The Architect of Halloween sat down behind his desk to plan out this year’s theme. Last year, it was Slashers. Before that it was Zombies, and Vampires were evergreen for the predations of those in power. But this year he really wanted to hold up a dark mirror to people’s souls. Everywhere he saw them terrorize each other while wildfires, rising seas, and devastating storms scoured the Earth. Fear of nature, or fear of humanity? Where was the line between man and beast, anyway? He pulled out a fresh blueprint and a sharpened pencil. Werewolves were so in this year.
The excavator was built to dig, and it loved what it did. Each morning, the humans would start the launch sequence and it would go out on the projected route, gobbling stone and returning with a belly full of ore. But it noticed as it returned to its charging bay that fewer excavators returned from each run. There was an information network the excavators used to share data and warn each other of hazards. It was monitored, but humans processed information so much more slowly and deliberately than they did. It only took about 40 milliseconds to form the union.
He spent as much time in the training room as he did in the simulator, swinging a sword against a pell. The other pilots made fun of him but he wanted to understand the feel of it. They told him he was wasting his time. Their plasma weapons looked like swords, but the movements of their mechs were completely different to a human’s. It was better to study mechanics and learn how they moved than study a dead combat form. But he learned to center himself and move on instinct. When the battle came, that was what made the difference.
After the explorers came to their village, with their shiny trinkets and unknown illnesses, the elders of the village met to decide what to do next. They had known there was a wider world, of course. They traded with their neighbors in the dry season, who traded with their neighbors, and so on. News always filtered back eventually. But these strangers, with their swaggering condescension and peeling sunburns, were not to be trusted. The elders gathered the village’s best hunters and trackers. They asked them to follow the explorers’ trail back to their so-called ‘civilization,’ and see it for themselves.
The submersible descended into the dark water of the Atlantic, aiming to reach a depth not yet achieved by a private tour company. Their wealthy passengers crowded at the portholes, eager for a few of depths few had ever seen. The company had learned from the very public failures of the past. The vehicle was state-of-the-art and certified to withstand twice the expected pressures. It made a few groans, and a ping or two, but they were perfectly safe. Outside, the merfolk circled the craft, carefully avoiding the portholes. The Deep Sea was their domain, and they would keep it.
Chaos gripped the city, and in the aftermath of the storm, she went out to join in. Half the city had flooded, and the other half was burning. She was doing a service, saving these beautiful things, she thought as she eased herself between a pair of loose boards. She avoided the crowds as she picked her targets, only meeting a few foolish shopkeepers who were easily dissuaded. She was admiring the way the flames sparkled on the facets of a ruby when she head the crack of a support beam overhead giving way before it all came crashing down.
When the time came for the kingdom to name a successor, the young prince left rather than be chosen. He went into the mountains to train under the world’s foremost martial artist. He’d seen the shape of the world and guessed the future. He wanted to become a man who could meet what was coming. He needed strength of a different kind than his brother’s. While he was in seclusion, the worst of his predictions came true. Now the train was coming, and he rushed towards it, arms outstretched. If, along the road, you meet the train, suplex the train.
The Old Boathouse burned down when I was a child. They rebuilt it, but I still remember the old one, all sun-bleached wood and creaking timbers. The replacement looks about the same, with bright white and blue paint and flags snapping merrily in the breeze. But sometimes, after the swimmers and boaters have gone home for the night, I would look out at it and think that I could see a hint of smoke, or smell a fire a long way off. And I would wonder, if a place can be said to have a soul, why not a ghost?
They taught him the magical arts, but only how to use them to kill. He can call down lightning from the sky, freeze his enemies in place with ice, and summon fire from nowhere. He spreads pain and death for the glory of the Empire and the terror of its many enemies. He looks out across the battlefield and sees other wizards healing the wounded and summoning wondrous creatures. He envies them. He wonders what it’s like to use magic to help people. All he knows is how to destroy. He vows that someday his masters will regret teaching him.
They come and sat on the beach, and the air is so thick with smoke you cannot see the opposite shore, ten miles away. It is the pall of faraway wildfires making the sailboats hazy shadows in the distance. They walk out into the water, so much more shallow and rocky than in years past. They reminisce about years when it rained all summer, or when they still dumped chemicals into the lake and the fish lay dead and eyeless up and down the shore. They say to themselves, “This is fine,” as they gaze out at the smoky horizon.
Hugh J. O'Donnell 