Laughter at the Academy Read online

  “What will you do if I yield?”

  Her smile is quick and bright, chasing the darkness from her eyes. “Hurt you.”

  “And my crew?”

  “Most of them will be tragically killed in action. Their bodies will never be found.” They would be free.

  “Why should I agree?”

  “Because in one year, I will send my people back to this place, and if you are here, we will show you what it means to be a mermaid.”

  We hang there in the water for a few minutes more, me studying her, her smiling at me, serene as Amphitrite on the shore. Finally, I close my eyes. I lower my gun, allowing it to slip out of my fingers and fall toward the distant ocean floor. It will never be found, one more piece of debris for the sea to keep and claim. I am leaving something behind. That makes me feel a little better about what has to happen next.

  “Hurt me,” I say.

  They do.

  When I wake, the air is pressing down on me like a sheet of glass. I am in the medical bay, swaddled in blankets and attached to beeping machines. The submarine hums around me; the engines are on, we are moving, we are heading away from the deepest parts of the sea. The attack must have already happened.

  Someone will come for me soon, to tell me how sorry they all are, to give me whatever punishment they think I deserve for being found alone and drifting in the deeps. And then we will return to land. The ship will take on a new crew and sail back to face a threat that is not real, while I? I will sit before a board of scientists and argue my case until they give in, and put me back into the tanks, and take my unwanted legs away. They will yield to me. What man has ever been able to resist a siren?

  A year from now, when I return to the bottom of the sea, I will hear the mermaids singing, each to each. And oh, I think that they will sing to me.

  Bring About the Halloween Eternal!!!

  I like excuses to play around with form. When I was asked to contribute to an anthology of stories told in the form of Kickstarter campaigns (John Joseph Adams again—he must like me), I figured why not? It seemed like a fun exercise.

  It was. It really, really was. If I could find this campaign, I would fund it, and bring about the Halloween eternal.

  Wouldn’t you?

  BRING ABOUT THE HALLOWEEN ETERNAL!!!

  by Lily Emerson

  13,131 backers

  $313,131 pledged of $200,000 goal

  0 seconds to go

  Funding period Sep 1, 2013—Sep 30, 2013 (30 days)

  PROJECT DESCRIPTION

  Do you love Halloween? Who doesn’t! Costumes and candy, the sweet smell of autumn leaves and burning pumpkin flesh… Halloween is the holiday for everyone. You’re never too old to love that one perfect night, when every stranger’s door is open to you, and every face you see bears a monster’s beautiful scowl.

  Sadly, Halloween is under assault. The last several years have seen the forces of Christmas conducting a little-remarked but merciless war upon the other holidays. A shopping season which once began after the Thanksgiving Day Parade—and not a second sooner—now starts gathering steam before the Back to School supplies are off the shelves. This past year, the Halloween merchandise was cleared from stores before October 15th! Yes! The hated folly of the holly jolly Christmas army has been gaining ground. It seems inevitable that all other holidays will be chased from the calendar, resulting in an unending Yuletide season. A failure to back this project is as good as backing the conquest of Santa and his elves: through inaction, you will fund their winter wonderland, and you will deserve every peppermint horror that is visited upon your trembling, frostbitten form.

  Unless.

  The stars are in alignment, and the forces of the autumntide have been gathered for one last push against the encroaching winter. We have uncovered the ritual that will embody the spirit of Halloween in a properly prepared vessel, allowing our Lord to walk the Earth on terrible scarecrow feet, to look upon the sky with a terrible pumpkin grin, and most importantly, to freeze the passage of time and spread the embrace of a sweet October night across the globe, plunging us into the depths of the Halloween eternal. (Note that this ritual is being performed in a climate where freezing temperatures on Halloween are perishingly unlikely; it may be chilly, but no one’s going to die of exposure if they just keep their costumes on. Which will be easy, once the transformation of the populace begins. You’d need a flensing knife to take them off.)

