"Things not picking up at all?" Jake dared ask. "Since, well, you know..."

"Since G.o.d touched us all?" said the man. "Better, sure. I was blind, but now I see, like Jesus himself spat on my eyes, but it don't do no good. People look at me like it's my fault now, as if the whole world's been fixed. Get a job, they say, like I got a phone for them to call me back on, or a return address so they don't throw it away the second my a.s.s is gone. Should see the looks on their faces when I ask for work. Praise G.o.d, I can see, but I'm still hungry."

As he was talking the three women on the bench stood and tidied up their coats and skirts. The hungry man held up his sign. Two of the women completely ignored him as they pa.s.sed, the third glanced over and frowned.

"You're right, grace is exactly what this world needs," the center one said, their conversation never halting. Jake watched them go, a hard rock in his stomach. He pulled out his wallet and dumped its contents into the stranger's plastic bag.

"G.o.d bless you," the man said, tears in his bloodshot eyes.

"Sure thing," Jake said, hurrying off as if he felt the whole world pointing at him and laughing. When he got home he kicked a hole in the wall, then stared at it red-faced and more embarra.s.sed than ever in his life.

Pain twitched and grew in his knee.

In school Jake had read how all the watches in Hiroshima had stopped when the bomb went off, so among the bone and ash they knew the exact time h.e.l.l had hurled up a piece of itself to Earth. Well, The Worldwide Event was that bomb, and Jake felt like the watch, stuck in place without hope of fixing. It seemed irrelevant that the bomb had repaired his knee. If a second bomb had fallen after the first, sucking up the ash and rebuilding the walls and giving life back to those who'd been vaporized, they still would have stood around dumbfounded and in shock. How does one continue on with living and working and f.u.c.king and dying after something like that?

Jake sat on his bed, head in hands. Depression, that roaring lion, was breathing down his neck, its weight heavy on his shoulders. In front of him was a shoe box. Inside that shoe box was a gun. Reuben had arranged for him to have it during his lone trip from Kansas City to meet Jake.

"You're one of us now," Reuben had said, handing over the gun like it was an initiation. "Don't let anyone tell you what life is and what it isn't. You know your life, you know what you have and what you live for. Don't you dare hesitate for fear of what those other f.a.ggots might say. You got that? Your life. You control it, and you can end it when you d.a.m.n well please. Just keep the safety on at all times, all right? Last thing I need on my conscience is you accidentally blowing your f.u.c.king nuts off."

Jake didn't dare take the lid off the box. Seeing the gun, clean, black and well-oiled, might give him some crazy ideas.

To his right the television ran on mute. On the scrolling newsreel, the constant updates ticked across.

Scattered reports across the U.S. suggest symptoms removed during The Worldwide Event have begun returning in select individuals.

Jake tried to stand, grimaced, and sat back down. He cried.

*click*

"...think the most logical explanation is a global ma.s.s hysteria, except instead of a disease or fear it was a cure that spontaneously spread, perhaps building through increased..."

*click*

"...have sent nano-technology into our atmosphere from their s.p.a.cecraft. Now listen to me, the sudden activation would have given everyone relief at approximately the same time, would have defied detection by our current medical professionals, and now perhaps they have run their course, or encountered problems with our genetic code compared to theirs, and then shut down."

"So what you're saying is aliens might be the cause of this Worldwide Event?"

"Well, that's one possible source of the nano..."

*click*

"G.o.d's wrath has come upon us now! Woe unto you, Jeruselam, for in your disbelief Jehovah has revoked the gift given to us, and unless we embrace, fully embrace the blood of Jesus Christ we will burn in the fire that approaches, for the bible is clear, the afflictions we suffer shall only become worse! Pray for those you love! Beg G.o.d for forgiveness, for these are the days of Revelation, and the lion and the lamb shall return carrying a sword..."

*click*

"...reports from hospitals have only increased what many experts now believe were only psychosomatic episodes, although no one has yet adequately explained the x-rays showing cancer remissions."

*click*

"...anyone truly doubt the awesome abilities of the mind? The world, in its sorrow, yearned for a cure, and as our souls connected in the ether, we made whole our physical sh.e.l.ls..."

*click*

Jake hobbled to his mailbox, his teeth locked tight as he fought the natural impulse to limp with his right leg. He fumbled with the key, inserted it backward, then flipped it over. As he pulled out the lone envelope, he noticed its address and immediately opened the flap. Inside was a single sheet of paper, a form letter with a statement followed by a single question.

It read: Department of Social Services has received a significant amount of reports involving incorrect status involving disabilities and illness. In order to better serve you, we are asking that you answer the following question truthfully. Please check one (1) of the following boxes that best describes you.

