May 22, 2013
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No. 383
Will checked his phone for messages. There were none. The
clock said 8:53. He made up his mind and leaned forward to speak to the limo
driver. “She’s not coming. I can still make it in time if we leave now.”
The driver tipped his cap and started the engine. “Perhaps she
wasn’t right for you, anyway,” he offered from the front seat.
“Maybe,” said Will. “Maybe you’re right.”
When the car began to move, Will didn’t look back.
May 18, 2013
Around Gray Publishes Presents - Lisa Dugaro - The Tragical History of Charlie Porter
Elevators don’t have to simply go up and down.
It was Charlie Porter’s dream to liberate the elevator from the meaninglessness of simple up and down movement. He’d just been fired from his elevator-repair job when he came up with the plan. Perhaps he’d felt a kinship with the machine’s scripted responses and powerlessness of direction, or maybe he was just cracking up. That night, he spent a good chunk of his savings on a liquidated antique lift.
A year later, Porter was living on ramen and A & W ketchup packets, but he’d managed to establish a track for his lift that allowed it to move diagonally and right and left as well as up and down.
In another six months, homeless and scrounging for paper to further his plans, he’d done away with the track. The antique lift was long gone, replaced by a theoretical lift which existed only on used napkins and discarded business cards. Of course he was collecting other things, too. A board here, some electrical circuitry there. Porter was building a new elevator from scratch.
In the end, it wasn’t much to look at. The cage was completed with duct tape spun around a tarp, several feel of mis-matched vinyl fencing, and an assortment of beams and bars. The floor was a mosaic of carpet samples and there was no roof. But porter knew his invention would work because of his “secret weapon”--the one item he’d actually stolen.
Knowing he needed an electrical board to program the lift, Charlie Porter did something he’d never thought he’d do: he broke into City University and stole one. Or, at least, the nearest approximation. It was perfect--the panel already had readouts and tuning switches designated “Location” and “Time”.
It was New Year’s Eve for everyone else when Porter decided to take his maiden voyage. He was particularly oblivious to the goings-on around him as he was making the final adjustments to his machine. Even when well-meaning passers-by dropped change into his tool box, he was more annoyed than grateful.
Finally the street quieted down and Charlie Porter was alone with his obsession. He calibrated the elevator to move both up and left, intending to land atop the building on one side of his alley. His directions to the machine were precise: the panel required latitude and longitude as well as planet and solar system information. Chalking it up to interference from whatever the university students had planned it for, Porter dutifully entered all the specifics. The “Time” setting, though, he left on the default 0.0.
Charlie Porter entered his lift and pressed his jury-rigged “Close Door” button. Then he and his machine disappeared.
Thirteen and a half billion years ago, the big bang occurred. If anyone had actually been there, though, they would have described it as “a big bang and also a kinda human scream.”
May 17, 2013
Around Gray Publishes Presents - Sammy Vickstein
“Jane, I need the ring back.”
Jane’s imagination raced to make sense of Gerald‘s words. She ran her thumb over the ring in question, she had not yet gotten used to the token of their only now two day long engagement.
“Oh, no, it’s not like… let me explain,” Gerald said, moving over to the couch where Jane sat.
She made room for him, decided to hear him out. She owed him, no, she owed herself that much.
Gerald began:
Apparently Mrs. Schwarz, the lady who sold Gerald the ring, had made some sorta mistake. The ring Jane now wore should not have been sold, not to Gerald at least. Something about magic powers. The Germans wanted it, the Russians wanted it, the Jewish rapper Dr. Ira wanted it, a guy named Hal Jordan wanted it. Mrs. Schwarz had called Gerald earlier that day and tried to explain, realized it all sounded ridiculous and asked Gerald to stop by the jewelry store with the ring and she would try to explain in person.
Jane was pissed, wished Gerald respected her enough to be honest about whatever it was that was going on. She was just about to tell him so too- when a beam of white light shot out of the ring and went through their front window before slicing in half a German thug who had been sneaking up their lawn.
Jane’s imagination raced to make sense of Gerald‘s words. She ran her thumb over the ring in question, she had not yet gotten used to the token of their only now two day long engagement.
“Oh, no, it’s not like… let me explain,” Gerald said, moving over to the couch where Jane sat.
She made room for him, decided to hear him out. She owed him, no, she owed herself that much.
Gerald began:
Apparently Mrs. Schwarz, the lady who sold Gerald the ring, had made some sorta mistake. The ring Jane now wore should not have been sold, not to Gerald at least. Something about magic powers. The Germans wanted it, the Russians wanted it, the Jewish rapper Dr. Ira wanted it, a guy named Hal Jordan wanted it. Mrs. Schwarz had called Gerald earlier that day and tried to explain, realized it all sounded ridiculous and asked Gerald to stop by the jewelry store with the ring and she would try to explain in person.
Jane was pissed, wished Gerald respected her enough to be honest about whatever it was that was going on. She was just about to tell him so too- when a beam of white light shot out of the ring and went through their front window before slicing in half a German thug who had been sneaking up their lawn.
May 16, 2013
No. 382
“We yawn so that the little aliens who live in our brains
can get some fresh air,” Jocelyn told her little brother, Caleb, after repeated
questioning.
“That’s not true,” he replied.
“Really? Because you’re the one who asked me, so you’re the
one who doesn’t know.”
“Maybe you’re right,” he admitted, then returned to playing
with his truck.
“She’s on to us,” said the alien commander. “Prepare to
evacuate!”
“Hey, what was that?” said Caleb.
“What was what?” said his sister, annoyed at being interrupted
again.
“Something just flew out of your ear.”
She waved nonchalantly. “Probably just a bug. Stop bothering
me.”
“I bet it was the aliens.”
“Are you kidding me? I just made that up.”
May 15, 2013
No. 381
AJ didn’t like the look of the rash on his right hand. It
had started small, a few days earlier, but had now grown to cover everything
but his thumb.
“You should probably get that checked out,” his roommate, Shawn
Raymond, told him, as AJ left for work.
“Yeah, I think so. I’m busy today, but I’ll try to fit it
in,” said AJ on his way out the door. He flexed his fingers experimentally. The
dull itch had turned into a worrying burning sensation.
As he drove in to the office, the pain began to intensify.
When he arrived, it was only to throw his bag on his desk and let his boss know
he was going to the doctor.
AJ never made it that far. He pulled his car to the side of
the road and tucked himself into the foetal position. He’d never experienced
such agony, and the inflammation had reached his elbow. He used his opposite
arm to claw at the wound.
He was horrified to see the flesh flake away, disintegrating
into a sandy texture. He closed his eyes in misery. Once rid of the tissue,
though, the pain slacked.
When he opened his eyes, he regarded his limb curiously. The
skin and muscle that he expected to see were gone. Underneath was shiny pistons
and cables. He opened and closed his hand with a faint whine of gears
propelling the metal skeleton.
“What is this?” he gasped at the sight. Then, worryingly,
his left little finger began to itch.
AJ threw the car in drive and sped home, hoping desperately
that Shawn was gone for the day.
He was in luck. The apartment was empty when he came through
the door with a sweater over his arm. He hurried to his room and, after leaving
a message for Shawn that he’d be away on business, closed the door and didn’t
leave for a week.
When he emerged, he was reduced to a technological framework,
completely machine.
“Hey,” he greeted Shawn, who didn’t turn around.
“What’s up?” Shawn asked.
“I’m a robot, apparently,” replied AJ.
Shawn kept his focus on the TV. “Yup. We all knew that,” he
said without a reaction.
AJ was floored by the news. “What do you mean, ‘you knew’?
And who is ‘we’?”
"Almost everyone. It was pretty obvious."
"Almost everyone. It was pretty obvious."
May 14, 2013
No. 380
Jack moved his chair to follow the umbrella’s shadow. He’d
been watching people walk past the patio and hadn’t noticed how far the sun had
moved. Reaching for his glass, he was annoyed to find that the ice had melted.
He shook the condensation off of his hand and looked back toward the shop. He
wondered if he should buy another drink, or live with the warm one he already
had.
He didn’t see Amy until she sat down beside him.
“Hi,” she said. “How’s it going?”
“Yeah, fine,” said Jack, startled by her sudden appearance. “I’m
just killing time.”
Amy worked at a restaurant across the street, and knew who
Jack was waiting for.
“When’s Kelly done?” Amy asked.
“Ah, should be soon,” Jack replied. “It was supposed to be
twenty minutes ago, but I think something came up.” He’d told Amy about his
feelings for Kelly the week before. Now Amy made sure to ask him about her
every day.
“I see,” said Amy. She leaned over and stole Jack’s cup. “Does
she know you’re here for her?” she asked with the straw in her mouth.
“I think so,” said Jack. “I said something yesterday.”
Amy smiled. “What exactly did you say, yesterday?”
Jack slid back further into the shadow. “I said we should do
something, sometime.”
“I’m going in to see if she’s still here,” said Amy.
Jack didn’t say anything. Amy stood up and walked around the
table to Jack’s side.
“Get up,” she told him, grabbing his arm, and lifting. “You’re
coming, too.”
“But—,” Jack protested.
Amy was having none of it. She hustled him forward toward
the door. “Move! At the very least, you can buy your sister something for her
parched throat on this ridiculously hot day.”
“Fine, whatever,” Jack mumbled. “But it’s only going to be a
small since you just finished mine.”
Amy burst into the lobby with Jack in tow. “Kelly?” she
shouted across the counter. “Are you still here? My brother has something to
tell you.”
Kelly was nowhere to be seen. A man behind the till spoke
up.
“Kelly’s gone home,” he told Jack and Amy.
“Who are you?” asked Amy. “I’m here all the time and I’ve
never seen you before.”
“I’m new,” said the man. “This is my first shift at this
store. I’m Mike.”
“And so, four years ago, that’s how Mike and my sister met.
I’m going to take credit for it.” Jack finished his speech. He raised his
glass. “To the bride and groom.”
He sat down when the applause was over.
“Hey,” Kelly whispered in his ear. “You never told me that
story before. If I remember correctly, it wasn’t until a month after Mike
started that you asked me out.”
May 11, 2013
No. 379
The Tower dominated the landscape. It had been built when
the forest had been a flat plain. Now, the trees had grown full and tall, and
it still dwarfed its leafy neighbors.
Princess Alana could see the Tower looming above her as she
chopped her way through the underbrush. She tried not to look up very much.
Although it was her destination, the Tower frightened her.
But there was a prince at the top, and he needed her to rescue
him. She had to press on.
May 10, 2013
No. 378 - No. 368 Part 2
Part 1: http://aroundgray.blogspot.ca/2013/04/no-368.html
Emma swung and missed the ball completely.
“Yup,” Wayne noted.
“Can you tell me what I did wrong, there?” she asked, spinning
to face him.
Her direct eagerness surprised Wayne. He wasn’t ready with a
reply.
“Almost everything,” he finally managed, with a laugh.
Then he tried to remember the last time he’d laughed. It
wasn’t recently.
He showed her how to line up properly and had her hit a few
more times. She was a quick learner, for sure.
By the end of the lesson, he had yet to get a good read on
her, though. He was usually able to size somebody up quickly, but Emma seemed
to prove the exception to his rule. Short of asking her directly, he’d tried
everything he could to figure her out.
“Should I come back at the same time tomorrow?” she asked as
she put her clubs back in her bag.
“Whatever works best for you,” Wayne told her. It wasn’t
like he was going to be busy.
“Alright,” she said happily. “Same, then. Sounds good. See
you tomorrow, Wayne.”
Then she left.
Wayne stood still for a moment. Then he walked back inside
to the front desk. His wife met him at the counter.
“How was she?” his wife asked him.
“Good,” said Wayne. “For a beginner,” he added.
His wife looked at the clock on the wall. “You were out
there for a while.”
Wayne shrugged. “First lesson.”
“Yes,” his wife agreed. “We could use the business.”
“Right,” said Wayne.
“Is she coming back?”
“Tomorrow.”
There was an awkward silence.
“You know, you sent her out to me,” he told his wife
abruptly.
“I most certainly did not,” she said with her arms crossed.
May 09, 2013
No. 377 - The Return of Fangy
Part 1 - http://aroundgray.blogspot.ca/2012/06/no-132.html
Part 2 - http://aroundgray.blogspot.ca/2012/07/no-164-fangy-part-2.html
Part 2 - http://aroundgray.blogspot.ca/2012/07/no-164-fangy-part-2.html
After a particularly violent attack on a mailman, Fangy had
been sent to live at the zoo. But Nicholas had been given a free pass, so they
still saw each other regularly.
Despite the frequent visits, however, Nicholas was unhappy
with the arrangement. It was his opinion that Fangy had been unfairly blamed
for the mauling. The neighbors had recently bought a new dog, a vicious one, by
all accounts, and it had been seen running free on the same day of the alleged
incident.
Because of this suspicion, Nicholas spent most of his time
at the zoo looking for ways to break Fangy out of his exhibit.
Fangy had spent his time in captivity trying alternately to
burrow his way out, or to sneak through the open doors at feeding time. His
constant activity and inquisitive-yet-deadly nature made him popular with zoo
visitors, and with his keeper, Mr. Marsh.
“Hello, Mr. Marsh,” said Nicholas as he walked by the “Staff
Only” entrance to the velociraptor pit.
“Hi, Nick,” Mr. Marsh said, waving at the boy. “Fangy’s been
in a little bit of trouble since you came the other day.”
Nicholas gritted his teeth. He had a plan to bust Fangy out
that evening, but when Fangy got in trouble, that usually meant he wasn’t
allowed in the outside part of his pen for a few days. “What did he do this
time?” he asked casually, trying not to show his nervousness.
“Clawed a tourist who got too close to the edge while taking
pictures. Tore him up real good,” said Mr. Marsh sternly. Then he winked at
Nicholas. “But the tourist had it coming.”
That’s why Nicholas liked Mr. Marsh. He always took Fangy’s
side.
“Is he locked up?” asked Nicholas.
“Well,” said Mr. Marsh. “We had to for a little while, until
picture-guy left the park. But I couldn’t leave Fangy all cooped up like that all
night, so I unlocked the gate before I left.” Mr. Marsh paused for a moment. “Come
to think of it, though, I haven’t seen him out today.”
Nicholas thought the man was acting strangely, but didn’t
want to draw attention to it, lest Mr. Marsh wonder why Nicholas seemed jumpy,
too.
“We should see if he’s OK,” said Nicholas.
Mr. Marsh agreed, and they pair went together through the maintenance
area to Fangy’s stall. To their surprise, the dinosaur wasn’t in his den. The
straw on the floor in one corner had been disturbed, and sunlight shone through
a large hole in the wall.
“Uh oh,” said Mr. Marsh loudly while he looked around. “It
looks like he chewed his way out.” He pulled out a walkie-talkie and began
speaking very quickly. “Code red, velociraptor escape. Code red, repeat, Fangy
has escaped.”
Then he knelt down next to Nicholas and whispered. “Sorry, I
had to make sure it seems real. Of course Fangy can’t chew through concrete,
but they don’t know that. You should be able to find him down by the lake.”
“Thanks Mr. Marsh,” said Nicholas happily. The keeper’s plan
had been much simpler than his. And now Fangy was free.
“A dinosaur should be with his boy,” said Mr. Marsh. “But be
careful . If he eats anybody else, he’ll have to come straight back here.” He laughed.
“Anybody that we like, that is.”
May 08, 2013
No. 376
“You ate it? I can’t
believe it!”
“Yeah, well. Not on purpose, obviously.”
“How did it taste?”
“Crunchy.”
“Crunchy’s not a flavor!”
“Do you really want to know what a bug tastes like?”
May 07, 2013
No. 375 - No. 372 Part 2B
Part 1: http://aroundgray.blogspot.ca/2013/05/no-372.html
Part 2: http://aroundgray.blogspot.ca/2013/05/no-373-no-372-part-2.html
Part 2: http://aroundgray.blogspot.ca/2013/05/no-373-no-372-part-2.html
A year went by.
The men at Station X had resigned themselves to the fact
that the light would never illuminate.
Then, on a stormy winter morning, it did.
Bradshaw leapt to hit the button, throwing his chair aside.
Mitchell intercepted him halfway there. “Don’t,” he said,
looking Bradshaw in the eyes.
“I have to,” said Bradshaw. “We can go home.” He strained
toward his target.
Mitchell held him fast, and repeated his plea. “Please don’t.”
Bradshaw’s struggles subsided. “The light is on,” he
protested in vain.
He reached for the button again.
Mitchell drew his pistol and pointed it at Bradshaw. “You
can’t.”
“What’s wrong with you? We’ll be here forever!” Bradshaw was
becoming frantic. “Why?”
Mitchell kept the weapon trained on his companion. “Because
I know what the button is for.”
The answer was too much for Bradshaw. He lunged forward, ignoring
the gun.
A single shot from inside the hut echoed across the
windswept landscape.
Mitchell sat alone inside the shelter. He did not press the
button.
May 06, 2013
No. 374
“The boy tried to attack me,” the wolf told the excited pack
that had gathered around him. “But I narrowly escaped.”
The other s “oooed” and “ahhed” appropriately.
The problem was, the wolf was lying. He’d seen the human at
a distance, but at no point during his sheep-hunting was he ever threatened in
the least.
“What are you going to do next time?” asked one of the other
wolves.
“Oh, he won’t know what’s coming, that’s for sure,” the wolf
boasted confidently. “Now that I’ve seen him, I know his weaknesses. I’ll probably eat him.”
The rest of the pack was keen to see this and so, the next
day, they all met on the hill opposite the sheep paddock.
“You show that boy who’s boss,” they told the wolf, and
pointed him in the direction of the shepherd.
The wolf crept slowly toward the child, while at the same
time trying frantically to work out just how he was going to make the kill.
“Go get him!” the pack urged him on when he looked back.
And so he moved closer and closer. But he made a grave
mistake and allowed his tail to brush against a dry bush with a rattling sound.
The shepherd turned immediately and spotted the wolf.
“That’s too bad,” said the pack leader when the rest were
safe in their lair, gunshot still echoing in their ears. “He had such
potential. I suppose that’s what happens to the wolf who cries boy.”
May 05, 2013
No. 373 - No. 372 Part 2A
Part 1: http://aroundgray.blogspot.ca/2013/05/no-372.html
The years went by.
In the Capital, an archivist found reference to a “Station X”.
He brought the discovery to his superior’s attention.
“Sir, there’s no record that these men were ever relieved.”
The commander examined the documents. “Send a team.”
The transport landed just short of the windswept outpost.
The archivist and two soldiers disembarked and approached the entrance.
A single old man was there to greet them. “You finally came,”
he whispered.
“Where’s the other one?” asked the archivist.
