Start Spreading the News
Jon Hansen

Local station had picked up the camera feed from the WPIX morning traffic copter. Couldn't blame them; wasn't local, but those guys knew how to give you a first class view.

The thing had made it halfway up the Statue of Liberty. To me it looked like a shapeless blotch trailing slime, but the commentator described it as a "giant mutant octopus." Maybe you had to be there.

I couldn't see the helicopters well, just the morning sun reflecting off their hull from time to time. The flashes told me they were swarming the thing. The city's Huey gunboat squadron kept busy three days out of five minimum, plus weekends and holidays.

I took a sip of whiskey from the bottle in my hand. It burned going down, but left a nice tingle.

The helicopters kept buzzing and circling until, right below Lady Liberty's right arm, the thing let go and dropped, smashing into Ellis island below with a distant smack. Lucky hit from a missile? Or did it just give up? Either way, I knew how it felt.

The thing squatted for a moment, then slipped into the water. The gunboats circled, making sure it wasn't headed for Manhattan. At that point I turned off the TV. News tonight would give it fifteen seconds, sandwiched between the weather and Jets-Vikings highlights.

By now my morning was shot. Every time there was a monster attack I couldn't work. And considering how many attacks there'd been, I hadn't finished anything in a while. Was it the monsters, the whiskey, or just me? Question for the ages.

I took a seat at my typewriter, whiskey bottle standing guard beside it. Four pages today, then I could have another drink. Four pages. Just four. After three words I had a drink anyway. And another. And another.

Eventually the bottle departed with the morning. I staggered into the living room, just making it to the sofa. The coffee table was awash in old newspapers and bills, but I dug through the pile with trembling fingers.

Just as the tears of frustration threatened, I found it: a letter from Jack. Jack, my agent, my friend for thirty-eight years, who'd sold all my books, who'd stayed in New York with the monsters and the dealers and the terror threats and the traffic even after I moved up to Potsdam. I read each word again for the nth time:

PHIL,
COME TO NYC. YOU CAN STAY WITH ME, DRY OUT, AND FINISH
THE BOOK ONCE AND FOR ALL. MONSTER ATTACKS NOT THAT BAD ON
THE UPPER EAST SIDE.
JACK

I knew he was right. People can learn to live with anything, even monsters. And if I didn't finish this book, it'd kill me. But each night when I closed my eyes, I could still see that tentacle smashing through my window, grasping for me...

I staggered to the bedroom where I knew there was another bottle. "Tomorrow," I whispered as I found it, then took another drink.

A writer, librarian, and occasional blood donor. His work has appeared in a number of venues, including Strange Horizons, Weird Tales, and Lenox Avenue. He and his wife Lisa live in the exurban Atlanta sprawl. They are expecting their first child in June.