What Fears Become Part 15

They went to find the kite three days after the man was arrested. Until then, their parents had not allowed them back into the forest.

The kite's ribbon ran from the branches of a tree. The tail was red, decorated with small cloth triangles. The boy found it and pulled on his sister's s.h.i.+rt with one hand, pointing with the other. The two of them looked at it, and both silently understood that they would never give this discovery to the adults.

"He owned this kite," she said. She was aware that even though she whispered, her voice carried throughout the forest, just like the voices in the barn did. She sometimes sat in the barn's loft, up amongst the rafters and heard the men and women who met in secret there talking in whispers just as she was doing now. They feasted on the rumors, amongst their quiet, nervous laughter.

"He flew it on top of Bear Hill," she went on, and she enjoyed watching her brother pale, his skin sheen with sweat. "After each one, he flew it."

And right beyond the tree line, fireworks exploded into the sky. Somewhere close by, children sang 'remember, remember, the fifth of November.' The fire had not been lit, not yet, but the townsfolk were getting ready. She could feel it in the air, almost like a low, humming vibration.

"A kite," she said after a long while. "He made a kite out of their skin. He made the wood into the shape of a crucifix and then he sewed their faces right onto it." She looked over to her brother and saw him looking down into the dirt. She knew he was imagining dried red blood amongst the grains.

"He weaved the teeth into the trail to catch the wind better. Then he used their hair for the ribbons to make it glide. He really made it soar. The string he used was the same one that he finished them off with, around the throat." She touched her own neck without thinking. "If you held it up to the light, you could see it was red with blood, but otherwise you wouldn't be able to tell the difference."

"How do you know these things? You couldn't know!" His voice was high and cracking. He stared at her, the rims of his eyes red, like he was almost about to cry. She pointed upwards, to remind him of where she sat in the barn's roof sometimes. Once, she had led her brother up there and he had sat, opened-mouthed at the things he saw adults do, and the things they said when they thought no one was listening.

"All things flying," she said in a sing-song voice, knowing that the sweeter she made her voice, the sicker her brother would become. She could tell it was working, because her brother looked up to the sky, beyond the trail and past the tree line, trying to imagine the kite high in the air, the red of the material turning darker with other things.

Then the boy turned to study their find once again. "You don't know all these things," he repeated flatly, trying to keep his voice level to appear strong. He put his hands on his hips to steady himself, but he knew he wasn't strong at all.

"You don't know that I don't," she said calmly, undercutting her brother's bravado with a sense of fact, or even boredom. She watched him swallow down her words, and then she was about to say something else and was surprised when nothing came out.

Overhead there were more explosions; and through the trees they could see the flickers of dying rockets. Something screeched without exploding and made him flinch. There were not all that many trees to block their view of the events taking place in the town.

They stared at each other until she made a sudden movement; with a gentleness that surprised him, she pulled the kite from the branch, leaving it to softly drop at her feet. The boy waited for her to scoop it up into her hands, but instead she edged away, until she was further from it than him. The boy stepped forward and seized it in both hands, surprised at how eager he was to claim it.

"Check your fingers," she said, looking down from his face to his hands. Without thinking, he looked to the tips of each one, waiting to see if any of them were blemished red. There was nothing to see, save for the smile that grew and grew on her lips. Slowly, she licked each one of her fingertips, just to make him squirm even more before her. He clutched the kite to his chest and looked back to the town.

"We should get back. It'll be starting soon," she said to her brother, and he looked over to her and nodded. The humming in the air had risen, crackling the way the sky did just before a storm. The town's children had stopped singing, although there was still something like a murmur in the air. The pitch was different now, lower, and she realized it was the adults making the noise; not singing, not quite, but something like it; was it chanting? It was something like the ethereal sounds when they made love or whispered a secret. She knew it should have scared her, hearing grown-ups acting not quite as they should, but instead it excited her. It gave her the same sensations she experienced in the barn when voices slipped away into grunts and the speech broke away into pants of need.

"Are you ready to see?" she asked her brother, genuinely curious for his answer. It was the one thing she didn't know about him. For a long second he stood still, looking to her, then coughed gently.

