Funereal Plots

Horror Cinema reviews

Matthew M. Bartlett

Arcadian

Director – Benjamin Brewer

Writer – Michale Nilon

In a post-pandemic, post-apocalyptic world, Paul (Nicolas Cage, in subdued mode) and his sons Thomas and Joseph fight off creepy creatures of unexplained origin in their reinforced home. Arcadian has a look and themes all too familiar, with its gritty survivors in sylvan woods and far-flung farms, and I wouldn’t be in the slightest bit surprised to find out it was a discarded one-off episode of either The Walking Dead or The Last of Us.

Thomas, the impetuous risk-taker of the trio, likes to visit a farm occupied by the Roses, a family with a daughter, named Charlotte, about his age, so they can make eyes at one another. When Thomas falls into a ditch on his way home from the farm, he has to fend off the creatures on his own; at home, Joseph sets himself up as bait to try to trap and study one of the creatures. The scene in which the creature breaches the door is one of the more effective, eerie scenes in the movie. Sadly, this plot thread is abruptly abandoned.

We enter Walking Dead territory when Paul is injured (effectively removing Cage from the bulk of the proceedings and most of the movie’s run time) and Thomas heads to the Rose farm to try to beg for medicine. Of course, he is brusquely turned away, attempts to smuggle out the medicine (this is one of those all-purpose movie medications that causes the patient to cough, wake up, and heal), but is caught, and about to be mutilated for his efforts. His predicament seems impossible, so, of course, the monsters swoop in to attack and kill most everyone, conveniently allowing Thomas and Charlotte to escape.

As to the creatures: the design and conception is effective—they look at once goofy (literally, like the Disney dog, apparently not far from the filmmakers’ minds) and savage, and they do this thing with their jaws that is terrifying, though the filmmakers for some reason forego the opportunity to show them actually causing physical harm with it. The only issue is that several times the creatures are shown in too much light, and we’re suddenly subjected to what I call the “Roger Rabbit” effect – we see, and cannot unsee, humans interacting with cartoons. The ultimate enemy of the suspension of disbelief.

Ultimately I began to think of Jar-Jar Binks. It’s hard to be afraid of Jar-Jar Binks.

 

Yet Another Four Gothic Poems

Rhys Hughes

My writing of Gothic Poems has slowed down, as I knew it must. It is harder to be Gothic in summer than in any other season, but that’s not the reason. When writing so many poems constrained by theme, style and presentation, one must take extra care not to rely too much on repetition. The same imagery endlessly swirls in the consciousness. Two or three poems about ruined castles are surely acceptable, but not a dozen. A limit of some sort must be imposed on vampires, werewolves, ghosts and lost cities. And yet the familiar spectral backdrops are precisely what gives power to the Gothic, a sense of déjà vu as well as danger. I have done my best to strike a balance and will continue to do so.

The Gargoyle

High over the town

it frowns down

and heedless the people pass.

But one day

they will say: why didn’t we

look up before?

The sculpture is scored

with chisel scars

made by

a drunken artisan

who clearly

abhorred

the task he was given

by some

impetuous lord.

The gargoyle is evil

beyond a doubt:

there is something awful

in the tusked snout

balanced over the world.

Yet none below seem aware

of the threatening stares

it offers to the

grounded crowds: believers

and scoffers,

gullible mockers,

no one appears to care.

But the crack in the tower

nears the hour

when the gargoyle

will break free: and then we

all must see

a closer familiarity

with the weight of its hate.

I am that monster

looming above,

waiting for fate to turn me

from dragon

to dove:

dragon of heaven,

dove of hell,

seismic shift

and all’s unwell.

Yes, I am

the gargoyle.

Your bones will be crushed

into powerless powder

by my mineral glower:

your blood will run swiftly

along the channels

in my stones.

I will fall

and you will die, alone.

The Hollow Tree

I missed the turning

in the fading light

and went the wrong way

without discerning

my mistake. Already late

for my engagement,

forsaking caution,

I pressed onwards,

churning frightful thoughts.

I ought to have been

more aware: to care

deeply about where

exactly I might be going

but I was engrossed

in smaller worries, hurrying

oblivious through a twilight

festooned with ghosts,

ghouls studded with warts.

And then I passed the hollow tree

and that was the end

of my journey!

The correct direction

in such a forest is key

to the preservation of

our sanity. Now I am a man

in a new home, devoid

of affection, all alone,

woebegone, stuck for eternity

behind the dark bark

of an ancient oak: cruel joke!

The arms that seized me

as I went by were strong

but softer than any sigh:

my resistance was less

than feeble, voice a croak,

as evil dragged me inside,

and this is where I reside,

an abscess in reality’s side:

swallowed by hollowness.

Walk not past the hollow tree

if you wish to finish

your journey!

The Attic

I built the house myself.

It wasn’t old.

There was nothing cold

about the place.

