Tag: SciFi

The Story

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Priscilla prided herself on telling a good story. When Elouise pouted because Ms. Charlotte, the governess, made her rewrite her dictation for poor handwriting, she whispered funny stories about monkeys or kittens who misbehaved. When history lessons were just too boring, she embellished the lives of generals and queens with fanciful romances or tragic mishaps. But the story she told to punish Ms. Charlotte for keeping her in the schoolroom instead of taking her to the town festival changed everything.

It was just the old woman who lived in a shoe, with a Priscilla style twist to scare the timid governess. She was just as surprised as anyone when the impossible shoe appeared in the middle of the schoolroom, along with a mossy, misty forest. Ms. Charlotte was nowhere to be seen, but Elouise huddled close to Priscilla, her eyes wide. Priscilla stamped her foot, hiding her own confusion under mock impatience.

Before she could say anything, Ms. Charlotte stepped from behind the shoe house, but something about her was not quite right. Her walk was just a little stiff, her parasol just a little too upright. And Ms. Charlotte’s hair would never be that messy. As the woman’s mouth opened, the girls heard a whirring sound, then a click as the head cocked to one side. “Who – visits – the – shoe?” The voice was harsh, almost as if someone could make words by tapping on tin. “Girls. We – must – have – girls.”

Priscilla heard a grinding sound as the woman jerked closer, and the front of the dress slid open. Elouise screamed through her own fingers pressed tightly over her mouth, and Priscilla’s heart pounded as metal arms unfolded and reached for her. Tinny, emotionless laughter filled her ears. “The – story – teller – sets – us – free.”

The Pod

Lise’s eyes darted back and forth in the dim light under the trees. Jole was always following her around, but she didn’t want to share her find with her loudmouth little brother. Sure she was alone, she ducked under the hanging moss hiding the strange pod and its contents.

The bones were merely a curiosity; scraps of material that crumbled at a touch held no meaning, though she did run her antenna over the hands. What possible use could require the use of five fingers? No matter, she had seen stranger creatures.

It was the box that she came for. The lock was simple and old; nothing a quick finger circuit couldn’t shock open. Inside was a roll of some thin stiff substance, cracking with age despite being protected in the box, and covered with what could only be a map. Lise had seen one when she snuck inside the council bore; a whole cycle of silence had been the price of that indiscretion. This one didn’t look right, though; the outlines were far bigger and more wiggly than on the other.

Beside the map was the strangest device, like a small box except covered with gadgets that spun and clicked under her fingers. She dropped it with a alarmed purl when one side flew open and whatever had been inside scattered as dust over the square objects beneath it. Carefully she pulled them out, wondering at the images on their smooth faces. Nothing like them grew anywhere near her home; surely such things were nothing but fever dreams of a creative. Still, her eyes drifted to the five-fingered creature’s remains and the odd looking map. What if they weren’t?

Tears of the Cyborg

I walked through the empty rooms, no footprints visible but mine in the soil-thick dust covering the floor. My steps echoed thinly from the metal cabinets lining every wall. My ears tingled from a faint hum that could be felt more than heard, and an occasional click or whirr felt like a church bell in the silence.

Double doors, windowless and cold, jerked on clogged tracks into the wall, exposing thick darkness tinged by a faint red glow. I took a ragged breath, my chest aching with anticipation that bordered on fear. Two agonizingly slow steps carried me over the threshold, and I strained for every shred of light to illuminate the room’s contents.

The whirring and clicking surrounded me here, along with the faint gurgle of some sort of liquid, and a steady drip against a puddle. As my eyes adjusted I could make out the source of the red glow, clear tubes filled with a luminescent fluid snaked toward a single point against the far wall. I walked toward it, a shape materializing slowly as I drew near.

The whirring grew louder, and I could make out exposed gears, wires, and pulleys against a narrow strip of white somehow untouched by the dust that pervaded the place. A little closer and something moved; I jumped backward with a compulsive squeak as a pale, expressionless face rose to view, colored only by the glow of the tubes that culminated behind it.

A crack appeared at the edges of the face, and a light breeze fanned the loose hair at my neck, obviously the reason for the lack of dust on what I could now see was an old-fashioned dress collar. A drop of blood-red liquid spilled from the corner of a dark eye and rolled down the delicately human cheek to drip on the floor. Another followed it, then another. The lips parted with the whir of gears, and a mechanically female voice spoke incongruously through their stillness. “Is it the end?”

The Warp

FB_IMG_1590604606681The city burned. Well, technically speaking, cities, since there seemed to be several versions all at once. It had started on Times Square. Everyone on the street suffered the same blinding headache at the exact same moment, and when they recovered the billboards had been replaced with the original New York Times building. Brand spanking 1904 new. Except that 1904 hadn’t had access to 2020 technology, and within seconds broken electrical wires and gas lines had exploded half the building.

It hadn’t stopped there, obviously. No one knew what had created the time rift, but every explosion warped it further. Theatre facades from the 1920s replaced gleaming modern glass and steel, only to burn. Modern street signs stood before the flaming remains of storefronts from the 1800s. Over it all towered the twisted and shattered skyscrapers of the last forty years.

After the buildings, the warp affected living things. First trees and other greenery shifted and broke, sparks from the blazing city setting them alight like living torches. Then people began to change. Some were suddenly mysteriously confused, insisting they were someone else and cowering in terror. Others simply disappeared, while men and women in costumes from long ago days blended in bewilderment with the screaming theater crowds. The worst cases no one talked about, the ones caught between as the rift continued to warp. The ones who didn’t survive, could never have survived.

Most fled, trampling each other in wild abandon like animals racing a forest fire. Here and there a trace of humanity survived: a man snatching a crying child from the path of a bus careening out of control, a woman supporting an elderly man who could barely hobble. For the most part, civilization fell to its basest instincts, the urge to survive at all costs.

It was vain. The city lay silent, its hodgepodge of time staring with bloodied and emptied eye sockets on a burning concrete wasteland.

The Crater

FB_IMG_1589859101791“There it is!” Quinn whooped, making Michaela jump and clap her hands over her ears. “I told you! We’ve got it made now!”

“Good grief, how many times did Mom tell you to use your inside voice?” Michaela grumbled. She pressed her palm against the window glass in several places. “One of these days you’re gonna break the sound barrier.”

Quinn ignored her and swung the jeep door wide open, feet sinking into the shifting sand as he barreled out of the vehicle. Michaela followed more slowly, leaving the headlights on to supplement the unusually bright moon. Deep tracks trailed into the crater ahead of the jeep, signs of the daytime activity that had drawn them into this nocturnal investigation.

“Not much there,” Michaela sniffed. “Just some junk half buried.”

“Don’t be such a wet blanket, Sis,” Quinn snapped. “Something made this crater long enough ago for the sand to have filled in most of it and blown into drifts. We’re gonna find out what, and we’re gonna do it right now!”

He plunged down into the crater, sliding rather than walking in the loose sand. Michaela followed gingerly, grimacing at the sand that promptly poured into her hiking boot. They headed for the nearest “junk” protruding from the surface, a jagged edge of metal scored and dented beyond recognition. She sighed. Why she had let Quinn talk her into this hare brained scheme…

Well, there was no point in that. Here they were. Maybe they could at least get some scrap metal out of it. Although, she doubted anything worth money would fit in the carrier he had insisted on strapping to the roof of the jeep.

Quinn happily yanked pieces of wreckage out of the sand, examining them haphazardly before tossing them aside. Suddenly, he stood unusually still (especially for him), staring into the small pit his rummaging had created. He was still for long enough that Michaela became curious in spite of herself and slid closer to investigate.

“Quinn?” He didn’t look at her, and she noticed a glazed expression in his eyes. His back was to the moon, and his face should have been in shadow, but it was lit by a faint glow that originated in the sandy pit. “Quinn, talk to me!” She grabbed his arm and shook him violently, and least as roughly as she could manage while trying to get around the pile of junk he had thrown to the side.

When she finally made it to his side, she glanced toward the pit looking for the source of the faint glow. She had assumed it was moonlight reflecting from some smooth surface, but the object glowed on its own with a faintly blue light. As she watched the color shifted to orange and intensified, and she couldn’t look away. She didn’t want to look away.

Something whispered, words she couldn’t make out. Something brushed her hair, then caught in her shirt, but she still couldn’t look away. The whispers swelled, and shadows on the surface of the orange light coalesced into a familiar face. Quinn’s face was ghostly, set in an expression of horror. “Help me!” His lips shouted soundlessly, but she could no longer respond. The whispers became gleeful as Michaela saw her own body standing motionless above her.