Exceptions To Reality Part 8

He whirled on her, but the look on his face was so piteous it wholly mitigated the sharpness of his gesture and she was not afraid, did not pull away. "Studied me? And prodded and probed and poked and a.n.a.lyzed and took tissue samples to culture?" He made scissoring motions with the middle and index finger of his right hand. "Snip, snip-another nip for the lab. Think they'd ever let me go? No. Too 'valuable' to medical science, they'd label it. 'Matter of national security,' the spin would say." Angrily he pushed the washcloth over his plate. "No thanks. I'll live with it," he finished sardonically.

Her hand fell from his shoulder. "It can't be much of a life, Joel."

This time when he looked up it was to stare out the window. "See that?" He nodded at the view, sun-washed but uninspired. "Ever take the time to notice how beautiful it is? Cracked paint, sunlight, blue sky, the fog trying to push its way through the Gate. Kids playing on the street, houseplants flourishing on window-sills, sticks and stones and unbroken bones and words can never hurt me because I've got nothing to lose. Ordinary stuff. Trite things. You know, there is wonder in triteness. I remember reading an old aphorism, 'Live each day as if it was your last.'" He turned around to meet her gaze. "That's no aphorism, Marjorie. That's me. Joel Farrell. That's my life."

Motion caught her eye. A pigeon was settling on the projecting brick of the condominium building next to hers. Pigeons did that all the time. She just never really noticed. Leaning back against the sink counter, she impacted his field of view. He was almost finished with the dishes anyway.

"Dinner and a movie sounds great." She hesitated, then decided it was foolish to try to dance around the issue that had and would continue to dominate their relationship. "You'll have-enough time?"

His grin was brighter than the June sunshine that was steadily intensifying outside. "I have all the time in the world."

She'd never met anyone like him. Sure, it was a cliche. In the case of Joel Farrell, it just happened to be true. He was warm and funny and considerate and thoughtful. The computer search service he ran out of his home marked him as a man of intelligence, and his taste in day trips-museums, exhibitions, wildlife cruises, concerts of every imaginable type of music-marked him as an intellect. He was well, even widely, read, and could quote poetry, plays, and film with equal facility. Every time she thought he had revealed all of himself, he surprised her with something new. Joel Farrell had more sides than a hexagon, something he explained to her at the Exploratorium. Each of them shone, each was polished to a high sheen. He was wonderful to be around, and since he had deliberately chosen to cultivate many casual but no close friends, she had him mostly to herself.

Except late at night and early in the morning, when death claimed him for its own.

"Doesn't it hurt?" After several weeks of dating she had finally screwed up enough courage to spend the night at his place and observe the inevitable. She had lain there in bed next to him, her head propped up on one hand and elbow, and had watched as he twitched and grimaced until his eyes closed, his voice stilled, and his heart stopped. The last thing he had said before dying was "Marjorie-don't worry.

"Don't worry. I'll see you in the morning. Nothing to concern yourself about. I'm only going to die." And he did.

She was sure she would not be able to sleep. But he looked so peaceful lying there, not moving, not breathing. Astonishing herself, she drifted off around two thirty. The emotional tension must have exhausted her, she decided later. How else to explain enjoying a good if brief night's sleep alongside a dead man?

When she awoke, startling herself awake with remembrance, he was making breakfast for her again. Not bacon and eggs this time. Unlike her own provincial cupboard, his larder gave birth to eggs Savoyard and chive hash browns with sour cream. She was sure she had gained at least five pounds since she had started going out with him, and that despite having to eat early every night. As for Joel, he never put on an ounce. Nothing like being dead, he had joked darkly, to keep off the extra weight.

"Sure it hurts." He was checking on the poached eggs. "Whoever said dying doesn't hurt never tried it themselves." He shrugged, working beater and pan, concocting sauces. "Sometimes I feel like the guys who handle poisonous snakes for a living. After a couple dozen, or a hundred, bites you acquire some immunity to the toxins. The bite itself still hurts, but you don't die. Lucky b.a.s.t.a.r.ds." The two sauces were almost ready.

