Wagon Heist Part II

Everything in the ground and air settled. No need describing the havoc Rosalind wrecked.

Some died, some ran off into the hills. The wagon fell over almost instantly.

But two survived. Mr. Harris and Rosalind. And they were deadlocked within gunshots of each other, blood pouring down Rosalind's face, making it more beautiful in the sunlight.

"You thief."

"You fool."

"You have no heart."

For some reason, this simple comment made Mr. Harris's finger trigger waver a bit and his aim was off.

The Stairs and the Doorway by Eric Dodd

Our Guest Short Story comes to you from Eric Dodd. Make sure you have a warm blanket and all your doors and windows are locked before reading.

The Stairs and the Doorway
by Eric Dodd

I don't feel like I'm a nosy person. No more nosy than the next guy. I just have what my Ma would call an unhealthy amount of curiosity. I was the kid who climbed to the top of the big oak in the back yard, just to see what was in the crows' nest. I was the kid who dug a hole in the back yard so deep that I hit groundwater because I was convinced there was a cave under our house, and I wanted to see it. To see.

My folks aren't dirt poor, but they're pretty close. They're part of that missing middle of America, the people who work forty hours a week until they die, with no savings to speak of. I got my first job at a horse stable when I was fourteen. It didn't last very long. I knew I needed to get a job, because I knew we needed the money, so I bounced around for the next few years, washing dishes, waiting tables, until I graduated high school.

Pop was really tough on me about college. He never went -- nobody in his family had -- so there were a few fights about where I would go after school. It was a huge shock to me when, just after graduation, he drove me down to the Uni. He'd been classmates with the Dean and they'd come up with an arrangement where I'd get a full scholarship, provided I made good grades and worked for the University.

I never felt like a scholar. In high school, I kept my head down and did enough to get by, pulling off B's and a few C's. I wasn't interested in learning, because learning wasn't interesting. Uni was different. I took mainly core classes, math-English-history-science, but they were fascinating. For one thing, nobody cared if I showed up or not. It was entirely up to me to succeed, so I did.

In exchange for my education, I worked security and did some light maintenance duties. Maintenance was a no-brainer. I've always been handy, and most of the fix-it jobs were the type that could be solved with a liberal application of WD-40, or elbow grease, or both. Security was a different story. Security gave me super powers.

The job itself was pretty easy. I got a uniform, a badge, a flashlight, and Ma gave me some keychain mace for my birthday. No, I didn't get a gun -- they weren't allowed on campus anyway. I worked mostly nights and weekends, and doubles during long holiday breaks. I was to walk around the full campus twice in a night, checking the labs, computer center, and library. The rest of my time was pretty much my own.

There were two other guards, Jake and Al, but they worked different shifts from me. We had "overlap nights" on Wednesday nights, where we'd get together for about an hour to discuss any major events or changes. There might have been some beer at those meetings, but I'm underage, and you can't prove anything.

Jake worked mostly dayshift, and Al worked swings and some overnights during the week. Jake was a younger guy, training to be on the local police force, so he took his job pretty seriously. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure Al mostly slept during his shifts. Al was two years older than dirt, so he deserved his rest.

Remember that bit about super powers? My first night on the job, Al gave me a huge keychain with about a thousand keys on it. It weighed nearly five pounds, and was secured to my belt with a heavy-duty metal chain. “Don’t lose that keychain, kid,” Al said. “You got the keys to the kingdom right there. Any door that don’t open, you don’t want to go in it.”

My work hobby, the thing that kept me awake on those long cold winter break nights, was exploring. I made it a point, every night, to open some door that I'd never opened before. I started in the new section, where the library and computer center were, opening each room, each closet, making a map in my head of where everything was. Some nights I might explore two or three rooms. Some nights I might not have time for anything more than an odd, out of the way broom closet.


The Uni is actually a pretty large campus, for having a full student body of only twelve or thirteen hundred. It was built as a Methodist college in 1896, and became state-owned in the thirties. There were three main sections. The 'Old School' housed the Administration offices and a few unlucky classrooms —unlucky due to the lack of central heat and air, and the three-story building had no elevators. The 'Labs' were a Brutalist horror of poured concrete slabs and tiny windows, built back in the 70s when buildings that looked like Soviet radiators were in style. The "New Library" was steadily losing its "new", built in the late 90s boom, and made in that unique red-brick-and-glass style like everything else during those years.