The old man was silent. He pointed at a rough pile of rocks.
“I see. In any case, you can stand down. We’ll take you back
home.”
The man from Station X’s eyes welled up. “This is my home.”
“As you wish,” said the archivist. He motioned for the
others to follow him back to the transport.
“Wait,” said the man. “I have a question.”
“Yes?”
“What was the button for?”
The archivist shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s
classified. Just be grateful you never had to push it.”
The old man nodded once, and then returned to his post.
May 04, 2013
No. 372
Station X was on the far side of the middle of nowhere.
Visitors never came, and the two men assigned to guard it had long since
exhausted every topic of casual conversation. There was nothing to do at
Station X but wait.
Indeed, the men had never been told what they were waiting
for. On one console of the barren shack that comprised the entire base was a
large red light. If the light ever turned on, the men were to press the yellow
button on the opposite wall. Under threat of treason, and the firing squad, they
were not allowed to leave before completing the task.
“They’ve forgotten us,” said one man.
“Maybe,” said the other.
Time passed slowly.
May 03, 2013
No. 371
Initially, Conner didn’t notice anything different. He
brushed his teeth, like usual. He ate his cereal, like usual. He fed his fish,
like usual.
It wasn’t until he left his house to catch the bus that the
first hairs stood up on the back of his neck. Nothing seemed out of place, but
he didn’t recognize anybody in the street.
Shaking off the strange feeling, he hustled to the bus stop.
The 8:55 was always on time and he only had a few minutes to get there.
“Good morning,” he said to the only person waiting in line.
“Hi,” she said, dismissively.
Conner didn’t pick up on the clue, and pressed the
conversation. “I can’t believe it’s already May, can you?”
The woman looked at him oddly. “Yeah,” she said. “Tomorrow.”
He returned the look. “What do you mean, ‘tomorrow’?” he
asked.
“You said it was May,” she told him. “It’s not May.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s May.” Now her tone was making Conner feel
defensive.
“Whatever,” she said with a shrug.
They both spent the next minute ignoring each other, waiting
for the bus to arrive.
Conner couldn’t leave the subject alone, though. “What day
do you think it is?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Really? It’s April 31st.”
“That’s not even a day,” Conner laughed. “I thought I was
going crazy for a moment there.”
Before he could explain the many reasons that the woman was
wrong, his watch beeped. He looked at it. It read “9:00”.
Then he noticed something else. It also said “04 31”.
He made a closer inspection of his surroundings. He felt his
stomach drop as he realized they were all very familiar but, also, quite
different from the ones he knew.
He knew, in that moment, that he was very far from home.
April 30, 2013
No. 370
She was perfect, in the videos.
Every night before Nick went to sleep, he would stop at his
computer and watch. He was in love with her.
He didn’t know who she was, exactly, just that she would
occasionally post brief updates about her life on her blog. Every time she
added a song, or said “goodnight”, he wished it was about him.
Even though there was a link on the page that said “Contact”,
he was too scared to click it. What if she didn’t feel the same way?
Once, she didn’t update for three weeks. Nick feared that
she was gone forever. It turned out that she’d been on vacation. He was
relieved when she returned.
The break spurred him to make a move.
He set up his camera and stared into it. He was about to
speak when he realized that it wasn’t recording yet. Fumbling with the buttons,
he turned it on.
“Hi, my name is Nick,” he said nervously. “If you’re
watching—I don’t think you are, but— if you are— I want to say hello, I guess.”
It wasn’t much, but it was something.
Of course, she never saw his introduction. If she had, she
would have thought nothing of it. She wouldn’t have known it was for her.
Nick understood, later on, the impossibilities.
April 29, 2013
No. 369
The Noise had descended on the town four days earlier.
Oddly, no one could agree on a description. Some called it a “buzz” while others
insisted that it sounded more like a whistle. A faction dedicated to keeping
the peace between the two camps labeled it a “hum”.
Tensions ran high, as people struggled to cope with the
constant din. A meeting in the community hall was called.
“When will it end?” somebody shouted from the crowd.
Silas Barry, the mayor, had no answer.
“How far does it extend?” was another question. “Can we
escape?”
A chorus of voices rose, all asking variations on the same
thing.
Mayor Barry held up his hand to quiet the rabble. “We don’t
know,” he said.
The audience began to turn on him.
“Wait,” he said. “We tried to find out. I sent Oscar Landry to
find out about that. He made it as far as Clarksville and he could still hear
it. But when he asked the folks out there when the Noise had reached their
town, they looked at him like he was funny in the head, and asked him ‘what
noise?’.”
“What’s that mean?” Ellen Fairfield demanded from the front
row.
“It means,” said Barry, with a worried breath. “That we
might be the only ones who can hear it. And we may have to wait it out.”
There was a loud burst of shattering glass from the back of
the room, then screams. Someone had broken a window in frustration.
The riot began almost immediately.
“Please,” Barry implored. “Patience!”
But nobody was listening to him anymore. All they heard was
the Noise.
April 28, 2013
No. 368
Wayne drove the ball downrange. He immediately felt
something wrong with his swing and, without looking up, scooped another ball
onto his mat to try again. This time his performance met his standards and he tracked
the shot, watching it arc up into the distance and then drop near the target
placard he’d been aiming for. Allowing himself half of a celebratory exhalation,
he lined up his next drive.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you,” said somebody from behind him.
Wayne turned, annoyed, to face the discourteous speaker. It
was a woman.
“But could you show me how to do that?” she continued.
Wayne evaluated her quickly. She was young and pretty, and
her clothes and clubs suggested that she’d spent a good deal of money to be
properly outfitted. Her nervous bearing, however, indicated that, although she
might look the part, experience was severely lacking. He decided to forgive her
error in etiquette.
“What’s your name?” he asked, before answering her question.
“Emma Conner,” she told him. “I’d like to learn,” she said. “The
lady in the clubhouse told me that you occasionally taught lessons.”
“Did she, now?” said Wayne. “The lady behind the counter
told you that?”
Emma nodded. She tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.
Wayne readjusted his hat. “She’s my wife,” he said.
“So, could you teach me?” Emma pressed. “I’m a quick
learner.”
“I suppose,” Wayne agreed. “How about you set up in the box
beside me, here, and try to hit a couple. I can take a look and see what we’re
working with.”
She hurried to do so, while Wayne looked back towards the
clubhouse. It was true that he’d once given lessons, but the last time had been
ten years before. He wondered what his wife was up to with this suggestion.
“Ok, I’m ready,” said Emma excitedly, addressing the ball
with an entirely incorrect stance.
Wayne returned his attention to her. “Go for it.”
April 27, 2013
No. 367
Every day at summer camp,
after craft time, each boy was allowed to choose two pieces of candy from the
snack window’s selection.
On Wednesday night, three days into his two-week stay, Josh
Hill outlined his plan to his astounded cabin-mates.
“We rob the joint,” he told them. “Hit it fast and hard.”
Eyes widened in the flashlight-glow of the secret
conference. “That’s brilliant,” said somebody in a top-bunk.
The rest of the boys agreed wholeheartedly.
Josh laid out the details of the heist. “Tomorrow, right
after lunch, we’ll need a distraction. Two of you will head out on the lake in
a canoe. At exactly 1:05, you’ll start shouting for help. I’ll have swiped the
keys and four of us will go in through the back door while the counsellors are
occupied with the rescue.”
“Sounds awesome,” said Robby Parker. “But there are twelve
of us. What are the others going to do?”
“I’m not finished,” Josh assured him. “We’ll have three on
standby, in case the canoe caper is resolved too quickly. One of them will have
to fall into poison ivy. That’s nine. The other three are essential to the
getaway. After the breach-team escapes, the alibi crew goes to work. You’ll
plant a portion of the loot in the dogwood cabin, incriminating our rivals and
throwing the fuzz off the scent.”
“It’s perfect,” Robby whispered. A chorus of satisfied
murmurs from around the room affirmed his appraisal.
“Are there any questions?” Josh asked.
The conspirators were silent.
“Good,” said Josh. “Now get some sleep. We’ve got a busy day
ahead. This time tomorrow night, we’ll be eating like kings.”
April 26, 2013
No. 366
“The Australian
Outback?” asked Betty Porter.
“No,” said her husband, Richard
“Why not?” Betty pressed.
Richard put down his book and looked up at her. “Snakes.”
“Alright,” said Betty. “Where do you want to go?”
Richard considered the question. “Antarctica, maybe?”
Betty shook her head. “Too cold.”
“Mexico?” Richard tried again.
“We’ve already been there.”
“Yeah, but we liked it.”
“That’s true. But we should go someplace new.”
There was an awkward silence. By now, the vacation
discussion had been lingering on for most of the evening. Both parties were
getting annoyed with the other.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Betty. “Why don’t we just stay
here?” she suggested facetiously.
Richard leaned forward at the suggestion, his interest
piqued.
Betty’s eyes widened.
“Road trip?” they both asked at the same time.
April 25, 2013
No. 365
Kate Shaw finished the story. “The end,” she said.
“Can you tell us another one, Mom?” her two boys asked as she
tucked them into bed. “Ranger must have plenty more adventures.”
“Not until tomorrow,” Kate told them. She gave them a kiss. “Goodnight.”
She turned out the lights and closed the door.
Making sure she wasn't followed, she tiptoed down to the basement and typed a code on a disguised
keypad.
The wall swung open, revealing a hidden room.
Kate stepped inside and pulled on her mask. Then Ranger
snuck out of the house to fight crime.
April 24, 2013
No. 364
“Did you see that?” asked Officer Kelly Dale as she and her
partner sped down the dark forest highway.
Brandon Irwin, who was driving, slowed the cruiser and
turned on the spotlight. He turned around and retraced their path back down the
road.
“What did you see?” he asked, peering intently into the
night.
“Something was moving along the shoulder. It looked human,
but it was kind of off, somehow.”
“You haven’t been reading the tourist brochures again, have
you?” Irwin asked her. The forest around them was on the edge of an enormous
park, and the locals liked to play up Bigfoot sightings.
Dale ignored him, and continued to scan the edge of the
woods.
“Look!” she pointed. “There.”
Irwin slammed on the brakes. He couldn’t believe what was
loping across the road in the beam of the headlights.
The creature was tall, and had a shaggy brown coat. It
turned toward the two police officers and raised its arms.
Dale leapt out her side and braced herself against the open
door. “Freeze!” she shouted at the strange animal.
Irwin followed her lead, but whispered through the car at
her. “I don’t think it will speak English.”
“I do,” said the beast. It lifted off its head to reveal a teenage
boy.
The police officers looked at each other.
“Step to the front of the car,” Irwin ordered.
The boy did as he was told, leaving the costume’s mask in
the middle of the street.
Once the officers searched him and found nothing illegal,
they began to question him.
“My name’s Mike Harmon. I live around here,” he told them.
“What are you doing so far from town?” Dale asked him.
“And why are you wearing that suit?” Irwin added.
“You’re not going to believe me,” Harmon told them.
“Try us,” said Dale.
“I heard there was a party on the other side of the hill. I
wanted to see if I could get in.”
“A party?” said Irwin. “Who has a party out here?”
Harmon looked around suspiciously before he leaned in to
whisper his answer. “It’s not a regular party.”
Irwin stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe
we’ll have to check it out,” he concluded.
“You’re going to want this,” Harmon said, indicating his
furry suit.
A short time later, Dale had changed into the Bigfoot getup.
“How come I have to wear this again?” she asked Irwin.
“Because we flipped, and you lost.”
“Sweet,” she said. She was not amused. “Tell me where you
think this party is,” she told Harmon.
“Like I said,” said the boy. “Just over this hill,” he
pointed to his left. “There’s a valley on the far side. It should be close.”
Dale grabbed her radio and a flashlight and headed off into
the trees. Struggling against the cumbersome suit, she made her way up the rise
to where Harmon had indicated. Upon reaching the top, she dropped to her belly
and inched ahead the last few feet.
“Irwin,” his radio crackled.
“Dale?” he answered.
“You’re going to want to see this,” she told him.
Irwin turned to Harmon and hustled the boy into the back
seat. “Stay here,” he said, slamming the door shut. Then he rushed up the hill to assist his
partner.
She saw him coming and waved her arm for him to stay low, as
well.
He crawled up beside her.
“What is it?” he asked, slightly winded from the climb.
“Look,” she pointed.
There, in a clearing in the small valley below, was the strangest
gathering of beings Irwin could have imagined.
“Is that a—?” he asked, trailing off.
Dale nodded. “Yup.”
“And a—?”
“Uh huh,” said Dale.
“This has got to go in the brochures,” Irwin gasped.
Back at the car, Dale was on the radio back to base, while
Irwin stood over a smug Harmon.
“That’s right,” Dale told her dispatcher. “A sasquatch, a
fish-man, some kind of Loch-Nessy-looking thing, a giant bird, and what I’m
guessing is a chupacabra.”
There was a garbled question from the other end.
“Yes, that’s right,” Dale clarified. “Real ones.”
April 23, 2013
No. 363
Stanley and Livingstone were alligators kept by the Rowland’s
Circus. The Circus’ time, however, had come to an end, and all assets were to
be sold at auction at the end of the week.
Henry Morton, the reptile’s caretaker, was not about to see
his charges removed from him and sold to the highest bidder. He had four days
to save his cold-blooded companions.
His first attempt failed. Planning to lure the beasts from
their pool with large pieces of meat, Morton had not taken into account that
they’d been fed recently, and would have no interest in expending energy
chasing surplus food.
His second attempt, to drive them away by beating them with
a stick, was similarly unsuccessful. The animals’ thick scales prevented them
from feeling their keeper’s prods. They sat still, exactly where they were.
Livingstone, the frisky one, did, however, attempt a lazy
bite at the stick.
On the third day, Morton tried to move the entire tank onto
a flatbed truck and abscond with the creatures, but a roving security guard
intercepted him before he could get close enough with the crane, and Morton was
lucky to explain away his presence as “routine maintenance”.
By the time the auction started, Morton was almost inconsolable
at the thought of never seeing Stanley and Livingstone again. But he was
surprised to discover that, while the bidding had started beyond his financial
means, it had soon fallen to a more reasonable level.
In the end, Morton simply bought the Livingstone and Stanley.
As it turned out, nobody else was keen to own two thirteen-foot, potential
killing machines.
Morton eventually set himself up on a small piece of swampy land
in his hometown and charged the local children an inflated price to watch the
alligators bask in the sun and do absolutely nothing exciting.
April 22, 2013
No. 362
Lillian Lockhart had lived a completely normal life before
the day she removed the envelope from the post-box without looking at the
address. The letter was home and opened before Lillian realized that she was
not the intended recipient. Still, now that the deed was done, she read it.
The letter was written to a Mr. Henry Black, and detailed
the outfitting of an expedition to “confirm or capture the Beast of Broad Rock”.
Lillian’s heart pumped hard in her chest. Every child knew
of the Beast. It was said to live in a cave at the end of an icy maze, deep
within the mountains. Many had sought it out. Few had returned.
The endeavor was to begin on June 12th. It seemed
that Black was to be the leader of the team, having been hired by the
organizers for his vast experience tracking wild game.
Lillian looked out her window at the drab wall of the
apartment next-door. The harrowing journey described in the letter triggered
her imagination. In her mind she was the one coming over the top of the ridge,
pointing down at the creature below. She was jolted back to reality when she
realized that she was out of breath.
She glanced at the now-crushed paper clutched in her hand
and began to form a daring plan.
She put the crumpled sheet on her desk, smoothing it to read
the sender’s information. She copied the address to the outside of a fresh
envelope from her drawer. Then, after only the briefest hesitation, she placed
a fresh page beside stolen correspondence and began to write.
To whom
it may concern,
Mr. Black has taken ill, and will
be unable to perform the duties outlined in your letter of April 22.
In his
place, he recommends the hiring of his associate, Ms. Lillian Lockhart.
April 20, 2013
No. 361
Jefferson Jackson had prowled the desert canyons for almost
twenty seasons. Ostensibly looking for gold, Jackson would have settled on a mother
lode of almost any marketable mineral but had, so far, proven unsuccessful.
He made his discovery three days before the rains were meant
to begin.
A weathered human skeleton lay propped up on the rocks
blocking the mouth of a narrow crevasse. Jackson dismounted his horse and moved
closer to the remains for a better look. He searched the body for any hint of
identification, but there was none. It was only when Jackson shifted the bones
that he noticed something strange.
The skeleton’s left arm fell from the moldering clothes that
the corpse still wore. The bones were silver. Jackson examined them and
determined that they were not merely the color, but solid metal.
“How does that happen?” he said, his first words spoken
aloud in almost a month. He looked up at the shadowy gap in the rocks that the
dead man guarded. “Was it in there?” he asked the grinning skull.
Jackson approached the fissure, stepping gingerly around the
deceased. There was something scratched into the rock.
“CURSEI”
It appeared that the letter “d” had been started but not
completed. Jackson ignored the warning and peered into the dark hole. There was
a faint glow from within the crevasse. The slot was too narrow to enter and
Jackson worked his body around so that he could reach toward the tantalizing shimmer.
Many years later, another man rode through the same valley.
He saw two skeletons. There was a word gouged into the wall behind them.
“CURSED”
April 19, 2013
No. 360
The light gunship, Flower,
was drifting in the Uncharted Zone. Its crew was gathered in the mess hall for
an emergency meeting.
“We haven’t seen any trace of pirates in two weeks. We’re
lost,” said the First Officer.
“Space is a big place,” replied Captain Marlow calmly.
“With our sensors, we should have had them already,”
countered Charles Conrad, the technology officer. “We know they hit New Sardis.
We know they fled this way. They should have left a trail but there’s nothing.”
The Captain turned to a crewmember in the corner of the
room. “Roberts, what’s our status for supplies?”
Marla Roberts looked up from her datapad. “We’ve got another
week of fuel and possibly a week and a half of food, if we stretch it.”
“You see,” said the Captain to the crew. “We’ve got enough
to search another three days. If we haven’t found our villains by then, we’ll
turn for home.”
The crew grumbled about cutting close to the wire, but to
return to base empty-handed was almost equally unappealing. The bounty would
only be paid upon capture.
Though the compromise was distasteful, the vote was
unanimous. The Flower would continue on and then limp back to port on fumes.
Roberts spent an uneasy night, awake in her bunk. The figures
she’d given the Captain were true, but there was a critical piece of
information she’d left out, so as not to frighten the others. Any fuel the
Flower spent in combat would have to be made up from the captured pirates’
stores. She had taken a gamble that the pirates would have fuel on board to be
captured.
Currently, the Flower had enough to explore and to return
home, but not to fight.
April 18, 2013
No. 359
They told her that if
she dug a hole straight down, she’d hit China.
