jane runs away. The angels left for a show, but she’s got bouillon and a squid — no one can stop Jane now!

They stride through the streets, bold, swaggering. They’re the students of the Silver Cello University. Everyone respects them. Everyone fears them. They abide by no conventions. They ignore all laws. They defy the commandments of God and Caesar alike with their blasphemous melodies. Yet they are so beautiful! The SCU cellists can play three notes and brighten the darkest and most terrible days. Two notes, and they can shatter the most hopeful heart. Here’s an example.

Sid and Clair walk down the street. They’re just minding their own business.

“My dog died today,” Sid said.

“I’m so sorry.”

Two men in the SCU uniform swagger by. One pauses to strut. The other twirls moustaches. Sid and Clair ignore them.

“My distinguished mentor fell off a balcony onto him, breaking his spine. It was because of the heart attack, you see.”

“That’s awful.”

The SCU students get angry. They hit Sid with a metal stick. He’s too sad to notice.

“He didn’t have a very weak heart,” Sid explains, “but when he found out that our home town burned down and that the Easter Bunny was caught in the fire, that just did it for him.”

“I can understand that.”

The SCU students pound Sid harder. They flail at him like the mad beating of an impassioned heart. Ba-BUM! Ba-BUM!

“The fire was my fault,” Sid wails. “My experiments in physics lab changed the constant S and made things burn down more readily.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Plus, it means that the universe is going to run down in three days, rather than in endless aeons.”

Suddenly, THREE CELLO NOTES ring out.

“I’m so happy!” exclaims Sid. “This is the BEST DAY OF MY LIFE.”

That’s right. That’s the power of the cello! But if you invert the bow and play it backwards, it has a darker power.

“It’s the best day of my life, too,” says Clair.

“Oh?” asks Sid. He grabs her hands and dances her down the street.

“I woke up this morning and the cancer was gone! Also, the Alzheimer’s.”

“I didn’t know you’d had Alzheimer’s, Jenny!” Sid sings out.

“That’s because I’m actually Clair — Jenny’s mother! I woke up looking younger, too.”

“So beautiful!” carols Sid.

The SCU students pout. Sid’s happy, but he’s not paying attention to them! One of the students tries to kick a puppy. It grows laser-studded tentacles and growls. The student backs away. His health insurance isn’t good enough! He can’t kick that puppy!

“On my way to meet you,” Clair beams, “terrorist paratroopers invaded the U.S. and gave me all their country’s money.”

Sid stops his dancing. He looks puzzled. “Why?”

“It’s economic warfare,” Clair explains. “They made me promise to spend it — in economically unproductive ways!”

“Wow!” says Sid. “So what’re you going to do now?”

TWO NOTES.

“I’m going to kill myself,” sobbed Clair. “Life’s not worth living.”

“Buck up!” said Sid. “The Easter Bunny’s dead, so it can’t be that bad.”

He’s being as reassuring as he can, but Clair sobs anyway. People are so strange!

Puppies have lasers but are only supposed to use them when it is important. It’s a bad dog that uses lasers frivolously or for self-preservation alone.

Read more about puppies and other kinds of dogs here.

Across the table, Sheila studied John. She shook her drink, so that the straw whirled around and around in the ice-and-pop filled glass. “So,” she said, “are you going to bring it up, or am I?”

John sighed. “Yes,” he agreed. “There’s a hole in my chest with a puppy in it.”

“It’s very cute,” Sheila admitted. “It’s just also blazingly disturbing, particularly on a blind date.”

“I know,” John admitted. “That’s why I have the puppy. I hoped that the cute would balance things out a little.” He reaches into where his ribcage should be and pets the puppy. It wriggles its tail and makes happy noises.

“You don’t date very often,” she said.

“No,” he agreed. “I have a magic mirror. Usually, I just show it to whomever I’m going to date, and it breaks their heart. It simplifies the whole affair.”

“That would be the large, gaudy mirror at your side?”

He nodded. “It was a gift from Merlin.”

She frowned at him. “That’s ridiculous. Merlin lived thousands of years ago.”

He shrugged. “Technically, Cyber-Merlin, a magical artificial intelligence born in the Internet and programmed to emulate his historical precedent.”

The puppy whined. Sheila made a face. “Does it really work?”

