Apocalypse x 7: Offbeat Doomsday Stories

By Michael Canfield

During football night at their favorite bar a group of contentious friends encounter a phenomenon that just might rewrite the rules of the universe. But whose universe? A man meets his perfect match but realizes, too late, what that really means. A couple heading home come up against an otherworldly threat in the high desert. A corporation struggles for spin control after unleashing uncontrollable damage. The family staff of a small hotel struggle to survive after a mysterious force changes forever how people respond to the outside world. A scientist, with only an experiment-weary monkey for company, creates one last test to uncover the secrets of space and matter. And a clean-up team tries to make sense of a vanished civilization from the dross left behind. Seven startling versions of the world ending - one for every day of the week.

Hour of the Snowflake
Wednesday
Think of a Pink Ship
Facts About Gel
The Crossing
A Flavor of Quark
Junk Silver

Michael Canfield writes about monsters, superheroes, couples, bank robbers, babies, astronauts, paranoids, background artists, hobbyists, and other people. He has published mystery, fantasy, science fiction, horror, or just-plain-odd stories on StrangeHorizons, futurismic, EscapePod, M–Brane SF, in dead-tree magazines including Realms of Fantasy, Talebones, Black Gate, Flytrap and other places. His novelette “Super-Villains” was republished in the prestigious Fantasy: The Year’s Best series, edited by Rich Horton. Born in Las Vegas, he now lives, works, plays, writes, and watches television in Seattle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vauk House Press
• Release date: Feb 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465960313

Michael Canfield

Michael Canfield writes about monsters, superheroes, couples, bank robbers, babies, astronauts, paranoids, background artists, obsessives, and other people. He has published mystery, fantasy, science fiction, horror and just-plain-odd stories in the magazines Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, Realms of Fantasy, Black Gate, Flytrap, and others.His novelette “Super-Villains” was republished in the prestigious Fantasy: The Year’s Best series, edited by Rich Horton (Prime Books). Born in Las Vegas, he now lives in Seattle.

Book preview

Apocalypse X 7

Apocalypse X 7

Michael Canfield

Vauk House

Contents

Copyright

Hour of the Snowflake

Wednesday

Think of a Pink Ship

Facts About Gel, Gloop, and Other Semi-Viscous Substance You May Have Encountered Recently

The Crossing

A Flavor of Quark

The Ambit

Coda: Junk Silver

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Michael Canfield

Copyright © 2012, 2015 Michael Canfield

Published by Vauk House

All Rights Reserved

Cover image copyright © Neosiam | Dreamstime.com

---

this is a work of fiction. any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental. all names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Hour of the Snowflake

Here he goes again, said Delles. Attacking snowflakes.

I’m not attacking them, said Arlin, shaking his head. "I’m saying that the no two are exactly alike business doesn’t mean anything. So what? No two leaves are exactly alike, no two stones."

On the other hand, every damn conversation with Arlin here is exactly alike, said Ganning. He slammed a twenty down on the table top. It was one of those tall tables, at stool or standing height, and we stood: drinking, arguing ,and occasionally watching the game, as we did every Monday night.

Put your money away, Ganning, said Delles. You’re not leaving. You know you’re not. It was one of Ganning’s signature gestures, the fake early storm-out. Ganning, being married, was usually the last to go. Delles, being happy, stayed or went as he saw fit. Arlin usually left when he had had made us all sick of him, which meant he might be leaving by the end of the first quarter tonight.

Me? I’m Smith.

I had had a pint of Guinness to start the night with, and then switched to Irish coffees because it was so damn cold. Our beloved waitress, Gretchen, now brought me my third one. Gretchen’s my age, early forties, married with two great kids, Seth and Wendy, who, judging from the pictures she proudly carried every night in her work apron, were adorable, and whom she loved more than anything, which I was grateful for. Why particularly? Because I was completely in love with her, and if she’d been available I would have had to wonder why I wasn’t doing anything about it. She had very beautifully tattooed shoulders, which she managed to always show, even on cold nights like this. Why not? It’s always hot in the bar, and she was incredible looking. I’d been shown a picture of her at twenty and she was twice as lovely now: strong confident, and happy. She was completely out of my league, possibly out of my species, therefore her happy marriage and lovely children allowed me to pine away, assured there was not a thing I could do to wreck her life. Ever.

My three compatriots had stuck with beer, and after Gretchen had set down my Irish coffee, she distributed their pints. Then she was away.

Arlin, Delles, Ganning, and me, Smith, maybe the last four men in the world who habitually refer to each other by last names exclusively, the way generations of men that came before had done. No Tim, Scott, and Steve for us. Though, come to think of it, I’m not sure if Arlin was a first or last name.

Not that it matters anymore.

Not after that night.

But we’ll get to that.

How we met.

Did we?

I mean we must have met, but we’d never been introduced. We’d all originally drifted into this particular woody establishment as members of other groups: me with some work buddies who weren’t really into football but wanted to be. That hadn’t lasted. Delles, probably the same thing, or close enough. Ganning? A bona fide bitter alcoholic who lived close by. Arlin?

