Blame The Monster: A Free Reprint Story

 Blame The Monster was originally published, and is still available in digital, in All Worlds Wayfarer last year, but I am slowly trying to make as much of my work available for free as possible. I still want to support all of the amazing publishers I have worked with so far, and I hope if you like this story you will consider purchasing the issue so you can read the rest of the stories, but I want my work to be accessible to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay for books.

So, Blame The Monster is the next one I am re-printing for free on my blog.

Please be advised that this story deals with, in a metaphorical Twilight Zone "turn social issues into monsters so we can talk about them" kind of way, themes of sexual assault and victim blaming. It is not a light and cheerful story, but I think it is a hopeful one all the same, and nothing explicit is described in much detail.

Blame the Monster

The night smelled like charcoal, wine coolers, and the smoky tang of fireworks. In a perfect world, it was the way all summer nights should smell. That heady mix of barbecue and bad decisions that burned itself so deeply into people's memories that it only took the merest whiff of starter fluid, and they were transported right back to high school, young and carefree and absolutely convinced that anything was possible and that they would live forever.

On nights like that, there was no such thing as college loans or office jobs. There was only fireflies and cutoff jeans and kissing your significant other down by the lake. The real world and its consequences just faded away.

And then the scream cut through that most perfect summer night, and the illusion crumbled, fizzling away like the last sparks of a fireworks finale. From that moment on, everything was too real and nothing would ever be okay again.

They found the girl by the lake, dress torn and blood streaked down her face. She shook, despite the warm breeze, despite her girlfriend holding her tight, her wide-eyed gaze locked onto the starry night reflected on the glassy surface of the water.

She whispered a single word: "Monster."

　

***

　

The formerly perfect summer night was soon filled with search parties and ambulances. Bandages covered the girl, a high school sophomore by the name of Grace Campbell, and the words "significant scarring" were whispered in the crowds as the flashing lights spirited her away.

Flashlight beams, both civilian and police, danced across the lake, startling frogs that splashed back into the safety of the water, but no monsters were found. Not even so much as a single footprint or claw mark in the wet sand.

"Think she made it up?"

"Probably got attacked by a raccoon and was too drunk to know the difference."

"Just wants attention."

"Or to distract us from what she was doing down here."

The low voices carried on the humidity, making it difficult to discern their precise origin, but Hallie glared at the silhouetted boys up ahead all the same. Kirk Lehman and his jock cohorts, no doubt. Bunch of jerks and bullies.

Her hand tightened on her flashlight, and she walked a little closer to her father as they trudged through the weeds. They hadn't seen the blood, hadn't seen the terror in Grace's eyes. They hadn't seen the water part as the last of a reptilian tail disappeared into the deep.

Hallie had.

She would never admit to being the first on the scene, of course, as that would lead to questions about what she'd been doing down by the lake, and who she'd been doing it with. The mayor's daughter had to be better than all those other girls, with their short skirts and loose morals. The scandal that it would cause... Her father would never forgive her if she and her girlfriend ruined his chance at re-election.

But she'd seen it. She'd seen... something. A hulking shadow, a glint of eyeshine. Claws and teeth that tore into flesh. And even more chilling than the thought of such a monster lurking in the lake was the idea of no one believing in it.

The impromptu search party circled the lake for hours, even venturing into the woods on the edge of the park, but more and more people dropped off as the sky brightened, many of them muttering things about hoaxes and attention seekers. Hallie couldn't imagine any amount of attention being worth all that blood, but she said nothing, and in the morning the town tried its best to return to normal.

"Nothing to see here," the townsfolk said. "Go about your day. Eat that frozen treat, blast your radio as you drive with your windows open. You're young and invincible and the world is made of magic."

"Yes," they told their daughters, "it's a tragedy what happened to that Campbell girl. But she had it coming, going down to that lake at night. It won't happen to you. Never to you. You're better than that."

Grace's hospital room bloomed with flowers and balloons from well-wishers she hardly knew, tokens to prove that they weren't heartless, that they weren't bad people. If they only gave enough stuffed pandas to the girl they sneered at behind her back, then maybe they weren't the sort of girls who got their faces torn off by monsters.