No ancient disgrace had

tainted the land:

the atmosphere was calm.

And when it was finished

after one year

it was just an empty shell,

nothing to tell

me to stay away by subtle

signs of some

grotesque violated secrecy.

But one peculiar afternoon

I climbed up

to the highest room, an attic

not yet used,

and found a space crammed

with bones,

thousands of the damn things.

The timbers of my home

are groaning

and still I have no notion

of how, why,

where or what: skeletons

from nothing,

the twisted kind of miracle.

We believe that every effect

has its cause,

that every horror is a lesson,

but confession

sometimes yields no insight:

it is not right

to assign an arbitrary blame.

I have no skeletons at all

in any closet.

They are in my existence

instead, alive

rather than dead: clattering

a desecration

inside my desiccated head.

The Sunken City

The sunken city

is calling me: forlorn,

timeworn, a legendary summons.

Swamped by time, it is not mine

but I am compelled to

listen: otherwise?

The shore I walk

is far from home: the mutterings

of ghosts drowned

off the coast, waterborne

but undiluted, reach me quaintly,

faintly vagabond,

yet I am unsuited

to heed them: my fluttering heart

still betrays me.

How can I respond?

The sun is sinking,

colours fade, the tide is turning

and my yearning

laps the reefs of a burning mind.

The tales of mermen all are lies:

be wise enough

to know just this: they will insist

you drink deep

of the brine that promotes sleep:

solving riddles,

weeping wine,

will not dissolve your sufferings.

They say

the bells of ancient towers

turned to rust

still swirl and chime:

iron flakes, petals of evil flowers

settling inside the heads of those

who tempt tides

of unkempt fate

their entire lives

instead of dropping to rest on the

aching seabed,

making the dreaded dead gyrate.

But the bells of other metals

that do not oxidise

groan in contemptuous tones,

moan in the voices

of demons trapped alone with

crystallised vices.

The choices we make

determine the hate of the spirits

in the sunken city,

decide how they might indicate

our responsibility

and the necessity

that we offer ourselves

to the fuss of the waves of death.

The

sunken

city is calling

me: forlorn, timeworn,

a legendary summons to the courts

of abyssal chaos.

 

Dark Entertainment Trends presents Off Kilter TV: Where Horror Rears its Ugly Head on Family Television. TV is formulaic and predictable, but sometimes an episode slips by that breaks the formula--this I call Off Kilter TV. I review COMBAT! Cry in the Ruins, the story of a German unit and an American patrol who lay down their weapons in an uneasy truce to find a baby buried in the rumble of a bombed out French village. Directed by Vic Morrow, this is one of the strangest and most poignant episodes of Combat! and has become a cult classic with the show's fans and non-fans alike. After the review, watch the episode in its entirety. Please share and comment. Thanks.

(from the Servante of Darkness Blog archives).

Off Kilter TV: 

Where Horror Rears Its Ugly Head on Family Television

(Where the unexpected can be expected on TV shows from yesteryear).

COMBAT!: Cry in the Ruins Season Three, Episode Twenty Seven

Reviewed by Anthony Servante

Our unexpected show for this month is Combat!, a TV action/drama show about World War II that ran from 1962 to 1967. What the audience came to expect from this show was, well, combat, Americans fighting Germans on French soil. The running joke with fans and insiders alike was that the United States fought in France less than a year compared to the five years the show ran. But the episodes were always freshly written and the battle scenes choreographed by WWII veterans, giving the show edge and its characters a realism lacking in the other “war” TV shows of the day. However, there was that one episode that wasn’t about fighting or killing, or taking a bridge or blowing up a strategic obstacle to further the advances of the Allied Forces; this episode concerned itself with peace, if only for a day, and therein lies the Off Kilter formula I look for in family television of old.

The episode is titled Cry in the Ruins. It is directed by Vic Morrow, one of the stars of the show (who does not appear in this episode but is credited). It stars Rick Jason as Lt. Hanley and William Smithers as German officer Lt. Markes, and was written by A. Martin Zweiback, who wrote for TV’s KUNG FU and THE RIFLEMAN.

Hanley and King Company, which consists of Pierre Jalbert as Private First Class Paul “Caje” LeMay, Jack Hogan as PFC William G. Kirby, Dick Peabody as PFC “Littlejohn, and Conlan Carter as “Doc”, the company medic, enter a bombed out village right after a German Squadron led by Lt. Markes (William Smithers—he played bad guy Captain Merik in the original STAR TREK series). A wailing French woman searches for her baby amongst the rumble of the village and the Germans help her in her search. Hanley sees the humanity in the Germans’ assistance and offers the German Lieutenant a truce so that his own company can join the squad in the search for the missing child. After many cautious exchanges, both armies lay down their weapons and dig for the wine cellar where the baby is buried. “The hysterical mother is played by Lisa Pera, the grandniece of Russian author Leo Tolstoy and a protégee of series star (and director of this episode) Vic Morrow” (Wiki).

