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Post by QueenFoxy on May 17, 2020 13:34:36 GMT -6
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Post by QueenFoxy on Aug 30, 2020 11:44:19 GMT -6
Somehow, it was an unexpected ending for me.
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Post by QueenFoxy on Aug 30, 2020 12:03:55 GMT -6
Taken Between The Jaws by Isaac Birchmier There in that very epicenter of the wild, Samuel Fletcher found what he had been looking for. The fact that he hadn’t been looking for anything to begin with made the discovery that much more amazing. He likened it to eating when you don’t feel hunger in your stomach: you are finally able to get that fulfillment which you hadn’t even known you needed. The body is hungry without knowing. And some unconscious signal informs you that it’s time to eat, and you contradict the will (or lack thereof) of your stomach, so you go to get some grub—and you find that that was the very cure you had been, without even knowing it, long searching for. This reservoir of hunger is The Metaphor, and to fill the subconscious needs of The Metaphor was exactly what Samuel Fletcher had been looking for.
The idea to come out to the woods hadn’t been the original plan of the day. Samuel’s idea of fun was more characteristic in the grasp of civilization than in the malleability of nature. He would have preferred to get a coffee with a few friends at the local coffeeshop. Would rather have a nice satisfying meal amongst companions. He would much rather have watched, for the umpteenth time, a repeat of some classic film on ABC Family, than to step out alone into the catastrophic potential of The Outer World. The indoors were so calm, controlled, contained, familiar. Going outside, seeing what the outdoors had to offer, was tantamount to plunging oneself deep into the chaos of The Unknown, of discomfort, and it was just so warm where he sat, so warm and so cozy.
But he wasn’t happy. And he knew he wasn’t happy.
The longer he followed that paradigm—of watching the same movies on repeat amongst friends, of attending hazy social gatherings which began to all just blend into a single Life it was so routine—the more it became like The Metaphor. Hunger without hunger. The body craving food without an understanding that it craves food. To delve deep into the heart of the Earth, soil and all. To act on impulse, stray from routine: this was his newfound goal. In order to connect with himself he first needed to connect with the nature around him.
If there was anything Samuel learned on his hike, it was that there is no instant gratification in the wild. The gratification of nature comes in its positive essence of reality. It is where we come from and where we still belong. Man feeds on meat; man drinks water: man uses what he is given to his own benefit. There are structural patterns. The parallels are far beyond the differences. The clothing, the acquisition of taste, the symbols, the speech, the usage of thought, handiwork, are but the only differences. These are the defining factors of the Homo “sapiens,” and these are all the works of excess. The gratification of nature stems from the stability of its beauty, the regulated chaos of its structure. There is no need for 3D glasses, for objects will approach you and you them, all in reality. The sun will teach you when to have energy and the moon will teach you to be tired. The definition is as “hi-” as it gets. The color depth is extreme; the frames per second: off the charts. You haven’t heard production quality until you’ve listened to the river and the trees.
Most of all, Samuel learned that nature is cruel. Yet it is not nature that is the foremost danger to nature. But rather something closer, something more familiar….
The day’s events
Samuel Fletcher awoke with a flurry of bedsprings. It was 5:20 A.M. on a Saturday. He had been having troubles sleeping. In the comfort of his room there had always been the desire to stay awake. To sleep, as he understood it, was to reveal an essence of weakness. The night before had been like the others: full of the company of others: loud, tyrannical, hectic: unhappy. The insincerity of the smiles never impacted him while he was out with friends because his own insincerity was the same, if not greater, and he knew it, and he knew they knew it. Hanging out at his friends’ house was habitual, part of him. When he returned home, even following the influx of smiles and positivity, he still felt malnourished.
He had been having a dream of his friend Ty and The Guy In Corduroys, where they all had been walking together through a black and onstretching canvas. Ty and Samuel had known each other since pre-school, and yet it wasn’t until last year—seventh grade—that Ty started changing. There was a glint of evil in Ty’s eyes that came about ever since he began associating with The Guy In Corduroys. He was always with a group of girls that wanted nothing to do with Samuel, and so Samuel had had to find a new group of friends. Then, whenever Samuel saw Ty in the hallways, it became awkward, and The Guy In Corduroys had an unrelenting stare….
Samuel’s house was empty throughout the day because his mom and dad worked nine-to-five and beyond to maintain the upkeep of the house. They even worked on weekends. So that’s why Samuel found himself so free to gather the materials for his journey, so at liberty to exit the backdoors, to find those roaming gates and unfurl the journey for himself. For Samuel it was a giant step from out of his comfort zone, to delve without contemplation into that uncommon personless mess of nature. And yet his body told him to go, and it is the body which knows what’s best for the body. He had decided it was time to undergo some sort of variation in his life, and he was prepared by far to leap into that realm of knowledge of which he knew he wanted to be a part. He felt, in a hunger of the heart, a desire to indulge in the marrow-scraps of the mountains, to go hiking.
He put in his backpack a water bottle, a bag of trail mix, a jacket, a sandwich, a book and a pen: he was ready to satiate that hunger which he did not yet know existed. He left all of his electronics at home, and set out to live in deliberation, if for even a moment. There was nothing to hold him back as he made the first step into the plush and delicate grass. The sun had recently come out of dormancy, and it greeted him with enthusiasm. Light filled his eyes and he breathed the crystalline air, and the poison that had been once in his lungs escaped with immediacy.
He had walked now for a significant amount of time, finding himself nearly halfway through his journey. The sun was tipping upon the banks, the Gates of the Mountains opening, invitational. The leaves fell in glorious autumnal patterns. The trail which he followed was myriad in organic beauty. Each element was indulgent, honest, resurgent, perfect in its imperfection. Everywhere the colors flashed phantasmal. And the sunlight fell with such a decent propensity—so elegant and warm and sonorous. In this fall-time wonder, the spectacle was beyond magnificent. This place could become my refuge, Samuel thought: an escape from the miseries, the aspects of horror so persistent in daily life. Through the walk in the woods he experienced and encountered various wonders, and he found himself captivated in the beauty of the moment. The cure, he found, was to sit back and listen: the river has the answers.
Near the end of his voyage, Samuel discovered the form of a small rodential creature dragging itself against the ground, chocking up dust in its lethargic movements. It was a sight of confusion. After adjusting his vision and rubbing his eyes he was able to see that it was a squirrel. It was peculiar, the way the squirrel moved. It seemed to hobble, as if wounded, and Samuel was confused. There was no route of understanding for what was before his eyes. The squirrel had materialized out of nothing, wounded, as if nature herself had taken the creature between its grinding teeth upon creation and shook the defenseless manifestation about before letting it go to watch it drag its wounded self away.
The squirrel he saw scuttled wounded across the tabletop forest. It kept moving, flinging itself about spasmodically with the will of life. But it was as if the animal were a pawn on the chessboard of humanity. Mankind was the king; the creatures were the pawns; and the knights, the rooks, the bishops, these were the leaves, the snow, the sky; they were all forfeited to protect that one piece which was always implied to denote a loss once taken out by opposing forces. Even the queen herself, the Mother—the elastic, the strong, the elegant—was oh-so-readily sacrificed to protect that very entity of the king: mankind. But what man forgets is that nature is a rubberband, and that every action has its own equal, its own opposite. And the pain of this squirrel would ring true, and its melody would fluctuate in wavelengths through the cosmos, until some inopportune entity in an inopportune civilization elsewhere hears its screams in the form of tonal frequencies, and the listener will be overcome with feelings of fear, sadness, and disgust, without knowing the source of the feelings or the reason why.