[ ] My illness/reason for disability has dramatically improved in recent days, and not returned.

[ ] My illness/reason for disability dramatically improved, but symptoms have returned.

[ ] I experienced no change in my physical/mental disability.

Once inside, Jake checked the third box, cut his tongue licking the return envelope, and then smashed a second hole in the wall.

On the drive to the church, Jake kept rubbing his eyes as if to pull himself out of a very deep sleep. He winced every time he hit a b.u.mp. There were two reasons. The first was the pain that flared up and down his leg from his bad knee. The second was that the lid to the shoe box next to him kept coming dangerously close to slipping off.

He turned his radio to a Christian music station, hoping to find a hymn or something to calm himself down. Instead he heard vaguely sanitized rock with love of women replaced with love of G.o.d. He felt the stone in his stomach turn. Turning into the parking lot of the church, he kept running insane thoughts through his head, hearing Reuben berating him again and again, calling him a weak p.u.s.s.y, cowardly and afraid of everything. In his mind, he could offer no reb.u.t.tal.

Inside the church there was room to breathe, and the jovial atmosphere of elation and celebration was gone. A dark cloud settled over the hallways, and worry leapt from the red carpet like fleas. He found a spot in the back and stood, eyes closed and hands open at his side. One time, for a brief moment, he had been touched by G.o.d, but it was too brief a touch. He had not grabbed on, had lost the opportunity to be led, and within the church he prayed for another chance, another touch, to be clutched in a hand wiser than his own and led down a path far better than the dismal, dark loneliness he feared.

Somber songs. A band leader that told everyone to keep faith with a smile on her face that did not match her voice. The preacher was soaked with sweat, and he held the bible aloft like a lightning rod. And then they sang Amazing Grace. Jake's heart leapt. The song began, and he hoped for a regression to the way things were. He even prayed for his knee to be healed, for that glimmer of hope to be restored in his chest.

But the song did not move him as it once did. He heard the human voices, heard their worry, their sorrow, their desperation and exhaustion. Where was the joy in defeat? Where was the worship to the heavens as the lions consumed them in arenas? He opened his eyes. Where the h.e.l.l was he? A brief whisper, something intimate yet foreign, brushed against his heart. When the pain flared in his knee, and his prayer remained denied, he dismissed the feeling, hardened his heart, and limped for the door. As he did the choir began another song, one that seemed sickly perverse given all their circ.u.mstances.

"He touched me," they sang. "Oh, he touched me, and I've never been the same."

Lie, he thought. d.a.m.n lie. They were the same, everyone the same, and that was the f.u.c.king problem.

He turned the key in the ignition with a shaking hand. The radio flared up with the engine, and breathing heavily, Jake stared into nowhere, his hands on the steering wheel, the car still in park. Going home meant giving in. It meant accepting a long, painful life. It meant living on the aid of others, of constant awareness of his loneliness and lack of friends. Could he endure that? So many times he had thought no, and only a sliver of hope kept him from opening that s...o...b..x.

But what hope was left? G.o.d had touched the entire world, and in less than a week things were back to normal. All the sorrow, the heartache, the good and the bad and the rich and the poor and the weak and the strong, all living in loveless discord. The same. How could he believe things would get better when that very prayer had given him nothing?

The words of a song on the radio slowed, and the sudden tempo change plucked him out of his mental coffin.

"Good won't show its ugly face," the verse began.

Jake turned the volume up, imagining the church he just left filled with such vile, ugly good.

"Evil won't you take your place?"

Was that the reason for the return of pain? A callous reminder that the world wasn't perfect?

"Nothing ever changes...nothing ever changes..."

The devil's inertia was too strong, and who was Jake to fight against it? What if...what if...

"...by itself!"

Jake turned off the car and removed the lid from the shoe box.

The clip had thirteen bullets. A sudden inspiration hitting him, he ejected the clip, removed one bullet, and then shoved the clip back in. He got out of the car. Gun in hand, he limped back into the House of G.o.d.

He would be an inspiration. He would be a source for change. Their arthritis, sores, and bad coughs would return, but his wounds, his bullets...they would remain. They would remain throughout the lives of every man, woman, and child in that small white building. Forget pathetic wounds like sight, breath, and touch. He would show them G.o.d's true power. Sorrow. Death. Horror. Loss.

Let G.o.d heal those wounds.

Then all would see.

Twelve disciples.

Twelve bullets.

One Judas.

- David Dalglish lives in Missouri with a wife that is way out of his league and a daughter who was obviously conceived of better stock than he offers. He is the author of nine books, all blatant ripoffs of World of Warcraft and Dragonlance. His dream is to one day be an accountant for a Vegas prost.i.tution ring.

