Close to the Cure

by David

Jill tried to peel off the notice, but it seemed to be part of the door itself. She glanced back down the corridor. Te’laksu was not in sight. She thumbed the ID pad and went in.

“What’s wrong!” Shep jumped off the couch and crossed the small room in a moment. His body felt good, really good, but Jill disengaged after a few seconds and held him back by the shoulders.

“I’m so happy to see you?”

“You haven’t been out.” Her lip trembled.

Shep pushed past her. When he came back in he was fighting tears.

“I tried to get it off, too,” she said, sighing.

“I didn’t hear anyone! I wouldn’t have let anyone touch our door.” He paced back and forth, shoulders tense and head down. “They don’t have any right! We’re legal!”

Jill pulled him to her. She shut her eyes and ran her fingers up and down through the short soft fur on his back. “Nothing to do with you, Babe. Nothing at all. I got laid off. The T’lakash don’t need as many human subjects now they’re so close to finding the cause of the Anger Syndrome. They don’t need me.” He bared his teeth.

“Well, I do! We’ll have to move. Where will we go? Your Aunt Kitty doesn’t like me.”

“That’s vac,” she snapped. “We’ll think of something.”

The door slid open to reveal a biped whose arms formed a ring just above the middle of his torso. Each arm bore 6 blunt tentacles. His face looked like the ventral surface of an octopus.

“Te’laksu!” Shep barked.

“Your human has been rendered superfluous,” the government agent hissed.

“I can find another job!” Jill shouted, wrapping her arms around herself. Shep … growled, no other word for it. He stepped in front of her and stood almost nose-to-nose with the Subadministrator.

She couldn’t see Te’laksu well, but he made a sudden movement and Shep lunged. They went down, grappling in the doorway, but soon Shep rose to his feet, magenta fluid dripping from his chin. The T’lakashun sprawled in a growing magenta pool.

“Oh Shep!”

He spat something out and hung his head. She scowled, but couldn’t stay angry.

“Have to call Kitty now,” she said. Shep dragged the body into the room. The door slid shut.

End

Inheritance

by Angela Slatter

‘Miss Millikan?’

I can barely hear the woman for the noise in the background at her end. ‘Yes?’

‘It’s Nurse Seraph at Sacred Heart. It’s your grandmother.’

I feel the cold hollow in my stomach, where a vacuum forms. ‘Has she?’

‘Not yet, but you need to come down. The others are here and there’s a bit of a problem.’

‘What sort of a problem?’

‘You’ll see.’

The hospital isn’t far. I go on foot. The automatic doors are opening and closing erratically. Ghosts move back and forth just inside. I take a deep breath and walk through them. They’re cold and my clothes feel damp.

At the desk, a large nurse is trying to calm down a crowd of old ladies. She sees me, looks relieved. ‘Miss Millikan?’

I nod.

‘Thank God. She’s responsible for this.’ She gestures at the spectres. I recognise a couple from sepia-tinted family photos. Uncle Seth looks better dead than alive.

‘She’s just a little old lady,’ I lie.

‘She’s panicking my patients!’

‘Okay, okay.’

A great line of spirits keeps exiting Vina’s room, while she lies on the bed, comatose. My cousins stand around. Tansy sidles up to me, yellow eyes sly. ‘It’s coming out.’

Petyr says, ‘The Inheritance. It’s dissipating.’

Vala, Arthur, Jezebel and Elizabeth agree.

‘Well?’ I ask. ‘I don’t want it.’

‘We all have to be here for one to take it,’ sneers Arthur.

I stare down at the woman who raised us as harshly as she could. We grew up worse than hyenas; no love, no kindness. I don’t like them any more than I like her. I tell myself I don’t want her inheritance.

‘Take it, then, one of you,’ I say.

They look at each other, then Petyr reaches and my arm, seemingly of its own accord, shoots out and beats him. I clamp thumb and forefinger around her nostrils, and cup the other hand across her mouth and hold down tight.

She doesn’t struggle much. The silver wisps rise from her body slowly, then coalesce into a great silver arrow that shoots into my stomach and knocks me across the room. I cough silver smoke as I sit up.

All the ghosts troop back into the room and politely wait for me to stand. When I do, each steps into me and settles inside the repository of my body. I am the new well of souls.