Timner sat still at his heavy oak desk and listened. The noises of blue jays and large trucks going by carried in through the open window. But there was another sound, almost like tiny, electronic bells. He tilted his head this way and that to determine the source. He glanced around at the other empty desks and over to the closet door. But the more he listened, the more he became sure it was coming from his own desk. He slid open the top middle drawer but found only pencils and a wooden ruler. The top right drawer was pink notepads and tins of snuff. But when he opened the next drawer down a strange blue mist was released. In the haze a small robot insect stood staring up at him and vibrating. Timner leaned in to get a better look and the robot insect launched itself at his neck and sliced away with razor-sharp pincers. With some effort Timner ripped the thing off, blood spraying from his neck all over the blotter on his desk and completely covering the picture of his fiancée. Just then Maerti, one of his sales team, returned from lunch. She stopped in the doorway and stared. Timn! Maerti cried. Timner looked up, the whirring robot still in his hand. Then he threw the robot out the open window. He collapsed forward onto his desk, spewing blood. Maerti came and stood over him. Don’t die, she said.

As the room darkened Timner made out a small crowd staring at him from the doorway. He could also hear people outside the window. Check those bushes and around that tree, he heard someone say. The blue jays screamed and cried. He felt a burning pain in his neck but was unable to move from his slumped position. Maerti leaned in. I found this, she said, holding up a silver, bloody gadget. In your neck.

Timner was unable to reply. He watched as she crossed to the group by the door, holding up the metal piece. She then rushed with them down the hall and he was alone. He could hear movement outside, below the window, but no more voices. The jays got louder. One was so loud it could have been perched on the windowsill.

Finally he willed his arm into motion and pressed his hand against his neck, where the bleeding had slowed. He pushed himself up and stumbled over to the window. On the lawn below bloody corpses were strewn about, some with heads severed from their bodies. He saw the blood-stained robot insect hovering in one place like a humming bird, about five feet above the ground. He pushed away from the window and lurched across the room to the closet door. He had just gotten himself inside and pulled the door closed when he heard the sound of electronic bells and mechanical buzzing inside the office. He waited, slumped inside the closet against the wall. The buzzing got close to the closet door and he imagined the robot insect hovering there, it’s spinning pincers opening and closing. But then the noise receded and he heard what he understood to be the robot flying back out the window. The buzzing got fainter and fainter. Timner leaned back, his head resting against some cardboard boxes and stacks of index cards. Then the blue jays started up again, louder than he ever heard them before. He closed his eyes. The blue jay screams rose to a crescendo and then went silent. Timner waited in the dark, listening to nothing for hours.

In a dream the insect robots descended from above and he shot them, one-by-one, from an anti-aircraft turret. Maerti came over to where he stood by the turret and put her hand on his shoulder. She was naked except for a strange leather mask with a zipper. Don’t distract me, Timner said. But as he continued destroying robots with rapid gun blasts he felt her cold hands encircle his neck from behind, squeezing.

He woke in darkness, not one-hundred-percent sure if he was actually still alive. He turned his head slightly and stabbing pain issued from his neck.

When he closed his eyes again he felt pulled by a strong current down an endless river of darkness. The blue jays called and called but this time he could no longer hear them. He floated away, his dreams dissipating.

Oil seeped from the motorcycle engine as Pete lay on his back under it, running his hand along the seams. There was a thud over by the workbench. Pete pressed his finger against the crack in the metal. Martino? What’s happening out there? he said without looking. Another thud. Pete finally glanced over but couldn’t see much from his low angle. Something crashed to the ground and a wrench came sliding across the cement floor, almost to where Pete lay. He pushed himself out from under the bike. He didn’t see anyone but the area around the shelving appeared wavy as though he was seeing it through heat distortion. One of the toolboxes that had been on the shelf was now on the floor, contents strewn from the impact. He got up and as he walked slowly over, the distorted, wavy field seemed to move in an arc toward him.

He felt a sensation like that of a cold hand reaching into his chest and tearing through his internal organs. He gasped. He reached out and was surprised to feel something solid in the undulating haze. An invisible mouth closed on his in a kiss. He tried to pull away but ice-cold arms pulled him closer.

Later he found himself on the floor. His chest appeared to have been ripped apart and he hugged himself, squeezing ribs back together over heart and lungs. He lifted his head and his face sagged until he pressed hanging flesh back onto his skull. The floor was bloody but the blood was frozen and even showed the white snowflake patterns of frost. His own hands were white with cold. He struggled to his feet, fighting to hold his skin together. He fumbled with his phone and it spun out of his hand and dropped, skidding across the cement floor.