From Combat to Star Trek

There is much tension as the soldiers dig and work to free the infant, but the goal remains true to both sides—save the child. It’s not really a ghost story, and the horrors of war are set aside in favor of working together for the common good of this woman, a stranger, and her baby. When a dying German Captain comes upon the two enemies at work in the ruins, he orders the lieutenant to kill the Americans. While the Captain, woozy from loss of blood, trains his machine gun on King Company, the Germans retrieve their weapons that were placed out of reach by both sides in the uneasy truce. Then the Captain dies, leaving the Germans armed and the Americans at their mercy. Hanley tells Markes that they should resume the search, but the German leader reminds the American leader that the Captain brought the war back. Hanley then asks him, “Then what were we digging for?” After a moment of thought, Markes replies, “We were searching for something we have lost” and orders his men to replace the weapons out of reach once more and resume the search for the child.

Thus far, we’ve had no killing. The soldiers on both sides find the cellar and one of the Americans is lowered down to find the baby as the French woman looks on. The American finds no infant and exits the wine cellar. The soldiers regroup and plan their next move to resume the search, when an old man appears and talks to the woman. He begins to escort the woman from the site of the digging. Hanley asks the man about the woman. He says that many months ago the mother lost her infant during a bombing of their village and that whenever the bombing resumes she returns to the site where her baby died and searches for him. He further says that it’s the bombing that triggers her memory and he must always come for her to take her home. Then with the woman in tow, they depart.

The enemy soldiers realize that their truce was based on a lie, that there was a child to find. Their “humanity” was the product of a falsehood. And therein lies the off kilter element of our story. The soldiers were willing to kill each other based on a political “lie”, an order to murder to further political ambitions. They are pawns in a greater game of War with a capital W. But for a moment the pawns set aside the game for the falsehood of Peace; it was a different lie but a lie nonetheless. The soldiers retrieve their weapons and put on their respective uniforms, aware that for a while they were all alike, just men working collectively; they depart the village together, side by side one last time, letting their truce remain until next they meet in combat and the killing resumes.

It was a ghost that they fought for, and it was a ghost that they laid down their arms for. And they understand that the cause one fights for is sometimes an illusion and that coming face to face with that illusion one can sometimes find their moral purpose. When Markes answered Hanley’s question about what they were digging for, he meant that they were searching for something they had lost, their individuality, their humanity. If they could follow orders to kill, they could also say no to those orders if just for a moment.

The truce was based on finding life, a living child in the rubble. When they find that child does not exist, they understand that peace is an illusion, and that war can be based on an illusion too, fighting for something that doesn’t exist except in theocratic form. The war killed the French woman’s baby, she lost her baby to the war, and she turns to the soldiers, both German and American, to find her baby; who else but the ones who took the infant can return the infant to her? The soldiers learn this too. They were looking for the thing that they themselves disintegrated with their bombs. As the woman returns to seek her baby whenever she hears the shelling, the soldiers return to their shelling of other villages and towns. The cycle of life is spun by death.

Well, thank you, dear readers, for joining us this month for our Off Kilter TV episode. This is one of the most haunting episodes ever written for COMBAT! It was one of the few episodes that dealt with death, but without any killing. As such, its message was sent to us ironically in the O’Henry ending. And for one episode of the War action/drama, we had an hour of Peace, a humanitarian mission, thanks to the soldiers’ belief in something bigger than war—life. Click below to watch the conclusion of Cry in the Ruins. Until next we meet, keep your TV tuned to black and white.

Closing scene to the episode. Back to war. 

View here

 

Funereal Plots

Horror Cinema reviews

Matthew M. Bartlett

In a Violent Nature

Director – Chris Nash

Writer – Chris Nash

In this time of streaming on demand and social media, I often encounter others’ reactions to a new movie before almost anything else, including poster art and trailers. And what I saw regarding In a Violent Nature were comparisons to truly divisive films in which, people complain, nothing happens. Skinamarink is one. The Outwaters is another. The complaint seemed to be that the camera spent too much time lingering behind the mute, hulking assailant as he walked through the woods.

I started the movie with some anticipation. I like when movies try for something different. I admired Skinamarink but did not love it, and that may be the fault of my television’s settings. I couldn’t see a damned thing. The Outwaters I turned off in frustration, but voices from the wilderness of social media are trying to convince me to give it another go.

What I found is that In a Violent Nature is an above average slasher, nothing less, maybe a good amount more. It’s certainly not a movie in which “nothing happens”—very far from it. The camera does indeed stay with the killer (Ry Barrett)—stalking behind him—more so than it does the victims and, frankly, that’s a blessing. Because the victims are pretty much the standard set of ciphers without much to mark them, with the usual banal dialogue (and sketchy “acting”) but with references to Cancel Culture thrown in to mark this as a 2020s affair.

