I AM THE SUN: III

by Sean Manseau


June clutched his arm. “Lyle, I don’t think that’s—”

“As they say, Trooper Shepherd, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way.” An ingratiating smile broke across Price’s face, like dawn on a dark plain. “We’d like to meet the boy. Talk with him for a bit. Get a sense of who he is, how his surroundings do or do not accommodate his needs.” His eyes hardened. “But if we leave now, be assured we’ll return with a court warrant, and a police escort. Nicholas will be coming with us then, to stay at Las Cruces Home for Boys until such time as this matter is sorted out…and as you know, the wheels of bureaucracy can turn quite slowly.”

“Sir, that’s not going to happen." Shepherd gave Price his best cop glare, but the words came out strangled. "You are not taking my nephew to that hellhole.”

“He’s upstairs. I’ll get him.” They both turned to look at June. She gazed steadily back at Shepherd, squeezing his hand. “He’ll be fine, Lyle. I’ll explain to him who these people are, and why they want to talk to him. He’s a smart kid. He’ll understand.”

Shepherd said, “You know how imaginative he is. He hears about Las Cruces, it’ll give him nightmares.” But by the time the last words were out of his mouth, he knew—he was hoping—that she was right, that Nicky would grasp what was at stake and play his role convincingly.

“It’ll be fine,” June repeated, and walked into the living room, headed for the stairs. And then she said, “What are you doing to my television set?!”

Shepherd pivoted on his heel to step back into the living room. Dr. Price followed. In the corner next to the fireplace, the console TV had been pulled away from the wall, the back removed, and the gangling kid and the Mohawked girl were kneeling amidst its disassembled innards.

Some of the parts, the vinyl-coated wires, the capacitors, the vacuum tubes, Shepherd recognized from high school electronics class. Other parts, though, he couldn’t place, like an hourglass that seemed to contain a tiny sun burning in each bulb, and a crystalline structure that gave every appearance of breathing. Above these the girl held her little device at different angles. Flashes went off, as if she was taking photos, but Shepherd heard no click of a shutter, and she wasn’t winding film.

The gangling kid grinned at them over his shoulder. “Got some bona fide early-era Nicholas tech here, Cosmo.”

“Lyle?” said June, her hand on the banister.

“Go ahead and get Nicky,” Shepherd told her. “I’ll handle this.” He rubbed the 5 o'clock stubble on his cheek and turned back to Price. "Sir, I'm trying to be cooperative here, but why is my TV being taken apart?"

Price waved a hand at the detritus covering the floor. “Would you mind telling us what that is, Trooper Shepherd?”

“Goddammit, it was my goddamn twenty-seven inch Magnavox," Shep said, and his voice was rising, a bad idea when you're dealing with bureaucrats, but he was beyond caring. "You’d better hope your department has the budget to—”

Somewhere toward the back of the house, a door squealed open and slammed shut. From the kitchen came the sharp report of boot heels on linoleum, a man rasped “Cosmo! Hey, Cosmo! Out in the shed there’s—” and then the door to the dining room swung open, admitting a short, barn beam-shouldered man who stopped dead when he saw Shepherd.

The man’s eyes widened. His nostrils flared. His mouth tried on and discarded surprise, disgust, and trembling rage before settling on a sort of fearsome half-smile. He began to unzip his coveralls, muttering, “Well, I’ll be dicked!” while covering the floor between himself and Shepherd in strides that were nearly a charge. Without time to think, instinct took over. Shepherd dropped into a wrestler’s crouch, bracing for impact, and then the girl with the pink Mohawk was between them, intercepting the short man with her forearms against his barrel chest.

“Duncan! Duncan!” she said, as the man tried to force his way past. “We’ve got a plan, right? In and out and don’t leave a trace, right? We’re on a schedule, remember?”