Miranda turned aside the first shovelful of backyard dirt, even
though her calculations showed that she’d actually end up somewhere south of
Madagascar, in the middle of the ocean.
She wasn’t terribly worried about that, though. She didn’t
seriously think she’d make it all the way through. She did, however, hope to
strike gold sometime before spring break ended.
April 17, 2013
No. 358
At the end of a
narrow, dirt lane, far into the woods, lived a man few people had met. Whispers
in the surrounding villages were that he had powers, that he was not like
normal men.
Makua did nothing to silence these rumors. They kept the curious at a respectful
distance. And they were true, for the most part. Although he had no powers, Makua
wasn’t like regular men. Indeed, it would be more fitting to call him a
creature.
His ship had crashed on earth in 1947 in a dusty,
distasteful place the humans called Roswell. He’d escaped the wreckage before
the army had a chance to descend on his ship. They took it away, stranding Makua
without the means to leave the planet, or communicate with his people.
And so he waited. Perhaps they would return for him. He
waited for many years, and they did not come.
But, one day, somebody else did. A boy, too young to
understand the warnings about the strange settlement, knocked on the door of Makua’s
home. “I’m lost,” the boy called through the door. “Can you help me?”
Makua considered ignoring the child.
“Please,” said the boy. “I’m all by myself.”
Makua fought his instincts and opened the door. “So am I,”
he told the boy.
The boy saw Makua. His eyes widened, but he stood his
ground. “Are you a monster?” he asked.
Makua turned his mouth into what he knew the humans
considered to be a friendly gesture. “No,” he said. “I’m just different from
you.” He knelt down beside his scared visitor. “What village do you live in? I
know the way to most of them.”
“I live in Sea View,” said the boy.
“That’s very far away,” said Makua. “Beyond the forest. How
did you get here?”
“I’m not sure,” the boy shrugged.
Makua was quiet to collect his thoughts. The child clearly
needed help, but helping would place Makua in considerable danger of being
discovered. He looked at the walls of the place he’d spent the last half
century, then at the small boy on his doorstep.
Perhaps it was time to take a chance.
“Give me a moment to collect my things,” he told the boy. “And
then I’ll take you home.”
The alien and the boy left down the trail a while later,
their mismatched shadows stretching out in front of them.
April 16, 2013
No. 357
Douglas bought the bird on a whim.
He’d seen the sign staked in a yard on his way home from
work. The deal was quickly negotiated and now Douglas was the proud owner of a
small green parrot named Willy.
They eyed each other suspiciously on the ride to Douglas’
house. When they arrived, Douglas set Willy’s cage on the couch and opened the
door. Immediately, Willy flew to the top of the highest bookshelf in the room.
“Bad man,” the bird squawked.
“Hey, I didn’t know you could talk, too,” said Douglas,
neglecting the bird’s message. “Hello! Can you say ‘Doug’?”
“Bad man,” repeated the perturbed bird. “45-7-18-55. Bad
man.”
“What are those numbers?” Douglas asked, speaking gently and
trying to coax Willy down with a piece of bread.
“47-7-18-55,” said Willy. “47-7-18-55. 1920 Lakeside Drive.”
“Is that where you lived?” Douglas didn’t remember the exact
address of the seller’s house.
Willy wasn’t interested in having a conversation. He kept
repeating the three phrases.
Douglas, who was now becoming frustrated, turned to his
computer to solve the riddle. He carefully typed in the address. “That’s the
bank!” he said, surprised. “What do you know about the bank?” he asked the
uncooperative bird.
“Bad man,” was the answer.
“Well, I’m obviously not going to find out from you,”
Douglas told him. He found the bank’s phone number and called.
“Hi, my name’s Douglas Stone. I have a strange question for
you,” he told the person who picked up. “Do you know anything about a green
parrot, or the numbers 47-7-18-55?”
There was silence on the other end. “Hello?” Douglas asked
again.
“Sir,” said the person at the bank. “Please hold for a
moment.”
“Sure thing,” said Douglas. “Quiet down,” he told Willy, who
had not stopped chattering during the call.
“Sir,” the line crackled with the return of the banker. “What’s
your address?”
Douglas gave it, and was put on hold again immediately
after.
He was still on hold when he saw the first police car
outside his front window. He dropped the phone and looked at Willy.
“Bad man,” said Willy.
Several police officers stormed into the house and pinned
Douglas to the floor.
“What’s happening?” he said, now pathetically outnumbered.
“Don’t play games with us,” said one of the officers. “Just
tell us how you knew the alarm code for the bank that got robbed yesterday,”
Her tone was very serious.
“No,” Douglas protested. “Not me, the bird! I just bought
him an hour ago! He knows the code.”
Willy cocked his feathery head and looked at the officer out
of one beady eye. “Bad man,” he said for what had to be the hundredth time.
“Bird says you’re a bad man,” said the officer to Douglas.
“Just go check out the place where I got him. It’s on
Lakeshore, just down from the bank.”
The officer looked at her partner. “Are we buying this?”
Her partner shrugged. “It’s his word against a parrot’s. We
should probably at least take a look.”
“Ok,” said the first officer. “But you’re coming with us,
just in case,” she warned Douglas.
Two days later, the case had been cleared. Douglas was
released when the true criminals were picked up at a hotel the next town over.
They told the police that they’d had no idea that the parrot that they’d stolen
during a prior home invasion had been capable of speech.
Willy, who turned out to be a girl named Sunny, was returned
to her original owners.
Douglas went on three dates with the officer who’d arrested
him, but the relationship didn’t last. From then on, he did research online
before considering a new pet.
April 15, 2013
No. 356
“Ha!” said Lynne as she jabbed her unsuspecting friend in
the ribs with her fingers. “Poke!”
“Ow!” said Tony, giving her a dirty look. “Stop it!”
She laughed and, ignoring his protest, tried again.
This time he had warning, and twisted out of the way. “So,
you’re just going to keep doing that, then? You’re like a child.” He
exaggerated an eye roll.
“Don’t worry. This’ll never get old,” she assured him.
“Great,” he said sarcastically. “Awesome.” But he was
smiling, too.
No. 355
Ralph Conner woke up
with waves lapping at his feet. Upon feeling the cold water, his eyes snapped
open and he rolled up to a seated position.
Another wave soaked him, this time reaching his knees. Conner
scrambled back from the water’s edge, stopping halfway up the beach to consider
the bizarre situation.
The last thing he could remember was leaving the pub after
his 23rd birthday party. The pub was nowhere near the ocean. He
rubbed his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts, but the gesture was of no
use. Still having no idea where he was, or how he got here, he stood up for a
better look at his surroundings.
The sandy beach stretched away, out of sight, on both sides.
The angle at which is disappeared suggested that Conner was on an island. A
thick band of jungle blocked the way further inland. If he jumped, he could
just make out a tiny white speck on the horizon, possibly a boat. He began to
collect as much wood as he could, with the intention of making a signal fire.
A man in the lab coat passed the binoculars to a woman
wearing a black jumpsuit. “Subject 299 is adapting well to the scenario,” he
remarked.
The woman steadied herself against the rocking motion of the
boat and trained the binoculars on Conner. She watched as he tried desperately
to light the soggy wood using a technique she knew wouldn’t work. “He appears
to be more resourceful than the others,” she replied. “I’d wager he lasts a
week, no more.”
There was an uncomfortably cold efficiency in her voice. The
man in the lab coat had no doubt that she was correct.
April 12, 2013
Around Gray Publishes Mini-Stories, No. 301 - No. 350, Feb 4, 2013 - April 8, 2013
No. 301
February 4, 2013
When his phone rang, Lee looked down from the TV to check
the caller display. It was his friend, Zach. Lee pressed the button to ignore
the call. “Always during the middle of ‘World’s Most Venomous Animals’,” he
said as he threw the phone to the other side of the couch.
Moments later, the phone began to buzz again. Lee grabbed it
and answered abruptly.
“What?” he snapped at Zach.
The voice on the other end was shrill and panicked. “It’s
chewing on my leg!” was the desperate cry for help.
Lee didn’t know how to react. “What’s that?”
Zach’s reply was louder. “It’s eating me!”
The plea was accompanied by a smashing noise. There was
definitely a struggle going on.
“Call the police!” said Lee excitedly. “Why are you calling
me? 911!”
Before Zach could respond, the line went dead. Lee followed
his own advice and dialed for help.
“911. What’s your emergency?” said the operator.
“My friend is being attacked by something. Maybe an animal?
I don’t know,” Lee told her all in one breath.
“Can you see the animal now?” asked the operator.
Lee felt helpless, and he was worried about Zach. “No. My
friend is at his house. He called me and hung up.” Lee relayed the address and
what few details he knew about Zach’s situation while he threw on his shoes and
started his car. The operator stayed on the phone with him until he was within
sight of Zach’s home.
Arriving at the scene just after the firefighters, Lee
watched as they gathered their gear and ran into the house. He could hear faint
screams from inside.
One of the firefighters came back out almost immediately. He
was shouting at someone behind the truck that Lee couldn’t see. “All the rope!
We’re going to need all of it!”
“And the axes,” he added, ominously.
No. 302
February 5, 2013
“It’s a wide world out there, and we’re all stuck here,”
said the promoter. “But what if we could change that? What if we could
experience far-away things, simply and cheaply?”
She paused, letting the audience’s expectation build.
At the height of anticipation, she spoke again. “What if we
could teleport?” she asked as pulled back a large curtain to reveal a
polished-metal tube. “My handsome assistant will demonstrate,” she said,
welcoming the man to the stage.
The assistant waved his hand over a sensor and the tube
split open. He climbed inside while the promoter closed the hatch behind him.
A screen slid down from the ceiling, then lit up with a
camera feed. In the center of the shot was a tube identical to the
demonstration model. “Live, from Hong Kong,” the promoter explained. “No
tricks, just the technology at work.”
The audience watched in awe as the assistant got out of the
tube on the screen. He smiled at the camera, then picked it up and panned it
toward the window. The audience gasped and applauded. It worked.
The promoter knocked on the tube beside her. The door opened
up, and the same man stepped out. The audience was perplexed. Now there were
two? The promoter began to explain. “Our technology allows you to be in two, or
three, or a hundred, places at once. You’ll never have to wonder what’s going
on out there in the world again. Every duplicate passes their memories back to
the original.”
A hand rose in the audience. The promoter jumped at the
chance to connect.
“Yes?” she asked with a smile.
The woman from the audience had to shout to be heard above
the excitement in the hall. “Is the process dangerous? What would happen if the
doubles decided they wanted to—,” she hesitated, searching for the right
phrase. “Come home?” she finished.
The promoter laughed. “Not a problem. Our system has built
in fail-safes. Each duplicate can only operate within a limited range of the
transporter that it came out of. We’ve made sure to space them far enough apart
from one another that no duplicates will ever come into contact with an
original, or another duplicate.”
“Now, let me show you some of the other amazing features of
the technology,” the promoter said, bringing her presentation back on track.
“I have another question,” said another voice from the back.
“Are you absolutely sure about your answer?”
The promoter’s face went white. She dropped her microphone
and took a panicked step back.
Her duplicate was standing in the doorway.
No. 303
February 6, 2013
The man washed ashore with the high tide. He crawled a short
ways out of the water before he collapsed.
It was dark when he woke up. He coughed, spraying sand from
his mouth. Rolling to a seated position, he tried to see where he was. In the
moonlight, he could only make out a line of palm trees beyond the shoreline,
bordering the edge of a black jungle.
The man was alarmed to realize that he couldn’t remember how
he’d arrived at this place, or even his own name. A wave of terror gripped
him. He instinctively curled into a ball
and worked his way into the sand.
Morning took a very long time to arrive.
Dawn brought a new visitor. A large lizard, about the size
of a cat, had evidently sensed the castaway and had made its way down the beach
toward the man. The reptile was about to take an exploratory bite of the sleeping
human when a rock hit it in the head, ricocheting off the scavenger, and
striking the man in the chest, as well.
The lizard scurried away, and the man woke up with a jolt.
He squinted in the bright sunshine. There was another person on the beach. It
took a moment for the man’s eyes to focus.
“You’re safe now,” said the naked woman who knelt down
beside him. “I’m Wendy,” she told him matter-of-factly.
The man was elated for the company. He was still very
confused, but perhaps she could help him. “What happened to me? Where am I?”
Wendy’s head tilted slightly. “You don’t remember?”
“No,” said the man. “Nothing.”
“I saw your boat,” she explained. “I was thrilled. Finally,
a chance to leave! But, during the storm, it hit the reef,” she explained. “I
didn’t see anybody make it off.”
“Except, I guess, you,” she concluded.
The man lay back down. “Nobody else?”
Wendy answered his question with her silence.
“Was there anybody else?” asked the man.
“I don’t know,” she told him.
“What did you mean, ‘finally, a chance to leave’?” the man
asked. “And where are your clothes?”
“Oh, you noticed,” Wendy laughed. Then she sighed. “You’re
on an island. It’s remote. I was shipwrecked here a little over two years ago.
Your boat was the first sign of humanity I’ve seen, since.”
The man felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “Two years?”
She nodded.
“Come on,” she told him, changing the subject. “We’d better
get back to my camp. That lizard will be the least of our worries if we don’t
return in time.” She took his hand, and began to lead him into the forest.
He took one last look at the empty beach before following
her toward the center of the island.
“I don’t even know my name,” he confided to her as they
began down the path.
She didn’t turn around or slow down, but he could hear a wry
smile in her voice. “Then I’ll have to call you Peter, for now.”
No. 304
February 7, 2013
Buzz had been in the soup for 20 minutes, and his no-good
friend, Randy, wasn’t doing anything about it.
“Settle down,” Randy told him. “The waiter will pick you out
after you’ve been served. I’m not getting anywhere near that stuff. Ugh.
Tomato.”
“I hate you, Randy,” said Buzz. “I really do.”
“Nonsense, it’ll be fun. Think of the stories you could tell
around the carcass. You’re in no danger of drowning. You’re just embarrassed
right now.”
“You pull me out right now, or I’ll tell everyone about the
time you got too close to the flypaper.”
Randy had no choice but to comply.
The meal was eaten without the hilarious cliché.
No. 305
February 8, 2013
The rain was especially heavy that year. I remember, because
our backyard turned into a swamp. To a child, the only thing better than a
cardboard box is, of course, a swamp.
I was able to enjoy that mud for all of fifteen minutes.
Marcus Hamilton fell on me and I broke my arm. After the
accident, I worried that I would have to spend the rest of the summer in the
house, watching the other kids have fun outside without me.
But my mom bought me a telescope and, on the clear nights, I
learned how to find the North Star.
You know, I never did send a thank-you card to Marcus.
No. 306
February 9, 2013
Miranda floated on her back in the calm, warm
ocean. She watched the contrails of jets passing far overheard. Slowly, she
exhaled, and slipped beneath the water.
She was
suspended, all of her senses tuned to the sensation of the waves. She stayed
under until her breath ran out.
Then, with a lazy paddle of her hands, she returned
to the surface. Tomorrow, she was moving away. Today, she here and she would
enjoy every minute of it.
No. 307
Frank and Molly Part 3
February 10, 2013
Frank looked at her strangely. “But you said—.”
“I said ‘you needed me’,” Molly interrupted him. “I said
‘you brought me here’.”
She drew in her breath sharply, like a disappointed teacher.
“But I suppose that it would be your nature to assume that the reasons that you
need me are only your own.”
Frank took in the mysterious new island, his beached ship,
and the seemingly insane girl sitting in front of him. “I really don’t
understand.”
Molly played with a stray curl of her hair, thinking
something through. Then, apparently having made a decision, she stood and
crossed the small camp to sit next to Frank.
Frank felt more alive than during any time that he could remember. He didn’t say anything, trying not to break
the spell he was under.
She put her hand on his shoulder. His eyes widened.
“Frank,” she said softly. “When was the last time you
thought about dying? Be honest.”
He remembered the moment instantly. “Before I named you,” he
said in a whisper.
“So, do you see? We both got what we needed,” she told him,
with one finger pointed at the middle of his chest. “And how is that all about
you?”
Frank and Molly sat next to each other, not speaking, for a
long time. The embers of the fire turned red, and then black. Eventually, the
first rays of the sun appeared over the long horizon of the ocean.
“It’s morning,” said Frank.
Molly smiled and nodded. Frank watched her, trying to commit
her face to memory.
“I won’t see you again, will I?” he asked, the answer
already clear.
She shook her head.
“Goodbye, Frank.”
He stood, and brushed himself off, ready to return to his
boat. He wanted with all of his heart to hug her, but the gesture seemed so
small compared to what she had done. Instead, he told her.
“Goodbye, Molly.”
Frank Benson leaned against the railing at the bow of his
ship. He watched the waves pass by as the vessel made for port.
He was ready to begin his new life.
No. 308
February 11, 2013
The phone rang at 3:34am. Sean’s deep sleep shattered. He
felt all the blood in his body turn cold. Rolling over, he answered
immediately, bypassing a glance at the display.
“Hello?”
“It’s me,” said his sister. Sean could hear fear in her
voice. “Are you ok?” she asked without a pause.
Sean felt the tightness in his body lessen slightly. She
would have led with really bad news.
“I’m fine, Dana. I’m ok,” he reassured her. “Why are you calling?”
The line buzzed quietly for a moment before she responded.
“I had a bad feeling about something,” she told him
eventually. “I just felt—,” she trailed off. “I can’t explain it.”
“Everything’s alright, Sis,” Sean told her.
“I’m sorry I called so late,” she said. “Sorry I woke you
up.”
“No, you can always call. Anytime.”
“Goodnight, Sean,” she said, softly. He could tell she was
embarrassed.
“’Night,” he told her. “Love you.”
“You too,” she said. Then she hung up.
Sean put the phone back on his nightstand and sat up. The
shot of adrenaline from the unexpected call would make getting back to sleep
difficult. He put on his robe and went downstairs to watch TV for awhile.
He made himself a snack and settled in front of the glowing
screen. The news was on. Before he had a chance to change the channel, the
picture changed. Sean saw a house, surrounded by crime-scene tape. As the
cameras rolled, a police officer walked up the front steps.
The instant before the officer raised his hand to knock,
Sean recognized the house.
The sound still scared him.
No. 309
February 12, 2013
The absurd quality of a water-balloon fight in the rain did
not cross Corey’s mind as he made his move on the strategically significant
field-house building. The washrooms inside would provide the means to continue
the battle indefinitely.
As he drew nearer to his objective, Corey saw movement in
the trees to his left. There was a shout as his opponents saw him, as well.
Corey broke into a run, leaping over a low hedge and barely clearing the
drainage ditch on the other side. If the others reached the faucets before he
did, all would be lost.