The motivation and origin story of the killer (named Johnny) involve a necklace and locket found by some campers in a fire tower—when the campers take it, the killer digs out from his burial spot to pursue those who took it. It belonged to his mother, and somehow magically kept him inert and buried. There’s some further perfunctory campfire backstory about how the killer, when he was a boy, was slow, and was lured to his death by a group of loggers, all of whom ended up mysteriously massacred.

At some point our mute, implacable, unkillable killer acquires a pair of dragging hooks and a smoke helmet (suitably creepy—I wouldn’t be surprised to see a rubber version appear at Spirit of Halloween this year) before he carries on his rampage. The murders range from mundane to astoundingly over the top (and, it seems to me, physically and physiologically impossible, even given superhuman strength). The gore flows. The camera lingers, matter-of-factly, documentary-style, yet still artful.

Where In a Violent Nature surpasses its forebears is in its deliberately moderate pace, its quiet, unobtrusive, but compelling direction, and its refreshing lack of music. Besides the dialogue, we hear birdsong, wind, the heavy footsteps of Johnny as he approaches his prey.

There are also several scenes of edge-of-your-seat suspense, as when the killer enters a lake as two campers cavort and flirt at the opposite shore. The time it takes him to emerge is a singularly nail-biting sequence. If it calls to mind Gus Van Sant’s chilling Elephant, that’s not happenstance.

And the final scene, in which a lone survivor—the much remarked upon “final girl” of the subgenre—is picked up by a local and driven toward a hospital, is in itself incredibly suspenseful. Is the driver to be trusted? Is she in on it? When she stops to apply a tourniquet to our survivor’s leg, our final girl panics, begging to be taken out of the forest and to the hospital. The driver urges patience. The camera lingers on the woods as the viewer, feeling the fear, searches the screen.

 

DÉJÀ VU

by Anthony Servante

“My girlfriend’s in love with you,” said the sandy-haired man seated next to Nigel Conners at the lunch counter.

Nigel set his cup of latte in its saucer and eyed the sad-faced man for signs that it was all some joke. After all, this was Guy Pollrich, his good friend for the past five years. Or was it six?

“You’re joking, right?” asked Nigel, already satisfied that in fact it was some more of Guy’s over-tuned sense of irony, and resumed picking at his plate of scrambled eggs, hash browns, and bacon.

“No joke here, man,” he said blankly. “Does it look like I’m joking?”

The forkful of catsup soaked eggs never reached Nigel’s open mouth. Nigel stabbed the fork into the thin pile of potatoes, screeching the bottom of the porcelain plate. The grating sound drew quick cringing glances from the diners in the Pancake House. Nigel sighed reluctantly as he faced Guy, who was fighting back tears. This was no joke.

“Hey, I’m sorry, dude,” Nigel said, raising his hands defensively, “but how could I not think it was just a joke, huh? I mean, come on, Sophie in love with me? Get real.”

Guy stared into his cup of Mocha Java Black and lifted it for a sip. It tasted acidly, over-brewed, just the way Sophie liked to drink it. He carefully considered his next words, trying to keep his emotions at bay. He wouldn’t stand in her way if she chose Nigel.

Without meeting eyes with Nigel, Guy said, “She feels she’s known you all her life. She says she can’t remember a time that you weren’t around. Hell, she remembers things about you like they happened yesterday, things that were supposed to have happened when she was a kid.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Nigel said almost apologetically. “I’ve only known you guys for five or six years.”

Guy shot him a look of surprise. “Now you’re joking, right?”

“What do you mean? Nigel asked impatiently.

“We only met a few months ago,” Guy answered.

###

The freeway was jammed as usual with early morning traffic. Nigel figured that Guy must still be upset and got on the crowded freeway without thinking. They had hardly spoken since they left the café. Twice Guy turned on the radio and after a few seconds turned it off. It was stop and go driving, and the top speed was fifteen miles per hour at best. They still had to clear the Downtown area where people were yet heading for work. Once they snarled their way out of the Civic Center, the traffic would let up. Nigel was going to suggest that they get off at Spring Street and take side streets to Sophie’s apartment in McArthur Hills but decided to let Guy be the one to break the silence.

It had to be a mistake, Nigel thought to himself. How could he remember things from years back if he had only just met Sophie and Guy a few months ago? Yet the memories were there, but more like dreams than waking reality. They seemed like fuzzy, tangled images of places and people but in a chronology that didn’t make sense. He couldn’t have imagined the faces and names that he pictured in his mind’s eye. He tried tracing a mental path backwards. He was twenty-seven years old, five years since graduating from USC. He sold used books out of the store he bought a few years ago. Guy and Sophie walked in one day looking for a book of short stories by Richard Matheson called “Third from the Sun.” But when was that? He could picture them walking into the store, but what season was it? He could remember how quickly Sophie and he got along, like old friends with common interests. He could remember how the three of them went out to dinner at Sophie’s insistence, and how they met for breakfast the following morning. They discussed Matheson and Robert Bloch and Ray Bradbury, the Arkham edition authors, the Weird Tales pulp magazine writers, the adaptations to film of their favorite stories, television shows like “The Twilight Zone” and “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and “The Outer Limits” and “Tales from the Darkside.” It was a never-ending conversation that they were still having every time they met. But when was that first meeting? Was it at the bookstore a few months ago? Did their lengthy conversations create an illusion that he had known her for a long time? Or had they met before the bookstore?

