Charlie stood over me, his skin glowing in the absolute darkness. “I can’t. It’s closed.”
“Well, open it!”
“I can’t. It can only be opened from outside.”
“Is this the thanks I get for helping you?”
Charlie shook his head. “I’m sorry . . . ”
“You’re sorry? You asshole!”
“I’m lonely. I need someone to play music with. I thought . . . because we played so well together . . . ”
I was furious. “You thought, what? That you’d lure me in here and seal the entrance?”
Charlie’s voice echoed in the tunnel, somewhere behind him water dripped. “It’s not right, I know. It hurts me to do it. But, it’s the only way I could find somebody to play music with. You see, eternity is a terrible thing to face as a solo. In a few minutes the air will become unbreathable. Then, we’ll have all the time in the world.”
“No!” I panicked and beat my fists against the bricks. “No! I don’t want to die! Please . . . Charlie, please.”
Charlie held out my guitar. “Let’s jam.”
Greg Kihn has been a professional songwriter, musician, and performer for over thirty-five years. As leader of the Greg Kihn Band, he has released eighteen albums, scored top hits with “Breakup Song” and “Jeopardy,” as well as worldwide notoriety and regular airplay on MTV. Kihn has written four novels; the first, Horror Show (1996) was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. It was followed by Shade of Pale, Big Rock Beat, and Mojo Hand. Kihn also edited Carved in Rock: Short Stories by Musicians, an anthology of short stories written by rock musicians. Kihn currently is the morning DJ at San Jose, California classic rock radio station 98.5 KFOX. As part of the Jones Radio Network he also does a late night show on classic rock radio station WKGO-FM (go106.com). Greg Kihn was inducted into the San Jose Rock Hall of Fame in 2007. He blogs at www.kfox.com/Greg-Kihn-s-Blog/9573650.
The Feast of Saint Janis
Michael Swanwick
Take a load off, Janis, And You put the load right on me.
—The Wait (trad.)
Wolf stood in the early morning fog watching the Yankee Clipper leave Baltimore harbor. His elbows rested against a cool, clammy wall, its surface eroded smooth by the passage of countless hands, almost certainly dating back to before the Collapse. A metallic grey sparkle atop the foremast drew his eye to the dish antenna that linked the ship with the geosynchronous Trickster seasats it relied on to plot winds and currents.
To many the wooden Clipper, with its computer-designed hydrofoils and hand-sewn sails, was a symbol of the New Africa. Wolf, however, watching it merge into sea and sky, knew only that it was going home without him.
He turned and walked back into the rick-a-rack of commercial buildings crowded against the waterfront. The clatter of hand-drawn carts mingled with a mélange of exotic cries and shouts, the alien music of a dozen American dialects. Workers, clad in coveralls most of them, swarmed about, grunting and cursing in exasperation when an iron wheel lurched in a muddy pothole. Yet there was something furtive and covert about them, as if they were hiding an ancient secret.
Craning to stare into the dark recesses of a warehouse, Wolf collided with a woman clad head to foot in chador. She flinched at his touch, her eyes glaring above the black veil, then whipped away. Not a word was exchanged.
A citizen of Baltimore in its glory days would not have recognized the city. Where the old buildings had not been torn down and buried, shanties crowded the streets, taking advantage of the space automobiles had needed. Sometimes they were built over the streets, so that alleys became tunnelways, and sometimes these collapsed, to the cries and consternation of the natives.
It was another day with nothing to do. He could don a filter mask and tour the Washington ruins, but he had already done that, and besides the day looked like it was going to be hot. It was unlikely he’d hear anything about his mission, not after months of waiting on American officials who didn’t want to talk with him. Wolf decided to check back at his hostel for messages, then spend the day in the bazaars.
Children were playing in the street outside the hostel. They scattered at his approach. One, he noted, lagged behind the others, hampered by a malformed leg. He mounted the unpainted wooden steps, edging past an old man who sat at the bottom. The