"I'm ready," the boy finally said, and he clutched the malevolent kite to his chest, as if to prove the point. And so the two of them began the walk back to the town. The forest ran out almost immediately and soon they were on the path.

The kite grew heavy in his hands because he kept his fists clenched and his breathing grew labored. She listened to his wheezing until she could stand it no longer and seized the thing off him. He wanted to object, but he couldn't summon up his voice.

She taunted her brother with the sight of the kite now in her capable hands and flaunted how easily she walked with it. But something else too; she wondered if the sounds her little brother made were close to what they had made underneath the killer at the end. What sounds had their throats made just before he had drawn the kite string down over them? She wondered if what she heard was close to dying.

They reached the end of the path and stepped into the town. Everywhere was filled with hazy smoke now, fireworks either roaring into life or dying out on the ground around them. As she stepped through the mists, she became aware of a fire being lit, the crackle of the torches being brought into life. The earth was upside down; the ground was covered in clouds while the sky burned bright. She smiled at the feeling of confusion this brought, smiled so hard she almost burst out laughing. This is what chaos feels like, she thought happily, looking all around and seeing her brother's hands shake by his side amongst all the confusion.

She made out the shadow figures of the adults, all of them making their way to the barn where she saw them come alive at night. The first torch exploded into life, becoming a beacon for the rest to follow; slowly the shadows fell into a sort of order behind the fire and the townspeople marched into the barn. She followed them in, her brother by the door, so she could see just enough of what was about to happen. Some of the adults stepped out of the shadows, as if to shoo them away; and then they saw the kite in her hands, but they knew that she kept their secrets and so they looked away, pretending to ignore what she held as best as they could.

The man was at the center of the barn, tied to the cross with straw at his feet. His mouth was gagged, but he was not trying to scream. Instead, he simply looked from one face to the next, taking them all in. There was dried blood on his forehead, one eye was blackened and swollen, and his ear was torn. The sheriff had spent three days with him and had left his mark.

The sister looked around amongst the mists to see who was now in the barn for justice: the sheriff was there, as was the judge, all of those who had sat in that cold, grey room to bring forth a sentence, and so were all of their families.

The man who held the torch made his way to the heart of the barn. Three others stepped into the center, each clutching torches. The first torch-man turned and carefully lit each oiled rag that was stuffed into the kindling wood, the flames making the expression on the condemned man's face clearer. As the killer on the crucifix bit down on the gag, every twitch was clear to see, even as the fires kept the crowd hidden in the half-light.

The chanting of the adults grew louder, almost drowning out the noise of the explosions outside. It was as if the whole town was ready to ignite, the sister thought, her heart racing.

Finally three townspeople crept forward, each of them adding their torch to the kindling, building the blaze. They stood back, as if to give the rest of them a better view, but then one lunged forward again, jamming his torch into the gagged mouth of the killer. He was pulled away by the other two, the crowd dissenting, wanting to see the murderer suffer and burn. The gag burned, so the man looked as if he breathed fire, but it did not spread over the rest of his face. Instead, even as his tongue burnt away, his eyes stayed open and wide, still looking from one adult to the next.

Trying to remember them, to find some sort of sorrow from the depths of her being, the sister could not go there in her mind, so she was unable to stifle her excitement which was almost growing into a form of ecstasy. She was not able to hide the smile on her face, even as the smell of the burning flesh began to carry out into the air, overwhelming even the heavy fumes of the smoke.

The entire town watched as one as the killer burned alive. Around the edges of the flames were the adults; moths, the sister thought, like moths around a reading lamp. She gripped the kite tighter, feeling the tautness of the material underneath her fingertips. She listened to the sound of the kite as she ran her nails along it, over and over, until it started to weaken and fray.

The killer's body moved and convulsed, as each part of it was eaten up by the fire. The twitching came soon after, as if at the very end, he was trying to shake the fire off his bones like an itch that could not quite be scratched. But all the while, the sister noticed, his head did not move, even as his body writhed. Instead he stayed a witness, not only to his own death, but also to see the faces of his executioners, until, at last, the flames moved over his skull and ended him.

