Bimbo On the Cover (eBook)

Maya Bohnhoff (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2016 | 1. Auflage
270 Seiten
Isfic Press (Verlag)
9780991002665 (ISBN)

Infos

'There's a bimbo on the cover of the book. She is blonde and she is sexy; She is nowhere in the text. She is a bimbo on the cover of the book.' A bimbo can happen to anyone, even to an Analog-favorite writer like Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff. And when it does, there's nothing to do but to write a song about it-which is just one of the Things you'll find in these pages. Along with Things, you'll see what might happen when we finally make First Contact. You'll read the advice an alien would give to the lovelorn. You'll find that houses can be haunted by things that are far nastier than ghosts; that wishes can be granted in unexpected ways. But not all stories can have happy endings. Some of them will disturb you or remind you that there are things worse than death. Every story will have you turning the page to find out what happens next. From funny to serious, from dark fantasy to straight-up science fiction, and even into mystery, Maya is a master storyteller and we are delighted to present this collection of her work.

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"e;There's a bimbo on the cover of the book. She is blonde and she is sexy; She is nowhere in the text. She is a bimbo on the cover of the book."e;A bimbo can happen to anyone, even to an Analog-favorite writer like Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff. And when it does, there's nothing to do but to write a song about it-which is just one of the Things you'll find in these pages. Along with Things, you'll see what might happen when we finally make First Contact. You'll read the advice an alien would give to the lovelorn. You'll find that houses can be haunted by things that are far nastier than ghosts; that wishes can be granted in unexpected ways. But not all stories can have happy endings. Some of them will disturb you or remind you that there are things worse than death. Every story will have you turning the page to find out what happens next. From funny to serious, from dark fantasy to straight-up science fiction, and even into mystery, Maya is a master storyteller and we are delighted to present this collection of her work.

Textauszug

I chose to kick off this collection with a story that appeared in Baen’s Universe. It’s one of my favorites and hews very close to the dream that inspired it. The dream ended just before the very end, leaving me to figure out which of many ways I might end the tale.

The house at 94 Twining Lane had a reputation. It was known in real-estate circles as a “haunted house.” This did not mean, of course, that it was literally haunted, merely that prospective buyers wouldn’t touch it—presumably because they thought it was haunted.

It sat on a large corner lot that had once been nicely landscaped, but was now in dire need of many things, such as water and hedge trimmers. The house itself was charming at first glance, but on closer inspection had that air of neglect that suggests everyone in the family had died suddenly and simultaneously, leaving no heirs. Its shingles were unpainted, its shutters an indescribable shade of gray-blue-green, its windows dusty.

It had come to Ian Werther’s attention via an article in the local estate agent’s newsletter written by a Matthew Houghton. Apparently the house had floated from agency to agency, never selling. Houghton suggested, tongue in cheek, that there was a point at which it was best to simply burn the place to the ground, sow salt, and start over with a blank lot.

Ian prided himself on having sold every property he had undertaken to sell, and therefore found the idea of an unsaleable house first amusing, then intriguing, then preposterous. He could not imagine an unsaleable property.

Which is how he came to be standing in a curling fog on the walkway in front of 94 Twining Lane at 9:30 pm on a damp Friday evening, understanding for the first time in his life that old adage about curiosity having killed the cat.

His own curiosity had been complicated by convenience. His office was along High Street—about two blocks from the corner of Twining and Oxford—and his home was a mere three blocks up Oxford. He had toyed with the idea of swinging down this way on his way home from work, but hadn’t settled on it until after a visit to the High Street Pub. After a pint of stout it seemed like a much better idea than when he’d originally conceived it.

When he reached 94 Twining Way on his homeward walk, he saw a most curious thing: a man he recognized as an estate agent from a competing agency was surreptitiously entering the house through a front window that gave onto its long, shadowed porch.

Ian, even more curious, waited a moment then followed. He was standing on the walkway dithering when he heard a peculiar scraping sound down near his feet, turned, looked down, and went quietly into shock.

At his feet was a human skull, but not merely a human skull. Issuing from its mouth and fanning out onto the walk was something that looked like a cross between a starfish and a giant sea bass with an impossible set of crocodile teeth arranged within its broad, flat mouth. A mouth quite capable of snapping his foot off at the ankle, Ian would have said.

What he actually did say was, “Oh my. And what are you?”

He expected no answer, and was even more thoroughly shocked when he got one.

