Tag: dark

The Screaming Comet

Pavowski2 Comments

Chuck’s challenge this week is another Random Title challenge, which is always so much fun.

My title was “Screaming Comet,” for which I had a couple of ideas right away but none of them seemed to fit. I pondered on it for a few days before finally arriving at this one, which was at least influenced in its inception by Stephen King’s short story, The Jaunt.

I don’t know what it is with me and kids, but they’re having a run of bad luck in my stories of late. Nonetheless, I actually quite enjoy the idea behind this one and the society I started to build for it, even if … well. I guess I’ll just let you read it.

Here’s “The Screaming Comet,” at 1499 words.

 

The Screaming Comet

“…reaches over two thousand miles per hour before it leaves the tracks and turns skyward…”

A pencil jabs Brian in between the shoulder blades, and he spins around from his doodle to see his friend Jessica looking at him with big deer eyes. “My Gran is going on the Comet tomorrow,” she says, “isn’t your grandpa going, too?”

Brian nods proudly. “He doesn’t have to go for another three years, but my Grandma went last year, and he says he’s ready.” He puffs his chest out as much as is possible in the confine of his Edu-enforcer. “He’s showing me the train.”

“…achieving a top speed of over twenty-five thousand miles per hour as it delivers our Elders on their final voyage…”

Jessica stifles a snort. “Big deal. I saw the train last year.”

“And perhaps Mister Roberts can tell us,” Miss Remnand asks pointedly, as every head in the class snaps around to stare at Brian, “why the train is called The Screaming Comet?”

Brian whirls in his seat and his face darkens. He knows it’s something to do with the speed…

Eddie Verner shouts out, “Miss Remnand, I heard it was because everybody inside starts screaming as they go into orbit.”

“Nonsense, Eddie. Nobody would be able to hear anybody inside the train doing anything. No, the sound is a combination of the train breaking the sound barrier and the friction on the tracks…”

Breathing a sigh of relief, Brian silently thanks Eddie for saving him, even if Eddie is an idiot. The Comet carries people to the Great Beyond; nobody would scream because of that.

**********

Final departure will commence in t-minus twenty minutes.

As his grandfather points out the features of the train, Brian runs a few steps ahead, running his hand over the shiny vinyl seats, pressing his face to the big panoramic windows, staring at the sparkling array of digital displays and the wide-mouthed air vents that dot the aisles.

“Here we are,” Grandpa says, pointing to the aisle seat just a few rows from the back.

Brian plops into the seat, buckles the belt and starts kicking his legs. “Aw, why couldn’t they give you a window?”

The old man laughs, mirthless and empty. “Some of us just aren’t so lucky.”

Packs of people mill about, mostly silver-haired men and women moving quietly to their seats, a few adults giving hugs or listening as the elders whisper in their ears, a handful of kids like him moving about the car in wonderment. “Grandpa,” Brian says, his voice hushed, “Eddie Verner says they call it The Screaming Comet because the Elders scream when it leaves the station.”

Grandpa’s face creases with concern, and he sits next to the boy, squeezing his shoulder and mussing his hair. “Don’t listen to your friend. The Comet is the best gift our old world has ever given to people like me.”

“It looks really cool. I want to ride it someday.”

“Not for a long time, son.”

Brian nods to himself. “And Eddie’s not my friend. He’s stupid.”

**********

On the loading dock, a commotion has broken out — pushing and shoving and shouting — at the center of which is a gaunt, bald and wild-eyed Elder. His family can’t be found, and he’s waving an old knife around at anybody who gets  close. It’s only moments, though, before a tiny dart sprouts from the side of his neck and he collapses, drooling and babbling. A contingent of white-clad attendants shoulders through the crowd and ushers him onto the train.

*********

…no cause for alarm. All non-passengers, please exit the train at this time.

It’s orderly, but it’s chaos as the aisles jam with people evacuating the train at the announcement and the appearance of the drooling, nonsensical man being hauled into a seat. The attendants buckle him in as a sudden crowd of people surges past, seeking the exits.

Grandpa kneels next to Brian, his faraway, mist-veiled eyes piercing through the boy. “I love you, grandson. You take care.” And Brian feels himself yanked into a bone-crushing embrace. He thinks he hears the old man sobbing at his shoulder, but the moment Grandpa releases him, his wrinkled hands spin Brian around and point him toward the front of the train. In a heartbeat, Brian is lost in the close press of people emptying off the train. Grandpa dabs at his eyes and straps in.

*********

The initial stir has ceased, but now a general unease has settled over the loading dock, a foul miasma that the onlookers are breathing in. Nervous chatter breaks out here and there, then voices raised in argument, and the attendants as one cock their heads at the directive streaming in through their earpieces. They share a nod and then, as the last people debark the train, seal the doors. It’s seven minutes ahead of schedule, but they’re sending The Comet off early.