Then he remembered.

Of course, “The Outer Limits.” It didn’t fit in with all the other memories. She had mentioned the TV show from the Sixties, but he had nervously avoided talking about it, except for the episode about the bees, where the queen bee takes on human form to infiltrate the lab of a scientist who was experimenting on the possibility that there was a language in the buzzing of the bees. The queen orders the bees to kill the scientist’s wife. Nigel shivered at the thought of the swarming hive covering the helpless woman, stinging her to death with thousands of venomous stabs. But what did that have to do with Sophie?

Nothing, he thought, and maybe everything.

Guy turned the car into the driveway and parked next to the 1970 custom rebuild VW Bug that belonged to Sophie. Both he and Nigel walked up the stairs to Sophie’s apartment. Guy followed Nigel, and when they reached her door, Guy grabbed the surprised Nigel by the shoulder and held a fist to Nigel’s face. “How the hell did you know where her apartment was? Been here before, huh?”

“What’s wrong with you, man?” Nigel protested, slapping the fist aside. “Her Bug was parked in slot 20 and here we are at apartment 20. You don’t need to be Einstein to figure that out.”

“What the hell’s going on out here?” It was Sophie at her opened door.

“Nothing,” said Guy, releasing Nigel’s shoulder. “We just have to talk. Now.”

“Okay,” agreed Sophie, sensing the confrontation that was long overdue. “Come in.”

The inside of Sophie’s apartment reminded Nigel of his grandmother’s front room. There were antique odds and ends atop dozens of hand-built wall shelves that were completely free of dust. Tiny ceramic figures, from ballerinas to clowns, crowded the bookshelves instead of books. The thick brown drapes were drawn and refused even the slightest ray of any outside light into the room. On the mantel over the unused fireplace sat rows of framed and unframed photographs, mostly black and white shots of people she couldn’t possibly know. These were second-hand store pictures she must have found interesting enough to decorate her place. Over the photos, on the wall, was the oil painting that Guy had had commissioned for Sophie from a snapshot taken of her at Disneyland. She was posed in front of The Mad Hatter’s Wild Ride. But not one of these decorations jogged Nigel’s memory as he believed they might when he circled the living room, gazing and touching items. In the back of his mind he had hoped that there would be some reminder from five or six years back, a gift he had given her, a photo with the three of them together, anything to quell the throbbing that had started in his head when he first entered Sophie’s apartment.

Still, there was Sophie. She was six years older than Nigel and two years younger than Guy. She was slim and pretty like those girls in the Thirties movies. She seemed to Nigel like a child in the body of a young woman with that balanced mix of innocence and experience. She once told him that he too seemed like a grown-up trapped in a young man’s body.

“How long have you known Nigel, Sophie?” Guy asked coldly.

“Three and a half months,” she answered back just as coldly. “Why? Is today our anniversary or something?”

“Nigel says that he’s known us, or at least you, for five or six years.” Guy was struggling to control the anger that was giving edge to his words. He took a deep breath before continuing. “Now, have you been keeping something from me?”

She gave Nigel a puzzled look. “Are you serious? I’ve only known you for three and a half months. Are you okay?” She put her hand to his forehead and jokingly felt for a fever.

Their eyes met and locked for a moment.

Guy slammed his fist against the coffee table, knocking over the ceramic Humpty Dumpty figurine. It landed unbroken on the shag carpet. “Just look at the two of you. You always find an excuse to paw at each other, and then you end up staring into each other’s eyes. What the hell am I supposed to think?”

Sophie joined Guy on the sofa and cupped his fist in her caressing hands. He pulled his hand away and picked up the figurine. “Remember when I got this for you at Disneyland? That was our third date. I was a freshman at Woodrow Wilson High, and you were a senior. You remember?”

“Of course I do,” she said with a smile at the memory. He picked up quickly on her fascination with all things ceramic and won her over with his many gifts, all of which she cherished and built her collection upon.

“Tell Nigel your memories of him,” he ordered her.

The smile vanished from her lips. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Tell him what you told me the first time you met him,” he said slowly with the hint of a threat between each pause. His fingers tightened around Humpty’s large head.

“Nigel,” Sophie said, standing for emphasis, “I remember you from before three and a half months ago, more than five or six years ago even. I remember playing with you when I was a little girl. It was you. You got that scar on your cheek when you were six years old. You tripped and landed face-down on a rock. I wept when the ambulance rushed you to the hospital. You were all covered with blood. I was so glad to see you when your Mom brought you home. You had six stitches on your cheek. You let me touch them, and I kissed you there.

