Free Chasing the Moon by A. Lee Martinez

mug.
    “Thanks,” she said.
    “Don’t mention it, but if lover boy happens to have an extra slice of cake lying around—”
    “You got it.”
    Diana scooped the sugar into the mug and returned to Chuck.
    “Here. Hope this is enough.”
    He took the cup. He glanced at the beast guarding his door, then silently mouthed a thank-you.
    You’re welcome
, she mouthed back.
    She smiled, and he returned it with a warm, if slightly nervous, grin. He tiptoed down the hall and disappeared back into his apartment. When the door clicked shut, the dog hopped up and unleashed a long, high-pitched shriek. It sniffed along the edge of the door before snorting, retching up a glob of snot that it immediately gobbled down.
    Unending Smorgaz trundled up the stairs, past the dog, and pushed his way past Diana.
    “One side,” he said. “Hot pie, coming through.”
    “Finally!”
    Vom seized one of the boxes and jammed it halfway into his mouth, but he paused under Diana’s and Smorgaz’s watchful stares. Vom removed the pizza, set it on the coffee table, and slouched in a sulk.
    “Oh, okay,” said Diana. “You can have one pizza all to yourself, but you might want to savor—”
    Gleefully he snatched up the coffee table and swallowed the pizza box and a third of the table in one huge bite.
    “This is a great pie. Love the touch of sawdust.” His attention turned to the second pizza.
    “Are you going to eat all that?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

     
    “It’ll only be a few hours,” said Sharon. “Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
    Calvin didn’t look up from his book. “Think I’ll skip this one, if it’s just the same to you.”
    “Everyone will be disappointed.”
    He dog-eared the page and set the book aside to help her put on her coat.
    “I wish you wouldn’t do that.” She winced.
    “I am the lord of beautiful anarchy, aren’t I? So I don’t use bookmarks, and I don’t attend every annoying pep rally Greg feels like throwing just because he’s bored.”
    “Now you’re just being snarky.”
    He helped her on with her coat.
    “You know how he adores you,” she said. “How they all adore you.”
    “Have you ever been adored by four dozen people at once? Trust me. It’s not as cool as it sounds. Anyway, if I showed up to all of these events, it’d stop being special.”
    “I guess you’re right.” She leaned in, gave him a polite hug. “Try to stay out of trouble now.”
    “I think I can manage on my own for an evening. Just going to hang out with the guys.”
    She paused. “So soon? Do you really think that’s a good idea?”
    “I’m not allowed to have friends now?”
    “You have friends.”
    “Greg and his loonies are not my friends. At best, they’re coworkers. Although really I do all the work.”
    “Yes, you do. It’s just… you know how crazy things can get when you get together with the old gang. Just promise me you’ll take it easy.”
    “You worry too much. Not like it’s the end of the world.”
    She patted him on the chest. “Make sure that it isn’t. Not yet anyway.”
    An elderly woman with wild gray hair, the nub of a green crayon clutched in withered, clawlike fingers, scrawled an endless string of numbers on the hallway just outside Benny’s door.
    She glanced up from her work and smiled. Her eyes glinted with madness.
    “Hello,” she croaked.
    Calvin nodded at her. Benny’s mere presence had this effect on people. He improved the efficiency of their squishy biological brains until they functioned like obsessive-compulsivesupercomputers. This poor woman was working on an equation that disproved the universe. She had at least forty more years of scrawling to do, though.
    He knocked on the apartment door, and a fat worm with translucent skin showing pulsing, multicolored veins answered. Limbs ringed his body in peculiar asymmetry. Most ended in hands, though two were just stumps and one served as his nose. He wore a baseball cap secured to his “head” with masking