Pulphouse Fiction Magazine Issue Fifteen: Pulphouse, #15

PULPHOUSE FICTION MAGAZINE

ISSUE FIFTEEN

Edited by

DEAN WESLEY SMITH

CONTENTS

From the Editor’s Desk

Dreaming of a Carboniferous Christmas

Robert Jeschonek

An Ideal Husband

Jerry and Kathy Oltion

Severed Ties

R.W. Wallace

Virtching Merry

Kent Patterson

Dead Drop

Louisa Swann

Cover Nuns

Barbara G. Tarn

Last Job

Rebecca M. Senese

Blood of Heroes

Ezekiel James Boston

The Magnolia Murders

O’Neil De Noux

The Not-So-Scientific Research of Dragons

Katharina Gerlach

Granny Law

Jason A. Adams

Lucy and the Underworld

Rob Vagle

The Ballad of Bob Dumpty

Annie Reed

No Pity Party

David H. Hendrickson

Emily Loves Christmas, Emily Loves Murder

Robert J. McCarter

A Blood-Soaked Christmas Wish

David Stier

Naughty Children

Mary McKenna

Father Christmas

J. Steven York

Spells for the Holidays

Ray Vukcevich

Nutball Season

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Minions at Work

J. Steven York

Subscriptions

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

A FUN SEASON

Turns out, through sheer scheduling luck, that when we brought Pulphouse Magazine back after the depths of the pandemic and decided to increase to six issues a year from our previous four, one of the regular issues just happened to fall into December.

The holiday season.

So over this last year I have been going through the stories I had in inventory from the long months of the pandemic and finding the ones that maybe had some holiday connection, or felt like a holiday story, or something.

I managed to get about half of the stories in this issue to have a holiday connection this first time around, plus I bought a few more from great writers who know how to write Pulphouse-type of stories.

Now granted, holiday stories in Pulphouse are not normal holiday stories. Very few of the stories in any issue of Pulphouse are normal. But then add in holiday themes and plots and tropes and the stories just really fly off the beam.

And I really like that, to be honest. As long as the story is a good, entertaining story and of high quality.

As in all Pulphouse issues, I pay no attention to genre. I buy for quality and that Pulphouse feel. So actually having a bunch of holiday stories is very different.

And kind of fun. I might do it next year as well.

So why am I even interested in holiday stories? First off, not just any holiday stories. I like Christmas stories the best. I do not care for Halloween or Valentine’s Day. I like to eat so Thanksgiving is fine, but not much of a reason to write stories.

But Christmas stories, often romance or twisted ones, are my favorites.

You know, feel-good fiction.

And after a long year of what we have all been through this year, some really fun Christmas stories can make me feel a ton better.

And in this volume we have fun ones, I promise. Nothing that could be made into a Hallmark or Lifetime movie. These stories are just way, way too twisted for Hallmark.

But still fun holiday reads mixed with just regular old Pulphouse twisted kinds of tales. I sure hope you enjoy this December issue as much as I did putting it together.

And trust me, that was a great deal of fun.

—Dean Wesley Smith

Las Vegas, Nevada

DREAMING OF A CARBONIFEROUS CHRISTMAS

ROBERT JESCHONEK

Robert Jeschonek continues his streak of being in every issue of this magazine. And since I was sort of rounding up holiday stories for this issue, I figured this wonderful and fun and slightly whacked-out story would be the perfect way to start the issue.

Robert’s stories have appeared in dozens of magazines and he has published dozens of novels as well. He has even worked for DC Comics and early in his career sold me a couple stories when I was editing for Star Trek at Pocket Books. He seems to be able to do it all. And to see all the amazing projects he has done, check out his website at https://www.robertjeschonek.com/

Imagine you’re standing around, minding your own business, and a dragonfly the size of an eagle lands on your back. Then the bug won’t let go no matter how much you jump around and swat it.

Welcome to my world.

Get off! Get off! I feel the breeze from the big bug’s wings as I fight to shake it off, to no avail. Its mouth pincers go clickety clickety clack as it crawls and flaps, digging at my sharkskin tunic in a wild hunt for dinner.

Panic surges like a flash-fire within me, then subsides. I’ve had these bugs on me before; I already know what to do.

Flinging myself back, I land in the mud with a splat, bug-side down. I feel it buzz and thrash against my flesh as I roll back and forth, crushing it under my weight.

