BooksBarbecue
Back The Black Maybe
Chapters (13)
  1. Cover
  2. Introduction by Steve Rasnic Tem
  3. To Bite a Dog
  4. Fogtown
  5. The Time Remaining
  6. Return to the Midnight School
  7. In the Snow, Sleeping
  8. Multiplied by Zero
  9. The Amber Complex
  10. Sky Filled With Crows, Then Nothing at All
  11. Walks Among You
  12. The Black Maybe
  13. About the Author

Sometimes they let me out of the cave to help serve the tourists in the city’s restaurants. A centipede lives inside of me in the place of my spine; it watches over me so that I don’t escape.

Why would I escape?

I’m writing this report with their consent, what’s more, at their insistence. The Nameless Lords kindly welcome fresh visitors who are ready to multiply their lives by zero.

Those who feel determined enough or have abandoned all hope already should feel free to call the toll-free number at Abaddon Travels! Our employees are kind and considerate, they will quickly guide you through the administrative laby­rinth.

Those who feel like they are not yet prepared for this journey should by all means choose a more conventional
trip.

But even they should not forget: there will be a time when the Nameless Lords feel like taking a break. Just a little holiday; maybe in time when the Sleeping Lords awake.

Soon.

Then we’ll come and visit you all.

The Amber Complex

The Amber Complex

The town is situated in the eastern part of Hungary, a hundred kilometers from the Ukrainian border. As such it is a place of transit, literally and figuratively as well. Most people born here move away; those who stay often face economic instability. Crime, however petty, is often a way of life for those who remain.

In this town miracles rarely happen. Especially around the outskirts, where the poorest live.

This is the story of one such miracle.

The Outskirts Pub was opened in the early ’90s by a man named Béla Ózdi and his life partner, Magdolna. They remodeled the three-room house the man had inherited from his uncle. Béla Ózdi believed two things were easy money: women and booze. There was a gypsy camp nearby in a converted Soviet military barracks, as well as the local mill, some half-abandoned industrial areas, and a number of family residences that gave off the stench of their daily miseries.

Yet, no pub in the vicinity.

Béla Ózdi invested the greater part of his savings into opening the pub. He tended to the business himself for three years, until his career was cut short by four bullets, two in the torso, one in the thigh, one in the throat that went through the jaw. Everyone suspected some sort of underworld assassination, but in fact it was his partner Magdolna and her newfound Ukrainian lover. They did it for the money. She was the brains of the operation, he was the muscle. As the police were closing in, the Ukrainian chose not to take any chances. He made a plastic bed for Magdolna and interrupted her disbelieving cries with a single headshot. After the deed he returned to his motherland, and following a couple of adventurous years and a few business missteps he ended up in the concrete foundation of a garage.

In this town happy endings are rare.