Read Online A Thousand Deaths by George Alec Effinger - Free Book Online

moist flank.
    "And that's where we get the stuff we eat for breakfast? That sort of thick orange stuff?"
    "Uh huh," said Kenny.
    "Where does it come from?"
    Kenny looked up at Courane and laughed. "You don't want to know," he said. "Get up real early tomorrow morning and I'll let you watch. But I let Carmine watch once and he never ate the stuff again as long as he lived."
    "You're right, I'd rather not know. Did you name them?"
    Kenny patted the animal's neck. "This one is Prancer and the one over there is Vixen."
    "No, I mean did you call them 'blerds'? Blod means 'stupid' in old German."
    Kenny got up and brushed off his pants. "They were called blerds when I got here. I wouldn't have called them that. I would have thought up something better. Something funny."
    They walked back toward the barn. It looked like another storm was coming from across the river. "What would you have called them, Kenny?"
    The boy thought for a few seconds. Then he looked up and his face lit up with a bright smile. "I would have called them pixies," he said.
    "That's worse than blerds, Kenny," said Courane, "and it would have made people years from now wonder about us."
    "That's the whole idea," said Kenny. They felt the wind quicken and then they saw the first warning blaze of lightning. Whenever a storm approached, the sky grew blacker, but the world seemed to glow with a pale green shimmer, an effect that always terrified Courane. He never got used to it. Ragged spears of lightning would link the muddy sky with the rust-red ground and thunder would split the air until the endless rolling blasts seemed to make it difficult to breathe. And then the hot, heavy rain would fall. It would rain all evening sometimes, never slowing until the storm came to its abrupt end and the fresh wind blew the clouds away and freed the hidden stars. It stormed like this once or twice a week during the spring and summer, and on those days Courane liked to hide himself away in the tect room, concentrating on an intricate game or puzzle. As he walked quickly across the open pasture, Courane wished he was already back in the house. He had a terrible fear of being struck by lightning.
    "We better hurry or we'll get soaked," he said.
    "That's okay," said Kenny, "I've been wet before."
    "Sure. But have you ever been burned to a crisp before?"
    Kenny held up a black hand before his face. "No," he said, "just a little scorched." Courane had to look to see if the boy was joking. Until Kenny made a face at him, Courane couldn't decide.
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    The day began in dim cloudy light. The sky was heavy and threatening. Courane sat against a black gnarled tree and waited. In the desert it was still hot, though summer had ended; on the farm the month of Gai meant bringing in the crops and beginning the preparations for the endless winter. He wished he were back there. He didn't want to be in the desert anymore. The hills didn't seem any nearer, for all the labored walking he had done. He was thirsty, but soon the clouds would open and he would have more than enough to drink. In fact, there was the chance that he was sitting in the middle of a dry rivercourse, that the autumn storm would start a flash flood to nourish the sparse life in the valley, to bring the desert to late bloom, and only incidentally to extinguish any spark or blush of life in its one lonely human occupant.
    Courane dismissed the idea. He had enough troubles, he thought, without inventing new ones for the future. He was middling lost, starving, and with an excellent chance of never returning to the house alive. Floods and earthquakes and plagues of locusts were rather unnecessary. He had managed to shuffle off his own mortal coil, not quite all the way but almost, all by himself. With a little assist from TECT, of course.
    Lightning startled him. The first flash was so nearby that there was a loud snap when it struck. The clap of thunder that accompanied it was like an audible shadow. That, Courane told himself, was