When I think back to those early days, those days before, I think how stupid I was. How naive. I should have thought about winter. I should have thought about the solstice.

By December of my sophomore year of college, I had cleared every room in the New Library. I had opened every door, checked every closet, and had a good mental map of the whole building. It was, ultimately, pretty unimpressive. I found no buried treasure, no secret stash of missing computer supplies cached in a forgotten closet. I did find a small, sweaty stack of bad porno mags in a supply closet in the basement level. “Wicked, Wicked Cowgirls.” Who was I to judge?

December is a slow time for the Uni. After the mad rush of Finals, the campus was suddenly deserted, the remaining few staff seeming lost. The buildings stood silent, and dark, in the thin winter breezes. We had a steady series of snowstorms, but none bad enough to close the campus. I made sure the sidewalks were clear and the entryways salted, and otherwise tried to stay indoors.

Besides, I had the ‘Old School’ to explore.

The main ‘Old School’ building, Downing Hall, was a four-story V-shaped building. It had no elevators, tiny stairwells, and was only exempted from ADA compliance due to its “historical importance”. It had no air-conditioning, save for sporadic window-mount units that were only permitted to be installed on the rear of the building, so as not to spoil the building’s historic charm. The building’s heat came from a massive, ancient boiler in the basement. As far as I knew, Al was the only person who knew anything about the boiler, and he must have kept it in good shape, because I never heard of any complaints about it.

I spent the second week after Finals Week poking through the top floors of Downing Hall. I didn’t have a lot of time for exploring every night, as the snow gave me more than usual upkeep chores, but I made steady progress. I discovered a small room in the attic on the Left Wing that must have been an old Dean’s office, complete with a beautiful antique desk and wardrobe. I checked both, thinking I might find something “historic” to give to the Dean, but the wardrobe was empty save for a moth-eaten wool scarf, and the desk’s contents were limited to a few old newspapers and some tax forms from the 1950s.

A level below, on the building’s fourth floor, I found two dozen small, empty classrooms. In my handyman mindset, I checked the windows for loose glass panes, and for water or rodent damage. I fully expected to see rat-droppings, or at least some insect damage, but I found none. The second and third floors were much the same, except the rooms on the rear of the building were air-conditioned and thus actively used for classes when school was in session.

The main floor was Administration, and included the Dean’s office. I thought it wise not to snoop around in my boss’s office, or in Payroll, so I skipped a lot of these rooms. I made my way to the stairwell to the basement, used my superhero keychain, opened the heavy door and went down.

The basement of Downing Hall was different from that of the New Library. For one thing, it was a lot more cramped. The hallway was narrow, and the ceiling was low, with doorways leading off at regular intervals. I checked every room, flipping the old two-button switches to ON, using my flashlight on the dark corners. I had carried a few packs of spare light bulbs — the fancy new CFC bulbs — in my satchel, thinking to replace any that had burned out, and save the environment while I was at it. The little rooms mostly contained junk — spare desks, filing cabinets full of forty- and fifty-year-old papers, old holiday decorations, and so forth, lit by naked hanging bulbs.

I’m not an imaginative kind of guy. I guess I’m pretty smart — I’d made straight A’s in my college courses. It never occurred to me to be scared. I didn’t think, “I’m alone in a creepy old basement.” This was my place, my job, my hobby, and it all seemed so normal.

By the night of the 20th of December, I had made my way to the boiler room. The furnace was a massive monstrosity of iron and rivets, pipes and gauges. It was hellishly hot in that room, and equally loud. It was, however, neat and very clean. Al kept it that way, because he said “a clean boiler lets you get more shuteye.” The furnace had been converted from coal to gas at some point, but the soot had stained the walls of the room, and the old coal chute still opened in one of the corners.

I had no intention of giving the boiler room more than a glance — I’d been there dozens of times, and there was nothing to see, just a workbench and the furnace itself — when I noticed a small door to the back and left behind the furnace. “That’s weird,” I thought to myself. I had never seen that door before. But then again, I had never stood in that particular spot, beside the workbench, and I had never really looked.