He did not know where the squirrel had come from, and he did not know the cause of its injury. All he was able to deduce was that some foul predator had taken it by the leg and had broken it, to let it scamper off, filled with fear. He grew worried, because he imagined some great mountain lion crawling about, preparing to dig down into unsuspecting creatures, itself being either incompetent or cruel, tearing into the leg of the hors d’oeuvres of a squirrel, to let it run away, to watch it run away.
Samuel heard the rustle of the leaves and he grew afraid. Were there mountain lions around here? He had heard stories, stories of awful encounters with great big beasts: bears which tore campers to shreds, mountain lions which had no remorse when it came to unsuspecting travelers. He didn’t have anything to protect himself! The leaves rustled and he heard deep groans approaching, approaching. He was fearful. And he saw it, he saw it! The creature, it appeared!
“Ugghhhh!” Ty groaned. He had a slingshot in hand with a giant rock clasped in the elastic band. Two girls and a guy were nearby. The Guy In Corduroys was there and he had a swollen lip.
“Hey, it’s Samuel!” one of the girls said, pointing.
Ty looked over and smiled. “Samuel! What’s up, bro?”
“Hey, Samuel,” the other girl said.
The Guy In Corduroys stared.
“Did you happen to see a squirrel pass by around here?” Ty asked.
“Nope, nope, nothing,” Samuel said.
Ty looked at him with a skeptical air.
“Okay… Well I’ll see you later then…” Ty laughed at him.
As the four walked away, Samuel heard one of the girls.
“There it is!” she squealed. “Over there!”
Samuel heard the yipping of Ty, the laughter and excitement of the girls, and he stood there, waiting. Immediately a pok!followed, the rock either making contact with the ground or the wounded flesh of the squirrel. And he heard either yips of happiness or groans of disappointment. He was petrified, the howls of his former friends imprisoning him with fear. These were the same people he had once socialized with, once spoken to, and now they had a thirst for blood which could never be satisfied. It was horrifying—and yet Samuel could do nothing about it: his entire body was unmoving. The Guy In Corduroys howled, and Samuel knew it was over. Samuel stood paralyzed in the headlights of the sun, the sounds of Ty and The Guy In Corduroys moving closer and closer at inestimable speeds, him trembling in fear, knowing very well what was going to happen next. ⚡ |
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Post by lostineternity99 on Aug 31, 2020 7:32:20 GMT -6
Poor Samuel ... not at all a happy ending!
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Post by QueenFoxy on Aug 31, 2020 20:58:55 GMT -6
A Christmas Eve to Forget by Vidal Martinez As I flip through the pages, Sadie abruptly walks into the room wearing a sexy blue party dress.
“I’m glad to see that you’re reading the Bible,” she says.
I gently put the book on the counter. “I saw it here and well… I thought I’d look at it while I wait.”
She places her arms around my hips and pulls herself against my body. “Are you sure you want to do this, college boy?” she whispers.
I lower my head, staring into her eyes while she rubs herself against me. “Yeah, it’s what I do.”
She smiles. “Then you’re lucky, not many men can have me.”
“I know.”
She lets go of me and points at the closet next to the hallway. “You will hide in there.”
“If that’s what you want.”
She licks her upper lip and adds, “You’re my Christmas gift.”
“Are you sure you can pay me?”
She reaches for me. “Yes and here it is.” She takes out the money from her purse.
“I usually get paid after.”
“Take it.” She shoves the money down my pants.
I push away, looking at the closet door.
“Remember the plan,” she says.
I laugh while pulling out a black ski mask from my back pocket. I put it on.
“Now you look like a naughty burglar,” she adds.
“I was afraid you would say that.”
Sadie looks at the clock on the wall. “I better go. Midnight Mass already started.” She grabs her jacket and runs toward the front door, turning off the lights in the house. “Don’t fall asleep,” she says. The front door slams shut as I notice in the corner of the living room the reflection of green, red, and blue blinking lights from her Christmas tree. I am about to approach the tree, when my cell phone vibrates. I answer it.
“Where are you?” David asks.
“I’m still at her house.”
“Well hurry up. You’re missing an awesome party, and dad is asking for you.”
I walk into the closet and sit on a chair behind a large coat rack. “Guess what?” I ask.
“What?”
“This lady has a sick fantasy.”
“What did you expect? She’s mom’s friend.”
“Get this. She went to Midnight Mass, and when she gets back, I’m supposed to jump out of a closet, wearing a mask like a thief and attack her.”
“Attack her?”
“Yeah, I’m supposed to rough her up a little, rip her clothes off and… you know – do bad things to her next to her Christmas tree.”
“And while her husband is out of town?”
“Yeah, crazy, and she has a Bible on a counter.”
“How weird is that?”
“I know.”
“Well hurry up before the party ends. Uncle Bob is already drunk.”
The phone hangs up as I lean back on the chair, staring between the coats. I reach for the closet door and close it halfway, giving me enough view of the living room and the Christmas tree. I then shove my cell phone back in my pocket and as I wait, my eyes slowly close.
I wake up to a blast of cold air across my face with a horrible stench. I quickly sit up, peek between the coats, anticipating that Sadie has returned from Midnight Mass, but all I see is the blinking Christmas lights and something awkward behind the tree. I quietly reach forward, gently pushing two coats apart, looking more intently, and what I see is shocking.
A creepy figure – tall, slender, bare, hairless with long arms and fingers – is touching the Christmas tree as though curious by the blinking lights. I push myself back in the chair, and as the creature moves around the tree, it has red blistered skin and a long tail like a kangaroo. I take a deep breath, clasp my hands together, when unexpectedly the creature starts to whistle to what sounds like a Christmas jingle. Disturbed, I reach for my cell phone, when the backdoor slams open.
“I forgot my purse!” Sadie shouts.
With a loud scream, the creature jumps at Sadie.
“Stop!” she yells.
I’m frozen still, and all I hear is the furniture being knocked over.
“Help,” Sadie whimpers.
I close my eyes to a beastly grunt.
“No,” she cries.
I sit cowardly in the chair, thinking whatever this creature is – I hope it doesn’t notice me in the closet. I then hear my name.
“Gabe, please help me,” Sadie begs.
I glue myself to the chair.
“Gabe,” she says. “He’s going to kill me.”
I want to cry.
“Gabe,” she murmurs.
I cover my ears.
“I don’t want to die,” she moans.
But then I force my eyes open to the sound of laughter echoing around me, and with a trembling hand, I reach forward, quietly pulling the closet door shut. I sit with shame, doing nothing to help Sadie. For the first time in my life I am weak, anticipating the inevitable as time seems forever. Now for sure the creature knows I am in the closet, but for some strange reason death is not upon me.
Later on when the house is once again silent, I pull off my ski mask and creep out of the closet to the sight of blood dripping off the Christmas tree. I look down the hallway, and what is left of Sadie – a butchered head, severed limbs, and a torn blue party dress – are scattered along the bloody floor. I gag, shoving my hand down my pants. I pull out the five-hundred dollars, drop it next to her Bible, and frantically run out of the house to the reflection of green, red, and blue blinking lights. The End ⚡ |
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Post by lostineternity99 on Sept 1, 2020 8:19:51 GMT -6
A bloody Christmas Eve that would be impossible to forget  |
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Post by QueenFoxy on Sept 1, 2020 11:52:32 GMT -6
Really gruesome....and cowardly on the part of her Date?
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Post by QueenFoxy on Sept 1, 2020 12:07:18 GMT -6
Trust by Gene M. Clarke McCready tensed, crouching low beside a large hedge and peering ahead through the fog and the rain that was compressing Forrester Park like a wet blanket.The city was hiding, it had been raining steadily since noon and no one was moving.
In the pale glow of the luminaires lighting the walking path, he saw a brief glimpse of a shadowy figure sliding through the fog, gone as quickly as it had appeared.
