Nancy Kilpatrick: Necromimicos

The dead bring her life. Since the moment of consciousness of their presence, Amulette, rather than dismiss them, begged the dead to remain. Amulette’s mother, father, grand-mere - the lucky one, for whom she is named - two sisters and baby brother, none understand her need for those who have passed. No one understands, really. Only Etienne.

As she matured, her thinking on cemeteries altered. From vast and lovely gardens, they became her personal shopping mall. Wrought-iron gates, stone benches, candles encased in etched glass-and-brass holders, marble angels and cherubs, filigreed metallic crosses . . . Memento mori. The accoutrements of death, scanned by the eye of a selective consumer. Furnishings for the world between worlds where Amulette resides. The only place where she can exist.

As the sun fades, Amulette leaves the city-din behind: stores dedicated to the here-and-now, or cheap imitations of the past. Inexhaustible vehicles. Food, entertainment, pursuits she cannot understand. People dressed of-a-piece - for a time she enjoyed classifying them: business, casual, post-grunge, retro hippy, neo-rave, Goth - the last those oh-so-sweet darklings in requisite chains, silver crosses clinging to black stretch velvet. To look at them reinforces her yearning.

Nancy Kilpatrick: The Age Of Sorrow

Grief had taken hold of her long ago. Long before the cataclysm. Long before everything had disintegrated: the planet; its people; her life. Hope for the future.

She crouched at the top of the hill, turning her head slowly from side to side, seeing only what the UV aviator goggles allowed her to view, scanning 180 degrees of verdant landscape, watching. Always watching. This valley had once been prime farmland, teeming with crops, and quietly nestled in it twin villages alive with quaint houses, one school that catered to the children of the entire population, a church each for the two big branches of Christianity, a synagogue, and a mosque. The two church steeples poked above the foliage, their crosses glinting in the afternoon sun, and she remembered reading what Joseph Campbell had said: you can tell what a culture values by its tallest buildings. She wondered if that applied to the beings who now dwelled in the villages.

There must still be fields for soccer and softball, the hospital, the shops that the populace had supported, although she hadn't visited the villages in months and couldn't be certain. Here and there a house was partially visible—she could just make out the pastel clapboard walls, splotches of color on this oh-so-green canvas of life that now flowed down the hills like lava. Over the last few years the plants had grown at an unnatural pace, devouring everything in their wake: the homes, the fields, the people. No, not the people. They had managed anyway. For a while.

Despite it all, she could not view this land so far from the place of her birth as anything but lush, the green vibrant shades ranging from yellow-tinged to near black. The sun, despite the thick layer of ozone which trapped its rays, managed to give the plants what they needed. They weren't suffering from any «greenhouse effect» but seemed to flourish and propagate. It was just humanity that had fared badly in all this.