She nodded, and decided to wait until after they had finished eating to tell him that she was in love with him. He did not take it well.

"You can't be in love with me, Marjorie."

It was Sat.u.r.day and they lay out on his porch, soaking up both the sun and the spectacular view of the bay from his apartment. Across the water eclectic house-boats gleamed Tom Sawyer white in the treed crotch of Sausalito. Alcatraz was a rough gray diamond set in a diadem of gray-green, and cargo container ships piled high with the amputated abdomens of eighteen-wheelers plied the watery boulevard between Oakland and Manila, Richmond and Seoul, San Francisco and Hong Kong.

"Tell that to my heart." Reaching over from her lounger, she put her hand on his bare arm.

"Your hormones, you mean."

The hand twitched but stayed. "That was cruel, Joel."

He turned over to face her, and the desperation in his eyes was underlined by the raw emotion in his voice. "Oh G.o.d, I'm sorry, Marjorie! I didn't mean that. I wouldn't hurt you for the world." His fingers stroked her cheek, her neck, the sweat-beaded hollow between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. They were trembling. "I-I can't love you back. You know that. I can't fall in love with anybody. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be fair fair."

She smiled hopefully at him, not sure how to proceed or what road to take or where to go: only knowing that go there she must. "Why don't you let me be the judge of that? I love you, Joel."

He rolled back onto the other lounger. "Don't you think I've thought about having a woman say that to me? Much less someone as beautiful and sweet as you. I'm almost forty and I've done everything possible to avoid it."

She kept her tone as gentle and rea.s.suring as possible. "Then you shouldn't have died on my couch."

Lips pressed tightly together, he was shaking his head. "It just wouldn't be fair. What kind of a life would we have, me dying every night, you not knowing if the next morning would be the one when I didn't wake up? How would we explain it to our kids? What if my condition has something to do with some freak genetic mutation? What if it can be pa.s.sed on?" A hand came down hard and angry on the white plastic of the lounge. "Whatever the d.a.m.n thing is, when I die for the last time, when I don't wake up, I want to be sure it dies with me."

Unfolding herself from her lounge, she lay down next to him, hearing the metal and plastic complain, feeling the sun-sweat of their bodies mingle and flow together. Her arm fell lazily across his chest to lie there rea.s.suringly. "Joel Farrell, you're a better man dead than most of the men I know who are alive. If I'm willing to take a chance on a life together, why can't you?"

She didn't know if he sustained the kiss that followed out of pure pa.s.sion or a need to give himself time to think of an appropriate response. Frankly she didn't care.

"I'll think about it, Marjorie. That's all I can promise."

"Then that's enough-for now." Turning in his strong, tanned arms, she gazed out and down at the glorious bay. Though she had lived in San Francisco all her life, it had always been just "the bay." Now it was much more, so very much more, thanks to him. Just as everything was so much more. She sighed and closed her eyes, thinking and feeling and hearing as she never had before in her life.

When she found the note in her mailbox the next week, her screams brought Carol running from down the hall. When pounding on her friend's door failed to elicit a response from within, the other woman swiftly used her copy of the key.

Bursting in, she saw Marjorie sitting on the old couch, clutching a crumpled piece of paper in one hand and holding the other over her mouth. It did not come close to stifling her uncontrollable sobs.

"Marjorie-Christ, what's the matter?"

"He's gone! Joel's gone!"

Sitting down alongside her friend, Carol put an arm around her shoulders and drew her close. "The guy you've been telling me about for months? What do you mean, 'he's gone'? Did something happen? Was he called away on work? Did he-is he-dead?"

'Marjorie's sob froze in mid-rack as she gaped abruptly at her friend. When she began to laugh, that's when Carol grew really worried.

"Right, that's it," she said in clipped tones. "Come on, I'm taking you to a doctor."

