Free Here Be Monsters - an Anthology of Monster Tales by India Drummond, S M Reine, Jeremy C. Shipp, M. T. Murphy, Sara Reinke, Samantha Anderson, Anabel Portillo, Ian Sharman, Jose Manuel Portillo Barientos, Alissa Rindels

machine turned off in an orderly sequence. The Doctor could hear it all, step by step, from his plastic cell. Just for insurance, in case he had devised secret escape routes, she took his biometrics. Eyes, vocal cords, fingerprints. Easy to burn.
    Locked cell, knots and straps to keep him in the chair, broken fingers. Magic that out, Houdini.
    He wouldn’t die of these injuries, and hunger and thirst took longer than three days. After three days, the robots would fire up the furnace and incinerate every piece of organic matter, dead, alive or frozen.
    *****
    Lux had flown many times, but this was the first plane she had wanted to take.
    The marble heart was a cold reassuring weight in her handbag. It knew her; she could feel it coursing through her veins at inhuman speed. There were several creatures of legend that came from stone, but all her evidence pointed in one direction.
    And Paris seemed like the right place to start.
    Lux dozed happily in her first class seat and wondered how hard it would be to climb the façade of Notre Dame in the dark.

Figs
     
    Jeremy C. Shipp
    © 2011
    All rights reserved.

    The black ink on the bathroom wall tells me, There is hope in God . And below that, God is a lie. And below that, Your mom is a lie and a whore. Then, a drawing of a cross-eyed stick woman having sex with an anthropomorphic teacup. I search the stall and find the word whore four times. Fag , nine times, and eventually, I hear a woman screaming. I can’t paint over the graffiti, so I do the next best thing. I take the Nikon out of my backpack, and take a picture.
    At this point, the woman calms down, and I finally feel comfortable enough to take a dump.
    After leaving Sierra Library, I wander around and end up in Cruikshank’s Orchard, sitting on a fern-patterned bench next to the girl of my dreams. She’s wearing a T-shirt that says, Vegetarian Zombie . Below that, the zombie says, Graaaaaaains .
    “You don’t mind me sitting here?” she says.
    “No, not at all,” I say.
    “It’s just, this is my favorite bench. I love the smell of the figs.”
    I turn my head toward the old Mission fig tree, and sniff the air as loud as I can.
    “Do you have a cold?” She opens her brown leather stash bag. “I think I have some Airborne.”
    “No. No thanks. I’m good. Thanks.”
    She retrieves a tin of Altoids from her bag and drops a few mints into her mouth. “So, are you a photography major?”
    I look down at notice that I’m still gripping my Nikon in both hands. “I used to be. What about you?”
    She shrugs, and stands. She approaches the fig tree. Then she picks up a moldy fig and holds the rotten fruit close to her thin red lips.
    Time freezes.
    No, I can feel the wind on my face. I can hear a boy laughing behind me. She’s the only thing in the world that isn’t moving.
      “What are you doing?” I say.
    “Posing,” she says, without moving her mouth.
    “Um. I can’t take your picture with this camera.”
    She drops the fig, which lands on her white tennis shoes. “And why not?”
    I could tell her that the camera’s out of batteries, but the thought of lying to her makes me feel a little nauseous. “It’s hard to explain. It’s weird.”
    “What’s a little weirdness between friends?”
    When she says the word friends , I can’t help but grin. “With this camera, I only take pictures of…well, bad things.”
          “And you’re assuming I’m not a bad thing?”
    “Yeah.”
    Then she runs at me, and wraps her hands around my neck. She squeezes, gently. Then she laughs.
    I laugh.
    And then she kisses me.
    Her mouth tastes a lot like cinnamon and little like manure, but I don’t care.
    On the way to my apartment, Teresa freezes on the sidewalk and points. At first I can’t see what she’s seeing, but then I spot what looks like a dead baby bird caught on a low branch.
    “The fall broke her neck,” Teresa says.
    “Must have,” I say.
    The woman in my head whimpers.
    I