“When we talked at your bookshop those months ago, you mentioned ‘The Outer Limits’ and something clicked in my head. It didn’t fit the pattern of memories I lived, and yet it triggered memories of a life with you that I couldn’t have lived. It all seems so dream-like. There are spaces in my memory where you aren’t there, but you’re in all the rest. I know I only just met you, but you’re a living part of my memory.”

Nigel felt dizzy. He closed his eyes, and his mind raced to a black and white television scene of bees attacking a woman, then the woman was a little girl, and then the bees were attacking him. Nigel was a little boy now, his skinny arms flailing at the hundreds of buzzing attackers. He battered away dozens of the soldiers until only one bee remained. It stood as tall as a man, upright and staring down at the six-year-old Nigel. Its bristled black upper legs held a weapon that resembled rusty metal larva. The insect gun hummed as its tip opened. Leveling the glowing white tip at Nigel, the giant bee aimed and fired a ray of plasma and light at Nigel.

He opened his eyes, screaming.

###

It was several minutes before Nigel was calm enough to answer any questions. Sophie was crying the whole time. Guy, the stronger and larger of the two men, managed to restrain the frantic Nigel as he attempted to claw the flesh off his chest, ripping at his shirt and popping off the buttons. There was a close moment, however, when Nigel knocked Guy off balance. With Guy out of the way, Nigel dug his fingernails into the soft tissue above his left breast. It was Sophie who stopped him from causing any permanent damage by putting her hands over his and looking him in the eyes. He became quiet and contemplative. He glanced around as if he didn’t recognize his surroundings. Sophie led him to the sofa and sat him down as Guy got to his feet and seated himself on the coffee table.

“What did you remember?” Sophie asked.

“I have known you all of my life,” Nigel realized.

Guy listened intently, his mind completely clear of the jealousy that had hounded him earlier. This was a matter that had nothing to do with love. It was now a mystery that needed to be explained, for his girlfriend and friend were involved in it, and if he could just understand enough of what was happening, he might be able to help.

“I remember you living next door to me,” Nigel began.” We were no more than six or seven years old. We were playing in the backyard and saw the beehive hidden between the branches of the tree. It was a strangely shaped hive. Rounder than the ones I had seen in the cartoons. You threw a rock and hit it, and it made a clanging noise. Then it started to hum and the bees came flying out in hundreds. But they ignored us. In the cartoons the bees always chase the people who disturb the hive. But these didn’t attack. The yellow ones set up a defensive field of buzzing bees around the hive while several black bees examined the spot where the rock had struck the hive. Then a large white bee emerged from the hive and the black bees flew to it and a high-pitched buzzing sounded as if they were talking.

“Then you picked up another rock, only bigger, and whipped it through the wall of yellow guards, bouncing it off the hive once again. Again the hive clanged. Again the bees ignored us, although the guard bees doubled their number and increased their buzzing roar. The yellow field was too thick to see what the white and black bees were doing. I was too young to understand the danger we were in, but that growing roar told my better instincts that it was time to leave. Suddenly, all the bees flew back into the hive, and then the hive itself began to glow. It looked like a football-shaped light bulb, except that the bottom tip glared whiter and whiter and hummed louder and louder.

“You picked up another rock, and as you aimed it, a white beam shot from the humming tip of the hive and struck the rock. It shattered in your hand. A rather large piece hit you on the right temple and knocked you out. You dropped to the grassy ground. You looked like you were asleep. I tried to wake you up, but you stayed asleep. I got mad and picked up a rock. Even though something in my head kept telling me to run, I readied the rock to strike the glowing white tip of the hive. I threw the rock at the same time that another white beam blasted away. It cut right through the rock and hit me on the chest, and I could feel myself disintegrating,—no, more like evaporating. I remember dying. They must have thought you were already dead, ‘cause they left you alone.”

Sophie stared down, trying hard to remember the hive. She looked up first at Guy then at Nigel and said, “I remember being taken to the hospital when I was a little girl. I was told that some little boy named Benjamin had thrown a rock at me. But I knew that it was not true. I asked about the little boy that I was playing with and I was told that he ran away, but that he would come back soon. As time went by, I often asked if the boy had returned, and one day I was told that maybe he went to Heaven. All my life I waited for that little boy to come back. I grew up thinking about where he was and what he was doing. And when I met you, somehow I knew that you had come back. But it can’t be you, can it? That little boy was about my age. I’m six years older than you, Nigel.”