Sitting up, I look back and see the monster dragonfly twitch violently, then stop moving. Its giant, diaphanous wings lay spread in the reddish mud, pressed into the indentation left by my body.

Will its death change the future? Three hundred and ten million years from now, will the twenty-first century cease to be the world I remember, the one in which I grew up? Will humanity as I knew it cease to exist?

It’s something we don’t worry about much here in the Carboniferous Period. Our chief concerns are more related to immediate survival. We do what’s necessary to stay alive in the minute-by-minute.

Let the damn future take care of itself.

Dad! Hey, Dad! The voice of my daughter, Marlie, approaches fast through the swamp, accompanied by the sound of her feet splashing in the muck. Come quick! You gotta see this!

Her pretty fifteen-year-old face, framed by strands of bright blond hair that have strayed from her ponytail, bursts from between the scaly trees. Her pale blue eyes are wide with surprise, alarm, or both.

See what? Instantly concerned, I push myself to my feet, shucking the worst of the mud from my tunic and amphibian-hide britches. Living when and where we do, the shit is constantly hitting the fan.

Hurry! With a summoning wave, she whips around, her reptile-leather dress flapping against her knees. It’s at Mr. McVicker’s house! she shouts as she sprints off through the forest.

Heart racing, I grab the flint knife from my millipede-skin belt and follow. Every threat can lead to disaster here, and every second counts. If you’re not ready—or even if you are—you can lose a loved one forever in the blink of an eye. Marlie and I know all about that; I lost my wife—her mother—to just such an incident years ago.

Dodging brush and bugs, we weave among the trees like the experts we are. I might be forty-seven years old, but I’m fit as hell after living in this grueling ancient past for seventeen years.

A big gray amphibian lurches up from the mud in our path, its jagged maw heaving open—and both of us sidestep the beast with graceful ease. Running the Carboniferous swamps comes with the territory when you’ve lived here so long—or, like Marlie, you were born to it.

Here! Marlie crashes through a patch of ferns and splashes to a stop. "Look at this place!"

As I pull up beside her, wiping the sweat from my face, my eyes flash wide open, too. I know George McVicker’s place well, of course—it’s on the outskirts of our village—but I’ve never seen it like this before.

The hut is covered with decorations. Colorful shells from the nearby sea are laid around the conical thatched roof, gleaming in the morning sunlight. Dried trilobites dangle like windchimes from the fringe of the roof, clattering in the light breeze. Fruits and berries are strung around the walls, arranged in alternating reds, pinks, yellows, and purples.

But perhaps the most shocking part of the display is on the ground in front of the hut. Marlie runs right to it and stands there, pointing and scowling.

She has never seen anything like that.

What is it, Dad? she asks. "And what’s Cha…rist…mass?" That’s how she pronounces it.

I see the words spelled out in white clamshells on a flat rock. The objects behind them, carved out of wood, are each a foot or so tall, clearly meant to look like human figures.

The figures depict a scene I recognize quite well: a man, a woman, and a baby in a crib between them.

Merry Christmas. That’s what the words say. Merry Christmas.

Presented in plain sight for the first time in the history of the planet Earth.

Well ho, ho, ho. Those are the first words out of Jennie Rosas’ mouth when she ambles up to the scene on her way to somewhere else. ’Tis the season, huh?

I scrub my fingers through my curly salt-and-pepper hair and shoot her a nasty look. Seventeen years in a prehistoric swamp, and she still doesn’t know how or when to keep her trap shut.

Isn’t anybody home? Jennie, the local botanist, straightens her dress—a silver-gray shift woven from the silk of giant spiderlike arthropods—and starts toward the hut. "Where are the damn dogs? I’ve never heard this place so quiet before."

I shrug as I start after her. Beats me. She’s talking about George’s trained amphibian pets—frog-dogs, he calls them—the closest you can get to an actual dog in this mammal-free era. Our resident zoologist, George, has always had a flair for connecting with wildlife.

"George! Jennie calls loudly. Are you in there?"

He’s not! Excitedly, Marlie darts in front of her, back to the hut. "But you have to see what is."

