Creepy 13

By C. M. Marcum

"Trash" An old man and his mute wife find a dead girl at the city dump, but they're in for a big surprise when the body turns out to be not so dead and not so girly.
"Galaxy Real Estate" Two hungry aliens travel across the universe in a rented spaceship to make a deal for Earth. One is a carnivore; the other is a vegetarian, but who will win possession of the planet?

"Life" A poor farmer desperately wants to cheat death, but can anyone really cheat death? The future is not exactly what he expects when he ends up in a government funded cryonics study?

"Deleting Divorce" The proverbial happy bachelor just wants to make it to the next paycheck, but his controlling and lovesick computer has other ideas.

"The Sybil Gale" An elderly sailor wants to dock his ship at the nearest space station, but he must choose between the past and the future, and that's only after he wakes up to find a dead crew, plague and an alien infestation.

“Last Historical Footnote” Uh-oh, the world ends again.

“He Said, She Says” Two sides of the same story. One from the victim, and the other from the victim. Yes, I said victim on both.

“Worshipping Lilith” What would happen if only the men turned into Zombies?

“The Grid of Life” What will the gods do when mankind is gone?

“Not in My House” OMG, talk about extreme body modification. What will Dad say?

“Tomorrow Does Not Exist” Meet a super freak with a paintbrush.

“Remembering Henry” Alzheimer scares me, does it scare you?

“Flying Potion” Someone is looking for some very specific ingredients, and they don’t care how they get them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. M. Marcum
• Release date: Oct 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465819482

C. M. Marcum

I am in each of my stories. Look for me there, hiding in the shadows. Part hero, part villain, I’m always read to take a plot to the extreme, to question the universe on things small and large, and to speculate about the worst and best case scenario of ‘what if.’ I have a background in journalism, one story published in Liquid Imagination and one in Alienskin. As an editor, I’m a tool. As a person, I’m pragmatic. As a friend, I’m quite funny. As a writer, I’m a loner by nature, but have no trouble interviewing Johnny Hobo or Mister Success. I write the stories that come to me, mixed genre they may be. Sorry, I just can’t decide what I want to be when I grow up.

Book preview

Creepy Thirteen

by C.M. Marcum

Copyright 2011

C.M. Marcum

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition

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Table of Contents

Trashy Ways

Galaxy Real Estate

Life Ain’t Always Good

Deleting Divorce

The Sybil Gail

Last Historical Footnote

Worshipping Lilith

The Grid of Life

Not in My House

Tomorrow Does Not Exist

Remembering Henry

Flying Potion

Trashy Ways

by

C.M. Marcum

The old man curried his new found thing, brushing bits of damp paper and dirt from its edges. Using a broken piece of magnifying glass and holding it up to the morning light, he could see eight, tiny computer chips—no bigger than nit eggs, except lice didn’t come with red grid lines and they didn’t line-up in precise and opposing rows on all four sides. Multicolored wires dangled from a fist sized bag that reminded him of a wee vacuum cleaner. Its purpose eluded him, at the moment, but he didn’t need an engineer’s license to recognize high-tech gadgetry.

These kinds of bits and bobs always fetched a few credits, he assured his completely faithful and completely imaginary wife of fifteen years. He tucked this strange bounty into a wicker basket that he kept for special objects and stashed the whole thing under the metal seat of his grocery cart, so that it wouldn’t get squashed by all the aluminum cans and glass bottles that he was sure to collect on his treasure hunt through the garbage.

Pay dirt, he told Louise, a woman of admirable patience.

The gizmo, whatever it was, would fetch enough to support them for a month, but he knew that junkyard prizes often came like veins of gold in a mine. Surely, there was more treasure to be found in the near vicinity. Poking at a mountain of trash with his trusty, fold-away spade, he dislodged a chunk of newspapers and several globs of rotten food, when he spied the corner of a blue tarp. In the junk trade there was nothing better than tarp to keep a man warm and dry. He owned a decent hut himself, but there were many tramps who’d trade well for such a find.

Edging the tip of his spade into the top two feet of the trash pile and well above the plastic material, he braced his legs and pried. On the third heave, with his feet several inches off the ground, the top of the mountain disintegrated, raining down rubble over his steel toed boots. After conquering the top tier of this synthetic stack, he took a moment to recoup some of his strength by resting his hands upon his knees and gulping air. Bent over, as he was, he could see eggshells peppering the cracks between his bootlaces. Goopy egg-white made the best natural glue in the world. Hidden behind a veil of grey hair, the old man allowed himself a silent curse. He’d never taint his wife’s delicate ears with the smudge of profanity, but he’d be flecking splintered shell shards and bird ovum off his shoes for weeks. Such troubles called for an emotional release. He rested a might longer and mimed a string of obscenities, before rising up—with a much better attitude—to study his handiwork.

Only a few inches of muck hid the bulk of his prize now. Ordinarily, he’d shift the material with care, but he didn’t have time for that; a quick estimate of the coverlet’s bright color and undamaged edges put it in good condition. Another tramp might rise early and decide to fight him for such a claim, and he wasn’t as young or as feisty as he use to be. He chipped away at the edges, using the blunt side of his spade with a little more urgency.