Guy then said, “Maybe you heard about the disappearance of that little boy when you were young and grew up thinking that you knew him. That’s not an uncommon belief in a child. Some kids grow up thinking they’re rich, and thinking back as adults, they realize that their house wasn’t so big, and their Christmas tree wasn’t all that tall, and their neighborhood wasn’t all that safe. You may be coming to the realization now about your own life. You and Nigel probably grew up with the story of that boy’s disappearance. I mean, you both grew up around here. You had to be familiar with the local folklore.”

Nigel didn’t seem very convinced. He asked Sophie, “What was the name of the family that lived next door to you?

“Rodriguez,” she answered.

“See,” said Guy, “your name is Conners, and you can’t tell me you can confuse a Conners with a Rodriguez.”

“Do they still live there?” Nigel asked Sophie, ignoring Guy.

“Yes, after my parents passed away a few years ago, I oversaw the sale of our house and visited Mrs. Rodriguez to ask about news of her missing son. She refused to discuss it. Her husband was never the same after the boy’s disappearance. He went in search of his son, abandoning his wife and second son. An auto accident took his life, according to the Real Estate agent.”

“How old is the other son?” Nigel wanted to know.

“He’s several years younger than me, so that would make him around twenty-five or twenty-six,” Sophie said.

“That would make him about a year older than me, give or take a year,” Nigel figured. “He would have been a toddler when his brother disappeared.”

“A brother he never got to know,” Guy added.

“We have to go see them,” Nigel insisted and rose to his feet.

“That old woman lost her son and husband,” Guy reminded him. “She doesn’t need any more misery.”

“Show me where they live,” Nigel requested of Sophie.

“Let me get my sweater,” she said.

###

Nigel knocked on the door harder than he wanted to. The young man who answered seemed upset at the unnecessarily loud knocking. “What’s your problem?” he challenged Nigel when he opened the door. Then he saw Nigel and his anger dissipated. Nigel opened the screen door and walked in, passing the unresisting and confused young man. Sophie and Guy trailed right behind him.

“It’s the same, Nigel said to the walls. And the three people who followed him into the living room appeared curious at the words. “Through that door is the kitchen. Down that hallway on the right is the master bedroom. On the left is the bathroom. Down this hallway are two rooms. One was a bedroom for two children, a six-year-old and a two-year-old; the other was the sewing room. Behind that door there is a walk-in closet full of photos and old clothes.”

Nigel stepped into the kitchen with the others close behind, hypnotically lured by his confident demeanor in the house. “Behind that door,” he said, pointing with both hands, “is the backyard. I believe it is time for me to go outside and stir the bees.”

Before he could exit the back door, Mrs. Rodriguez entered the kitchen with a bag of groceries. “Who are your friends, Ernesto?” she asked her son. But he was strangely unresponsive. So she set the bag down to introduce herself to the visitors. She shook hands with Guy first, then Sophie, and upon reaching Nigel, she froze. “Benny?” she wondered.

“Benny,” Sophie echoed the harsh recognition of the name, “not Benjamin.”

And before Nigel could say ‘Mother,’ Mrs. Rodriguez fainted dead away.

###

Guy and Ernesto carried Mrs. Rodriguez to the sofa in the front room. Ernesto didn’t allow Nigel to help. Once the old woman was resting quietly, Ernesto asked Nigel, “Who the hell are you?”

They looked at each other with the same sense of recognition. “I am your brother,” Nigel answered.

“I don’t have any brothers,” countered the defensive Ernesto. “My older brother died when he was six years old.”

“Yes, I died when I was six, but here I am again. I am Benjamin Rodriguez, named for my father. My father’s brother’s name was Ernesto, who you’re named for. He died of Tuberculosis when he was nineteen. Surely Father must have told you.” Nigel stared into the confused face of the young Ernesto, waiting for a response.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “If you were Benjamin, you’d be five years older than me. You look like you’re my age.”

“I don’t have all the answers,” Nigel sighed. “That’s why I had to come back, to find out why I was killed and yet I live. I know that you know in your heart that I’m your brother. Just as I know that this was our next-door neighbor, the little girl who stirred up the nest of bees. It is time for me to face the white little buzzer who cheated me out of being a Rodriguez.”

Nigel exited the back door, followed by Guy and Sophie.

Ernesto made the sign of the cross.

###

Mrs. Rodriguez awoke as if from a pleasant dream. “I saw your father in my dream,” she told Ernesto. “He found little Benny and brought him home. He brought home your big brother.”

“Benny’s in the backyard, Ma,” he said. “Should I go get him?”

She grabbed a hold of his arm. “No, stay with me. He’ll be back,” she said and held her crucifix firmly.

###

The backyard was dead. The plants, the grass, the shrubs, the weeds—all dead. The soil was also dead, and so were the earthworms that once thrived in it. The great Oak tree that shaded nearly the entire yard now stood bare-branched and grey like petrified stone. The trio of friends approached the tree cautiously, glancing slowly up, searching for the hive.

“There it is,” Sophie said, pointing at the metallic football. “After all this time, it’s still there.”

“That’s no beehive,” Guy warned them.