  Please be aware as you donate that the forces of Christmas are running their own, competing campaign, aimed at preventing us from bringing the glory of the corn and the candle and the freely-flowing candy to the people of the world. WE NOT ONLY NEED TO MAKE OUR GOAL—WE NEED TO BEAT THEM. We need to destroy them. We need to show that TRUE generosity isn’t about cheap wrapping paper and teenagers dressed like elves and shitty presents from your Aunt Jill that you’re just going to re-gift ANYWAY. True generosity is about free candy from strangers, sometimes with bonus razorblades (and those are expensive!). It’s about the freedom to be anybody you want to be for a night—and it’s about extending that night from here into eternity.

  We are asking for $200,000 to save the best night the world has ever known. That’s a lot from one person, but Halloween has always been a pioneer of crowd-funding, filling pillowcases with candy one piece at a time. All we need is for the population of a city to each donate the cost of a candy bar. Given the numbers of people who fill the streets every Halloween night, this is a small request.

  Halloween has one last chance to take back what was rightfully ours from the beginning. Help us. Help us bring about the Halloween that never ends.

  REWARD TIERS

  $1—TRICK (547 backers). Your name will be recorded in the great book, to be read aloud in the center of the corn maze during the apparition of our Lord. Your fate will be decided by His will, and His will alone.

  $5—TREAT (223 backers). Your name will be recorded in the great book, and will not be read aloud in the hearing of our Lord, who is not always good at distinguishing the contents of His pillowcase, if you know what I mean.

  $10—DELUXE TRICK (311 backers). Sponsor yourself at the Treat level, and a friend, loved one, or enemy at the Trick level! It’s a gamble—you never know who will have already been foolish enough to choose “Trick” of their own accord—but either way, you’ll know that YOU’RE safe. Unless someone put your name on this reward level. Uh-oh…

  $25—DELUXE TREAT (191 backers). …better get a better reward tier. At the Deluxe Treat level, not only do you get to sponsor someone at the Trick level, but you are AUTOMATICALLY IMMUNE from being listed in the part of the book we read aloud. Choosing this reward tier will remove you from the Trick level, even if someone else put you there. It’s the only way to be sure.

  $50—FUN-SIZE CANDY BAR (103 backers). You have joined the ranks of the faithful! Directions to our slammin’ opening night party at the center of the chosen corn maze will be sent to you via coded message. It will be carried by the crows. Do not fear them; they can smell the sincerity of your belief. Join us to bring about the autumn unending. Only half the faithful will be sacrificed to water His roots, chosen by lottery from all who are present. Your odds are way better than the unfaithful’s odds, we promise.

  $100—FULL-SIZE CANDY BAR (31 backers). Everything at the $50 tier, plus a genuine woven corn-husk mask in your choice of small, medium, large, extra-large, and mutated by the coming glory of our ripening Lord.

  $500—HALLOWEEN PARTY! (79 backers). Everything at the $100 tier, plus a place among the small number of the faithful whose names will not be entered in the lottery for the sacrificial watering.

  $1,000—MONSTER MASH (47 backers). We will allow you to select one from among the unfaithful to either sacrifice or save, at your own whim. Those who have pledged at the Halloween Party level are ineligible for sacrifice. The ringleader of Christmas, Holly Emerson, is ineligible for salvation. Her blood will feed the corn. Her blood will feed the corn, and IT WILL BE GLOR
IOUS.

  $10,000—QUALITY COSTUMER (13 backers). Everything at the $500 level, plus we will let you choose the costumes to be worn by your friends and loved ones at the time of the ascension. These costumes will determine their true forms in the glorious unending night that lies ahead of us. This is your opportunity to protect your family from the transformative powers of the candle and the corn—or to condemn your enemies to an eternity as sexy nurses. The choice is yours.