He almost made it.
“So close,” said Joel, leader of the rival team, as he
stepped out of the washroom with a full balloon in each hand and a plastic
pistol tucked into his belt.
Corey skidded to a halt, trapped between the two groups. He
knew his own allies were close by, on the other side of the park securing the
hose by the basketball courts, but not near enough at this moment to even the
odds in the standoff.
The rain hammered down. All parties stood still, stoic
against the downpour.
“Put down your weapons,” ordered Joel. Corey had no choice
but to obey.
He laid his single filled balloon gently on the concrete
ground, then straightened. After hesitating briefly, he dropped a handful of
empty balloons from his left pocket, as well.
“And the rest,” Joel told the captive, as he hefted a
balloon threateningly.
Corey knelt to surrender the tiny water gun that was stuffed
into his sock. If he played his cards right, perhaps they wouldn’t suspect that
he had a stash of balloons in his right pocket, too.
On his way down, he glanced at Joel and the other boys who
surrounded him. He was trying desperately to think his way out of the trap.
Then, as his fingers closed on the green plastic of his
hold-out weapon, the idea came. It was a plan they would never see coming, and
it could turn the tide of the war.
Corey drew the gun and, at the same time, started off in a
dead sprint, through the downpour, for the door to the girls’ bathroom.
No. 310
February 13, 2013
It was Dr. Leonard Allen who invented the Time Engine in the
science lab at Cedar Hills University. The device allowed me, and millions of
others, to cheat death.
The system is brilliant. For a price, the Time Engine will
calculate the exact moment of your passing, and then allow you to skip it.
It was such a simple concept. Scientists were amazed nobody
had figured it out sooner. Dr. Allen became the richest and most influential
man on Earth.
But, like most concepts that appear too simple, the Engine
has flaws—deep and terrible flaws. We realized that humans are meant to die.
The signs began to
appear in the First Seven. For obvious reasons, the symptoms were kept under
the strictest secrecy. Cover stories were put in place, and four of the Seven
abruptly dropped out of the public eye.
Then the trial groups began to turn. That, too, was hushed
up. It was easy for someone as powerful as Dr. Allen.
By the time the regular customers began to see the effects,
measures were in place to contain the anomalies.
The sickness comes on quickly. Exactly 1463 days after the
Skip, the Change begins. It doesn’t happen to everyone, though. That’s what
makes it so hard to tackle.
My job, right now, is containment. Although, it’s possible
that I’ll be in need of some myself in the very near future.
I Skipped 1459 days ago.
No. 311
February 14, 2013
Cupid stood in the airport security line, waiting his turn
along with everybody else. He placed his bag on the conveyor, and walked
through the metal detector.
“Excuse me, sir, could you stand aside?” a security agent
asked.
Cupid did as the man instructed. Another agent, the woman
who was screening the bags, gave her co-worker some sort of hand signal.
Cupid’s bags were quickly pulled from the flow and put aside
onto a metal table.
The woman spoke first. “What’s this?” she said, pulling a
heart-tipped arrow from the bag.
“A heart-tipped arrow,” said Cupid.
“Sir, are you aware that arrows are strictly prohibited on
flights?” said the man.
“Come on. It’s just a stick with hearts at the end, really,”
said Cupid. “It’s relatively harmless.”
“The government doesn’t think so,” said the woman.
“They do not,” agreed the man.
Cupid sighed. “Every year,” he muttered under his breath.
“What was that, sir?” asked the man.
Cupid didn’t reply. He checked his watch. “I’m pretty busy,”
he told the agents. “Am I going to miss my flight?”
“Sir—“ started the man, but he didn’t have a chance to
finish.
Cupid leapt over the table, removing two more arrows from
his bag at the same time. With both in-hand, he threw one at the woman, and
stabbed the man with the other.
Cupid stood back and admired his handiwork. The rest of
people in line drew back, away from the confusing scene. “Don’t worry,” Cupid
assured them. “None of you are going to remember this.”
Retrieving the arrows from the impaled pair, Cupid stowed
them back in his suitcase and made for his boarding gate.
“Every year,” he said to himself again, shaking his head.
The two agents revived quickly. Blinking hard, they stared
at each other.
“What just happened?” said the woman.
“I’m not sure,” said the man. “But, hey, do you want to grab
a coffee later, or something?”
No. 312
February 20, 2013
Carlisle, the flying frog, lived briefly on the screen.
He was killed by the backspace button.
No. 313
February 21, 2013
Long the domain of surgeons, human enhancements had been
taken over by technicians, and had entered the mind. Now it was possible to
update one’s personality as simply as changing one’s appearance.
Plastic personas were the future.
May 1, 20—
He’d saved secretly for months.
Usually shy and retiring, L— clicked the link and watched
the program begin to download. When the computer displayed the appropriate
screen, L— put on the neural helmet and prepared himself for the upgrade.
His body tensed for a moment, and then relaxed. L— had
reflexively closed his eyes during the data transfer, and when he opened them
he was a little surprised to see that nothing had changed. He certainly felt
stronger.
His mother, S—, noticed immediately. L— moved differently when
he came down the stairs for dinner. S—dropped the plate she’d been washing and
it smashed on the floor. “Why?” was all she could manage.
L—didn’t have time for his mother’s protests. He barely
spared her a glance as he stalked out the front door.
S—sank to the ground, surrounded by the pieces of the broken
plate, and cried softly.
No. 314
February 22, 2013
The sun blazed down on Chloe as she lay on her back on the
trampoline in the backyard.
She heard her brother busying himself somewhere over by the
house. She didn’t pay attention to what he was doing, and continued to read her
book. She was starting chapter seven, and it was a good one.
Seven became eight, and the heroine was just about to find
the treasure when Chloe was horribly surprised by a splash of cold water.
“What are you doing?” she screamed at her brother.
He laughed, and dashed for the tree in the corner of the
yard. If he could make it to his fort, he would have ways to repel any assault.
“You said you were hot,” he cackled as he shimmied up the ladder.
Chloe stood, fuming with anger. She looked at her soaked
book, and threw it onto the grass near the deck. She watched her brother
watching her from the window of his fort. She knew she had no way to get him
back right away for what he’d just done.
She took a step toward the edge of the trampoline, bouncing
slightly as she did. An idea occurred to her. She looked back at her brother.
Then she bent her knees and began to jump. Slowly, at first, but she built the
momentum quickly. In no time, she was bounding as high as she could go.
Nobody could resist for long. After only a few minutes, her
brother had been lured down from his hideout and was creeping slowly toward the
trampoline. Chloe continued her act, pretending that she didn’t notice him. She
waited for the perfect moment to strike. As soon as he was in range, she leapt
off the trampoline and hit him with a flying tackle.
“Ow!” he said.
“I win,” she told him as she dusted herself off.
“Ok, but can I jump now?” he asked, scrambling to his feet.
It was Chloe’s turn to laugh. She pushed him back down, and
ran for the trampoline. “Nope, it’s still my turn!”
No. 315
February 23, 2013
Turret duty on a MacLehose class freighter was boring to
begin with. Turret duty through Pacified Space was even more so. Nobody was
ever attacked out here.
Junior Petty Officer Patten sat back in the harness and
watched black nothing pass by in front of his gun barrels. He sighed. Only
seven and a half more hours to go on this watch. He daydreamed of a good,
old-fashioned void-pirate attack.
Of course, the pirates had been wiped out decades ago. Their
flagship, the Betsy, had been destroyed off of Lamma IV. The memories were
still fresh enough, however, that every transport ship in the fleet was still
required to be armed. The MV Matthew Nathan had the bare minimum, the one that
Patten was stuck in. He wondered idly if the guns had ever even been fired.
Lining up the sights on a distant star, he mimed blowing his
target out of space. “Kaboom,” he said, amusing himself slightly. He tracked
the guns toward another point of light. “Pow,” he murmured as he destroyed that
imaginary threat, too. He was aiming a third phantom volley when the ship’s
hourly chime sounded.
The noise startled Patten and his finger tightened reflexively
on the trigger. A blast of searingly bright blue light flashed from the
cannons, lancing into the darkness.
“Oh no,” whispered Patten. The captain would not take an
accidental weapon’s discharge lightly.
Patten began to desperately think of an excuse. He watched
the laser beams continue on their path. They’d go forever unless they hit
something. He hoped they wouldn’t hit something.
Then they did.
Patten saw two fiery flashes as the deadly bolts intersected
with a ship.
But that was strange. There had been no ship there a second
ago. The vessel had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. That wasn’t possible.
Unless.
Something tickled at the back of Patten’s brain. What was it
called?
A cloaking shield, he remembered. It was the favorite tool
of the void-pirates.
Patten quickly dialed up the image-enhancers to their
maximum magnification. The ship he’d shot at came into focus. It was turning
toward the Nathan. Patten could just make out a name painted on the hull.
Betsy II.
“Oh no,” he said again. He checked the power on his guns and
radioed the captain. “Bridge, this is Turret. We have incoming.”
No. 316
February 24, 2013
Wes Conrad was walking down the street when he heard a
strange conversation. Two disheveled hobos were standing on the corner,
seemingly talking about another vagrant.
“Well. That’s it. It’s the third today. Richard is out,”
said one.
“Aw man. I always kinda thought that’d be it,” replied the
other.
“Really? You had the second? Are you out, too?”
“No. I hedged my bets. I’ve got Carl, November 30, 2019.”
“Long ways off.”
“Yeah, but it pays out at 19 to one.”
“That’s a lot of money. But why does your sign say ‘near’?
2019 isn’t near at all.”
“Oh, that. You gotta give the people what they want, you
know? Helps with the tips.”
Wes shook his head as he went past the men. The doomsday
prophets are running a pool, now?
No. 317
The Good Dog Part 4
February 25, 2013
I’ve got a stick! I’ve got a stick! It’s my stick! It’s not
your stick! I’ve got a stick! Do you see my stick? Look at my stick! Oh my
gosh—a stick! It’s mine! I’ve got it! It’s a stick! See my stick? Do you see
it? It’s mine! It’s my stick!
Here’s my stick!
Throw my stick! Will you throw it? Will you throw my stick?
Throw the stick! Throw it! Throw the stick! That stick—that one! Throw that
stick!
No. 318
February 26, 2013
Rick Elway began to make a list of his New Year’s resolutions.
He made two orderly columns, and numbered the rows one through ten. He began
filling in the spots immediately.
1.
I will refrain from throwing out the entire bowl of
cereal after some gets soggy.
2.
I will stop referring to area south of Portland Street
as “That part of town—you know”.
3.
I will feed my own iguana
4.
I will count all my golf shots. Even the “practice”
ones.
5.
I will no longer answer the phone “Hey, loser” if the
person is a loser.
6.
I will drive the speed limit.
7.
I will stop underlining parts of library books that I
don’t agree with.
8.
I will limit karaoke nights to Fridays and Saturdays
only. And Tuesdays.
9.
10.
Most of the resolutions came easily. However, Rick was two
short. He studied the incomplete list intently, wracking is brain for flaws. He
spent at least five minutes trying to fill out the last spaces.
With no ideas forthcoming, he put down his pen. Who was he
kidding? He balled up the list and threw it in the bin.
There was no point trying to improve on perfection.
No. 319
February 27, 2013
The Easter Bunny checked his watch. He had 3 hours left on
his shift, and he still had no idea what he was doing.
He scrounged around beneath the little girl’s pillow,
feeling for the tooth he’d been told was going to be under it. After several
minutes and no luck, he checked the form again.
“Is that a—,” he mumbled, squinting at the paper. “Yup.
That’s a nine. Great. Awesome.”
He crept outside the house to confirm his mistake. The
numbers here were clear. He was at 2671 Landers Street. He’d misread the 7.
He checked his watch again, and hopped down the road toward
the right address. Only 15 more stops to make tonight.
The Bunny’s day had started poorly. He been roused by his
ringing phone far earlier than he’d planned to rise on his day off. The voice
on the other end had been exceedingly friendly.
“Hey, I’m really sorry to wake you up, but the Tooth Fairy’s
called in sick. Is there any chance at all you could come in?”
Before Bunny had a chance to respond, the caller guessed
what his next question was going to be and cut in quickly. “We’ve already tried
Leprechaun and Cupid.”
Bunny groaned. “Yeah. I’ll be in. Give me half an hour.” He
pulled himself out from under the covers and stumbled toward the shower. He’d
make sure they covered his coffee. He was going to get an expensive one, with
all the toppings.
No. 320A
March 2, 2013
“Is that a rat?” were the first words out of my mouth.
“No, ma’am. Possum,” said the disheveled man on my porch.
It was the strangest sight I’d ever seen. “Does he bite?” I
asked.
The man shrugged. “Sometimes.”
I was silent for a moment, trying to process the situation.
He’d knocked on the door and I hadn’t looked before opening it. That wasn’t
like me at all. Now there was some sort of hobo holding a possum standing in
front of me.
He looked at me, and I looked at him. Finally, I managed to
find something else to say. “Can I help you?”
The man nodded, and removed a tattered ball cap while he
spoke. “My name’s Michael. This is Nelson. I was wondering if I could trouble
you for a bowl of water. It’s terribly hot out here, and Nelson gets thirsty.”
I watched carefully for any sign of deception. Michael
waited quietly while I considered his request. I heard the same part of me that
asked if he needed help say something else.
“I don’t see why not. Why don’t you come on in?”
“And Nelson, ma’am?” he asked.
“Of course, Nelson,” my other-self agreed. This was not like
me at all.
I went to the kitchen and brought a dish down from the
cupboard. I filled it and carried it out to the living room. “There you go,” I
told the animal as I set the bowl on the floor. It seemed appreciative, and
drank quickly. I turned back to its companion.
“Michael,” I said.
He seemed to understand that I had questions.
“We’ve been travelling.”
Michael told me his story while Nelson finished the water.
When the possum was done, it crawled back to Michael’s lap. The man smiled,
stood, and thanked me.
They left very soon after.
I stood behind the screen and watched them go down the road.
To this day, I can’t remember where he said they were going
next.
No. 320B
March 2, 2013
“The blue lamp went out abruptly.
“I’ve got it,” said Sarah, rising from the armchair in the
corner of the room. She walked to the hall closet and began to rummage through
the odds and ends that covered the top shelf.
“Do we have any more bulbs?” she asked her roommate Andrea.
Andrea yawned and looked up from her computer. “Did you look
under the sink? As far as I know, if we have any, they’re there.”
Sarah redirected her search to the washroom. “Nope,” she
confirmed after a brief survey.
“That was my best guess,” said Andrea. “You can take the one
from the light in my bedroom. I never use that thing, anyway.”
“What time is it?” asked Sarah.
Andrea checked. “Just after seven.”
Sarah nodded and returned to the closet. She put on her coat
and picked up her keys from a dish by the front door. “I might as well go to
the store. Do you need anything?”
“Don’t think so. You could bring back some cookies if you’re
feeling adventurous.”
Sarah left.
Andrea became aware of the rain hammering the window. She
didn’t think anything of it for several minutes.
When she realized, she set her computer aside and crossed
the empty apartment. Opening the bathroom cupboard door, the first thing she
saw was a box of light bulbs.
When a soaking-wet Sarah returned home, she found Andrea
waiting for her on the couch. “Did you get the cookies?” Andrea asked
pointedly.
Sarah held up a bag. “Right here.”
“And the lights?”
“Uh huh.”
Andrea watched Sarah for some kind of reaction. Seeing none,
she took a deep breath. “Good,” she said, deciding not to press the issue. “Good.
Good.”
Andrea returned to her computer and Sarah fixed the lamp and
went back to her book.
The rain continued to fall.
No. 321
March 3, 2013
It was in the back row, halfway through ECON 340, where
Aaron Andrew Alison made his discovery.
While the professor droned on about some European financial
crisis, Aaron was been busy drawing aimlessly in his notebook. He had just
finished a detailed study of a UFO when the inked craft began to move across
the paper on its own accord.
Aaron, seeing the motion immediately, first suspected that
he might have accidentally chosen the desk with the wobbly leg. When the table
proved solid, he turned his attention back to the paper.
The ship was now floating just above the surface of the page
and, in seconds, had risen to the level of Aaron’s nose. He tried to swat it back down.
The professor saw Aaron’s erratic gestures from the front of
the room. “Is there a problem, Mr. Alison?”
Aaron kept his eye on the renegade doodle. “No, sir. I just
had a sneeze die on me, that’s all.”
The answer seemed sufficient to deflect the unwanted
attention. Meanwhile, Aaron had noticed something else about the strange
vessel. He’d added small windows to the picture, and now, through one of them,
he thought he could make out the pilot.
It seemed that the creature noticed Aaron, as well. A tiny
hand appeared in the porthole and waved casually at its creator.
The UFO dove back toward the paper on the desk, re-entering
the pages like a submarine sinking beneath the surface of the water. Aaron
flipped rapidly through his notebook, trying to locate the missing saucer.
He couldn’t find it and, more alarmingly, he could see that
all of his other drawings were coming to life, as well.
No. 322
CYOA2 Part 1
March 4, 2013
Snow had been falling when Lt. Rob Martin had departed for
Hawaii, but his trip was no vacation. While the jet jostled up and down from
turbulence, Martin kept one foot on the bag beneath his feet at all times. The
part inside was needed for a top secret project.
Upon arriving in Honolulu, Lt. Martin’s orders were to board
a one-way flight to a classified location. It was sure to be one-way because,
where he was going next, there was no place to land the plane. The pilot was to
ditch the aircraft in the sea and Martin was told that they would then be
“recovered”. The word did not fill him with confidence.
Martin was now one of the four people not at the site who
were cleared into the program. Only Martin’s boss, the President, and a shadowy
third party knew all the details of the scheme. Martin had been told yesterday,
and he still couldn’t believe that what he had heard was true.
He was being sent to Point Nemo, the location in the Pacific
Ocean that was farthest from land. There, under water, an experiment was
underway that depended on the equipment that Martin was bringing with him. The
outcome of the experiment could change the world.
No. 323
March 4, 2013
Lily caught the tiger’s tail and it turned around to bite
her.
Upon seeing the small, frightened girl, the tiger relaxed.
“Little girl,” it said. “Do you know where you are?”
“No,” said Lily, her lips quivering with sadness. “I’m
lost.”
“You’re in the jungle, where few people go. How did you get
here?” it asked her.
“I took the road,” she said. “It was very long, and I’m very
tired. Do you know of a place to sleep?”
“Only my den,” the tiger told her. “And that’s for me.
You’ll have to find your own bed for the night.”
“I understand,” said Lily. “I wish I knew the way home.”
The tiger sat back on its haunches and considered her
statement. The tiger’s home was all around him. It did not have one place
called home.
