…Salinger’s dead. And I’m angry and depressed, and annoyed with myself, because I haven’t a single reason any real right to be angry and depressed. At least I can’t pinpoint one. I could post my favorite Salinger story, The Laughing Man, but that would be, you know, uncool…
So, this is the music I feel like playing tonight, this is the story I want to roll. Re-roll. This story was originally published by Underland Press. I feel like spinning it right now. Don’t ask. Just because.
•
•
There was a sound in the dark. It was a dry rasp of a breath, the cough and cough and cough of an old man. He sat by the intricate lattice of a nighttime window, his bald head a trembling dome in the shadows. About him ticked many clocks made of wood and metal. The old man coughed. The clocks ticked.
•
The cracked door of the wrecked vehicle bulged, shuddered, then swung open. A soft prism of light cut the dark of the wide flat road. Shadows moved. Thin, spiderlike. And three children emerged from the corpse of the car, slipping out of the open hatch with eerie grace.
They stood together on the tarmac, identical in their features and manner: pale and expressionless, white hair, tiny clenched fists. They were dressed in their Sunday best, little jackets, little ties. Their eyes began to glow, blue.
“Get—” Frost began.
Her right arm snapped level, sleeve yanked-back; the bronze tube of her pulse cannon popped from her forearm with a KLAKKTK!
“—back.” Piercing shriek, and a quick white shaft flashed toward the children, passed through them like a ghost. The conjoined wreck of the two vehicles exploded in a sudden and violent pyre that belched an ugly gush of debris. Thick smoke churned and bloomed into the night sky.
The three children stood as they were, unaffected. Three children unblinking, silhouetted against the crackling fire.
Their eyes glowed again, this time brighter.
Billy and Trista and Mori froze in mid-motion, mid-order, mid-curse. They were all still reacting to the explosion. “—unnh.”
Frost, the woman made of metal, stood unmoving for an instant. Then she glanced at her friends. Frozen like statues. Billy had a particularly idiotic expression on his face, the poor lad. Frost scowled under her broad-rimmed hat, tugged down the sleeve of her long coat, then marched toward the children, the heels of her boots loud and hollow on the black road. Tock, tock, tock.
The three children visibly tensed, standing their ground but clearly gripped with mounting agitation as the robot stepped near. Their small fists trembled. Their eyes burned like deviant stars. But the lady robot came and came, and she was upon them.
“Stop that.” Frost slapped one of the children across his cheek. The child recoiled and blinked. The blue glow vanished.
At once, Billy and Trista and Mori moved again: “Ah,” and “—now,” and “—uck.”
“Stop that. Stop. Stop it now.” Frost gently cuffed all three children, as many times as she had to, like an indulgent and stern grandmother. “Stop.” The children blinked and gaped, hands on their cheeks, stunned.
“You… you hit us!”
“And I’ll do it again if you misbehave. None of your fancy tricks. All done. Do you hear me? No phasing, no control.”
Suitably cowed, the three children nodded. It was two boys and one girl.
“Frost,” Trista called. She had kept her distance, holding back Mori and Billy with a gesture. “Do you… know these children?”
“No,” Frost said over her shoulder. “But I know their maker.”
She turned back to study each of the eerie three. “I know his handiwork. Take me to where he is!”
“We hate it. We tried to leave. We hate it back there.”
“No doubt. Take me to him, and you will have… you will have your freedom.”
The children conferred, silently. Then as one, their eyes swung up to Frost. “We will show you.”
“Lead,” Frost said.
“Freedom?
“We shall see.”
“Billy,” Trista said, watching as the three children turned, and Frost followed. “Stay with the car.”
Then Trista looked at Mori. Smiled thinly. “All right, nasty girl. We go.”
•
As they walked, the children began to speak. They were hesitant at first, but quickly began to fire a continuous stream of questions at Frost, amazed that she would answer every question they put to her. Their questions came faster and faster, until it seemed it was only Frost’s responses to the zing of insects. “Yes,” she said in a seemingly unbroken drone, “no. Eight. Pandemic. Not any longer. Uncertain. No. Double helix. Europa. Still to be determined. Yes. One point eight million. Alas, no.”
Walking behind Frost and the children, Mori whispered, “Hey… if you wanted, could you stop her?”
Trista frowned. “Frost? Well, yes, I could stop her. If I destroyed her.”
A glance. “She is not my thing, Mori. Obviously, this is important to her.”
Mori shook her head with an unpleasant expression. “Of course!”
They came to an old, old building. The steeple was bent but not entirely broken. Jagged antennae from decades past cringed on the roof. “There,” the children pointed.
And inside…
Inside sat a bald old man with a cigarette, coughing. He was surrounded by many clocks, clocks on every wall, clocks everywhere…
…and moving toys of all manner. Animated automatons, toy boys and toy girls and toy animals, some mechanical, some fleshly. The flesh toys limped, and they stank. The room was a slow blur of sluggish, halting, whirring motion. There was a flap of dusty wings, and a robotic cherub flew to another room.
When the old man saw the three children, he began to scold, but then he looked past them. His old jaw tried to work. “Frost!” he said at last. “Oh, my Frost!”
“Wyndham,” Frost said, entering the room and gliding to the old man’s side. The toys took notice. They stopped and watched.
“When did you—how did you—? So long!”
“Shhhh,” she told the old man. “You must be tired.”
“I made so many things…” he stammered.
“I know.”
“I liked them all. I made so many! But you know… the government. The aliens! Never, never trust ’em. Bastards. You know, I especially liked those damn strange trees… and the vampires. And the…”
“I know. And now…” Frost placed a single gold finger gently against the old man’s neck. “It is time for you to rest.”
The old man started to smile, but then he was dead.
Frost eased the old man’s head against his shoulder, as if he had fallen asleep in his chair. She stood upright and addressed the toys.
“Go. You can all go now. Your father is dead. You have freedom, now. If you want it.”
Some of the toys were afraid.
“We’re only children. Some of us are fixed like this… forever. We can’t change any more.”
“Then you will have to do the best you can. With whatever tools he gave you.”
To the Children of the Damned, Frost said, “You three. I suspect you have a flair for leadership.”
•
They walked back together, Mori and Trista trailing several yards behind Frost.
“Will the toys leave?” Mori wondered.
“Maybe. Eventually. Those three damn brats, without question.”
“Who do you think he was, Trista? The old man.”
“Who knows,” Trista said.
“I mean, he had to be somebody, right?” Mori said. “Somebody like Frost’s father or her maker or…” Mori gestured. “Her lover?”
Trista thought about it. “Perhaps he was her son.”
Mori was aghast. “I am aghast!” she cried.
“Why, Mori? Frost is almost two centuries old. In all that time, is it inconceivable that she would want to raise a child? And that man, that inventor? Pah. He wasn’t always an old man; once upon a time, he was someone’s toy, too.”
Mori looked troubled. Trista was sympathetic.
“Who knows, Mori?” Trista said. “I have no clue, and that is all right. Now come on, let’s get to the car before Billy feels the need for speed.”
Ω