The front office manager arrived and stopped short when she saw him. The fluorescents reflected in her glasses, hiding her eyes. Pete… she said. She took a few steps back in her high heels, almost slipping on the icy blood, her hand landing on the counter to steady herself. Near her hand on the counter rested what looked like a human eyeball. Pete tried to say something to her but only guttural sounds came out. Then he picked up the eyeball and held it out, as though offering it as explanation. When he moved closer to her she grabbed a crowbar from the pegboard and swung it at him. She made contact with his shoulder and his whole body shredded with the impact. He landed in a pile of flesh and bones on the frozen blood floor.

She then bent down and took the eyeball from his bloody hand. She looked at it, then placed it carefully in her purse. Soon her car could be heard peeling out of the parking lot.

The shop got quiet again except for the sound of nails falling one by one off the top of a tall galvanized shelving unit. Each nail rolled off of its own volition and bounced down onto the concrete floor. When there were no more nails to fall, the shop was silent.

Stadely drove his ‘69 Pontiac down a dirt road through the trees. After an hour of bumping and dipping over rocks and potholes he pulled into a clearing on the edge of a muddy ravine. Hundreds of naked bodies writhed and twisted in the gorge below to a pounding bass line. Stadely grabbed a rifle from the seat beside him and got out of the car. For a minute he rolled a cigarette with the gun rested in the crook of his elbow. He watched the young women and men move below, mud covering the faces and beards and breasts. Well, well, well… Stadely heard someone say. He turned to see a motorcycle cop wearing reflective sunglasses. The officer put his gloved hand on Stadely’s shoulder.

Stadely looked down at his rifle then back to the cop, seeing his own spidery reflection in the silver lenses. I’ll be in and out quick, Stadely said. He looked back down at his gun.

That’s what you told me last time, said the cop.

But the policeman didn’t follow as Stadely walked over the bluff toward the ravine.

When Stadely got to the edge, he took off his clothes. Soon he was slogging into waist-high mud, careful to keep the rifle raised above. He smeared mud over his face and shoulders and was then lost in the crowd, no one paying the rifle any heed.

At one end of the ravine was a giant cleft in the side of the sloping wall that the mud river appeared to be flowing out of. Stadely moved toward this hole, feeling muddy girls’ fingers touching his shoulders and back and hair as he went. The music got louder the closer he got, violating his eardrums with abrasive, electronic pounding.

When he entered the cave he raised his rifle to his shoulder, pointing it into the shadows ahead of him. The crowd thinned in the darkness and now the music was accompanied by the breathless gasps and cries of an actual orgy in progress. Stadely continued on deeper into the darkness until the sex noises faded and even the music was faint. Eventually he trudged up a slope out of the mud river and onto a slimy cave beach. A torch hung up on the rock wall beside a wooden door carved with ornate patterns. Stadely stood muddy and naked, his rifle leveled now at the door. Bartholomew! he called out. I’ve come back!

After a minute, the door swung open. A giant frog stood there, wearing a golden crown and a crimson robe. Stadely stumbled backward. His hands shook as they gripped his rifle. The frog advanced, opening its giant, toothless mouth. Inside the huge mouth floated the disembodied head of a beautiful woman. The woman’s dead eyes stared and Stadely felt his bones go cold. The frog closed its mouth and swallowed the head. Friend of yours? the frog finally asked. It then grabbed Stadely by the neck and squeezed. Stadely was forced to drop his gun. He had to use both hands to pry the slimy fingers back.

That—was—my—wife, Stadely said, between gasps. The frogs eyes laughed. You should have told her to stay out of the ravine, it said. Its mouth opened again and closed around Stadely’s head. Stadely reached up and jammed his fingers into the monster’s eyes and held on as the frog flailed back and forth. Finally his head popped out, dripping with gooey green fluid. He fell to the ground, holding his neck. Then he rolled over to grab his gun and fired up at the thing’s chest, emptying all fifteen rounds. The frog king fell forward, crown toppling, hissing and whistling its final breaths before it splatted down on the mud.

When Stadely climbed up out of the mud river, the motorcycle cop was still waiting. He watched as Stadely brushed off as much of the mud as he could before pulling his clothes back on. He said nothing as Stadely walked past and got into his Pontiac.

The music was still thumping as he pulled away. He could hear the bass a mile or so down the road as the wind dried the mud in his hair. But fresh tears streaked down through the dirt on his cheeks. He cried all the way to the Turnpike. After he merged into the speeding traffic he felt a deep sense of peace. He hummed to himself until all coherent thought dissipated and his mind was finally blank.