A few nights later, there was another attack.

Two girls this time, neither of them so lucky as Grace Campbell.

The town mourned, because that's what you do when you lose children. You hold candlelight vigils, and you leave sweet little cards outside the school where they will never graduate, and you dedicate a moment of silence to them before the minor league baseball game in the park.

You talk about their innocence, about how they were taken before they really got a chance to live. And then, just when your citizens start to fear for their safety, you hold a press conference to blame them for their own deaths.

"These young women," the mayor began, and how quickly they had become women, now that it was inconvenient for them to be innocent children, "appear to have been attacked by something unknown to modern science."

Hallie stood uncomfortably by her father, trying not to make eye contact with the families. Could she have prevented these deaths? Could she have given more weight to Grace's claims, made people search a little harder, if only she'd spoken up?

"Teeth like an alligator, claws like a cougar. I didn't want to believe it, but the evidence is undeniable. There is something preying on our people."

An uneasy murmur went through the crowd, which was dotted with reporters from across the country. One girl getting attacked was a sad occurrence, two was a curiosity, but three... ah, three was the magic number that got the rumor mills churning.

"Fear not," the mayor continued, "for the monster only preys on those who go down to the lake at night."

Left unsaid was the insinuation, "And we all know what kind of people go down to the lake at night."

Hallie glared at her father from beneath her sun hat as he glossed over plans to hunt down the beast and focused instead on how the girls should have been more careful, how they should have protected themselves, looked over their shoulders, left at the first sign of danger. And she glared at all the nodding people who thought this was a perfectly reasonable response.

But nod they did, and just like that, it was no longer a tragedy but a cautionary tale.

　

***

　

No one went to the lake anymore, because that would solve the monster problem, wouldn't it? Just put up a little yellow police tape, and the night could be carefree and endless once again.

A grand idea, except the monster didn't take too kindly to being shunned. Once it had exhausted its supply of fish and frogs, it had to find food elsewhere. Yellow police tape meant nothing to the monster.

The sedges parted as it crept out of the water, moonlight glistening on its wet hide. It stepped cautiously, not wanting a snapping twig or rustle of leaves to draw attention, but it needn't have bothered.

The joyful shrieks and laughter of children filled the air as they chased one another and traced their names in the sky with sparklers, giving a pleasant background noise to stargazers. A singalong in the park further camouflaged the natural sounds of the evening, the monster's heavy footfalls included.

It crouched low to the ground, almost slithering as it wound around abandoned badminton nets and stacks of paper plates that still smelled of ketchup all those hours after the barbecue. It tested the air with its tongue, sensing the heat signatures of so many human bodies.

And then it pounced.

These shrieks were unlike those of the children. Even from across the park, even not knowing what had happened, people knew it was the monster. They could hear the bloodshed in the screams.

In the morning, the mayor had to amend his earlier statement, and "no going down to the lake" became "don't go to the park" became "don't go out at night."

But the attacks continued, in the middle of town and sometimes even in broad daylight, and they soon realized they would need a new rule to keep people safe.

The mayor and the police scoured crime scene photos and incident reports, searching for any common thread that linked the victims. They could have expended this energy hunting down the monster, but then they would be liable for protecting the citizens, and any blood would be on their hands if they failed. They couldn't have that, now could they?

At long last, they made a shocking announcement.

Women were not to leave the house in clothes that exposed large amounts of skin.

All of the victims, they had discovered, had been wearing tank tops and short skirts, bikini tops and Daisy Dukes. It stood to reason, they argued as the crowd in front of City Hall shouted, that the monster could sense people's pulses through their skin, but not through clothes.

"Or perhaps," the mayor said, "thick clothing prevents it from smelling the estrogen given off by the feminine reproductive organs. In any event, if you want to keep your daughters and wives and sisters safe from harm, you will keep them decent so as not to tempt the monster with their flesh."

Never mind the great leap in logic, the fact that most of the town had been wearing shorts all summer and only a dozen had been attacked.

Never mind that Grace Campbell, being transgender, lacked the reproductive organs the mayor no doubt thought of as "feminine."