  $25,000—FULL PILLOWCASE (7 backers). Everything at all lower reward levels, plus a place among the inner circle, whose names are not entered in the lottery, whose faces shall be remade by the rising of our Lord, to eternally bear the pumpkin grins of the true chosen of Halloween. All shall look upon you ever more and know you as the chosen servant of their terrible, incarnate God.

  RISKS AND CHALLENGES

  Obviously, because of our competition with Christmas and those bastards who want to freeze the world eternally in the name of their jolly god, we cannot promise that this ritual will succeed. But we can definitely promise that we’re going to give it everything we’ve got. Blood, sweat, tears, and whatever other bodily fluids we can extract from our backers will flow like apple cider through the veins of our Lord, and He will rise, skeletal and pumpkin-headed, against the late harvest moon. Then He will join in merciless battle with whatever those jerks from Christmas have managed to summon, and the strongest season will conquer. (Don’t worry about the spring and summer holidays, they lost this battle long ago.)

  We’re confident that we will be able to pull off the summons with only minimal manpower, once the land has been acquired and the corn maze has been brought to bloody, terrible maturity. It is you, and all those who donate their lives to this cause, who will make the difference between success and failure. It takes more than a single pumpkin to make a patch.

  COMMENTS

  Susan Clemens (on Sep 29, 2013)

  So close!!!!!

  Peter McClure (on Sep 13, 2013)

  I love Halloween. Pitched in at the Trick level ha ha. Let’s see what you do to me!

  Jill Seale (on Sep 12, 2013)

  Sounds legit to me.

  Tim Moore (on Sep 10, 2013)

  The T&C don’t say anything about summoning an undying god of harvest. I checked. Bring on the eternal Halloween!!

  Daniel Brighton (on Sep 9, 2013)

  Is anyone else bothered by the part where this is basically “give us money so we can summon a demon and let it kill everybody”? Doesn’t that violate the T&C somehow?

  Lily Emerson (on Sep 4, 2013)

  Go fuck yourself TWICE.

  Holly Emerson (on Sep 3, 2013)

  Careful, little sister. You don’t want someone reporting your project for abuse, now do you? This could all be settled by the click of a button.

  Lily Emerson (on Sep 2, 2013)

  Go fuck yourself.

  Holly Emerson (on Sep 1, 2013)

  You’re going to lose, Lily. Your holiday is going to fall, and the Christmas eternal will reign over everything.

  UPDATE #1—BREAKDOWN OF COSTS—Sep 1, 2013

  If our $200,000 goal is met, the money will be spent as follows:

  $80,000, securing the land we will be using for the corn maze and associated altar. We have already found the perfect place (undisclosed at this time to prevent THOSE CHRISTMAS ASSHOLES from buying it out from under us for their precious “tree farm”), complete with a crumbling farmhouse in which people have been brutally murdered.

  $10,000, clearing the land and preparing it for the sowing.

  $3,000, seed and farm labor, for the sowing.

  $7,000, livestock purchases, for the blessing of the soil.

  $50,000, fees and taxes. While we are more than reasonably confident that taxation will no longer be an issue after midnight this coming October 1st, due to the current world paradigm having been crushed beneath the merciless heel of either Halloween or Christmas (HOPEFULLY HALLOWEEN), we still need to budget responsibly.

  $20,000, backer rewards and mailing costs.

  $5,000, candy.

  $10,000, pumpkins, candles, and other essential ritual supplies. We will be growing most of our own pumpkins, using a secondary ritual which will bring them to ripeness almost immediately, but this will not account for the pumpkins necessary to line the driveway, parking area, and other paths, nor for the pumpkins we will be placing on the doorsteps of the chosen.

  $15,000, Christmas decorations and other paraphernalia that has leaked into the stores during what should be our time of ascendance. By gathering and destroying these false idols, we will be able to start weakening the forces of Christmas even before our Lord rises, ready to do glorious battle.

