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they’d come after him to find her. Or maybe think he was part of it, in with her from the beginning. Sure. He’d been out for revenge for Kid. They’d think that, wouldn’t they? And what about the cops? The one he’d punched. He couldn’t be sure he hadn’t been recognized. And Bulbitch—imagine trying to sell him this story: a dingus that killed four armed men? Twice? Bulbitch had warned him to stay out of it, and unless the cops could buy into witches and papier-mâché monsters conjured from coins and buttons and crap, they’d hang this on him. If he hadn’t been there, hadn’t seen it himself . . .
    San Francisco sounded awfully good. Bound to be a morning bus—get him as far as Pittsburgh before anyone knew to look for him. Arnie Slocum had moved out to Frisco to train fighters two years ago. Arnie would hand him a job right away.
    As he collected his whirling thoughts, he moved about the apartment, got out his suitcase, filled it with clothes. He needed a bath, but maybe not right now. Some clothes, some cash from the bank on the way. He grabbed his tip box out of the back of the closet and tossed two rolls of bills into the suitcase under the clothes. He’d call Rosie from the bus depot, tell him to hang onto the cab, he’d be in touch to work out the details later. Rosie’d find somebody to take the night shift for now.
    Winter in California, that wasn’t such a bad fate. Let everything blow over and all the monsters wash out to sea.
    That was the plan congealing as he hauled the suitcase into the foyer. He paused to pull on his pea jacket, then grabbed the door handle in the same moment he heard his feet splash and looked down to see dark dirty river water pooling as it trickled in over the threshold. Meyers thought of Red in his roadhouse reaching for a brass knob, blood soaking into the sawdust below him, as the door of the apartment came off the latch.
    ——
    Gregory Frost is a writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction who has been publishing steadily for more than two decades.
    His latest work is the fantasy duology Shadowbridge and Lord Tophet , published by Del Rey Books. His earlier novels include Fitcher’s Brides , a World Fantasy Award and International Horror Guild Award finalist for Best Novel; Tain ; Lyrec ; and Nebula-nominated science-fiction work The Pure Cold Light . His short-story collection Attack of the Jazz Giants and Other Stories was called by Publishers Weekly “one of the best fantasy collections of the year.”
    He is one of the Fiction Writing Workshop directors at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and has thrice taught the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop.
    His website is GregoryFrost.com; his blog, Frostbites , lurks at Frostokovich.LiveJournal.com.

| THE GETAWAY |
    Paul G. Tremblay
    —
    There’s this thing about living in Wormtown that my older brother Joe doesn’t get, or he does get it and doesn’t want to admit it. We live in Worcester, stuck like a dart in the middle of Massachusetts. This isn’t Boston. No ocean, just a river. No quaint historical bullshit that attracts tourists. Just hills, colleges, hospitals, and churches, making the urban decay look a little prettier. It’s not a good place to be, right? But Joe and the rest of the local artsy types, so desperate for the recognition they’ll never get, they pump up and promote the nickname Wormtown like it means Worcester is some legit big city that people would actually choose to live in, like Worcester is somehow important or any less damaged than it is because of a fucking name change. They brand themselves Wormtowners like they aren’t as doomed as the rest of us. So I still use their fun little nickname, but only because it makes me bust a gut laughing.
    It’s five a.m. I’m sitting in the driver’s seat of Henry’s rusty Ford Explorer, tucked behind Ace’s Pawn Shop, which is on the corner of Main and Wellington. Engine on, tailgate up, interior