She stepped out of the barn and into the town, aware that her brother was still following her. The fireworks still crackled into life, but there were fewer now; the noise not as great. The adults began to leave the barn, knowing that soon the mists would fade and they would no longer be protected by anonymity. They streamed out all around her, bustling against her, some of them coughing and clearing their throats. None of them spoke, the murmurs dying away, so there were only the explosions of the sky and the crackling of the body inside.

No longer paying attention to the shadow adults around her, the sister began to unfurl the kite. She ran it into the breeze, until it hoisted into the air. When it was good and high, she handed the sting to her brother. He took it without a word; he was pale now and changed forever by what he had seen and she knew it.

He looked over to her and the question of what was in her other hand formed in his eyes, but not on his lips. Instead, the boy silently drew the kite in, raveling the string back into a ball as the kite descended from the sky until it fell back to earth, and he retrieved it. She leaned over and then threw what was in her hand onto the center of the red kite. She smeared it in with her fingers, so it was good and ground in. Then she took hold of it, stepping away from her brother and instantly forgetting him.

She launched the kite back into the air, watching it soar as the last firework of the night flashed around it and made it visible. Then there was silence all over the town, as she watched the kite soar higher and higher, and above the trail of sparks that still s.h.i.+ned, the color of the kite was different now and somehow brighter for it.

About Chris Castle.

Chris Castle is English, but works in Greece as a teacher. He has been accepted over 150 times in the last year and a half, ranging from sci-fi to horror to straight drama. He has also been published in several end-of-year anthologies. He is currently beginning work on his forth book. His influences include Stephen King, Ray Carver and PT Anderson. He is also working on a poetry collection..

THE PRODUCT.

by Bruce Memblatt.

"He was the one I was supposed to spend my life with. We'd planned on getting married. There were so many plans."

She raised her head. She glanced at the clock on the wall and sighed. "He had an apartment right on the corner of Fifty-Second and Lexington Avenue. There's a new white piano sitting in the living room. A white piano, imagine? But he played like a mad genius. I used to sit and intently listen. I dug him, his fingers, his hair, the view; there was a knockout view. Why am I talking about the G.o.dd.a.m.ned view? And the G.o.dd.a.m.ned piano."

Her hands shook as she looked down toward the floor, afraid she would lose control and sob out the intense anguish she felt.

"You can stop there, Robin," Clinger interrupted. "Are you sure this is what you want? At DMG, we can't bring Shane back. All we can do is to create a close replica. You can call it an illusion, but it won't be him, do you understand that? We can't recreate his soul. Can you live with an illusion? That's the question you have to ask yourself."

Can you live with an illusion? The words opened like a row of umbrellas in her mind. Could she? Then again, could she live without Shane for another year, another week, another second? No, the grief she was feeling was too unbearable; she couldn't stand another moment of this pain.

She felt angry at the salesman. Here was Clinger across from her, sitting smugly at his desk. What did he know about the pain of loss? Clinger probably had his wife to go home to at the end of his day; a wife who was alive and well.

But at least Clinger was telling her that she could have something like Shane; it would be something like the life they were going to have had they been able to get married and live in the apartment with the view and the piano. Wasn't anything better than what she had now?

Now Clinger was telling her that there were dangers. He wanted her to sign a waiver. She could get lost in the illusion, adapt too completely and forget he wasn't Shane, but a creation designed and manufactured specifically for her, to her specifications; an illusion just the same. Still, wasn't life an illusion anyway? No, she thought, life isn't an illusion, not to those who live it.

On the other hand, would recreating Shane be living her life, or would it be hiding in a memory instead? This was all too deep and she just wasn't able to think straight since Shane died; she only knew that she wanted him back.

Suddenly An Idea: she wouldn't call him Shane. She'd find another name, one that felt artificial. One that would be a constant reminder that the product was artificial; it wasn't Shane. Yes, she'd call him Product.

And then she was sure she knew what she was doing. "I want this. I'm sure. Can it begin?"

"It's already begun," Clinger said as he folded his hands over his desktop. "In a sense, I mean, it began when you called us. You've already given us all the details of Shane's life, and so we have put his total experience, as best as we could, into a file in our lab. There's more to do, of course, and most are things you need not know, but there are other things you should know. For example, we'll be using a sample of his DNA in his model."

