The Same Distance, the Same Direction

Howard looked at it again. "There's still a train in our living room."

Hugh shrugged without taking his eyes off the steam engine. "Rail accident?"

Howard looked down to where the train entered their home. "There's no rail near here." He could see two things at once in the same space: Their living room wall, intact and artfully decorated, and at least ten train cars trailing into the distance, at a concrete platform that occupied the same space as their teak floor. Or occupied different space, just the same distance away from them, and in the same direction.

"Is it... going to leave?" Hugh still stared.

"I mean, probably? It has a schedule to keep." Pause. "I kind of want to see what's on it."

"I.... It's a ghost train, or something, you can't just get on. You'll go to Hell, or... or somewhere else we don't believe in!"

"Or steam-powered Narnia."

"I absolutely forbid it." Hugh had pulled his eyes from the train for the first time and was staring at Howard.

"Forbid it?" Howard smiled a challenge at Hugh.

"Prohibit, veto, deny, countermand, negatively edict, I don't know, yes! Don't get on that train!"

Howard looked at the car ahead of him and over to where the engine belched steam in and not in their kitchen. He could almost hear a distant whistle.

"This doesn't just happen to people, Hughie," he said. "If this train leaves and I never know why, I will hate myself every day for not getting on."

"I would hate you every day for leaving."

"Then you're just gonna have to come with me." Howard hopped onto the metal lattice steps up into the train car and held a hand back to Hugh.

Hugh looked him deep in the eyes, fear plain on his face. "Dammit, if this doesn't take us to a magical adventure where neither of us gets hurt, I am going to be very angry."

"That's fair," Howard said. The train pulled away, and they waved goodbye to both the platform and their house, which had somehow—and briefly—occupied the same space.

Never an Honest Trade

"It's obvious that Bugs never intended this to be an honest trade," Brown said.

"What's wrong with it?" sneered Bugs Meany, holding tight to the video game system he'd gotten out of the deal. The reason he'd brought it loomed behind him: Sally Kimball, the only person who could force Bugs to play fair.

"Yeah, what is wrong with it?" Wayne DeLiza asked, clutching nearly as tightly the British officer's sword he'd received in the trade. Even though he'd come to Brown and Kimball with a gut feeling he'd been conned, he clearly wanted the sword to be genuine.

"It's the inscription, see?" Brown pointed at the words on the scabbard: "William Rhode, 19th Light Dragoons, 1818."

"Yeah?" snarled Bugs. "What's wrong with it? It's proof it's a real antique!"

"The 19th Light Dragoons were a British regiment all right, but not in 1818. They were reestablished as the 19th Lancers in 1816. Bugs, I'm afraid your fake missed the mark, even if only by a bare two years."

Fury on his face, Bugs stalked off, leaving the game system with Wayne.

"I can't thank you enough," said Wayne.

"All in a day's work," said Sally, "for Historical Minutiae Brown!"

Too Late for April Fool's in the Field Museum

Kenneth Angielczyk almost dropped his pen when his office door slammed shut behind Lance. Lance, usually a deliberate soul who treasured his role as mentor to the museum's curators, looked at Ken with wild eyes. "The dead are coming to life."

A corner of Ken's mouth quirked up under his rakish mustache. "That's a convincing acting job, my dude, but you're too late for April Fool's and too early for Halloween. What is this, practice for a play?"

Lance ran a hand down his trimmed grey beard and jumped as another door slammed elsewhere in the building. "I... No. Check the news." He tossed his phone onto Ken's desk. That, more than anything else, convinced Ken of Lance's earnesty. He was never so cavalier with his tools. Ken picked it up and looked at dozens of reports of ghosts manifesting around their corpses and disturbing the living. "But... What's doing this?"

Lance fell into a chair. "We don't know. No one knows." Another door slammed. "But it's happening everywhere."

Kenneth blinked. "Everywhere?" He looked in the direction of the museum's paleontology hall, where the slams came from. Where a general ruckus was getting louder. "Then we should run," he said.

To Seek Silence

Gorgzol II, upgrade and successor to Gorgzol I and ruler of the First Machine Emperor, desired nothing so much as silence, complete, utter, and spectrum-wide.

"You could disconnect your inputs," advised his Network.

"Why should I blind myself for the ease of others?" he asked.

A craftunit presented him with a Solitude Chamber, which permitted no radiations  to enter and would absorb all his own.

"Why should I imprison myself for the peace that I seek? Better I should imprison the universe." So this he sought to do.