“I don’t know if I can help you, but if you climb on my back
we could search together,” the cat told the child.
The pair walked for days and days. Sometimes Lily rode on
the tiger’s broad shoulders, and sometimes she walked beside the stately
animal.
It was early in the morning when they reached the edge of
the forest.
“I can take you no farther,” said the tiger. “Your home is
that way, and I cannot leave mine.”
Lily nodded and hugged the great beast. “Thank you, tiger.
Perhaps one day we’ll meet again.”
“Maybe,” answered the tiger. But the tiger knew that it was
not to be. Little girls can only meet a tiger once.
“Goodbye, Lily,” said the tiger.
No. 324
March 6, 2013
It was cold in the warehouse, and Murphy tried to avoid
going in as much as possible. Usually, he was able to leave the onerous task to
somebody else, but on weekends he was the only person at the office.
Of course, it wasn’t just the temperature that kept him
away. The warehouse scared him. Murphy wasn’t worried about goblins or ghosts,
though. He was terrified that something would fall off of one of the shelves
and crush his skull.
Tonight, he needed something from bin 17-C. He consulted the
numbering chart and discovered that 17-C was the last bin in the last row. “Awesome,” he said, turning the word into a
curse.
Arriving at the warehouse door, he paused a moment, waiting
for the lights to come on. One in the back flickered, then stayed off. It was
an ominous sign. Murphy took a deep breath and hurried down the aisles to reach
his objective. He kept his head down, but cast a wary eye up at the looming
racks.
He made it to 17-C without trouble. Still, he felt that the
journey had taken too long. He resolved to make the return trip at a much
higher rate of speed.
With the desired element in hand, Murphy turned and made a
dash back for the glowing safety of the exit door.
At the same moment, the light that had flickered betrayed
him, snapping to life to illuminate the entire corner of the building.
The flash and new shadows conspired to dazzle Murphy, and he
tripped, launching heavily into a large box on a bottom shelf. The impact
destabilized the entire structure, and the carefully stacked inventory began to
fall to the floor.
Murphy whimpered, and crawled for cover.
With a loud crash, the last item hit the ground, after which
the warehouse became oppressively silent. The only sound Murphy could hear was
his own breathing. He was alive! His nightmare had come true, but he’d
survived!
Glancing around at the wreckage, he spotted the part from
17-C. Retrieving his prize, he jauntily made his way back to the office.
Murphy completed his work and shut off his computer. He
wrote a quick note explaining what had happened in the warehouse and left for
home.
On Monday morning, he arrived back at work. Most of the
staff had already arrived, and he walked to his desk past a gallery of strange
looks. As he sat down, his phone rang. It was his boss, calling Murphy to his
office.
Murphy was promptly fired for recklessly damaging company
property. He was instructed to clear out his desk and leave the premises.
He did as he was told, and exited the building for the last
time. He threw the cardboard box of his belongings onto the passenger seat of
his car and drove off angrily.
He didn’t see the red truck passing as he turned out of the
parking lot. It struck his car and the force of the collision catapulted
Murphy’s vehicle into a tree, killing him instantly.
No. 325
March 7, 2013
Lex Orbis punched the keys of the calculator with a
deliberate precision. Then, turning the device to face the shopkeeper, Orbis
crossed his arms and waited.
The shopkeeper considered the number, then shook his head.
Orbis did not move.
The two stared at each other, fully engaged in a battle of
wills.
Still, Orbis did not move.
The shopkeeper broke first, entering a new figure into the calculator.
He showed it to Orbis.
Accepting with a slight nod, Orbis pulled his wallet from
his pocket. After counting out the proper number of bills, he placed them
respectfully on the counter.
He collected his prize, and left the store.
The shopkeeper was immediately on the phone. Speaking
quickly, he gave instructions to the party on the other end of the line. Only
then did he remove the cash from the countertop and put it in the till.
Orbis edged his way down the narrow street, mostly going
straight, but having to dodge on occasion past traffic proceeding in the
opposite direction. He made it perhaps two blocks before being interrupted.
Two large men stepped in front of him to block his path.
“We’ll have it,” one said. The other was silent, but brandished a pipe.
Seeing a small bar to his right, Orbis smiled at the two
goons. “I’m sure you have time for a drink,” he said with a smile. “Why don’t
we step over here,” he continued, gesturing toward the patio of the bar.
His assailants said nothing. Pipe grunted his approval.
Talky shrugged.
The group all moved toward the bar. Orbis made it close
enough that a waiter asked him if he’d like a seat.
“I would,” he said, reaching out and snatching one up off
the ground.
Pipe and Talky had no time to react. Pipe felt the chair hit
his face while Talky, distracted by the sudden attack, was felled by a powerful
kick.
Orbis placed the chair back in its proper position and
thanked the astonished waiter.
The bell over the door rang, announcing an entering
customer.
The shopkeeper didn’t look up. “We’re closed.”
Orbis crossed the store toward the shopkeeper. He placed his
hand on the counter where he’d left the money.
The shopkeeper finally raised his head. His eyes grew wide
and the surprised caused him to burst into a fit out coughing.
“Settle down,” said Orbis derisively. “It’s only me.”
The shopkeeper swallowed hard. “What can I do to help you?”
he asked, cautiously.
Orbis studied the man for a moment before he answered.
Finally, he spoke. “It was the last two hundred, wasn’t it?”
The shopkeeper, knowing the game was up, dropped his chin
for “yes”.
Orbis once again found his wallet. He withdrew the amount
and tucked it into the shopkeeper’s shirt pocket. “And we won’t be having any
more trouble, will we?”
The shopkeeper shook his head vigorously.
“Good,” said Orbis. “That’s what I thought.” He made for the
exit but, before leaving the shop, he turned back to the crooked proprietor.
“Say, you wouldn’t happen to know of a good bar around here, would you?”
No. 326
March 8, 2013
One day a spase Ship Landed on plant nuR.
There was an alien. and The aLein was ataKeKing.
No. 327
CYOA2 Part 2
March 10, 2013
Martin eyed the other passenger as the small plane sped
toward Point Nemo. He watched her lean down and casually adjust the laces of
her boot. Martin struggled to understand how she could be concerned about
something so trivial. He’d just been flown halfway around the globe on an
urgent, secret mission. She seemed as cool and collected as if she was taking a
trip to the corner-store.
What was also awkward was that Martin didn’t know how much
she knew. He decided to play it safe, and not speak to her at all until they
reached their destination.
She was having none of that. “Holly Ridgeway, NASA,” she
told him, thrusting out her hand boldly.
“Hi,” said Martin. “Lt. Rob Martin. Good to meet you, Ms.
Ridgeway.”
Ridgeway smiled. “You’ve got it, then?” she asked, pointing
at the bag Martin had been gripping the entire flight.
“It?” said Martin, weakly deflecting the question.
“The servo,” said Ridgeway. “The one they need at Nemo. You
know, you’d think that they’d keep one of two of those on hand in case of emergencies.
That was all in my report.”
“Was it?” asked Martin, giving nothing away.
“Oh, yes. It’s my test,” she told him.
The pilot’s voice crackled over the intercom. “We’re setting
down in one minute. As noted in the pre-flight briefing, we’ll be ditching at
sea. Please follow my instructions after we set down, and brace for impact.”
“Here we go,” said Ridgeway with a wink.
Martin clutched his bag even closer, and closed his eyes.
“Brace!” called the pilot.
Then the plane hit the water with a shuddering crash.
No. 328A
CYOA2 Part 3
March 11, 2013
Martin lay in his seat, stunned by the impact. A red haze
clouded his vision. Far in the distance, he could hear the pilot speaking,
telling him how to escape the fuselage.
Something tugged at his bag. Something in the back of his
mind told him to pay attention. His eyes snapped fully open and he saw Ridgeway
collecting the precious part. Martin waved his arm at her, trying to drive her
away.
“Stop,” he mumbled.
“Relax,” she told him. “You’re tangled in your seatbelt.
Give me a second to get you out.”
Martin slumped back, and looked toward the cockpit. The
pilot had made his escape from the sinking plane.
“There,” said Ridgeway. “Come with me.”
She grabbed Martin under his arms and hauled him toward the
hatch. He made sure he kept a tight grip on the precious part. Water began to
flow into the cabin through the open door, and Ridgeway struggled under her
heavy burden.
“If you could help at all, Rob, that would be fantastic,”
she grunted.
Martin found his legs and shuffled along with her. Suddenly
they were both out of the wreck and under a clear, bright blue sky, floating in
the cold water of the conspicuously empty South Pacific. Martin felt another
hand grab his shirt just behind the neck and he was quickly hauled up into a
raft.
The pilot helped Ridgeway aboard, next. And the three sat,
waterlogged, in the flimsy boat.
“Everybody alright?” asked the pilot.
Ridgeway and Martin nodded.
“Won’t be long now,” said the airman. “I just need to send
the signal.”
With a flourish, he produced a grenade. He pulled the pin
and dropped the bomb into the ocean. Seconds later there was a muffled
explosion and a geyser of frothy white spray as the sea erupted.
Soon after that, there was another sound. Martin strained to
hear it, but couldn’t identify the source. It was a loud hum, or rumble that
seemed to come from everywhere at once. The water under the life raft heaved
up, and the gentle motion of the waves was replaced by a solid surface.
Propping himself up, Martin peered out over the side of
boat. He’d been told about the craft during his briefing, but nothing had
prepared him for the sight before his eyes.
Surrounded him on all sides was an enormous metal disc that
had risen out of the deep. A hatch
opened up and a woman’s head popped out. “Hello,” she shouted. “Welcome to
Nautilus Base. Can I have the password, please?”
No. 328B
CYOA2 Part 3 Alternate
March 11, 2013
Martin lay in his seat, stunned by the impact. A red haze clouded his vision. Far in the distance, he could hear the pilot speaking, telling him how to escape the fuselage.
Martin lay in his seat, stunned by the impact. A red haze clouded his vision. Far in the distance, he could hear the pilot speaking, telling him how to escape the fuselage.
Something tugged at his bag. Something in the back of his
mind told him to pay attention. His eyes snapped fully open and he saw Ridgeway
collecting the precious part. Martin waved his arm at her, trying to drive her
away.
“Stop,” he mumbled.
That got her attention. Her eyes widened, and she threw a
panicked glance toward the cockpit. The pilot had bailed out, into the sea. The
plane was empty but for the two passengers.
Seeing they were alone, Ridgeway pulled a gun. “Sorry,” she
told Martin, almost sadly. “They’ll assume you died in the wreck.”
She snatched the bag away and pulled the trigger at the same
time.
Martin’s last view was of Ridgeway scrambling out of the
sinking cabin as water rushed in through the hatch. He felt the ocean reach his
feet, and then he died.
No. 329A
CYOA2 Part 4
March 12, 2013
Martin’s mind went blank. He’d been told the password during
his briefing, but with the long flight and the crash, he’d somehow forgotten.
“I don’t know it,” he whispered to Ridgeway. He began to search his pockets and
bag frantically, hoping that he’d written it down somewhere.
Ridgeway put her hand on his arm. “It’s ok,” she said
quietly. She turned to the woman at the hatch and called back. “Charybdis.”
The woman nodded, and stepped onto the wet deck. “Are you
all ok?” she said as she got closer to the raft. “He seems hurt,” she said,
pointing at Martin.
Martin stood up slowly. “I’m fine. Lt. Rob Martin,” he said,
introducing himself. “I have a servo that you need.”
The woman shook his hand. “Captain Land,” she said in reply.
“And Ridgeway, good to see you again.”
“You, too, Captain,” said Ridgeway.
The pilot was greeted, and the trio were led into the
station.
“Come with me,” Land told Ridgeway and Martin. “I’ll show
you your quarters, then we can get to work. Lt. Martin, I’ll take the servo, if
you like.”
“Work?” asked Martin. His duty, as he was aware of it, had
only been to deliver the part.
“Of course,” said Land. “You’re crew. What did you expect?”
Martin felt the hairs rise on the back of neck. His first
instinct was to lie to the Captain. “No, never mind. I’ll be ready in half an
hour. Sorry, it’s just the shock of the landing and all.”
Martin’s quarters turned out to be a small cabin, deep in
the bowels of the Nautilus. He had the space to himself, and some time to
think. He had the impression that Ridgeway was staying in the same part of the
station, but it was difficult to tell. The corridors from the hatch to his
current location all looked the same, and he had the distinct impression he had
been taken on a route that was designed not to pass any sensitive areas.
Most worryingly, he’d remembered the password he’d been
given. It had not been “Charybdis”.
He also found that his door was locked from the outside. It
was relatively simple to pick it, though, and soon he was standing in the
passageway. He moved slowly down a line of identical doors, pausing at each one
and calling Ridgeway’s name softly.
She answered at the fifth. Martin made sure there was nobody
else around, then carefully let himself in.
“What’s going on?” he asked harshly.
“I don’t know,” she said, and with enough fear in her voice
that he believed her.
“This isn’t right,” he said.
“No,” she agreed. “Something’s wrong.”
No. 329B
CYOA2 Part 4 Alternate
March 12, 2013
Martin was quick to answer, having been told the code before
he left Hawaii. “Scylla.”
The pilot gasped, horrified. Ridgeway seemed like she was
going to be sick.
The woman at the hatch frowned. “How many of you are there?”
Martin looked at his companions. “Just the three of us,” he
called back.
“That’s incorrect,” the woman announced. She disappeared and
the hatch slammed shut. Nautilus Base began to sink back beneath the waves. In
seconds, the raft was alone on the surface.
“Idiot!” shouted the pilot.
Martin was confused. “What’s going on?”
Ridgeway slumped against the side of the boat. “Nautilus is
a massively secret project in the middle of nowhere and you gave them the wrong
code.”
“No, I didn’t,” Martin protested. “’Scylla,’ that’s the
one.”
“’That’s the one’ is right,” said the pilot darkly. “If
there’s only one person. You’ve killed us.”
“That can’t be right,” said Martin. “Get them back. You
sound like you know the right one, tell them!”
“Can’t,” said Ridgeway. “They’ll assume they’ve been
compromised. The base is probably already on the move.”
“What can we do?” asked Martin.
“We drift,” said the pilot.
The supplies on the raft lasted a week, then the hunger set
it. After two, the trio was desperate.
On the last day of the third week, Martin awoke from an
exhausted sleep to see the pilot standing over him with an oar. Martin didn’t have the time or strength to
raise his arms to defend himself. The paddle hit him squarely between the eyes,
killing him instantly.
After a month, a passing fishing vessel spotted a lonely
lifeboat far from any shipping lanes. As it drew closer, the crew could see two
passengers.
When the survivors were plucked from the ocean, the rescuing
crew noted that they were in excellent health for having been adrift for so
long.
No. 330A
CYOA2 Part 5
March 13, 2013
“I don’t think it will do us any good to try to escape,”
said Martin. “Not right now, anyway.”
“I agree,” said Ridgeway. “But do we just sit and wait?”
Martin quietly
considered the plan before he spoke. “They may still need us. I’ve delivered
their equipment, but I’m not sure if I would have been told about the
experiment in as much detail as I was if they were just going to detain me. And
you, It’s your experiment.”
“Unless Land’s gone rogue,” Ridgeway suggested. “Did you see
how she looked at us when we arrived? I’m not certain they were expecting us,
even if they needed the servo.”
“We need more information,” Martin concluded. “I’m going to
go back to my cabin. It won’t do for them to know we can meet. If they threaten
us in any way, we’ll make a move. Until then, we play cool.”
“’Cool’,” said Ridgeway with a nod. “Got it.”
Land returned after the promised thirty minutes. With her
was a short, dirty looking man. “This is Albert Hodge,” Land introduced. “He’ll
be your liaison with the science team. But, for the moment, would you two like
to join me on the bridge?”
Martin and Ridgeway said yes and were soon led to the
control center of the Nautilus.
“Amazing,” gasped Ridgeway. Martin, too, was impressed. At
the center of the bridge was a giant holographic schematic of Nautilus Base.
The scale was stunning. Near as Martin could tell, a jumbo jet could land on
the top deck with room to spare. And there appeared to be seven such decks.
“Is that the core?” Ridgeway asked, pointing at a void at
the center of the station.
“Indeed it is,” said Land with a smile. “Hodge will show you
around there after dinner.”
Something clicked in Martin’s brain. “You didn’t need the
part, did you?”
Land laughed. “Of course not, we’re completely
self-sufficient. But we didn’t have you, and you’re a hard thing to find.”
Hodge began to laugh as well, a joyless, grating sound.
No. 330B
CYOA2 Part 5 Alternate
March 13, 2013
“I think we need to escape,” said Martin.
“Escape to where?” Ridgeway asked. “You saw what we passed
over on the flight here. There’s nothing out there.”
“They’ve got to have a way to get around. Boats, or escape
pods, or maybe even a seaplane hanger. This base is enormous. We just need to
find something,” Martin said with more courage than he felt.
Ridgeway quietly considered the plan, sparse as it was. “I
suppose, at least, a walk around couldn’t hurt.”
They left the cabin and crept back up the passageway the way
they’d been brought. Martin took the lead. Coming to a blind corner, he paused
and motioned Ridgeway to retreat to a discrete distance. Then he poked his head
around.
It was the exact wrong moment. Captain Land was coming down
the hall toward him and noticed the surreptitious movement.
“Halt!” she shouted. “Guards!”
Ridgeway, who’d been behind, managed to escape capture, but
Martin wasn’t so lucky.
“So you want to leave our installation?” Land asked him
before she had him shoved into the tube. “We can certainly accommodate that.”
A large cover was lowered into place, and Martin could hear
screws being tightened. It had a tiny porthole in it, through which he could
still see the Captain.
Martin watched as Land pointed to somebody. He didn’t know
it was a technician who pulled a lever to open the tube to the deep.
Martin was ejected through a torpedo door. Nautilus Base was
currently keeping station far below the surface, and the pressure of the water
crushed the lieutenant immediately.
Inside, Land was furious. “That’s one,” she screamed at her
minions. “Now find the other!”
No. 331A
CYOA2 Part 6
March 14, 2013
“That was an excellent meal,” said Martin. He wasn’t lying.
Captain Land had prepared a feast for her guests although, throughout the
dinner, she’d been elusive when questioned. Martin would have liked to have
found out why she needed him, specifically. He resolved to uncover the answer.
“It was, wasn’t it?” Captain Land agreed. “We have an
excellent support staff on board. They’ve been poached from the best hotels all
over the world.”
Hodge and Ridgeway were having their own discussion at the
table. Martin heard the words “energy” and “isolated” but couldn’t make out the
rest. Turning back to Land, he asked her point-blank about his situation.
“Why me?”
Land swirled her wine glass and said nothing.
