Watch the trailer for "Box of Lies" here

THE NEIGHBORHOOD

A stench hung over the city but as usual, the walkers filled the streets. Most walked alone, some in pairs. There were thousands of them and they walked in all directions, wherever there were avenues to accommodate them. The surface beneath their tired feet was spongy rather hard. Each step they took was a contribution. Each step was tracked carefully. Ian Sharp walked grimly along the busiest avenue, feet red hot bricks of pain. It was early evening and that meant the government-issue shoes upon his feet were not his own. There were three people in all the world that knew this.

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CONFESSIONAL

My name is Rudy Weather and I can read your mind. Not a lot of it. The ability allows me only to suck one thought from your brain, like I'm sneaking a sip of your root beer through a straw. I don't know where it came from, this thing. It started around the time I hit puberty and for many painful years, caused me nothing but unhappiness. A child that age is not prepared for the truth that comes with private reflections.

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VILLAGE STORE AT THE END OF THE WORLD

It was two days after the world ended when the old van rumbled up Route 4, coming from the south. It was still a mile off but I could hear the Chevy groaning and sputtering like an old dog with a gastric problem. Royston Daigle's rig. My eyes blinked open and my mind swam up from sleep. It was the first sign there had been that I was not the only one left alive. I sat in my rocker near the beer coolers, right where I'd been since climbing out of the basement. Right where I planned to spend the rest of my days.

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PEPPER

For the duration of the visit, he went by the name of Edwin Pepper. He looked just like you or me, with two legs, two arms and a pair of perfectly ordinary eyes. He was reasonably tall and he was lean, like a runner. If you saw him standing in line at the bank, you would think him an accountant or possibly a real estate man. You would not suspect in any way that this plain fellow came from a double planet system in a galaxy nine light years away. But that's what he was and his exploration of our blue planet was almost over. It had not been a happy stay. He sent his first report to his planetary brothers just a month into his visit. He had hoped it would be his last.

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FIND A PENNY

I believe you may know of my friend Elsy Bean. She's the wild-eyed woman in ragged clothes who does a funny dance along the sidewalks. She spins in eccentric circles, rags flying about her. She bows to the ground so gracefully it is almost formal. She rises quickly and hurries away, like a startled bird taking flight. You elbow your friends and chortle merrily. There goes the crazy lady, fascinated with what she sees at her feet. If you knew what she knows - what I am cursed now with knowing - you would find no amusement in it all. Elsy may be mad, it's true. But it is pressing awareness of the intricate world that makes her so, not a deficiency of the mind. Elsy understands better than most the capriciousness of life and the bare thread upon which happiness hangs. She listens to the ticking of the cosmic clock and she knows that the infinitesimal spaces between those ticks are of crucial importance.

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