I dread what I’m going to see as we follow her through the doorway. All this time, all her life, we’ve protected her and the other kids from what we left behind in the future on our trip to the ancient past. Now, all of a sudden, George has thrown open Pandora’s Box, putting everyone in a shitful position—the kid because of what she’s seen…

…and the adults because of the lies we’ve been telling.

There, look! Marlie’s so jazzed, I worry she might explode. Presents!

Sure enough, a pile of objects wrapped in mottled brown paper (which we learned long ago to make from the bark of the scale trees) occupies the middle of the hut. The packages vary in size, and each is tied with twine from a hemplike plant.

Not to mention, each has a person’s name on it, scrawled in purple berry-based ink.

Damn, mutters Jennie. And here I didn’t get him a thing.

Marlie darts over and grabs one with her name on it from the peak of the pile. Can I open mine? Please? Please?

She’s gotten presents before, but never under these uncertain circumstances. Not just yet, honey. I take the gift from her and give it a shake. I feel something heavy bumping around inside, though I can’t tell exactly what it is. Mr. McVicker might not want anyone to open them yet.

"But he didn’t say not to," says Marlie.

"He didn’t say anything. Jennie gives her long black hair a toss and meets my gaze. Did he?"

Not to me. I replace Marlie’s gift atop the pile and look around. George has the inside of the place decorated, too, hung with tree boughs, dragonfly wings, and wreaths woven from dried fruits and flowers.

Then there’s the pièce de résistance, tacked to the central support post at eye level—the first of its kind, as far as I know, here in the age of endless swamps and giant bugs.

A rough-hewn cross made of two wooden slats.

George has been a busy boy, hasn’t he? Jennie looks at the cross with a mix of disapproval and amusement. Did you know he was so artistically inclined, Cal?

The edge in her voice isn’t far from my own. It’s news to me, Jen. I’d be surprised if we aren’t both thinking the same two things right now: George is a bigger asshole than we thought for pulling this shit…

…and where the hell is he?

"How long until the holy wars start? Those aren’t quite the first words out of the mouth of Ethan Perkins, our de facto leader, but they’re close. Bring on the religious persecution!"

Six of us—the Founders Council—are meeting to talk about George McVicker in the Quonset, a wooden longhouse built on the slightly less soggy ground on a low hill in the middle of the village. What he did is that big a deal, a violation of the basic tenets of our settlement.

Though not everyone sees it exactly that way. Easy on the overreaction there, chief, says Jennie Rosas. The kids don’t even know what any of it means.

But they will soon enough, snaps Ethan, a major league pessimist as well as a first-class geologist. "Next thing you know, they’ll be burning heretics at the stake."

He’s speaking figuratively, of course. Setting fires is pretty much a death sentence in the Carboniferous Period, since the oxygen content of the air is so much higher than it was in our native era. A single spark can set off a raging inferno, so a burning heretic could really light things up.

It’s like an infection. Ethan paws at his shaggy brown beard, which is streaked with gray these days. You can’t stop it once it starts spreading.

You’re preaching to the choir. Jennie smirks. Pardon the expression.

We’ve been in agreement on prohibition from the beginning, says Hugh Singer, his smooth, dark face beaded with sweat. "All the Founders have. So when and why did George go off the rails?"

Hallucinations from oxygen intoxication? I speak from experience; as acclimated to the high-oxygen prehistoric atmosphere as we’ve become, none of us are immune. As the group’s physician, I’ve seen more cases than I can remember through the years, including my own. Maybe he thought God came to him in the form of a giant millipede?

"Or maybe he just got nostalgic. It’s no surprise Bill Ward speaks up in George’s defense. They’ve been best friends forever. Tell me you don’t get sick of the giant cockroaches and dragonflies sometimes. Tell me you don’t wish for a little Christmas now and then."

Ethan slams his fist on the table. "And the next thing you know, it’s the Spanish Inquisition, and the Crusades, and 9/11, and priests molesting kids, etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum!"

Then we scrub off the serial numbers, says Bill. When the kids ask, we stick with the secular aspects of the holiday.

Ya think so? Jennie gives her dark hair a toss. "I, for one, am totally up for explaining the whole story. The crucifixion, especially. I can’t wait to lay the concept of murder on those munchkins."

I nod in agreement. Not to mention the part about how we shielded them from such a huge part of human history.

Secular it is, says Ethan. Minimize the infection.

Sounds like a plan, says Hugh. As long as we keep a united front.

