The Tiger Machine: A little Halloween fic

The Tiger Machine

The machine had stopped. Seventy plastic tigers had appeared in rapid succession before the breakdown, each with a significant flaw: no stripes, teeth as long as their legs, bushy tail of a mule, etc. These were simply not the sort of plastic tiger that a small child would be interested in. And worse, they might give the impression to the child in possession of one that tigers actually, for example, had a row of spikes down their backs.

“Well, if they did have spikes down their back, it’d make ‘em more fearsome,” said First Machine Attendant Luigi Lamorocca.

“What! What nonsense!” the shift manager, Mr. Gallstable, spluttered. His tremendous mustache shook. “Tigers are black and orange with proper tails and teeth and claws. Make this machine make them properly, or you shall lose your job.”

“Both of us, sir?” asked Second Machine Attendant Charlie Chattock. “Or, or just him?”

Gallstable’s mustache had a minor earthquake. “Both,” he hissed, and he stalked away, muttering that the elephant and whale machines were working just fine.

Luigi had nothing to say about the elephant and whale machines. It was well known that the tiger machine was the most difficult to operate in the entire factory. Why, the elephant and whale machines almost operated themselves. It took no skill whatsoever to keep them popping out respectable elephants and whales.

But the tiger machine, that was a different story. It took an experienced machine attendant to keep it working. The machine roared and quivered throughout the day, the oven in its belly needing constant stoking with chunks of coal large as a man’s hand. It would shake until its rivets loosened, snarling to be free. Its wheels and pulleys groaned, eager to snap.

Four men had lost fingers, one, an eye.

The plastic tiger reigned in sales, even over the elephant, which is a very popular animal with small children, and the lion. The lion machine seemed not to care; it produced tawny plastic lions all day with identical airs of disdain about them. The zebra machine quivered, but it might’ve been because it was situated on the factory floor so close to the lion machine. And the monkey machine, neighbor to the tiger machine, squealed and thumped and shot bolts and clouds of oily smoke at the tiger machine.

Luigi crossed his arms and watched the Shift Manager waddle away. Then he turned to his Second Machine Attendant and handed him a long wrench.

“What’s this for?” asked Charlie, as if he didn’t know.

“What’s it for? You know what it’s for! Look in that machine and find out what is wrong with the damned thing.”

Charlie pouted as pretty as a sixteen year old girl. “I don’t want to.”

“Listen! I am your boss, and I’m telling you to look in that machine and see what is causing it to make the bad tigers.”

“They’re not so bad, really…” In the pocket of his baggy coveralls, Charlie had slipped a purloined tiger with horns like a bull. He thought his sister might enjoy it. Or he might put it on the dash of his old Comet, where it would be a sight better than the bobble-head puppy that currently sat there.

“No, no, they’re not too bad,” murmured Luigi, almost to himself. “But they must stop, and good tigers come out. So find the problem. I’ll be over here.” And Luigi leaned against a metal railing and stroked his own mustache, which was far more tremendous than the Shift Manager’s.

Charlie turned to the rumbling machine. He removed five bolts and took off a plate which revealed the inner workings of the machine. The hot breath of the machine blasted his face as he leaned close. Its conveyor belt was still, its gears and axles paused in the very act of turning out a tiger, the last of which was only half-formed and protruded from a dark tube, unpainted and without fine detail. Here was the tiger that had stopped it. If he removed it, perhaps the machine would start up again. But that would not solve the problem of incorrect tigers.

He wasn’t so sure that the tigers were wrong. But it wasn’t his job, in the end, to decide what a tiger should or should not look like. That was for others to say. And so, he carefully reached in and put his hand over the unformed tiger.

For a moment, he froze in surprise. For beneath his fingertips, the pliant plastic gave and rose. As if the toy breathed. And there, as he grasped it now, he could feel – yes, it felt like – was it – a heartbeat? He brought the unformed tiger up, four legs, long tail, a blob of a head that turned… But it couldn’t turn, it couldn’t, and yet, there it was, rotating in his hand, eyes opening, peeling plastic back, mouth widening as it prepared to roar for the first time. A roar that never sounded, at least not to Charlie’s ears, for as he took the tiger out from the belly of the machine, the gears came to life, clanging and smashing, a divine roar that shook the factory. With a vast yawning breath, an iron arm edged in steel teeth came crashing down and slammed through blood and muscle and sinew and into bone and Charlie, Second Machine Attendant, became the sixth man to feed the tiger machine.

His screams echoed alongside the screech of stopping machinery. Falling onto the grates, Charlie grabbed at his missing arm, the tiny prick of little horns against his thigh lost in the sea of pain.

