Jakob Black-Thumb
by Luc Reid
A demon of pestilence and a demon of fear emerged from the rough road through the forest into the sleeping village. The demon of pestilence was called Jakob Black-Thumb, and the demon of fear preferred not to have a name.
“Why do you always go first?” rumbled Jakob. “Your thing isn’t even real.”
The demon of fear turned a cold glare on Jakob, and Jakob felt a familiar chill trickle down from the base of his horns to the tips of his talons.
“Well, I’m … I’m going over here now,” said Jakob, and he headed for a large house fronted with neat flowerboxes full of pink and blue pansies. He began looking for a rat to infect. Minutes later, he was interrupted by a scream.
Near where the fear demon lurked in the shadow of a doorway, a fire had broken out, and two men were struggling in the street, scrabbling for each other’s throats. That demon of fear was a fast worker.
The screamer was a young man, or a nearly-grown boy, and he was running through the hard-packed dust of the village street, straight toward the demon of fear. The boy had one of those monocles in his eye, the ones men made sometimes by imprisoning an executed murderer’s fleeing soul, and through this he apparently could see the demon of fear. What made no sense was why he was running toward it instead of away from it.
The demon of fear drew itself up and roared, its mouth distending into a slobbering, iron-toothed muzzle, its skin rippling with flames and unidentifiable, writhing masses. Jakob flinched involuntarily, and the boy screamed again, but he flung himself at the demon of fear and … hugged it.
Jakob would have liked to think it was a tackle or some kind of wrestling, but the boy wasn’t squeezing the demon hard, and he wasn’t trying to force it down: he simply wrapped his arms around it and hugged. Jakob’s gorge rose.
The demon of fear, defenseless against the hug, howled desperately as it broke into pieces, falling to the ground like chunks of a burned, rotten tree.
The boy wasn’t screaming any more: now he was breathing hard and gritting his teeth. His chest and arms were badly burned, but he still had the monocle and he had a fervent gleam in his eye. The men in the road stopped fighting. The boy smiled at Jakob.
Jakob ran.
Touch
by David
Darrell stumbled to the kitchen, desperately hoping there was coffee. There wasn’t. In desolation he put some water in a coffee cup and raised it to his lips. He downed three swallows of aromatic nectar of the bean before he remembered he’d expected water. He set the cup down with shaking hands. He sniffed. Yes, this was that ambrosia Prometheus had given to man.
The special: grits, eggs, and bacon (or sausage). A dollar less than eggs and bacon alone. So even though he didn’t eat grits, it was worth it. Today he asked for water instead of coffee.
“You flyin’ this morning?” Rashika said, “why else you don’t want coffee?”
“An experiment,” he replied. When she turned away he took a sip. He gulped the rest so she wouldn’t see the coffee. It was the perfect temperature.
“How was the experiment?”
“I’m makin’ it.”
Coke turned. Also, orange juice, milk, and vinegar, but not liquid paper. A shadow fell across him.
“Bored, Stevens? I can’t think of a better reason for drinking liquid paper. And if you ARE bored,” his boss continued, “I can find something for you.”
Darrell hastily screwed the lid back on.
“Back to work and quit fooling around.”
“Yes sir.”
By the time the apartment door closed behind him that night, Darrell had drunk so much converted coffee his hands were shaking. He wanted water, but it seemed that wasn’t going to happen. He started to examine the horse’s teeth in earnest and came up with some hair-raising questions.
Just what would happen if he cut himself and absentmindedly sucked on it? If he watered the bushes and drank from the hose would the entire municipal water supply go mocha? What if he got seawater in his mouth at the beach? Was kissing too close to drinking? How long could he live without water?
He could drink broth, it turned out, if he did it with a spoon, so he didn’t have to resort to intravenous fluids. The problem of kissing was only theoretical until he met Sara. Standing in line at the juice bar she struck up a conversation with him. One thing led to another. On the third date she grabbed him by the ears and took the kissing question out of his hands. She lived. She settled the ocean question by dunking him. Finally, he stopped at a drinking fountain and took the plunge. He had to know.