"No, no!" Forcing herself to mute the wailing mixture of laughter and sobs, Marjorie used both hands to gently but firmly draw her friend back down onto the couch. "You don't understand. What you said-" She broke off, choking slightly, afraid the laughter would become uncontrollable and might degenerate into hysteria. She held out the crumpled, handwritten note. Carol took it and glanced down.

"He has beautiful handwriting, this guy."

"I know." Marjorie did not try to wipe her face, preferring to let the tears dry on her cheeks, a thin crust of salt. "Everything about him is beautiful."

Carol read. "He says he loves you more than any woman, more than any person he's ever known. That you mean more to him than anything in this or any other world. That he wants nothing more than to hold you in his arms and whisper his love to you forever. And that's why he's leaving San Francisco, and you." She put the note down. Carol was not hard, but she was a woman who brooked no nonsense. "This is a crock, Marj. A typical Dear Jenny letter if I ever heard one. I think you're well rid of the guy."

"No, you don't understand!" Reaching out, Marjorie took the note in shaky fingers. "n.o.body understands."

"All right." Sitting back on the couch, the other woman crossed her arms and waited patiently. "Explain it to me."

Her friend looked down at her lap. "I-I can't. You wouldn't believe me. And Joel wouldn't want me to."

Carol was not shy of gestures. "The son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h walks out on you without so much as a good-bye kiss, and you're worried about what he he wants?" She shook her head, disgust plain on her face. "What's with this guy? I thought you said he was perfect." wants?" She shook her head, disgust plain on her face. "What's with this guy? I thought you said he was perfect."

"No." Finding a tissue, Marjorie reluctantly began to dab at her eyes. "I never said he was perfect. He'd be the last person on Earth to think that about himself."

"I would hope so. Ah, s.h.i.t." Reaching out with both arms, she pulled Marjorie to her and let her cry herself out. Later, much later, they were finally able to talk.

"What are you going to do about it?" Carol was missing work, but she didn't care. Her friend came first. "Me, I'd forget about him. Starting right now."

"I can't." Marjorie's reply was barely audible. She looked miserable.

"What is this guy, the only man in the world? Is he rich?"

"No."

Carol persisted. "Movie-star handsome? Gigolo-great in bed? n.o.bel Prize material?"

"No."

"Then what? What makes him so special?"

Marjorie looked up at her friend. "I know it sounds corny, Carol, but he was alive. More than alive. He knew, like n.o.body else I ever met, maybe like n.o.body else who ever was, what being alive means. It was something special, and he shared it with me, every time, every day, every minute we were together. He showed me what life is really about."

Her friend pondered, then sipped from her cup. "I'm alive. You're alive. So what. It's nothing special."

Marjorie's reply was unintentionally condescending. "I told you you wouldn't understand. Don't feel bad. Neither would anyone else. Not without knowing Joel."

"Okay, okay." Carol put her cup down on the burl-wood coffee table, careful to set it on a coaster. "What are you going to do now? Any idea where he's gone to?"

Marjorie shook her head. "He wouldn't leave hints or clues. If he wants to lose himself, he knows how to do it. I thought about hiring a detective agency to look for him, or reporting him as missing to the police, or telling the Red Cross that I had to contact him because of an emergency, but it would just be a waste of time. I know Joel. If he wants to be gone, then he's gone."

Carol's tone was thick with concern for her friend. "I hate seeing you like this, Marjorie."

She shrugged. "I hate being like this. It's kind of like-like dying a little."

Now her friend was more than concerned; she was alarmed. "You're not thinking of doing anything crazy, are you? Because if you are, I'm not leaving this apartment. Work can go take a flying-"

"No, Carol." Marjorie mustered a forced smile. "I'd never do that. No matter what. That's something else Joel taught me." She inhaled deeply. "Doesn't it smell wonderful?"

Carol frowned. "What, the coffee? It's okay, but..."

"No, not the coffee. Life."

The other woman sighed tiredly. "Life doesn't 'smell.'"

Her friend looked her straight in the eye. "You didn't know Joel Farrell."