They took him away and left his arm and the machines quieted, except for the tiger machine, which panted and panted and then fell quiet too.

The next day was Sunday, and the factory was closed. On Monday, they reopened, and Luigi looked at the machine, purring and humming; waiting. Waiting.

Luigi put a hesitant hand to the ON button. He thought of his daughter, whose own toy tiger sat silent in a bucket on a shelf in her room with all the other animals. He pushed. The button glowed red, and the tiger machine rumbled and clanked. And all day, it produced absolutely perfect plastic tigers. 

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First appeared at Cast Macabre. My thanks to ed. Barry J. Northern for presenting this story at his most excellent audiocast, and for making the totally excellent banner to accompany it.

And thank you to everyone who continues to drop by this blog; yes, works are forthcoming (dates unknown, at this time), and yes, I'm working on a large project that is consuming my free time, hence the reprint of this story here for Halloween. 

When the zombie apocalypse comes, may you all have a gun, chainsaw, tire iron or weapon of your choice at hand.

Review: Mirror Shards; Halloween Decorating Pics

I love anthologies, because I love the short story, and my shelves are full of science fiction, horror, and fantasy collections. Why add another? Because despite having approximately three thousand sci-fi anthologies, I didn't have one based around the concept of augmented reality. Was it worth it, or was it simply a novel (heh) buy? Definitely worth it!

Mirror Shards, edited by Thomas K. Carpenter, contains thirteen stories of possible futures, a time when we may have implants to our optical nerves, allowing us to see the world around us in a flood of information, brought up by merely thinking about it. A world in which no one sees us, but our avatars. Where cities are digitally realized, and the universe expands beyond the physical.

These authors all managed unique takes on the concept, so even if I wasn't especially enjoying a piece, I loved the imagination behind it. Anthologies are like that -- some call them "uneven," but it's really more a matter of taste. Subjectively speaking, I liked some and some were just okay -- for me. A highlight was Grayson Morris's "More Real Than Flesh," in which the anti-heroine Petch attempts to escape from her life, without realizing that she's tried it before. Intriguing on its own, there's a quasi-Blade Runner twist near the end that had me -- and Petch -- thinking about the nature of humanity and the price of freedom. Also a stand-out was the first story, "El Mirador," a galaxy-noir fic with voice and thrills.

Overall, I highly enjoyed Mirror Shards and recommend it to anyone who likes sci-fi and wants something very different, very intriguing.

     


P.S. I first heard of this anthology via Grayson's blog. Her posts are often thought-provoking, generally humorous, and she's pretty cool. Today's post about being a writer -- street cred! -- is a great example. Put your two cents in.


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And now, our house, decorated for Halloween (I may get a bit crazier with the decorations, but right now, I love it!):

That last one's wonky. Sorry! Some of the pumpkins are heirloom pumpkins; the white one is called White Ghost. Cool.

I have a witch outfit planned, but probably not enough time to pull off what I want to do with it. That's be okay, though.

Our Halloween is always this: sitting on the front porch with blankets, big orange and black bowls at our side and filled with candy, drinking hot apple cider with a touch :) of Capt. Morgan's. I do share with neighbors. Feel free to stop by and claim to be my neighbor!

Next year, for the first time, we plan on not being home for our favorite holiday, but spending it in Disney World. The decorations aren't as lavish as what they do for Christmas, but still cool, and besides, they have Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party in the Magic Kingdom, and it. Is. So. Freakin'. Awesome!

And speaking of apple cider, Not So Humble Pie's recipe of the day is for Spiced Apple Cider Caramels. If you're a dessert freak or just a foodie, you must follow Mrs. Humble. For one thing, the pics are food porn. And second, the recipes are fantastic. I've made several of her ice cream recipes and not plan on making the caramels.

Did you decorate your house for Halloween? Please share pics!

In Which I Waste An Extraordinary Amount of My Time and Yours

I blog a lot. Don't feel the need to keep up with me, LOL! Especially as, today, I am putting off two things I should really, really be doing. First, I had a short story rejected, but I feel strongly about the concept, and so I researched other markets and found one I desire mightily to be published in. They have a word limit that is 1,000 words less than the original version of my story. Well, good, says I. I believe in editing, and I gaily took to it this morning. I had cut six hundred words and was very pleased with the work up to that point, feeling that I had, indeed, bettered the story. Then I reached the last third, where the coming climax should fill one with mounting dread and "OMG, what is going to happen!!!" and instead is one big muddled mess. While the story could have used a bit of streamlining, this is surely why it was rejected. And I was stumped. I've laid magnificent groundwork, but done nothing good at all with it. And as of right now, I am still without an answer. WHAT should happen, exactly? I mean, I sort of know. But not really. Damn it.