The door was smaller than a normal door — maybe five feet tall, painted in the same non-color drab grey-brown of the walls, and was made of metal, just like the other doors in the basement. I went over to the door, and touched the handle.

I think the body knows sometimes when things are wrong. Have you ever had that feeling, like you’re being watched? When you know you’re totally alone, and nobody can see you, but you feel eyes on you? Have you ever gone left instead of right, because you got a feeling that you just shouldn’t go to the right today? It didn’t work that way for me. When I touched that doorknob, nothing felt any different. My head didn’t hurt, my neck-hairs didn’t stand up, and I didn’t hear an inner voice saying, “Don’t do it!”

The doorknob turned, but the door wouldn’t open. I looked more closely, and saw a small keyhole. I checked my magic keychain, and found three possible matches. Struck out on the first two, and the third worked, of course. Of course.

The hinges squealed like they hadn’t been used in a long time (decades.) My handyman instincts noted it. “WD-40,” I mumbled. I hauled open the door and stepped through, into another small, cramped hallway. The light switch worked, and the single bulb blew with a crack! “Dammit!” My hackles did raise then. I flicked on my flashlight, and quickly swapped out the hallway bulb with a new one. I looked around, and saw this hallway was narrow, straight, and ended a few yards away at another door.

That door opened easily, onto another stairway. “What the hell?” I said. Nobody had ever mentioned a sub-basement for this building. The hairs on the back of my neck were still standing out. I shook it off as nerves from the blown bulb, and walked to the stairwell. It was a standard stairwell, and looked pretty much the same as the others in the building. I walked to the bottom, and met another door. I pushed through it, to see another long, narrow hallway, with doors leading off to either side at regular intervals.

The first door to my left was unlocked, and opened fairly easily, onto a storage closet. There were stacks of late Sixties-era books, a few desks, and a decaying mop in its bucket. The door across from it was unlocked, but did not open so easily. I hauled the door open to find a larger room that looked to have been used as a classroom. There were desks, a blackboard, anatomical diagrams, and posters on the walls. Everything was covered in an inch of dust, and appeared to have not been touched in a long time. “Why would anyone put a classroom down here?” I mumbled to myself, “How would they even convince students to get down here in the first place?” I remember thinking, at that point, that I must have somehow discovered a back way into the other wing of the V-shaped Downing Hall. “Maybe this is where the old Science classes were held, before the Labs were built.”

I moved on to the next set of rooms. They were both classrooms, abandoned, dust-covered, and mostly empty. So were the next pair, and the next. I saw a total of twelve disused classrooms in that hallway, and a small breakroom, complete with a lonely coffee pot. I also found two small restrooms. I didn’t spend much time checking them out, as the lights didn’t work and I didn’t feel like replacing those bulbs. I found myself getting slightly nervous — I was in a strange section of the campus, and I was working alone that night. In the back of my mind I just couldn’t truly justify the existence — the waste — of a whole floor full of unused classrooms.

When I got to the end of the hallway, I met another steel door. I opened it, and saw another stairwell. I was fully expecting this stairwell to go up, to connect to one of the other main stairwells in Downing Hall. The stairs only went down.

This was the point, I remember, at which I began to get scared.

“No way. There’s no way these stairs go down. How would anybody get down here?”

“Here. Here. here,” the stairwell echoed at me.

I should have checked the time. I should have been concerned with finishing my rounds. I should have been hungry for lunch. I should have run.

I started to climb down the stairs.

This stairwell was unlit, and appeared to be much older, and in much worse condition than the others. It was also longer. Much longer. After a few minutes of walking down the steps, I began to count them. At every twelve steps, there was a small landing, a turn, and another set of steps. Down. After ten landings, I reached another door. It was unlocked, and opened easily. The hinges squealed, and the echoes died like lost things in the dark.

I groped against the left wall for a light switch, and there was none. I checked the right, and the wall was equally smooth. I cast the flashlight around, but saw nothing. Nothing forward, nothing to either side, and nothing above. I snapped my fingers, listening for the echo. I may or may not have heard one. I slowly came to realize that the room into which I had entered was enormous, cavernous, possibly the biggest room I had ever physically experienced. I shrank back to the doorway for a moment.

