Free Chasing the Moon by A. Lee Martinez Page A

tape. The rules for greater eldritch horrors varied. Calvin had no trouble passing for human, but it had less to do with his appearance than with his separation from his more otherworldly self.
    The worm, on the other hand, required a disguise to avoid driving mortals mad. It didn’t take much: a T-shirt, a hat, sunglasses. Just something for the human mind to grab on to. Calvin wondered if the disguise itself created an illusion or if humans found the idea of a Benny, a giant, glistening maggot in a Raiders cap, so absurd that their peculiar brains decided to just accept it and move on. The end result was the same.
    Benny said, “Cal, what kept ya?”
    Calvin held up a grocery bag. “I stopped off for snacks.”
    He stepped inside, but before Benny closed the door Calvin told the woman, “You dropped a decimal point around the corner.”
    Frowning, she shuffled off to correct the mistake.
    Calvin handed the snacks to Benny. “You should probably move before you cause irreversible damage to that poor woman.”
    “I’d like to, but where am I going to find another place this good? Plus, it’s got rent control.”
    Benny slipped into the kitchen to put the beers in the fridge. Calvin had a seat next to Swoozie, who was playing video games.
    Even among eldritch horrors, Swoozie was one of the most incomprehensible. Her body was little more than a random collection of colors and alien geometries. She’d molded a pair of mismatched hands to hold the game controller, but the twisted fingers had a hard time reaching all the buttons.
    “Shit,” she said as she guided her pixilated hero off a cliff.
    Swoozie was lousy at video games. Hardly surprising since she was barely connected to this universe to begin with. She was like a puppeteer trying to control a marionette via a very, very long string and a telescope. And right now she was like a woman trying to use that marionette to control a second puppet composed of a few electrons dancing across a television screen. Sometimes Calvin envied Swoozie, who was almost free of the trap they were stuck in. And sometimes Calvin figured it had to be worse for Swoozie than for any of them. Like having to walk around with a bucket on your head for eternity.
    “Press the A button to jump,” said Calvin.
    Swoozie’s digital protagonist jumped the chasm. She hooted, and the sound caused the wallpaper to peel.
    “Hey, watch it,” said Benny.
    “Sorry.”
    A virtual gargoyle swooped down and decapitated Swoozie’s hero. The corpse collapsed in a heap.
    “What the hell?” growled Swoozie. “Get up, you stupid bastard.”
    “Humans can’t live without their heads,” explained Calvin. It was easy to forget that.
    “That’s crap. I don’t see why I have to be saddled with such a silly weakness just because humans don’t have the imagination to realize that their limitations are not required for a video game character.”
    “These games are marketed with a human audience in mind,” said Benny.
    “It’s discrimination.” Swoozie reached around space and grabbed one of the beers from the fridge without getting up from her seat. The hole in space she pulled the beverage from didn’t disappear right away. It just hovered there.
    “Hey, hey, hey,” said Benny. “What the hell did I tell you about respecting the space-time continuum in my home?”
    “Oh, just sweep it under a rug or something,” replied Swoozie.
    Calvin reached into the hole and grabbed a beer of his own. Benny glared.
    “What?” Calvin smiled. “It’s there. Why not use it?”
    The teeth in Benny’s circular mouth twirled counterclockwise. His version of a frown.
    “So what are we doing tonight?” asked Swoozie.
    “I don’t know,” said Benny. “We could get something to eat, maybe see a movie.”
    “Oh no.” Calvin waved his arms emphatically. “Not after the last time.”
    Individually, Calvin’s, Swoozie’s, and Benny’s presences were corrosive tumors on thin-skinned reality. When they