So I put that off, as I usually do when I'm really stumped. Coming back with a fresh perspective, that sort of thing (even though the deadline for this particular publication is in four days). And I decided -- deep breath -- to start the novel I've been outlining in my mind. Another day, I'll go into the reasons why this scares me to death, but for now, just know that I have an opening, I have some good stuff, and I felt suddenly compelled to stop, as I was gripped with fear. I attempted to allay this by going over to OneWord, then reading a bit more of Wesley Stace's Misfortune (thank you again, Jo!), then making tea, then wandering around the yard with the dogs, then needing to stare into fridge for no reason at all, and finally... Here I am. Blogging. And for once, I've got nothing really to say. I am just, really, filling space and time while I try to convince myself I am a writer and a fine one and I can fucking do this.

So, in the pursuit of filling more time, and because the season is upon us and it's my favorite one of all, a Halloween true story about egotistic serial killers and dead creepy musicians. And vampire bats.

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A long time ago, I was really into being scared. I watched every manner of gore-soaked film with my sister, and at Halloween, we'd go to as many haunted houses as we could. We mostly went to commercial ones with people in costumes, but we also looked up houses that were purportedly truly haunted. One year, we went to see Ed and Lorraine Warren speak, a terrifying experience (I believe Ed is dead now, though Lorraine is probably still kicking).

In New England, there was a masterpiece of a haunted house up in Massachusetts (we lived in CT). It was supposed to be worth the two hour drive, so we took along our 13 yr old step-brother, Mike, and drove up. Possibly because the mischievous spirit of the season overcame us, we stopped at a McDonald's halfway there and climbed over the fence into the children's play area, where, in the dark, we climbed through the tunnels and jumped in the ball pit and did not, surprisingly, get stuck anywhere. No one found us, and in the dark, it was great fun. We then finished our drive, and yes, this place was magnificent.

It had a haunted barn, haunted hayride, exhibits and food vendors. We parked way out in a field and walked up. While we waited in line for the haunted barn, the centerpiece of the place, Tiny Tim serenaded us from stage. Sad to think he's dead now, and I always associate him with Poe, for some reason. Inside the barn, you first got to go through a winding hall of props from various horror movies, including a life-size Alien and Freddy's clothes and razor glove. Then the tour started, and we were to go through in groups of five or six. Teri and I were prepared to be scared shitless, and I don't remember much about the actual tour, except for this: Mike was the only male in our group, and he had five women clinging to him. He loved it. And when the end was in sight, down a wide, long corridor with the gift shop at the end, Teri and I broke free of him, but still grabbed each other's arm as we ran as if the very Devil himself was after us, screaming like banshees.

This is a basic rule of haunted houses: If they know you're scared, they (the actors) will focus on you and devote themselves to you. The worst are the ones that simply follow you, but so closely that you can hear/feel them breathing on your neck. Teri and I always had people following us, and not just within their scene, but into the next scene/room. Once, all the way to our car.

Outside, we fell in love with a display of vampire bats. To this day, we both love bats. Beautiful, beautiful creatures. And then we went and stood in line for the main attraction that night: the actor who originally played Jason in the first movie (and maybe two more? I used to know all these facts) was there, signing autographs on cheap plastic hockey masks that you could buy for $5. I'm going to be honest here and say that my limited amount of contact with celebrities over the years has not led to a favorable impression of their ilk. In this case, we both bounded up when our turn in line came, both presented our masks for signing, but this guy had eyes for only my sister. She was, and is, quite beautiful. She's a tall stunner with unbelievable legs, and as unlike me as possible. Still, the jerk was so into making small talk with her that I couldn't get my mask signed, and as the handlers finally tried to usher us away, I got exceptionally peeved and pointed out that I hadn't got my mask signed yet. He did a basic scribble, not even looking at me, and said goodbye to my sister -- by name. *sigh*

Eh, it didn't really matter. She was excited, so I was excited by default, and we imagined her becoming Mrs. Jason and leading a life of riches and fame. And then we ate caramel apples and Mike got his face painted like a devil and we went home -- the hayride had closed. And Tiny Tim was gone, the stage silent and black, and we filtered back into the night, giddy and happy.

That was a very good Halloween, probably the last one I spent with my sister. I've moved, we've both grown up, but we still love the holiday. She's going to Salem, Mass. with some girlfriends soon. Wish I could go too!

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All right. I've officially wasted a lot of time, and now the clock is ticking until B gets home, and I should probably have dinner ready. Wait. Maybe there's something new on Twitter? ;)