sight, and take into the brain the complete aspect of the Thing. No wound, only blood stains on the feet. The great grim jaws had a savage grin, though dead-stiff. And his kiss: he could bear it no longer, and turned away, nor ever looked again.
And the dead man in his arms, knowing the full horror, had followed and faced it for his sake; had suffered agony and death for his sake; in the neck was the deep death gash, one arm and both hands were dark with frozen blood, for his sake! Dead he knew him, as in life he had not known him, to give the right meed of love and worship. Because the outward man lacked perfection and strength equal to his, he had taken the love and worship of that great pure heart as his due; he, so unworthy in the inner reality, so mean, so despicable, callous, and contemptuous towards the brother who had laid down his life to save him. He longed for utter annihilation, that so he might lose the agony of knowing himself so unworthy such perfect love. The frozen calm of death on the face appalled him. He dared not touch it with lips that had cursed so lately, with lips fouled by kiss of the horror that had been death.
He struggled to his feet, still clasping Christian. The dead man stood upright within his arm, frozen rigid. The eyes were not quite closed; the head had stiffened, bowed slightly to one side; the arms stayed straight and wide. It was the figure of one crucified, the blood-stained hands also conforming.
So living and dead went back along the track that one had passed in the deepest passion of love, and one in the deepest passion of hate. All that night Sweyn toiled through the snow, bearing the weight of dead Christian, treading back along the steps he before had trodden, when he was wronging with vilest thoughts, and cursing with murderous hatred, the brother who all the while lay dead for his sake.
Cold, silence, darkness encompassed the strong man bowed with the dolorous burden; and yet he knew surely that that night he entered hell, and trod hell-fire along the homeward road, and endured through it only because Christian was with him. And he knew surely that to him Christian had been as Christ, and had suffered and died to save him from his sins.
AND BOB’S YOUR UNCLE, by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Sometimes when it was night and Uncle Bob and Mom were fighting, Jake would go to the park and sit on the swings, listening to the rush of traffic on Franklin Boulevard and enjoying the dark. Everyone said the park was dangerous at nights, but Jake had never had any trouble there, in spite of all the rumors of bad things happening; Jake thought it was far more dangerous to remain at home when the adults were fighting: Uncle Bob was using his fists and Mom was throwing things. Just last week she’d smashed his Play Station by accident; Uncle Bob thought it was funny.
Uncle Bob wasn’t Jake’s real uncle, or so his mother had explained a year or so ago. “But, Jake, he’s like family. He takes care of us, not like the rest of our relatives; you know what they’re like—” She stopped and went on in a more subdued but injured tone, “Since your father died—”
Jake couldn’t remember his father, not really: the man had vanished when was four, and that was more than half his life-time ago. He relied on his mother to keep his father’s memory alive, but the things Mom said about his father changed over time; Jake could still remember when Mom had said it was a good thing he wasn’t alive anymore; that was shortly before she met Bob. “I get it that you want to have a guy around.” He shifted awkwardly in his slightly-too-large running shoes. Jake was small for his age and was often mistaken for being younger than nine, and it didn’t help that being undersized, his clothes made him look like a kid, since he wore younger children’s apparel because it fit, making a constant reminder about how dissimilar he was to his classmates; he hated the teasing he endured. Along with that, he also hated it when his Mom got down on one knee to look him in the eye, and he knew from Mom’s voice that was coming next. “But does it have to be him? Uncle Bob?”
She dropped down on one knee, so that she had to look up into his face. “Listen, Jake, you’re almost ten, and you can understand things very well. You’re really mature for your age, and you’ve always been a bastion for me. I couldn’t have made it this far without you.” She often called him a bastion when she was about to ask him to do something unpleasant. “If you can just try to get along with him. Just a little.”
“I do try. He’s the one who picks the fights.” He rarely let himself be dragged into Uncle Bob’s ranting, but for the last six months, the verbal barrage had increased, and had been punctuated with vigorous slaps which Uncle Bob justified by blaming Jake for making him angry. Jake’s Mom always tried make Jake understand that Uncle Bob didn’t mean it—it was just that work was so hard and he thought it was unfair to be denied another promotion, or that he had had a bad week at poker, or that he was really tired and didn’t want anything noisy around him.
“Well, Jake, I need you to try harder. If you aren’t willing to help improve the family, then I think you may need an extra two hours in your room.” It was her usual threat, one she never actually followed through on: Jake would have loved more time in his room, even if it wasn’t very big and at the opposite end of the L-shaped house from the bathroom. At least his room was quiet, and it had two windows, either of which he could leave through if he wanted to.
“That would be okay with me,” said Jake, disheartened to have his mother take Uncle Bob’s side again. “I can do homework, and read.”
Esther Sparges frowned. “Don’t you have anyone you’d like to study with? You have friends at school—everyone does. Wouldn’t one of your friends like to have you over to play games, or work on projects together?” She had that wheedling note in her voice, as if she were offering him a treat rather than trying to get rid of him.
“Not really,” he said, not wanting to admit that he had no friends at school, just a couple of geeks he hung around with occasionally, who had the same taste as he did for spooky video games; he was especially fond of Shape Shifter.
Shaking her head, Esther got to her feet and began to pace. “I wish I knew what to do with you, Jacob Edwin Sparges, I really do. You’re a good kid, but you get up Bob’s nose every time you open your mouth. I hate being put in the middle of you two.” She clutched her elbows, her hands working. “It’s never easy when you have to blend a family. I wish you could make just a little more effort.”
Only we aren’t a family, thought Jake, and we aren’t blending. “Yeah.”
“If I could work something out with your Aunt Judy, but she believes everything Denny and Jennine tell her. They’re all against him, my whole family, and won’t give him a break,” Esther said aloud to herself. “Judy’s very closed-minded; she just doesn’t listen to reason about Bob.”
Jake went very still. “What do you mean?” He tried not to hope.
“Well, if you could stay with her for a while, until Bob and I work a few things out, it would be a lot easier on all of us, and that means for you as well as Bob and me. You’ve been one of her favorites, and it isn’t as if she has kids of her own.” She flung her arms wide in exasperation, then grabbed her elbows again. “You’d like to spend time with her, wouldn’t you?”
“Prob’ly,” Jake said, not wanting to sound too willing.
“But she says she won’t help me until I get rid of Bob. She says Bob’s bad for me—as if she knows.” She touched the livid smudge on her jaw and scowled. “It’s not as if men grow on trees.”
“Sure, Mom,” said Jake, wishing he had some excuse to get out of the dining room and have some time for himself, so that he could think.
There was a sound of the front door opening; Esther said, “Run along and do your homework. I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.”
