Fears of the Old and the New

Fears of the old and the new

A short story collection by

H.K. Hillman

Smashwords Edition.

This collection copyright H. K. Hillman, 2011.

Cover images copyright H. K. Hillman 2011

Smashwords Edition, licence notes.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Disclaimer.

These stories are works of fiction. Characters, names, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious context. Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, or to any events or locales is entirely coincidental. Readers can sleep easily knowing that none of these stories are real and that the events described will probably not happen to them.

If they do, it’s not my fault.

Contents

Foreword

Construction Kit

Telephone Pest

The Beer Monster

Facing Eternity

Electricity

The Demon’s Trick

Broken Circle

Quicklime Girl

The Transformation Ritual

Drinking Buddies

The Window

The Hand that Feeds

The Spirit of Madness

Head of the Household

The Gene Genie

Last Christmas

The Imagination Virus

Santa’s Claws

Hell.net

Afterword

Foreword.

Nobody reads these things so I can say what I like here. I could reveal how and why stoats wearing Chinese coolie hats surreptitiously milk cows in the dead of night and hardly anyone will even notice I’ve said it. Let’s face it. Nobody has ever even noticed those stoats. Not even the farmers.

Instead of exposing a long-standing stoat scam, by way of introduction I’ll just say that this collection is largely composed of short stories published between 2003 and 2005. This book exists because most of the publications that carried those stories no longer exist.

The trouble with magazine publishing is that it’s somewhat ephemeral and that goes double for the Internet. Online magazines sometimes, but not always, have archives. A few, like The Horror Zine and the no-longer-running FromTheAsylum make, or made, a point of publishing the stories on real paper, in real books. Even then, when the magazine dies the books go out of print and the online archives eventually depixellate like a Tron villain.

Quietus published on CD, which was both novel and cheaper than books. Even so, the magazine has now closed and the CDs can only be obtained from what remains of the site. Hardly High-street availability.

So, rather than lose all these, I have collected them here. It is possible that someone out there will still enjoy one or two of them. You never know.

(Contents page)

Construction Kit

My first submission was also my first story accepted for publication. This was in the online magazine Dark Fiction (www.darkfiction.org) in 2003. Here it is with all its beginner’s mistakes intact.

Looks fine to me. Doc Short looked up from the small boy in his examination chair. Probably just overtired. You know how kids can get. Too much excitement, then they just throw a tantrum over the slightest thing. Good night's sleep, that's my prescription. He smiled down at the boy. On your way, Peter, the nurse will take you back to bed. The child grinned at him as the nurse led him away. Strangely disquieting, the way these children smiled, Doc thought.

He looked around at Bill Wilson, his boss. Wilson was watching, grim-faced, as the child was led away. Once the child was out of earshot, he turned to Doc Short. Some tantrum, he said. That little boy broke an orderly's wrist. It took three of them - three grown men - to subdue him. Something is definitely wrong, Doc, something's wrong with them all.

Doc Short forced a smile. He had his own misgivings about the children, but he couldn't put them into words. Just a feeling. Well, of course they're not normal, he said. They've hardly had a normal upbringing, have they? Stuck in here, never going outside, never meeting anyone else. There's bound to be some, well, anomalous behaviour now and then.

Wilson looked pensive. They're stronger than normal ten-year olds. Faster. More intelligent. And not just by a small margin. But you know that, Doc, You ran the tests yourself. He sighed. Maybe we should consider terminating the experiment.

The words cut into Doc as though Wilson had stabbed him with them. You can't! he said, louder than he had intended, Sorry, Bill, but you know what that would mean. You can't just 'terminate' seven healthy children.

They don't exist, Simon, Wilson said, avoiding Doc's gaze. They're an experiment. Nobody outside the Project knows about them. They're just products, we made them. We grew them from fertilized eggs, in the incubators. They have no mothers. No fathers. No family. They belong to the Project. Outside, they just don't exist.

