Fading Light: An Anthology of the Monstrous: Tim Marquitz (45 page)

By sunset he had the frame ready, chipboard panels bracketed
together. His hands ached, and he had a deep cut on his wrist where
the circular saw went AWOL. They fired up the generator to power
enough lights to work by.

A cold wind blew up, laced with rain.

“We’ll inflate the raft,” Alan said.

“What’s she called?” Jane asked.

“What?”

“She’s got to have a name. All boats have names,”
Jane said.

“Pandora,” Alan said. He didn’t know why.

“Hope,” Ben said quietly.

“Pandora’s Hope,” Sarah said.

And that was her name.

Every step was critical. If the generator didn’t work, if the
raft didn’t inflate, if the lights blew, any one failure and
the whole thing failed.

The raft inflated with an explosive gusto that nearly knocked Ben off
his feet. He retreated to the shelter of the doorway to the main
stairs.

They positioned the raft in the frame and fixed it with about a mile
of duct tape. Alan loaded the generator into the center of the raft.
The dark tide had reached the doors of the office block. In the fire
escape, step after step would be vanishing beneath the rising
darkness.

Alan fixed the fluorescent tubes, still in the aluminum cases that
housed them in the ceiling. He spliced the cut cables to new plugs
and linked them to the generator multi-plug.

The lights in the building had failed during the previous night, but
enough moonlight shone for Alan to see how many floors had been
engulfed. The dark tide reached to floor five of seven, and kept
rising.

“Right. Get in the raft and we’ll fire the main light
banks.”

Jane took Sarah’s hand. She looked around. “Where’s
Ben?”

Alan spun around. Just the empty windswept roof, no sign of Ben.

He sprinted to the edge. Floor six of seven, and rising.

“Jesus!” Alan ran back to the boat and snatched up
flashlight and a shotgun. “Get in the boat. I’ll find
him.”

“Alan!”

“
Get in
!”

He sprinted for the stair door. A tuft of bleached-blonde hair
fluttered on the door frame, caught on a nail.

“Oh Christ.”

He yanked the door open and started down the stairs. The beam of his
light danced wildly before him.

As he turned the corner he caught a glimpse of someone turning down
the next flight. He could hear their feet on the stone, and a muffled
yelling.

Alan threw himself down the steps, slamming into the wall at the
turn. He fell around the corner, sprawled on the landing, the breath
knocked from him. The next flight of steps ended in darkness. And
between Alan and the black sea, with Ben over one shoulder, Lucy,
running.

He shot without thinking. The blast hit her in the small of the back,
just below Ben’s head. Black flesh spattered. She pitched
forward and fell into the dark tide. Ben landed on the steps, his
feet inches from the blackness.

Alan limped down to his son, still unable to draw breath, and hauled
him clear as the dark tide engulfed another step.

He sucked air into his bruised chest, and staggered back, dragging
Ben up another three steps. The dark tide rose, still lapping at the
boy’s heels.

Alan dropped his shotgun and took Ben under his arm. Agony flared in
his ankle as he turned and tried to climb the stairs. Hobbling and
cursing he labored on.

Without looking back, Alan knew the tide kept pace with him. He could
feel it, smell it, hear its whispers.

Alan broke out into the open. The boat blazed with light. Jane had
lit up the main tubes beneath the frame. He took one step forward and
the whole roof vanished before him. The dark tide rippled across the
fifty yards between him and the boat.

“Alan!”

“Daddy!”

He started to run. Dark fire rose around calves, dwarfing the pain
from his twisted ankle. With thirty yards to go the dark tide reached
his knees and he almost dropped Ben. His legs burned, and a cold
sickness spread through his veins. He heard voices, Jim, Lucy, Fred,
a hundred others, yammering in his ears, telling him to stop, to lie
down, to let it end.

Another ten yards. The howling he could hear was his own. He carried
Ben high on his chest, staggering, wading, the blackness around his
waist.

You’ve lived your whole life beneath dark waters.

Let it take you.

Accept it.

Soon no one will remember any other time.

The boat blazed ahead of him, an island of light.

His vision failed. He could see nothing but the light.