**********

The face of Grandpa’s dearly departed wife floats to the surface of his memory as a leaf across a pond. He steals a glance across the woman next to him — smiling in her sleep, hands clutching a weathered picture — and spies the onlookers. Some look angry, others anguished at being held back from the train by the outstretched arms, and in some cases, batons, of the attendants. Not supposed to be this way. Old fool on the dock ruined this nice moment for all of them. The thrusters begin to fire, one after another, at first sounding far away up by the engine, then growing closer and louder, until all is a dull roar muffled by the tin walls of the Comet, like a kidnapping victim screaming in a trunk.

It’s at that moment that Brian peeks his head out from underneath the seat in front of him. Sure he’s seeing things, Grandpa blinks his eyes again and again, until the boy speaks and dispels all hope that he was an illusion: “I’m stowing away, Grandpa!”

The elders are slow to react, and it’s hard to hear over the roar of the engines, but first Grandpa’s seatmate wakes up, then the pair across the aisle, and in moments the traincar is alive with shouting and protesting: “A kid… just a boy… where’d he come from… open the doors…” it all bleeds together in a growing torrent of disbelief and panic.

**********

The crowd on the docks is unruly now, some of them with tears streaming down their faces, some pointing furiously at the train. One attendant takes his eyes off the crowd for a moment and steals a glance at the Comet — sure enough, the Elders in there are pressed against the glass, banging on the windows and shouting soundlessly. Rare for it to go this way, and a shame, too. Better when they go with dignity, but it looks like it’ll be a Screaming Comet this year.

Then the locks disengage, the train lifts up on its hover-rails, and in the space of a breath the Comet winks away into the distance, a sound like shearing metal and a thousand voices in pain dissipating on the dock as it disappears.

*********

Brian watches, his eyes the size of bowling balls at the window as the houses fade to dots, the cities turn into a formless blur. The entire landscape resolves itself into one huge patch of green and blue as the Comet streaks into the upper atmosphere. The Elders, all their sound and fury spent and useless, sink back into their seats, some of them grasping Grandpa’s shoulder with heavy hands before they do. Some are crying. None of them will look at Brian.

Brian pulls himself away from the luminescent panorama and stares at the Elders. “Why are they crying?”

The words seem to tangle in Grandpa’s throat. “Because you’re not supposed to be here.”

“But I wanted to go to the Great Beyond with you.”

Grandpa wants to explain to the boy. But the sun is shrinking over the radiant blue curve of the earth. It won’t be long now. He chokes back tears and flashes the biggest smile he can manage at Brian. “Then let’s go together. Have you ever seen anything like that?” And he smiles and laughs with his grandson as the sun disappears from view, the last sunset they’ll ever see. And it’s such a marvelous sight, this final gift to the Elders, with the inky black of space behind and the infinity of sprawling starscapes ahead, that the Elders forget their rage and fury that Brian has to take this journey with them and they smile silently. The cabin fills with the boy’s innocent laughter as the vents release the numbing gas, and the passengers of the Screaming Comet drift off to sleep.

In the seconds that follow, the hatches on the Comet open and its contents are ejected into the void to begin their final journey into the Great Beyond, while the Comet begins its balletic descent back to the Earth.

All in One Night

Pavowski11 Comments

Chuck’s challenge for the week: Holiday Horror.

At first I was delighted by this challenge, but now I feel horrible about what I’ve written. I guess even in my jaded, irreverent heart, there are still some things that you just shouldn’t mess with.

That said, Santa takes a dark turn in this one. Spoiler Alert. It ain’t pretty.

 

All in One Night

By every rubric, Bucky Burkhalter was a naughty kid of the highest degree.

When the other kids cleaned up their act, starting after Halloween when parents began dropping Santa’s name, Bucky redoubled his efforts. He terrorized his teachers by leaving upturned tacks in their chairs and erasing their blackboards when they were out of the room. He harried his classmates with endless wedgies, noogies, spitballs to the back of the head, and slammings against lockers. He trapped stray cats in the neighborhood and tortured them, twisting their ears and lopping off the ends of their tails.

Bucky’s mom stayed later and later at work, and his dad stopped coming home at all. Which meant more time alone for Bucky to practice his reign of terror.

On Christmas Eve, while the other kids lay in their beds dreaming of sleds and wagons and video game systems, Bucky roamed the streets throwing eggs at cars, yanking icicle lights off of houses, and depositing dog turds in mailboxes. He arrived home just before midnight and found the lights on in the house. Mom was passed out upstairs, one hand still limply cradling a half-drunk bottle of Kentucky whiskey. Dad was gone for the fourth night in a row. But as he crept in through the rickety screen door and padded across the peeling linoleum to steal a beer from the fridge, Bucky’s heart froze in his throat. He smelled something. Through the haze of stale cigarette smoke and the lingering air of mildew and despair, the impossible aroma of cookies and peppermint tickled his nostrils. Somebody was here.

