Cross-Generational Cryptid Theory

by Hailey Piper

Prism eased her solar-bike to the roadside, glowing motor going dark. Footprints dotted the dusty highway between Old-World vehicles overgrown with green. At last, signs of the missing courier.

Except his tracks from Libraria should have continued toward Gaiopolis, where the council awaited a trade reply. They instead veered offroad, into the White Ruins.

Something might’ve lured the overdue courier. Or chased him.

“Strangeness is afoot,” Grandma Myx said, prying herself from Prism’s back. She was a fit woman for eighty. Light wind ruffled her beige vest and choppy gray hair as she marched downslope. “It’ll be a proper hunt today.”

Prism sighed, impatient. “Do it for Mother,” she whispered.

She patted dust from her bomber jacket, adjusted her shades, and plucked out Mother Prue’s photo. Myx’s daughter, gone ten years from rot-lung. Happened to many people born at the Great Machine era’s end. She’d wasted away before death, but the photo showed her at Prism’s age of twenty-two, eyes glittery with hopes and dreams.

A youth spent chasing Grandma Myx, same as Prism. She hurried downslope toward the White Ruins, where Myx clambered over pale moss-painted rubble.

“Keep an eye out for suits and ties,” Myx said. “And shades, like yours.”

Prism rolled her eyes behind black lenses. “We’re here for the courier, not hunting your cryptids.”

Myx scoffed. “Way back, we hunted proper cryptids. Bigfoot. Chupacabra. Sometimes Elvis. But the new kind will do. Haven’t mapped this far east myself. Look there!”

Beneath a far-off marble column, a pair of suited men in black lounged on plaza stones, their dark silhouettes protruding with full bellies like panthers sleeping off a meal.

“Agents,” Myx said, reverent.

“Agents went extinct with the Great Machine, Grandma,” Prism said, annoyed. “This’ll be like that landlord myth.”

“Fetid Landlord Anderson is real and horrifying,” Myx said, intoning a lecture. “Sure, I might’ve found the wrong Anderson, but the truth is out there. Wouldn’t be cryptids if you couldn’t dismiss them as weather balloons or mutants.” With back and knees bent, she goblined over rubble and overgrown asphalt.

The courier’s tracks weaved elsewhere. Prism had a job to do, but she thought of Mother, her would-be disappointment if Prism let anything happen. Practical Prism, practical Prue — how could they have descended from a handful like Grandma Myx?

A sharp cry dragged Prism scrabbling over ravaged walls, up chipped steps. The White Ruins were pitiful to the grand solar-towers and lush fields of Gaiopolis. Everything was richer since the Great Machine’s fall, but people like Myx nonsensically sought out Old-World remnants, as if nostalgic for that terrible era.

Black-and-white shapes stood straightening their ties. One wiped hands across a white button-down, leaving red finger-shaped smears. Gore coated each clean-shaven face beneath black shades. A body lay chewed open beside them, his green courier sash torn.

Myx knelt over him, clutching a leaf-shaped courier bag. The men in black gripped her shoulders.

An urge to run slid down Prism’s spine. When would the adventures stop? Would saving Myx doom Prism’s possible someday-child to this responsibility? Maybe the bloodline should end here.

Except Mother hadn’t raised a coward. Prism approached the agents as if she belonged in the White Ruins.

The suited men looked to her. “This is feral business,” one said, monotone. “Open to feral agents only.”

Prism cocked her head. “You mean federal?”

“That’s classified,” another agent said.

Prism scrounged through memories of Myx’s rambled cryptid lore and then tapped her shades. “My assignment,” she said. “I’m undercover.”

The agents scowled. “Assignment?”

Prism took their uncertainty for a chance to slip close and grab Myx’s arm. “I need this one for — uh.”

“Interrogation,” Myx whispered, her expression wary.

“Interrogation,” Prism echoed. “It’s classified.”

Neither agent reacted, but Prism kept tapping her shades until she’d dragged Myx to a decent distance, and then they broke for the highway.

Myx had to be wrong. Those were ordinary cannibals, only resembling her cryptid fantasies. Agents and landlords were symptoms of the Great Machine era, long dead.

But then, could bad times come again? Were some fights forever, like chasing a single-minded grandmother across endless ruins?

They reached the highway slope, where Prism slowed to catch her breath. Myx slowed too. Not exhausted, too fit for that, but she looked uncharacteristically joyless. The courier bag dragged at her shoulder, carrying a reply, wearing a death.

“The courier knew the risk,” Prism said. “It’s tragic, but — ”

“The trouble with finding a cryptid is, the hunt’s over,” Myx said. “Youngsters pick up new leads, head for the Pacific Northwest after Bigfoot, southeast for Elvis. But me? I’m feeling my age. Might be too late to start another chase.”

Prism clenched her teeth. A courier gone, agents on their tail, and maybe omens hinting at the Great Machine’s return, prepping to pollute solar-cities and farmlands with student loans, 9–2–5s, and other eldritch Old-World horrors, but Myx only cared that her adventure had ended?

Prism stormed uphill, eager to grab the solar-bike’s handlebars and escape before she screamed.

Sunshine glared against her shades, catching her eyes’ reflections.

They were Mother Prue’s eyes. Myx’s eyes. Every generation, aglitter with hopes and dreams. Like Prism now and Mother Prue when her photo was taken, Myx had been that young woman once. Grayed and slowing, but dreams lingered.

With luck, Prism would someday surpass Mother’s age and reach Myx’s. Would she be ignored as an old fool? Or would someone humor her dreams even in her twilight years? She could only hope for such sympathy, whatever shape her passions took.

The pair reached the solar-bike, where sighing Myx stuffed the courier bag into the storage compartment.

Prism helped her mount the bike. “Before we head back, let’s get a heading. You got another hunt in you, yeah?”

Myx brightened. For a moment, she looked hopeful again, like Mother Prue in her photograph. Like Prism.

“You really think so?” Myx asked. “One more hunt?”

“Sure, Grandma,” Prism said. “Someone’s got to discover if Elvis is real.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hailey Piper is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth, No Gods for Drowning, The Worm and His Kings, Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy, and other books of dark fiction. She’s had over ninety short stories appear in publications such as Pseudopod, Vastarien, and Cosmic Horror Monthly, and has the honor of appearing five times in The Arcanist. She lives with her wife in Maryland, where they hunt cryptids the old-fashioned way. Find Hailey at www.haileypiper.com, on Twitter as HaileyPiperSays, and elsewhere on social media as HaileyPiperFights.