An object of considerable weigh and oblong shape was still tacoed inside the tarp and holding it firmly in place. With both hands he grasped the edges of the tarp, braced his legs and pulled, until the whole kit and caboodle landed at his feet with a heavy whop and a gale of dust. Immediately, he closed his eyes, his mouth and pinched his nose, until the plumes of dirt began to settle.

You all right, Louise? he asked, allowing a concerned grin to spread across his sun baked face—a needless question, since Louise was always fleet-of-foot, blessedly mute, and impervious to dirt. Louise would never so much as frown at him, but it was important to show her that he cared.

He squatted down to open his new found goody, and instinctively flinched backward when he got a good look. Another dead body. Another missing citizen of upscale society, discarded at the city dump. He’d called the cops so many times about secreted corpses that the Dispatcher had named a code after him: 187: See King of Trash, Westside. Normally, he didn’t like to mess with the cops and certainly would never call them for anything less than murder. The Po-Po asked too many dumb questions. Do you know the victim? What time was it when you found the corpse? Did you move the body? Did you see any suspicious people? Yad-yad-yad.

Sometimes, the blue suited, tin-starred buggers even called Social Services to take him to the Halfway-House, which always meant a disagreeable pit stop at the delousing station and a courtesy visit with the camp doctor. He didn’t need all that fuss; he just wanted the Meat Wagon to take the corpse away, before the stink rolled over the dump and down into his hut.

Curious, he bent to study the corpse. The skin glistened in the yellow morning light, lacked the usual funky smell of carrion, and bore no visible signs of rat attack.

Fresh one, he said. Louise shook her head with the smallest of nods.

He stooped down even lower, letting his knees fall into the dirt beside the body. Sometimes, dead people came with identity cards, anonymous credit chips and jewelry, especially if the motive for their murder had not been robbery. He made a pretty good living from discarded things—good enough for him and Louise, anyway. He was a man of few needs and Louise asked for nothing, bless her. All the same, there was no reason to let anything go to waste, just because the owner was present, albeit dead. The corpse wasn’t going to complain; although, he didn’t entertain too much hope of finding a pretty penny on this one. Stretched out before him lay a nearly naked girl, clad in either a very short skirt or a very wide belt, and nothing else.

Is it a skirt or a belt, Louise? he asked, but she only giggled.

People hide things in the strangest places, he explained to Louise, lest she become jealous while he made a through search of the buxom beauty.

Obviously, some twisted web of sexual deceit had brought her to this sad, sad end. Young people were too trusting, took too many dares and partied on an undeserved assumption of immortality, and yet, he’d found more pups than old dogs amongst the refuse.

It’s the way of the world, Louise. One loses and another one gains, until the whole thing comes out even.

Naturally, the body came out of the tarp bottom side up and rolled over with all the suppleness of a river soaked log. Stiff of limb and dense of weight meant only one thing: full on rigor mortis. He began by trying to brush back strands of long, black hair, but a kink of locks seemed plastered to her face. He pulled, dragging threads through a star shaped and fluid wound that had pulverized the highest point of her right cheek. Blood—as bright red and oxygenated as any living creature’s—dribbled from the cleared hole. Louise gasped.

Perhaps, the little wench has some life left in her, the old man said and Louise agreed. His fingers probed the slope of her neck, while Louise wrung her hands. From shoulder to jaw, no pulse met his fingers.

An odd assortment of symptoms, Louise, he said, slowly rocking back on his heels to ponder this quandary. A sufficient poke of his foot did not solve the question. On second look, he found the blood on his fingers too creamy for human blood, and realized with a start that the supine thing before was not a woman at all, but a LaAutomaton, a female robot, Class A, from the look of her. Which mean that she was neither dead nor alive. She was merchandise, plain and simple.

He yelped with glee and prance a little victory dance, before Louise tapped him on the shoulder and looked down at the robot with sympathetic eyes. Louise, softest of all the souls in the universe, saw only the tragedy of this discarded, albeit adult and extremely valuable doll.

In the broader spectrum of things, he didn’t quiet understand why society wanted to make fake people, when there were too many real people in the world. But he had already resigned himself to the fact that he could not collaber with the world and its convoluted ways. He was a man of some knowledge about ‘what’ people threw away, but he didn’t always understand ‘why.’

Sad, though the situation might be, he still had his practical problems. He looked at the robot. He looked at his cart. He looked at Louise. Louise was of no use in such matters. Perhaps, the robot would fit in the cart. Her girth appeared slim, but he’d already wrangled with her astonishing heft, and wondered if the battered cart could take the load. Notoriously heavy, it was said that CyberTech installed some serious weights in LaAutomatons to counter balance their height. Robots were so heavy that they were not allowed in elevators and he could attest to the wisdom of that law.

He scanned the dump, simultaneously wishing for help and not wanting to share his discovery. The only witnesses and scavengers about this time of day were the white gulls, circling above the rancid mound, and they were only interested in edible treasures. The birds squawked at him to go away, diving perilously close to his head. A brazen lot, but he could not hold their eagerness against them. The birds always profited from his digging, and he admired them for their diligence.

He wrapped the fantasy, pretend woman back up in her blue shroud, and folded his spade. Straddling her legs, he sat in her lap and wrapped his hands around her shoulders. He heaved with all his might, pulling and humping at the machine’s stiff resistance, until the robot finally inched forward, bending at the hip joints. He laid the cart on its side, scooting her butt into the cage, and then heaved the wagon