World of Darkness - Urban Legends.pdf - World of Darkness - RPG

By Alan Alexander, Russell Bailey, Rick Chillot, Will Hindmarch,

Luke Johnson, Amber E. Scott and Malcolm Sheppard

ANNUNCIATION —

“My son is dead, Mr. Car-

penter,” she replied calmly,

almost casually, as she re-

garded Joseph from across

her desk. He detected just

the faintest trace of her

Italian accent.

“Uh, ah, I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

Joseph hoped he wasn’t visibly

sweating. He should have known

about her son. And now, after mak-

ing it to this second interview, his

hopes of landing the job might be

wrecked by a clumsy faux pas.

“Be at ease,” she sighed, as if

reading his mind. “Publicly, my

husband is who’s credited with the

success of Deva International. But

my son was the one who pointed

the way. My husband used to get

throat infections, bouts of laryn-

gitis… he smoked too much. He

once lost his voice for months on

end, but it returned on the day my

Marco was born. And that’s how

I knew he would be an extraordi-

nary person.”

“I imagine there are no ‘or-

dinary’ people in your family,

Ms. Singe.”

She smiled a Mona Lisa smile.

“Gabriella, please, Joseph.” She

glanced at her wristwatch. “Our

meeting will be brief; I’m on a

plane back to India later today.

Have you ever been?”

“I haven’t had the pleasure.”

“Warm rain, monkeys on the

rooftops, the cacophony of wed-

ding parties at all hours of the

night… all the dreadful, miracu-

lous things I would have missed

if I hadn’t fallen for a man from

India. Are you married, Joseph?

Have you children?”

“One wife,” he answered, “no

kids. Yet.” Joseph realized then

that he liked Gabriella Singe, liked

her warmth, her conﬁ dence. She

seemed like someone with whom

he could share secrets. He had an

urge to tell about his and Mara’s

ordeal trying to conceive, and the

tearful decision that it was time

to stop the hormone injections

and the ovary calendars and the

scheduled sex.

“I’m sorry, Joseph,” she said,

again seeming to reply to his

thoughts and not his words. “I’m

wasting the little time we have by

getting off the subject. You know, of

course, about the product line we’re

introducing in your country.”

He nodded. “Black Butterﬂ y

Gourmet Tea already has a good

reputation here in the States,

among the few who know of it.”

He’d unconsciously lapsed into a

segment of the presentation he’d

given to her underling at the ﬁ rst

interview. “I think there’s an excel-

lent chance for boosting your share

among a target market —”

“That’s what I want to speak

of,” she interrupted. “Our reputa-

tion. You see, it’s in jeopardy.

There is a… a story going around,

a rumor. A, what-you-call-it — ur-

ban legend.”

“Yes… I think I came across

that. But it’s not a big deal. I

wouldn’t worry. If you take me

on, I can come up with a PR and

marketing plan that will —”

“I see I haven’t been clear,”

she interjected again. “The reason

for this meeting —the announce-

ment I wanted to make — I’m

ruining it by not being clear.” She

stood, extended a hand. “You’re

the one we want, Joseph, the one

we’ve chosen. We expect great

things of you.”

“Joseph, I’m pregnant.” She

smiled again, weakly.

skin, its foragers coming and going

through his ears and eyes. They

walked across his forearm and left

trails that looked like the lines on

a map. A humming sound that rose

and fell like music. When he woke,

it seemed for a minute or so as if he

could still hear the music, or rather

feel it, like vibrations traveling up

his arm and into the core of his

body. Then his mind cleared, and

he realized he was lying with his

hand on Mara’s abdomen.

After his morning shower,

he’d found Mara sitting at the

kitchen table with two cups of

White Bliss Blend #3 and a large

knife laid out before her.

“I was going to cut us some

cantaloupe,” she told him. “But

I’m so tired.”

“It’s okay.” He kissed her on

the forehead, picked up the knife.

“I’ll just take the tea and grab a

bagel on my way to the ofﬁ ce.”

“Joseph…” Her tone made

him lay the knife in the sink and

walk back to face her. “Joseph,”

she said. “Are you sure we’re do-

ing the right thing?”

NATIVITY — It has

not been a good day, Joseph

told himself as he rode a

creaking elevator toward

the top of an apartment

building that smelled like

cabbage. He yawned. He’d

spent most of the previous

night lying wide awake,

eventually switching on a

lamp and staring at Mara as

she twitched in her sleep.

About three months into it,

and she was clearly show-

ing. An intimate relation

had begun within her body,

and he was excluded by

biology. It wasn’t fair that

he was left out of this, the

event he’d been waiting for

all these years.

Finally, he’d fallen asleep, only

to be plagued with a bizarre dream.

Black shapes falling from the night

sky, and burrowing into the ground.

An ant colony that lived beneath his

When he recounted the story

to Mara that evening, over Chinese

takeout and Black Butterﬂ y’s Man-

galam Blend #7, her reaction was

so muted that he was certain he’d

failed to capture the drama. “It was

like a dream,” he said to her. “I

was trying to convince her to hire

me, and she’d already decided.”

He passed her a carton of fried

rice; she took it but didn’t scoop

any onto her plate. “Anyway, I’ve

already got a ton of work to do.”

She smiled. But her eyes

weren’t in it.

“It’s about insects,” he con-

tinued. “There are these stories

ﬂ oating around, see. About the tea.

That it’s not really made from tea

leaves, but ground-up insect parts.

