"A foot came through the ceiling at
six-thirty in the morning. There was no warning except a sharp crack,
and suddenly a pale foot jutted out above the stove. The calf and
ankle were visible. Blood ran down from a small cut just below the
knee, diverted around the ankle bone, clung to the heel a moment,
then fell on the stovetop in a teardrop splatter."
"So, guess who's out sick again? I
swear to god, that receptionist manages to come down with every
last flu bug I get. I shouldn't be so surprised, actually, since
she set it up yesterday the way she always does when I've been out
sick. She stops by my office first thing, before the phones start
up."
The Kingfish and the Tunguska Machine
by Bill Kte'pi
"'Elliott Sterns, Mr President.' You never
addressed a man of power informally until he asked you to do so
for the third time in the conversation. 'Junior
ambassador to the Russian Council of the American Protectorate of
Austria-Hungary. My sources there tell me the Italian nationalists
in the southeast region of the protectorate have developed a Tunguska
machine, or think they have.'"
"Her lover was a monster—long
teeth, fur, claws and all. People called him this, a monster. The
Monster. Never a brute, never a beast. She was not beautiful, so
that cliché didn't enter people's minds. In fact, she was hardly
noticeable, a sort of monochrome blur of pale browns. Her hair,
her eyes, her skin—they would what one would call "dun" if
one were fond of old words, and I am."