He held Ben above his head. One leg moved ahead of the next, the
muscles burning, melting, full of ice and broken glass.

The dark rose in the back of his mind. A voice, huge and terrible,
told him to push Ben under, to thrust the boy beneath the waves.

He saw the light, distant, at the end of a long dark tunnel.

Put him down, Alan, lay the boy down.
The voice filled him, dark and
glorious, the voice of every mother, every lover.

He moved on.

Don’t look into the light. Come back to us, Alan. Come back.

Don’t look into the light.

But he did.

He stepped and he reached.

For a moment he saw the boat, lifting clear of the frame.

He felt Ben lifting away, screaming as Jane pulled him up beside her.

Hope floats.

The lights blazed and the raft moved.

“Alan!”

She was going to try to lift him, too.

Grab her. Pull her out.
The dark voice rang within him, undeniable.

Four strides carried Alan over the edge of the roof. The last act of
his will. He fell fast as a stone and forever claimed him.

The Pandora’s Hope rides the gentlest of ocean swells.
Occasionally the dark waters slap against her brilliant hull. That
and the chug of her generator are the only sounds on a midnight
ocean, starlit and calm.

Three sailors steer her on an ancient night. And anything is
possible.

Adam Millard
is the author of eleven novels and more than a
hundred short stories. Probably best known for his post-apocalyptic
"DEAD" series, Adam’s work can be found in
collections from Angelic Knight Press, May December Publications,
Bizarro Press, and many more.

Nick Cato
’s fiction has appeared in several anthologies,
magazines and websites. He is the author of the novel DON
OF THE DEAD as well as the novella THE APOCALYPSE OF PETER. His
recent short story collection is ANTIBACTERIAL POPE AND OTHER
INCONGRUOUS STORIES. Nick lives in Staten Island, New York with his
wife, two kids, and two radical dachshunds, where he writes
about classic grindhouse films for the Cinema Knife Fight
website. Visit his personal blog at nickcato.blogspot.com.

Stephen McQuiggan
ate his brother in the womb. He lives in
Northern Ireland, tortured by his sibling’s whispers in his
brain.

Gary W. Olson
grew up in Michigan and, despite the weather,
stuck around, working as a software engineer. His first dark fantasy
novel, Brutal Light, was published in December 2011. He takes pride
in looking nothing like that picture of him in the post office. His
website is at http://www.garywolson.com.

Tom Olbert
lives in Cambridge, MA. He writes science fiction
and paranormal with a slant towards the dark side. Tom has been
published by Eternal Press, Lillibridge Press and most recently Mocha
Memoirs Press, in addition to a number of online publications.

Titles to look for on Amazon.com: For lovers of dark vampire fiction:
"Unholy Alliance" and "Desert Flower." For lovers
of action-packed and offbeat sci-fi: "Meeting", "Flags"
and "Venus Loop." And, at Barns and Noble: For lovers of
high-octane, wacky, irreverent sci-fi action/adventure: "Long
Haul."

For more info on Tom Olbert and his latest projects, check out Tom’s
blog at: http://tomolbert.blogspot.com.

Malon Edwards
was born and raised on the South Side of
Chicago, but now lives in the Greater Toronto Area. Much of his
speculative fiction features people of color and is set in an
alternate or near-future Chicago. He currently serves as a Grants
Administrator for the Speculative Literature Foundation’s Older
Writers and Gulliver Travel Research Grants, which provides $750 and
$800, respectively, for writers of speculative literature.

Carl Barker
currently lives on the Scottish Border, where he
can often be found skulking round ruined castles in the dead of
night. His passing resemblance to the Duke of Wellington has
been mentioned on more than one occasion by his friends, but alas
thus far he has been unable to raise an army of corpses (it’s a
work in progress). His fiction has previously appeared in magazines
such as Midnight Street and Dark Horizons, as well as various horror
and fantasy anthologies over the last couple of years, and he plans
to carry on writing stories as long as there are people out there who
want to read them. Those wanting to find out more about his fiction
and further upcoming publications can visit www.holeinthepage.co.uk

David Dalglish
was born in Florida, but moved to southwest
Missouri when he was only four. He grew up on a farm, which severely
clashed with his interests in Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Jurassic Park, and
X-Men. Since his first hand-written story in the fourth grade reached
the 100 page mark, he’s been trying to write enjoyable epic
fantasy. With the aid of Amazon and the Kindle, he hopes he’s
succeeded.