“Whatever it is, let’s wake it up,” suggested Nigel. “Do you remember how I used to hold your hand all the time? I had a crush on you.”

“I only remember my liking you to hold it,” admitted Sophie while Guy remained transfixed by the metal hive.

And the old friends held hands.

“It’s doing something,” said a startled Guy.

It had started to hum. Then the lower tip of the hive began to glow. “It’s glowing like it did back then,” Nigel said. “It seems to know we’re here. Maybe you two should go back inside. It only owes me an explanation.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Benny,” said the teary-eyed little girl standing next to him as a grown woman. “You mean ‘owes us.’”

They looked over to Guy. “I’m staying too,” he said.

Two small squares on the hive slid aside and the white bee emerged to inspect the three humans paying an unexpected visit.

Nigel picked up a rock and aimed it at the hive. Sophie released Nigel’s hand and snatched the rock away. “I believe that’s my job,” she said, a beautiful smile across her lips.

The white bee ordered his troops to take an offensive position. The glow at the base of the hive pulsed as if white-hot. An aperture appeared. The hum was high-pitched like a shriek. Fire, the white bee ordered. The beam of plasma death shot at Sophie. Guy yanked her toward him just as the blast singed her sweater and plowed an eight-foot path along the ground behind them. Guy saw the second beam coming at them. He shielded Sophie and the plasma ray struck him. His nerves imploded as his body at the molecular level melted to ash. The pile of dust in human form fell across Sophie, who swallowed some of the acidic ash. Coughing, she brushed Guy’s remains from her clothes and face.

As the white bee considered the next target, Nigel yelled, “Why did you kill me? How did I return?”

“Benny, get out of here,” Sophie cried.

“Not until I have some answers,” he responded.

The white bee flew at him and Nigel ducked. It buzzed by him once more and then positioned itself by the plasma blaster. The shriek increased a pitch and the tree shook violently. Sophie yelled at Nigel to run, but he stood his ground and pointed an accusing finger at the white bee. “You owe me an explanation.”

Then several more white bees flew out of the hive and joined the white bee by the blaster. As they conferred, Sophie went to Nigel’s side and took his hand in hers. “What are they?” she asked.

“The ones with all the answers,” Nigel grinned.

The conference ended and the white bees approached the pair of humans, halting to hover before them. The large white bee slipped off its phony insect legs to reveal tiny human looking arms. The hands on these arms removed the phony insect head and wings, revealing a jet-pack contraption keeping him aloft and human-like head resembling an insect’s version of what a human would look like. Tiny though the phony insect was, its voice was loud and clear. “You are returned. No more must you be. We are watch beings. We experiment. We practice your DNA. Now is no time. You must be uncreated once again. Not like the gone one there and there," it said, nodding toward Guy’s ashes. “Time for our work to perfect. Time too many yesterdays to aim home. You again must not interfere. Kill time past. The white light is too blue. Now we uncreate you. Return not too soon or kill. Or hope home we are at your next arrival. Now again have explanation.”

The white leader donned his bee disguise and flew back into the square opening followed by the others. The doors slid shut. The shrieking pitch elevated as the white pulsing plasma light turned thick blue. Then the blue beam struck Nigel full on the chest. Sophie embraced him and she too was engulfed by the ray. They melted to form two molecular eggs.

“Sorry you hurt,” said the white leader as it watched the uncreation on the viewing section of the floor. It then signaled two black bees to complete the task.

The black bees had prepared the appropriate equipment as they had done several times over the past twenty years. And even though they thought it was a waste of time, they knew the experiment must be completed before they could go home. Each time their vessel was damaged by these creatures, the more marooned they felt. If the almighty White One permitted it, this would be the last uncreation.

The eggs were inserted into the temp-boxes, and each black bee carried a box for miles and miles in search of a molecular match. One egg was injected into the bloodstream of a young mother of two, the other into an older single woman who recently split up with her boyfriend. The bees returned home to report the success of their mission. The white leader bee ignored the news and watched intently at the floor monitor where the human house creature was hosing away the pile of dust in the back yard.

###

Jennifer hated moving around the city so much, from high school to high school, like a gypsy. It was just that Mom couldn’t stay in one place for too long. Maybe if there were a steady man in her life she could settle down, Jenny thought. Well, at least, Jenny found it easy making new friends. She had enough practice. Right away she noticed the shy-looking boy eating lunch by himself everyday. He was cute in a strange kind of way. He was reading a book by Richard Matheson called “Shock.” It was one of her favorites. She went over and sat next to the blushing boy.

“I read that book,” she told him.

“Really?” he asked rhetorically, impressed that a girl read the good stuff.

“Sure, I like all that horror and fantasy stuff,” she bragged. And even though a nagging little voice in her head told her not to, something stronger than her bad memories and bad dreams took hold and tugged the words to her lips:

“Do you like ‘The Outer Limits’?”