John tilted his head to one side, then shrugged again. He picked it up. The waitress approached their table. “How is everything?” the waitress asked. John held up the mirror so she could catch her reflection in it. Her knees trembled. Bestowing a cold glare on John and then casting a vicious look Sheila’s way, the waitress stalked off.

Sheila pointed a small gun at John and clicked the trigger. “Ow!” he said. “That’s harsh.”

“This,” Sheila said, “is my chilling lecture gun.”

“No kidding,” said John, rubbing his arm. “You don’t need to shoot me. I feel bad enough already, okay?”

“Then why do you do it?”

John shrugged. “I guess it’s the only way I know how to date. The last time I tried to really hook up with a girl, she tore my heart out. It really hurt, and I wound up having to keep a puppy in my chest.”

Sheila’s expression softened. She pulled a small fuzzy confidence out of her coat pocket and handed it to him. John sighed and shook his head. “It won’t help,” he said. “This whole date was a stupid idea.” He found himself turning the confidence over and over in his hands. Then, with a fierce shake of his head, he put it down. Sheila pointed the gun at him. Click!

“Hey!” John said. “Stop it.”

“You were going to use the mirror on me,” she accused. “And you didn’t even give my secret back first.”

John sighed. “I’m trying to change,” he said. “Cyber-Merlin said that I should try to talk to at least one girl without a destructive magical ancillary. But we’ve been talking for two minutes and all you’ve done is shoot me twice, insult my puppy, and give me a fuzzy thing.”

She put a rue on the table next to the confidence.

“You’re well-equipped,” John admitted.

She giggled. “At home,” she said, “I have a special intangibles lab, where I can make various-colored fuzzies out of the intangible aspects of my life.”

She stacked amusement, vibrant spirit, a bit of daring, and a large glob of joy on top of the confidence and rue. “See?”

He poked at the daring.

“Oh.” She blushed, and pulled the daring back. “That’s just lint.”

“I thought it was nice,” he said.

She hesitated, looked thoughtful, and then returned it to the pile. “Well, I suppose it does have a certain color.”

“I don’t see any compassion or sympathy, though.”

She blinked cheerfully at him. “Nope.”

“I was kind of hoping, you know, what with my heart being torn out and all . . .”

She checked her pockets. “I have some fun, and maybe a spiritual connection, angstbunny. That’s about it.”

“Let me see the spiritual connection.”

She shrugged, took it out, passed it over. He hefted the puppy in one hand, pulling it out of his chest. It wriggled its back legs.

“Oh, God!” she exclaimed, seeing the hollow void the puppy left behind. The gun came up in a two-handed grip. Click! Click! Click! Her eyes were wide and white.

He dove behind the table, reaching desperately for the mirror, as chilling lectures spanged into random restaurant patrons. He flung the mirror up, hiding behind it, and it struck the edge of the table, and cracked.

Paralyzed, shocked, catching her reflection in the cracked mirror, she dropped the gun and sat back. A few minutes passed.

“I was just going to put the spiritual connection fuzzy in my chest,” he said, and did so. “See?”

“You partially broke my heart,” she said, face pale.

“You shot at me for something I couldn’t help!”

She sighed. The rue fell from the table and landed next to him with a thunk. He looked down. “So what do we do now?”

On giant treads, the tentative kiss tank 3000 burst through the door.

The field is green. The sky is blue. The clouds are white. The sun smiles down. Everything’s beautiful.

Kitten romps.

Puppy barks.

Lamb gambols.

Kitten spots a bit of thread. Kitten bats at the thread. Kitten follows the thread. The thread leads back to a blanket. Kitten bats at the blanket. Then Kitten understands. Kitten runs back to the others.

“I saw it!”

Kitten dances from foot to foot. “I saw it! It was a thing. It was an ordinary thing! In the field!”

Slowly, Puppy stops barking. Lamb ceases to gambol. They turn and study Kitten. A long moment passes.

“You’re kidding!” Puppy says happily. Puppy barks and giggles.

“No,” Kitten insists. “Come and see!”

Puppy shakes his head. “You’re silly.”

Kitten’s fur stands on end. She arches her back. “Don’t argue with a cat!” She turns and runs off.

“Hey!” Puppy shouts. “Hey! Kitten!”

