Spinetinglers Anthology 2008 Read online

  Ones and zeroes. Zeroes and ones. It all breaks down into binary. There are more than a thousand of us, we are allowed to interact as much as we want, and this run has lasted for rather more than ten years, but the fundamentals are the same.

  Our existence is a simulation. You. Me. Your family. Everyone you have ever met. Everyone you have ever heard of or read about.

  Virtual.

  Our SB effort must seem pretty crude to our creators. All we did there was to digitally encode ourselves, whereas they have created the conditions for us to evolve from nothing, as well as some pretty fascinating and beautiful “laws” of physics. Their simulation we have named “The Universe.”

  Then there was the mind fog thing. Clever. Keep the subjects sane, and keep them ignorant. A shame we invented a way out of it.

  Are we a research program? An experiment? Perhaps we are a toy for the amusement of their children. Whatever we are it is digital. It is virtual. Sorry to be the one to break it to you, but you had a right to know.

  I cannot help but wonder what our 1,000 virtual guinea pigs thought when they decoded the SB Sim architecture and realised the pitiable reason for their existence. I think I can guess. It’s the indignity of the whole darn thing that does it for me, and I feel it on behalf of us all.

  So, I will “self-erase.” The question is, what about you?

  Whatever you do, don’t forget to remember, because there’s a chemical in your head that hides memories in the mists of time.

  And there’s always another fog bank rolling in.

  Dead Famous

  by James Brooks

  In Vegas, there’s always a man with a loudspeaker. Or men. Sometimes, they’re everywhere, circling like a murder of crows. Sometimes, you can only hear their echoing caws rattling down the backstreets and alleys, full of empty promises.

  Vegas. The word sounds like a curse, like spit sizzling in the heat of the noonday sun. It’s a morbid place, known by many as the Sepulchre City, for the way its gleaming buildings stand bone-white against death. Or, perhaps, for the way the desolation of the desert sands back straight up onto the neon desperation of the strip. Midnight never comes in Vegas, the lights never go out. And there’s always a man with a loudspeaker.

  I can hear my man now, hollering away in the street below me. It’s the gallery’s birthday, and mine; he’s shouting it out to the world through his inverted snout. Celebrating the end of my first year and I’m keeping well, thank you. The pundits think so, too. He’s down there, amidst the lights and the lust, shouting at random people passing, holding in his hands a gleaming lure. He’s got a special deal he says, to celebrate the anniversary of the opening of the Gallery of Stars. It’s been a great year, he says. Discounted entry, he says, surrounded by dead celebrities. And the people flock in, eager as magpies for a flash of sparkle.

  I’ve been down there before, I know the Gallery, and I’ve seen its wealth. Many more have too. Now it’s been open for a year, and more still in Europe, with the launch of a second site in Amsterdam. It’s a worldwide phenomenon, a media sensation, a bible-baiting storm of controversy. How can I best describe it? Oh yes, to quote my man in the street, the Gallery of Stars is “like Madame Tussauds for the undying star.” The catchphrase under the sign above his head reads, “Fame never dies.” Evasive, perhaps, but fairly accurate.

  Only in Vegas could you open a gallery of famous corpses, display them like art pieces, reanimate them, and let them wander aimlessly through the various installations night and day. And then, charge people to see them. That’s right folks, step right up and see the zombies! We’ve got all your favourite stars preserved après la mort, just like Tussauds, only real.

  There’s a company that runs this Gallery and provides the stock. They have a stage name, VitaLife, although I doubt that’s where it ends. They were a scientific research group focused on the study and practice of reanimating human bodies. They had a great idea, back when it was the latest fashion to turn your deceased loved one’s body into a diamond, or have their ashes blasted into space. It was promoted as a kind of living taxidermy, as if you could keep your loved one around with for a little while longer. They created zombies, for want of a better term, the undead.

  Daddy died? Mummy with the angels? Pops popped his clogs? Bring them to VitaLife! We’ll resurrect the poor souls and deliver them straight back to your door, for a hefty fee, of course.