"Model?" she questioned.

"Yes, we call them models. They're not clones; they're manufactured from a composite of organic and non-organic materials. One thing you should also know; he won't age, but we can make him look older as time goes on if you like. Every few years, we can upgrade him for you. That is optional, there's no need to think about that now, of course; you have plenty of time." Wow. That was something she hadn't thought about: time. And what would happen, say, five years from now, or twenty? What if she had a change of heart at some point? If it turned out badly, could she just dispose of the Product? Would she want to? Too many crazy possibilities for one afternoon and she hadn't even considered about s.e.x.

He seemed to read her thoughts. "If you want more time, there's no need to rush into this," Clinger said. "We know this is an investment in both your money and your emotions, and we want all of our clients to be happy in both areas."

She clenched her fists. She smiled forcefully. "I only know one thing for sure. I want Shane back."

"Well, then, if you're absolutely certain, let me tell you how it's going to go. In about two weeks, maybe three, you'll receive a phone call. The call will come the day before Shane arrives, to prepare you. You won't pick up Shane. What will happen is he will come home to you just like it was an ordinary day, like nothing happened. He will know where he lives."

"So, I am supposed to meet him at his apartment?"

"We know you are on the lease because you were planning to move in. We know you have been making the payments on the apartment since Shane, well, pa.s.sed."

"That's right. I couldn't let it go...it was...Shane's." She thought Clinger would understand. She couldn't part with anything of Shane's.

Clinger continued, "It will be best if you don't make too much of a fuss when he comes home. Try to be as natural and as calm as possible. It will take some time for you to adjust to each other and to your new life."

Like an ordinary day? It would be the most unordinary ordinary day she could envision. Natural and calm weren't her forte. With all the crazy new technologies out there, the world must be coming to an end anyway. Surprising, she thought, Clinger's office at DMG doesn't look like anything special, nothing futuristic; just an ordinary office. DMG looked quite traditional. No sliding steel doors or crystalline tubes like she'd imagined.

"So what happens now?"

"Now you wait, and if we need anything else, we'll contact you."

"I guess this is it, then," she said, standing from the chair.

"If you're certain. I'm sorry, but part of my job is to try to convince you not to do it. At DMG we want you to be absolutely certain, because once it is done, there is no going back. This is a radical decision."

"I'm certain," she said. She grabbed her coat and Clinger walked her to the door.

She cleaned the apartment from top to bottom. She filled her days with expectations, and her spirits were lifted with the idea that her grief would end soon. She paid special attention to the brand new piano she had just bought, and she imagined Shane's long, tapered fingers touching the ivories.

In reflection, it was funny how her life had changed since she'd met Shane; a metamorphosis, like a whirlwind...fantastical. She hadn't even known him that long, but she knew he was the one the moment she met him seven months ago down at a little club called Marie's. She had stopped in for a quick drink, and there was Shane at the piano. Imagine, if she had worked overtime that day like she normally did, she wouldn't have had time for a drink, and if not, would they have ever met?

The new piano was the one change she made in the apartment; she had bought a new piano, a white piano, right before she received the news of his death. Shane had never seen her present to him.

She remembered the day before he died when he got on that small plane, he had sold his piano. He needed the money. She had offered him money. He wouldn't take it. He had told her he'd get a new piano when he could and not to sweat it. Come to think of it, funny, she didn't really know him all that well. Well, not as well as she could have, like she wanted to if they only had more time. Now they'd have all that time. It was waiting just days away. The bell would ring and he'd walk through the door again. Well, he wasn't going to step through the door, but he would, in a way. Don't forget it's not him, it's something like him, don't forget, a Product.

The bell rang. What? Who could it be? It couldn't be Shane. Wasn't Clinger supposed to call the day before if it was Shane? A small voice whispered in her mind, This is not going according to plan.

She quickly looked in the mirror in the foyer and told herself, "I am insane." Her stomach pulled in as she took a deep breath and opened the door.

And there he was. He looked like he had always looked as he stepped through the door, like he did so many times before, but this time it was no ordinary walk through the door. What to say? There was nothing to say. She looked in his eyes and saw recognition. It swept her away. She almost cried. She almost smiled. It was almost Shane.