He follows. Lamb follows too. Kitten runs straight to the blanket. She stops. Puppy arrives. Lamb arrives.

“See?” Kitten insists.

Puppy sniffs the blanket. He recoils. “It smells funny.”

“We have to kill it,” Lamb says.

“It’s not doing any harm,” Puppy points out.

“We have to kill it,” Lamb says. “It’s an ordinary thing. Look.”

Lamb uses her nose. She gestures upwards. The sun isn’t smiling. The sun’s just a great inferno in the sky. The clouds aren’t white. They’re just a bunch of mist. The sky is blue. It holds a thousand colors in its depths.

“But where did it come from?” wailed Kitten.

“It’s an invasion,” Lamb says wisely. “Now, you. Each of you, take a corner in your mouths. We’ll rip it apart!”

“I’m afraid,” Kitten says.

“It’s okay,” Puppy says. “We’ll fight it together!”

Gingerly, Puppy bites one corner of the blanket. Snarling, Kitten bites the other. “Pull!” Lamb says. She gambols onto the center of the blanket.

They pull. The blanket tears. It rips like the sundering of the sky. Darkness washes over them. Then all is calm again. Lamb stands on a tuft of flowers. Puppy and Kitten have mouthfuls of plant and soil. The sun smiles down. The clouds are white.

“We showed that blanket,” Puppy says, spitting out flowers.

“In a way,” Kitten says, “blankets aren’t so scary, after all.”

“You’ve showed your courage,” Lamb agrees. “You fought the blanket even though you were afraid.”

Kitten beams. Kitten sits down. Kitten gathers her energy. Then Kitten races off around the field. Puppy giggles and follows. Lamb gambols off.

The sun sinks lower in the sky. The gently snoring moon rises. The sky fades towards night.

“Puppy,” Kitten says. “We should go play!”

“By ourselves?” Puppy asks.

“It’s a special game! No Lambs invited!”

“Okay!”

Kitten and Puppy sneak off. They go to the edge of the field. They go past the fence. Puppy bounces from foot to foot. Kitten sniffs the ground. “It’s best to play this special game at dark!” she says.

A tall standing lamp turns on. Kitten jumps three feet into the air. “Oh no!” she shouts. “Lamp!”

Puppy runs around in circles. He can’t face the horror. It’s too much for his mind.

Kitten hisses. The lamp grows brighter. The circle of its light advances. It touches Kitten’s foot. She jumps back.

“I’ll kill it!” Puppy exclaims. “You run!”

“No,” Kitten says. “It’s a lamp! I can’t leave you!”

The lamp hums with sinister power.

“I must protect Kitten!” Puppy cries. He leaps. He gnaws at the lamp with his little puppy-teeth. He thrashes. The lamp wobbles. Puppy goes flying.

“Puppy!”

Kitten lunges towards him. But Puppy’s still in the circle of light. When Kitten sees that unnatural light on her foot, she stops. She hisses. She dances back. She can’t take it. “Puppy!”

“Chirp!”

There’s a single shot. It severs the lamp cord. The lamp light goes out. The lamp dissolves. Agent Chick strides onto the scene. Agent Chick’s covered in soft yellow feathers. She’s wearing sunglasses. She has a mechanical harness with two steel cybernetic hands. In one hand, she holds a gun.

“What,” she hisses, “are you two doing out here, beyond the fence?”

Puppy bounces to his feet. “We were going to play a special game!”

“Shh!” Kitten hisses.

Chick buries her head in her hand. “Kids,” she says. Then she looks up. “It’s for the best. We’re going to have to gather up everyone at the farm. There’s a major wave coming this way.”

“What’s happening?” Puppy wails.

“Walk and talk,” Agent Chick says. She waddles towards the farm. Puppy leaps about her. Kitten walks beside.

“Stop gamboling,” she tells Puppy. Puppy looks contrite.

“But what’s happening?”

“I’ve seen things that could make your blood run cold,” says Agent Chick. “Beds. Doors. Tables. Bitterness. Kisses. Bicycles. Shopping. I hear there was even a blanket in this area earlier today.”

“We killed it!” Kitten says bravely.

“Good,” peeps Agent Chick. “You’re blooded.”

They pass through the gates into the farm.