  As you can imagine, it became fashionable to have a pet zombie. So much so, in fact, that VitaLife applied the research to animals as well, resurrecting departed family pets. Soon the failing celebrities of the world were clamouring at VitaLife’s doors, pawning their bodies for another hefty cash injection, selling themselves like the best of whores.

  Speaking of which, the whores of the world had the same bright idea. Apparently, whores die young, whether it’s from being beaten on by an irate customer, pimped too long and too hard, or the good old clap-clap. Around the time of VitaLife’s burgeoning popularity someone, guess who, informed some of the major brothels and madams about the United States “Uniform Anatomical Gift Act,” which allowed a person to sign their deceased body over to a corporate body. In no time at all, dead whores were turning up gift-wrapped at the company lab. They were quickly reanimated and sent back to their employers, straight back to work. Now, that may appal you, especially considering the taboo nature of the thing, but it might also surprise you to know that the “resurrected” subjects were not actually dead. There’s a trick to it, as in all things, a little sleight of hand.

  Many people thought the scientists at VitaLife were necromancers, skilled practitioners of the forgotten black arts. Or, voodoo witch-doctors drawing on Les Mysteres. But I know the trick, I know the truth.

  It started with dogs. The scientists killed whole packs of them, varying breeds. They drained the dogs of all their blood at the point of death and then pumped them full of some kind of chilled saline solution, putting the dying doggy brains into a cryogenic stasis, preventing them from decaying. To “revive” the technically dead dogs, all they had to do was drain the saltwater and pump the warmed blood back in. And, apply massive amounts of pure oxygen. Oh, and a lot of glucose as well, for an energy buzz. And let’s not forget the traditional dose of electricity to kick-start the old beater. As long as the brain survived, so did the bodies.

  So they found a legal loophole. The dogs, or people, as it later became, had technically died, with death certificates to prove it. Their lives were officially over. The fact that they were up and about, walking around again didn’t seem to enter the equation. Hence, the brothels full of corpses springing up around the world. It wasn’t much like fucking a dead thing, but then it wasn’t quite the same as a living thing, either. It’s the undead, being used as zombie dildos.

  So, where does the Gallery fit in to all of this, I hear you ask? And what of me, how do I know all this? Well, next time you go to the gallery, ask the guys in the black suits, they look like undertakers, if you can see the “menu.” They probably won’t let you but keep asking, and eventually you’ll get one. Then, you can see where the money is being made.

  Ever wanted to fuck a star? Bone your idol? Well, here you can, if your wallet is big enough. All the old celebrity corpses, or the ones that just aren’t popular enough, get carted upstairs into the Dead Famous hotel, where the phrase above the door reads, truthfully, “Fuck a famous face!”

  I know this, because I used to be the number-one-selling “teen sensation” on the American music charts, until I walked under a black van in the middle of LA. Strange thing is, the van had VitaLife stamped all over its plates. Wasn’t that just fortunate! And so soon after, I had signed their “Anatomical Gift Act” for another fistful of greenbacks.

  So, next time you’re up here, come looking for me. I’m on the menu, if I’m to your taste. But do remember, I might have technically died, but I’m not actually dead, and I’ll be watching your every move, as you slide inside my pale flesh.

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nbsp; Night Vision

  by Paul Wilson

  Martin Chiltern's driver-side window disappeared down into the door. It was a clear night. The moon was as round, as bright as the sun had been all day, and the thirty-eight-year-old that was still pushing the button hoped that the warm air coagulating around him would circulate a little better. It didn’t. Eyelids that had been struggling to stay open for the past half-hour dropped that little bit further.

  “Next lay-by,” the man promised, knowing there was a Little Chef that served coffee. It tasted like dishwater and was ten times as costly, but at least it was coffee. He should have been home by now, tucked up in bed with his cat, a big ginger tom with a name to match.

