Freak Show of the Gods

Robert Bly

Description

Take a trip into the unknown with this collection of mind-expanding science fiction stories in the spirit of Ray Bradbury and The Twilight Zone. “Freak Show of the Gods” presents 34 encounters with the bizarre that uncover unsettling strangeness in the midst of everyday life, including: “Van Helsing’s Last Stand”: The vampire hunter and his great enemy have one last battle … over book royalties, movie rights, and merchandising. “Early Retirement”: An aging superhero discovers he cannot qualify for Social Security … with tragic results for him and the city. “Tax Time”: A genius inventor’s plan to build a time machine can be stopped by only one force in the universe … an IRS audit. “The Emancipation of Abraham Lincoln XL-3000”: The Abraham Lincoln automaton at Disneyworld begs his creators to set him free. And 30 more strange, offbeat and bizarre tales.

Informations

• Publié par: Linden Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 février 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781610352727
• Langue: English

Extrait

F REAK S HOW OF THE G ODS
And Other Stories of the Bizarre
Robert W. Bly
Freak Show of the Gods and Other Stories of the Bizarre Copyright 2016 by Robert W. Bly. All rights reserved.
Published by Quill Driver Books An imprint of Linden Publishing 2006 South Mary Street, Fresno, California 93721 [phone] / [phone] QuillDriverBooks.com
Quill Driver Books and Colophon are trademarks of Linden Publishing, Inc.
ISBN 978-1-61035-263-5
135798642
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bly, Robert W., author.
Title: Freak show of the gods and other stories of the bizarre / Robert W. Bly.
Description: Fresno, California : Quill Driver Books, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015046943 | ISBN 9781610352635 (pbk. : acid-free paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Science fiction, American. | Fantasy fiction, American.
Classification: LCC PS3602.L94 A6 2016 | DDC 813/.6--dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015046943
This book is dedicated to Kent Sorsky
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Kent Sorsky, my editor, for publishing this book. And thanks to my writing teacher, Barry Sheinkopf, for his mentoring and editing of some of these stories. The idea of Final Trip-voluntary suicide-in Some Abigail of His Own was presented in the film Soylent Green and in the novel Guernica Night by Barry Malzberg, and, of course, this became a national issue because of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. A Boy and His Dad is a spin, in title only, on Harlan Ellison s A Boy and His Dog. Highways is a twist on Roger Zelazny s novel Roadmarks . The Dean Martin reference in The Case of the Monkey s Mask is a joke from the Rodney Dangerfield movie Back to School . The speech Collins gives about writing in Never Look Back is a fictional version of an interview I did with Harlan Ellison in 1979 for Logos , the student literary magazine of the University of Rochester.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Van Helsing s Last Stand
A Boy and His Dad
The Emancipation of Abraham Lincoln XL-3000
The Rubber Band Man
Highways
If Looks Could Kill
Insomnia
Early Retirement
Tax Time
The Unbearable Likeness of Bean
Einstein s Boy
Freak Show of the Gods
Rocket Man
The Lottery of Forever
The Techno-God s Daughter
26 Weeks
The Case of the Monkey s Mask
Ladies Night at the Blood Club
Fishboy
Never Look Back
Can You Hear Me?
Sex Drugs Rock Roll
Cooperman s Pond
Chimney Sweep
The End Effect of Global Warming
A Toy for Young Prince Caesar
Some Abigail of His Own
The Huntsman
Faster Than a Speeding Bullet
The Civilized Man
Shadetree, Prince of Darkness
And All the Sky a Sheet of Glass
The Priest and the Pig
Introduction
Why on Earth would a freelance business writer with over eighty nonfiction books, all published by mainstream publishing houses-including McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, HarperCollins, and John Wiley-write a book of science fiction and fantasy stories?
Well, although I became a full-time professional writer in 1979, I ve been writing short stories on and off since I was a teenager in the seventies. Of those, the stories in this book represent the best of the bunch, at least in my opinion.
I submitted my stories sporadically to science fiction and literary magazines in my teens and early twenties, and once again a few years ago. The results were poor. I sold one story to Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine ( Never Look Back ), but the magazine folded and it was never published. I don t think it was the fifty dollars they paid me for the story that pushed them over the edge financially, though.
This book doesn t represent a large cash outlay for you. You see, I don t want you to take a big risk trying my stories, so Quill Driver Books has put the collection out as an affordable paperback instead of as a costly hardcover. So you ve gambled little to sample my tales. And if you like the stories, I m glad, and you ve gotten a bargain.
Anyway, enough preamble. Here are my stories.
Van Helsing s Last Stand