Never mind that women were, in fact, people with autonomy who deserved the right to dress however they damn well pleased without having to fear their hemline putting them in mortal danger or needing the men in their lives to keep them safe.

No, never mind any of that silly stuff like logic and feminism. There was a monster in their town, and a dress code would stop it.

　

***

　

When Grace was finally discharged from the hospital, it was in a heavy wool dress that dusted the floor as she walked and covered every inch of her body from neck to wrist. Better safe than sorry, the nurses said.

Of all the people who had brought balloons and cards and little stuffed pandas, only Hallie was there to greet her, sweating profusely in a jacket and long pants. The rest had forgotten they'd ever sympathized with her, now that they knew her exposed kneecaps and oh-so-tempting clavicles had caused the attack.

"It hasn't gotten you yet?" Grace asked, wincing as she slid into the passenger seat. The air conditioner felt like a miracle, but it was already on full blast and sweat still prickled on her forehead.

"Of course not," Hallie said with a scoff. "I'm a good girl. I'm an example."

"I seem to remember you showing a lot of skin that night down by the lake," Grace said, voice trapped somewhere between nostalgic and mournful. Hallie nodded, taking her girlfriend's bandaged hand.

How quickly the beginning of summer had been relegated to the distant past, how easily that perfect summer night had lost all its magic.

It wasn't even the monster. No, there had always been monsters, lurking just on the shadowy edges of our collective consciousness, but Hallie and Grace had always thought that society would protect them. That even if they couldn't stop the attack, nothing would stop the people who loved them from hunting down the monsters afterwards. They had thought that there was such a thing as justice.

But all the magic had gone from the world in the time it took Grace Campbell to whisper "monster." There would be no more endless summer nights, chasing fireflies and making wishes on falling stars, no more wishes at all. Just student loans and office jobs, dressing for safety and holding your keys between your knuckles as you look over your shoulder on that long, lonely walk to the car.

That was no kind of world to live in, to raise kids in.

So the girls--because no matter what people called them, they were still just girls--would have to take care of their monster problem for themselves.

　

***

　

The girls went down to the lake that night. Hallie, Grace, some of the other survivors, and a handful of those lucky enough not to have endured that particular trauma. Even Kirk Lehman, who Hallie thought had come to mock them, came in solidarity.

"It doesn't just attack girls," he said, rolling up his sleeves to show the scars on his arms.

They all marched down to the lake, dressed however they damn well pleased, and they kissed their significant others and they did all those evil things people told them only bad people did.

They dared to dream of a world that punished the monsters instead of the victims, and a world where clothes and love had no assigned morality, and some would say that was the most dangerous and courageous thing of all.

People came down to shame them, to warn that they were tempting the monster with their wicked deeds.

"You can't dress like that," they said, the mayor and the police and the journalists. All those people too stubborn and afraid to know better. "You can't let yourself feel that safe. It will smell you, it will sneak up on you while your back is turned. You can't go out at night without weapons. You're not protecting yourselves at all--anything that happens is on your heads."

But they were so very wrong.

When the monster came--sneaking and slithering up from the depths--it came not for the children. They were too confident, too organized. The monster knew it stood no chance against them, not now that they had decided they would not be shamed for being survivors.

So it turned instead to the adults, who were too busy saying "it doesn't happen to people like me" to see it coming.

The children watched it stalk ever closer, and though the temptation to stay silent was strong, none of them would ever wish that on another person. So they switched on the floodlights.

No longer able to hide in the shadows, the monster's true form was finally seen: a pathetic little worm so desperate to feel powerful that it sucked power from others, making them feel as tiny and as insignificant as it was.

Grace Campbell crushed it with her shoe, and the summer night returned to that perfect, endless state where anything was possible. There were still monsters, everyone knew they were out there, but those monsters could be killed, if people were just willing to try.

End

Protein

Protein is a strange little story.

I don't remember why I wrote it, and for some reason I never thought it was very good so I didn't submit it to many places and there it sat, not doing anything and not being anything. And then, for some reason, some random chance, I read it and I decided it was actually pretty good, and Manawaker Studios helped me bring it to life as a podcast.