The jagged, crocodilian two-foot-wide lips rippled and emitted a sentence: “I am the Resident.” The voice was deep, sonorous, and slightly gravelly. Very much as one might expect the voice of such an impossible creature to be.

A troll’s voice, Ian thought. He said, “I see. This is your house, then. I’d thought it was abandoned.”

“It is not abandoned. It is my house and you are trespassing.”

Ian flashed upon having once seen a joke sign in a tourist shop proclaiming that “Trespassers will be eaten.”

“I’m deeply sorry,” he said. “I had no idea the property was tenanted.”

“That’s no excuse,” said the Resident, “for you to break into my home to vandalize it.”

“I’ve done no such thing.”

“Pardon, but I saw you enter.”

“That wasn’t me. That was someone else.” A name came to his mind then that went with the man he’d seen enter the house. “Colin. Colin Lancaster. He’s an estate agent too. He went in through that window.” He pointed at the window beneath the eaves of the front porch.

One flounder eye slid sidewise to gaze balefully at the house. The skull tilted with the motion so that its empty sockets were also pointed in that direction. “Oh, honestly. Can’t you fellows ever tell the truth? Liars, the lot of you. Deserve to be eaten.”

“I’m not lying,” Ian said urgently, watching the starfish tentacles groping ever closer to the toes of his shoes. “He’s why I’m here. I mean, I saw him go in and I followed him, wondering what he was up to. Do you…do you have any idea why someone would want to sneak into your house?”

“Common enough event. Petty theft at first. Lift this, then that. Some valuable stuff in there, let me tell you. Then not so petty. Drew the line at that. Last one tried to burn it down. Clear the lot. Put me out of a home.” The tentacles furled and unfurled—an echinoderm analogue for the wringing of hands, Ian suspected.

He cleared his throat. “But you didn’t let him, of course.”

“I did not.” The denial was uttered with more than a hint of pride.

“Ah. Well, of course not. I mean, you are obviously a very fine…uh, steward. A worthy guardian of this property.”

“I am the Resident,” it said as if that explained everything.

“Certainly…and I can see that you have everything well in hand. I should let you get on about your business. God knows what Mr. Lancaster is doing in there.” He glanced pointedly at the house.

The Resident wasn’t buying it. “You are the only trespasser I see at the moment, so I shall have to deal with you in any event.”

Ian sweated. “Look, Mr. Resident, I’m telling you—this other fellow, Lancaster, is in your house right this moment doing Lord-only-knows what. Stealing, vandalizing. I was on my way to stop him.”

A tentacle tapped the toe of his left shoe. “You lot are all alike—less spine than I’ve got.”

“If I prove to you that I’m telling the truth will you let me go?”

“Not a chance.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m the—”“

“Resident. Yes, I see. But don’t you care what he might be doing in there—while you’re out here arguing with me?”

The eyes rolled toward the house again. “Good point. I’d best dispatch you quickly then.”

It scurried forward, sending Ian into a backward leap worthy of the Siamese kitten he and Helen had adopted. The thing was quick, and those tentacles seemed to be able to morph in both length and utility.

“Won’t do you any good to run,” the thing said and elongated one tentacle to thump its bony shell on the cranium. “Ask him. He’d tell you if he could.”

Sardonic humor from a nightmare wearing a human skull was almost more than Ian could take. He was at the point of gibbering when there was a thump at the front of the house and Colin Lancaster let himself back out onto the front porch through the living room window. He was carrying something. Something roughly the size of a watering tin.

The merest whiff of petrol reached Ian’s nostrils.

“Well, I never,” said the Resident.

“I told you so,” said Ian. “Well? Are you going to get him?”

“I’ve still got to get you. You’re closer.”

“What? You can’t do both? What sort of—of Resident are you? Oh, look at him,” Ian added desperately as Lancaster padded down the length of the porch toward Oxford Street. “He’s getting away. And I’m pretty sure that’s a petrol can he’s got there. Now, if I could just find a rock or something, I could bean him for you.”

He felt in his pockets for coinage. Alas, it had all gone to the High Street Pub—all he had were his house keys and a pocketful of business cards. He stuffed these items back into his pockets and glanced feverishly about, hoping the garden might run to some nice hefty stones.

The Resident beat him to the punch. “I’ll protect my own, thank you,” it said and reached out to a...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 17.1.2016
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Science Fiction
• ISBN-13: 9780991002665 / 9780991002665