McCready moved ahead, staying in the shadows and parallelling the path.He knew it was Matisse, he could feel it in every fiber of his being. Bey had been watching him for days and had called him on her cell phone when Matisse began to move.
McCready and his partner, Luce Bey, had been investigating a string of murders of young women that had been dubbed the Vampire Killings, due to fang marks left in the victims necks after they had been stabbed from behind through the kidneys with some sort of long, thin blade.Of course, no blood had been taken from the victims other than that caused by the stabbings and it was assumed that the killer had some sort of vampire fantasy, probably the manifestation of a control/power obsession.Two victims had been found in the park, three others in the Northwest industrial area at different locations.Those had been dumped, the first two had been killed in the park on the path and dragged into the bushes.
Their first break had come with the last killing of a young woman named Rebecca Mohr. After digging into her background, it came to light that a former employer had been given a visit by the Police for stalking Mohr after she had quit her job when her boss started pressuring her for sexual relations.
Jules Matisse was the employer, a strange, effeminate man in his sixties who ran a small bookstore in the Old Town section of the city. It turned out that he had made advances to Mohr, who had quit her job after he couldn’t take a hint. Matisse began calling and texting her repeatedly until she finally called the cops. After he got a visit from the Police, the calls stopped and there was no further trouble reported.
It was a weak lead, but all they had, and after Bey had interviewed Matisse they decided he was weird enough to keep an eye on. The killings had been roughly a month apart and it was time for the killer to strike so Bey had been watching Matisse for the last week, waiting for a break.
McCready saw the shadow again for a split second and picked up his pace a little, trying to close the gap without being seen.He still felt there was something about Matisse that his instinct told him was wrong for this type of killing. He would have pegged Matisse for a pedophile, or even a child killer, but not a killer of grown women.He could not base this feeling on anything concrete, but it was there in the back of his mind, a mild nagging that he had not been able to shake.
Suddenly, there was peircing scream from the fog ahead, definitely female, followed by two gunshots.
Bey, thought Mccready, that was Bey who had screamed.Mccready broke into a run,drawing his .45 from his shoulder holster, his trench-coat billowing and swirling around him as he charged forward, nearly in a panic for his partner. He could barely see in the thick fog and finally slipped on the wet and muddy grass, pitching forward and sliding on his knees and hands. He muttered a ripe curse under his breath and straightened up, wiping his automatic on his right thigh to remove some mud. He looked forward and drew a sharp breath.A body lay ahead of him about ten feet, face-down and not moving.
McCready stood up and walked forward to where the body lay, then stooped and reached down, grasping the back of the hooded raincoat draping the figure lying on the ground. He rolled the body over so he could see the face.
Matisse lay there, staring sightlessly upward, raindrops drumming on his dead eyes and running down his cheeks as if he were crying. Two bullet holes were in his chest.
McCready straightened up, letting out a breath he had not realized he was holding and squinted ahead through the rain, looking for Bey, or anyone who had fired the shots. There was sudden,excruciating pain in his back on the left side, high in his kidney.
McCready felt his legs give out and he fell to his knees, the .45 slipping from fingers gone weak to land with a sodden thump in on the wet ground. He bent over forward, hugging himself under his trench-coat as he gasped in pain. Someone stepped around in front of him and he looked up, his face twisted with agony.
Luce Bey looked down at him, holding a long blade in her left hand. Her soft brown eyes regarded him sadly as the rain rolled down her face, making rivulets across the flawless brown skin of her Egyptian ancestors. Even now, as he sat on his knees dying slowly in the rain, she was beautiful.
“I’m sorry Louis,” she said. “I didn’t want it to be this way, but you were getting to close.You would have put it together eventually.” She bent down, picked up McCready’s automatic and dropped it into the pocket of her London Fog.
McCready was still doubled over in pain, hugging himself as if it would quell his misery.
“Why,Luce?” He spat some blood that had bubbled over his lips. “ You’re no vampire, why the bite marks?”
She laughed, like soft velvet, low and smooth. She smiled, revealing wicked canines.Even now, he still loved her.
“No vampire Louis,” she said. “I left the bite marks to throw the investigation, make it look like the work of some pathetic psycopath. Not a vampire. Something much, much older. You already know what I am, I hacked your computer and read your notes. You were getting too close, I had no choice in this.”
“It was the eyes,” said McCready. “Their eyes didn’t look quite right, too empty. Instinct told me to look beyond the natural.You’re a Reaver, you eat the souls of your kills by sucking them out through the eyes while your victims are dying. Eyes are not the windows of the soul, they are the portals of the soul. When the body dies, the portals close. That’s why you use the thin blade in the kidney, so they won’t die too quickly.”
“Your instinct made you too dangerous. I knew you would figure me out because of it. I take no pleasure in this.” Bey smiled sadly. The rain drummed down, steady and black.McCready looked up at her.
“What was Matisse doing here?” he asked.Bey tilted her head to shake off the rain and smiled.
“Men are all too easy to manipulate,”she said. “A few well placed smiles during the interview, an apology for having to bother him with some routine questions, gaining his confidence through being sympathetic. All it took was a phone call telling him my fantasy of a chance meeting with an older gentleman in the park, hinting of good things to come. The fool took the bait and came running, as did you.”
“You’ll never get away with this,” he said. “You’ll make a mistake and the Forensics team will find it.”
“Of course I’ll get away with it,” she replied. “I replaced the firing pin in your automatic with a broken one. I’ll leave my spare .38 with your body, the same one I shot Matisse with.I’ll tell them I loaned you my gun. I’ll leave my knife with Matisse’s corpse and I’ll place your gun in your locker. I’ll cry at your funeral.The tears will be real, and everyone will be there to comfort Luce Bey.You won’t be terribly missed, you’re a dinosaur, old school, and they all wish you would retire.Nice and neat, Louis.” She bent down over Matisse and curled his fingers around the handle of her wicked blade.
“I should have seen it,” said McCready. “I should have trusted my instinct and seen it.”
Bey laughed again and this time it sounded like dry leaves stirring on a grave.
“Trust? It was trust that killed you,” she said. “Remember the first day we worked together? You told me we must earn each other’s trust to be partners. I earned your trust, and it killed you in the end. You came to love me and it blinded you.”
McCready was fading fast. He reached up with his left hand, pleading with his eyes. Bey reached out and took his hand softly, comforting the dying detective.
“Funny thing about trust,” said McCready. “Sometimes it comes too easy, sometimes never at all.” He suddenly clenched his hand tightly.Bey gasped in pain and tried to wrench her hand free, but could not.
“The only way to kill a Reaver is with fire,” said McCready. “Fire, and trust. You trusted my love for you, Luce.” He withdrew his right hand from within his trenchcoat, revealing a round metal cannister.There was a metallic click, and a metal handle flew off from the side of it, landing in the wet grass. McCready smiled up at Bey, who was still trying to free herself from his grasp.
“White Phosphorous,” said McCready,still smiling. “I trust we will burn together.”
Bey screamed and the grenade exploded. Two souls burned in the night with a blinding flash while the city was still hiding. The end ⚡ |
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Post by lostineternity99 on Sept 2, 2020 8:11:48 GMT -6
Until death they did trust oops; good writing.
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Post by QueenFoxy on Sept 2, 2020 8:44:22 GMT -6
The Dark Shadow Written by Vidal Martinez
To the sound of the air brakes something catches my eye.
“Mike, I see something,” I whisper.
“What?”
I point to the second floor. “Up there in the window.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I saw something.”
Mike turns the steering wheel and parks the fire truck on the edge of the road. He then looks up at the second floor window. “There’s too much smoke.”
I look again. “I swear I saw something.” I tighten the straps on my air pack, open the passenger door and jump off Engine 13.
“Fidel, wait for backup,” Mike says.
“There could be someone in there.” I walk toward the old abandoned home.