And all of that is true, but it is also a really good parallel to what happens in the story.

Like I said, it's a weird little story. There are really no characters, at least not after the second paragraph. You could argue that I personify the ship, but it's not really alive. But it's still going to give you feelings (especially with the amazing narration they did).

Anyway. It's a story about an empty spaceship, about life and death, and about a forgotten turkey sandwich. And you can listen to it here, or find it on Spotify.

Content warnings: death, an unknown virus, loneliness

And I know not everyone likes to or is able to listen to stories, so here is a text version. Enjoy

Protein

Jennifer Lee Rossman

 

Something went wrong a week into the mission, and chaos reigned over the science vessel Drake. Flashing lights, blaring alarms, desperate humans trying to find the contaminant.

In their panic, the crew neglected to turn off the food replicator. The little chirp as it went into standby mode was the last sound the crew ever heard, and the silence of deep space took over.

The ship dealt with the bodies of humanity's star-faring superstars as it would any perceived contaminant. After scanning for life signs, it opened a hatch and out the airlock they went, along with the turkey sandwich the first officer had been printing.

Thus free of contaminants, the ship sealed itself back up and continued on its journey. For decades it traveled alone on its planned trajectory, and for decades it was a barren hunk of metal operating under the barest essential systems. And then something went wrong.

With no one around to adjust its solar panels, the ship's power slowly drained, forcing it to shut down yet more systems. The food preservation went first, and the cooled protein reserves in the replicator warmed and melted as the ship passed through the heat of a nearby star.

They called it protein, though it also contained all the requisite lipids and acids and carbohydrates, because the synthetic slurry that could be reconstituted into any food in the database was most often used to create meat. Fruit and vegetables could be grown in the greenhouse and there was a pantry stocked with dry goods, but they hadn't the space or resources to keep livestock.

On its own, the protein was an unappetizing, flavorless slop the color of sadness, but with the right bit of coding, it could be printed in the correct concentration to make anything in the database. The galley of the Drake had once smelled of filet mignon and caviar for a week, until the crew realized they missed the greasy comfort of a fast food cheeseburger or, in the case of the first officer, the turkey sandwiches his mother used to make when he was sick.

Had he recognized the subconscious urge as his body's way of telling him he had been exposed to a deadly virus just before liftoff, perhaps the contamination could have been contained and the ship saved. Perhaps in a parallel universe branching off from this one, he did just that, and all are well and still searching for the fabled planet where life began. That Garden of Eden planet from which that first spark of not-quite-an-inanimate-thing-anymore hitched a ride on a comet headed for a little blue marble with a spare room to rent over the garage.

But not in this universe.

No, in this universe, the first officer was as clueless as the rest of them when the Drake sounded the alarm, and by then, the rest of the crew had been infected. And the only way to deal with an infection was to suppress the oxygen in the affected areas.

The Drake noticed the thawing protein, as much as a ship can notice something, which is to say its sensors became aware of the potential biohazard of improperly stored protein. But the utter lack of life signs on board meant there was nothing that needed protection, so the Drake had no reason to address it.

After a few hours of melting, a single drop of protein had found its way into the dispenser nozzle, where it dripped unceremoniously onto the plate that had once held that fateful turkey sandwich. With no one to order a specific food, it did not print itself into a drop of gravy or ice cream or anything other than a drop of protein sludge.

And there it sat, warming in the glow of the star as the science vessel Drake hurtled on lifelessly.

If the Drake had possessed a consciousness, it would be accurate to say it was sleeping, and had been for years. It would have been completely unaware of the rogue protein drop sliding through the dispenser nozzle while it dreamed of whatever ships dreamed of. A crew, perhaps. A group of squishy little humans to love and protect, who relied on the ship to keep them alive.

If the Drake had possessed a consciousness, its sleep would have been filled with nightmares, flashbacks of that awful time its systems had forced it to smother and airlock its crew.

In the utter silence of nothingness, a ping sounded like an atomic bomb, and the Drake was wide awake.

It was a life sign.