“This room can’t be here,” I said to myself. I started to think about going back. But I also started to think about wanting to know what was in there. I took a step forward, and another, until I was walking steadily into the room. I kept a steady pace, counting my steps. I looked over my shoulder every few yards, using the light from the open doorway to orient myself. I walked, slowly, for a hundred yards, two hundred yards, until I saw a dim glow ahead.

The glow got faintly brighter and larger as I walked toward it. Another hundred yards, and another, and three more passed until I could make out a small dim light bulb near a door.

That door was of a different type entirely. It was huge, fourteen feet tall at least, and half again as wide. The surface was black metal, studded with rivets and bolts, mounted on huge hinges. Across the face of the door, graved into the metal, were words in some strange looping script that I could not recognize. Every surface was carved with that script, or with strange diagrams made of splayed circle-ended lines. In the center of the door was a large spoked wheel lock, and in the center of the lock was a tiny keyhole. Above the keyhole was a sigil, enclosed in three circles.

I looked behind me, and could not see the light from the stairwell. I couldn’t see anything at all.

I held the Superhero Keychain to the dim light, and flipped through the keys. Of course, there was one small, battered key that looked as if it might fit. I inserted it into the lock, and turned it. I heard a click, and a thud, and a sound from within the door like pouring pebbles. Or dry teeth.

I pulled the key from the lock, and grasped the spokes of the wheel lock. My heart was racing, and sweat was dribbling into my eyes.

I turned the spokes to the left, counterclockwise —widdershins, some buried memory in my head said — and kept turning, until the wheel stopped. There was another THUD and a CRACK, and then silence.

The darkness behind me no longer felt empty. In fact, it felt positively crowded, as if I had an audience, watching me. I stepped back from the door and flashed my light around. Still nothing. Dry empty floor. I turned back to the door, grasped the large cast-iron handles, and pulled. Nothing. I tried harder, putting all of my weight into the pull, and at the last moment, at the end of my strength, I heard another CRACK! and the door groaned open on a draft of cool, stinking air.

The smell was heavy, moist, and musky. I had a flash memory of my mother taking me to the zoo as a child, and the smell of the Cat House, with the lions. At the thought of the lions, I let go of the handles and stumbled back a bit. I carefully shone my light into the yawning black crevice of the open door. I saw a short hallway that opened into a small, cramped room. I saw a filthy, rusted metal chair. I saw bones. Small bones. I saw — or heard, or smelled — a form so black it seemed to suck in the light of my flashlight. I saw a black form rushing towards me, running towards me, filling the hallway, howling and laughing and speaking, in a voice that sounded like mountains collapsing.

I remember fangs, and words that turned my bones to rusted glass. I remember feathers, and a hand with too many fingers, jeweled with something unspeakable. And the smell, the stink of something long caged.

I remember wings.

I don’t know how long I wandered in the dark, alone under hundreds of feet of rock. There was no light. There was no way to judge time. My flashlight was dead, and my cellphone, and even the small specks of luminescent paint on my cheap wristwatch were dark. There was something wrong with my right leg. It hurt, but I couldn’t see enough to find out why.

I kept hearing my audience, there in that cavernous room. I screamed at them. I felt one of them touch my face, and I threw my flashlight at it. The flashlight bounced and rattled and became still, somewhere that I was not. Something laughed, later. I raved and screamed but didn’t throw anything else.

I found the doorway after hours or days of crawling.

There were no lights in the stairwell.

After years of climbing, I crawled into that first forgotten hallway. I sliced my fingers on the crushed remains of the light bulbs I had packed in my satchel. I crawled down the hallway, and reached the next stairwell. I hauled myself up them, and finally out into the boiler room.

When I staggered out of Downing Hall, two full days after going in, it was into dim winter daylight and a full police presence.

Five people had been found dead on and around the campus. All had been brutally, savagely murdered, bodies splayed open, viscera missing. The teeth marks suggested a wild animal, but the murder scenes and body positioning also displayed a certain intelligence to them. There was also the writing, carved into the flesh when it was not yet dead meat. The cops wouldn’t talk about the writing.