“What's your problem, man?" Shepherd said. Obviously this Duncan thought he knew him, but nothing about the man’s features—broken nose, blond crew cut, sharply dimpled chin—jogged any recollection. The main thing was that look he had—grunts coming out of the jungle after combat had that look. The thousand yard stare. Shep looked to the CYFD supervisor. "What is this, Price?”

“I apologize, Trooper Shepherd,” Price said, inserting himself into Shep’s line of sight. “Mr. Lawless...appears to have mistaken you for someone else. Isn't that so, Duncan?"

"Yeah," the man mumbled, not turning his eyes from Shepherd's. "Yeah, that must've been it."

"A regrettable misunderstanding," Price said. "Now, please, Trooper Shepherd, answer my question. This device in your television. It's obviously homemade. Potentially dangerous, a fire risk. Can you explain it?”

“I think I’m pretty much done explaining anything to you,” Shep said. The hell with the CYFD and any court order they might obtain. At this point, Shep was angry enough to take to the hills and fight it out. Unconsciously his right hand fell to the butt of his gun. “Except maybe that if you and your people are not out of here in ten seconds, things are going to get ugly.”

Someone cleared their throat loudly. June was on the stairs. “Lyle,” she said, “I’m sure you can show Nicholas that grown-ups settle their problems with their voices, not their fists. Can’t you?”

“Jesus,” said the pink-haired girl under her breath. She was staring up at Nicholas, who was crouched with his face pressed between the banister rails to stare back.

Glancing around, Shep saw all the CYFD workers were looking at Nicholas with something close to awe. All except the man Lawless. Shepherd returned his glare, thinking this was the strangest damned crew of social workers he’d ever heard of.

But staredown or no, Shepherd knew he had to calm his temper. June was right. If they played nice with the CYFD people, answered their questions politely, there was still a chance Shep could get Nicholas into the system, and secure the boy's place in their lives.

“As far as the TV goes,” June said, leading the boy by the hand into the living room, “Nicholas likes to tinker. We’re considering home schooling him, so he can apply for early admission to MIT or Cal Tech. I think he could be a famous inventor. The Thomas Edison of the 21st century, maybe.”

“I don’t want to be an inventor, though.” Nicholas hadn’t grown any taller in the six months since he’d come to live with them, although he’d put on about ten pounds from June’s cooking. He was wearing his favorite t-shirt, the one with the iron-on of the Eagle shuttle from “Space: 1999”, and green Toughskins that were worn at their reinforced knees. Under his arm he held a cardboard portfolio. “Not all the time, anyway.”

“No?” asked Price, his voice unsteady. “What else would you like to do?”

“Make comics!” Nicholas said. He brandished the portfolio before him. “Wanna see?”

Shepherd groaned inwardly. The kid wasn’t going to show them the books, was he? Price perched at the edge of the love seat and patted the coffee table. “I would love to see, Nicholas.”

Part IV

Continues 

Thursday

I AM THE SUN: II

by Sean Manseau


He climbed the steps to the two-story cabin, stamped the snow off his boots on the welcome mat, and then paused before the porch’s storm door. His reflection in the window gave him a little shiver, like a suddenly remembered bad dream.

Something was different about his slate blue and charcoal gray Trooper’s uniform. Somehow it made his shoulders broader, his hips more narrow. Shep rubbed the crease of his trousers between his thumb and forefinger. The material seemed softer, too, slicker. Shepherd suddenly remembered a moment from a few weeks before, Nicholas standing before Shep's open closet, looking at the duty uniforms hanging there.

“I bet I could make your suit bulletproof,” the boy had said.

Shepherd laughed it off, told him no offense, he'd stick with his Barrier Vest. But maybe the kid had gone ahead with some unauthorized alterations. Out in the shed, where he kept his workshop. Thinking of the shed gave Shep another little bad dream jolt. When was the last time he’d been out there to see what Nicholas was up to?

