Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora - Softcover

Thomas, Sheree R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0446677248 ISBN 13: 9780446677240

Publisher: Aspect, 2001

Synopsis

This volume introduces black science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction writers to the generations of readers who have not had the chance to explore the scope and diversity among African-American writers.

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Dark Matter

By Sheree R. Thomas

Warner Aspect

Copyright © 2000 Sheree R. Thomas
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-446-67724-8

Chapter One

The CometW. E. B. Du Bois(1920)

He stood a moment on the steps of the bank, watching the human riverthat swirled down Broadway. Few noticed him. Few ever noticed himsave in a way that stung. He was outside the world-"nothing!" as hesaid bitterly. Bits of the words of the walkers came to him.

"The comet?"

"The comet-"

Everybody was talking of it. Even the president, as he entered,smiled patronizingly at him, and asked: "Well, Jim, are you scared?"

"No," said the messenger shortly.

"I thought we'd journeyed through the comet's tail once," broke inthe junior clerk affably.

"Oh, that was Haley's," said the president. "This is a new comet,quite a stranger, they say-wonderful, wonderful! I saw it lastnight. Oh, by the way, Jim," turning again to the messenger, "I wantyou to go down into the lower vaults today."

The messenger followed the president silently. Of course, theywanted him to go down to the lower vaults. It was too dangerous formore valuable men. He smiled grimly and listened.

"Everything of value has been moved out since the water began toseep in," said the president, "but we miss two volumes of oldrecords. Suppose you nose around down there-it isn't very pleasant,I suppose."

"Not very," said the messenger, as he walked out.

"Well, Jim, the tail of the new comet hits us at noon this time,"said the vault clerk, as he passed over the keys; but the messengerpassed silently down the stairs. Down he went beneath Broadway,where the dim light filtered through the feet of hurrying men; downto the dark basement beneath; down into the blackness and silencebeneath that lowest cavern. Here with his dark lantern he groped inthe bowels of the earth, under the world.

He drew a long breath as he threw back the last great iron door andstepped into the fetid slime within. Here at last was peace, and hegroped moodily forward. A great rat leaped past him and cobwebscrept across his face. He felt carefully around the room, shelf byshelf, on the muddied floor, and in crevice and corner. Nothing.Then he went back to the far end, where somehow the wall feltdifferent. He pounded and pushed and pried. Nothing. He startedaway. Then something brought him back. He was pounding and workingagain when suddenly the whole black wall swung as on mighty hinges,and blackness yawned beyond. He peered in; it was evidently a secretvault-some hiding place of the old bank unknown in newer times. Heentered hesitatingly. It was a long, narrow room with shelves, andat the far end, an old iron chest. On a high shelf lay two volumesof records, and others. He put them carefully aside and stepped tothe chest. It was old, strong, and rusty. He looked at the vast andold-fashioned lock and flashed his light on the hinges. They were deeplyincrusted with rust. Looking about, he found a bit of iron and beganto pry. The rust had eaten a hundred years, and it had gone deep.Slowly, wearily, the old lid lifted, and with a last, low groan laybare its treasure-and he saw the dull sheen of gold!

"Boom!"

A low, grinding, reverberating crash struck upon his ear. He startedup and looked about. All was black and still. He groped for hislight and swung it about him. Then he knew! The great stone door hadswung to. He forgot the gold and looked death squarely in the face.Then with a sigh he went methodically to work. The cold sweat stoodon his forehead; but he searched, pounded, pushed, and worked untilafter what seemed endless hours his hand struck a cold bit of metaland the great door swung again harshly on its hinges, and then,striking against something soft and heavy, stopped. He had just roomto squeeze through. There lay the body of the vault clerk, cold andstiff. He stared at it, and then felt sick and nauseated. The airseemed unaccountably foul, with a strong, peculiar odor. He steppedforward, clutched at the air, and fell fainting across the corpse.

* * *

He awoke with a sense of horror, leaped from the body, and groped upthe stairs, calling to the guard. The watchman sat as if asleep,with the gate swinging free. With one glance at him the messengerhurried up to the sub-vault. In vain he called to the guards. Hisvoice echoed and re-echoed weirdly. Up into the great basement herushed. Here another guard lay prostrate on his face, cold andstill. A fear arose in the messenger's heart. He dashed up to thecellar floor, up into the bank. The stillness of death layeverywhere and everywhere bowed, bent, and stretched the silentforms of men. The messenger paused and glanced about. He was not aman easily moved; but the sight was appalling! "Robbery and murder,"he whispered slowly to himself as he saw the twisted, oozing mouthof the president where he lay half-buried on his desk. Then a newthought seized him: If they found him here alone-with all this moneyand all these dead men-what would his life be worth? He glancedabout, tiptoed cautiously to a side door, and again looked behind.Quietly he turned the latch and stepped out into Wall Street.

