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  Copyright © 2017 by Jordan Krall

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Bizarro Pulp Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

  Bizarro Pulp Press, a JournalStone imprint

  www.BizarroPulpPress.com

  The views expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

  ISBN: 978-1-945373-57-2

  Printed in the United States of America

  JournalStone rev. date: March 12, 2017

  Cover Art: Jordan Krall

  Interior Formatting by: Lori Michelle

  www.theauthorsalley.com

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Vincenzo Bilof, Seb Doubinsky, Michael Adams, Scott Wilcox, Jonah Martin, Jamie Webb, Philip LoPresti, Christopher Ropes, Joe Zanetti, Dave Felton, Michael Nau, Mike Antonio, Jon Padgett, Philip Fracassi, Nick Cato, my family. I am sure I have forgotten some so please forgive me.

  INTERVIEWER

  Some people say they can’t understand your writing, even after they read it two or three times. What approach would you suggest for them?

  WILLIAM FAULKNER

  Read it four times.

  Here on the transport ship to Mars, I am fantasizing about being on a locomotive. I can almost hear the choo-choo instead of the hum of the thrusters that force me into the void. It’s comforting but not comforting enough. Memories and hopes can only bring you so far.

  And I’m going farther.

  I am surrounded by insane men who are destined for the same place as I am but I don’t think they realize it. Not yet, anyway. I wonder how they will react. Hell, I wonder how I will react. Nothing will be the same anymore.

  If only I had listened to my father. If only I had listened to Susan. If only I hadn’t left her behind to rot on Earth. If only I had killed myself when I had the chance. Now it’s too late.

  The ship is about to land.

  Yesu rides into the town on an ass.

  The people put their palm leaves on his path.

  The donkey trots over the leaves.

  The sound is sharp and pleasant.

  Dung plops down from its rear every few feet.

  That sound, too, is pleasant.

  Filth meets air.

  The people grab chunks of dirt and throw it onto the waste.

  Earth meets earth.

  Yesu lifts his hands and touches the leprous citizens on their faces, their lips, and their tongues which are falling out of their mouths, falling to the ground only to be trampled by the bare feet of others.

  They will speak in tongues no longer.

  The donkey stops and makes a sound of frustrated exhaustion.

  “I understand, kind beast. Don’t worry. Your work is over,” Yesu says, stepping off the animal. He pets its coarse fur and slaps it gently on the rear, letting it know that it was free to roam now, that is until one of the townspeople decides to bridle or eat it.

  Like much in life, it was inevitable.

  Meat devours meat.

  Earth devours earth.

  People swarm around Yesu, touching his clothes, his face, his hair. Yesu smiles and speaks gentle words of comfort. These people are strangers but he feels close to them. It’s the same feeling he feels in those dreams, the ones in which he encounters angels of precious jewels and metal, the ones who communicate to him in furious roars that pull him up toward that formless void.

  “Yesu! Yesu!” a child shouts. He pulls at Yesu’s robe. The young boy wants a blessing for his mother who has fallen ill. It is a simple request, nothing at all, but Yesu finds his heart moved. This sweet boy, innocent but assertive, has struggled to the front of the crowd to ask for a simple boon for the woman who has given birth to him. Yesu touches the boy’s cheek and whispers a few words, comforting the child and granting his request.

  There is noise behind him.

  Some hungry soul has found the donkey and is now butchering it in the middle of the crowd.

  Meat falls to the earth.

  Fur follows the wind.

  Earth betrays earth.

  The small child’s face turns sorrowful.

  Yesu kneels down, takes the boy’s cheek in his hand, and speaks. “All shall be well, my son. The beast will soon be with its father.” Yesu says, pointing to the sky.

  The old man taps Barry on the shoulder and says, “Do you have any idea where this is going?”

  “What?”

  “The train. Where’s this train headed?”

  “Uh . . . What?”

  “This train. Where is it going? Where are we going?”

  Barry moves away, stunned by the man’s question, stunned even more by the old man’s breath. It smells of mold. Or maybe dirt. Barry cannot decide.

  The man does not notice Barry’s reaction or he simply does not care. “Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know . . . What I mean is . . . We aren’t on a train.”

  “Oh?”

  “We aren’t on a train,” Barry says. “We’re on a ship, sir. We’re on a ship to Mars.”

  “That so?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long have we been on this . . . ship?”

  “I don’t know.” Barry looks at his watch despite it being broken. “Maybe an hour and a half.”

  “Well . . . How long until we get there?”

  “I . . . uh . . . I think about a half hour, maybe forty-five minutes.”

  “Good. I’m starving.”