“Why do you need me?” Martin insisted.
The Captain leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms.
She sighed deeply and then replied. “You’re going to find out eventually, I
suppose.” She waited a little longer before finally getting to the point. “We
need you to calibrate the machine.”
Ridgeway and Hodge’s conversation stopped abruptly and
everyone turned to stare at Martin.
“I don’t know how to do that,” said Martin. “I’m really just
a delivery man.”
Land smiled. “Why do you think they told the delivery man
about the entire project?” she asked him. “I should be clearer. You’re the
calibration. Perhaps Mr. Hodge can explain it better.”
Hodge fixed Martin in an uncomfortable gaze.
Martin shifted in his seat.
Ridgeway’s eyes were wide, but she stayed silent.
“You’re the first one,” said Hodge. “We tried this
experiment twenty-seven years ago. You were the result. Our technology then was
primitive, and we didn’t know much about the time-barrier. You came through and
the lab went up. Took the city with it.”
Martin swallowed hard. “A city exploded? It seems like
people would remember that. You’re crazy.”
“Of course they do,” said Land. “Everybody does.”
“Chernobyl,” Ridgeway whispered. “That was us,” she said,
realizing.
“That’s right,” said Land. “This time we’ve decided to
conduct our business without as many neighbors.”
Martin spoke up. “But what do you mean ‘I came through’?”
“You got the briefing,” said Land. “You know what we’re
doing.”
“I’m from the future?”
Land nodded. “You were a baby, then.”
“And now?”
“Now, after all this time, we’re ready to turn on the
machine again,” confirmed the Captain. “Finish your dessert. Then we’ll head
down to the core.”
No. 331B
CYOA2 Part 6 Alternate
March 14, 2013
“That really was an excellent meal,” said Martin. He wasn’t
lying. Captain Land had prepared a feast for her guests although, throughout
the dinner, she’d been elusive when questioned. Martin would have liked to have
found out why she needed him, specifically. He resolved to attempt to get some
information from the outside. “Is there any chance I could use your secure comm
gear to reach my boss? Let him know I’ve arrive safely, and all that.”
The Captain fidgeted in her chair. She flashed a telling
glance at Hodge before she replied. “I’m afraid we can’t have that. All of our
long-range connections are down right now.”
Ridgeway interrupted. “What about the emergency beacon? That
runs on a separate system from the rest. I’m sure we can send a message that
way.”
Hodge pushed back from the table and stood. Land held up her
hand with one finger extended. “Wait,” she told her minion.
She rose from her seat, too. “How do you know about the
beacon?” she demanded. “I thought you were part of the lab team?”
“It’s the same system as on the Space Station,” replied
Ridgeway. “That was my last project.”
Hodge shook his head.
“Too much,” Land agreed. “This is my project,” she told her
captives. “I can’t have you interfering.” She sighed, and closed her eyes.
“Hodge, deal with them.”
As Martin and Ridgeway were hustled out of the room, Land
stayed behind and screamed at them. “Nautilus is mine!” she ranted “I will not
allow it to be taken from me!”
The pair were locked in a narrow room filled with pipes.
“We’re near the core,” Ridgeway observed. “That’s not good.”
“Why?” asked Martin.
“Because, unless I’m mistaken, those are cooling ducts for
the experiment,” said Ridgeway grimly. “I can only guess that Land’s taken over
because the experiment is ready to go online. If she activates it, we’ll
freeze.”
“How long have we got?”
“It’ll be instantaneous.”
As soon as Ridgeway said the words, a deep rumble filled the
space.
“Goodbye,” she told Martin.
Their bodies turned to ice and then shattered.
By turning on the machine, Land had taken the first step
towards the end of the world.
No. 322A
CYOA2 Part 7
March 15, 2013
“Did you know about this?” Martin whispered to Ridgeway.
“Some,” she admitted. “But about the program. Not you.”
Martin raised his voice to address the Captain. “Was I the
only one?” he asked.
“No,” said Land. “There were three children. You and another
stayed here, and the other one went back before the accident. The little girl
who remained died in a car accident when she was seventeen.”
Martin took a moment to process the information. “Why did we
end up here?” he said. “Why us?”
Hodge answered. “We don’t know. Like I said, we didn’t know
much about the barrier. The machine was on for a total of five minutes. We sent
one man through, and the three children arrived on our side.”
“What happened to your man?” asked Ridgeway.
Land shook her head.
“Then we had an energy spike,” continued Hodge. “And the
machine destroyed itself.”
One more thing occurred to Martin. “How far into the future
am I from?”
“We don’t know,” said Land. “But if you let us, we can try
to find out.”
Martin and Ridgeway exchanged glances.
“Alright,” said Martin. “Take me to the core.”
The team passed through an entire array of security zones.
Martin observed Land using a number pad, her fingerprints, a pass-card, an iris
scan, and, lastly, a key from a chain around her neck to reach the inner bay of
the core.
They stepped onto a platform that hung over a vast empty
space. The walls were smooth and white, and there was nothing to indicate
scale. Martin got dizzy looking at it.
“It’ll take a second,” said Land, who seemed unsteady
herself. “It happens every time. Hodge?”
“It’s almost two million cubic meters,” the scientist
confirmed.
“There’s no machine,” observed Martin when he regained his
bearings.
“The machine is built around the Core,” said Ridgeway. “The
control room, if I recall correctly, should be directly below us.”
Hodge held out his hand to show the way. “Down here.”
They followed his direction and arrived in the nerve center
of Nautilus Base. The room was filled with computer screens, but there was no
sign of human activity at the moment.
“Where is the crew?” asked Ridgeway.
“They’ve been kept in the dark about the next step,” said
Land. “The fewer people who know about Lt. Martin, the better.”
“I feel safer already,” said Martin, with his eyes locked on
a metal chair in the corner of the lab. It was set on a raised platform, and
there were white ceramic shackles on the arms and legs. “That’s where the calibration happens, I’m
guessing,” he said, pointing with his chin.
“It’s perfectly painless,” said Hodge.
“Think of an ultrasound,” said Land.
“Would you, please?” asked Hodge, indicating toward the
chair.
“Alright,” said Martin. “Here goes nothing.”
He sat down, and Hodge drew closer to latch the restraints
closed.
“No,” Martin interrupted. “If you don’t mind, Ridgeway, I’d
like you to strap me in.”
Ridgeway laughed nervously, but performed the task. “All
good?” she asked when she was finished.
Martin wriggled his hands and feet against the straps. “All
good.”
“This is just the first part of the experiment,” said Land.
“Nothing will happen in the core, and we won’t run the machine. We’re just
going to get some readouts on the screen here.”
Martin realized, suddenly, that even though he was here,
confined to a chair in the heart of a top secret lab that was floating as far
from land as somebody could get, he didn’t have any more questions. He began to
feel a measure of excitement, even.
“Let’s go,” he told the others.
Hodge pressed a button. For almost a second, nothing happened.
Then a high-pitched whine began, coming from something hidden behind the bank
of computers.
“Shut it down!” said Land urgently. “Cut the power!”
No. 322B
CYOA2 Part 7 Alternate
March 15, 2013
“No,” said Martin. “What you’re saying is insane.” He stood
up and slammed his fist down on the table. “I want proof. Right now.”
“Calm down,” whispered Ridgeway.
Martin turned on her. “Did you know about this the whole
time? Are you some kind of babysitter they sent along?”
“Hold on,” said Land. “Relax. I know this comes as a shock.”
“You!” Martin shouted, his attention now focused on the
Nautilus crew. “You, Captain, and Hodge. What kind of sick experiments are you
running here?”
He lunged at Land, but his foot caught on his overturned
chair.
Ridgeway watched in horror as Martin fell forward. His head
struck the corner of the table with a sickening smack and his limp body
collapsed to the floor.
Hodge was the first to reach him. “He’s dead,” was the confirmation.
Captain Land put her head in her hands. “Can we still use
the body for calibration?”
No. 333A
CYOA2 Part 8
March 19, 2013
Hodge slammed his fist down on the emergency button and all
the computers in the lab went dark. The noise continued, though.
“I don’t know what else I can do,” he said through clenched
teeth. “Everything should be off.”
“I’d really like to
get out of the chair now,” Martin said quietly.
Land and Ridgeway rushed to unlock the restraints.
“It’s not working,” said Ridgeway, with real fear in her
voice. “They’re fused shut.”
From somewhere, out in the Core, an alarm began to sound.
Hodge’s head snapped toward the sound. “Oh no,” he said.
“That’s the field-detection alert.”
Every light in the lab went out, plunging the group into
complete darkness.
Land was the first to understand. “We’ve jumpstarted the
reaction. The experiment’s begun.”
Martin was struggling against the restraints. “Something’s
going to happen. I can feel it.”
A blinding flash of energy from the Core strobed through the
windows. Everyone in the lab watched the giant space fill with light. The
smooth walls intensified the reaction like a lens, and the roiling tendrils of
lightning soon congealed into a stable glowing ball, bright with power.
The manacles on Martin’s chair popped open and he slumped to
the floor.
“He’s exhausted,” Ridgeway reported from his side. She put
her head on his chest. “There’s a strong heartbeat. I think he’s sleeping.”
“Amazing,” whispered Land, who was captivated by the
time-barrier. “It worked. After so
long.”
Hodge rushed to reboot the master computer. He studied the
read-outs intently. “Levels are holding. The barrier appears to be stable. I
don’t know how the reaction started without the proper procedure, though.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Land, distantly. “We’ve got it
now.”
“Should we send in the probe?” the swarthy scientist asked.
“Of course,” replied the Captain. “Immediately.”
Hodge punched in the command and a hatch opened in the wall
of the Core. A small drone was launched into the barrier. It disappeared into
the light without leaving as much as a ripple in the surface.
Data streamed back onto Hodge’s screen. “We’ll know very
shortly if we’ve been successful.”
Moments later though, the drone reappeared in the Core.
“Why did you bring it back?” Land demanded.
Hodge’s face turned a shade of ashen gray. “I didn’t,” he
said. “It came out right where we sent it. Five seconds into the future.”
Then another drone emerged.
“What’s happening?” Ridgeway asked.
Hodge began to shake with fear. “That one’s not ours.”
Martin woke up with a start. “I can feel it all over,” he
said from what sounded like a long ways away. “The barrier is vibrating. We
haven’t got much time.”
No. 333B
CYOA2 Part 8 Alternate
March 19, 2013
Hodge slammed his fist down on the emergency button and all
the computers in the lab went dark. The room was eerily silent.
“I’d really like to get out of the chair now,” Martin said
quietly.
Land and Ridgeway rushed to unlock the restraints. As soon
as Martin was loose, he jumped free and hustled to the far side of the lab.
“What was that all about?” Land asked Hodge.
The swarthy scientist was examining a print-out from a
machine close to the chair. “There’s a problem with the data,” he reported.
“How big of a problem?” Land pressed.
“Martin isn’t the key,” Hodge concluded.
“Can that be right?” Land said. There was a touch of
disbelief in her voice.
“It is,” said Hodge, peering at the paper. “In fact,
according to this, if we use him, it will be more like putting a lock on the
process.”
Martin spoke up from the corner. “Hey, guys? I don’t feel
too good.”
Ridgeway was at his side immediately. “What’s wrong?”
Martin fell to his knees. “My insides feel all queasy,” he
gasped, holding himself tightly around the belly.
From somewhere, out in the Core, an alarm began to sound.
Hodge’s head snapped toward the sound. “Oh no,” he said.
“That’s the field-detection alert.”
Every light in the lab went out, plunging the group into
complete darkness.
Martin began to scream. “It burns!”
A blinding flash of energy from the Core strobed through the
windows. Land and Hodge watched in horror as the shatter-proof glass was
shattered and Martin was pulled back toward the light. Ridgeway tried to grab
his arm, but she was too slow.
When Martin hit the center of the blazing ball, the reaction
suddenly quit, leaving the survivors unable to see, again. But they all heard
the impact as the Lieutenant’s body fell to the floor of the Core, far below.
Emergency lights came on, casting a dirty yellow glow. One
by one, the computers began to reboot. Hodge started to access the Core’s
sensors to find out what had just happened. He soon had his answers.
“We’re finished,” he said. “The time barrier will never open
again. We’d configured incorrectly. Martin wasn’t from the future. He was from
the past.”
No. 334A
CYOA2 Part 9
March 21, 2013
“What is he talking about?” Land asked Ridgeway and Hodge.
“Not sure,” said Hodge, hurriedly. His attention was focused
on the foreign drone that was approaching the lab. “That’s the more immediate
threat,” he said, pointing.
Martin grabbed Hodge’s arm. “No. The barrier is. There’s
something wrong with it.”
Hodge shook our of Martin’s grip. Keeping one eye on the
foreign drone, he punched a command into the computer. The original drone disappeared back into the
barrier. “You’re right,” he whispered to Martin.
“What is it?” Land demanded.
“The information I’m getting back says that the drone’s gone
further into the future this time,” said Hodge. “Seventy-five years.” Then his
eyes widened. “Wait. Now it says forty minutes. Changing to a year. Now five.
Now a month.” He turned to the others. “It’s doesn’t just go to one time.”
As he finished saying the words, the circumference of the
time-barrier increased suddenly, engulfing the mysterious drone and penetrating
the walls of the lab. Ridgeway, who was standing closest to the windows,
disappeared into the portal.
It collapsed in on itself just as quickly, returning to its
former state, floating in the middle of the Core.
The three left behind stared blankly at the empty space.
Martin recovered first. “I’m going in,” he said. Before
anyone could stop him, he grabbed a pistol from the Captain’s holster, and had
leapt off the observation deck into the barrier.
He hit the ground hard. Rolling upright, he found himself
still in the massive bay. He wasn’t alone though. He was surrounded by a ring
of armed troops. All of them had their guns trained on him.
“Get up,” said the leader.
Martin followed the order.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“The same place you left two years ago,” replied a familiar
voice. The statement echoed through the Core.
“Hodge?” said Martin, straining to see into the lab. “Did
Ridgeway make it here?”
There was a sinister laugh. “She did,” said Hodge. “About
six months ago. You’ll meet her again shortly.”
“I need to get her and go back through,” Martin told him. He
finally saw the scientist. He began to get a very bad feeling.
The last two years had been unkind to Hodge. Martin saw a
large scar running up the man’s face, and one of his hands had been replaced by
a crude metal hook. What stood out the most was Captain Land’s hat perched
jauntily on Hodge’s head.
“Where’s the Captain?” Martin asked. “She’ll back me up.”
“Oh yes,” said Hodge, scratching his chin with the hook.
“The Captain. Well, it seems that soon after the barrier opened, she had an
accident. I command the Nautilus now.”
One of the guards nudged Martin with the barrel of a gun.
The prisoner was marched back to the cabin he’d been held in when he’d arrived
on Nautilus. The journey was much different now, with various parts of the base
having been patched and ruined, as if a battle had taken place. Particularly
gruesome were a number of man-sized scorch marks in the main passageway.
Martin’s cell had seen the door replaced with crudely welded bars. Martin was
thrown in, and left by himself.
It was three days before he saw anybody again.
Hodge appeared, whistling as he approached.
“Why?” Martin asked when Hodge stepped in front of the bars.
Hodge didn’t answer. Instead, he drew a pair of handcuffs
from his belt and motioned for Martin to turn around. Once Martin was shackled,
Hodge put his hook through the links on the handcuff chain and pulled the
prisoner along with him.
“Where are we going?” Martin demanded.
“You’ll see,” said Hodge.
Martin was taken to another control room, one that was on
the far side of the Core. Instead of computers, this one had more industrial
machines. There were large switches and levers everywhere. Hodge sat Martin
down on a bare metal bench.
“Now,” said the villain. “Now you’ll help me with my true
experiment.”
“I won’t do anything until I see Ridgeway,” Martin told him
defiantly.
“Very well,” said Hodge. “She’s over there.” He pointed with
his hook. Ridgeway was indeed there. She was strapped to a chair very much like
the one the Martin had been in when the barrier first appeared.
“Why is she in the chair?” asked Martin.
Hodge laughed his devious laugh. “She’s my calibration,” he
said with a cackle. “Oh, that’s right. You still think you’re the reason the
barrier opened in your time. No, sorry. That was me. Or, it will be in about
ten minutes here. It didn’t start early at all. I opened it to the past.”
“Remember when Land
told you about the three people who came through the portal at Chernobyl? How
one returned to their time? That was me. You, me, and the girl, we were all
ripped from our homes and sent back. Thirty-six hours to be precise. They
didn’t know how close the ends were, then.”
“It was only a little more than a day?” asked Martin.
“Correct,” nodded Hodge.
“And Ridgeway helps you how?” Martin pressed.
Hodge grinned. “I’m not going to use myself as a guinea pig,
am I? I needed somebody else. Since there were only three people who are up to
the task, my other options are clear, aren’t they?”
Martin realized what he was saying. “But she died,” he said.
“Land told us the third girl died.”
“And just who do you think told Land?”
“So that whole time you worked on the experiment, you were
planning this? To kidnap me and Ridgeway?”
“No,” said Hodge. “I worked here the whole time so that I
could rule the world. With a functioning and properly calibrated time-machine,
I have ultimate power.”
“I’ll save Ridgeway,” Martin told him, with cold resolve in
his eyes. “And I’m going to stop you.”
No. 334B
CYOA2 Part 9 Alternate
March 21, 2013
“What is he talking about?” Land asked Ridgeway and Hodge.
“Not sure,” said Hodge, hurriedly. His attention was focused
on the foreign drone that was approaching the lab. “That’s the more immediate
threat,” he said, pointing.
The drone was close, now. The whine of its engines could be
heard through the thick glass of the observation windows.
“It looks like ours,” said Ridgeway. “Can you stop it?”
Hodge was too busy entering commands into the computer to
reply. “Ah ha!” he cried out as a screen changed color from yellow to green.
The drone’s flight path wobbled slightly.
“I think I’ve got it,” said Hodge.
They were his last words. The drone smashed through the
window, the computer, and Hodge before burying itself in the bulkhead on the
far side of the room. There was no explosion, but deep, black smoke began to
billow out of the wreck.
The fire suppression system in the lab kicked in, flooding
the chamber with inert gas.
“Come on,” Land ordered. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
Ridgeway gathered Martin to his feet and she and the Captain
carried him toward the exit. None of the party noticed that behind them in the
Core, without a hand on the controls, the time-barrier was expanding.
The group was just exiting the security zone around the Core
when the first blast rocked the Nautilus.
Captain Land turned white. “It’s happening again,” she
whispered.
Martin, who had regained his senses, grabbed her arm. “You
can sound the evacuation alarm. We may lose the Base, but we’ll live.”