Who knew anything about Arlin.

There was the snowflake thing, which came up whenever snow hit whatever city happened to be hosting Monday Night Football, or on the rarer occasion when there was snow here in town.

Such as that night.

Secondly there was the every hair is numbered, like every grain of sand thing, which is from the Bible or Bob Dylan, or both. There was the quantum physics, which had to do with the fact that time and space and everything therein is stranger than anybody would ever really figure out. To me, that seemed a pretty damn impressive thing on someone’s part to have figured out.

But the main thing was snowflakes.

Delles, being a bit of a nose tweaker, and seeing that Ganning’s thin veneer of patience had mostly worn away ahead of schedule that night, decide to see how closely he could steer the conversation toward the nearest cliff, or as we sometimes called it, an Arlin vortex. "But how do you prove no two snowflakes are alike? Delles started in. You’d have to look at them all."

I glared at him sharply, but it was too late, he’d already got the shot off, a direct hit, which sunk us all.

This is my point, said Arlin. They know that no two snowflakes could ever be exactly alike. There is a set of physical laws that govern this universe which won’t allow that. It’s like saying that Venus is not Mars and expecting me to be impressed."

I don’t know that scientists sit around a big conference table in Antarctica or somewhere thinking up meaningless things to say so that they sound smart, but I’m pretty sure this is how Arlin pictured the world. There was a lot of them and they in his view of man and his view of nature. Me, I’ve never met anyone who ever had much of a clue what’s going on in their own circle, let alone managing to disseminate vast conspiracies designed to control and subvert people’s understanding of reality, but maybe I don’t get around enough.

I said something to that effect and I wished I’d kept my mouth shut. It’s always better to keep my mouth shut and watch the game, even when it’s two teams I don’t care about and, in the case of tonight’s contest, two teams that no one cared about, at least for the remaining weeks of this season, with the possible except of the players’ Moms.

You’re right, said Arlin, you don’t get around enough. Wake up Mr. Shakespeare."

He called me Shakespeare, not because of some poetic strain in my speech that he had detected, but rather because I had laughed once when he told me Shakespeare wasn’t Shakespeare; he was somebody else, or somebody else was him. There was something about Oxford in there, not the school, but a man, but we never got into it. It was the wrong crowd for that sort of literary discussion. Still it had been touched on, and that, for Arlin, marked me as a dupe of the highest degree, which was all right I eventually realized, because it really took the pressure off.

Let’s do it, said Delles.

Ganning and I looked at him with our best do what? facial expressions. Arlin was already ahead of us.

The extremely low probability that we will find two identical snowflakes, even two that appear identical to the human eye, outside, tonight, before they melt, break up, merge into each other, or otherwise lose their integral formation, makes any such experiment useless, said Arlin.

You’re just afraid, said Delles.

It had begun to snow. Big puffy flakes, like mini-clouds fluttering down. It was kind of pretty.

Fuck it. Let’s do it, said Ganning.

This surprised me. You’re on board with this? I asked him.

Why not. He flicked his head derisively and the nearest screen. This game is a waste of time."

We’ve had stupider ideas, but I don’t remember when. It was cold out there, and the local constabulary does not smile upon those who carry their potables and revelry onto the sidewalks, so I didn’t see much of an upside. But I could see I was outvoted. I would have to go along or be left at a table for four drinking alone, like a non-smoker at the break during an AA meeting. I drained my Irish coffee. In Ganning’s immortal words, said I, ‘Fuck it.’

We made sure that Gretchen knew not to clear our table, pulled on our jackets, and went out.

Outside, the concrete was wet, and those big puffy flakes, mini clouds, cotton wisps, whatever you want to describe them as, disappeared instantly as they touched down. The night was bright, the moon being full. That and the street lamps reflected off those billowing white flakes.

So what do we do? said Delles to Arlin. Arlin looked at me, I don’t know what the hell for, and I shrugged elaborately.

Arlin shook his coat sleeve, gripping the cuff and held it fast, clamping the material between his fingertips and palm. He crooked his arm and held it outward. With his other hand he gave his extended arm three short, light, karate-chop motions, an equidistance apart. Each of you take a quadrant, he said. Don’t take your eyes off your quadrant; we’ll examine the snow that falls on my arm. My sleeves are dark. The contrast will be useful.

A quadrant is one of four sections, dipshit, said Ganning. Ganning had supposedly been an engineer of some kind or other before taking his early retirement. I’m not sure if I have that right on not, but he sure was a stickler for things like math.

Arlin tilted his head and regarded Ganning indulgently. I’ll be taken a quadrant myself, said Arlin. The one nearest my shoulder. I merely marked out the remaining three quadrants for you all.

Yeah, Ganning, said Delles. Don’t you think Arlin knows how to assign quadrants?

Ganning frowned. He was beat on this point and he knew it Dammit! you could almost hear him yell inside his head.

Everybody focus! said Arlin. He pointed to each of us and then