  Barry says nothing but he thinks that he might be hungry, too. He can’t really tell. His body never alerts him to hunger. His body is silent, unmoved by its biological origins. It acts as if not a body at all but a bundle of coils, springs, sprockets, and manmade plastics . . . rusted and stained from deep red oil and grease, damned to a pseudo-life of unremarkable idleness. Or at least, that’s how Barry feels and has always felt ever since . . .

  The old man leans forward, whispering to Barry, allowing his moldy breath to act as conversational miasma. “You know, I hope someone didn’t bring a bomb aboard this train. It would be a shame to be blown up with a bunch of strangers.”

  Barry wants to move farther away from the man but cannot. He has the window seat and the man is right next to him, gripping the armrests, legs spread out in front of him, taking every inch of space that is possible while also trying to invade Barry’s.

  The man continues. “If I’m going to be blown up, I’d like it to happen while I’m in the presence of friends and family. I believe that’s quite reasonable a request, don’t you think?”

  “What did you say?” Barry asks.

  “A bomb. I think maybe someone brought a bomb on this train . . . People do that nowadays. They bring bombs onto trains and blow the thing to bits. Body parts everywhere. Wreckage. Tragedy. Front page news. Candlelight vigils. Memorials. Nationwide prayers.”

  “I . . . I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Barry says. “Also, we’re on a ship, a good one, a secure one.”

  “A ship, right, right. Yeah, I remember now.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s all a matter of, what do you call it . . . Jogging my memory. Sometimes I forget things.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I know it’s okay. I�
��m just saying, it’s a matter of jogging my memory and then I’m okay and I don’t talk about bombs.”

  “Oh . . . ”

  “I tend to talk about bombs. It might be because I used to build them.”

  “What?”

  “Ever been to Mars?”

  “I . . . uh . . . no,” Barry says.

  “Oh yeah? You’re in for a real treat.” The old man laughs and coughs, moldy sprinkles of spit spraying Barry.

  “I don’t dream anymore.”

  “Because of the pills?”

  “Yeah. Because of the pills.”

  “How long have you been taking them?”

  “Since I got back.”

  “That’s a long time.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is it normal?”

  “What?”

  “Not having dreams . . . because of the pills.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t ask your doctor?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What about when you leave again?”

  “I’ll just have to take more pills.”

  “And then what? You’ll never dream.”

  “I don’t have to. Mars has all the dreams I need.”

  “That’s philosophical.”

  “Not really. That place is different.”

  “I figured. But you can’t take pills forever.”

  “I can try.”

  “That’s self destructive.”

  “Not really.”

  After the first bomb exploded, someone exited the rear door of the building.

  We were going to pick him off right then and there, watch his little head explode like a melon, but decided to let the poor bastard run to the edge of the small patch of woods at the end of the industrial park.

  We let him get there and watched as he was met with an obsidian bullet to the back of the head. Those are the best to use around here.

  Brains and skull rain upon the ground.

  After that, we just waited until our shift was over.

  When someone else came to relieve us, we went out for a drink as we always do. We drank several domestic (i.e. Martian) beers and danced with some of the locals at a small bar down the road from our building. We had an enjoyable time like we always do. It almost makes the shit work we do worth it.

  Someone looked at us and quickly exited the rear door of the bar.

  It was suspicious, yeah, but not uncommon in our line of work. Someone spotted us, didn’t like the idea of our hanging around, and decided to leave. Regardless, I have a pretty good idea who they’re going to report to.

  After that, we ordered more beers and danced with more locals and bought some pills from them because that’s the appropriate thing to do when dealing with these people. The pills are shit but they allow for a temporary removal of our brains from the drudgery of duty. But we’ll be doing the same thing tomorrow. We always do.

  Dr. Marlon McCarthy instructs Barry to take the pills and nothing else.

  “You cannot mix this medication with any other substance. Not alcohol. Not painkillers. Not even vitamins.”

  This confuses and frightens Barry, who is used to taking a combination of tablets, pills, and liquid supplements in order to prevent fatigue, headaches, infections, irritable bowels, and various psychoses that have ailed him since childhood. Now he is left with only one pill a day and that is going to be a difficult change in routine.

  “That’s going to be difficult change to my routine,” Barry tells the doctor. “I’m used to taking a combination of tablets, pills, and liquid supplements . . . ”

  “Well, that’s going to have to stop, Barry,” McCarthy says. “You’re under my care now and that means you’ll have to follow my orders, as different as they are. You may not be accustomed to my instructions but you’ll have to follow them if you want me to help you. You do want my help, yes?”

  “Of course. That’s why I came here.”

  “Good,” Dr. McCarthy says. “If you’re going to get better, you’re going to have to take one of these each day. Take it with food . . . preferably in the morning.”

  “Okay.”

  “And do not, I repeat, do not miss a day.”

  “Why not? What’s going to happen?”

  “Just don’t.”

  Lieutenant Mitchell is staring into the cosmic void when he hears the sound.