The boy’s projects had started small. He had found Shep’s Time/Life how-to guides and begun fixing things around the house, rewiring outlets and resurrecting a broken radio. He asked for books, and soon June, the town librarian, was bringing him three or four a day. Electrical Engineering: Principles and Applications. Topics in Modern Cosmology. Human Molecular Genetics, Problems and Sets. A biography of a man named Tesla. A very strange book called The Philadelphia Experiment and the Ontological Implications of Time Travel.

Then Nicholas had rewired their TV so Shep could watch the second rematch between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. This was back at the beginning of October; he’d called Shepherd out of the tub, dragged him into the living room. “Thrilla in Manila,” the boy had said to the TV, as if he were a spy expecting a countersign, and the screen had flickered to life, Ali in the ring, shuffling and shadowboxing. It shouldn’t have been possible, because that fight was only broadcast on cable, and cable hadn’t come to Ruidoso yet, but there it was. A little scary, if you stopped to think about it.

Why was this the first time he’d stopped to think about it?

Shepherd turned the doorknob and pushed his way into the living room, an airy lodge-space with stairs up to the bedrooms and his study. In front of the fireplace, where a fire burned against the November chill, a leather sofa and loveseat faced each other across a rosewood coffee table, and a gangling, pimple-faced young man in baggy black coveralls was standing on their sofa cushions to wave a silver wand over the collection of Old West daguerreotypes hung along the pine board walls. He was noisily jawing a wad of pink gum while studying the readout of a little black box cradled in his huge hand.

Another worker in coveralls, a young woman with bright pink hair shaved, incredibly, into a tall stripe, like a Mohawk brave, was intently examining June’s antique player piano with a similar device. A hearing aid studded with blinking green lights was wedged in her ear, and she tapped it and murmured something.

Shepherd had just opened his mouth to say, What the hell do you all think you’re doing? when the two workers noticed him standing in the doorway. The girl froze. The kid didn’t put his gadgets down, but his eyes widened and he chewed even faster. “Hey Cosmo,” he called, “Lyle—uh, Trooper Shepherd just showed up.”

In the dining room, past the upright piano and the Christmas tree, June, in a pair of Shep’s old jeans and untucked shirt, her honey blond hair spilling from under a red bandanna, stood with a very tall, stovepipe thin black man, also in black coveralls. She was frowning at a wallet open in her hand.

At the gangling boy’s alert she and the tall man spotted Shepherd at the same moment. She looked relieved. The stranger seemed to blanch with fear for an instant, before recovering an expression of calm regard.

The workers could wait. Skinny over there with June was obviously their supervisor. Shepherd reached them in three long steps. “Hey sweetheart,” he said, giving June a one-armed hug and kissing her hair, but not taking his eyes off the man, to whom he said, “You mind explaining who you are and what you’re doing here?”

“Lyle,” June began, “these people just came barging in—”

“My name is Dr. Cosmo Price, Trooper Shepherd,” the tall man said. “Lincoln County Youth Services. Your wife holds my identification. I trust it will prove adequate?”

Shep took the billfold from her, examined the photo. Price had close-cropped graying hair, and outlandish, Civil War-era whiskers that bracketed his gaunt cheeks like hedges. But despite that hippyish affectation, he was an official of the State of New Mexico. Shepherd’s gut tightened. Once the government got involved, unless you were willing to hole up in the mountains with a rifle, there was usually only one outcome. “The ID’s fine,” Shepherd said, handing it back. “Now let’s see your search warrant.”

Price cleared his throat as he pocketed his wallet. Underneath the coveralls he was wearing a black suit and an oddly old-fashioned tie, a cravat. “This isn’t a criminal investigation, Trooper Shepherd. The CYFD had a report of an undocumented juvenile living at this residence. By law we’re obligated to investigate.”

Shepherd and June exchanged a look. They had a story prepared, but telling it to a state official... He said, “You’re talking about Nicky? Nicholas is my godson. My sister and her husband were killed earlier this year in a fire.”