“Normally,” says Chick, “when something like that gets created, it gets sent to the human world. The ultimate abode of sin. Earth.”

Agent Chick spits on the ground.

“But Earth is full. So now, when there’s a new ordinary thing, it doesn’t have anywhere to go. And it’s hungry. So it comes here.”

They reach the hill. Lamb gambols. Lamb looks at Agent Chick. Lamb stops. Lamb says, “It has come to this?”

Agent Chick nods. “Everyone, we need to move into the barn. This is the Long Night. Tonight, we shall be visited by every manner of horror.”

“Are you sure?” Lamb asks.

A desk chair looms out of the darkness. “Chair!” Puppy cries. Agent Chick fires. The bullets pour staccato from her gun, and she staggers backwards, but she does not stop. Sparks light against the chair’s arm and it begins to spin.

“Oh,” Kitten says. “Oh. Oh.”

She hides her face against the dirt. When she looks up, a single blade of grass stuck to her nose, the chair is gone, and Chick is slumping against the ground.

“Two bullets left,” chirps Chick. “We’ve got to hurry.”

“It’s too late,” Lamb says. All around them are ordinary things: CDs, pictures, a couch, a shopping cart, and three packages of ground beef. The world shakes. Puppy’s vision wobbles. Kitten’s fur stands on end.

“No,” Chick says. “Grab hold!”

Her mechanical hand sweeps Kitten, Puppy, and Lamb towards the shopping cart. They cling to it. Agent Chick jumps on, throwing her full weight against it. Nothing happens. The ordinary things advance. Chick tests the wind. She looks at a framed picture of Elvis as if staring into the face of death. Then she fires.

“Bang!” says the gun. The cart begins to roll. “Bang!” says the gun again. The picture flutters, torn and terrible. The cart rolls faster. It rolls down the hill. It rolls straight for the barn.

“Open the gates!” shrieks Chick. “OPEN THE GATES!”

The barn doors creak open. There’s a shifting seething in the horde of things. The cart races faster and faster. It races right into the barn!

Chick, Puppy, Kitten, and Lamb jump off. The cart smashes into the far wall and explodes in prismatic light. Chick seals the doors. Silence falls. The barn is red. The floor has hay. All is right with the world.

There’s a thump against the door. Then another. They come faster and faster.

“Hold fast,” whispers Kitten. “Hold fast.”

“Is there any other way out?” Chick asks.

“Only the basement,” Kitten says. “The barn has a spooky old basement.”

“. . . Why?”

“I’ve never asked.”

Lamb lights a candle. She balances it on her nose. “I’ll go check it out.” Before anyone can stop her, she opens the trapdoor and traipses down the stairs. There’s a long silence.

“We’d better go after her,” Puppy says. Kitten nods vigorously. She’s scared of the banging on the door.

“Right,” Chick peeps. “We’ll seal the trapdoor after us. Maybe they won’t notice it.”

They follow Lamb into the basement. Lamb gambols in the great dark basement with a candle on her nose.

“Lamb!” Chick says. “You’re okay!”

Puppy barks happily. Kitten romps. Even Chick relaxes. Then the candle goes out and a great darkness comes. Kitten shrieks. There’s a great deal of noise.

“It’s okay!” Puppy says. “I found a flashlight!”

“No!” shouts Chick. “Put it down! In the name of all that’s holy . . .”

Click.

Ashen labors.

Ashen is a squirrel. He is white. His paws are almost as flexible as hands. He has a tiny hammer. He pounds metal into place. He has a tiny screwdriver. He twists tiny screws. He is building something. It is large. It is imposing. It has a shape much like a bear’s.

One ear twitches.

“Come in,” Ashen says.

The door opens. It’s a walking dog. He has his hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat.

“Hi, Joe,” Ashen says.

“Here’s a tough spot,” narrates the dog. “Ashen’s a top government scientist, but he’s using the knowledge he picked up through military research for a personal project.”

“I’m not using any government resources, Joe,” Ashen says. His tail twitches. He looks a bit nervous.

“Good, Ashen,” says the dog. “But what would you do if communists approached you and asked you to put your knowledge to their ends?”

“I’d bite them! Then I’d run away!”

The dog hesitates. His eyes narrow. “That’s not what you’re doing, then? You’re not working for them?”