  Static brings the voice out of the speaker: digital noise from home . . .

  Thirty-eight millions miles away.

  “How many Galileans do we have now?”

  Lieutenant Mitchell is startled. It had been months since he has heard another human voice. Luckily, he has been practicing his speech so his vocal chords wouldn’t succumb to entropy. He says, “We’re up to five as far as I can tell.”

  “You said five?”

  “Yes, five. F-I-V-E.”

  “What are the locations?”

  Mitchell gives the coordinates.

  There is a lull in the conversation and then digital noise comes through, hurting his ears.

  The voice on the other end, the voice from home, speaks.

  “Okay, Lieutenant, we have authorization to send a craft to your location. It will land in approximately forty-five days.”

  “What are my orders until then?”

  “Locate any other Galileans and proceed as planned.”

  “Alright.”

  “Godspeed, Lieutenant.”

  “Thanks.”

  I had decided to finally kill the Lion.

  I killed him when he landed here.

  He was proud and arrogant like we all are at some point, before we realize how cold this universe is.

  I made a decision to kill him despite the fact that doing so would secure my own violent death in the depths of space.

  I made the decision, and because I always stick to my decisions, I had to follow through. So I killed him.

  Or more accurately, I assassinated him.

  I shot his guards and killed him.

  I took his body to the industrial park.

  The Lion was dead.

  The Lion was.

  And now the Lion is no more.

  You see, I’m just a normal citizen.

  A normal patient.

  I’d have it no other way.

  It is what it is.

  I am what I am.

  I am that I am.

  YOU ARE INSANE AND YOU KNOW IT, sayeth the pills.

  There are, indeed, caves on Mars. They have been explored, mainly for minerals or anything else of value that could be exploited by the various companies that have established offices on the planet. But the caves were eventually left alone as nothing was found that would warrant the manpower. This was obviously evidence of the lowering attention span of interplanetary industry. Move quick, search quick, and give up quick. That being said, it probably would have taken them years to reach anything of value so, in retrospect, their decision was a wise one. Even so, miles down there are artifacts that would, if discovered, move the newly-formed civilization to higher levels of cultural, financial, and even spiritual sophistication despite the potential for cataclysmic ecophagy. Of course there are a few lone individuals, mostly forgotten academics and religious mavericks, who have continued to view the caves as valuable resources of astroreligious cosmology. Unfortunately, these individuals are seen, by most, as a fringe element not welcome on the colonized planet but not dangerous enough to warrant any legal action against their exploration and borderline worship of the caves.

  On the surface of Mars, a construction company called SYZYGY, INC. is constructing a gargantuan office building in the shape of a giraffe skull.

  A few hundred miles to the east, its rival company MONS GRAUPIUS CONSTRUCTION is in the process of drilling into the surface of the planet in order to make an elaborate tunnel system which they hope to amazingly connect to the underground tunnels beneath the Denver Internatio
nal Airport on Earth. The decision to form new tunnels instead of using the existing, and previously discussed, caves was made out of a corporate form of dominance. MONS GRAUPIUS was intent on showing their competitors their willingness to penetrate the landscape even at the expense of time, money, and workers, many of which died during the process.

  Somewhere in the middle of the rivalry is the BUTTO BUTTO BUTTO GROUP which is headed by S. Sophia Butto, daughter of the company’s founder B. Paul Butto. The group’s role on Mars it the development and sale of tools and materials crucial to construction on the planet.

  Though I’ve dealt with all three companies, I hold none of them above the rest. Right now I’m the on-call psychiatrist for all three and staying neutral is in my best interest.

  Susan’s psychiatrist had said the side effects would lessen in a couple of weeks.

  She isn’t so sure.

  The stomach aches and dizziness remain.

  The dreams.

  Those dreams in which she is walking through London . . . or rather a version of London that is more cosmic than British. Men in astronaut suits walk the streets and giraffes follow them on a river of dog’s blood that flows down, down, down . . .

  Susan always wakes in the bathtub.

  It reminds her of a spaceship.

  She stays in the tub for hours.

  She plays spaceman.

  She bathes in what she thinks is dog’s blood. Susan thinks there is significance in that but pushes the thought away. There is no significance to anything, she confesses to the tub.

  She hears sounds.

  “Hello . . . Is anyone out there? Is that you?” she says. “I’m from planet Earth. I flew up here in my spaceship. Is anyone out there?” She speaks this into the tub drain. She receives no answers.

  She lands her spaceship in London. Skeletal dwarves fill the streets. They are leading a parade of giraffes.

  “Hello . . . Hello there . . . Hell—” she says but is interrupted by a laser blast that shoots out from the doorway of an office building.

  The cold water from the tub brings her back but not before her mouth is stuffed with red rocks by the Cosmic Britons who have rushed out of the office building to attack Susan’s spaceship.