“Such a terrible shame,” Price said. “Obviously this is simply a bureaucratic snafu. Easily cleared up! May I make a copy of his birth certificate for our records?”

“The house was gutted. Nicholas’s birth certificate was destroyed. His social security card too. We’re waiting for replacements.” There were certain advantages to being a member of law enforcement. Thanks to the arrest, for possession of marijuana, of the teenage son of a certain local public official, Shepherd expected to have a completely official birth certificate for Nicholas within a couple of weeks. “When we receive them, I’ll be happy to drop off copies at your office.”

“I see, I see,” Price said. “Trooper Shepherd, by law, undocumented minors are wards of the state and must be remanded to the Department of Youth Services. However my position does afford me a certain amount of latitude in my decisions. No one wants to remove a child from a safe environment. If we find the child has been well-cared for, we see no reason why he couldn’t remain here while the necessary paperwork is filed. Where is the boy now?”

“He’s upstairs,” June said.

“May we speak with him, please?”

“I’d rather you not,” Shepherd cut in. He’d never gone over the cover story with the boy, hadn’t wanted to give him the idea it was okay to lie to those in authority. But it was more than that. This man made his cop sense jangle. He seemed just a little too eager. “I don’t want you to scare him. He’s been through enough. In fact, it’s better if you go.”

Part III

Continues 

Wednesday

I AM THE SUN: I

by Sean Manseau

“Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war!” - Julius Caesar Act 3, scene 1

A quarter mile of steep dirt road ran from Highway 9 up to Shepherd’s cabin, and he took it slow, enjoying the crunch of fresh snow under his pursuit car’s tires and the sharp tang of pine wafting through his open window. To the right, occasional breaks in the forest framed the soaring Sacramento Mountains. Shepherd was thinking he could take Nicholas up to Sierra Blanca next weekend. Teach the kid to ski. That’d be a good time—family time.

Family...six months ago family seemed a gift fate had denied Shep and his wife June. The boy’s arrival had changed that. He’d brought a whole new kind of happiness into their lives, and for that they owed him. Shepherd was looking forward to making good on that debt.

This pleasant reverie lasted until Shep rounded the corner at the top of the driveway and found two unfamiliar vehicles parked next to his wife’s beat-up orange Bronco. A ’74 Country Squire station wagon, tan with wood trim, and a Ford Econoline cargo van, enamel blue. Both with government plates. CYFD stenciled on the side of the van. CYFD was Lincoln County’s Children, Youth, and Families Department.

“Well fuck me,” Shepherd muttered. He killed the ignition and sat there listening to the tick-tick-tick of the cooling V8 engine, squeezing and releasing the steering wheel rhythmically, telling himself to relax. He and June had known this moment would come. Maybe it had caught them before their preparations were complete, but that was no reason to panic.

“Because they aren’t taking him,” he told his reflection in the rear view mirror.

“Alright? They just aren’t.” He shoulder butted the door open, climbed out of the car, put on his uniform’s Stratton hat.

Shepherd had been doing better than eighty when he spotted the boy walking along Rt. 54 in northwestern New Mexico. By the time he’d decided he wasn’t just seeing things, he’d already gone a quarter-mile past.

Late May, gold poppies blooming, temperatures already breaking 100 degrees almost every afternoon. A kid on his own in the middle of the desert. Shepherd, six feet three inches of State Trooper in jackboots and jodhpurs, got out of the car to wait for him. The boy just scuffling along, his red denim overalls gone gray at the cuffs. His blond hair was plastered dark at the temples, and his face was pale, with patches of hectic color in his cheeks.  Maybe on the verge of heat prostration. But as he stopped about six feet away, he didn’t look scared, or even relieved. Expectant, maybe.

“Bit of a hike from here to Carrizozo,” Shepherd said, taking off his mirrored aviators and giving the kid what he hoped was a reassuring smile. In fact, it was almost twenty-five miles to Carrizozo, and a good twenty miles back the other way to Tularosa. To the west stood the barbed wire fences of the White Sands Missile Range. To the east there was nothing but sand and scrub brush for days. “What’s your name, son?”