And then she realized that Clinger probably did call, that he must have called on her cell phone; she remembered it was the cell phone number she had given him. When was the last time she had charged her cell phone? Why, the batteries had probably been dead for days.

Dead.....no, not dead; cell phone batteries could be recharged.

"Shane," she heard herself stutter, and all plans to call him Product went out the window. "I mean..."

"I know."

"But...you're so..."

"Like me?"

"It's not you, is it, Shane...but it is." She kissed him on the cheek and held his hand. His eyes were still blue; his hair was still black, his smile was still Shane's smile. It was incredible. "Is it okay? I have to know is it okay that I did this, Shane? I had to have you back."

"I can feel myself, yet I can't. Can we sit down?"

They walked over to the small sofa in the living room. As they walked past the mirror in the foyer, she caught a glimpse of Shane and her together and she smiled. The rug under the sofa creased slightly as they sat down. She turned to him and said, "I didn't expect you to be so aware, I mean, I didn't know what to expect, exactly. In my mind I didn't think that you'd know what happened, but you are really in there."

He pulled away from her and looked toward the window, like an answer that was falling through the air. "The last thing I remember is the flames. The plane must have burst into flames. I remember the heat. It was so intense. I remember the smoke, and I remember dying. I know I died and then suddenly I'm back here and alive, but not really. I'm sort of confused."

"They must have told you something at DMG," she said, reaching for his hand.

"DMG? If you know what I'm trying to say, then you'd know I feel as if it all had happened to someone else," he said and he turned toward her, searching her eyes intently for a moment before he drew his head down.

She felt an insane need to bare her soul. "Shane, look at me. I was going to call you Product, to remind myself you weren't really Shane so I wouldn't forget the real you and get lost in an illusion. But this isn't an illusion; you're alive. I am so happy we're together again! Aren't you happy, Shane?"

If she could take all the moments of her life and wrap them into a ball, this would be the most tenuous thread, the one that could make her life unravel. It seemed everything hung on the simplest of questions.

He slowly began to stand. He gazed across the room. "Maybe I'm not happy. I guess I'm not sure."

"But..."

"Robin," he told her, "give me some time to get used to all of this; to try to connect myself, to try to feel like one being. It's strange; I feel like I'm trying to eat my way out of a marshmallow."

She didn't believe him about his happiness. Of course he was happy. Right now he was unsure, but she would fix that. "Do you see the piano? I got you a new piano!"

He stepped around the room silently. She watched him. Grudgingly, it seemed, he stood in front of the piano and plucked out a few notes. His hand fell uneasily over the keys. "Happiness isn't even on the plate now. It's just not that simple. Tell me..." he said as he turned away from the new white piano and walked backed to the sofa, "How did you find out I died? You must have been..."

He sat down.

"I was devastated," Robin said, putting her arm around his shoulder. She looked toward the television on the far side of the room. "I came home and I turned on the news. I didn't expect to hear from you until the morning. Anyhow, I was putting my coat away and I heard a story come over the air about a plane crash. You hear so much tragedy you don't pay attention, you know, the words seem to fall over you like petals, but when the reporter mentioned Syracuse I suddenly turned and stared at the TV. Just at that very moment the phone rang, a call from the airline."

There was something in the way he turned his head down after he heard the story that made her heart feel like it was breaking. Wait a minute, this was supposed to stop her heart from breaking. This was supposed to end her heartache.

Again she heard that small voice whispering in her mind, This is not going according to plan.

He put his hand out, just touching the top of her knee. "You must have been shaken. I'm sorry; I just wish I could feel you." Suddenly his hand pulled away and he said, "The funeral?"

He stood back up, restless, and continued speaking as he walked purposefully back to the piano. "It just occurred to me: the funeral. I must have had a funeral?"

Her hands shook as she watched him sit down at the piano. "Yes, you had a funeral," she told him almost matter-of-factly, and she reached for her purse. She pulled out a small newspaper clipping and placed it down on the coffee table. "Your obituary is here if you want to look at it."

He ignored the clipping, and wouldn't look at her as he plucked out a note on the keys. "So did I have a nice turn-out?"