“Don’t go inside. It’s just you and me, remember?”
I look up at the abandoned house as black smoke covers the bright moon.
Mike steps off the fire truck. “Wait for Engine 7. They’ll be here soon.”
Ignoring Mike, I make it to the porch, take a deep breath, and slowly push open the front door. I walk into a cold, dark, smoky house. “Hello is anyone in here?” I then crouch, trying to breathe, moving cautiously, looking for any signs of fire, but the smoke is too thick. I panic, lose my sense of direction and bump into a staircase. “Is anyone up there?”
I cough, pushing smoke out of my lungs, about to run out the front door, when I hear heavy footsteps above on the second floor. “Hello!” I shout, hearing footsteps again. “I’m a firefighter, and I’m here to help!” There is silence. I then think of Julia and how proud she would be if I saved a life from a burning building. I surely would make the front page of the newspaper. I hear a thump, and with what courage I have left, I run up the stairs, stumble, and fall to the floor. I stand up, when I see a glimmering light coming from underneath a door at the end of a hallway. “Hello, it’s the fire department!”
Curious, I creep up to the door. As I push it open, I’m blinded by a small flickering light coming from the corner of the room. I walk in while the light starts to take shape. My mouth drops, I’m about to run away, when small flames burst out from the flickering light, leaping toward the walls, reaching the ceiling, and rolling over each other like dancing angels.
I step back, and slowly the flickering light disappears, leaving a dark shadow lurking in the corner of the room. I move away as the rolling flames from the ceiling start to fall on the floor. I reach for the exit, but several flames jump from the ceiling to the door, forcing me to the center of the room. I stumble, trying to catch my balance but hit the floor, twisting my ankle. The flames surround me in a ring of fire as I realize what the dark shadow is.
“Get away from me,” I mumble.
I hear a deep growl.
“Get away,” I insist.
As the room becomes engulfed in flames the dark shadow moves away from the corner of the room.
“What do you want?” I ask.
In a whispering voice the dark shadow replies, “You.”
I panic and force myself against the ring of fire. “No,” I cry.
“Then you will burn to death.”
“No.”
“I can save you.”
“Then save me,” I beg.
“Tell me that I can have your soul.”
I push up my shield from my helmet, staring into his eyes.
“What are you waiting for? Speak the words before you burn,” he insists.
I think of Julia, my sister, mother, and then I shout, “I don’t want to die.”
“Then say it before it is too late,” he whispers.
I’m about to utter the words when the floor starts to crack. The dark shadow moves frantically around the room. Suddenly the floor inside the ring of fire starts to cave in. I cover my head and fall through, landing on a table on the first floor. I roll over and crawl toward the exit. I look behind me as the dark shadow falls on the table, spreading fire everywhere.
“Get back here,” he demands.
“Screw no!”
As the dark shadow is about to grab me, I close my eyes, but instead of death, cool water splashes against my face. I look up, and it is Mike with the fire hose.
“Hurry up!” he yells, spraying water at me.
I crawl to the front door.
“Hurry,” he says.
I reach the door and Mike drops the fire hose, pulling me out of the house. We stumble to the street.
“Are you okay?” Mike asks.
“Did you see that?”
“What?”
I am hesitant to answer.
“I saw fire and smoke,” he says.
I grasp his bunker jacket and glare into his eyes.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“No.”
“What’s wrong?”
I’m about to tell him what I saw, but I know he won’t believe me. He will laugh, think I’m crazy, and make fun of me in front of the other firefighters because they already hate me.
“Well?” he insists. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
I let go of his jacket and fall to the curb. “There was nothing in there,” I mumble.
“I told you. I can’t wait to tell the guys that I saved your skinny ass.”
I pull my helmet off and unbutton by bunker jacket, thinking I almost gave my soul away.
“Fidel, you’re lucky you’re alive,” Mike says.
“I know.”
We both look up to the crackling sound of the burning abandoned house. Engine 7 arrives. The End ⚡
The End |
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Post by lostineternity99 on Sept 3, 2020 12:08:25 GMT -6
The others will never know ... unless this shadow figure returns.
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Post by QueenFoxy on Sept 3, 2020 13:28:30 GMT -6
Job of a Lifetime by L. Christopher Hennessy The Vietnamese government, crawling along as it was, had found me a permanent place to stay, which I was and will be forever grateful for. It was much like a modern bedsitter unit. It had an expanse to place a bed, a lounge, a desk, and television, which I never had reception for, unless it was a black screen with Viet music playing. The place had a seperate kitchen and bathroom, though. And it had electricity. I met the renevator – Tran – when I turned up the first time, with Jim and John. “ Ready. Ready soon, “ he said, smiling, covered in paint, a man in his late forties. “ You cook here. Big cook. “ He dabbed paint at the wall, then said, “ Here, man cook all time. Good for wife. Wife cook good, man cook better. Must cook better. No cook, no good. No cook, no wife, “ then he chuckled, like this was the local knowledge and a joke to him. We stopped at villages, the villagers coming out, speaking to us, telling us where to go, and where not to go, offering us their babies at times, freaking us out, always marvelling at the shininess of our bicycles, sunglasses, and watches, touching the fabric of our clothes. At one place, into our fourth day of cycling, at a village I still cannot pronounce, they held Jim and Johnette down, by the side of their toppled bikes, yelling, machetes high, willing to decapitate them both, then the villagers laughed and let us go. We wanted to go home then, but Jim was pissed, “ Screw these little cowards!