The cops wouldn’t talk to me, either. Not afterwards. When they first saw me stumble out into daylight, covered in blood, they assumed I was the perpetrator. They quickly changed their assumptions when the medics pointed out the greenstick fracture, the dehydration, the concussion and the obvious shock. The cops asked a lot of questions, and I answered as best as I could. I told them about the door in the boiler room. They couldn’t find it. They showed me the bare smooth wall from where I had crawled, dazed and broken. My tracks stopped at that wall. Two cops tried breaking through the wall in that spot, only to meet old brick, and older earth past that.

The cops wanted to know where the long, black feathers came from, stuck to my clothes by dried blood. I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know. The cops, the medics, nobody, would look at me any more. The scars on my face, the deep, gouged-out writing, was not a sight that most would want to see. I was marked. Whatever I had let out, whatever had killed and eaten five people, and a week later six more, had marked me as a friend.

Equal Opportunity: Part III

Gelsey watched the little leprechaun disappear over the other side of the rainbow. Once she knew he couldn't hear her, she buried her face in the gold. She took off her leaf shoes and danced on the shining pot of gold. This was the life! She couldn't wait to be able to grant wishes.

In her joy, she didn't hear the human approach.

"I knew it! A pot of gold at the end of a rainbow!" she heard a little girl say.

Gelsey turned in shock to see a red-headed ten-year-old staring at her with eyes as wide as the gold coins.

"What are you doing here?" Gelsey asked.

The little red-head came closer. "My mother is very sick and we can't afford a doctor. Please, can you give me just one gold piece? I have been chasing this rainbow all day hoping for a pot of gold. But you're not a leprechaun."

"Not yet. If I give you a gold piece, I'll never be a leprechaun."

"What do you mean?"

Gelsey didn't answer as she saw tears well in big green eyes. How could she deny the little girl one gold piece to save her mother? And surely the leprechaun wouldn't notice one piece missing.

"Okay, but tell no one where you got it. I'm trusting you!"

She handed the little girl a piece of gold, regretting it even as she did it. The girl's eyes shown with gratitude. "I'll never forget the kind fairy who gave me my mother's cure." And off she ran.

It was night time when Shamrock returned, his breath reeking of whiskey. He'd had a fine time in town, changing his appearance so he could mingle with the humans. Gelsey was sound asleep on the pot of gold, one piece clasped in her hand.

He woke her with a shake. "Now I count my gold," he slurred.

Gelsey looked nervous and kept twiddling her thumbs as Shamrock fingers his treasure. It took him less than a minute to count, some magic of his.

"One piece missing! I never should have trusted you. You will never be a leprechaun." He lit his pipe and smoked furiously.

"There was this little girl. Her mother was sick. She just needed one piece, that's all. I'll work it off. I'll make shoes to work it off if you show me how."

"Shoes, Harumph. Do you know how long it takes to learn how to make perfect leprechaun shoes?"

"Then teach me. Would you have turned the little girl away?"

Shamrock shook his head. "Pesky fairy with your conscience. You know anything about making shoes?"

"I made these leaf shoes. They are good; look at them."

He examined the shoes. "Not bad, but unstable. Leprechaun shoes last forever."

"Just one more chance. Please. And I will make the shoes. Oh, how I want to make the shoes!"

Shamrock eyed her carefully, put his pipe down. Being around the humans has been fun, but he had been so lonely, he admitted to himself. "Okay, but you are not to be turned into a leprechaun until you master a pair of shoes. I'll sell them for three gold pieces and you'll have made up what you gave of mine today."

They looked at each other, then Gelsey let out a squeal of delight. Fairy dust flew everywhere as she spun higher and higher in the air. In time, she knew her wish would come true.

The Marriage Program by Cherie Reich

The Marriage Program

by Cherie Reich

"You are now married," the bass voice boomed over the couples' heads and echoed in the large room.  "Link hands with your spouses.  You will receive your certificates and moving instructions."  A gong sounded, and hundreds of feet padded along the concrete floors to receive their nuptial papers.

"Here you go, Mr. and Mrs. Jones.  This is your certificate of marriage, including your qualification factors on why you two were chosen.  These papers will include your new address in the couples' quarters of the city.  Do you have any questions?"  Aytia offered the inch-thick manila folder to the new couple. 

