Over the past few years, Bill Hughes' work has appeared in a number of magazines, including Flesh and Blood, The Edge, Deadbolt, Rage Machine, and Ascent. For three years he edited and published the digest, Dread, which he has recently revived at www.dredtales.com. His story The Deracination of Eliot Marks can currently be read on-line.

Let's go.

Words mouthed not spoken, seen not heard. You come to yourself in the midst of a party in an unfamiliar room, a florid face leaning into yours--a graying beard like mangy squirrel curled around the mouth, tobacco-stained teeth flashing yellowed squirrel bone. Flat pale eyes crackling enthusiasm.

Something inside you squirms, but you yield. A meaty hand on your arm draws you from your seat. Reluctant traces of your high drop to your feet. Cold breakers of flesh crash against you as you sway through a sea of bodies, dozens of bodies, people talking eating laughing dancing: a throng pulsing to the rhythm of music unheard, cased in silence as thick as January ice.

You could really use a drink. Some dope. Anything.

The guiding hand, those queer eyes, drawing you on. Through cigarette-haze, two women by the door locked together, lip lipping lip. You recognize Hannah. The lips unjoin. Her eyes float in desire’s backwash before snagging on yours, and her lips smile for a split second before the others collide with them again. Viewed in slow motion, like crash test footage for the porn industry.

Everything wrapped in unreal silence except your internal alarm system, a buzz of jangling nerve. But still you follow your guide, who pulls out into a breezy autumn night. You wonder if he has dope. You slap your pockets but no luck, and too late you wonder if Hannah has her works. When he reaches the sidewalk he turns but you stop dead, the night shadows ahead a menacing void. Adrenaline and fuck you pumping through you now, you pull your arm out of his grasp. A voice blares in the back of your mind like that idiot robot from Lost in Space: danger danger danger . . .

He wears a puzzled expression as he turns to face you. His hand floats toward his pocket and you know now the bastard has a gun, that they have sent him for you. Says something but still you cannot hear him. His hand in his pocket and in a moment you will be dead. The robot shrieks.

Flying your hands are at his throat and then you have him down, hammering his skull into the sidewalk. He cannot take you he will not take you. Can Not Will Not Can Not Will Not in time with your frenzied heartbeat. Surprising how quickly he stops struggling.

You can hear now, the rattle of autumn leaves scuttering along the street on the night breeze, thrum of big party bass in the background. When you look at him he’s just an old guy with a beard and his hand is no longer in his pocket. He has pulled something out and his fingers are curled tightly around it, something that is small and not a gun. You reach for his hand to see.