Ridgeway joined him in reassuring Land. “We just need to get
to the bridge.”
Another detonation rocked the vessel. This one was bigger
than the first.
“We need to hurry, though,” Ridgeway told the Captain.
“Martin? Can you get her other arm?”
There was no reply.
“Martin?” Ridgeway repeated.
Hearing nothing, she turned around.
Martin was dead. The last explosion had driven a metal beam
straight through his chest.
No. 335A
CYOA2 Part 10
March 22, 2013
A guard approached Hodge with a status report. Martin
watched the guard carefully. There was something about the man’s demeanor that
made him seem vulnerable. Martin saw Hodge give the guard an order. As the
guard turned to leave the room, Martin understood what his captor’s weakness
was. Hodge was a scientist, not a soldier. If he’d been commanding the rogue
staff of the Nautilus for two years, their training wouldn’t be as efficient as
it could be. Martin knew the advantage in a straight fight would be his.
All he needed was a distraction. Hodge seemed like a talker.
Maybe that would work. “Do you remember coming through the time-barrier all
those years ago?” he asked the scientist.
Hodge turned to face the prisoner. He shrugged. “I was
young, then, only nine. One minute I was at home, the next I was in a strange
place, like a factory. Somebody with a gun threatened me, and I tried to run,
only to stumble back into a giant light. I thought I’d fallen in fire. But,
instead, I was home. Unfortunately, it seemed that almost a year had passed. My
mother had died in that time, and my father had started drinking.”
“I see,” said
Martin, as he struggled surreptitiously to escape from the handcuffs. “Do you
know what happened to the man that was sent from the Chernobyl side?”
“Yes,” said Hodge. “I killed him. He would have been the
only other person who knew that we weren’t from the distant future. If he had
reported back to the people in charge of the time-barrier, they would have
hunted me down and prevented me from achieving this,” he concluded with a grandiose
sweep of his hook.
Martin had freed himself from the cuffs and made his move
while Hodge was mid-swing. He dove at the smaller man, tackling him to the
ground while at the same time trying to avoid the dangerous pointed claw.
“Ridgeway,” he shouted. “Hold on.”
Ridgeway shook her arm weakly against her restraints. “No
problem,” she said sarcastically.
Hodge was quickly subdued, but before Martin could free
Ridgeway, the guard returned. He saw Hodge on the ground and turned his gun
immediately toward Martin.
“Freeze,” was the unoriginal command.
Martin slowly raised his hands. At the same time, he was
able to take an extra step toward the guard without being noticed.
Ridgeway saw martin move forward and created her own
distraction.
“Look out!” she cried from the chair. The guard’s head
snapped toward the sound while Martin lunged forward to grab the gun. Once the
guard was disarmed, he too was tied up next to Hodge.
Martin released Ridgeway. She gave him a light kiss on the
cheek.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Martin told her. “We’re still not
where we’re supposed to be.”
They turned back to confront Hodge, but he was missing.
Martin pointed the gun at the remaining guard. “Which way did he go?”
The guard gave up the information without hesitation.
“Toward the bridge. There’s a master-control for the Core that’s been installed
there.”
“Can you walk?” Martin asked Ridgeway.
She took the gun off him and cocked it aggressively. “No
problem,” she told him. Then she swung the butt of the rifle into the guard’s
face, knocking him out. She shrugged at Martin. “They weren’t very nice,” she
explained. “Let’s go finish off that maniac.”
The bridge was dark and silent when they approached. The
giant holograph had been replaced by a hastily installed booth. Great snakes of
wires flowed into the base across the previously uncluttered deck.
“I think we found him,” Martin whispered.
Ridgeway pulled the trigger and sent a hail of bullets
toward the compartment. The assault seemed to do very little in the way of
damage.
“Cover me,” said Martin. “I’m going to get closer.”
He made it to within an arm’s length of the target when the
lights came on, catching him mid-stride.
“You’ve made a mistake,” Hodge’s voice mocked over the
intercom. “Your friend just shot up the Nautilus’ guidance computer. We had
some problems with the old one, so we had to make do with what we had on board.
Lack of parts, and all that. I’m sure we could get some more from the mainland
with a convincing enough story. But, for now, I think, we’ll be stuck on a
course for the ocean bottom.”
“Where is he?” Martin called to Ridgeway.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t see him.”
Martin ran back up to Ridgeway. “We may have already won,”
he told her quietly. “There’s no point chasing him all over the base.”
She understood. “If we can escape, he’ll die when the
Nautilus implodes at crush-depth. We don’t have to fight him.”
Martin raised his voice again, for the benefit of their
unseen observer. “Where are you, Hodge? We’re coming for you.”
A disgusting cackle echoed out of the speakers. “You won’t
find me. And I’ve got full control of the barrier. Come on, Lieutenant, do your
worst.”
Ridgeway and Martin made a show of leaving the bridge. “Are
there escape pods?” he asked her once they were out of range.
“Better,” she told him. “Follow me.”
Together, they ran down the passageways of the sinking base.
They began to hear ominous creaks and popping noises as the vessel descended.
Luckily, their path didn’t take them near the Core, and so they did not have to
deal with the security layers to get to their objective.
“Through here,” Ridgeway told Martin as they arrived at a
seemingly nondescript hatch at the end of a corridor. They stepped inside and
Martin almost lost his balance when he saw what was on the other side.
The “escape pod” on Nautilus Base was actually a full-sized
submarine.
“Can we handle that?” Martin asked, still amazed by the
sight.
“Yes,” Ridgeway confirmed. “It’s heavily automated, for
emergencies. It only needs a crew of two, but can carry up to fifty people.”
“’Dakkar’,” Martin read the name painted in ornate letters
on the side of the sleek boat. “Fits the theme,” he remarked with a grin.
“Stop wasting time,” Ridgeway told him. “Let’s go.”
They clambered up the narrow ladder to the boarding hatch
and made their way inside. They strapped in, and initiated the sequence to
eject.
They heard the outer doors of the Nautilus open, and water
rush in.
Then they were free.
The radio began to crackle, and a familiar voice filled the
Dakkar. “You’re getting away,” screamed Hodge. “Cowards! You won’t defeat me! I
am the master of time!”
Martin laughed. “For about another minute, Hodge, and then
you’ll be crushed.”
Ridgeway was less impressed. “’Master of Time?’” she replied
with a smirk. “That’s what you’re going to go with?”
Martin pulled her toward him and shut off the radio. “Come
on,” he said. “It’s poor form to taunt the condemned.”
Sure enough, a minute later, Martin and Hodge heard the
Nautilus implode, destroying everything still on board.
“Do you think he made it out?” asked Martin. “Or to another
time?”
“No,” said Ridgeway. “He wouldn’t be able to control the
barrier without one of us to calibrate it. Or,” she said, pausing for effect.
“Without this.” She pulled a peculiar-looking circuit board from her waistband.
“They only had one on board. Funny, though, I specifically outlined that
vulnerability in my initial report on the project.”
Three weeks later, Martin and Ridgeway were standing in the
Oval Office.
“Thank you for sacrificing two years of your lives to save
the world,” said the President as he handed them their medals.
“You’re welcome, Sir,” said Martin. “But I just have one
question. Did you know that I came from the future when you sent me on the
mission?”
“No, he didn’t,” said a voice from just outside the room.
The speaker stepped through the door. “But I did,” he said just as Ridgeway and
Martin recognized him. “Nautilus Base was my idea, too,” said another Martin.
“Where did you come from?” the first Martin demanded.
“From thirty-six hours before you were sent back,” answered
the doppelganger. “And, by the way, instead of asking pointless questions, why
don’t you give Holly a kiss?”
“Good idea,” said Martin, who took his own advice.
No. 335B
CYOA2 Part 10 Alternate
March 22, 2013
A guard approached Hodge with a status report. Martin
watched the guard carefully. There was something about the man’s demeanor that
made him seem vulnerable. Martin saw Hodge give the guard an order. As the
guard turned to leave the room, Martin understood what his captor’s weakness
was. Hodge was a scientist, not a soldier. If he’d been commanding the rogue
staff of the Nautilus for two years, their training wouldn’t be as efficient as
it could be. Martin knew the advantage in a straight fight would be his.
All he needed was a distraction. Hodge seemed like a talker.
Maybe that would work. “Do you remember coming through the time-barrier all
those years ago?” he asked the scientist.
Hodge turned to face the prisoner. He shrugged. “I was
young, then, only nine. One minute I was at home, the next I was in a strange
place, like a factory. Somebody with a gun threatened me, and I tried to run,
only to stumble back into a giant light. I thought I’d fallen in fire. But,
instead, I was home. Unfortunately, it seemed that almost a year had passed. My
mother had died in that time, and my father had started drinking.”
“I see,” said
Martin, as he struggled surreptitiously to escape from the handcuffs. “Do you
know what happened to the man that was sent from the Chernobyl side?”
“Yes,” said Hodge. “I killed him. He would have been the
only other person who knew that we weren’t from the distant future. If he had
reported back to the people in charge of the time-barrier, they would have
hunted me down and prevented me from achieving this,” he concluded with a
grandiose sweep of his hook.
Martin had freed himself from the cuffs and made his move
while Hodge was mid-swing. He dove at the smaller man, tackling him to the
ground while at the same time trying to avoid the dangerous pointed claw.
“Ridgeway,” he shouted. “Hold on.”
Ridgeway shook her arm weakly against her restraints. “No
problem,” she said sarcastically.
Hodge was quickly subdued. Martin ran to the door to make
sure the guard wasn’t on his way back, then he released Ridgeway. She gave him
a light kiss on the cheek.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Martin told her. “We’re still not
where we’re supposed to be.”
Hodge was screaming at them from the floor. “Cowards! You
won’t defeat me! I am the master of time!”
Martin laughed. “You aren’t two years ago. I’m going back,
and we’ll make sure you don’t get the chance to get close to the Core again.”
Ridgeway was less impressed. “’Master of Time?’” she said
with a smirk. “That’s what you’re going to go with?”
Martin pulled her toward him. “Come on,” he said. “We can
taunt him in the past.”
She didn’t disagree, but she gave Hodge a swift kick on the
way out. The pair hurried down the stairs toward the shining barrier.
“Are you sure this is the way back?” she asked Martin right
before the passed through it.
Martin checked his watch. “He said it would line up with the
day we left in ten minutes, ten minutes ago.”
“Okay,” said Ridgeway.
They stepped forward together.
They arrived in the past instantly. But there was a problem.
“Where’s the Nautilus?” asked Martin, confused.
Ridgeway surveyed the dense jungle that surrounded them. “I
think we’ve gone back too far.”
“How far do you think?”
Ridgeway lowered her voice abruptly before she answered.
“All the way back,” she whispered. “Judging from that Tyrannosaurus,” she
finished, pointing at the fearsome beast.
The Tyrannosaurus saw the pair and turned to attack.
“I hope ‘Jurassic Park’ was right about staying still,”
Martin hissed out of the corner of his mouth.
But “Jurassic Park” was incorrect. The dinosaur closed the
distance in no time. Ridgeway was the first to go, swallowed in one swift
motion. Martin was less lucky. He felt the Tyrannosaurus’ teeth grip him around
the belly and rip him in half. He watched his legs go down the monster’s throat
before he bled to death, sixty-five million years before he was born.
No. 336
March 23, 2013
The fire had jumped across the valley, and now formed an
impenetrable wall around all four sides of the stranded group of hikers. Crews
were trying desperately to reach them, but were driven away by the heat. The
last option was a water-bomber dump directly on the hikers’ position in an
attempt to suppress the flames long enough to reach the trapped party.
“Base, this is Dragon 768. We are on approach to the target.
Confirm release at grid 27?”
“Roger, Dragon. Grid 27.”
Mike Harrison keyed the radio toggle again. “Copy, Base.
We’re going in.” He pushed the control column forward and the enormous plane
began its run.
The hot air rising off of the fire made for a bumpy ride.
“Wait until I give the call before hitting the release,”
Harrison told his co-pilot, Andrew “Ace” Carol. “They don’t have time for us to
go back and refill.”
“Gotcha,” said Ace in his usual laid-back manner.
Harrison often remarked that, when Ace wasn’t flying, it was
hard to tell if he was alive.
Ace claimed “energy conservation”, if he defended himself at
all.
The aircraft was seconds from releasing its liquid cargo
when Ace sounded the alarm. “Fire warning on the number two engine,” he called,
simultaneously pulling the extinguisher handle.
Before Harrison had a chance to respond, Ace made another
announcement.
“Fire in number one, too.”
“Leave it,” Harrison commanded. “We need to make the drop.
Get ready.”
The hikers watched the plane fly toward them. One wing was
trailing a cloud of dark smoke. The aircraft started to wobble as it got
closer. Then the belly opened up and released the water over the fire. Several
of the hikers were knocked down by the deluge.
“We’re empty,” Harrison shouted. “Cut the engine.”
Ace did as he was told, and the plane lurched sideways as it
lost thrust on one side.
Harrison saw the problem immediately. “I can’t correct. We
don’t have enough altitude. Hold on.”
Rescue crews reached the hikers just as the bomber hit the
ground. Luckily, it crashed just ahead of the fire.
Harrison lifted his head and looked at the shattered
flightdeck. He couldn’t quite remember what had just happened. He felt someone
pulling at his shoulder strap and looked slowly in that direction.
It was Ace, who had a nasty gash over his eye, but otherwise
seemed to be in good shape.
“We need to go,” he told Harrison. “The tail’s already going
up. I don’t want to get cooked.”
No. 337
March 24, 2013-03-24
The International Space Station had been taken over in an
act of cunning treachery. The crewmember responsible, a sleeper agent, was now
threatening, for reasons known only to her, to crash the space lab into a major
city.
Lex Orbis had been called on to retake the ISS. He was
currently stuffed into a Soyuz capsule, approaching the Station at thousands of
kilometers per hour. The plan was that Orbis, once in range, would leap out
into space and enter the station through the airlock.
At the appointed time, Orbis zipped up his spacesuit and
turned to shake hands with the other man in the capsule. “Wish me luck, Boris,”
he told the Russian, who, incidentally, knew no English. Then Orbis threw open
the hatch and jumped.
Floating free across the void, Orbis had time only to wonder
if, perhaps, the taser he’d brought along with him would be enough to subdue
the rogue astronaut.
Seconds later, he hit the side of the ISS and grabbed a
support. He clambered over the surface, trying to avoid passing over any windows.
He reached the outer door and pulled the emergency handle to let himself in. It
worked, and Orbis was soon safely inside.
Now came the hard part of the mission. He’d been told that
the mutineer had smuggled a gun on board, and was willing to use it, despite
the risk of puncturing the hull. As soon as Orbis unlocked the inner airlock,
he’d have mere moments to make his move.
Drawing the taser, he took a deep breath, then kicked the
hatch open and dove through.
There was nobody there. All the lights were off and the
entire capsule was lit by the glow of a single computer screen. Orbis floated
slowly through the empty modules, making sure he was the only person aboard.
When he returned to the computer, the display had changed.
There was a message on it.
MISSED ME ORBIS
WE LEFT IN THE EMERGENCY POD
ISS HAS BEEN DISABLED
YOU HAVE SEVEN MINUTES UNTIL RE-ENTRY
LOVE ALWAYS
–S
“Curses!” Orbis swore. They hadn’t told him his opponent’s
name. It was Sabrina, Orbis’ old nemesis.
He threw the taser across the compartment angrily, and
looked for a way to reboot the guidance system.
Failing to find one, he went with the only other option he
could think of. Returning to the airlock, he swiftly cleared both doors and
crouched on the lip of the outer hatch, watching the world spin beneath him.
“Boris,” he called over his radio. “I’m going to need a
pick-up.”
Then he jumped back out into the void.
No. 338
March 25, 2013
Fox’s Landing wasn’t a small town, but it wasn’t a large
town, either. Every resident could gather in the square with plenty of space
left for visitors.
I can’t tell you what possessed me to stop there that night.
I saw the glowing “Vacancy” sign in the window of the motel and pulled over.
The morning was cold. I was the only one in the street. I’d
asked the man at the front desk where I might find a cup of coffee and he’d
told me to head three blocks “toward the bridge” to Dana’s Coffee. Of course, I
had no idea where the bridge was, so I made an assumption and walked downhill.
It was unsteady going. There was a thin layer of ice on
every surface. I stopped myself from falling more than once, but I eventually
found the right storefront.
The hours on the window said Dana’s was open, but the door
was locked. I rubbed my hands together and knocked. After a moment’s wait, it
opened. I was greeted by a girl who appeared to be no more than seventeen years
old.
“Are you open?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Come on in. You must be from out of town.”
“How’d you guess?”
“All the regulars come in through the kitchen until at least
ten.”
I peered over her shoulder. It must have been true. I
counted at least four other people sitting at a table in the middle of the shop.
“Come in,” she told me. “What can I get started for you?”
I looked briefly at the menu above the counter, but went
with my gut. “Black coffee, please. Dark roast, if there’s a choice.”
“Sit anywhere you like,” the girl told me as she went to get
my drink.
One of the men at the table motioned for me to join them.
“Welcome to Landing,” he told me. “Don’t worry. Dana will have your drink real
soon and you won’t have to stay for too long.”
“That’s Dana?” I asked, nodding at the girl.
“Sure is,” said another man. “This is her place.”
He saw the surprise on my face.
“She’s older than she looks.”
Dana returned with my cup. She gave the men an exaggerated
roll of her eyes. “Are you spreading lies about me, again?”
“No, Dana. We were just telling the visitor here that you’re
ninety-five years old.”
She looked at me. “Twenty-four,” she said. “It’s a game they
like to play.” She gave me the coffee and turned back to the regulars. “I don’t
want to have to ban you all for the third time.”
They laughed. “Don’t worry. We’ll be good.”
She returned to the kitchen.
“She’ll do it, too,” the second man admitted to me.
“I’ll bet,” I said. I sipped my drink. The coffee was good.
Maybe I had time for one more before I got back on the road.
No. 339
March 26, 2013
If it wasn’t the coldest day of the year, it was close. We
were at Dana’s, like usual, when there was a knock at the door.
“Tourist,” said Bill Worsley.
I nodded. Nobody from Fox’s Landing comes through the front
door at Dana’s. I sipped my tea and watched to see the stranger enter.
As Dana passed us to open up, she pointed and half-whispered
a warning. “Be nice.”
You listen to a girl like Dana.
“Welcome to Landing,” I told our guest after he got in and
shook himself off. The man had a hungry look about him. Maybe he’d been on the
road too long. It’s a drive from anywhere to Landing. I suppose that’s why we
like it here.
He resisted the urge
to get some kind of fancy drink, though. I think Dana respects the ones who
order regular.