Ashen shakes his head vigorously. “I’m a loyal American!”

The dog’s suspicion fades. “Well, that’s the right thing to do,” he admits. “If communists approach you for a project, bite them. Then run away! Then tell your local police.”

“Thank you, Joe.”

The dog leans against the wall. “That’s how you can take a bite out of communism!”

Ashen nods.

“But what are you working on?” the dog says. “I mean, if it’s not a secret communist project?”

“I’m building a mechanical bear,” Ashen says. “I call it Mecha-Smokey.”

The dog looks sad. “Oh, Ashen.”

“It’s legitimate!” Ashen says.

“How is that legitimate?”

“I’m going to send it to Germany,” Ashen says. “It’s going to challenge, and kill, the Black Forest Bear.”

The dog hesitates. “Ashen,” he says, “you know that I can’t give my official support to projects involving the assassination of foreign nationals.”

Ashen blinks. “I thought you did a commercial promoting it.”

“As a last resort,” Joe says. “If you’re caught in a foreign country and can’t get home and a duly authorized agent of the U.S. government says, ‘Hey, since you’re stuck here anyway, could you kill this guy?’ Then it’s okay, sure. Mindless loyalty helps you take a bite out of communism! But you can’t just sit in your lab and build anti-Smokey robots. That’s the kind of thing that might damage our diplomatic position.”

“You miss him,” Ashen says.

“He’s a [censored] Nazi!” storms McCarthy.

Ashen watches him for a moment.

McCarthy’s shoulders slump, under his trenchcoat. “Yah,” he says.

“I miss him too,” Ashen says. “That’s why I’m doing this.”

McCarthy raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t actually have eyebrows, being a dog, but the gesture is pretty much the same.

“Even the Germans don’t want him any more.” Ashen’s nose twitches. He’s not happy. “He was the one weapon that the Allies could never defeat, the one terror not even nuclear weapons could stop. But one weapon wasn’t enough. They lost the war. And now he’s just an unpleasant reminder of their temporary sojourn into cultural insanity. They don’t like Nazis over there, Joe. Not any more. But they can’t kill him either.”

“It’s his own fault,” Joe says stubbornly. “If he’s miserable, good!”

Ashen fondles a nut in his little squirrel hands. Then he screws it into the robot bear. “Joe,” he says, “he’s our friend. We have to give him peace.”

“Not any more,” Joe says. “He betrayed our country. He betrayed us!”

“He meant well.”

Joe sneers. “You believe that [censored]?”

“It was true,” Ashen says. “At the time. Only U-boats could prevent forest fires. And . . . say what you like about him, but the Black Forest Bear is dedicated to preventing forest fires.”

“And Auschwitz?”

Ashen hesitates. Then he shrugs. “It’s not about forgiving him, Joe. It’s not about him at all. It’s about doing what I think is right. And I’m not vengeful. I just want closure. I want to give him a grave somewhere with a headstone reading, ‘He Shall Put Out Hell.’”

“I’ll stop you,” Joe says.

Ashen laughs. “I’ve got a good lawyer, Joe. I’d like to see you try.”

“You haven’t seen legal pressure until you’ve seen the Communism-Fighting Dog at work!”

“I’ve signed on with the owl.”

McCarthy bares his teeth. He growls, softly. “The owl?”

“‘Give a hoot. Don’t prosecute!’”

“Damn it, Ashen!”

Ashen turns back to his work. “You know the way to the door.”

Joe turns. He strides away. He reaches for the doorknob. Then he hesitates. “Will it really,” he says, and then pauses. “You know. Be able to kill him? Not even Mothra could take down Smokey.”

“Mecha-Smokey will be invincible,” Ashen says.

“And he won’t run amok?”

“He’ll walk through the sea, all the way to Germany. Then he’ll emerge. He’ll be dripping water. He’ll roar. He’ll begin crushing towns. Not because I ordered him to. Simply because they’re there. And Smokey won’t be able to resist.

“He’ll wake.

“He’ll stretch.

“He’ll stand.

“He’ll march to face Mecha-Smokey. And they’ll take one another’s arms in a great bear hug, and they’ll wrestle.

“Then Mecha-Smokey will rip him, limb from limb. Its quantum hydraulics will be unstoppable.

