Free Fearful Symmetries by Ellen Datlow

in his jaw working. He looks at me. “See what I mean? Nothing. You just have to take it from these guys, you know? Just take it and take it and take it. It was one of the happiest days of my life when that kid finally got wasted.”
    He goes on. We have nothing but time. He robbed the poker game in a fit of deranged anger and then fled south, hoping to disappear into the bayou. The reality of what he’d just done was starting to sink in. He’s of the vermin class in criminal society, and vermin come in multitudes. One of his vermin friends told him about this shack where his old granddaddy used to live. He gets a boat and comes out here, only to find a surprise waiting for him.
    “The skull was in a black, iron box,” he says, “sitting on its side in the corner. There’s a hole in the bottom of the box, like the whole thing was meant to fit around someone’s head. It had a big gouge in the side of it, like someone had chopped it with something. I don’t know what cuts through metal like that though. And inside, this skull . . . talking.”
    “It’s one of the astronauts,” Johnny says.
    I rub my fingers in my eyes. “Astronauts? What?”
    Johnny leans in, grateful for his moment. He tells us that there are occasionally men and women who wander through Hell in thin processions, wearing heavy gray robes and bearing lanterns to light their way. They are invariably chained together, and led through the burning canyons by a loping demon: some malformed, tooth-spangled pinwheel of limbs and claws. They tour safely because they are shuttered against the sights and sounds of Hell by the iron boxes around their heads, which gives them the appearance of strange, prison-skulled astronauts on a pilgrimage through fire.
    “I recognized the box,” Johnny says. “This is one of those guys. The box was broken, so I guess something bad happened to him.”
    “Where is it?”
    Tobias shrugs. “I threw it out in the bayou. What do I need a broken box for? I started asking for things, and it sent them. The rock, the shard of bone.”
    “Hold on. How did you know to ask it for things? You’re leaving something out.”
    Tobias and Johnny exchange a look. The burning embers in the back of Johnny’s head seem to have gathered more life: little tongues of flame spit into the air from time to time, as though a small fire has kindled. The extending bone around his head has grown further, opening out as though a careful hand has begun to fashion a wide, smooth bowl. The bone growing from his face has grown little offshoots, like a delicate branch.
    Patrick picks up on their glance, and retrieves his gun from the floor, holding it casually in his lap.
    “Everything that’s brought here has a courier,” Tobias says. “That’s how Johnny got here. He brought the bone. And there was one already here when I found the skull. It told me.”
    “It?”
    “Well . . . it was a person at first. Then it changed. They change over time. Evolve.”
    Patrick gets it before I do. “The thing in the water.”
    “Holy Christ. You mean Johnny’s going to turn into something like
that
?” I look again at the fiery bowl his head is turning into.
    “No no no!” Tobias holds out his hands, as if he could ward off the very idea of it. “I mean, I don’t know. I’m pretty sure that’s only because the other one never went away. I think it’s the proximity of the skull that does it. There was one other courier, the girl who brought me the rock. I sent her away.”
    “Jesus. Where?”
    “Just . . .” He waves, vaguely. “Away. Into the bayou.”
    “You’re a real sweetheart, Tobias.”
    “Well come on, I didn’t know what to do! She was just—there! I didn’t know anybody was going to be coming with it! I freaked out and told her to get out! But the important thing is I never saw any sign that she changed into anything. I haven’t seen or heard anything from her since. You notice how the plants get weird as you get close