Bucky ducked back outside, wrapped his sweaty, stubby fingers around the Louisville Slugger he’d stolen from Bradley Allen, and stole into the house ready to swing for the fences. His mom didn’t cook. More likely some insufferable grandparent had come by to “rescue” him, like his dad’s mom had tried to do a year ago. (Mom threw a knife at her and then called the cops.) Stopping at the hallway to the living room, Bucky took a deep breath. Whoever it was was in there. Had a fire going. He stole a glance, but all he could see was a pair of big, shiny black boots propped up on the ottoman–dad’s threadbare, puce-colored armchair was turned away from the door, obscuring his view.

“You can come in, Bucky,” came a voice as deep and hearty as a bowl of beef stew on a cold night. “And you might as well put down that bat, too.”

Gobsmacked, Bucky let the bat fall from his fingers and wandered, dreamlike, into the room.

It was his living room, all right. Same old dusty room. Bare wooden floor. Frayed rug in front of the fireplace that hadn’t been used in ages, though now a fire crackled merrily there, throwing a jubilant light across the depressing furniture. Bucky gave the chair a wide berth as he passed it, and couldn’t keep his mouth from dropping open as he beheld the man in a bright red suit sitting there, sipping from a mug with his white-gloved hands, the froth of some steaming beverage caking his prodigious mustache under his ruddy cheeks.

Santa Claus.

It was every kid’s dream, even Bucky’s, and even though every instinct in his head told him that this was all wrong–this wasn’t supposed to happen, you aren’t just supposed to walk into your living room and see Santa Claus–he went all gibbery and started fawning anyway

“Santa Claus? It’s really you?”

“Sure as snow,” the old man replied with a wink.

“What are you–” Bucky started to ask, but realized that he was probably in trouble. He’d been a bit naughty lately. He chafed at the word “naughty” in his mind but couldn’t help thinking it anyway. This was Santa. He clammed up.

Santa seemed to sense his disquiet. He offered Bucky a plate from the side table, mounded high with the most aromatic chocolate chip cookies he’d ever smelled. “Help yourself, son.”

Gratefully, Bucky stuffed a cookie in his mouth and chewed. It tasted even better than it smelled, and his teeth grew sticky with chocolate.

With a grandfatherly smile, Santa sat back and folded his hands across his belly. “Now, then. I imagine by now you’ve done some thinking, and you must know that you’re on the naughty list.”

Bucky’s eyes darted around the room. The cookie felt like it had turned to cement in his mouth; he swallowed it down like a pill and gave a somber nod, his head inclined toward the floor.

Santa huffed out his mustache and removed his spectacles, folding them in one gloved hand. “I see everything, you know. Got it all up here.” With his other hand he tapped at his temple, just below the fuzzy band of his hat. “Mind like a trap, even after all these years.”

Bucky grinned a little, the corners of his freckly cheeks pulling up, even though he felt stupid and ashamed. Santa was real, really real, and he’d been bad. Worse than bad. He’d been awful.

A tear squeezed itself out of Bucky’s evil little eyes, and in a flash Santa popped up from the chair, knelt by the boy, and caught it on a gloved finger. “Hey, there. Listen to me, son. I know you’ve had a rough time of it. Your mother and father have been on my list for years, and, well, they’ll probably stay that way. And you, just a kid. Mom’s drunk herself half to death upstairs and your dad’s… well. He’s not here, is he? And you didn’t know what to do about it, and you lashed out. Isn’t that right?”

Bucky was choking back sobs now, tears staining his cheeks. He nodded, mute.

The old man clucked his tongue, stood, and taking Bucky by the shoulders, straightened him up to look him in the eye. “Let’s go for a ride, eh?” And, wrapping his arm around Bucky, walked him toward the fireplace. Bucky gave Santa one nervous look, but Santa just chuckled, ducked into the fireplace, and with a whoosh they were standing on the roof, surrounded by a gaggle of reindeer, lazily pawing at the uneven shingles.

And the sleigh. Oh, the sleigh. Fire-engine red and almost glowing in the moonlight, Bucky couldn’t help but run toward it. He stopped, laying one hand upon its edge, and cast a glance back at Santa, who gave him that grandfatherly grin again and motioned with his hand. Go ahead. It was all the encouragement Bucky needed. He clambered into the smooth, leathery seat. The sleigh seemed to purr as he did so, as if it had been waiting for him. The reindeer whickered nervously, and Santa hopped in beside him, taking the reins in his hand.

“Your house was my last stop in town,” Santa explained with a twinkle in his eye. “We’re off. Hyah!” And with a crack of the reins, the reindeer soared off into the night, tugging the sleigh along in their wake. The cold wind whistled in Bucky’s hair, and the lights of town dwindled to pinpricks in the dark.