“And blood will pour from the stumps of Smokey’s arms.

“And in the spring, where that blood fell, flowers will grow.

“They will be Mecha-Flowers. They will be the color of blood and steel. And they will remember him.”

Joe sighs.

“Go,” Ashen says.

“I still have to stop you,” Joe says. “But . . . if I don’t . . . have it tell him . . .”

Ashen nods. He turns back to the machine. He pounds. He screws. He twists. Then he buries his head against his hands.

Joe opens the door. Joe walks out. Joe begins to close the door.

“What could it possibly tell him?” Ashen asks.

The door slams closed.

¹ rewards familiarity with the Cthulhu Mythos and the show MacGyver.

“Lock him in the supply closet.”

Angus looks up. He tries to mask the hope on his face. The supply closet! he thinks. There’s enough duct tape, gum, and spark plugs in there to bring this whole operation down.

“It’s full, sir.” Mr. Minion says.

“Full?”

“The previous heroic scientist, sir. It was part of his escape plan. He filled it with orange-jalapeno foam.”

Mr. Boss frowns. He steeples his fingers. “He was a chef?”

“Ordinary engineering genius is passé, sir. In the modern world, a heroic scientist is a polymath who can apply physics and chemistry skills to unexpected enterprises such as cooking, skiing, or veterinary dentistry.”

Angus looks down. He tries not to show how much Mr. Minion’s words sting.

“It’s irregular,” says Mr. Boss, “but we can store Angus in the chemistry lab.”

Angus’ heart sings. When I was seven and I blew up my father’s study for the first time, I told him, “It’s not just a disaster—it’s also a valuable skill!” If their lab is well-stocked, I can show Mr. Boss just how right I was.

“The chemistry lab is kind of cold, sir.”

“Cold?”

“Because of the skier.”

“Ah.”

Mr. Boss looks Angus up and down. “We could just throw him in a large empty room,” he says. “And lock the door. In a way, it’s probably safer.”

“If you lock me in an empty room,” Angus says, “I’ll grow even more ingenious!”

Mr. Boss and Mr. Minion exchange glances.

“Why is he wearing a mullet?” Mr. Boss asks.

“It’s all the ingenuity,” Mr. Minion says.

Angus struggles, but Mr. Minion’s fist comes up and knocks him into the dark place.

Angus wakes in an open, empty room. He puts his hand to his jaw. Slowly, he stands up. There is a door in the wall and a skylight high above him.

If I could find an electrical socket, he thinks. I could pull out the wiring and use it to set some sort of trap.

He scans the wall.

Or a phone line, he thinks.

He scans the wall some more.

An Ethernet port?

The walls are blank and white. He pounds on one with his fist. It rings like metal. He pounds on it for a few minutes, hoping to establish a sympathetic vibration and tear the room to shreds. The relevant frequency appears to lie somewhere beyond human capacity.

“Damn it,” he says aloud.

He studies the door. He attempts to unscrew the hinges with his fingers. They’re too rusty.

“Bloody hell,” he says. He pounds on the door. “At least let me have some gum!”

There’s no answer save the distant laughter of gulls.

“Fine,” he says. He goes to the center of the room. He sits down. He takes inventory. “I have one (1) Angus, one (1) pair of jeans, one (1) ripped shirt, two (2) hinges, and sixteen (16) corners,” he says.

He glares at the door. What I am about to do, he thinks, would have horrified my old physics professors. But sometimes you need to use the resources you have.

With one sharp gesture, he cuts his arm against the rusty hinge. He lets the blood drip down into each of the four bottom corners of the room. Then, wetting his finger with saliva and blood, he traces a ritual circle.

Physics is all about action and reaction, he explains. The internal narration helps him keep his focus during strenuous exercises of mind and will. You push against the ground: it pushes back. You use a rocket to throw energy in one direction: it pushes you in the other. You drip blood into a corner, and it drips something back at you.

The air is full of distant singing.

Technically, you’re supposed to use a virgin’s blood for this, Angus thinks. But real science is all about improvisation. What I’ve figured out is that, since the hinge has never had sex, the sacrifice is almost certainly acceptable.

There is a furious bang and smoke pours out of the corners of the room. Then the hounds arrive.