Doc sat heavily in his chair. Still, they're alive, they're real children. Bill, the whole point of this project was to make babies for childless couples, for women who couldn't conceive, or who couldn't carry a child to term. Twelve years on, and we've succeeded - in fact we succeeded ten years ago, when these seven were born. Why is it still a secret? Why aren't we doing what we set out to do?

The children aren't normal, Doc. You know that.

They're better than normal, Bill. You said it yourself. I've never seen such fit, healthy, intelligent kids. Talk to them - they've learned everything there is to learn here, and more. Why, I reckon Thomas could run the whole process we used to make him, all on his own.

Wilson looked up, his eyes wide. What? But how - when - did he have access to the labs? None of them are allowed in there!

Doc smiled. Thomas was his favourite. He had grown fond of all the children, but Thomas was like his own son. The boy had always been interested in biology, and had been fascinated by the labs.

He found his own way in. Worked out the codes for the doors, I don't know how, and just walked in. He's been doing it since he was six, never caused any problems, just watched and learned. We never reported him because he's such a great kid, and he really liked being in the labs.

You could get into serious trouble over this. Wilson folded his arms. It has to stop, now, and… A scream from outside cut him off. What was that? he said. For a moment he and Doc just looked at each other, then a second scream had them both racing for the door.

Along the corridor, at the far end, was a flickering light. Fire! Wilson started into a run. Doc was close behind him. Rounding the corner, they stopped abruptly, horror crushing their insides into nausea. It was a fire all right, and it was walking around.

The flames engulfed a large figure, arms flailing, dark mouth gaping soundlessly, the vocal chords already consumed. The figure collided with the wall, sending showers of sparks and flame into the air. Its eyes had melted, as had most of its features, and its last breath was not air, but combusting gases as it fell to form a lifeless, melting, stinking flesh-pool on the floor in front of them.

Wilson and Doc stared, mouths gaping, at the remains of the orderly. Simultaneously they noticed the children, standing on the far side of the flaming corpse.

Wilson found his voice. What….what happened? The children shouldn't see this, said half of his brain. Why are they smiling? asked the other half. Doc Short didn't speak, he simply placed a hand on the wall and emptied his breakfast into a slippery smear on the floor.

Peter grinned at Wilson, and pointed. Your fault! he shouted. You caused this!

Wilson stared at him through the flames, the smoke, the smell of charred flesh. What do you mean, Peter? How could I cause this? The cold stares of all the children were on him now, he felt the temperature fall around him despite the heat of the incinerated orderly just yards away.

Elaine grinned that maniacal grin they all shared. You wanted to kill us. We can't let you do it, we don't want to. Her pout was that of a ten-year-old but the flare in her eyes betrayed thoughts well beyond her years.

How…how could you know that? Wilson was in shock, he couldn't see the hole he was digging for himself. I had only just thought those things myself.

Diane looked almost sympathetic. You tested us. You tested everything you could think of - but you didn't test the things beyond your understanding. How could you? Poor Uncle Bill, you never knew the powers, the abilities we have because you don't know how to look for them. So you see, all this is your fault, not ours. We just want to stay alive.

Thomas moved forward. It was your fault from the start, Uncle Bill. You wanted to be God, to create life, but you forgot one thing. Life isn't just the body. There's more, much more. You gave us life, but you couldn't give us souls.

So we found our own, Richard said. Or rather, to be accurate, we souls found these bodies you so kindly made for us. That's the one flaw in your program that you never saw. You can create bodies, but they're empty, soulless. Ideal for us.

A snigger from behind made Wilson turn abruptly, then sink to his knees. Elaine was behind him - so was Peter! How? They could not have passed him in the narrow corridor, could not have passed the still smoking orderly, could not have stepped over Doc's slumped, vacant-eyed form, without him noticing. As he stared, a pale light formed beside Peter, and gradually resolved into the solid form of Claire, with a smile that was half-amusement, half-contempt. Wilson slumped forward, shaking his head.

"That's how you did