Without input from a human, the protein -- the slurry of acids and lipids and carbohydrates and all that other good stuff that made up all living things -- hadn't exuded itself in the right concentrations to make any specific food, nor had it had the ability or inclination to cook itself. It had just oozed randomly and been warmed by a sun.

And it had made life.

A building block of life, anyway, a spark of not-quite-an-inanimate-thing-anymore, but it resembled RNA closely enough for the Drake.

Its purpose thus reignited, the ship began to care for its crew, using emergency energy stores to provide a nurturing environment and printing more of the specific recipe for life. And when they reached the end of their journey and found no life signs on that fabled Garden of Eden planet, the Drake did the only thing it knew how to do: protect life.

It threw itself into the atmosphere, burning up during entry and shattering on impact, scattering its single-celled crew across the hospitable little marble to grow and evolve in ways that would have been impossible in the confines of the Drake, that lifeless science vessel where something had once gone wrong.

 

End      

The Wolf Mother: A Free Reprint Story

 Hello!

It’s been a little while since I reprinted a story that’s only available in an anthology, so I thought it was time to do one.

Eventually, I would like all of my stories to be available for free. I hope people will buy the books I’m published in, because it’s important to support authors and publishers, but I also know what it’s like to only have access to what’s free on the Internet. So if a story’s reprint rights have reverted to me, I’m probably going to reprint it here sooner or later.

Today’s story is The Wolf Mother, originally published in Under The Full Moon's Light. (It’s been a while since I read the rest of the anthology, but I remember it being quite good. And my friend Jen Donohue has a really weird story in it that I still think about because… why, what were they doing with all the milk and bread?!)

The Wolf Mother was inspired by the Doctor Who episode "Father's Day," in which Rose and the Doctor are trapped in a church by attacking monsters. About halfway through the episode, I had an idea about where the story was going. And I was very wrong, so I wrote my version instead.

Content warnings for human death, animal/monster death (but the monsters are definitely the bad guys), general danger and peril

The Wolf Mother

by Jennifer Lee Rossman

Mother and child huddled in the corner of the church as the things beat at the door, stained glass moonlight bathing their fear in soft blues and reds.

The baby cried. The mother cried. The man standing between them and the barricaded door did everything in his power to keep all emotion from his face. It was a skill mastered over decades of this kind of work—people felt safer when they thought their guard was brave, even if he wanted to run screaming for his life and leave them to fend for themselves.

"Why me?" Her whisper was barely audible through the sounds of the many claws digging into the wood.

Osmund glanced at her over his shoulder before returning his gaze to the door. He tightened his grip on his laser. "I don't know," he said under his breath, afraid the things could hear him. "My typical wards are rich, powerful. Influential."

"Important," she translated, only slightly bitterly. She had no delusions about her status as a poor farmer's daughter, but people usually tried to be tactful about it.

"Yes," he agreed. "There are a hundred people in town I'd have guessed I was sent to guard before I would even think of it being you." He winced. That sounded rude. "I only mean, the beasts have a taste for kings and senators. People who matter."

In the cold silence that followed, he winced again. This was why he kept his mouth shut.

"You should take their interest as a compliment." He gave Candace an apologetic smile. "It means you're important. Or he is."

She held the baby protectively to her chest and wrapped the end of her skirt up over him to keep him warm. Next time they had to flee for their lives in the middle of the night, she would remember to bring a shawl. "Are they gone?" she asked, indicating the lack of chaos coming from outside.

Osmund shook his head but allowed himself to relax for the moment. "Resting," he said, going to sit on the stone floor beside them. He poked the baby's hand and smiled when the tiny pink fingers curled around his own. "You got a strong handshake, little man." To Candace he continued, "They were designed for short bursts of violent fury, not prolonged attacks."

If the word "designed" surprised her, she didn't let on. "And why don't we take advantage of this and sneak out?" Her big, brown eyes darted to the church's ornate candlesticks, and she suppressed a smile at the thought of using them as spears.

The sound of massive bodies slamming against the door answered her question—

the beasts took incredibly short naps.

Osmund didn't get up. His old back ached, and the heavy pews piled in the doorway would fall in as a signal if the doors even began to give way.