Screw them! “ Stay tuned for more. ⚡
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Post by lostineternity99 on Sept 4, 2020 7:54:17 GMT -6
This was a good place to end to make readers want to stay tuned  |
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Post by QueenFoxy on Sept 4, 2020 11:35:11 GMT -6
“ Shut up! “ Johnette shrieked. Then, they came back, and took us, shoved us to the ground again. Right there in the middle of nowhere. “ Be cool, “ I told my companions, “ Just be quiet for a moment. “ ( Please... ), I said in Vietnamese, especially to the older angry man with the machete above me, his dark face scrunched to kill, and me already having wet myself. ( We will ), from remembering all my uncle Tom's drunken Vietnamese. I was here to teach it, not speak it. The angry man with the machete yelled, “ We will? We what? “ I asked, ( Teach speak please? )( Can we please help you? ) ( Hear me? ) He kicked my belly, called me a smarty pants, slapped the back of my head, and snorted that english was easy. The Americans taught him that. Jim was next. He grabbed Jim by the fringe and put the machete to my friend's throat, yelling, “ You! What you do? “ John was pleading with the men roughing her up and Jim was seething with anger, his eyes making it clear. ( I can rip every tooth from your head and fistScrew your mouth for this, ) Jim growled in clear and profound Vietnamese. The machete man let him go and stepped back, understanding exactly what Jim meant. First, he smirked, then he chuckled, slapping one of his pals on the arm, then he laughed at Jim, “ No, you cant! I won't let you! “ Then, everyone was laughing at us. I was thinking they were going to keep us prisoner, rape Johnette, behead us, all the terrible things my uncle Tom told me about, but within in a few hours, they had fed us, given us water, returned our bicycles, and sent us on our way. We were glad to be away from them and Jim and John bickered momentarily, but they made up quickly, and held each other crying. They wanted to blame me for it, but couldn't, because I never invited them. They invited themselves. Two days later, we encountered an old compound that may have served as a military base during the war. The walls were huge and grey, four towers standing high, but vacant. The place seemed deserted, so we ventured inside to look around. We quickly learned that this place had been a prison. There were hundreds of cells with broken doors and rusty bars, an executioner's gallows rotting away. In the massive courtyard we heard a door open at the far end and a small old man was looking at us, just standing there, shaking his head in disappointment. “ Hello! “ John called. The man looked shocked and upset when she called out, then spoke to himself, turning around, and darted back into his room. “ Spritely old fart, “ Jim said. “ Probably has a huge cock, too. “ John giggled and punched his arm. We knocked on the old man's door and it opened slightly, unlocked. “ Hello? “ I quizzed. “ Are you there? Can we please come in? “ There was a breeze and the door opened a little more, so I gently pushed it all the way open. The old man was unravelling bundles of rope, cutting them into lengths with a large knife, mumbling to himself. We entered and he seemed oblivious to us. His room smelled of kerosene. “ Are you the caretaker? “ I asked. John was amazed at the silk tapestry on the wall. Jim checked in a vase and coughed, “ I think those are human ashes in there. “ I was trying to decipher what the old man was saying, but for the life of me, I couldn't grasp his dialect, wondering aloud, “ What do you think he's saying? “ “ Sounds familiar, “ Jim said. “ Some shit about three ropes. “ The old man kept cutting the ropes with the knife, nimble about it, but also quite distressed, like we had made him get out of bed to do something he didn't want to do, as if us being there was a chore, never once ceasing his mumbling that same phrase over and over. I turned to Jim and he had John's arm, backing out the door in shock, motioning for me to follow them, Jim nodding his head, wide eyed in panic. He walked calmly to his bicycle, telling me to follow, don't look back, but I did look back, and as we rode away, I could see the old man wailing silently at us, on his knees, rope in hand. When the compound was out of sight, Jim stopped pedaling, taking a breath. “ That old guy is Screwed, “ Jim said. “ I recognized what he was saying from this time I went to Thailand to visit a friend. Some prison guards were speaking to each other in a bar. That old man back there was talking Thai. He was wasn't talking about three ropes. Even for an old man, he is very dangerous. He was a prison executioner and he was saying he needed to hang three more, meaning us. That was a gutting knife he had. He was going to gut us and hang us, Eddie! “ In 1994, the war was long over, but for some... The End ⚡ |
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Post by lostineternity99 on Sept 5, 2020 9:37:51 GMT -6
Scary! I would not want to meet this old man  |
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Post by QueenFoxy on Sept 5, 2020 11:49:44 GMT -6
Message in a Rock by Stewart Mc Kay The crunch of gravel and the crash of the front door. "Go and show your Mum," he says. "Mum, mummy, look what we found at the beach!" I rest my book on the arm of the sofa and resign my peace to the scrap-heap. Tom bursts in, still wrapped in his blue overcoat and smelling of fresh air. In his hand is a rock, smoothed like a skimming stone but too big. I'm surprised he can hold it in one hand. "What is it, darling? Come on, take your coat off and tell me." I begin to pull at his buttons as he wriggles in excitement. "It was on the beach, near to where we always let Snowy chase the seagulls. I wasn't going to pick it up, but then I thought it looked quite strange and went back to see it. Isn't it pretty?" "What is it?" "It's something, but not a rock like I thought." I inch him from the jacket and unravel his scarf. "It looks like a rock, darling." He hasn't yet stood still and released his grip for me to get a decent look. "No it's not. It's not heavy enough. See!" Finally he forces it into my hand and, right enough, it's incredibly light. The colour and the shape remind me of a terracotta bathroom tile, one with irregular, smoothed edges. Is it made of polystyrene? A film prop? "You’re right, Tommy." Rolling it over in my hands I see that the other side has a multitude of faint scratches on the surface. "It's writing." Tom says, softly. "Mm-hmm." I can't make it out. It's English perhaps, or at least a Romanized language. I need a stronger light. "Ooops!" My coffee mug takes a tumble. The rock is discarded in the living room as I shoo Tom out to save the carpet. After dinner, with Mike slumped in front of some Bruce Willis rubbish and Tom in bed, I take the rest of a bottle of wine into my study. I clear some books and manuscripts to the corners of the desk and examine the 'rock' under a strong lamp. Its smoothness stands out immediately. There are no blemishes, no scratches. Amazing, I think, for something that's been lying on a pebble beach. Again I find the lightness hard to explain. For something that is apparently just a rock it somehow makes me think of an expensive piece of technology. It has a dull, matt finish like the cover of my laptop. Impulsively I bang it off the edge of my desk. A light rap and a slight groove in the wood; but no mark on the rock. I focus on the other side. It's undoubtedly writing, formed in a neat square, but even under a strong light I can't make it out. It's so faint. Staring at it is quite disconcerting: I feel like I've nearly made out a word when it seems to melt back in to the brown mass. I put it down and screw my eyes shut. A loud thump from above. Tom's room is directly above. Through the open door I can see Mike now asleep, head slumped forward. "Tom, are you OK?" I call up in to the darkness at the top of the stairs. "Yes mummy." "I heard a loud noise. What happened?" "I fell out of bed." "How on earth did you manage that? I thought you were sleeping." "I was, but then I woke up and wanted to look out the window, so I stood up” "What have I told you about standing on your bed? Are you hurt?" "Not really. I fell on to my back but it's not very sore." "Go back to sleep, darling. It's late." "I will." "Good night." I give up on the rock for the night. I return to the living room, switch off the TV in the midst of a gun battle, and resume my book. Mike snores loudly. Monday night after work I spend an hour or so turning the rock over in my hands. I trace my thumb carefully around the marks but feel no indentations on the surface. It reminds me of an ant crawling on my skin; so delicate that you feel nothing. Mike comes in and hovers over me for a few minutes, then leaves. Next day I’m due to go to my yoga class, but call Julia to cancel. I don’t feel up to it. Around ten I leave the rock in the study, still with pride of place on my desk, and finish off some washing-up. A noise draws me back. The squeak of a bare foot on the floor. Tom is hovering outside my study, weighing up whether or not to go in. “Tom!” He jumps and for a second looks dazed. “It’s very late, sweetheart.” “I wanted to see my rock.” A meek voice. “Why right now? Let’s wait until morning.” “Okay,” he agrees, eventually, after a lingering look in the door. I guide him slowly back up the stairs, my hand on his back. I take the rock to work. What with my husband’s ambivalence and Tom’s curiosity I’m sure it’s for the best. On my desk I arrange it casually: papers clumsily stacked on one side, coffee mug on the other. Jess, our secretary, goes by mid-morning with a half-second glance. “That a new iPad cover? Looks really sleek!” Very little work gets done before lunch. Time and time again I realize that I’m leaning over the rock trying vainly, always vainly, to see the writing. I turn it around but still can’t concentrate because I know that it’s there. I have to show Mary while we have lunch. “Your son found it? On the beach?” She’s testing its