On Tuesday mornings, Mr Spink rearranged the books and dusted the antique sculptures in the window. He liked to call them the antique sculptures even though he was not entirely sure they were genuine antiques or what they were supposed to be sculptures of. Mr Porteous who came in every other Wednesday on the off chance had offered to have them valued but Mr Spink said he'd rather not. They were just part of the atmosphere.

He wondered what year it was. Then he wondered why. It was hard to keep that thought. He raised his arm to look at the wristwatch. Oh yeah, he’d broken it a few minutes ago, because having to keep the time made him feel trapped.

Crap. His stomach rumbled. There was a weird smell from the kitchen. Had he decided not to use the bathroom again?

Don't think about the smell don't think about the smell in the kitchen if you don't want it to be there it isn't oh God please help me I'm so confused --

The cantina had been out of alcohol for three days by the time Trent and Corben reached it. The owner stammered an apology and spread his hands in a what-can-I-do kind of gesture. The world had changed beyond his control. The owner offered them what was left behind the bar, which was water. Trent paid with a gold necklace he had assumed ownership of near Crystal City. He and Corben took the water on the rocks, and went to sit outside. The day had been hot, and the still air felt like a pressure cooker. The two men sat in the shade of a rose covered pergola and looked to the north. There was a dark line in the sky above the horizon. Trent and Corben waited in silence and drank the water. The cantina owner came outside occasionally, to look to the north. He didn’t speak to his customers until Corben asked.

Katherine gazed up at the distant green canopy. Monkeys chattered and parrots cawed, but she couldn't see a thing - so much for the exotic wildlife of the Amazon! She pictured Professor Collier enjoying the cool British Autumn, and cursed him roundly. What with the heat, humidity, and lack of sleep, the constant irritation of the mosquitoes...

A muffled exclamation made her turn. John Pangborn was enjoying this expedition as much as she, it seemed. She stifled a grin at his red-faced discomfort - perhaps the mosquitoes had a saving grace after all.

Where have all the dark goddesses gone? Where are the daughters of Hekate and Lilith? Please, some one, anyone, tell me: why can't the Horror genre produce one woman writer that can ascend to reigning queen of Horror? I glance through my local bookstores, and you can almost smell the testosterone wafting with the smell of dusty paper. You can give me your excuses: the fan base is male; violence is a masculine trait; the horror genre can't support that many authors anyways. Whatever. I cannot be convinced that I am some aberration, the lone twisted chickadee that adores the genre as well as any penis could. Not buying it. After all, if horror fiends were solely male, how would our kind reproduce? So you can't tell me somewhere out there, in a land far far away perhaps, there can never be a Great Dark Poetess that can manifest like Stephen King or Clive Barker.