Five months went by, and then he was there. Just like that. At her door one Thursday evening, when he was sure she would be home. They didn't say anything for a very long time. Then she threw herself at him hard, with deliberate force, so that he would have to either put his arms around her or be knocked to the ground. Eventually they went inside.

"You rotten b.a.s.t.a.r.d," she muttered lovingly. "Why'd you come back?"

He shrugged, his expression half-irresistible boyish grin, half barely contained inner torment. "I needed a place to die."

"Funny man. Oh, what a funny, funny man you are." She didn't know whether to smile or slap him.

He saved her the trouble of deciding. Putting his arm around her, he walked her toward the tiny kitchen where once he had methodically washed cheap dishes. "When I died, it was thinking of you. Since that happens every night, I finally decided I had no choice but to come back." His tone was serious. Dead serious. "If you still want me back, after what I did."

She tried to make light of it. That was her nature. Inside she was joy and jelly. "So you went away for a while, to think things over. You took a vacation. I can handle that. I guess if I want you back, I have to." Her fingers played on his chest as he opened the door to the tiny porch and they walked outside. The autumn night was cold and brittle, invigorating and full of new life. "I mean, it's not like you died or something." She put her hand on his face, caressing the stubbly skin. "I guess nothing-has changed?"

He shook his head slowly. "Nothing has changed. I didn't tell you-one of the reasons I left was because I was afraid, after that night when you found me in the street, that I might start dying sooner. Earlier. That it might become a regular thing or even become worse. That I might start dying at six o'clock or five or three in the afternoon. I needed to check that out before I could even think of doing anything about-us."

Her heart was pounding. "And did you? Do you?"

His smile was a recurrent miracle that she had never thought to see again. "No. I had a couple more seven o'clock episodes, but other than that I'm still usually good until after ten. Nine thirty at the worst."

She nodded. "I can live with that, too. If you can." Tears were streaming down her face, completely soaking her good blue blouse. She didn't care. About that or anything else.

"Then you'll take me back?" The sense of hope rising in his voice pierced her heart like a long needle. "You still want me? If you do, if you will-Marjorie, I swear to G.o.d I'll never leave you again, ever. I'll do anything for you. Anything and everything. Please, let me do everything for you. Money, travel, cooking, laundry, I'll give you everything if you'll just take me back. I'll do anything. Just name it." He put a hand on either side of her face, cupping her cheeks, framing her smile and her tears. They were glorious, phenomenal, astonishing. As was everything about her, and the world they found themselves in. "I'll even die for you."

She was crying uncontrollably as she threw her arms around his neck and drew him close. Crying and laughing at the same time.

"You'll have to do better than that," she sobbed.

A Fatal Exception Has Occurred at...

As I have mentioned previously, the first story I ever sold (though not the first one to appear in print) was "Some Notes Concerning a Green Box." This was a Lovecraftian pastiche done in the style of a letter to Arkham House's founder and editor, August Derleth. I never expected it to see print as a story, yet that's what happened. Its purchase by Derleth taught me a valuable lesson. Write for yourself, write what pleases you, and do not write simply to appeal to a perceived market.

I never stopped loving Lovecraft. When I was young, his leavening of gothic horror with a soupcon of science was the only fiction that caused me to cast furtive glances at night in the direction of darkened windows. I even taught at UCLA a graduate literature seminar in Lovecraft's works. Many years went by, and many words, during which time I wrote only one other very early tale set in Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.