The man seemed surprised to hear that Dana ran the store.
Maybe we all got used to her being on her own after her parents died. It
doesn’t seem like so long ago if you think about it, but time passes slower
here. There’s less ways to fill it. It’s been five years since she opened the
Coffee shop.
Bill started winding the man up. Like I said, there’s less
ways to fill time here. Dana caught him just before he got to the punch line,
like we haven’t heard it all a hundred times before. “No, Dana, We were just
telling the visitor here that you’re ninety-five years old.”
So she threatened to ban us for a third time. At least this
one wouldn’t be my fault.
Audrey Harris asked the man’s name.
“James Docker,” he
said as he pulled his chair a little closer to the table. It was our cue to
introduce ourselves.
Bill went first, being the talkative one.
I followed. “Frank Macklin.”
Docker’s handshake was solid.
Emily Wills said her name, but so quietly that I don’t think
Mr. Docker heard. In any case, he called her “Emmy” directly after.
Oddly, Dana didn’t come back from the kitchen very quickly
after bringing Docker’s coffee.
Sometimes she gets like that. I have a feeling she’s embarrassed that
she looks so young. But that’s my granddaughter for you.
With introductions complete, we settled back in to our
conversation. I kept my eye on Docker.
You can tell the moment that somebody decides to stay in
Landing. For our new friend it was just after his second cup. I think I knew it
before he did.
No. 340
March 27, 2013
Lex Orbis is the world’s (1) best
spy. Last year he stopped (2) three attempts
to take over the (3) world, and seven (4) mad-scientists with (5) doomsday
devices.
His (6) greatest foe, by
far, is Sabrina. Sabrina is a (7) deadly
assassin whose (8) hatred for Orbis is
tempered only by her (9) twisted love.
Their first encounter was in a (10) small
(11) cafe in (12) Switzerland.
Lex was on a case and Sabrina was (13) planning
her first (14) mission.
Throughout their careers, their paths have crossed many
times. Every meeting is more (15) violent
than the last. Most recently, Sabrina left Lex stranded on (16) the International Space Station.
It was only with the help of a (17) Russian
(18) astronaut that Orbis was able to (19) escape by the skin of his teeth.
Orbis has tracked Sabrina to her hideout. In order to get
in, he must first (20) put on a (21) disguise and then (22) overpower
the guards. The battle will not be easy. She is waiting for him, and she’s just
as (23) clever as he is.
No. 341
March 28, 2013
“I’m sorry, I can’t help you,” said the butler who had
answered the door of the stately home.
I was confused. “This isn’t 1947 Albert Crescent?” I asked
one last time, to be sure. I’d been trying to get a straight answer for almost
ten minutes.
The butler took the ornate card with the numbers listed on
it from my hand and examined it. His inspection included turning it over and,
oddly, sniffing it. “I’m afraid not,” he said. “What I can tell you is that
1944 Albert Crescent used to be directly across the way. They pulled that
building down some years ago. Maybe that’s the one you’re confused about.”
I looked where he directed. There was only an overgrown lot
with an old concrete foundation in the center. “Thanks,” I told him. “Maybe
I’ll try to call somebody.”
The door closed, and I was left alone on the porch. I was
almost certain that I had the right place. It’s true, there were no house
numbers on the exterior, but it was the only structure on the street and the
butler’s “across-the-road” story seemed dodgy. What was stranger still was that
I hadn’t even told the man why I was looking for 1947 before he’d turned
twitchy and nervous.
I had a gold coin in my backpack, as well as written instructions
on exactly when and how to deliver it. I only I had to find the location to
deliver it to. The person who’d given it to me had been very, very specific.
When the phone number I’d be given connected directly with a
“not in service” message, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
I’d been duped. There had never been 1947 Albert Crescent,
just an elaborate ruse to lure me here.
I heard a rustle in the bushes.
The door seemed very far away, now. I broke into a run,
screaming as loudly as I could and hoping that the butler would hear me.
No. 342
March 30, 2013
“Honey, I just got back from the post office,” said Alan
Mersey. “I picked up your package, but I think they sent the wrong book.”
Kyla Mersey looked around the corner from the upstairs
office. “What did we get?”
Alan checked the title one more time, just to be sure.
“’Care and Feeding of the African Banded Pit-Viper’,” he told her.
“Wow,” she said. “That’s not even close.”
“Can we return it?” Alan asked as he came up the stairs.
Kyla clicked around on the sender’s website for a moment,
reading the terms and conditions. “No,” she said, finding the relevant
information. “Since we ordered during a sale.”
“Is there anything at all that we can do?” Alan pressed.
Kyla shrugged. “We could buy an African Banded Pit-Viper.”
Alan leaned forward, intrigued. “How much is one of those?”
Twelve-to-fourteen business-days later, a courier arrived at
the Mersey’s front door. “I’ve got an animal here for you,” she said when Alan
opened it. “Just sign here.”
Alan did so, and a medium-sized box was handed over.
“Thanks,” he told the departing messenger.
“Be careful when you open it,” said Kyla, with the book in
hand. “It’s highly venomous.”
Alan was, and soon had the lid ready to be opened. Slowly,
he and Kyla lifted the cover up.
“Oh, come on!” exclaimed Alan. “This is ridiculous.”
Inside the container was not the expected reptile, but a
small, furry creature.
“Wombat,” said Kyla, correctly identifying the Mersey’s new
pet.
No. 343
March 31, 2013
The light in the old hangar cast a sickly yellow glow on the
two occupants. Rain lashed the tin roof, the first sign of an approaching
storm. All flights at the airport had been cancelled, leaving an old man and a
young man to take shelter and wait.
“Have you heard of the ghost plane, boy?” asked the old man.
“Every year, on the same night, a fog rolls in from the ocean and the runway
lights dim. Then a plane comes in to land.
“We don’t see it on the radar and, when it rolls to a stop,
it vanishes. We can never prove it arrived. But it comes.
“Some say it’s Amelia Earhart returning home. Others say
it’s the last man back from the lost Flight 19. I can’t rightly say who, or
what it could be. It makes the hairs on your neck stand up.”
“I’m not afraid,” said the young man.
“No, not now, you aren’t. But the first time you hear that
engine, and every time after that, you will be.”
No. 344
April 1, 2013
“Tell me a story,” said little Brian Sanderson. “A good
one.”
His older sister, Amy, sighed. “Again?” she asked. “I just
told you one last night.”
“Yeah,” agreed Brian. “But it was crap.”
Amy nodded. He was right, but she didn’t want to have to
actually say the words. “Ok,” she conceded. “Give me a second to think.”
Brian waited patiently, eyes fixed on his sister.
She began.
“Steve could hear the monster chewing, deep within the
cave.”
“Cool!” Brian interrupted. “Is it eating a dude?”
“Let me get started!” Amy insisted. “You’ll find out!”
The story continued.
“And Steve knew the gruesome noises were all that were left
of his friend David.”
“Gross!” said Brian.
“Steve was sure that he had only minutes to live. He
struggled against the rocks that pinned him to the floor of the cavern.”
“I’d chew my leg off to escape,” added Brian.
Amy’s eyes widened. “You’re disgusting!”
“What?” said Brian. “I would. Wouldn’t you?”
“No.”
“Will Steve?”
“What did I say about listening?” Amy scolded. “Anyway.
Steve was sure that he had only minutes to live.”
“You said that part already,” Brian reminded her,
unhelpfully.
“That’s it. You’ll never know what happens to Steve. Story’s
over.”
Amy got up and prepared to leave. Brian whined behind her.
“No! I’ll be good! I promise! Just tell me the end.”
“Fine,” said Amy, rolling her eyes. “Um. So Steve defeated
the horrible monster and went home and lived happily ever after.”
“That’s not fair,” complained Brian. “You skipped
everything, even the part where Steve eats the monster’s eyes for revenge, and
stabs all the monster’s babies!”
“Ew! Where do you even learn this stuff?”
Brian shrugged. “Better stories?” he offered.
Amy walked back to the bed, punched her brother’s arm, and
then stormed out of the room.
No. 345
April 2, 2013
I knew that there were going to be changes in Fox’s Landing,
but the change that happened was not the one I was expecting.
The day began normally, as uncommon days do. My grandfather
and his group of regulars had arrived at the usual time and were now well into
their third round of drinks.
I lingered in the kitchen. I was trying to work up the
courage to give them the news.
Dana’s Coffee would be closing for good.
I’d planned to tell
Grandpa about that much earlier, but it was hard. I suppose I’d been worried
that he’d think that I hadn’t worked hard enough.
Dana’s Coffee had been my mom’s idea, and my parents died
the week before we were going to open. Closing would make Grandpa feel like he
was losing her again, but the store wasn’t making money. More importantly, I
wanted to leave Landing.
I was about to take one last sip of coffee before going out
to make the announcement when somebody knocked on the front door.
I set my mug down and rushed to answer. I knew it was
somebody new and, even on the last day, extra business wouldn’t hurt.
I opened the door and saw man who might have been about
thirty. He was a pleasant distraction from the grim task I’d been steeling
myself for.
“Come in,” I told him. “What can I get started for you?”
He ordered a coffee, dark roast, not some kind of flavoured
latte. That surprised me a little. Most folks from out of town liked a sweeter
option.
“Sit anywhere you like,” I directed the visitor. Then I left
to get his drink. I knew I’d have to hurry, or Bill would start his routine
about my age.
I made it back in time for the punch line. “Dana’s
ninety-five years old.” I briefly considered accidentally-on-purpose spilling
the coffee on him. I settled on threatening to ban him, again. It hurt when I
realized that I wouldn’t be able to follow through on the warning.
Fighting tears, I hurried back to the kitchen.
For the next hour or so, I hid, emerging only to refill
enough cups that people wouldn’t get too suspicious.
My misery was interrupted by a light tapping on the wall.
It was the visitor.
“Dana?” he asked hesitantly. “I’m James. I just wanted to
tell you how much I enjoyed my coffee.”
“Thanks,” I told him. Immediately, I knew that he knew.
“Is something wrong?”
he asked, taking a step closer.
I broke down, telling this stranger everything that I’d been
afraid to tell the others.
He listened without interrupting.
When I finished, he came toward me and leaned back against
the counter. “I see.”
I could tell that the gears were turning in his head.
“Maybe we could make a deal,” he proposed.
No. 346
April 3, 2013
Tessa Lane was wanted for robbery.
At 12:32 that afternoon, she’d walked into the Western
Credit and Savings Bank on 80th Avenue and, after threatening the
cashier with a pistol, escaped with $13,324.
Three other banks were hit in the next four and a half
hours.
“Pull over here,” she told her accomplice. “I think we’re
far enough out of town that we can stop for dinner,” she said, 200 kilometers
into their getaway.
Her accomplice obeyed, and they got out of the car to
stretch their legs before entering the roadside diner.
“Are you sure we’re ok to take a break?” asked Gabriel
Sharp, her boyfriend and reluctant partner-in-crime
“Relax,” Tessa assured him. “Even if they suspect I’ve made
a run for it, they’ll still be putting together the false clues I left at the
scene. Those’ll lead them south. Besides, this place makes an excellent
burger.”
But Tessa was wrong. An off-duty police officer on the way
home from a fishing trip had seen the car pass by and had turned to follow.
Beth Hitchcock had been trailing the fleeing criminals for the last hour.
Backup was close behind.
Hitchcock walked into the restaurant and casually took a
seat behind Tessa and Gabriel’s table. She ordered a coffee and leaned back to
wait for the action to start.
No. 347
April 4, 2013
Lucas Williams sat high-up in the tree, watching the two men
search for the treasure. Though the men were careful to avoid being followed,
they did not suspect that they were being observed from above.
The treasure had been part of town lore for all of Lucas’ 15
years, and for many more before that. There was said to be a curse upon whoever
found it, but that didn’t stop anybody from looking. Whispered rumors suggested
that Farmer Ashcroft had discovered the lode shortly before his accident,
although it was clear that he’d made no further attempts to retrieve the prize.
Everybody knew the cryptic directions by heart. “A fortune
is buried four fathoms below the clearing west of the forked rock.”
Lucas saw one of the men begin to dig as the other marked
the coordinates in his GPS device. Before long, the hole had been expanded into
a cavity large enough for both men to stand in. Lucas heard the unmistakeable
sound of a shovel striking wood and drew in his breath sharply. He strained to
hear what the men were saying, but couldn’t make out their whispers.
Slowly, the men scraped away the dirt around a large,
rectangular area. Then they traded their shovels for crowbars and jimmied the
wooden lid off of the exposed crate. Lucas thought he saw a flash of something
shiny before his view was blocked as the men shifted position in the hole.
But Lucas had a funny feeling that something about the
situation wasn’t right. The pit wasn’t nearly deep enough as the legend said,
and the size of the box, though impressive, didn’t seem large enough to hold
the requisite amount of gold.
Lucas was trapped in the tree until nightfall, when the two
men left in the direction of the town. He scrambled down the trunk and crept
carefully toward the hole. Reaching the edge, he lowered himself down until he
was kneeling on the ground, inches away from the mysterious chest. With one
last, nervous scan of the clearing, Lucas pulled aside the hastily replaced
lid.
Upon seeing what was inside, he gasped, and stumbled back into
the earthen wall of the excavation. He felt small chunks of dislodged soil fall
onto his shoulders as he struggled to comprehend the contents of the box.
They were certainly not a treasure.
No. 348
April 5, 2013
The sound of the rain hitting the roof almost drowned out
the TV. Oliver Richardson frowned and raised the volume.
During a commercial break, he peered through the curtains to
evaluate the miserable conditions outside. It was black. There seemed to be a
power outage in the building next-door, and Oliver struggled to see anything.
When his show returned, he left the window alone. Hopefully
his power would stay on.
Several minutes later there was a blinding burst of
lightning followed immediately by the loudest thunder Oliver had ever heard.
The sudden noise made him flinch, almost spilling his beer. The lights
flickered briefly but did not go out.
Oliver took a deep breath and re-settled himself on the
couch. “Just a storm,” he muttered to himself.
Before he could get entirely comfortable, he heard a strange
tapping at the window. He shrugged it off. “Windy,” he allowed.
The tapping got faster. Oliver spared a glance toward the
still-closed curtains.
Another peal of thunder made Oliver jump. The tapping
continued. It seemed almost insistent.
Oliver’s nerves were on edge.
He turned out the living room lamp, to cut the glare, and
tried to look outside again.
The darkness and rain still conspired to obscure his vision.
He waited for the lighting.
The tapping was right there, against the window.
The lightning struck, illuminating the scene in a flash.
Oliver screamed.
There was a face outside. It wasn’t human.
A clawed arm smashed through the window, and wind caught the
drapes, blowing them wide open.
Oliver scrambled to the far side of the room, fleeing from
the invading monster.
He could see the entire horror now, as it crawled in through
the broken gap. Large, gray, covered in thick, warty skin, it crept toward him
on all fours. Oliver turned his head away from the terrible yellow eyes, and
tried to make for the bedroom. The bedroom door had a lock.
The creature was slow, taking each step carefully, as if on
unfamiliar ground.
Oliver reached his supposed stronghold and barricaded
himself inside. He realized that at some point since the attack started that
he’d wet himself with fear. Then, more importantly, that he’d left his phone in
the other room.
He would have to face his attacker alone.
He searched the closet frantically for something to use as a
weapon.
Finding nothing, he cowered behind the bed. Thunder shook
the house, and the lights went out.
Oliver heard tapping at the bedroom door.
No. 349
April 7, 2013
Larry Watson screamed.
The spider was tiny, but it had mere moments to live after
wandering into Larry’s line of sight.
Larry lifted a magazine to strike the killing blow.
“Wait,” said the spider. “Don’t do it!”
Larry took two surprised steps backward, and considered
screaming again. “It talked!” he exclaimed, instead.
“Of course I said something,” said the spider. “You were
going to squash me.” It turned its many pairs of beady eyes on Larry. “For no
reason whatsoever, I might add.”
“I. Uh,” stuttered Larry.
“That’s right,” said the spider, waving a fore-leg in the
air. “Maybe next time you’ll consider putting on your big-boy pants and not
murdering everything that walks past you.”
Larry dropped the magazine. Cautiously, he crept closer to
the arachnid. He extended a finger to probe the curious specimen.
“No touching,” said the spider. “I’ll bite you good.
“I should bite you anyway,” it grumbled.
“Is this actually happening?” Larry asked.
“I’ll tell you what,” offered the spider. “You let me go,
and I won’t tell anyone that you made that noise when you saw me, deal?”
Larry nodded dumbly.
“Good,” said the spider. “And now that we have this
arrangement, I’ll be off. Good day, sir.”
It scurried into a hole in the wall and disappeared.
Larry spent the rest of the evening in the exact center of
the room, shaking, and jumping at any sign of motion. Two days later, he moved.
No. 350
April 8, 2013
Somebody knocked on the kitchen door, long after Dana’s
Coffee had closed.
James smiled. He knew the original owner had come back to
Fox’s Landing.
“Good to see you,” he told Dana as she let herself in.
“It still feels strange to knock,” she said.
“I told you,” said James. “You don’t have to. It’s still
your place.”
“Only fifty percent,” she corrected. “How’re things?”
“Oh, I’m sure you know. Your grandfather won’t stop calling
me ‘New Guy’, and Bill pretends that he doesn’t know my name yet.”
“Bill might not,” said Dana. “After all—Bill.”
“How’s school?” James asked.
“First semester’s
done. I haven’t worked that hard since, well, here,” she said. “Speaking of
work, how about you make me a coffee so I can see if you’re keeping up to my
standards?”
“Coming up,” said James, as he reached for the proper jar of
beans. He proceeded to complete the task while Dana moved into the dining room
and sat down.
“And here you go,” he said a short time later, delivering
the fresh cup to her table.
Dana made a show of tasting it before delivering her
verdict. “You get a pass, but Miss Harris would tell you it’s too strong.”
“You’d be surprised how far I’ve come with Miss Harris,”
James defended himself.
“Would I?” said Dana with a raised eyebrow.
“Sure. Now she only sends back two or three cups a day.”
Dana laughed. “Good job.”
She took another sip, holding the mug with both hands. “How
do you like Landing?” she asked.
“It’s—,” James paused, searching for the right answer. “Not
what I expected.”
“Better, or worse?”
“I don’t know,” said James. “Different.”
“Wait until summer,” Dana advised. “Summer, you’ll love.”
They both sat in silence for a short while.
She finished her coffee and gathered her things. “I should
be getting home. Long day today.”
James nodded.
“Don’t worry,” she told him. “I’ll be back in the morning.”
“I’ll see you then,” said James. “Goodnight, Dana.”
“’Night,” she told him as she slipped out the back door.