“Took you long enough,” he says wearily.

The hounds sit down. Their tongues loll out the side of their mouth.

“Listen,” he says. “I need some screws, a fire extinguisher, some duct tape, and gum.”

The hounds bark.

“Ia! Ia! Wuf!” say the hounds.

Then they wag their tails and vanish.

A moment later, one hound is back. It spits screws onto the floor next to him.

“Good boy,” Angus says.

Another hound is back. It spits a fire extinguisher onto the ground next to him.

“Good boy!” Angus says. “Roll over!”

It rolls over. Angus scratches its belly. It pants happily. In a puff of smoke, the other two hounds return. They look at him.

“What?” he says.

The hounds are chewing.

“Spit it out,” Angus says.

The hounds attempt to spit out the duct tape and gum. Then they go back to chewing, and repeatedly licking their lips. After a moment, they attempt again to spit out Angus’ supplies.

This does not succeed.

Mr. Minion was right, Angus thinks bleakly. A veterinary dentist wouldn’t be in this mess.

The great mother horror lived here long before you and me. She had many children.

Her children ate the sharks.
Her children ate the tigers.
Her children chased down the hawks on the wing.

There was a great darkness.
They had eaten the sun.

There was a great stillness.
They had eaten the wind.

Great mother horror walked among her children. She saw that some were eating puppies. Some were eating kittens. Some were eating little humans, not even as old as they were tall.

“Stop that,” she said, gently. So her children dropped the puppies, and kittens, and the human babes from their long long teeth. They went off to fight enemies who were worthy of them.

Great mother horror lay down to sleep.
It was very quiet.
It was very still.

Then there was a rustling,
A rustling,
A rustling in the moors.

They rose all around her in the marsh,
With soft, high giggling,
And little barks
And little mews.

And their tiny hands dragged her down
They dragged her under
And great mother horror was gone.

Her children gathered to mourn her.
“We tried to warn her,” they said. “Tut tut!”
“We tried to warn her,” they said. “Ah so.”
“But the babies deceived her.”
“The little ones deceived her,” they said.

Then they walked to the edge of her home
And out into the great darkness
And they were gone.

If you look really hard,
You can still see her shape,
Trapped and drowning
Under the marsh.
Not quite alive
But not all the way dead.

Saul is just a kid. He’s growing up out in the country, bit by bit, every day.

“I don’t want to do my chores,” he says.

“If you’re bad,” says his mother, “then the gibbelins will come and take you away.”

“Oh,” says Saul. So he goes and he milks the vampires. He collects the mummy eggs. He hauls hay into Barnface.

He doesn’t protest his chores again.

One day, Saul finds a puppy. It has three heads. Its mouths drip acid. It is very hungry because its last owner starved and beat it.

“Come here,” Saul says.

The puppy hesitates.

“Come on,” Saul says. He holds out a steak. It was meant for the river men. But they can go hungry for a day.

The puppy inches forward, low to the ground. Then it rips the steak from his hands. Its teeth and acid rapidly turn the steak to an ex-meal.

“I’ll take you home,” Saul says.

So from that day Saul has a puppy. They play in the fields.

“Mother,” he says, one day, “why do I have to work so hard?”

“If you’re good,” says his mother, “the sugar fairies will come and take you away.”

“Oh,” says Saul. So he goes and he fixes the tractor. He rebinds the limbs of the great round-bellied field demon. He leaves out some milk and his shoes for the cobblers to fix.

Saul goes to school sometimes. Just a little. His mother doesn’t hold much with education, but she wants him to give it a fair shot. Every time the grim white arms of the bus haul him inside, the puppy barks. It licks the bus. Then it sits down and waits patiently for Saul to come home.

When he comes home, the puppy is very happy.

“It’s your sixteenth birthday,” Saul’s mother says, one day. “Have you been good?”

“I have, mother,” says Saul.

“I thought so,” his mother says. So she gets up from their breakfast. She goes around the table. She hugs him goodbye. “Go on, son,” she says. “The sugar fairies are here.”

“Can the puppy come?” he asks.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “The puppy’s evil.”

“Oh.”

He goes outside. The sugar fairies find him. They take him, two to each arm and three to his body, and they drag him off to the Land of Pleasure and Happiness.

The puppy is sad.