How silent the street was! Not a soul was stirring, and yet it washigh noon-Wall Street? Broadway? He glanced almost wildly up anddown, then across the street, and as he looked, a sickening horrorfroze in his limbs. With a choking cry of utter fright he lunged,leaned giddily against the cold building, and stared helplessly atthe sight.

In the great stone doorway a hundred men and women and children laycrushed and twisted and jammed, forced into that great, gapingdoorway like refuse in a can-as if in one wild, frantic rush tosafety, they had crushed and ground themselves to death. Slowly themessenger crept along the walls, trying to comprehend, stilling thetremor in his limbs and the rising terror in his heart. He met abusiness man, silk-hatted and frock-coated, who had crept, too,along that smooth wall and stood now stone dead with wonder writtenon his lips.

The messenger turned his eyes hastily away and sought the curb. Awoman leaned wearily against the signpost, her head bowed motionlesson her lace and silken bosom. Before her stood a streetcar, silent,and within-but the messenger but glanced and hurried on. A grimynewsboy sat in the gutter with the "last edition" in his upliftedhand: "Danger!" screamed its black headlines. "Warnings wired aroundthe world. The Comet's tail sweeps past us at noon. Deadly gasesexpected. Close doors and windows. Seek the cellar." The messengerread and staggered on. Far out from a window above, a girl lay withgasping face and sleevelets on her arms. On a store step sat alittle, sweet-faced girl looking upward toward the skies, and in thecarriage by her lay-but the messenger looked no longer. The cordsgave way-the terror burst in his veins, and with one great, gaspingcry he sprang desperately forward and ran-ran as only the frightenedrun, shrieking and fighting the air until with one last wail of painhe sank on the grass of Madison Square and lay prone and still.

When he arose, he gave no glance at the still and silent forms onthe benches, but, going to a fountain, bathed his face; then hidinghimself in a corner away from the drama of death, he quietly grippedhimself and thought the thing through: The comet had swept the earthand this was the end. Was everybody dead? He must search and see.

He knew that he must steady himself and keep calm, or he would goinsane. First he must go to a restaurant. He walked up Fifth Avenueto a famous hostelry and entered its gorgeous, ghost-haunted halls.He beat back the nausea, and, seizing a tray from dead hands,hurried into the street and ate ravenously, hiding to keep out thesights.

"Yesterday, they would not have served me," he whispered, as heforced the food down.

Then he started up the street-looking, peering, telephoning, ringingalarms; silent, silent all. Was nobody-nobody-he dared not think thethought and hurried on.

Suddenly he stopped still. He had forgotten. My God! How could hehave forgotten? He must rush to the subway-then he almost laughed.No-a car; if he could find a Ford. He saw one. Gently he lifted offits burden, and took his place on the seat. He tested the throttle.There was gas. He glided off, shivering, and drove up the street.Everywhere stood, leaned, lounged, and lay the dead, in grim andawful silence. On he ran past an automobile, wrecked and overturned;past another, filled with a gay party whose smiles yet lingered ontheir death-struck lips; on, past crowds and groups of cars, pausingby dead policemen; at 42nd Street he had to detour to Park Avenue toavoid the dead congestion. He came back on Fifth Avenue at 57th andflew past the Plaza and by the park with its hushed babies andsilent throng, until as he was rushing past 72nd Street he heard asharp cry, and saw a living form leaning wildly out an upper window.He gasped. The human voice sounded in his ears like the voice ofGod.

"Hello-hello-help, in God's name!" wailed the woman. "There's a deadgirl in here and a man and-and see yonder dead men lying in thestreet and dead horses-for the love of God go and bring theofficers-" the words trailed off into hysterical tears.

He wheeled the car in a sudden circle, running over the still bodyof a child and leaping on the curb. Then he rushed up the steps andtried the door and rang violently. There was a long pause, but atlast the heavy door swung back. They stared a moment in silence. Shehad not noticed before that he was a Negro. He had not thought ofher as white. She was a woman of perhaps twenty-five-rarelybeautiful and richly gowned, with darkly-golden hair, and jewels.Yesterday, he thought with bitterness, she would scarcely havelooked at him twice. He would have been dirt beneath her silkenfeet. She stared at him. Of all the sorts of men she had pictured ascoming to her rescue she had not dreamed of one like him. Not thathe was not human, but he dwelt in a world so far from hers, soinfinitely far, that he seldom even entered her thought. Yet as shelooked at him curiously he seemed quite common place and usual. Hewas a tall, dark working man of the better class, with a sensitiveface trained to stolidity and a poor man's clothes and hands. Hisface was soft and slow and his manner at once cold and nervous, likefires long banked, but not out. So a moment each paused and gaugedthe other; then the thought of the dead world without rushed in andthey started toward each other.

