The Collection

contraption in the middle of the room. 'This is where John Hancock was flayed alive,' he said. 'His blood anointed this wood. His screams sang in these chambers.'

'You're full of shit.'

'Am I?' He looked dreamily around the room. 'Jefferson gave his life for us, you know. Sacrificed himself right here, allowed Washingtonians to rip him apart with their teeth. Franklin donated his body to us after death-'

'There was no Benjamin Franklin.'

The man smiled, showing overly white teeth. 'So you know.'

'Shouldn't you be wearing your wooden choppers?'

The man punched him in the stomach, and Mike doubled over, pain flaring in his abdomen, his lungs suddenly unable to draw in enough breath.

'You are not a guest,' the man said. 'You are a prisoner. Our prisoner. For now.' He smiled. 'Later you may be sup­per.'

Mike closed his eyes, tried not to vomit. When he could again breathe normally, he looked up at the man. 'Why this James Bond shit? You going to give me your whole fucking history before you kill me? You going to explain all of your toys to me and hope I admire them? Fuck you! Eat me, you sick assholes!'

The woman grinned. 'Don't worry. We will.'

A door opened at the opposite end of the room, and Pam and Amy were herded in by three new Washingtonians. His daughter and wife looked white and frightened. Amy was crying, and she cried even harder when she saw him. 'Daddy!' she screamed.

'Lunch,' the tall man said. 'Start up the barbecue.'

The Washingtonians laughed.

The woman turned to Mike. 'Give us the letter,' she said.

'And you'll let me go? Yeah. Right.'

Where was the letter? he wondered. Hartkinson had had it last. Had he destroyed it or ditched it somewhere, like a junkie flushing drugs down the toilet after the arrival of the cops?

And where was Hartkinson? Why hadn't they kidnapped him, too?

He was about to ask just that very question when there was the sound of scuffling from the door through which Pam and Amy had entered. All of the Washingtonians turned to face that direction.

And there was Hartkinson.

He was dressed in a red British Revolutionary War uniform, and behind him stood a group of other redcoats clutching bayonets. A confused and frightened youth, who looked like a tour guide, peered into the room from behind them.

'Unhand those civilians!' Hartkinson demanded in an affected British accent.

He and his friends looked comical in their shabby mis-matched British uniforms, but they also looked heroic, and Mike's adrenaline started pumping as they burst through the doorway. There were a lot of them, he saw, fifteen or twenty, and they outnumbered the Washingtonians more than two to one.

Two of the Washingtonians drew knives and ran toward Pam and Amy.

'No!' Mike yelled.

Musket balls cut the men down in midstride.

Mike took a chance and tried his escape tactic again. Either the men holding him were distracted or their grip had simply weakened after all this time, but he successfully jerked out of their hands, broke away, and turned and kicked one of the men hard in the groin. The other man moved quickly out of his way, but Mike didn't care. He ran across the room, past arcane torture devices, to Pam and Amy.

'Attack!' someone yelled.

The fight began.

It was mercifully short. Mike heard gunfire, heard rico­chets, heard screams, saw frenzied movement, but he kept his head low and knew nothing of the specifics of what was happening. All he knew was that by the time he reached Pam and Amy they were free. He stood up from his crouch, looked around the room, and saw instantly that most of the Washingtonians were dead or captured. The tall man was lying on the floor with a dark crimson stain spreading across his powder blue uniform, and that made Mike feel good. Served the bastard right.

Both Pam and Amy were hugging each other and crying, and he hugged them too and found that he was crying as well. He felt a light tap on his shoulder and instinctively whirled around, fists clenched, but it was only Hartkinson.

Mike stared at him for a moment, blinked. 'Thank you,' he said, and he began crying anew, tears of relief. 'Thank you.'

The professor nodded, smiled. There were flecks of blood in his white Disney beard. 'Leave,' he said. 'You don't want to see what comes next.'

'But-'

His voice was gentle. 'The Washingtonians aren't the only ones with ... different traditions.'

'You're not cannibals, too?'

'No, but...' He shook his head. 'You'd better go.'

Mike looked at Pam and Amy, and nodded.

From inside his red coat, Hartkinson withdrew a piece of parchment wrapped in plastic.

The letter.

'Take it to the Smithsonian. Tell the world.' His voice was low and filled with reverence. 'It's history.'

'Are you going to be okay here?'

'We've done this before.' He gestured toward the tour guide, who was still standing in the corner. 'He'll show you the way out.' He shook his head, smiling ruefully. 'The history biz is not like it appears from the outside.'

'I guess not.' Mike put his arm around Pam, who in turn pulled Amy toward the door. The tour guide, white- faced, started slowly up the steps.

'Don't look back,' Hartkinson advised.

Mike waved his acquiesence and began walking up the stairs, clutching Washington's letter. Behind them, he heard screams-cries of terror, cries of pain-and though he didn't want to, though he knew he shouldn't, he smiled as he led his family out of the basement and into Washington's home above.

Life with Father

I wrote 'Life with Father' and 'The Pond' for an eco­logical horror anthology titled The Earth Strikes Back. Both were rejected. Judging by the title of the book, I figured that most if not all of the stories would deal with the negative effects of pollution, overpopulation, deforestation, etc.

So I thought I'd do something a little different.

My wife is a hard-core recycler. Cans, bottles, newspapers, grocery bags-she saves them all. Even on trips, she brings along plastic bags in which to col­lect our soda cans.

I exaggerated her compulsion for this story.

Anything can be taken to extremes.

________________________

Shari has never seen a working toilet. She will-she goes to nursery school next year and I know they have toilets there-but right now she's only seen our toilets. Or what used to be our toilets before Father turned them into station­ary storage containers for soybean chicken.

I don't know why I thought of that. I guess it's because Shari's squatting now over the biodegradable waste recepta­cle that Father makes us pee in. There are two receptacles for our waste. The blue one for urine. The red one for excrement.

I don't know how Shari'll do in school. She's slow, I think. Father's never said anything about it, but I know that he's noticed, too. Shari doesn't catch on to things the way she's supposed to, the way I did. She was three before she could even figure out the difference between the red and blue receptacles. She was four before she said her first word.

Sometimes I want to tell Father that maybe his seed shouldn't be recycled, that there's something wrong with it. Look at Shari, I want to say, look at The Pets. But I love Shari, and I even love The Pets in a way, and I don't want to hurt any of their feelings.