Blood Lite

"Mick ..." Willie panted, his breath fading. "Read ... read the part... that sent us here ... but... read it back­ward."

The T. rex snatched both of them into its jaws like a giant bulldozer, if bulldozers had jaws and could snatch people. The Really, Really, Really Old Ones book fell from Mick the Mick's grasp, and the dagger teeth punched into his legs and chest with agonizing agony, but for the first and only time in his life his dyslexia paid off, and with his last breath he managed to cry out:

"OTKIN ADARAB UTAALK!"

Another near-turd experience and then they were excreted into a room with a television and a couch and a picture window. But the television screen was embedded—or growing out of?—a toadstool-like thing that was in turn growing out of the floor. The couch looked fu

And then again, maybe not so weird.

No, Mick the Mick thought. Weird. Very weird.

He looked at Willie.

And screamed.

Or at least tried to. What came out was more like a croak.

Because it wasn't Willie. Not unless Willie had grown four extra eyes—two of them on stalks—and sprouted a fringe of tentacles around where he used to have a neck and shoulders. He now looked like a conical turkey cro­quette that had been rolled in seasoned bread crumbs before baking and garnished with live worms after.

The thing made noises that sounded like, "Mick, is that you?" but spoken by a turkey croquette with a mouth full of linguine.

Stranger still, it sounded a little like Willie. Mick the Mick raised a tentacle to scratch his—

Whoa! Tentacle?

Well, of course a tentacle. What did he expect?

He looked down and was surprised to see that he was encased in a bread-crumbed, worm-garnished, turkey cro­quette. No, wait, he was a turkey croquette.

Why did everything seem wrong, and yet simultane­ously at the same time seem not wrong, too?

Just then another six-eyed, tentacle-fringed croquette glided into the room. The Willie-sounding croquette said, "Hi, Nana." His words were much clearer now.

Nana? Was this Willie's Nana?

Of course it was, Mick the Mick had known her for years.

"There's an unpleasant man at the door who wants to talk to you. Or else."

"Or else what?"

A new voice said, "Or else you two get to eat cloacal casseroles, and guess who donates the cloacas?"

Mick the Mick unconsciously crossed his tentacles over his cloaca. In his twenty-four years since budding, Mick the Mick had grown very attached to his cloaca. He'd miss it something awful.

A fourth croquette had entered, followed by the two biggest croquettes Mick the Mick had ever seen. Only these weren't turkey croquettes, these were chipped-beef croquettes. This was serious.

The new guy sounded like Nate the Nose, but didn't have a nose. And what was a nose anyway?

"Oh no," Willie moaned. "I don't want to eat Micks cloaca."

"I meant your own, jerk!" the newcomer barked. "But I have a hernia—"

"Shaddap!"

Mick the Mick recognized him now: Nate the Noodge, pimp, loan shark, and drug dealer. Not the sort you lent your bike to.

Wait... what was a bike? "What's up, Nate?"

"That brick of product I gave you for delivery. I had this sudden, I du

Mick the Mick had a moment of panic—he had no idea what Nate the Noodge was talking about. Oh yeah. The, product. Now he remembered. "Sure, Nate, it's right in here."

He led Nate to the kitchen, where the brick of product lay on the big center table.

Nate the Noodge pointed a tentacle at it. One of his guards lifted it, sniffed it, then wriggled his tentacle fringe that it was okay. Mick the Mick had expected him to nod, but a nod would require a neck, and the guard didn't have a neck. Then Mick the Mick realized he didn't know what a neck was. Or a nod, for that matter.

What was it with these weird thoughts, like memories, going through his head? They were like half-remembered dreams. Nightmares, more likely. Pink flowers, and giant lizards, and stepping on some mice that looked like a lot like the Capporellis up in 5B. Except the Capporellis lived in 5B, and looked like jellyfish. What were mice anyway? He looked at Willie to see if he was just as con­fused.

Willie was playing with his cloaca.

Nate the Noodge turned to them and said, "A'ight. Looks like my frisson of malaise and apprehension was fer naught. Yer cloacas is safe . . . fer now. But you don't deliver that product like you're apposed to and it's casse­role city, knome sayn?"

"We'll deliver it, Nate," Willie said. "Don't you worry. We'll deliver it."

"Y'better," Nate said, then left with his posse.

"Where we supposed to deliver it?" Willie said when they were alone again.

Mick the Mick kicked him in his cloaca.

"The same place we always deliver it."

"Ow!" Willie was saying, rubbing his cloaca. "That hurt. You know I got a—hey, look!" He was pointing to the TV. "The Toad Whisperer is on! My favorite show!"

He settled onto the floor and stared.

Mick the Mick hated to admit it, but he was kind of addicted to the show himself. He settled next to Willie.

Faintly, from the kitchen, he heard Nana say, "Oh dear, I was going to bake a cake, but I'm out of flour. Could one of you boys—oh, wait. Here's some. Never mind."

A warning glimp chugged in Mick the Mick's brain and puckered his cloaca. Something bad was about to happen...

What had Nate the Noodge called it? "A frisson of malaise and apprehension." Sounded like a dessert, but Mick the Mick had gathered it meant a worried feeling, like what he was having right now.

But about what? What could go sour? The product was safe, and they were watching The Toad Whisperer. As soon as that was over, they'd go deliver it, get paid, and head on over to Madame Yoko's for a happy ending endoplasmic reticulum massage. And maybe a cloac job.

The frisson of malaise and apprehension faded. Must have been another nightmare flashback.

Soon the aroma of baking cake filled the house. Right after the show, he'd snag himself a piece.

For some reason he thought of an odd-shaped cookie with a prediction inside. What was it called? A prediction pastry? No, something else, something similar.

Who cared? Predictions never came true. The only thing you could count on was Nana's cake. That was always good.

An Evening with Al Gore

Charlaine Harris

Toddy Makepeace had seen Al Gore speak the previous spring, and a year later she hadn't gotten over it. Toddy, born and bred a realist, was quite aware the former vice president hadn't particularly noticed her when he'd shaken her hand, though he'd looked slightly startled that her grip was so firm. But he'd nodded in approval when she'd told him she intended to join in his fight against people who trashed the planet.

Toddy's husband, Mark, joined in Toddy's new crusade with fervor. He'd seen too many changes in the world to deny that Earth was being damaged and polluted at an alarming rate. Mark and Toddy had no plans to have chil­dren, but they did hope to continue enjoying their happy life together. A big part of that happy life was the plea­sure they took in their extended exploration of the Earth's remaining wilderness. Having plenty of forests left in the world, preserving an environmentally safe wilderness, was vital to the Makepeaces.

Through the years, Toddy had gradually assumed the role of moral compass for the pair, while Mark had slipped into a more logistical role. They played to their strengths. Toddy had been recycling newspapers, cans, and plastics for years, she rode a bicycle while she went about her errands in their historic New England village, and she and Mark shared a shower quite often to cut down on the amount of water they used. Mark made sure the accumu­lated recyclable material made its way to the correct col­lection site, kept the bicycle in good repair, and enjoyed the showers very much.