He also has a lovely wife and a beautiful daughter, both of whom he
absolutely adores.

Jake Elliot
currently lives in fabulous Las Vegas. He and his
wife are guardians over one rather hostile cat by the name of Samson.
He is a whirlwind of slashing claws and biting teeth and has inspired
most of the combat scenes in Jake’s books. Bearing scars to
prove, most people would agree that a little pain is good for his
character. Jake Elliot is the author of the fantasy series beginning
with 
The Wrong Way Down
.

Lee Mather
lives and writes in Manchester, England. He is the
author of
The Green Man
and his works can be found in
anthologies such as
Corrupts Absolutely?
and
Inferna and
Other Stories
. Lee’s writing feeds the monster inside him.
Go to www.leemather.org.uk to find out how.

Gord Rollo
was born in St. Andrews, Scotland, but now lives in
Ontario, Canada, with his wife and three children. His short stories
and novella-length work have appeared in many professional
publications throughout the genre and he is currently at the end of a
four book novel contract with Dorchester Publishing in New York City.
His novels include:
The Jigsaw Man
,
Crimson
,
Strange
Magic
, and
Valley Of The Scarecrow.
Besides novels, Gord
edited the acclaimed evolutionary horror anthology,
Unnatural
Selection: A Collection of Darwinian Nightmares
. He also
co-edited
Dreaming of Angels
, a horror/fantasy anthology
created to increase awareness of Down’s Syndrome. He recently
completed his newest book; a science fiction/dark fantasy novel
entitled
The Translators
and can be reached through his
website at www.gordqrollo.com or through his agent Lauren Abramo at
[email protected]

Georgina Kamsika
was born in South Yorkshire, UK, to Anglo
Indian immigrant parents and has spent most of her life explaining
her English first name, Polish surname and Asian features. She reads
widely, everything from E.M. Forester to Chuck Palahnuick and values
her vast comics collection. She admits to being a geek and whenever
she’s not writing, she loves reading and walking her two dogs
in the woods. She remembers being very proud when her story was
chosen to be displayed on the wall, even though this was at infant
school. Many years later, she began taking her writing seriously and
has had numerous short stories published in magazines and the odd
anthology. Her début novel
The Sulphur Diaries
(Legend Press) was released in November of 2011. Find her at
www.kamsika.com

Dorian Dawes
is the published author of several horror and
surreal short stories. With an extensive background in gothic horror
and a love for all things macabre, he hopes to bring a fresh
perspective into the genre, his own. When not writing, he is reading,
collecting decaying and deformed baby dolls and candle-holders, and
re-watching his favorite Dario Argento films from the 70’s and
80’s. His website and contact information can be found at
www.doriandawes.com

Timothy Baker
is a retired firefighter embarking on a new
career in writing. Inspired by the likes of Poe, Lovecraft, and King,
Timothy has taken up the self-challenge of bringing new monsters to
the horror realm, avoiding the tried and true: vampires, werewolves,
and zombies. In the eighties he wrote and directed a horror film
(Night of the Pig) for a community television station, afterwards
producing a popular horror movie host series (Dr. Macabre’s
Blood Theater) in which he played the ever failing, undeterred, mad
bloody scientist, Dr. Macabre. An Oklahoma native, Timothy now lives
on the stark high plains of southeastern Colorado. The Long Death of
Day is his first story published.

William Meikle
is a Scottish writer with fourteen novels
published in the genre press and over 250 short story credits in
thirteen countries. His work appears in many professional
anthologies. Recent work for Dark Regions Press includes THE CREEPING
KELP, SHERLOCK HOLMES: REVENANT, THE INVASION/THE VALLEY, and
CARNACK: HEAVEN AND HELL. He lives in a remote corner of Newfoundland
with icebergs, whales and bald eagles for company. In the winters he
gets warm vicariously through the lives of others in cyberspace, so
please check him out at http://www.williammeikle.com