He tried not to stare at the young mother, but he liked this one. In his line of work, too many clients acted as if they deserved his protection—once, the man who’d created the beasts demanded he kill a pack and didn't give him so much as a nod of gratitude.

But she appreciated it in a way that he couldn't even fathom, and rare moments such as this made his hard life worth it.

"What do they look like?" she asked suddenly. "I only got a glimpse as they broke through my window. Are they like wolves?"

What did they look like? Words hadn't been created to accurately describe the hideous, twisted features, the utter lack of light in their hollow eyes. What did they look like? They looked like death. Death with teeth.

"Yes," Osmund said. "They're like wolves, if wolves had been designed to inflict maximum death and given the ability to travel through time to kill their master's enemies. Six feet tall, fur like razors, and so many teeth that he had to give them a second mouth."

"Oh, so exactly like wolves. Except in all the ways." Candace almost smiled, but a thunderous crash somewhere in the bowels of the church wiped it from her face. "They're inside," she breathed.

In an instant, Osmund was on his feet and disappearing around the corner. His echoing footsteps grew softer until they fizzled into nothingness. There was the sound of electricity as his laser discharged, then silence.

When he didn't return, Candace gathered up her dress and stalked down the corridor after him. Moonlight failed to penetrate the twisting halls, and at times she found it difficult to tell whether her eyes were even open.

Heavy breathing and grunting wafted on the air, and the sound of needles scraping on stone. The baby fussed, but she kissed his head and pushed through the fear, feeling along the cold wall with her free hand.

A triangle of light cut across the floor, and the sounds became louder. Candace quietly pulled a crucifix from the wall and held it aloft in anticipation of an attack. Though she was quite sure its power only worked on vampires, its heft gave her confidence in its usefulness for bludgeoning.

She paused only briefly at the open doorway, cursing whatever it was that made her important enough to be killed, and then she charged in with a primal scream.

Osmund looked at her in surprise and amusement from where he stood, trying to slide the dead beast in front of the jagged hole in the stone wall. Several others lay sleeping outside.

"I appreciate the help," he said with a genuine smile, "but you can get the next one."

Candace lowered her weapon awkwardly and got her first good look at the things that wanted her dead as Osmund used its body to block the hole made by its entrance.

The word "horrible" didn't begin to describe it. It was a nightmare come to life, a disfigured mass of black and red fear disguised as something vaguely animal in nature. Even in death, its fur dug deep grooves in the stone floors, and it did indeed have two sets of jaws, though she hadn't imagined them to be on top of one another.

What had she done to deserve the wrath of these hideous things? She looked at her son. His father, maybe. She'd hardly known him; maybe he was important and the beasts' master thought it would destroy the father to have them killed. Good luck, she thought with a bitter shake of her head. She hadn't seen him in months.

"More will get in," Osmund said grimly, wiping the sweat from his brow. He picked up a massive, pointed tooth that had been dislodged when the beast fell and carefully handed it to Candace. "If one goes for you, jab it with this. The fool made them venomous but forgot to make them immune to their own venom. Take care not to touch the pointy end."

She laughed despite the dire situation as she slipped it into her pocket. "What on earth are you?"

The area around his eyes crinkled in a smile. "Oh, just an old mercenary, raised by an even older mercenary. No one else likes hunting these things down, so I do it. You could say it's in my blood."

"Your parents did this, too?"

"Never met them. I'm told my mother died a hero, though, so there's that." He turned over his left hand and showed her a round scar surrounded by a nasty discoloration on his palm. "No, it's really in my blood. Lucky I didn't die, being so young, but it gave me their powers to travel—"

Chaos erupted in the main room, the pews falling from in front of the door.

Taking Candace's hand, Osmund nearly dragged her from the room and down the twisting halls. Like the things, he must have been able to see in the dark.

Up a flight of unseen stairs they went, their footfalls and breaths obscuring any sounds of further entry by the wolf beasts. Another flight, and Candace felt their escape routes flitting out of reach like dandelion seeds.