He designed and commanded built an enclosure for every star, every planet, every moon, each asteroid and even the tiniest passing comet. From his throneworld, he timed the projects so that their multitudinous completions would appear synchronous from his throne room, so the last flickers of light from each enwrapped star or albedinous planet would all vanish at once. He arranged a concert of his favorite music, timed to conclude in synchrony with the disappearance of the stars, and he commanded all his subjects to be forever silent and unlit.

He watched as all fell completely silent, as he had arranged. "It is beautiful," he said.

The Network had disconnected his inputs.

Ginger and Something

"Is... is everything supposed to go black?" The fizzy taste of the beverage was still on her tongue. Ginger and... something.

"Yup," said Linsey. It lasts about five minutes per sip."

"Five minutes! You didn't say—" Her heart rate leaped upward, she began to sweat, and she sat up with jerk.

Linsey's hand caught her shoulder and gently pushed her back down into the seat. "Relax, this is normal. You can stop it at any time. Well, any five minutes or so. Just don't take another sip. See how you feel like this."

She gulped, thick and hard, leaving an ache in her throat. "I don't like it."

"I know. Give it a minute."

She did.

"Am I supposed to be seeing things?"

"Yeah, the brain starts making stuff up after a while."

"Woahhh..."

"Yeah." She could hear Linsey's grin. "Kinda neat, right?"

"Kinda... yeah, it's neat. Where..." She groped for the can.

"Here." Linsey put it in her hand and she took another sip. Ginger and something filled her mouth, fizzed down her throat. Tamarind. Was that a taste she knew?

"You'll stay with me, right?"

"Yeah," Linsey said.

A grin crept onto her face, and it stayed there.

Demons of the Past

Professor Lewis drew on her pipe and held the smoke for a considered moment, weighing Vernon with her eyes. When she spoke, it was in a cloud of smoke. "If demons are real, why on earth do you think I should know something about them?"

Vernon looked at the aged academician with disbelief. "You're the best-known scholar of demons and evil spirits in mythology. Breathing in the Demons of the Past sold more copies than Chicken Soup for the Soul. If anyone knows, it's you."

Lewis held the pipe to speak clearly. "Kid, those are folkloric and metaphoric demons, riding the cultural subconscious from our historic pasts into the morally stained future. Don't make shit up because you're sad and lonely."

"I'm not—!" Vernon reined in his anger. He put a hand on the professor's arm. "They're real, and I need your help." Pause. "I can make you help me." Lewis tried to pull her arm away, but Vernon's casual-appearing grip was iron-hard. "I ate one. It gave me powers."

"Perhaps I can help you." Lewis sounded unafraid, and she returned the pipe to her mouth before lazily backhanding Vernon across the room. "But they're much more potent when smoked."

The Fate of Marty McFly

Marty slammed on his 4x4's brakes as Doc Brown ran into the driveway just as Marty pulled out of the garage. Leaning his head out the window, Marty shouted, "What're you doing, Doc? You're gonna get yourself killed!"

"Marty!" cried Doc. "Come with me! It's a matter of life or death!"

He looked at his girlfriend Jennifer in the passenger seat with a sheepish smile. "Sometimes I help him with... stuff." Marty climbed down from the truck's cab. "What is it, Doc?"

"Remember the DeLorean? I need to take you on a trip."

"Aw, Doc, I'm taking Jennifer up to the lake. It's gonna be romantic."

"I'll have you back in ten minutes," Doc said. He leaned around Marty and waved at Jennifer. "I'll have him back to you in ten minutes!"

One 88 mph trip later, Doc and Marty stood looking at a landscape: pastoral and natural, but from the floating city in the distance, obviously a distant future. After some time spent in silent awe, Marty said, "What're we doing here, Doc?" Not getting an answer, he turned to see Doc Brown back behind the wheel of the time machine.

"This is a utopia, Marty! No one goes hungry, people live 200 years, everyone gets to pursue their passions! Enjoy it, Marty! You'll fit right in!" Marty's response went unheard for the 15 seconds the DeLorean took to reach hit 88.

Back in 1985, Doc Brown watched through binoculars as Marty McFly arrived from 1955, stuck in the new timeline he'd created, in which a Marty McFly-shaped hole had just been made. It wouldn't do for there to be two of them.

Marty looked at the Toyota 4x4 with wonder in his eyes. He turned with a grin when he heard Jennifer say, "How about a ride, mister?"