weight, one handed, with an expression of mild wonder on her face. “And where’s the writing?” I show her. She swallows a mouthful of sandwich. “Is that… Is that even writing?” “I really don’t know.” Mary sits up and pushes her empty plate to one side. “Take it to Gregory!” It’s an order. Gregory is her husband, a distinguished linguist-cum-archaeologist working elsewhere in the university. I had half-hoped Mary would suggest this; while the other half hoped that she would dismiss the rock as nothing. “Yes, take it to Gregory. He’s not busy this week, never bloody is, the sod. I’ll call him now.” She picks up the phone and it’s decided that I’ll go over straight after lunch. Mary smiles impishly. “I’ve piqued his interest!” The day is grey and wintry. It’s barely two, but feels as if the sun has already set. I don’t go over to the Holden Building very often. It holds the history, classics and literature departments and is a crumbling, red-brick square. The university houses its subjects quite appropriately, I think: science in a gleaming new ‘nerve-centre’, sports in a faded replica of a suburban leisure centre, arts in this. The department secretary is expecting me. “I’ll pass it on to him. He’s asked that you give him an hour or so.” I relinquish the rock, feeling more of a wrench than I wanted to. “It is interesting. Extremely interesting.” Gregory Huffman’s pokey office is actually a book-cave. On three sides of the room texts and tomes climb to the ceiling. In the dusty gloom I’m not sure if they don’t arch outwards at the top and meet in the middle of the roof, going against Newton and common sense. The door opened despite the books’ best efforts. I can see why: disparately shaped mounds form book-stalagmites around the floor. The only light in the room comes from a table in the centre. It shines on my rock, with grey-bearded Prof. Huffman hunched over it. “It’s English, Mrs Byron, but not as we know it,” he says. “To put it mildly.” In his hand he holds a magnifying glass. “English? Really?” “Mmm. Bit tricky at first to get your head round; but once you’re accustomed to reading it – no problem. Bit like Chaucer, really.” “So it’s old English?” The rock isn’t old. It can’t be. “No. Not unless it’s an ancient form of English that I’ve never come across.” The professor straightens up and looks at me for the first time. “And that’s highly unlikely.” I wait for him to continue. He looks like he wants to explain, but can’t. “No, it’s quite the opposite. Come around here, if you can negotiate the books, and look.” Doing as he asked, I work my way to his side and peer down into what must be the most powerful magnifier I have ever seen. The indistinct scratches and shapes I know so well suddenly leap out at me, defined and sharp. It is slightly shocking. A sharp pain lances through me, temple to temple. I grip the edge of the table but Prof. Huffman continues oblivious. “It’s basically a stripped down version of English, with all the superfluous vowels, consonants and even whole syllables removed. Extreme text-speak, if you like. ‘X’ instead of ‘ex’, no double consonants, many spelling irregularities… Look here: H O W P for what I think is ‘hope’. And there: B U R A D A S. It’s not English, you’d think, except, when reading it out phonetically one gets, I believe, ‘brothers.’ There seems to be no rules, really, more someone making something approximating English up as they go along. It’s primitive; but not old. It can’t be. Just look at this thing – it’s extremely sophisticated. Don’t you agree? It’s not just a rock, I’m sure.” The nausea has passed. “So what does it say?” I sense him hesitate. “It’s a plea. Simply put.” Again hesitation, a vibration in the air. “I’ve not translated it all, yet.” He’s lying. “But it seems to be reaching out to someone, a ‘brother’, for ‘hope’. Whoever carved it seems to be in distress.” I manage to peer unsteadily into the microscope again. “And these symbols at the bottom?” “They don’t take much deciphering. It’s Chinese. A date. 2112. Twenty one twelve.” A thick silence. He clears his throat. “I’d like to keep it here a little longer. A day or two. Run some dating tests.” “Sure. Of course.” I return to an empty house. Tom is watching cartoons. A low hiss from the kitchen tells me that Mike is making a stir-fry, the one and only thing he can cook. “Mike, I’m going straight to bed.” He turns to look around his shoulder. “You alright?” “My head’s splitting.” “I’ve made beef and black bean…” “Yeah, I’m sick. Sorry. Shove it in a tub.” I sleep for a few hours, waking up regularly to see a darker and darker shade of daylight seeping around the curtains. I awake with a sense of finality, sweaty and unrested, and realize that Mike is lying beside me. It is completely black, now. Slowly I rise and shuffle towards the bathroom. The air is stuffy, and an unnatural orange light tints the hall. My heart drops when I realize that it comes from my son’s room. I realise I can hear a soft murmur. Tom is lying on his side, facing away from the door. The orange light lies beside him. I creep closer but he doesn’t stir. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but I know what he’s holding before I can see it. His face, so pale and smooth and young, gleams and bathes in the unnatural light. His tiny thumbs lovingly caress the rock as he holds it. The words and markings are picked out by a brilliant whiteness glowing and shifting within. “Tom…” I begin. “Mummy, I found my rock again.” He doesn’t divert a single drop of concentration from the rock to me. I can’t move. “Well, no, actually mummy,” he says ever so softly. “My rock found me.” The End ⚡ |
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Post by lostineternity99 on Sept 6, 2020 9:13:50 GMT -6
Cool story with the perfect ending  |
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Post by QueenFoxy on Sept 6, 2020 10:50:35 GMT -6
YES!!  |
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Post by QueenFoxy on Sept 6, 2020 11:13:27 GMT -6
Off of Parks and Druding by Philip Roberts He got a call from Patrick.
“Hey, Alan, want to come over and hang out for a bit?”
He hadn't spoken to Patrick in three years.
“I know it's been awhile, but I figured hey, we aren't too far from each other.”
There hadn't been any reason they stopped hanging out, just the transition from high school to college getting in the way, Patrick moving on to a four year while Alan chose to go to a community college, and then to load trunks in a warehouse, though he wouldn't really say he chose that one.
“I'm renting a place, an old house, great deal given the amount of space in this thing. It's off of Parks and Druding.”
Not as if he ever disliked Patrick, and the place was pretty close.
“I've got a twenty-four pack, and there's no way I'll get through it alone.”
Wasn't a hard decision. Alan said he'd come over.
****
The building was more than just old. It looked all but run down, practically condemned, and Alan might've thought he'd been given the wrong address if he hadn't seen Patrick's thick, freckled face and red hair in the window, hand waving for Alan to come up the sidewalk to the place.
The lawn was a patchwork of scraggly grass and healthy enough weeds. He even saw a few yellowed newspapers and decaying phone books by the front door. As he stepped up to the door he could see the building itself looked sturdy, just ugly from lack of paint. The door opened smoothly into a sparse living room.
Stepping inside Alan realized sparse was being too generous. The whole home looked completely empty. There wasn't a single piece of furniture to be found, his footsteps echoing on the wood flooring as he glanced over at the window where Patrick had been less than a minute before. He tilted his head around the wall to see a grandfather clock, pretty new, or at least well kept, ticking off each second. Next to the clock he saw a small wooden table with an old style rotary phone on it, the plastic black, but just like the clock, the phone itself looked brand new.
“Patrick?” he called out, heard his voice echo in the empty building, his eyes crawling over the peach color walls, the staircase leading up to a second floor, hallway off the living room going back into a kitchen, and a door along the wall beside him opening into a dark closet. Place did look like it had quite a bit of space, especially for one person, and given the cramped studio Alan had been calling home for the past year, he briefly wondered what kind of rent a house like this one would go for.
“Yo, Patrick, you here?”
“In the kitchen,” Patrick called out.
“Didn't tell me you just moved in,” Alan said as he walked through the place with the sound of the ticking clock following him, a picture starting to form, to make more sense given the situation. Maybe something had come up in Patrick’s life, something bad enough to make him move out right away, so he thought of Alan, and figured he could get help moving, pay him off in beer. As a whole Alan figured there were worse ways to spend his Saturday afternoon.
As he walked through the hall towards the kitchen he wiped the sweat from his forehead, realizing just how hot the building was. Wasn't exactly cool outside, but the place felt sweltering, certainly no AC going.
“Think we can open up some windows?” Alan asked, stepped into the empty kitchen, no Patrick, and no beer, to be found. The kitchen didn't even have a fridge where beer might be, nor did it have a window for him to open, the room just as empty as the rest of the house, but also, Alan thought, there wasn't a door leading anywhere. The place was a dead end. He frowned and looked around to find where Patrick could've gone.
“Is this some kind of a joke?” Alan shouted at the house. He waited. There weren't even any footsteps, just the faint ticking of the clock in the living room, muffled by the walls. He looked around the room again, opening up the cabinets, the drawers, trying to find a tape recorder, some sound system to explain Patrick's voice, show it was all some odd joke at Alan's expense, though he couldn't fathom why Patrick would care enough to play one on him.