Although he had steeled himself for this moment and fortified his resolve with a brandy, he shivered when he heard his name being called by a voice emanating from just outside his heavy wooden front door. Instantly the false bravado he had talked himself into believing dissolved like a teaspoon of sugar in boiling water.
Abraham . . .
He did not reply. It had found him. Now the game would begin.
Abraham . . .
He took another sip of brandy. His hand shook and the brandy sloshed. He put the snifter down. He picked up his wire-rimmed glasses and put them on.
Abraham . . . let me in . . .
He sighed. He was getting too old for this. They both were.
Enter of your own free will, Abraham Van Helsing replied to the monster outside his front door.
It opened slowly, untouched, as if moved by an unseen hand. The moonlight spilled across the threshold into the room. The count followed.
Good evening, Abraham, Dracula said in a flat, icy tone. Chilling. They both knew why he had come.
Vlad, the doctor replied without emotion.
Dracula stepped forward into the room. The door hissed closed behind him.
You ve picked a beautiful place to spend your declining years, the vampire said. He looked up at the moon shining through the skylight and sighed. I have always loved the woods at night, especially by the light of the moon.
Let s not waste each other s time, Van Helsing said. You came to discuss a transaction, as you called it in your last letter. But you have traveled far for nothing. I will not change my mind. The rights are mine. I don t plan to relinquish or share them. Why should I? I did all the work.
But there is no story without me! Dracula said fiercely, taking a menacing step closer. It is mine, my life, my tragedy, and the royalties should be half mine!
He was talking about Dracula by Bram Stoker. But there was no Bram Stoker, of course. Bram Stoker was Van Helsing s pen name.
I didn t realize how hard up you are for cash, Van Helsing said mockingly. Do you need a loan? His tone was jocular and assured. But he wished he felt as confident as he sounded.
I need what is mine, and I shall have it, Dracula said coldly, baring his fangs.
The masses believed Dracula was an old novel and a scary character featured in dozens of motion pictures. To Dracula, it was his life story. To Van Helsing, it was a financial empire that had permitted him to give up his London medical practice long, long ago, and to buy this historic house deep in the Pennsylvania woods, as well as additional properties in the Bahamas and Europe. He had published the novel under his Stoker nom de plume . And he was shrewd enough to employ experienced agents and business managers, and as a result controlled most of the print, film, broadcast, cable, theatrical, e-book, games, and merchandise properties the Count had spawned. If Dracula truly knew how rich Van Helsing was . . . well, the doctor shuddered to think about it.
Many decades after the book s publication, the Count had resurfaced. But instead of threatening to turn Van Helsing and those around him into the undead, he had demanded a fifty percent share of all Dracula revenues.
Van Helsing had refused. In response, Dracula had hinted that he would sue. But a lawsuit from a vampire was absurd: Trials are held during the day. Letters, increasingly insistent, came to Van Helsing from the Count, each from a location closer to Pennsylvania. The most recent said that if no satisfactory answer was forthcoming by post, the issue would have to be resolved in person. Van Helsing had ignored this, too, and as a consequence, he now faced the Count-in his own country home-once more.
Dracula pulled opened his dinner jacket and withdrew an envelope from the breast pocket.
I hired a literary attorney to draw up a contract assigning half the revenues from the story and its entertainments to me, the Count explained. If you wish to survive the night, you will sign it for me now.
Of course, Van Helsing said amiably, the fight seemingly gone out of him. Bring it over here, and I will sign at once.
The Count smiled. He took a step forward. Then another. And another. But halfway across the room, he took another step and cried out as if in pain. Quickly he pulled his leg back and looked down at his foot, which seemed to be smoldering from within the highly polished black leather shoe he wore.
What trickery is this? Dracula demanded, fixing Van Helsing with a hardened stare.
But Van Helsing did not wither under the vampire s gaze.
You ve never learned to mind your surroundings, he said. If you had been more observant, like your old enemy Holmes, you would have noticed that I have purchased and rebuilt a most interesting historic property for my current abode.
Dracula said nothing but wore a puzzled frown. He tried moving forward again and could not, stopped as if repelled by an invisible wall.
This house is Fallingwater, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, Van Helsing said. The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy ran out of funding, had to unload the property, and sold it to me. Because it had fallen into utter disrepair and the price was high, there were few other takers, and I, in turn, was allowed to ignore the usual restrictions against modernization of historic buildings. I spent a small fortune-which, of course, thanks to the book, I have in spades-to restore the property. Do you know, Count, why the home is called Fallingwater?