Of all his books, his most popular to date are the three novels in the Shadowdance series-A Dance of Cloaks, A Dance of Blades, and A Dance of Death. His other series include the tremendous Paladins series, possibly the best writing he's ever presented and The Half-Orcs. He also compiled and edited-as well as wrote many of the tales included within-the anthology A Land of Ash. To read more about David and how overrated he is, feel free to visit http://ddalglish.com.

CHORUS.

Bonus Story by Robert J. Duperre.

The howling began at sundown.

Abigail Browning sat up in bed and drew her legs to her chest. Her entire body ached from the day's hard labor, muscles and joints groaning each time she moved. She c.o.c.ked her head and listened as a tingling sensation crept from feet to knees to chest to head. These noises weren't exactly unexpected-Mort Hollis, the gruff old man who'd sold her the farm earlier that day for thirty gold coins, had warned her about the ramshackle town of Westworth's savage nightly visitors and told her to make sure her doors were locked tight-but there was no way she could have antic.i.p.ated the alarming rawness of the sound.

It started as a rumbling, drawn-out mewl that drifted through the cabin like the hum of a distant motor. Soon higher-pitched screeches joined in, echoing in the audible s.p.a.ce above and below the originator. The sound wavered in tone, scaling up and down, creating an abstract, primal melody. The window shutters rattled with each variation in timbre. It almost seemed as if they were shaking in fear. Abigail felt the same way.

She glanced to the door, expecting it to swing open any second and a frightened toddler to sprint into the room. He would dive under her covers and wrap his quivering arms around her while she in turn wrapped her arms around him, the way she did any time the coyotes back east began their nightly song. She would then whisper into his ear that all would be fine, nothing could hurt him, she would always be there to protect him.

But that wasn't going to happen. Nathan was gone. The Incident saw to that. Tears streamed down Abigail's cheek as she saw his once-beautiful face swollen and bruised. She remembered touching his forehead and felt the coldness of his flesh once more. She hadn't cried as she held him then, covered in blood, cradling him in her arms and singing his favorite lullaby, pretending nothing had happened. She more than made up for that now. Her body quaked with guilt from the memory, from the guilt of not having been there to protect him from the b.a.s.t.a.r.d until it was too late, and she choked on her sobs. It felt like her sorrow would never end.

And still the howling continued. Even as she wiped her cheeks with the dirty towel from her nightstand it persisted, filling the air, becoming thicker, more resilient. Abigail swallowed the last of her sorrow and swung her feet off the bed. The slatted wood floor was cold, the air even colder, and she wrapped her arms around herself as she stood up and wandered to the window.

Pulling back the shutters, Abigail gazed through the open portal, across the expanse of dust and dirt. She saw her cattle out there under the fading red sky, still as death, as if they too were captivated by the alien sound. Behind them was her fence, a crumbling barrier built from the rotting trunks of the last trees that grew in this barren part of the new world. And out there, beyond the cows and dirt and fence, rose the red clay cliffs, their rocky surfaces glimmering like blood in the day's final light. She saw nothing odd, no monster, human or otherwise, that could make the sound she heard. There was nothing but an endless expanse of sand and stone.

She thought she saw a shadow bolt across her periphery. Abigail slammed the shutters, locked them, tiptoed across the room, checked the safety bar across the front door of her shack, and then leapt back into bed. She rolled into a ball, sticking her head beneath the covers and breathing deep, trying to instill the warmth of her breath into the atmosphere inside her coc.o.o.n. It was cold at night, made even colder by the memory of her son and the strange, shrieking beasts outside.

Hours pa.s.sed before it all ceased and she was able to fall into a restless sleep.

The midday sun blazed as Abigail walked along the boundary of her land, examining the livestock. Its glare turned her shadow into an image of Medusa, her kinky-curly hair transforming into a wig of snakes. Shaking off a shudder, she went back about her business.

The twenty heads of cattle wandering about had come with the farm, and though Mr. Hollis had promised they were of good stock, all she saw were sickly, mutated beasts. Some had missing or extra legs, some had too many or too few eyes, and all were slender to the point of starvation. Not exactly the perfect specimens, but she shrugged, a.s.suming it would be hard to find better out here in the wastelands, especially considering there were still invisible pollutants lingering in the air that made plants whither and animals spit out teeth, bleed from their gums, and perish in the night.

She'd traveled out here in hopes of building a better life, a quiet existence far away from the crowds of frightened people back home; or at least that's what she told herself. In reality she was on the run from her pain and her guilt, from the knowledge that the one thing that defined her-motherhood-had been ripped away, leaving her empty inside. Over the last few months she'd pushed her body to the breaking point, traveling when she should have rested her tired bones, withholding nourishment when she should have eaten, staying out in the day when she should have sought shelter from the sun. She lifted her arm and gazed at the hands that emerged from her long, tattered shirt. Her skin had been dark to begin with, but now it was reaching the point of blackness. There were blisters on her feet and fingers, and she had frequent, ma.s.sive headaches. Sometimes she wondered why she pushed herself so hard, but that line of questioning was nothing but a cover for the truth.