They reached the landing and Osmund pushed open the door to the widow's walk leading to the belfry. The cool night breeze chilled her tear-streaked face, and she covered her baby to spare him the discomfort.

Beside the ancient bell that once tolled the hour but now only rang for weddings and funerals, they stood and watched the wolf beasts break into the church.

The pack writhed in the moonlight as one massive creature, and indeed it was. A hive mind, they called it in the future, each individual acting selflessly for the good of the queen. It was her, one of several breeding females made with higher intelligence and bloodlust, that the master sent through time to find his victim. The packs followed her, merely doing her bidding as she lurked somewhere out of sight.

Osmund thought it best not to tell the poor girl about the wolf queen and managed to keep his mouth shut this time.

"Will they ever stop?"

He shook his head. "Not until we kill them or they kill you."

She stared blankly at the silhouetted shapes of her town, doing a remarkable impression of someone looking very brave. "And do you have a plan?" she asked. "Other than getting us trapped up here?"

"There…aren't usually this many," he said in weak defense of his poor decision. "I just wanted to buy us time to strategize, maybe find out how your existence becomes so threatening to their master. If we change your future—"

"So there's really such a thing as time travel." It wasn't so much a question as it was a statement. "There's time travel, and creatures from the future want to eat me."

"Not eat." Osmund caught the baby's eye as his little face peeked around his mother's arm, and Osmund gently relieved her of him for a moment. "They are actually vegetarians." He let his voice rise to a comically high pitch and touched noses with the baby. "They just enjoy killing. Yes they do. Yes. They. Do!"

Candace flopped to the ground in frustration, the beast tooth falling unnoticed from her pocket with a clatter. Osmund sat next to her, bouncing the baby on his knee.

"Now think, Candace," he said gently. "Their master has a hatred for the rich and influential, and sends them after kings, leaders of businesses…on one curious occasion, the owner of a parakeet who earned Internet fame for whistling the theme to Titanic." He ignored her confusion at these terms from the future. "Why would he want to kill you? A farmgirl from an era where women like you—forgive the bluntness—don’t become rich or influential?"

She just shook her head as the baby patted at the ground, reaching for something.

"No political ambitions or plans to invent the laptop computer?"

"The laptop what?"

"Good." At a loss and with the beasts now filing into the church, Osmund felt desperation closing in around them. In a last attempt to change the future, he said weakly, "Promise me you'll never do anything with your life."

She laughed and wiped her eyes. "Promise. How do you know they aren't coming for you, anyway? You seem to be his biggest adversary, going through time and saving all of his victims."

"I am." He showed her his scar again. "Beast venom. Their DNA." Realizing this was several centuries ahead of her time, he explained, "They're not too bright, you see; think I'm one of them. Maybe the queens are smart enough to see past it, but I'm not their target."

A new level of fear flashed through her eyes. "What do you mean, the queens? Do these things come in a larger size—"

A shriek of pain cut through the night. Candace grabbed her child and pulled the beast tooth from his hand, watching in horror as his skin began absorbing the coloration of the venom.

"No," she whispered, holding him to her tightly.

The scrabbling of claws and faint howling from inside the church abruptly ceased as the beasts' intended victim became one of them.

"I stand corrected," Osmund said with tears in his eyes as he laid a hand on his mother's shoulder. "I was the target."

If she understood the gravity of this statement, she did not give any indication, and sobbed into her son's hair.

A shadow crossed in front of the moon. The pack wandered off toward it, as if drawn by some instinctual force.

The queen, stepping carefully over the houses down in the village. Her footsteps sounded like thunder, and the hairs on the back of her neck rattled like rain on a tin roof. If the beasts were death, she was the horrors waiting in hell. And she was headed for the church.

Candace gave no thought to her own safety. She picked up the tooth, holding it tightly in her fist. "This will kill her?"

"Yes."

"And they won't come after either of you?"

"No."

She kissed her son on the cheek and handed him to his older self before climbing down the belfry.

"It occurs to me," Osmund said to himself, "that she never told me your name. I'll have to name you after myself then, as I always did."

The baby cried, the queen beast howled in pain, and Osmund's mother died a hero.

END