"No, I don't believe so," Mrs. Jones said, taking the folder and moving along with her new husband.

"Next," Aytia called out.  When she looked away from the computer screen, she found her line empty.  A satisfied sigh rushed from her lips.  She stretched, arching her back catlike and hearing the bones pop back into place. 

"All done, Aytia?"  Carlos strolled over and leaned against the metal desk.

"Looks like it.  I can't wait until July rolls around.  I'm sick and tired of weddings."  She smoothed some ebony wisps of hair back into her bun.  "And, don't sit on my desk.  You'll bend it."

"Are you calling me heavy?"  He flexed his bicep under his black T-shirt.  The bulge ripped the shirt at the seams. 

She laughed, the sound rough and bubbly like waves crashing against rocks.  "Not exactly, and if you keep tearing your clothes, you'll have to come in naked."

"The ladies would all like that, no?"  His chuckles rumbled in his massive chest. 

"I think we'll pass."  She winked at him while tugging on her black jacket. 

"You're disappointed that I'm already taken."  He pointed at her.  "Your turn is coming up soon, is it not?"

She slung her brown messenger bag over her shoulder.  "Unfortunately, yes.  I had to file my paperwork in May.  My date is in two days." 

"Don't worry about it."  He placed a meaty palm over her shoulder and patted it.  "You'll be fine.  I met Sarah through the program when we were married.  She is everything I could want."  He grinned, displaying straight, strong white teeth.  "We'll be moving into the family quarters soon."  His dark eyes darted around the empty office.  "Sarah is expecting our first child." 

She leaned under the weight of his hand.  Sometimes she wondered if Carlos was part-giant.  When he told his news, though, she smiled.  "That's wonderful.  Congratulations!"  She truly did mean it.  After all, she knew the Marriage Program was highly successful.  "I suppose I'm nervous.  The program has a 95% success rate, but there's always that 5%." 

"Well, just don't get cold feet and try to escape.  You know what happens then."

"Oh, I know."  She suppressed a shudder.  "The last thing I want is to be sent to re-education."  Her gaze fell to the floor.  The re-education section was in the basement of the building.  Although she didn't have clearance to go down there, they all heard horror stories on what occurred. 

"Good luck in two days, Aytia.  I'm sure you'll find your perfect match like I did."  He patted her shoulder again and walked off.

"Thanks," she responded, although Carlos had already left the room.  "Two days."  Her voice whispered the words like a bad omen as she clutched her bag.  

 Her boots clomped along the ceramic tile corridors while she headed toward the underwater tunnel entrance between Ellis Island and Manhattan.  A glimmer of faded sea green caught her eye, and she paused at the window.  The headless Statue of Liberty appeared in the distance. From history lessons, she learned the statue became beheaded in 2039 in a home-grown terrorist attack.  She had seen pictures of the head, and it had been beautiful.  In the other direction, Manhattan wasn't far away.  The city once boasted its magnificent skyline, but now, no building was more than five stories tall.

Shaking her head, she continued down the hallways until she reached the shuttle.  Seconds later, she and sixteen other workers zoomed down the tunnel at breakneck speeds, arriving in Manhattan within minutes.

The doors whooshed open, and she continued along the underground paths of old subways.  The trains no longer worked, so she journeyed by foot to her apartment building on the corner of Broadway and 8^th.  Dim overhead lights illuminated her path as she reached to her side, pressing her hand against the hilt of her dagger.  The tunnels could be dangerous, so she learned quickly to be prepared.

A rat scurried alongside the tracks before ducking into a crevasse.  Aytia shivered and clutched the dagger's hilt more tightly.  She supposed it would be a good thing to be married.  The couples' quarters were located on Staten Island, and it was a much prettier and safer commute.

She walked with short, quick strides, making certain to step over the stray trash and feces.  The air was cool and damp with a perpetual foul smell.  Her nose wrinkled, and she focused on breathing through her mouth.   

A door opened, and a glimmer of light struck the dark grey floor.  Aytia didn't look back.  Many people traveled through the tunnels since the plague, since worst creatures existed above ground than below.

A hand clasped hold of her shoulder, and she spun around, knife blade shining in the dim light.  The dagger paused just centimeters above his chest.  "George Rimms, don't you know better than to sneak up on a girl?  I could've killed you."