“Nicholas,” the boy said.

“Well, Nick, you want to tell me how you got way out here on your own?”

The boy shrugged. “They dropped me off.”

“Who did, your parents?” That there were people who had kids and didn’t give two tin shits about them made Shepherd want to hawk up and spit in the dust.

“You know what kind of car they drive?”

The boy shook his head.

“You eaten today?”

Again no.

For the moment, Shepherd decided to let it go. He sighed and went around to open the cruiser’s passenger door. “Well, climb in. I might have something left from my lunch.”

Except he didn’t. All he had were the crusts from his sandwich and a thermos of watery ice coffee. Not the kind of thing to offer a what, a ten year-old? A good-looking kid, but skinny. Shepherd decided to make sure the boy had at least one good meal in his belly before he was abandoned to the horror of New Mexico’s foster care system. June’d be happy to set an extra place at the dining room table.

Right now he ought to offer the kid something, though. Take his mind off things. Shepherd sat in the driver’s seat, considering, then reached past the boy to pop open the glovebox and pull out his secret stash. “You like comic books?”

He handed the boy issue #39 of Captain Marvel, ‘Ba’al Shar and the Gate of Infinite Tomorrows’. Shep also had The Fantastic Four, Namor the Sub-mariner, and Jonah Hex. He’d loved comics since he was a kid. Brought a stack with him to Vietnam, where they’d helped keep him sane. He hadn’t seen any reason to stop reading them now that he was a Trooper.

On the drive Nicholas had pored over the Captain Marvel book. He kept it rolled in one fist while he ate, went to sleep on the living room couch with it under his cheek.

June fell in love with the child at first sight. After dinner she joined Shepherd on the porch swing, a sweating glass of lemonade in each hand. At this altitude the desert evenings were usually cool, but tonight the air was almost sultry. Meteors were dropping behind the Sacramentos like white hot sparks.

“Poor thing, he just looks so exhausted,” she said, handing Shep his drink. “Lyle…do you have to take him to Las Cruces tonight?” Las Cruces was where the CYFD kept wards of the state. “Can’t we let him sleep here?”

Shepherd frowned. “We do that, I’ll be in for an ass-chewing. Sgt. Newkirk is hell on procedure, you know that.” But when she tipped her face away to hide her disappointment he put a finger under her chin to draw her back. “Hey, I don’t mind. Newkirk’s bark is worse than his bite.”

“My hero,” she grinned, and kissed him.

As Shepherd sat with his arm around his wife and watched Sierra Blanca’s snowline burn orange and pink in the sun’s last light, he thought, That kid needs a family. And immediately after: Why not us? Both of them well north of thirty, married for nine years next April. There had been too many mornings when he pretended he hadn’t heard June crying in the bathroom over the onset of her period, him lying in bed, wondering if it was his fault. Maybe it wasn’t the usual way, but if the Lord sent them a child to care for, who were they to question His wisdom?

When Shepherd left for work the next day, Nicholas was still asleep in the guest bedroom. At the State Police barracks, Shepherd had checked the teletype: no missing persons report had been filed for a boy answering Nicholas’s description. He kept checking, every day for a month, and then it just sort of fell by the wayside. Now somehow it was six months later, and Shepherd was thinking he might be in some deep shit.


 Part II

Continues 

Tuesday

LATE FREEZINE'S GREETINGS

Season's greetings this Halloween from the Freezine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.  We hope you have enjoyed our special late October Halloween Surprise Story, WYRM'S BLOOD, by Adam Bolivar, the fifth (count 'em) Weird Jack Tale serialized in our ragtag literary cybership.   

The nanofleet's transmissions have been weakening during the past several months, yet we have been able to decipher the general message.  They intend our motley collection of assorted tales and pictograms here to accrue naturally as time and circumstance permit.  With the continued assistance of dear readers and followers like you, more interest is generated and thus more manuscripts are digitally delivered for our editing team to read through and process, accordingly.  