It didn't matter if he couldn't find anything. “Screw this,” Alan said to himself, wiped more sweat from his face, his t-shirt sticking to his body. He marched back down the hall to the living room, the sound of the clock getting louder as he approached, sounding a bit duller to him now, but the sound of the clock struck him as less important than the missing window.
Frozen in the living room, Alan realized it wasn't just the window missing, but the door leading out as well. The walls were so smooth Alan had to wonder if there had ever been a door to begin with, and had he not found himself somehow in the house, he might've thought there hadn't been. Alan ran over to the wall, face dripping more as the heat seemed to swell within the building, the clock still thumping away behind him. His fingers ran over the paint, tried to find where the door had been, but as he pressed his fingers to the wall he realized they were warm and wet. He expected his fingers to come away with paint on them, but whatever covered them was a clear liquid, made his fingers itch, almost burn a bit.
Alan turned back to the room, throat drying up, and fingers feeling hotter with each second. His eyes ran up the stairs to the second floor, but looking closer, Alan realized there wasn't a second floor, the stairs ending in a low ceiling, something he swore hadn't been there before, but then, a window and door had been there as well.
“Phone,” he said, saw it still on the table beside the ticking clock. Alan really didn't have any hopes to be let down when the phone offered him silence. His cell phone couldn't get a signal. He found himself laughing more than cringing as he set it down, a giggle shaking his body, the situation offering him nothing to cling to, nothing to give him an ounce of understanding as to what was happening around him. Alan walked out into the middle of the empty room and looked around at the walls glistening more with liquid, the stuff running down the walls now, pooling on the wood floor around his feet. He could see waves of heat in the building, his hair stuck wetly to his forehead, lungs filling with acrid air that made them burn inside him.
The walls were changing colors, turning pink behind the liquid pouring out of them. Alan hurried back over to where the front door had been, his feet splashing in the stuff filling the room. He brought up his sneaker and slammed it into the wall, tried to break through, and saw white mush smear across the wall from his shoe.
Alan lifted the sneaker enough to see the rubber soles melting off. He wiped the sweat from his eyes, touched his finger against the wall, had to pull it away as pain flared up, the skin on the tip a painful red as his flesh hissed from the substance all around him.
“There's just no way,” Alan whispered to himself. The clock had gotten louder. Alan spun towards it, but rather than the clock, he saw the room itself shrinking, the walls mostly pink now, pulsing in rhythm with the clock, except it sounded far more like the beat of a heart than an actual clock anymore.
At that thought Alan's eyes rose to the ceiling, towards where a staircase had been, but now he just saw a hole in the flesh, and looking up, he saw pulsing shapes, what looked like organs beating to the thump of the heart of whatever he stood within.
His feet burned within his shoes as the material was eaten away. The fumes within the small room seared away his skin, burned his eyes. He understood that this wasn't a home but a living creature, even if Alan couldn't fathom how it was possible.
Pain arched up his legs. Alan tried to claw into the wall of the stomach, felt the thing shudder as his fingers tore into the flesh. His hands burned from the stomach acid filling up the place, digesting him further with each second. Alan couldn’t break free, and didn't expect his efforts to really succeed, but he still dug into that flesh even as his own fingers were melted away to the bone. He clawed until he saw blood pour from the scratch, his legs giving out on him, dropping him to his knees into the liquid fire, but Alan managed at least a small smile as he saw that blood pouring out, felt the shuddering creature beneath his dissolving hands.
It was a small victory, but it was still his.
****
Two months later the house on the corner of Parks and Druding stood empty except for a clock along the wall and a small table with a phone on it. The house was silent aside from the ticking clock, until another sound broke through, one of flesh coming into life as a face formed in the wall. The painted wall pulled forward, eyes sinking into a skull, hair sprouting, and upper body halfway out when the process finally stopped.
There Alan hung, created from the waist up, hanging limply down at first above the phone until the body jerked awake with a sharp inhale. His head rose, eyes looking vacantly around the room, lost in thought, until the lips parted and he said to the house, “Brian Hollen, lives ten miles away.” He then nodded to himself before reaching down to pick up the phone.
On the fourth ring Brian answered. “Hey, Alan, where the hell have you been? People have been looking all over for you.”
“I moved,” Alan said.
“Really? You didn't tell your sister?”
“Something came up and I didn't have much of a choice. Hey, you want to come over? I wanted to talk to you about a few things. You know where Parks and Druding is? Not far from the Central elementary school?”
“Yeah, I know the area.”
“It's the house on the corner. Can't recall the number off the top of my head, but it's hard to miss, two story place. I'll leave the front door open.”
“Sure, I'll be right over.”
“Great. See you soon.”
Alan hung up the phone. As his body pulled back into the wall a door formed to his left and cracked itself open. ⚡ |
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Post by lostineternity99 on Sept 7, 2020 7:36:08 GMT -6
Spoooky!
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Post by QueenFoxy on Sept 7, 2020 7:59:58 GMT -6
It is spooky for sure.
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Post by QueenFoxy on Sept 7, 2020 8:13:56 GMT -6
Political Puppet by Steven D. Jackson “He’s on in five minutes Jason. It’s only around the corner. He’s holding it in the little square outside Wrap-It-Up. You know? The burrito place? We could be there and back in ten –“
“It’s not that I don’t know where it is Josie. I’ve eaten there every day since they opened.”
“Well then what’s the problem?”
Jason sighed, finally looking away from his screen. It was only him and Josie left in the office, the rest of their co-workers had gone to see Lombard’s speech. Like the fools they were. He glanced around the empty office, at the little screens humming away to themselves and the air conditioning whirring overhead.
“I just don’t like the guy ok?” he said, finally meeting Josie’s wide and, ordinarily, friendly eyes. What he saw there was not at all friendly. It was that fervent, slightly mad look he’d come to associate with Adrian Lombard’s admirers. Josie stared at him, as though not really seeing him. As though struck dumb by his expression of dissent. She looked at him like she couldn’t decide if he was dangerous or just stupid.
“He’s not a politician, Josie. He just wants power.”
She stared at him a moment, and then her expression softened.
“That’s why people like him, Jason,’ she said, her tone like that of a parent explaining to a beloved but impossibly stupid child. “He’s not like usual politicians. He was a children’s entertainer, and a brilliant scientist. He’s a breath of fresh air.”
Jason leaned forward in his wheeled office chair, propping his elbows on the arms.
“But he’s not! He made a lot of money selling bogus predictions to people on national TV and calling himself a brilliant scientist. He claims to be able to predict impossible things, and people go along with it because it’s him! His brand of prediction and questionable proof is not science.”
“The things he predicts come true,” Josie said serenely, with the calm confidence of the converted, “you can’t deny that.”
“Only because people want to believe it so much they make it happen! That house price rise he predicted? People were so desperate to buy after that the prices went up because of the demand!”
“What about the explosion at the factory? Are you saying he made that happen? Or the high school massacre?”
Jason’s conviction died a little at the sight of her blazing eyes. The answer was an emphatic yes. He fervently believed that this smoke-and-mirrors charlatan’s maniac followers had set the fire that destroyed the factory in Northampton, and he had no doubt that the troubled teenager who’d murdered his classmates wouldn’t have done so without Lombard’s ridiculous predictions. But he wasn’t about to say so. Adrian Lombard had captured the heart of the country with his sweeping, frighteningly accurate predictions he attributed to a simple application of logic, human psychology and a scientific method he had yet to disclose. The current election was a joke. He and his collection of fanatics had no policies, no principles, not a single useful thing to offer the electorate. And yet they were standing in every constituency, propagating the idea that Lombard’s supposedly infallible prediction science could replace politics.
Josie turned and stomped away, slamming the door behind her. Reluctantly, Jason followed, planning to stop by the Wrap-It-Up shop on the way.