George laughed and threw his arms up.  "Sorry, Aytia.  I didn't mean to startle you."

"You didn't startle me."  She sheathed the knife.  "It's just not smart to do that."  Her eyes brightened as she looked upon George.  With his wavy blond locks, sea blue eyes, and boyish charm, George was quite handsome when he wasn't being a dumbass.  "So, how's work?"

"It's good.  We're working on a new vaccination for the Doomsday virus.  We haven't had a single new case in a few months."  He walked easily beside her as they chatted.

"That's good."  She inwardly shuddered at the thought of the Doomsday virus.  Every so often, a new case would sprout up, and everyone would fear the worst.  The human race couldn't stand more of the plague that destroyed most of the world's population.

"Definitely."  He chuckled.   "How's the marriage business?"

She froze mid-step before continuing down the path.  "It's good.  I'll be glad when June is over, and we can focus on the general business end."  She thought about her own upcoming nuptials and wrung her hands.

"Are you okay?"  He placed his hand upon hers.

"Oh, yeah.  I'm just nervous.  It's my turn on the chopping block."

"Ah, I understand.  It's mine, too."  He paused at their apartment buildings.  "I'll see you later, Aytia."  He squeezed her hand and left.

"Bye, George."  She entered her apartment building and went to her room.  The photograph of her great-grandparents' wedding struck her gaze right away.  She had forgotten she left it out.  She smiled as she saw her great-grandpapa's tuxedo and her great-grandmama's beautiful white dress.  They had one of the last traditional weddings.  Life was so much simpler before the plague.  She sighed, running her fingers along the metal frame.  "I want to be happy.  Is it so difficult?"

* * *

Carlos placed a hand upon Aytia's arm.  "Don't worry.  You look beautiful." 

Aytia smoothed down her ponytail for the fiftieth time.  "I'm so nervous, Carlos.  What if I don't like him?"  She chewed on her lower lip.  "I can't do this," she whispered.

"Shh, Aytia."  Carlos glanced around the room, making certain no one overheard her.  "We already had one woman taken to re-education today.  Be quiet.  Just go along with the wedding."

"I know."  Butterflies twirled in her stomach like they were battling a hurricane.  Her fingertips fluttered over her lips.  "It's such a big step."  She breathed slowly through her nose.

"Women, please enter room A," a voice announced over the loudspeaker.

"It's time.  You'll do fine."  Carlos gently shoved her toward the line of women.

Each woman was dressed in dark gray trousers and a black sweater.  Aytia fell into line, which buzzed with nervous and excited energy.  They bottlenecked at the entrance for a moment until one woman ran the other way.

"No, no, I can't!"  The woman screamed as two men caught her and dragged her away.

Aytia shivered, knowing they would re-educate the woman.

After the brief and quickly squashed incident, everyone fell into uneasy silence.

"Put on your blinders," a mechanical voice instructed.

Aytia's hands trembled as she fastened the blinders over her head.  Her vision became limited.  She could see nothing in her peripheral vision, and her forward sight grew blurry.  They didn't want them to be able to see their future spouse until after the ceremony.

"When your number is called, move forward.  You will be paired with your spouse."  The machine paused.  "Number 129390."

The group of 150 women dwindled as each woman's number was called and brought into the main ceremony room, where they were paired with a mate.  "Number 103182."

Aytia swallowed hard when they called her number.  She exited the waiting room and entered the ceremony room.  With drab gray walls and cement flooring, the place was as gloomy as the old subway tunnels, but it did smell much better.  Protocol dictated she keep her gaze straight ahead.  She spotted Mark in front, who would marry them, and she gave him a slight smile.     

After filing into line, she stood with her right hand held out to her future partner and waited.

Once the last numbers were called and the man and woman filed into the room, Mark lifted the bullhorn.  "Women, join your right hands with your spouse's left hand." 

A warm, dry hand enveloped Aytia's cold, clammy one.  She knew she was making a terrible first impression, but her nerves had gotten the best of her.  His fingers entwined with hers, though, and she thought he might not be too bad.  Of course, she still couldn't see him.  For all she knew, he could weigh four-hundred pounds, have a glass eye, and have constant flatulence.