This is a fanzine continually going through small changes and modifications and gradually evolving into a more user-friendly format by which stories and their corresponding artwork may be optimally enjoyed in the 21st century milieu of modalities.  Be it via your eReader or smart phone, Kindle, laptop, iPad, or nano device, the FREEZINE will be around as a creative writer's friendly assistant in gaining exposure and experience in the field of electronic publishing.   

With a total of fifteen issues, twenty authors, and over forty stories now archived for your perusal and reading pleasure, the FREEZINE of Fantasy and Science Fiction continues to strive for excellence in the fields of genre writing and its corresponding art.  Those new to the Freezine may want to check out our sister site, the FREE ZINE ZONE for a full archive of the art featured in this webzine's collected stories.  

Thanks to all the artists and writers who have contributed to the Freezine over the course of the past three years.  It goes without saying this enterprise would never have lifted off the ground (much less achieved orbit) without your gracious and generous contributions and assistance.  Feel free to email me, Shaun Lawton, Editor in Chief, at freezinefantasysciencefiction@gmail.com to query about a story submission you would like to see appear here in a future issue.  For longer stories,  a daily serial may be presented; for shorter tales, we may publish them as stand alone stories on any given day of the month.  

A great amount of thanks and goodwill goes out to our returning veteran author Adam Bolivar, whose fifth Weird Jack Tale we just enjoyed over the past three days of Samhain—WYRM'S BLOOD—marks the seventh story of his that he's dared to brave against the imposing facade of the grazing hordes out there.  Our small legion of purveyors are still browsing away, presumably; although I fear about eighteen of our followers abandoned ship (so to speak) during the interminable period since our last issue, back in April.   Please remain registered here to follow our posts, however sporadic they may eventually be.  My assurance remains, it will be entirely worthwhile (if reading free meta fiction from beyond the fringe is your idea of a valuable way to spend your time).  

Much appreciation and thanks go out to Jesse Stevens this brilliant autumnal season, for his contributions with his pastel exercises with brushstrokes and his illustration above, which beckons all of us silently to never give up on the FREEZINE, even during those long boring frozen weeks where it seems as if there will never be another story to brighten our otherwise mundane days.  Have no fear, for this webzine is here to stay another hundred years if the nanoeditors have anything to say about it.  
And believe me, they do.  

~ See You Next Month ~

APRIL FOOL'S ISSUE

~ PROUDLY PRESENTS ~




ELDER CRUISER
by John Shirley

© 2012 by john shirley

+ Click Images Below To Begin Reading +

SATAN'S DOG

by Gil James Bavel

© 2012 by gil james bavel

MIZUKI

by Keith Graham

© 2012 by keith graham

NIGHT SONG

OF THE FUNGI

by Vincent Daemon

© 2012 by vincent daemon

Welcome to another edition of the FREEZINE of Fantasy and Science Fiction, a Fanzine for the 21st Century. Back in the 20th century, fanzines proliferated across the underground scene like weird mushrooms in Vince Daemon's back yard.

It's the same idea now, only I like to call it a Webzine. This APRIL, 2012 edition is our lucky 13th Issue—welcome to it. Be sure to invite your friends, share the stories, and Follow the FREEZINE today. [To do so, either use the RSS-feed, follow by email (upper right corner), or to Follow on Blogger or Facebook—simply scroll down, down, down past all the bios and authors, until you see the Blogger Followers just below Icy Sedgwick, and the NetworkedBlogs for Facebook, below that. We are about to reach 100 Blogger and 100 Facebook Followers—and that doesn't include all the "hidden" Followers, "private" Followers, and various RSS-feed Followers, and so on. The Nano only knows how many Followers we actually have...]