Then editor John Pelan came calling with an invitation to compose a new Mythos story for an anthology of same that he was putting together for Del Rey Books. The Children of Cthulhu, The Children of Cthulhu, it was called. Aside from the obvious opportunity to write about unnamable cephalopodian offspring (the t.i.tle "Cthulhu's Nursery" sprang to mind-and was as swiftly discarded), I wondered how to bring the Mythos out of the dark alleys of towns like Dunwich and Innsmouth and into the present day. Besides, I've never been to either malevolent community (does the new eminent domainurban renewal law apply to Innsmouth?) and would not be able to describe them (or even Boston) with proper justice. it was called. Aside from the obvious opportunity to write about unnamable cephalopodian offspring (the t.i.tle "Cthulhu's Nursery" sprang to mind-and was as swiftly discarded), I wondered how to bring the Mythos out of the dark alleys of towns like Dunwich and Innsmouth and into the present day. Besides, I've never been to either malevolent community (does the new eminent domainurban renewal law apply to Innsmouth?) and would not be able to describe them (or even Boston) with proper justice.

I was becoming more and more familiar with another aspect of contemporary culture, however, and thought its own arcane argot and evolving mythology might make a nice fit with the Mythos, if only I could figure out a way to make it work as a story.

The answer lay in the mutual mouthing of horrific curses. Both Lovecraft's Mythos and that of Microsoft possess, and are possessed by, their own singular liturgy of eldritch moans and eerie execrations. Believe me, if I thought lifting my bloodstained arms to the skies and thrice chanting "Ia, Ia, Shub-Niggurath, ftaghn!" would keep MS Word from crashing before automatic save engaged to protect heartfelt work otherwise lost, I would readily do so...

"He's going to post post what what?"

Hayes looked up from his handheld. He had known from the beginning that this was going to be tough to explain. Now that he actually found himself in the conference room with the others, the true difficulty of it was more apparent than ever. Nonetheless he not only had to try, he had to convince them of the seriousness of the situation.

Outside, the sun was shining through a dusky scrim of clouds: a perfect Virginia autumn day. The trees were as saturated with color as high-priced film, the creeks were meandering rather than running, and he would have preferred to be anywhere other than in the room. Unfortunately there was the minor matter of a job. It was a good job, his was, and he wanted to keep it. Even if it meant commuting to Quantico from the woodsy homestead he shared with his wife and two kids.

The men and women seated at the table were sensible folk. Practical, rational, intelligent. How was he going to explain the situation to them? Aware that the silence that had followed Morrison's query was gathering size and strength like a quiet thunderhead, he decided he might as well plunge onward.

"The Necronomicon," he explained. "Online. All of it. Unless the government of the United States agrees to pay ten million dollars into a specified Swiss bank account by midnight tomorrow."

"That's not much time." Marion Tiffin fiddled with her gla.s.ses, which irrespective of the style of the day always seemed to be sliding off her nose.

Voice low and threatening, Morrison leaned forward over the table. "What, pray tell, is this 'Necronomicon,' and why should we give one of the hundreds of nutso hackers this Section deals with every month ten dollars not to post it online, much less ten million?"

Hayes fought to hold his ground, intellectual as well as physical. He might as well, he knew. There was no place else to go. "It's a legendary volume of esoteric lore, thought for many years to be the fictional invention of a writer from Providence."

"Providence as in Heaven or Providence as in Rhode Island?" Spitzer wanted to know. Spitzer was the biggest man in the room. By the physical conditioning standards of the Bureau, he ought to have been let go twenty years ago. That had not happened because he was recognizably smarter than almost everyone else. It was Spitzer who had solved the White River murders six years ago, and Spitzer who had deduced the psychological pattern that had allowed the Bureau to claim credit for catching the Cleveland serial child killer Frank Coleman. So his girth was conveniently ignored when the time came, as it inevitably did, to update personnel files.

"The state," Hayes replied flatly. It was no good getting into a battle of wits with Spitzer. You'd lose.

Chief Agent Morrison leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. His bristly blond hair looked stiff enough to remove paint. "I'm surprised at you, Hayes. Unless you're doing this to try to lighten the mood. Otherwise I think your story makes a good item for the tabloid files."

"No." This was even harder than Hayes had imagined it was going to be. "It's a genuine threat, not a crank call. Don't you think I'd check it out before bringing it up here for discussion? Give me five minutes."

Morrison glanced absently at his watch. "Okay-but only if you make it fun."