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  Imagine, if you can, that after all this you still have told your tormentors nothing. Nothing.

  How much longer do you think you would be able to remain silent? Once, Kapuzine's young mind had worked in absolutes; but absolutes were for children. One believed in good and evil in the way one believed in black and white. Her sister Mareen was good. The Gardeners, Mareen's enemies, were therefore evil.

  But evil, she now knew, was not the mere opposite of good; it was a stranger sort of thing, possessed of infinite variety, whereas good only boasted a few distinct strains. Unexpectedly, evil was not synonymous with pain: it brought its own kind of pleasures with it, for to be free of torment, even for an instant, was an ecstasy beyond compare. And more than once she caught herself thinking how lucky she was to have experienced in cell IB4 joys so intense as to wipe out all her other memories . . .

  In her delirium, these thoughts passed her lips, though she only half-believed them, when a man entered her cell. While the door was open, distant moans and muffled cries crept through. Kapuzine no longer noticed them; they were part of the soundtrack now.

  Automatically, she flinched and shut her eyes, even though he was wearing the red uniform of a lowly Ant. Did she wonder if he had been listening? When time had passed (a minute? a second?) and she did not feel his hands upon her body, she was gripped by fear: what new torture could be taking so much time to prepare? Sometimes it was better to know beforehand, to lay eyes on the implements in advance, to envision the full dimensions of the coming pain; for sometimes the Wolflings were not as harsh as they might be, and the torture did not hurt as much as she'd feared. Hoping to wrest this meager relief from the encounter, Kapuzine opened her eyes and took a second look.

  She grew aware that it was night, though she had forgotten exactly what night was. Flame-trees were burning in the yard outside, and the flickering light, coming through the barred window, made shadows dance across the squatting man's face.

  "Kapuzine, can you hear me?" he asked when she opened her eyes.

  The red uniform finally registered, and the little girl relaxed slightly, with a raspy sigh of relief. Her visitor was only a caretaker, like those who came in regularly to replace the soiled mattress or clean the vomit-spattered floor. Those never brought pain with them. Yet, she did not answer him. It was too painful to speak, and she had nothing important enough to say.

  "I'm a Woodcutter," he whispered then. "Your sister told me to give you this."

  He took out a pack of cigarettes.

  "Oh," said Kapuzine, remembering her wish – it seemed so far away, a childish whim that the whole world should have forgotten. She smiled – her lip split anew and a trickle of blood wet the corner of her mouth. "It's true then!" she whispered. "Mareen has sent you to rescue me."

  The effort to say so much left her exhausted. Her breathing became labored, and she grew dizzy.

  "Yes," the man said, his face still hidden by shadows. He waited for her to catch her breath a bit, then asked: "Do you want me to light you one?"

  "Oh, please," whispered Kapuzine. She was still dizzied, yet she must have felt she was dreaming a wonderful dream.

  The divine smell of burning tobacco leaves soon swirled around her. She grasped the small tube between her two unmangled fingers, brought it to her lips, and puffed delightedly. She had practiced smoking already, unbeknownst to Mareen, though only with cigarette butts retrieved from the gutter. This was infinitely better . . .

  It took only two puffs for her throat – scraped raw by the pumps they'd used to clear her lungs after she'd been drowned in animal feces – to react to the fragrant smoke. She started coughing; her lungs felt aflame and her entire rib cage was being hammered to pieces. She desperately tried sitting up and sharp pains shot through parts of her body she had never paid attention to before coming to the Tiergarten. After a time the coughs eased and the pain ebbed.

  The burning cigarette had dropped to the floor, where it still smoldered; Kapuzine ineffectively stretched out her fettered hands towards it. The Woodcutter retrieved it for her, brought it back to her lips. She inhaled again, once only. This time she did not cough. She felt her mind clear somewhat and a trickle of new energy course through her veins.

  "How . . ." she started to ask; the Woodcutter guessed the question on her lips.

  "We cannot smuggle you out of the prison," he stated. "Anyway, you're in no shape for a breakout. The Hawks would be on us in the twinkling of an eye."

  "Oh, I see . . ." said Kapuzine, though in fact she did not see. The man continued.

  "And the Woodcutters cannot risk you talking. They could risk sending me, because I know nothing. I just met Mareen outside the Ring, in the tents of the tinkers and ragmen."

  "I don't understand," said the young girl, her eyes blinking.

  "I've come to stop the pain," he said. "I'll make it so you won't hurt anymore."

  "That would be very nice," she said slowly, still confused. "Are you a doctor then?"

  He did not answer. In the shifting gloom, the girl saw the Woodcutter's left hand sneak behind his broad back. When it reappeared, it was no longer empty. Kapuzine understood his meaning at last.

  "What a big gun you have . . ." she whispered, her voice breaking, for it could not be doubted this man had been sent by Mareen, Mareen who was the only one who knew about the cigarettes, Mareen who loved her and whose envoy would have rescued her, if rescue was at all possible. She wanted to wail, to cry out to Mareen, but her voice was gone, her lungs felt full of blood and leftover shit, no wind remained to her, and now not even a second of time . . .

