Sharyn McCrumb - Zombies of the Gene Pool

Mistral shrugged. "So what? We lived in each other's pockets in those days. Who's to say that Dale didn't write the scene after hearing Brendan tell the story?"

"And Curtis Phillips wrote about a mad wizard who has sex with a demon. Both those guys were fairly recognizable, too." Marion looked down at her hands, so as not to look at any of the Lanthanides.

"Curtis was crazy," said Erik Giles.

"Yes," spluttered George Woodard. "But I remember he told me-"

"Shut up, George!" said Mistral.

"And you're going to let them publish this anthology?" Jay marveled.

Mistral shrugged. "For a pile of money. We'll write prefaces to all the stories that will take the sting out. And we may do a little judicious editing."

Still blushing, Marion continued. "Why doesn't Peter Deddingfield have a story in the time capsule?"

The Lanthanides looked at each other, but no one spoke.

"Everybody else is there. Angela, Pat, Dale, Curtis, George, Erik, Reuben Bundshaft, Jim Conyers, and one by C. A. Stormcock. But you always said that you were C. A. Stormcock, Erik!"

He raised his plastic glass to her in a mock toast. "So I was."

"But you aren't, Erik, are you?" she said, looking at the other Lanthanides for confirmation. "Don't bother to lie to me, folks. I read those stories. The Stormcock story is obviously by the guy who wrote The Golden Gain, and the story signed 'Erik Giles' is just as obviously written by the person who wrote the Time Trav eler Trilogy. "

Marion looked at the stricken face of her old friend, and then at Jay Omega. "Maybe we shouldn't discuss this in public," she murmured. "Maybe, Erik, you and I could just-"

He finished the contents of his glass and set it down. "It's all right," he said. "These people all know, my dear. They've known for more than thirty years. We just didn't think that it would ever matter much." He turned to the Lanthanides and smiled. "I can't think why I invited them to come with me. I suppose it serves me right for being a coward. I didn't want to face all this alone. Or perhaps subconsciously I was tired of the pretense."

Angela shook her head. "You couldn't know that Pat Malone would show up. And we would never have given you away, Stormy."

"So you're Peter Deddingfield?" said Jay.

"I was once. But I wasn't the important one. The fellow who married Jazzy, and who wrote all those wonderful books later on -I always think that that is the real Peter Deddingfield. I gave up the name when we both left the Fan Farm. When I knew that I did not want to become a professional writer."

"Buy why?" asked Marion. "If you had published as Stormcock, and he hadn't published anything. Had he?"

"No," said George Woodard. "People have always wondered why Pete Deddingfield's first published short story was so bad. It's because the 'old' Pete wrote it. Stormy, I mean."

"So Peter Deddingfield-the famous one-was really Erik Giles. Why switch names?" Marion persisted.

"Can't you guess, Dr. Farley?" asked the professor in a gently mocking tone. "Because my old friend had something that I wanted and he no longer valued. Erik Giles had a doctorate in English."

Marion stared. "You don't have a Ph.D.?"

"No. He didn't need one to be a writer of science fiction, which he had both the talent and the desire to be. I, on the other hand, had written one book that other people liked far more than I did. I was tired of it all: the puerile jokes, the posturing, the financial uncertainty. What I wanted more than anything was a nice soft job on a college campus, where I could teach my classes and be left alone with my dignity." He smiled, remembering. "So Erik Giles said to me, 'Take the damned degree. We'll swap names, and we'll both be happy. Swear the Lanthanides to secrecy, and who'll ever know?' "

"But you taught all those classes!" Marion protested. "You went to conferences!"

"I didn't write very many journal articles," he reminded her. "Tenure 'was easier twenty years ago. As for the rest of it, impersonating an English professor isn't very difficult. I have a knack for being pretentious."

"But you could have got a degree of your own," said Marion.

"Yes, but by the time I could afford to, I was already employed as Erik Giles, and there seemed little likelihood of ever being caught. By then, I couldn't risk being exposed as a fraud. No university would have hired me after that, regardless of my credentials."

"What about your families?" asked Jay.

"Mine died when I was in my teens, and Erik's mother passed away while we were living in Wall Hollow. It was easy to lose touch with old friends back in Richmond. And as time went on, there were fewer and fewer people who might have known."

"Except Pat Malone," said Jay.

"Yes. When he came back, I knew that he wouldn't keep the old secret. He would revel in exposing the deception. It wouldn't have mattered for my old friend, who died rich and famous. But I enjoy my job at the university, and I wanted my pension in a few years' time."

Angela Arbroath clasped her arms against her body as if she were suddenly very cold. "Oh, Stormy," she whispered. "Did you kill him just for that?"

He considered the question. "I'm not sure," he said at last. "It seemed the most pressing reason at the time. But I think the real reason was that I was so damned disappointed that he wasn't dead I couldn't stand it! I went to his room to reason with him, but I took the medicine with me, so perhaps even then I knew…Anyhow, it's a better world without Pat Malone in it." He looked at Jay Omega. "I suppose the autopsy gave it away?"

"The MAO inhibitor," said Jay. "I knew that it's prescribed for hypertension. If you mix it with Malone's-er, Spivey's-Elavil, it lowers the blood pressure too much, and causes a coma, and then death."

"Yes, I suppose I was lucky that he was taking his own medication, and that he was old. Otherwise he might have survived to enjoy my disgrace. He'd have liked that."

Jim Conyers interrupted. "You don't have to say anything else, Stormy! You need an attorney. I'll be happy to represent you. When the police get here-"

The once and future Erik Giles waved him away. "It doesn't matter, Jim," he said quietly. "The other thing you must not do with an MAO inhibitor is take alcohol. And I've just about finished that whole bottle of wine by myself. I'll be dead by morning." He swayed slightly as he stood up and tottered toward the door. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I will go gently into that good night."

Jay Omega watched the sun rise over the brown wasteland of Breedlove Lake. Beside him in equal silence sat Marion Farley.

Erik Giles (they still thought of him that way) had not gone particularly gently into that good night, as he had wished. The roomful of witnesses to his prospective suicide had been impelled to call the police, or, attorney Jim Conyers warned, they might be considered accessories, since suicide is still a crime. By the time a rescue squad arrived from New Wall Hollow, it was too late. The combination of alcohol and medication had done its work irreversibly, and if Erik Giles had not gone peacefully and with dignity, he had nonetheless gone, despite the application of respirators, injections, and the defibrillator.

When it was over, Jim Conyers talked to the officers in charge of the case and convinced them that there was no point in wasting county money on a murder case when the perpetrator was already dead. They agreed that for official purposes, their report would read that both Richard Spivey and Erik Giles had died of heart conditions in unrelated circumstances. The press would not be told otherwise. No mention of Pat Malone was contained in any summary of the weekend's events.