For this APRIL, 2012 issue we have a real treat for starters—veteran author John Shirley returns for his fourth (count 'em) original story in our Webzine, ELDER CRUISER. As the FREEZINE loves nothing more than to serialize novellas or even the short novel here and there, we were all too pleased to have John submit his new science fiction novelette (approximately 12,000 words) for the FREEZINE to serialize in daily installments. Breaking up such narratives into daily installments can be quite a challenge, in particular while trying to simultaneously end each section on a "cliffhanger"—or, should there not be enough "hard" cliffhangers—on what I like to call a "narrative tension point". ELDER CRUISER was originally slated to be divided into seven daily installments, but I worked at trying to get the most out of each installment, so they wouldn't be too short...and found the right balance in five installments, giving the readers more to sink their teeth into, with each daily part. I think the narrative flows rather well across five parts, please let me know what you think of the story. Comments are provided for at the bottom of each story featured in the FREEZINE. I personally loved every minute of ELDER CRUISER, and was struck emotionally by this futuristic father/son story to the point of really having it affect me, it got a reaction out of me, I could feel the sense of closure. It delivers quite a wallop, and we at the FREEZINE remain grateful for Mr. Shirley's gracious contribution to our pages.

Speaking of John Shirley's contributions—how many of you have read his fabled cyberpunk trilogy A SONG CALLED YOUTH? It's available now from PRIME BOOKS in one hefty, affordable volume. I recommend you all read it now and find out what all the well-deserved hype is about. He also recently released the bestselling novelization of BIOSHOCK: RAPTURE, along with seven other Tie-Ins & Novelizations.

Next up, we welcome another Veteran Freezine author, Gil James Bavel and his charming short story, SATAN'S DOG, released on Friday the 13th, 2012. This one has a light-hearted and humorous tenor to it, which I felt really fit the flow of this APRIL issue, while yet retaining a modicum of mysteriousness, considering the infernal origins of our canine hero. Working with the author on editing this story was a sheer joy, and I thank Gil James Bavel profusely for having the heart to provide us with yet another entertaining story of his. If you haven't read anything else by Mr. Bavel—scroll down the right margin of bios/authors to see his contribution of stories in the FREEZINE.

Our third story featured in this month's issue, comes from another regular contributor, the science fiction author Keith Graham. His new story here MIZUKI, which debuted on April 20, ravages a mish-mash of counter cultural references into an entertaining and amusing parable. This is Keith's third story in the FREEZINE, and we're sure glad to have him onboard. Check out his bio and the rest of his stories down over in the right margin, there.

Speaking of down over, well down over in Philadelphia we have another FREEZINE veteran, Vincent Daemon. Our APRIL issue concludes with his urgent and haunting urban fable, NIGHT SONG OF THE FUNGI. It makes its first appearance worldwide on the FREEZINE of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and shall remain archived along with the author's four other stories, all of which can be found easily by scrolling down, down, down and clicking on the corresponding image with the story's title, in the dropdown menu to the right. Thanks again Vince Daemon for another killer story.

Thanks to my wife Shasta and her really cool, original artwork contributions to this issue. Stay tuned THIS SUMMER for the FREEZINE's immanent return. It will continue to release a diverse array of creative fiction in any of its dizzying formats so long as enough writers and readers continue to participate in its ongoing creation. This is a waking, sleeping, breathing, living blog that needs your support to continue.

If you're a writer who wants to showcase a story of the realm fantastic and further promote yourself and your work, submit it to

freezinefantasysciencefiction@gmail.com for consideration in a future issue.

If you're a reader, Follow this blog and get your friends to follow it too. This endeavor started out and continues to be a labor of love. You will find no other place on the world wide web that is so willing to help promote fellow creative writers free of charge. Thanks for your support and participation, thank you for putting up with the occasional unpredictable monthly lapses, and rest assured that the FREEZINE will continue so long as I am able to log on here and figure out the upgraded hyper text mark up interface. The Nanohorde must expect nothing less from me.