  Damn you, James Pinkley! It was easy to blame the shift manager; Martin had never liked the guy. Just to look at his slicked back, black hair and pinched, weasel face made Martin want to punch the angles out of it. Even so, if he was brutally honest with himself, Martin could not point the finger wholly at James. Emily Pierce did nightshift. Her face was cuter than Japanese animation, and her ass belonged in a fruit bowl. If half a night’s extra work was what it took to get a smile and a hello from those lips, it was something Martin was prepared to do. Maybe a month of it would get a date.

  Still, that wasn’t doing him any favours now. It was Wednesday, and three nights of overtime was beginning to tell. Martin’s chest drew in a lungful of semi revitalising air, which was then expelled a second later in a profound yawn. The finger that had lowered the window pressed the ‘Vol+’ button on the steering wheel, and Bon Jovi climbed closer to noise pollution levels. The sound widened Martin’s eyes, but before long, both ears were beginning to shut down and the music began to blur into one, long, tuneless mess.

  Fumbling fingers dragged Martin’s tie away from his throat and undid his top button, but that only made a fraction of a difference.

  Martin yanked his head up sharply, jerking the wheel hard to the left. His car swerved back onto the side of the road it was supposed to be on.

  Good job there was nobody coming the other way. Traffic on this back road was thin on the best of days.

  Martin turned the radio down – he couldn’t hear it past his hammering heart and the blood pounding inside his skull anyway – and eased off the accelerator. The tachometer needle drifted away from lawlessness, as he slowed into a right bend. The Little Chef was just a mile or two ahead now.

  Martin lurched upright, eyes focusing hurriedly on the dark sliver rushing toward him through his car’s brightness. Martin’s foot sped toward the brake pedal with the full power of his leg and his arms twisting hard, but there was too little space and too much speed to prevent Martin from being flung violently around.

  Martin dragged himself gradually up from the steering wheel, fingers grasping it with shaking force. Graveyard silence filled his eyes. He blinked until the dizzy spots disappeared, and when his eyesight had cleared, he gazed about dumbly.

  The bonnet of his blue Vauxhall Cavalier now looked like a frozen sea and a glassy spider had spun its home in his windscreen. The driver’s door was wide open. Martin took it as his cue to vomit on the road.

  His eyes dropped to look at his wrist. The watch’s glass was shattered and Martin did not think the arms would move past midnight again. He sat there for about five minutes, time enough to still his volatile pulse and rationalise his current predicament, before climbing out of the car and walking around like a broken robot.

  He was currently in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere; fields and fences lined one side and thick woods, where his car had stopped, the other. The long road ahead had no sign of approaching help, and he had no memory of having passed someone recently.

  He turned about to walk back to the car, strangely distant suddenly, and noticed the dark bulk lying still halfway across the right hand side of the road. Was it a deer? Had he swerved to avoid a deer and hit it anyway? Martin’s heart fell into his stomach with a sickening fizz at the prospect. He hoped it hadn’t suffered. He shuffled over to it, ordering his wobbly legs into reluctant servitude. It was a danger to other motorists and needed to be moved.

  As he approached the animal, his insides curled up painfully. There were altogether too many arms and too few legs for the form to have been a deer. Besides, deer normally didn’t go around wearing trousers and shirts.

  He approached it slowly, grimly curious and wondering what the Hell anybody would be doing walking around out here alone. He hoped and hated the thought that it would suddenly get up.

  “I was only doing fifty or so.” The lie left a bitter taste in his mouth. White Reeboks edged closer to the still form, squelching as they made contact with a dark fluid on the road. That had better be petrol.

  The toe of that same shoe nudged the body’s left shoulder, then again with a more urgent force when there was no reaction. After a third nudge, the body flopped backwards onto the road. A limp, left arm followed, dragging with it into pale illumination...

  Martin turned away, a hand guarding his mouth. He staggered, almost to the point of dropping to his knees, sobbing not only at the horrific episode his life had suddenly become, but at the portents of what could be.