  UPDATE #2—HALFWAY THERE!!!!—SEP 10, 2013

  Wow! We’ve raised half the funds we need in just ten days—and that’s before our Bake Sale proceeds have come in! (All proceeds will be pledged directly to the project through a single donor, to keep things centralized and easily accountable for all of you.) To thank you, we have unlocked three stretch goals. These are:

  $225,000—The Big Bonfire. If we reach the $225,000 level before funding ends, we will ALSO read a second, bonus ritual which will ignite a central bonfire in all cities of more than 50,000 people. This fire will burn on your town square or commons, or in the first Starbucks to have opened inside city limits if you no longer have a town square or commons. It will not spread to engulf nearby homes, although it may spread to engulf nearby non-believers. Prayers and offerings thrown into the bonfire will go straight to our Lord, thus saving you the physical inconvenience and risk of traveling to the holy cornfield.

  $250,000—The Halloween Carnival. Our carnies are raring to go, and if we reach the $250,000 level, we will be able to pay for equipment repair on Professor Blood’s Carnival of Death and Wonders. These repairs should last long enough for the show to finish a ritual circuit around North America, at which point the equipment will become self-repairing, the carnies will become immortal, and the carnival’s exciting attractions will become a permanent part of our world. Imagine waking every “morning”—a meaningless term when the sun never rises—wondering whether the carnival has come to town, offering excitement, offering enchantment, and asking only blood.

  $300,000—The Salvation of Thanksgiving. If, through some miracle, we reach $300,000 before the funding window runs out, we will preserve the surviving armies of Thanksgiving and allow them to adapt their traditions to our new reality. Turkey dinners with cranberry sauce and mashed potato will be allowed to continue, and not required to incorporate any signs of fealty to our Lord, save for corn. Always there will be corn.

  $350,000—The Sun Also Rises. We know that some of you are going to miss the sun. If we reach this goal, we will permit the sun to rise once a year, bathing the world in restorative light. We will also provide sunscreen, as most of you will have become pale and easily burnt after a year spent in unending darkness.

  UPDATE #3—CHRISTMAS IS GAINING—SEP 22, 2013

  I hate to bring this up, because you have all been amazing, but CHRISTMAS IS GAINING ON US. We have raised an amazing $280,000 USD, making our initial ritual possible. But if Christmas is able to feed their blood-god on ritual sacrifices before we go into the corn, all may yet be lost. Search your couch cushions. Sweet-talk your neighbors into joining the cause. Do whatever it takes. If everyone backing this project increased their pledges by just a dollar, we would be able to crush those red and white bastards under our heels.

  Halloween needs you. Don’t let us down.

  UPDATE #4—THIS IS HALLOWEEN—SEP 30, 2013

  We are fully funded!

  Preparations are beginning now. At the stroke of midnight on October 31st, look to the skies and see the terrible battle unfold. Halloween will join with Christmas in battle for the world. Thanks to your generosity, our Lord is guaranteed to triumph, and darkness will fall eternally. Even now, we gather the faithful; even now, we scatter candy to lure the unwary; even now, we ca
ll upon the children of Thanksgiving, offering them safety in the days to come.

  If you are interested in a position with Professor Blood’s Carnival of Death and Wonders, please email [email protected] for details about paid and volunteer work. Professor Blood has personally guaranteed that all carnies will survive the ascension.

  Trick or treat, my darlings. Look to the sky.

  Office Memos

  There really isn’t much of a background here, apart from “if I need to put a story in a convention program book, it has historically been this one.” Which means I’ll need a new convention book story, I suppose.

  Oh, well.

  There are worse things.

  October 11th, 16:35

  To: ALL EMPLOYEES

  From: Rachel White, Director, Human Resources

  Please be aware that we here at Polytechnic Engineering and Research practice non-discrimination in our hiring policies. Racial and species slurs are not tolerated on company grounds or company time. Failure to comply with HR regulations may result in censure or termination of employment contracts.

  We’re all adults here. Let’s start acting like it.

  October 11th, 16:50

  To: Hank Campbell, Hanger Three