Five minutes later he stood in the crowd, feeling a chill that neither his chicken wrap nor the brilliant sunshine could thaw. Adrian Lombard stood on a box, an actual soap box, smiling and talking as he always did: like a man with the answers to questions other people don’t think to ask, but just as humble as aw-shucks and fiddle-de-dee. His white hair was slicked back, his pinstriped suit like something out of the 1800s. Jason couldn’t decide if the old man made his blood boil or freeze in his veins. By his side was a large box with a clear plastic screen with hunched little figures hanging by strings inside. Jason felt an involuntary shudder as he recognised Lombard’s puppets, the little marionettes he used as a children’s TV presenter fifty years ago, brought along to enhance the impression of a trustworthy old man.
“When you’ve got science,’ Lombard was saying, his grin wide and pleasing, ‘what else do you need? We can predict the problems we face. We can predict the issues we’ll be facing in two years, ten years, a hundred years! What do we need politicians for? What’s the point of them when we know what’s coming and how to deal with it? And when we reach a problem,’ he paused dramatically, his grin widening even more, ‘we’ll science it until it’s a solution!”
The crowd laughed and clapped like this was the most divine revelation.
We’ll science it. We. All of us. Will “science” it. Roughly translated as “this is far beyond your understanding, but join me in adopting the wry in-jokes of the scientific community as though it isn’t.” Flattering the vanity of the masses by equating admiration of a thing with mastery of it.
Call me master, the undertone said, and I will let you feel masterful.
“No!” Jason shouted, a split second before realising he had opened his mouth. The crowd fell silent, eyes turned to him. Angry eyes. Bewildered eyes. Some merely suspicious. Josie, a few paces away, glared in fury.
“Aha! A dissenting voice!” cried Lombard in a tone that suggested this was the most delightful thing to have ever happened to him. He hoped from foot to foot on his box as though he couldn’t contain his pleasure. “Tell me young man, what is it you don’t agree with?”
Jason felt the hostility under the words, saw the baleful stare in the eyes above the rictus grin. He felt his heart pumping, adrenaline lending him strength.
“You can’t just say science will fix everything. The only science we’ve heard from you is armchair psychology and amateur economics!”
“Well, my predictions have all come true,” Lombard said with a wince and a shrug, as though not wanting to make such a devastating point in the spirit of good sportsmanship. Adrian’s heart beat faster. The people on either side of him were deathly quiet.
“Your predictions are just manipulations. The house price rise –“
“Ah but what about my real predictions, Jason?” said the grinning man on the box. Jason’s eyes flashed angrily to Josie. Had she told the man his name? Her smile suggested she had.
Or perhaps that she hadn’t. Stay tuned for more. ⚡ |
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Post by lostineternity99 on Sept 10, 2020 15:48:47 GMT -6
This is an intriguing start and I am staying tuned.
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Post by QueenFoxy on Sept 10, 2020 17:30:07 GMT -6
“What about the fortunes I have told on my shows,” Lombard continued, his tone becoming soft, silky. Threatening. His smile seemed to grow even wider, revealing a mouth that suddenly seemed crowded with far too many teeth, misshapen somehow. Wrong. “What fortune should I tell you?” “Nothing,” Jason said, not liking the tone of fear creeping into his voice, “your predictions are either lies or tricks. You’re just a carnival magician like any other.” Lombard barked a short laugh, stepping off his box and running a hand over his puppet case. “Not like any other. Which you may discover soon enough.” “I’ve had enough of this.” Jason turned to leave, more frightened than he cared to admit. “What if you could know anything, Jason?” Lombard called after him. “Shall I tell you next week’s lottery numbers? Which horse will come in first?” He laughed; a harsh, unpleasant sound. His voice became a snarl. “Shall I tell you the name of your firstborn child, or of the drunk driver that kills him?” Jason turned back, his limbs feeling light with the adrenaline pumping through him. The crowd seemed bigger than before, their expressions watchful. Predatory. Lombard stepped forward “Should I tell you which of these people will be the one to tear your head from your shoulders?” “You can’t scare me into voting for you, you maniac!” Jason half-shouted, hardly believing the madness he was hearing. He turned in a circle, trying to see a single pair of sane eyes in the crowd. “What’s wrong with you people? Why are you listening to this lunacy?” No one replied. Lombard watched. “You’re no better than his damned puppets!” “Oh no, Jason,” Lombard chuckled, gesturing to his silent, glaring fans, “they’re far more than them. No less damned though, perhaps.” Jason turned and ran, almost tripping over himself to get back to his office. “You’re the puppet Jason!” Lombard’s voice shrieked after him, “do you hear me? You’re the puppet!” A few streets away Jason’s ankle landed badly as he leapt off the pavement to cross the road. He let out a yelp and half-hopped to a bench on the other side. His thoughts were a panicked jumble, and recollections of the bizarre exchange kept flashing across his mind. Tear your head from your shoulders…firstborn child killed by a drunk driver… This was far beyond a fringe political movement gaining traction in the mainstream. This was a full-on cult of personality, complete with a leader whose followers didn’t question even the most outrageous things he said. Jason looked around, taking in the calm normality around him. The street was almost empty except for a few people. Two children running around their parents’ feet. A woman swinging her red bag as she swaggered along. He began to feel foolish for running from Lombard’s crowd and the man’s ridiculous but horribly effective attempt at scaring him. They were probably having a good laugh at him by now. He was probably trending on Twitter. A Youtube sensation. He winced as he remembered the frightening exchange. He’d be portrayed as a frightened idiot, mistrustful of science. They might even call him a religious zealot. He sighed, looking down at his feet. At least his ankle had stopped hurting by now. It just felt numb. He knocked it against the bench and was surprised by the sound. Like wood on wood. A woman swaggered by in front of him, swinging a red bag. Jason looked up, frowning. Hadn’t she just walked by? And beyond, weren’t those the same kids running around their parents’ feet? He peered more closely at them, at their strangely choppy, jerky movements. Their hands held up above their heads with fingers drooping downward. Their feet leaving the floor entirely without bending their segmented knees… Jason lurched to his feet, terror crashing over him like an icy black wave. He staggered and swayed, his nerveless ankle seeming to be rooted to the spot, his knees bending and wobbling alarmingly. His arms hung limply by his sides. You’re the puppet Jason! You’re the puppet! No. No this wasn’t happening. Couldn’t be happening. Jason swayed and bobbed, his head swivelling clumsily around to catch the glassy-eyed stare of the woman with the red bag as she gambolled past him again in a rough approximation of a walking motion. Her skin had a gleam, a sheen he hadn’t noticed before. Like polished wood. Her smile was fixed and red, her hair stringy and yellow. The red bag swung gaily from a hand with painted-on fingers. But the eyes. They stared at him with a terrified pleading. An unspoken desperation. Then she was past, loping along with her disturbing gait, and Jason’s head wouldn’t turn to follow her. His neck was stiff, his limbs were heavy, moving with jerks and twitches he could not control. He tried to scream, but he had no breath. Jason felt himself pulled up and down by his head, his knees rising and falling as he was turned in a circle. A glassy screen came into view, roughly twice his height. Through it he could see giants. Laughing giants clapping and jeering, the sounds heavily muffled as though he were under water. He tried to sob, to cry, to shout for help, but no sound escaped him. His hand raised to wave drunkenly at the crowd as he bobbed up and down on his disjointed knees. Josie, in the crowd, clapped hardest of all. The End ⚡ |
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Post by lostineternity99 on Sept 11, 2020 11:00:23 GMT -6
Wow, not a fun way to go.
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Post by QueenFoxy on Sept 11, 2020 11:12:47 GMT -6
That story took a real twist, Rick.
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See you all more tomorrow. Happy Friday/weekend everyone 
See you all more tomorrow. Happy Friday/weekend everyone