  The Woodcutter had lied. For while there still dwelled a mind within her skull to feel things, that mind hurt with a fear so intense this final pain was beyond comprehension. And when the shattered scraps of her brain settled within her blasted skull, there was no one left to feel anything anymore – so how can it be said that she had felt the pain stop?

  The execution was meant to be quiet, thus the silencer that almost doubled the length of the gun barrel. It did muffle the sound of the shot, but when the bullet exited the girl's skull, it ricocheted upon the concrete wall with a loud crack.

  As the Woodcutter opened the door of cell IB4, pistol reloaded and held at the ready, he could only hope that the unexpected noise had not been noticed, even by the sensitive ears of the Wolves and Foxes, else he was doomed in turn. It turned out that the noise had indeed gone unnoticed, blocked by the thick door and lost in the general low-level din. And so the Woodcutter was able to make his way out of the cellblock, out of the Tiergarten, back to his people, to report on the success of his mission.

  Now, some might say his successful flight was a stroke of luck; but we who tell this tale and you who hear it know better. It was the hand of destiny, weaving her old miracles, helping us take the first step on the path of our ultimate redemption.

  And this is why we celebrate Kapuzine's memory, blasting her molded plastique effigies to bits on her feast day (formerly St. Barbara's), hearing in the repeated detonations like an echo of the first crack in the tyranny of the Gardeners. For though the tale of Kapuzine and the Wolf may appear unendurably sad, it is full of a holy joy. This little girl did not stray from her path; she did not fall prey to the lure of the green woods; she was not conquered by the Wolves she feared. She remained undefeated to the very end and endured a noble death, a martyr to our cause.

  Thus must her example ceaselessly inspire us in our fight. Through her sacrifice she makes it all possible. One day we shall chase the Gardeners out and retake our birthplace. One day we shall uproot the trees of the City, scrub out the encroaching earth, defoliate the bushes, and char the flowers to ashes. One day we shall walk again upon clean stone, asphalt, and concrete.

  And live happily ever after.

Michael Arsenault
is the author of over one hundred and eighty other short stories, twenty-six novels, and nine screenplays. Tragically, "A Halloween Like Any Other" is his only surviving short story, after a fire consumed all copies of his other short fiction. His novels, while kept safe from the blaze, were soon after stolen by a vengeful ex-girlfriend who published them all under her own name and is suspected to be involved in the aforementioned arson. Despite these setbacks, Mr. Arsenault has tried to remain optimistic, but his ex's recent Academy Award nomination for best screenplay has come as a bit of a blow.

Pat Cadigan
(users.wmin.ac.uk/~fowlerc/patcadigan.html) made her first professional fiction sale in 1980, and since then her work has appeared in the field's top print and online magazines. Many of these stories are collected in
Patterns
and
Dirty Work.
Her novels include
Synners
and
Fools
– both winners of the Arthur C. Clarke Award – as well as
Mindplayers, Tea from an Empty Cup,
and
Dervish is Digital
. She has taught writing workshops and was for a time a Visiting Fellow at the Cybernetic Culture Research Centre at Warwick University. Pat moved to England in 1996 and now lives in North London with her husband Chris Fowler and their cat Calgary.

Bradley Denton
is the author of novels W
rack & Roll, Buddy Holly
Is Alive and Well on Ganymede, Blackburn,
and
Lunatics.
He is also the author of numerous short stories, some of which are collected in
One Day Closer to Death
and in the World Fantasy Award-winning two-volume set A
Conflagration Artist
and
The Calvin Coolidge
Home for Dead Comedians.
Born in Wichita, Kansas, he now lives in self-imposed exile in Austin, Texas. His favorite color is blue; his favorite novel is
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
; his favorite enchilada is "cheese"; his favorite movie is
Blazing Saddles
; his favorite U. S. president is Truman (because he was the best cusser); and his favorite album is
Let It Bleed.

Paul Di Filippo
is a native Rhode Islander. He managed to turn a four-year college education into three full-time years and three part-time years, all without ever actually obtaining a degree. So far, this has not stopped him from selling well over one hundred stories, many of which are collected in several books. He lives in Providence with his mate of some twenty-seven years, Deborah Newton, a cocker spaniel named Ginger, and two cats named Mab and Penny Century. Someday he hopes to own a house with room enough to display his 10,000 books in some fashion other than vertical stacks three deep.

Cory Doctorow
(
www.craphound.com
) will have three new books out in 2003: the novels
Down and Out in the Magic

Kingdom
and
Eastern Standard Tribe
, both from Tor Books, and the collection A
Place So Foreign and Eight More
, from Four Walls Eight Windows. He is also the coauthor of
The Complete
Idiot's Guide to Publishing Science Fiction
(with Karl Schroeder). Cory won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New SF Writer in 2000. He coedits the popular weblog
Boing Boing
(boingboing.net) and works for the civil liberties group the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco.