“I hope you’re right about this plan, Erik,” Ariel said.
“What? The Boxelites don’t like downing a two billion credit bird?” Erik said over the comm.
Ariel took a few still of the crash before heading towards the brush. The Weibs Schiff Class H Explorer, a “WeChe,” was shattered over the field below her. The WeChe had brought her here for the recon run Boxelites core wanted on Dunderite, but EI Division had already confirmed the Dunderites knew the recon was coming. Erik, her CO, knew any runner sent to scan the system was going to be shot down. This was their alternative plan.
“I’m still not sure they’re going to believe that flash body,” Ariel said.
“That’s only if they get the head,” Erik said. “Look, we put enough explosives into the cockpit and into the clone’s skull that they won’t get jack. Besides, the body belonged to a dead lady anyway. Even if they do clone her again to figure out who was on board that WeChe, it will take them at least a month.”
“I’m coming up on the ridge overwatch.” Dunderite was lower gravity, 0.85 earth normal, so she was made good time. “I’ve got at least two hot spots on scope. A scattering of bodies on the ground too.”
The base below was cloaked in darkness and without a moon to reflect ambient primary light from her low light scope was nearly useless too. Only thermal was showing anything, but her own heat might give her away as she approached. The suit concealed much of her heat, but the coils wrapped down her legs into her shoes was making her legs start to sweat. The cool ground she was crouched over was helping, but the suit could only compensate so much at once.
The base lit up as a third vehicle kicked to life. Several of the soldiers climbed inside and it and one of the original vehicles launched from the base towards her. She rolled to the side under some underbrush.
“They’re investigating. I’m heading down,” Ariel said
Flash Fiction: Homebound
I could only hear the groans of the building. Whatever those things were they had given up trying to get to me. It had been four days. Four days of them pounding on the doors, hitting the walls, crawling over each of the boarded up windows but I had stuck it out. I guess that’s why the rest of the town had emptied out. They couldn’t handle it. I’ll admit there were times I almost opened the front door too, if for nothing else than to end the noise.
Nat had called them zombies but I don’t know if that was right. Zombies looked like decaying corpses right? These were different. They were dead, but not dead. Like something else was riding them. Some were bleeding, yeah, but they never seemed to stop. Just an endless spout of blood trailing in the streets.
That had been the first sign when we came into town, the streaks of blood. Nat, Otto, and me had come back from the campsite over on Dayton Point. We’d only been gone a week but the radio had stopped picking up signals not long after we got to the camp. Otto said it was the ridges but they had never blocked the signal before. We had to deal with seven days of DJ Nat on his god forsaken Apple. But the signal didn’t come back after we left the park. Didn’t see another vehicle either until we got near town and all of those were abandoned. Then we saw the streaks.
It looked like Mah Kali. I still think it had been her, at least before it became that. It was walking along the streets near the cinema, bare naked but covered in lesions. Otto had hooted at the nude flesh but screamed when he saw the blood pouring from her legs. We stopped, thinking the woman had been injured. She might have been but help isn’t what she wanted from us.
She killed Otto. It was so fast. He jumped from the truck and ran to her, touching her shoulder to halt her walking. She spun on him and sank her teeth into his neck before we had even got out of the truck. Nat said she had fangs, but I didn’t see them. I just pull my rifle and opened up on her. On it. Didn’t matter. It screamed at us and ran on all fours away, grabbing the side of the cinema’s building and hoisting itself over the roof.
Otto didn’t have a chance. Nat had checked him while I chased that thing off.
“She bit his head off,” he had said. Near as I could tell, he was right. “What are you doing?”
“Calling the police,” I said. I had pulled out my cell phone and dialed 911 but there was never a ring. Just a hiss that seemed to be getting louder.
“Paul?” Nat said.
“Hold on. Trying to figure out what the heck is going on with this thing.”
“Paulie!” Nat said, slapping my arm.
“What?” I said and looked up. He pointed to the cinema’s roof and I felt cold streak down to my jewels.
Whatever that thing was that looked like Mah Kali, there was more of it. I don’t mean more people that were injured and stripped like her. I mean her. There were at least seven of them, all looking like seventy-year-old ladies out of their skivvies with strong as a buck looking muscles bulging from their arms. Some were missing large sections of skin but they didn’t seem to mind. They looked at us with a hunger no living thing should have. I’ve been stalked by a cougar before. I’d rather have a pack of those staring at me than whatever these things were.
We ran. We ran as hard and as fast as we could. I don’t know if they got Nat. So many buildings were boarded up, I just looked for the first one I could find that had a front door that wasn’t blocked. That’s how I ended up in this place. They had found me quick enough, and started in on every door and window. I didn’t check the name on the outside but whoever the home belonged to had boarded her up quite well. I was safe, thankful for that, for now.
Four days later and they stopped banging. My phone still isn’t working but it’s still charged. Shouldn’t be. Normally I’d hook it to the flashlight crank back in my truck but it’s still kicking nearly a week since it’s last charge. Power in the house still working too, and there’s food. Waters an issue though. There was a full tub of tap water, but now anything coming through the pipes is black as tar. I don’t want to risk it.
I don’t know what to do. I can stay here till the water or food runs out, and then dehydrate or starve to death. Or I can leave. Maybe try to get back to my truck and drive out of here. I wish I knew if Nat was alive but part of me knows he isn’t. Part of me wishes I wasn’t either.
Maybe that’s why I’m stood in front of this door. Cause I want to die. Cause I’m gonna risk a run. I think I knew where I was in town, and that I could find my truck. I just had to hope those women didn’t find me first.
Today’s story is a bit inspired by concepts of stories like Silent Hill, Night of the Living Dead, and other horror pieces like that. I don’t particularly care for writing about “normal” zombies only because those have been done to death (pun intended). But I do dig the weird style of undead you get in things like Silent Hill or other horror games where the dead don’t follow a set of rules. Instead supernatural or psychotic themes play over the monsters. Something about that makes them seem more terrifying than just the dead rising and hunting the living, because when you know something just wants to kill you can almost understand the thinking of such a monster. When you don’t know what it wants, or how it plans on getting it, that fear of the unknown is far more terrifying.
Serial Fiction: Hands – Ep 003
“Glen, how did you get a Limo?” Deron said. Glen stood outside of Deron’s office, smiling wide as the chauffer held the rear door open. He was dressed in a sharp suit he saved for public events and appearances for the theater although he added a pair of gloves today.
“Limo’s just a Transit rental. They have those now,” Glen said. It was a large stretch chariot, with enough space for six to eight people to be comfortable. The chauffer smiled at the couple as Deron hugged Glen. “I’ve got some good news about tonight for you. We’re going to one of your dream spots.”
“The Garden on High? Clutch-Behrs? Ilahi?” Deron asked.
“The third one. Care of The Dragon,” Glen said while holding up the silver key. Deron squealed and Glen’s face turned a few shades of red darker.
“Oh yes! Did you bring me-“
“Jacket, yes. It’s in the chariot. Come on, let’s go!”
Deron waved his arms up in the air and stopped short of tackling the chauffer. She laughed as he hugged her. She gave him a pat on the shoulder and he jumped into the car. Glen smiled and shook his head as he headed after him.
“Easily pleased?” The chauffer asked.
“Oh no, but when you hit the right buttons,” Glen said. They both chuckled as she closed the door behind him.
The Limo ride was short, but Ilahi and Deron’s office were in the same parts of the shell, the inner part of New Castle where the downtown ring circled the biggest towers and the large dome structure the Duke laired in. Ilahi was located in the first four floors of Groom Street Central. The building was a fat spike stretching high into the sky. Some eighty floors of offices and private spaces that starting on the fortieth floor began to contract into a single point on the northwest side of the building. Ilahi held half of the building’s base on the four floors it occupied, and as Glen and Deron stepped into the lobby of Groom Street Central they could see the façade of the restaurant’s exterior. The bottom six floors of the building were a part of a large atrium separated into individual market spaces. The large wall of Ilahi depicted tile patterns and wrought metal designs in curves and cursive script. The colors varied but blue and whites dominated the patterns. It was like looking at a gallery rather than the entrance to a fashionable restaurant.
“Excuse me.” A hume male had stepped from the restaurant as they approached. He wore a smooth brown vest over a cream colored long sleeve shirt, with slightly darker slacks and dark brown shoes. His name tag read Bakir Kartal, Concierge. “Do you happen to bear a key?” He asked.
“Yes,” Glen said, pulling it from his pocket. The key’s tip was glowing a soft blue and when Bakri spotted it he smiled.
“Ah wonderful. Then you are guests tonight of Mr. Aitken?”
“Yes, he gave me the key earlier.”
“He presented it to you earlier today. The key itself is not a gift to keep nor can it be. We will be holding it for him after your meal today. Please, follow me this way,” the concierge said. Glen repressed a chuckle and Deron rolled his eyes.
The concierge lead them into the restaurant. They passed through the waiting lounge filled with couples and business types waited for tables. Past the main dining area that was bursting with movement of guests, wait staff, and food going to and from the first kitchen. He brought them to the lift in the back of this area where everyone dining could get a good view of who was riding up.
Built on four floors, Ilahi was really two restaurants, maybe three depending on what someone considered the top floor. The first two floors were the main seating area and a main kitchen. Normal patrons would eat here and enjoy the flavors and talents of Ilahi’s talented sous chef and the team he assembled. The third floor was for the key bearers, and here the menus lacked prices, money and data chits were never exchanged, and luxury was king. The head chef of Ilahi considered this her domain and worked wonders for the wealthy, the powerful, and the lucky. Ilahi enjoyed showing off these guests and the elevator in the back of the restaurant was built so that no one on the first floor could miss seeing whoever was above them.
The amber colored glass was distorted on the inside of the elevator and Glen and Deron missed the key bearer just entering the restaurant watching their ascent.
Hands is a serial fiction series set in the Draco Artificium universe. Read the first piece here. Find the rest of the series here. New episodes go up Wednesdays.
Flash Fiction: Doors
Today’s story is inspired by Going Place by BoFeng
“I forgot my shoes,” Eric said. We had slide through the door with the wolves at our back. Jennifer was right. They can’t cross over. I don’t even know if they can see the doors. We didn’t wait to check as I slammed the panel behind us as quickly as we were over.
“I need my shoes,” Eric said in a low tone. The boy was distant, unsure, and I couldn’t really blame him. We had found him four doors ago, wandering here and there in mute confusion. Jennifer asked if we could leave him but Kathy had already started to approach him. It was good we did. He’d been the one who noticed the wolves before any of us although I wish he’d have more tack than to scream about them.
We had been in the water. I had already bathed and was sitting on the dock. Kathy, a mother before she ended up here, hadn’t been shy about getting Eric cleaned up. He had seemed oblivious to the nudity but I felt weird about it and Jennifer wasn’t even comfortable with me or Kathy around when she undressed. Kathy just took care of him with a mother’s hand.
He had screamed when he saw the wolves, and it had been enough warning for me and Jennifer to gather up Kathy’s and Eric’s things. She pulled Eric to the side of the water and started to get on her cloths while I shoved Eric’s shirt over his head. We had already known where the door was and so we bolted straight to it. Between the lake and the strange world hoping frame the two of them finished getting dressed, except for the pair of shoes Eric dropped.
“I think, I think we’re okay,” Jennifer said. She had the spear in hand again, holding it towards where the door had been. We each knew a little about how they worked. Whenever someone opened a door on one world, it appeared in the destination. Before then, there’s no sign of the exit. We had learned that one when Bradly tried to hunt us. He almost had, with that spear.
I paused a second while I thought about Oscar. Most of what we knew had come from him. Originally an old professor before this place, he had seen so much and been through everything before getting dumped here. He sacrificed himself against Bradly. Bradly had stabbed him, but Oscar still managed to get close enough to cut the mad boy with a knife. After the fight we found Bradly unconscious by another door, bleeding horribly from the wound. Jennifer used her own spear to gut him. I think that’s when she went cold.
“I need my shoes,” Eric said again.
“Shut up,” Jennifer spat. “Shut up about your damn shoes. Why the hell did you scream about the wolves? We could have gotten away faster if you had just come on shore first.”
“Are you joking?” Kathy said.
“What?” Jennifer asked.
“I said are you joking? You really think anyone would have kept quiet about seeing wolves bigger than a linebacker?”
“Especially an invalid,” I said.
“Don’t you dare,” Kathy said, pointing a finger at me. “He just needs attention.”
“He’s just going to get us killed,” Jennifer said. “He’ll just pull hunters onto us instead of being one. Why don’t we just take his essence now and be done with it?”
Kathy and I both stared in horror at her.
“I didn’t mean that,” Jennifer said. She let the spear’s tip lower down to the ground. “I’m sorry.”
“We don’t do that.” My words were deliberate and hard. “Never. I don’t care what the maesters want with us. I don’t care what they’re doing with us. We don’t kill unless we have to. Only for defense.”
“Oscar killed,” Jennifer said. “Not often but you know he did.”
I did. Of course I did. I had been the one to touch him first when he was down. When he died. His essence and the sixteen boys and girls he killed entered me. Jennifer had Bradly and the boys he killed, but only because he didn’t kill girl. “I like them; I like you,” he had said when he held the three of us at the end of his spear before the fight. The essence made us stronger, faster, keener. We could see things and experience them at a pace I had never experienced in my fifty-four years. Even when I was a developing teen, as the body I was in now expressed, I could never move like I do now.
I looked to Eric, “Eric. How did you see the wolves?”
“Shoes.”
“Right, new shoes. We’ll get you some new ones. I’d give you mine but your feet are too big for mine or any of the others.”
Eric looked down at my feet and nodded.
“Too small. Need to find new shoes.”
“I don’t know how he saw them,” Kathy said. “When he started screaming I had thought the soap had gotten into his eyes.” She rubbed her shoulder. “But he seemed to know. Just like how Oscar was nervous when Bradly was following us. Before we knew.”
“But I’ve got Oscar’s danger sense,” I said. “I didn’t feel a thing until I knew about them.”
“Maybe the beasts can take essence too,” Kathy said.
“And maybe his innate gift is, what? Ultra-danger sense?” Jennifer said. She had the spear back up but was looking around the forest we had found ourselves in.
“Well, I mean think about Oscar and me,” Kathy said. “I can see the other side of a closed door. Oscar could too but not as well. And Bradly could summon a weapon, but Jennifer, yours is far more impress of a weapon. Maybe if it’s your native gift.”
“It’s stronger. That makes sense,” I said. “Okay Eric, tell me, what do you see around us? Any shoes?”
Eric looked about the forest, and nodded.
“A bunch of shoes. Three pairs big enough for me. One pair your size, Izzy.”
“Three pairs? Four? Wait, is he saying we’re surrounded?” Jennifer asked just as my danger sense started to kick in.
Trying out some longer pieces. Not quite breaking out of Flash Fiction but getting closer.
Flash Fiction: Choices and Reactions
Today’s piece is inspired by Sarajevo: The Lonely Tram by Oleg Podzorov.
The streetcar was coming close. I couldn’t see it in the fog but buried under the sound of cars and passing buses I could hear it sliding on the greased rails. I pulled my travel bag close, feeling the weight of it brushing against my leg. It was time to go, time to run, time to not look back. The rail would take me to the college campus, and there a bus that would take me across the lake. From there, I didn’t have any plans. It was just time to leave this city, this haunted place.
Time to leave him.
I think my hose might still have blood on them. I left so quickly I didn’t bother to change them. He’d come in drunk and I could feel his hot wet breath on my neck. I was working late to finish the piece that would fund the apartment and his drinking another month. He grabbed, I screamed, he struck, I swung my sketch tablet against him, and he screamed. He tried to grab for me and I hit him again. And again. And again. I broke the tablet. I broke him.
The streetcar was visible in the fog, inching closer and closer to the platform I waited on. It looked empty except for the driver. The rest of the sounds of the city seemed to fade as I watched it approach.
In my panic I packed my travel bag in a blind rush. With what, I don’t remember. I used his phone to dial 9-1-1 and left it next to him as I left. I don’t know if he was alive, but I don’t care. I just needed to go. To leave.
It screeched a little as the streetcar stopped nearly perfectly in front of me. The driver wasn’t what I expected. He was chubby, short, and his face looked pushed in like he’d have one too many broken noses. His head tilted to look at me, and I could feel his eyes look me up and down.
“You can’t escape; you know that right?” he said. I had reached for the railing to pull myself up but paused when he said that.
“No, it’s okay. You can get on. We’ll go. But you can’t escape that blood. It’ll come back.” He turned to look ahead of the streetcar, watching the fog covered streets.
“Where’s your fare box?” I asked.
“Don’t need one,” the driver said. “It gets paid.”
I swallowed and looked past the first seat to the rest of the vehicle. There were two other passengers. One was a man with his head leaned forward just below the seat line. The other was a woman doing everything she could to look away from the front of the car. I boarded and took a seat a few rows in front of the man, and two rows ahead and on the opposite side of the woman. The driver pushed the streetcar forward, and the rails screamed in protest.
My skin prickled when the scream sounded so much like his.
I know the picture isn’t from my home town, but something about streetcars always reminds me of New Orleans. Add in the fog and willowy looking trees and I’m replacing pieces of the picture with my own memories. Imagery is a powerful thing, and when it evokes memories it also tends to spark inspiration.
On a side note, I think this is the first story on the site that didn’t involve something genre based. I don’t write much outside of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, or the multitude of micro-genres that exist within “genre” fiction. When I do, they tend to be closer to home. Seeing a picture of a foggy night enveloping a streetcar is quite the ticket to ride on that writing tram.
Serial Fiction: Hands – Ep 002
Just off of Lord, near where it crosses past Long Bridge, was the Avninder Theater. South Gaijin in design, with long sweeping roofs over each balcony decorated in a myriad of colors and wavy patterns. The exterior was mostly clean with a few spots here and there showing the age of the place. The inside had a large set of seats in a crescent around a raised dais some eighty feet wide. The house curtains were up and stored when he arrived, and three performers were practicing on stage. It was a dry a run with no energy, just movements. The fireguard stood off to the side, watching the performers while keeping an extinguisher at hand. Glen had seen performers get carried away in the rehearsals before and he appreciated the on call guard.
The Dragon was sitting center house. He was with the patron, Cameron Huntington, so Glen stood back watching the practicing trio. The piece they were rehearsing was one he knew by heart. It required physical strength to manage the lifting the two outer performers needed to do. The inner performer needed the dexterity to reach out and cap the shape the three of them would produce. All three needed perfect concentration to stretch their flames into a large seven pointed star. It wasn’t easy especially since two of the performers hands were tied up holding the third so the use of a leg each was required. Glen had been in all three roles at one point or another, and could feel the aches in his joints watching the two humans hoist up the shade woman.
The patron stepped away and Glen caught The Dragon’s eye. The director waved him over.
“Mr. Travis. I had not expected to see you today. I thought you had an appointment,” he said. The Dragon, Diarmad Aitken, was a fairly short orc but large compared to Glen. He smiled as Glen slide through the seats to the small worktable setup in the middle of the row. Glen could see the burns he had only noticed in passing before around The Dragon’s lips. It was the reason for his nickname, the fire breathing. Only now Glen wondered what troubles it had caused for his boss.
“I did, sir. This morning.”
“That does not sound like comfort when you say it that way, Glen. What is wrong?”
Glen rubbed his hand and brushed the blister. “Nothing good. Do you know what peripheral neuropathy is? And neuritis?”
“Oh no,” Diarmad said. “No, no, Glen. You are much too young for that.” He looked at Glens hands and moved to take one. Glen let him and the orc slide his fingers over the blisters, giving each of them a close look.
“How bad?”
“A year, maybe, and then no more hands. I don’t know what to say.”
The dragon sighed and then turned Glen’s hand over and cupped it before giving it a gentle pat.
“Yours is an exceptional talent, but I see now that I was mistaken to push you as I did. Your displays are miracles to the eyes, but while some say preforming costs blood, sweat, and tears, I do not believe that is to be taken literal, do you not agree?”
Glen nodded as Diarmad let go of his hand.
“Glen, the theater doesn’t have much in terms of discretionary funds. You know we are paid performance to performance, but I cannot ask you to burden yourself and your health in order to continue your livelihood. Perhaps then, I would like your permission to host a fund raiser, in your honor.”
Diarmad grinned, and the scars around his mouth glistened in ways Glen didn’t realize he was becoming hyper aware to.
“I, I would be honored,” he said, shocked at the offer. “I’m touched. But, does this mean I can’t perform with the troupe?”
Diarmad’s expression turned into a pained look.
“No, I am afraid I cannot allow it. If you are already so injured that your specialist warns you against the task, I have to consider the other risks. While I know you would not think of it now, lawyers and hoard seekers might encourage you to stalk our coffers if we knowingly let you perform.”
The director paused as this sank into Glen, and he wished he waited before coming here now.
“Additionally, and this pains me to say it young man, but if you are so burned it means your manipulation is more reckless than I deem acceptable. I cannot have a man combust on me on stage.”
That was a slap. At least it felt that way to Glen. He understood the legality issues. He understood the health concerns. That, however, was a direct challenge to his ability in the performing arts. He felt himself heating up like he had when he left Dr. DeProspero’s office.
“Ah, I see I have said to much. My apologies, young mister Travis. Perhaps you may need to cool off with so many uncomfortable things of the day. I will have Miss Cranes sent to contact you regarding the fund raiser. Until then, we must prepare for tonight’s performance. If you would be so kind,” he said, offering up his hand. Glen took it and helped The Dragon up. “Thank you, Glen. Here, take this for tonight. Have a meal with that fine young man you brought to the last performance to take your mind off today’s worries.”
He had given Glen a small silver key. Glen recognized it immediately. The shape was ornamental, but it would serve the function it was designed after. It was an access token to a five-star restaurant called Ilahi, a place Glen wouldn’t be able to afford without spending a month’s of Deron’s salary. The key was more than just the ability to go to the restaurant. Anyone in a nice suit who called ahead could do that. It was a token directly tied to a tab at the restaurant. Maybe this was how The Dragon apologized for insulting him. If so, it was quite a first step.
He’d need to change. This would be more than just a simple night out.
Hands is a serial fiction series set in the Draco Artificium universe. Read the first piece here. Find the rest of the series here. New episodes go up Wednesdays.