"That’s why you’re going to find George. Ethan points at me, then Jennie. Make sure he’s not on a mission from God."

Or Satan, says Hugh.

"Which, interestingly enough, is an anagram of Santa," says Jennie.

Which doesn’t surprise me a bit, says Ethan. "Christmas is harmless, my ass."

Christmas was never a big deal to me, even back home in the late twenty-first century. I still remember my last one, though, for obvious reasons.

The world was falling apart around me, around all of us, raging with one catastrophe after another. I was working in a field hospital in a war zone (though pretty much everywhere was a war zone, in those days), and the patients kept rolling in through the night. The best I could manage for a Christmas celebration was a slug of Pruno hootch between amputations, glaring at a scrawny little twig with a pornographic ornament dangling from the tip.

I remember it so well because that was when I got the call on the satellite phone. I’d been handpicked for a new mission, the woman said, and excused from my field surgical duties effective immediately.

The mission was beyond anything I could ever have expected. The secret of time travel had been unraveled; a select few experts in critical fields would escape the end of the world and start over in the distant past. All we had to do was take care of our fellow travelers—the billionaires funding the project.

Who could say no to that? They were some of the same billionaires whose greedy excesses had wrecked the environment and fueled the wars, but their offer was still a genuine golden ticket. It was the ultimate Christmas present, trading a definite living hell for a possible Garden of Eden.

Though it turned out the billionaires who’d offered the gift were more than capable of making life a living hell wherever or whenever they landed.

How do you track a man through a Carboniferous swamp? You get lucky.

Luck is about 99% of it, in fact. The marshy ground fills in footsteps as soon as they’re made and swallows up dropped evidence in a heartbeat. The giant bugs and creatures gulp down traces left behind on twigs and jaggers, scouring every last morsel.

So the best I can think to do after leaving Marlie with Ethan and his wife is walk the treeline around George’s hut, looking for some kind of path. A way he might have cleared through frequent use and followed on whatever errand he chose to run after unveiling his holiday décor.

But it’s Jennie who has the breakthrough today. After going away for a little while, she returns to the area behind the hut, marching past me into a path I totally missed.

The local kids told me where to go, she explains over her shoulder. They’ve seen George sneak back here tons of times, though they never followed him very far.

I follow her down the trail, splashing along in my amphibian-skin boots. It hasn’t rained much lately, so the water isn’t much higher than our ankles…though who knows what pits and sinkholes that steady surface might conceal.

Not to mention the wildlife. Even after seventeen years, the menagerie of native beasts lurking in the swamps continues to surprise us. Let’s just say the fossil record did not exactly cover the whole ugly story.

So what do we do about Georgie Porgie when we catch up to him? Jennie asks over her shoulder. Throw him in the hoosegow for breaking the atheist code?

"Gotta build a hoosegow first." I step around a suspicious hump in the water, keeping my hand on the hilt of my flint knife just in case.

"How dare he take a dump on our godless paradise? Jennie chuckles as she pushes through a bunch of ferns. Jesus Christ!"

"That guy won’t exist for a couple hundred million years."

"So does any of this even matter, then? She looks back, bugging her eyes at me. Is it anything but a fairy tale at this point?"

More like science fiction.

"Then why do we care? Why are we out here?"

Good question. That’s what I say, but we both know better. We both remember why we left the far future. We were right in the thick of Armageddon, which, by the way, had nothing to do with holy wars…and everything to do with religion.

Because why should you try to stop the world from going to shit if the prophets say it’s a waste of time to even try? Because why should you try to save billions of lives if none of us bears any responsibility for anything and God will make it all right in the end?

Is it any wonder, given the chance to start over, that we left out that bit of civilization?

Here’s another question for you, says Jennie as she works her way through a grove of bristly horsetail trees. "When shit gets nasty, do you ever pray?"

No. It’s a lie, and I’ll bet she knows it. How could I not have prayed when my wife, Abbie, was dying? How could I not have tried everything to hold on to her as the spider venom took her down?

Jennie stops and turns, tipping her head to one side. "But don’t you ever feel like God’s still around? Like He’s closer, somehow? Maybe because creation is still so young and primitive?"

I wipe the sweat from my brow. Why? Do you?

Jennie laughs. "Oh hell no!" And then she continues on her way.