One version claims it’s full of tiny

insect eggs, and the eggs hatch

inside you and —”

“Joseph —”

“I know, I’m sorry. It’s gross

and stupid, really. Trivial. The

thing to do is let it die a natural

death, not feed the ﬂ ames with

denials and counterclaims. But,

you know, they’re not paying me

to do nothing.” He slurped up a

forkful of lo mein. “I ﬁ gure I’ll try

to ﬁ nd out how the whole story got

started. Could be interesting…”

“Joseph—” She slumped in

her chair.

“I know. You love the tea, you

drink it every day, and you hate

bugs. You don’t want to be think-

ing about bugs every time you

drink it. I promise, I won’t go on

and on, I just wanted to —”

“Honey…” He sat across the

table from her.

“I mean, I know you’ve got

this job now, but can we really

afford a baby? I mean, daycare’s

expensive and if I can’t go back

to work, how will we…” She bit

her bottom lip.

He leaned forward, took her

hands and rubbed them. “Babe,

come on. I thought we put this

argument behind us. Remember

how hard we tried, and nothing?

This is like a miracle.”

“I guess… I suppose I got

used to the idea that I would never

be pregnant. To be honest it… it

scares me… I mean, you know my

sister almost bled to death.”

“Whoa, Mara, whoa. That’s

not going to happen to you, and

you know it. That was a high-risk

pregnancy, and you know her doc-

tor warned her against a live birth.

I know you feel a little freaked,

but it’s just nerves…” He gave

her ﬁ ngers a ﬁ nal squeeze, then

released them.

“Nerves and bones and ﬁ ngers

and toes,” she said. “And eyes.

Somebody else’s. Growing inside

my body.” She placed her hands on

her belly, just beginning to show

beneath her shirt. “I don’t know if

I like it. I’m sick all the time and

tired, and… it’s not too late to

change our minds —”

“No,” he said. “No way. We’re

not doing that.” He immediately

regretted his harsh tone. “I’ll call

that doctor,” he added, in a near-

whisper. “The specialist on the

company’s HMO. They said we

get unlimited visits. We’ll see about

getting you something for the nau-

sea, okay? It’ll be all right.”

The elevator doors shook

open, interrupting Joseph’s recol-

lections and reminding him why

he was here.

He stepped out and made

his way down a dingy hallway,

checking the door numbers. He

hoped this meeting would be

more useful than the three hours

he’d just wasted on the phone

with that entomologist from the

University — Casper? Yes, Frank

Casper, PhD. Joseph had hoped

to gather expert opinions on the

impossibility of insect eggs hatch-

ing inside the human stomach.

Instead, Casper refused to rule it

out and then wandered from the

point. “The bot ﬂ y, for example,”

he’d said, “is a well-known horse

parasite; its eggs hatch in the

horse’s stomach. And of course the

tapeworm, though not an insect,

leaves eggs that when ingested

by animals — humans included

— hatch and thrive in the gastro-

intestinal track.” At least Casper

agreed to test some samples of tea

for insect parts. Perhaps the pack-

ages could be labeled with some

sort of authoritative statement that

they contained tea leaves and only

tea leaves. He’d talk to the design

team tomorrow about a mockup,

and at the same time they could

get those weird Indian astrology

symbols off the labels.

He found apartment 25-D.

The door was half-open. Joseph

knocked on the door frame. “Hel-

lo? Ms. Ball? Myrna Ball?” There

was some kind of shufﬂ ing noise

inside. “I’m Joseph Carpenter. Mel

Gold, you know, the guy who runs

the urban legends website? He said

you’d agreed…”

At ﬁ rst he could hear nothing

but the rattling of an old refrigera-

tor, and the trafﬁ c noise outside.

Then he realized someone was

talking. “Come in,” the voice

repeated, wearily. “Come in.” He

entered. Myrna was seated on a

cot; there wasn’t much else in the

tiny room.

“I, uh, wanted to thank you for

seeing me,” Joseph told her, tak-

ing the seat she indicated, a metal

folding chair. She gestured with

her left arm, and Joseph saw that

her right arm ended at the elbow,

where the purple T-shirt she wore

was pinned closed. As he sat, he

realized she was young, no more

than 20, though her haggard face

had made her seem older at ﬁ rst.

“You work for Black Butterﬂ y,

huh?” she asked. She awkwardly

slipped her left hand into the right-

side pocket of her jeans, took out

a cigarette from her pocket. The

cigarette slipped from her ﬁ ngers

and landed on the ﬂ oor between

her feet. She ignored it, saying,

“Sorry I couldn’t talk to you on

the phone, but they shut off my

cell last week.”

“I don’t know how much Mr.

Gold told you, but we’ve been see-

ing these rumors about, you know,

the bug thing. And, uh…” He was

having trouble not thinking about

the cigarette on the ﬂ oor. “Anyway,

Mr. Gold — he said he ﬁ rst heard

about it in that post you made. And

since you were an intern at, the, uh,

our company last year, I thought

that was signiﬁ cant, and, well…”

He glanced at the cigarette. Was he

supposed to pick it up?”

“Mmm hmm.” She brushed

some stray bangs from her eyes.

Joseph could see now that they

weren’t just tired, they were glazed

over. Medicated, he thought. “I

wasn’t going to see you, at ﬁ rst,”

she was saying. “But I can’t

sleep, and, well, you can’t ﬁ ght

the stars.”

“The stars? You mean, like

astrology?”

“I mean the stars. They came

from the stars…”

“I don’t… what do you mean?”

He’d balanced a notebook on his

lap, but wasn’t sure what to write.

“At night, I could hear them.

They’d hatched in me. They were

humming, and after awhile the

humming sounded like words.”

World of Darkness - Urban Legends.pdf

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