David Wong

But in those first hours after you take it, your brain is tuned in like nothing you can imagine. Eyes like the Hubble telescope, sensing light that's not even on the spectrum. You might be able to read minds, make time stop, cook pasta that's exactly right every time.

You see, time is an ocean, not a garden hose. Space is a puff of smoke, a wisp of cloud.

Amy hated--hated--the way the grown-ups her parents had surrounded themselves with were so quick to offer prayers and so low to actually do anything. Old women who barely left the house for anything but bingo and congratulated themselves on never drinking alcohol or saying dirty words, thinking God created humans to stay home and watch televangelists and just run out the clock until the day they die. Well, Amy figured you don't need more than five minutes on this planet to figure out that one thing we know about God--maybe the only thing--is that he favors those who act. David also believed that, through he didn't realize it.

I wrapped up the remaining half burrito and tossed it into the trash can. Molly watched this act of wastefulness with an expression like she had just seen her entire family die in a fire.

Amy said, "So, you're making a flamethrower?""Amy, we gotta be prepared. We don't know what we'll find in that place, but for all we know it could be the Devil himself.""David, what possible good is that thing gonn

... life is a flickering candle we all carry around. A gust of wind, a meaningless accident, a microsecond of carelessness, and it's out. Forever.

People die. This is the fact the world desperately hides from us from birth. Long after you find out the truth about sex and Santa Claus, this other myth endures, this one about how you__l always get rescued at the last second and if not, your death will at least mean something and there__l be somebody there to hold your hand and cry over you. All of society is built to prop up that lie, the whole world a big, noisy puppet show meant to distract us from the fact that at the end, you__l die, and you__l probably be alone.

There was a sound like a garbage bag of pudding dropped off a tall building onto a sidewalk. Robert had erupted, chunks slapping off the walls in every direction.

I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible as I lay the sausage against my ear. Abruptly, my cell phone went dead. A drop of grease dribbled into the dead center of my ear, creeping like a worm down onto my neck and below the collar of my shirt. A group of men and women in business suits walked by, swerving to avoid me. Across the street, a homeless-looking guy was staring at me, curious. Yep, this was pretty much rock bottom. As I was about to reach for a napkin and at least get my money's worth by eating the bratwurst while still hot, I heard it. "Dave? Can you hear me?

Here__ exclusive Channel 5 video of a local man having his brain eaten by a winged gremlin. Local gremlin experts warn that_

To this day I don__ know if he was struggling with the moral implications of gunning down half a dozen civilians, or if he was mentally counting to see if he had that many shells left in the gun.

Welcome to freakdom, Dave. It__l be time to start a Web site soon, where you__l type out everything in one huge paragraph.

You know how sometimes when you're drifting off to sleep you feel that jolt, like you were falling and caught yourself at the last second? It's nothing to be concerned about, it's usually just the parasite adjusting its grip.

Zombie nerds. They probably had the flyers already made up for this. There was nobody creepier than the zombie nerds, college guys who not only watched zombie movies and read zombie novels and played zombie video games, but actually formed clubs and collected zombie-killing weapons. Gun shops around there actually stocked zombie targets, and special zombie bullets with glow-in-the-dark tips. Not toy bullets, mind you. These guys would go out in the woods and train and shoot and defend to the death their right to stay in childhood until age thirty-five.

If I knew me as somebody else, I would hate me just as much. Why have a double standard?

Our little tribal circles, bound by social contracts and selfish mutual need. Everyone working in their own greedy self-interests and huddling together with their tribe, at war with all those outside who they regard as barely human. What breaks a human mind out of that iron cage of mistrust, is a sacrifice. The martyr who gives up everything, who abandons all personal gain, who lays down his life for the good of those outside his group. He becomes a symbol all can rally around. So instead of trying to make a selfish, violent primate somehow empathize with the whole world, which is impossible, you only need to get him to remember and love the martyr. As one is forgotten, another must replace it.

I tried to say something cool, wound up stammering something like, __ANNA YOU WANNA WEENIE ME?_ The end kind of trailed off in a shrill, choking warble.