Abigail Browning was torturing herself.

She approached one of her disfigured cattle, a female with an extra withered leg protruding from its hindquarters. It stood apart from the others, facing away from her and releasing a strange, rumbling groan. The beast let out a snort as her fingers traced its bony spine. Its head shot to the rear suddenly and it kicked out with its hind legs. The superfluous leg flopped about and Abigail jumped back, barely avoiding a hoof in the face. She slung her rifle from behind her and shouldered it, just in case the frightened animal decided to charge. It didn't. Instead it trotted toward the others, who were gathered around the feed bins, feasting on a meager supply of grains.

Abigail stepped to the side as the cow left the scene and spotted the reason the creature had been acting so strangely. There was a calf there, lying on its side. It shivered as if cold, and a puddle of red expanded around it. Abigail moved closer, trying to see over its side, and froze. The poor creature wasn't moving on its own accord. There was another animal there, a tiny thing with gray, peeling skin, squatting in front of the calf with its head buried in its stomach. Its neck twitched back and forth, causing entrails to flow from the gaping wound in the calf's underbelly. Abigail slid back the bolt of her rifle, chambering a round.

"Hey!" she shouted.

The monstrosity pulled out of the calf, revealing a bulbous skull and a blood-soaked face that might have once been human. A pair of milky white eyes with tiny black dots for pupils stared at her. The creature had not a hair on its head and its grayish flesh was stretched and shredded. There was a hollow gap where the nose should've been. Its cheekbones were too wide, the jaw too narrow, and blood dripped from its frayed chin. It hunkered down, thin ropes of muscle tense, and then leaned forward and hissed. Abigail backed up a step.

The creature swayed from side to side before rising on its skinny legs. In a moment of panic Abigail almost squeezed the trigger, but she paused. There was something about the thing's posture that hypnotized her. It was no bigger than Nathan had been when he died, and the way it scrunched up its empty nose cavity, exposing its sharp yet gapped teeth, reminded her of the expression that came over her son's face whenever he tasted something that didn't agree with him. Her breath hitched and she lowered the rifle. The creature's shoulders sagged as it stared at her. Its head tilted, with one nub of an ear almost touching its bony shoulder, while virtually nonexistent lips puffed out, making it appear strangely innocent.

Abigail slung the rifle back over her shoulder and stepped forward, wondering why Mort Hollis had never mentioned the presence of these odd beasts. Her old leather moccasins sunk into the blood-drenched dirt. When the liquid swished beneath her feet, the tiny monster bared its jagged, dagger-like teeth and crouched into a defensive position.

"It's okay," she said. "You don't have to be afraid."

She leaned over the calf and reached her hand toward the thing, waggling her fingers to let it know all was okay. She didn't know why she did this. The creature had just mutilated one of her cattle. It was a monstrosity. And yet her heart pattered while she stared at it, and somewhere deep down she knew the tiny thing wouldn't hurt her.

"Take my hand."

The creature hissed one final time, spun around, and took off. It was fast-faster than a horse, from her perspective-and it cleared the fence in one leap. In a matter of moments it was but a speck on the horizon, rushing up and over the red clay cliffs until it disappeared from sight.

Abigail frowned, staring at the landscape. She wondered how the peculiar little thing survived being out there, all alone in the desert. Strange as it sounded in her own head, she wished it well.

With a sigh she shrugged the rifle off her shoulder, placed it on the ground, and knelt before the dead calf to inspect the damage. She ran her hand over its weathered hide, feeling b.u.mps beneath the flesh, tumors that would've one day sprouted extra hooves or tails or whatnot had the poor beast lived. She purposefully kept her eyes away from its gashed stomach. It's not that she was weak in the presence of blood; she just didn't want to think of that strange little beast as anything vile.

When she reached the calf's neck she paused. There she found a festering sore, black and white and red, dripping pus. Lines of infection ran from the wound to its chest, along its sides and across its split belly. She sniffed and smelled the distinct tang of rot.

The calf must have died in the night, which meant her monster-and that's how she thought of it, as hers-was simply scavenging a carca.s.s. Abigail smiled.

That evening the chorus of howls emerged yet again. Abigail once more tried to block them out, but the wails were louder this time, more insistent, more present. She covered her ears. It didn't work. So instead she thought about the odd little creature she'd seen earlier that day, praying it would be safe from the beasts that cried out in the night.