"You are joined together today with your spouse.  You are to love and honor each other all the days of your lives.  Marriage is a sacred ceremony, and yours will be successful if you remember to listen to each other, find compromises, and most of all have love in your hearts.  You've been matched most successfully to each other.  So, hold your soul mate close.  Lead happy lives.  By the power invested in me by the state of New York, I pronounce you husband and wife."  Mark's voice boomed over the room. "You are now married.  Remove your blinders and view your partners."

Aytia turned toward her partner, searching his face through the blurred, black mesh over her eyes.  Slowly, she removed her blindfold as did her spouse.  Shock ran through her, and a burble of laughter burst from her lips.  "George Rimms, don't you know better than to sneak up on a girl."

George laughed, clutching her hands in his and bringing them up to his lips.  He kissed them, causing her to blush.  "You'd think I'd learn by now, wouldn't you, Mrs. Rimms?"

The Matchmaker by Lisa Rusczyk

The Matchmaker

by Lisa Rusczyk

The marriage was tomorrow. Lelia had not even seen her groom, Mante. It was an arranged marriage, as all marriages were in Helack.

Lelia had her purple wedding gown on and examined herself in her full-length mirror. She hesitated to put on the heavy veil. How was she supposed to walk up as aisle and see her way there with the heavy violet lace?

Lelia’s mother and father had told her that Mante was a perfect fit. The matchmaker had seen it in the bones, even doing an extra palm reading on Lelia’s mother and father to see how their daughter had measured up to their arranged marriage.

The matchmaker had not even met with Lelia! How could she know anything about her? Lelia knew this was the custom, but she didn’t want it. She wanted to choose her own mate.

Her mother came to see her in her purple gown. “You look lovely,” she said. “Let me see the veil.”

Lelia put it on.

“I can tell something is troubling you. Do tell me.”

“How can you see anything with this masking veil? I can’t even see my own hands.”

Her mother pulled the veil back and looked into Lelia’s blue eyes. “Tell me.”

Lelia hesitated.

Her mother said, “I know you so well. You don’t want to have an arranged marriage. There is only one way to solve this. You must meet the matchmaker.”

Lelia groaned. Matchmaking was akin to mysticism, something Lelia thought was a bunch of hooey.

“I will take you to her now. Change your dress.”

***

The matchmaker Noom was a middle-aged woman with gray streaks in her black hair. Lelia was surprised that she didn't instantly dislike the woman. She seemed frail and delicate, like a flower in the snow.

Noom and Lelia sat across from each other on te floor, a tea table between them. Noom said nothing, only waited for Lelia to speak.

Minutes passed.

Finally, Lelia said, "How can you se so sure?"

Noom raised her black eyes to Lelia. "It's what I am."

"What are you? What do you mean?"

"I am matchmaker. I am not married. I would rather be matched, but I am matchmaker."

"But how can you be so sure?"

Noom gave a slight smile. "I make you promise. You go to wedding day, you look in the mirror at the alter. After honeymoon, you come see me again."

"So that's it?" Lelia sighed. She had gotten no information from the matchmaker at all.

Noom left her with, "Only through experience can you learn. I cannot tell you."

***

Lelia couldn't see a thing in her veil, but her father walked her up the aisle and kept her steady. Mante would be up front already, wearing a veil of his own. His would be red.

They reached the altar. Lelia couldn't see Mante, but she could sense him near her. Was he as frustrated by this arrangement as she was?

The ritual dancers swayed and spun around the soon-to-be-wed couple. How long would Lelia have to wait to look into the mirror?

The priest then hushed the crowd and handed Lelia and Mante their mirrors. Lelia tilted hers towards Mante and he did the same with her. Their mothers lifted the couple's veils at the same time and they looked at each other through the mirrors.

Mante had green eyes and a strong jaw, closely shaven. He was her age, thankfully. His eyes widened when he saw her and his lips twitched upwards.

Lelia felt herself blush.

***

Lelia sat across from Noom, her first child in her lap. "I still don't know how you knew."

"I like you. You speak open. Some call it gift, others call it curse. I call it being me. I like what I do, but I would still like to find my mirror match. Until then, I find for others."