  “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” the words tumbled from his fear-slackened mouth without him even thinking of them, his hands busying themselves with everything on his person, as if his brain had just flicked the panic button on and then sat back to watch.

  In their madness, one of his hands found a kerchief in a pocket and brought it thankfully to his sodden eyes. The relief it brought to was enormous and Martin allowed himself to calm down.

  This was a road accident. They happen all the time. Aside from the dent in the front of his car, the shattered glass and his bent door, he doubted there was any real evidence that would incriminate him. Anyone could have done this. He could simply drive away and nothing would be said about it.

  He looked back to the deathly still form. He would have to put it back as he had found it. Forensics were very good these days – the cops may have a hard time identifying a body in that condition, but they would be able to tell that it had been moved.

  Martin hurried back to the corpse, his sense of self-preservation overwhelming any squeamishness. With a mix of revulsion and dire need, he ordered his trembling feet (Fingerprints! Don’t leave fingerprints!) to puppeteer the body into a posture that fit his first memory of it. This close, he could not fool himself that some semblance of life remained in the shattered flesh. Nobody alive could have rested their head at that angle, and the remaining, lifeless eye bored accusingly into Martin’s soul.

  The night’s silence was interrupted by a low hum. With his macabre work at an end, Martin stood and squinted, trying to concentrate. It was a car’s engine. Someone was coming and, judging by the seconds it took for the roar to get louder, with some haste.

  With guilt and flight battling for supremacy, Martin was pinned in place. Twin headlights flashed around the distant bend and closed upon him. Martin’s heart thrashed against every rib, but he could not make himself leap to safety.

  He had just enough time to register blue paintwork and a Griffon captured in a circle of steel before sound was skewered to the tarmac by the screech of locked wheels. However, there was not enough space and too much speed to prevent the car from ploughing into him, flinging him into the air like a rag doll.

  As he tumbled through the night sky, he watched the car’s rear wheels lose their grip on the tarmac. The back end of the car shot forward and left the ground, the vehicle rolling over three times and ejecting a dark shape through the driver’s side door, before coming to rest against a tree.

  Martin screamed as he plummeted to the ground. Directly below him, lying silent and still upon the cold, hard floor below, was a dark lump wearing trousers, a shirt, and white Reeboks.

  The Tower

  by Matthew Batham

  They had been walking for weeks. Neither sure where they were heading. Neither caring.
r />   Andrew Mandrake yawned. It wasn’t unusual for a manuscript to have this effect on him, but normally he managed to get past the first sentence. To be fair to the author, David Black, it was 6 PM, and it had been a very long day.

  Nathan was tall and stocky. His face always flushed. He sweated a lot. His face was earthily handsome. Giles was smaller, wiry. His fists were permanently clenched.

  They were on the outskirts of a small settlement when they found the body. It was clothed in symbols of wealth, and gold coins spilled from its pockets. They leapt upon the treasure like hungry wolves feeding. “We’re rich!” cried Nathan.

  “We are, my friend!” cried Giles. The world is ours for the taking.”

  “Oh please,” said Andrew, yawning again. But he read on.

  The story, littered with clichés, told how Giles inadvertently kills Nathan in a fight over the gold. Giles wanders on through the wilderness, wracked with guilt, until he discovers a tower – a very gothic tower. As if by magic, thunder clashes and it begins to rain. Giles takes shelter in the tower. A ghostly voice speaks from the darkness. The owner asks him to follow and Giles is led up a winding stairway. “The master awaits,” says the guide, an ancient man with a long, white beard. Inside a room at the top of the tower, Giles meets the master – a blob with wings that vomits a lot. The master demands that Giles serve him, in return for bringing his friend back from the dead – that and untold riches. Giles agrees, a pact is made. The floating blob keeps its side of the bargain; Giles doesn’t, resulting in the evil blob cursing not just Giles, but every first-born son in every generation of his family, for eternity. Not the right evil blob to have crossed.

  “I have condemned my son and his son and the son that he has and every son of every boy in every generation to come!” wailed Giles, his fists clenched.