"What has happened?" she cried. "Tell me! Nothing stirs. All issilence! I see the dead strewn before my window as winnowed by thebreath of God-and see-"

She dragged him through great, silken hangings to where, beneath thesheen of mahogany and silver, a little French maid lay stretched inquiet, everlasting sleep, and near her a butler lay prone in hislivery.

The tears streamed down the woman's cheeks, and she clung to his armuntil the perfume of her breath swept his face and he felt thetremors racing through her body.

"I had been shut up in my dark room developing pictures of the cometwhich I took last night; when I came out-I saw the dead!

"What has happened?" she cried again.

He answered slowly:

"Something-comet or devil-swept across the earth this morningand-many are dead!"

"Many? Very many?"

"I have searched and I have seen no other living soul but you."

She gasped and they stared at each other.

"My-father!" she whispered.

"Where is he?"

"He started for the office."

"Where is it?"

"In the Metropolitan Tower."

"Leave a note for him here and come." Then he stopped. "No," he saidfirmly, "first, we must go-to Harlem."

"Harlem!" she cried. Then she understood. She tapped her foot atfirst impatiently. She looked back and shuddered. Then she cameresolutely down the steps.

"There's a swifter car in the garage in the court," she said.

"I don't know how to drive it," he said.

"I do," she answered.

In ten minutes they were flying to Harlem on the wind. The Stutzrose and raced like an airplane. They took the turn at 110th Streeton two wheels and slipped with a shriek into 135th. He was gone buta moment. Then he returned, and his face was gray. She did not look,but said:

"You have lost-somebody?"

"I have lost-everybody," he said simply, "unless-"

He ran back and was gone several minutes-hours they seemed to her.

"Everybody," he said, and he walked slowly back with somethingfilm-like in his hand, which he stuffed into his pocket.

"I'm afraid I was selfish," he said. But already the car was movingtoward the park among the dark and lined dead of Harlem-the brown,still faces, the knotted hands, the homely garments, and thesilence-the wild and haunting silence. Out of the park, and downFifth Avenue they whirled. In and out among the dead they slippedand quivered, needing no sound of bell or horn, until the great,square Metropolitan Tower hovered in sight.

Gently he laid the dead elevator boy aside; the car shot upward. Thedoor of the office stood open. On the threshold lay thestenographer, and, staring at her, sat the dead clerk. The inneroffice was empty, but a note lay on the desk, folded and addressedbut unsent:

Dear Daughter:

I've gone for a hundred-mile spin in Fred's new Mercedes. Shall notbe back before dinner. I'll bring Fred with me.

J. B. H.

"Come," she cried nervously. "We must search the city."

Up and down, over and across, back again-on went that ghostlysearch. Everywhere was silence and death-death and silence! Theyhunted from Madison Square to Spuyten Duyvel; they rushed across theWilliamsburg Bridge; they swept over Brooklyn; from the Battery andMorningside Heights they scanned the river. Silence, silenceeverywhere, and no human sign. Haggard and bedraggled they puffed athird time slowly down Broadway, under the broiling sun, and at laststopped. He sniffed the air. An odor-a smell-and with the shiftingbreeze a sickening stench filled their nostrils and brought itsawful warning. The girl settled back helplessly in her seat.

"What can we do?" she cried.

It was his turn now to take the lead, and he did it quickly.

"The long distance telephone-the telegraph and the cable-nightrockets and then flight!"

She looked at him now with strength and confidence. He did not looklike men, as she had always pictured men; but he acted like one andshe was content. In fifteen minutes they were at the centraltelephone exchange. As they came to the door he stepped quicklybefore her and pressed her gently back as he closed it. She heardhim moving to and fro, and knew his burdens-the poor, little burdenshe bore. When she entered, he was alone in the room. The grimswitchboard flashed its metallic face in cryptic, sphinx-likeimmobility. She seated herself on a stool and donned the brightearpiece. She looked at the mouthpiece. She had never looked at oneso closely before. It was wide and black, pimpled with usage; inert;dead; almost sarcastic in its unfeeling curves.

Continues...

Excerpted from Dark Matterby Sheree R. Thomas Copyright © 2000 by Sheree R. Thomas . Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Aspect
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0446677248
• ISBN 13: 9780446677240
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448