For a while, Santa said nothing. Billy thought he saw the old man’s eyes watering, but thought it must have been the wind.

“Santa, can I ask you something?”

Santa looked at the boy and wiped at his eyes. “Sure, son. We have some time.”

“How do you visit all the houses in the world, all in one night?”

Santa exhaled heavily, and fixed his gaze on the bouncing flanks of the reindeer.

“It’s magic, right?”

At that, Santa chuckled. “Of a sort, Bucky. Magic of a sort.”

“Is it the reindeer?”

The old man shook his head. “The reindeer are very dear to me, and they have a magic of their own. And the elves have magic, too. Even I have a bit of magic. Flying, seeing into the hearts of children… those are neat little magic tricks. But to visit every house in the world in just one night?” Santa stared at Bucky now, his eyes suddenly cold and far away. “No, that’s outside the bounds of the laws of this world. That requires another kind of magic altogether.”

Santa got quiet again, and Bucky felt himself growing nervous. If Santa was uneasy about something, shouldn’t he be worried?

Almost to himself, Santa began to mumble. “…hate it when they do this. Why do they have to ask…” Then with frightening urgency, Santa grabbed Bucky by the arm. “Look. I want you to know something. It’s not your fault you’re on the naughty list. Your parents gave you a raw deal, and nobody in your life has thought twice about you for a long, long time. But I’m not here to save you.”

Bucky yanked his arm away, and Santa let him go, but there was nothing else Bucky could do, nowhere for him to go. All around them was the emptiness of the endless night, and the ground, thousands of feet below. “I’m sorry, Bucky,” Santa continued, and now there were definitely tears creeping into his eyes. “I really am. But magic has a price, and this sleigh is driven by the worst magic I’ve ever known.”

The wind seemed to go quiet, then, as Santa pulled on a lever set in the floor of the sleigh. A trapdoor opened under Bucky’s feet: a gap through which Bucky felt he should have seen the lights of land far below, but which only contained a blackness blacker than the inside of his eyelids. A horrid chorus of disembodied, agonized voices issued from the hole. For an instant, Bucky thought about jumping out of the sleigh and taking his chances with the fall, but before he could move, a thick, grasping tentacle lanced out of the void within the sleigh and entangled his ankle in a death grip. He screamed and grabbed onto Santa’s arm.

“I’m sorry, Bucky,” Santa cried. “It takes one every year. I give toys to all the rest of the children in the world to make up for it.”

Bucky’s fingernails sought purchase on Santa’s red velveteen sleeve, snarling and snagging the fabric. He’d have to have his wife mend it again. But the beast had the boy now, dragging him slowly into the void in the heart of the sleigh. With a howl, the boy disappeared and the hatch hissed shut, and all was silence in the stratosphere but for the tinkling of the sleigh bells on the reindeer harness.

Santa dabbed at his eyes and ground his teeth as time and space twisted themselves around the sleigh. “On, Dasher!” he called, as the sleigh streaked through the night.

Self-Inflicted

Pavowski10 Comments

Chuck’s challenge for the week: Diseased Horror.

I loved the idea at first but struggled to find a direction to take it in.  Then it struck me that while bugs that travel through the air or the water or various bodily fluids are horrible enough in their own right, what about one that could travel even more insidiously — through the mind itself, or even just through eye contact?

The only thing I’m not really sure about is the ending.  I’d love to hear some alternate thoughts, but I definitely wanted to convey that the disease doesn’t stop with the hero.

This initially came in way over the limit at about 1400 words, and I managed to trim the fat down to a very terse 999.  I hope you enjoy it.

 

Self-Inflicted

The bus is running late, and my coffee is too hot.  Ellen’s sent me a text message reminding me that she loves me — she knows this time of year can run me a little ragged.

I feel a prickle on my neck.  I look up and lock eyes with this guy across the aisle.  He’s staring at me, the top of his newspaper folded down covering his face below the nose, his eyebrows pulled together in an expression of cold fury.  I look back at my phone.

He’s still staring at me.

I meet his eyes again and then there’s this pressure in my head, like I’m in an airplane that’s just climbed thirty thousand feet in thirty seconds, like I might get squeezed out through my own ears.  There’s something strange about him.  He’s got a horrible scar from his hairline to his cheek, but that’s not it.  Then it strikes.  He looks like me.

Not quite like me — the eyes are a little bit smaller, the chin stronger, the cheekbones sharper — but it’s too much like looking in a mirror.  With a crack like a starter pistol, he snaps his newspaper back in front of his face.

I feel dizzy.  My ears are ringing and there’s a cloudiness in my head that wasn’t there a minute ago.  My phone buzzes.  It’s Ellen, asking if I got her text.  The bus driver is announcing my stop, fifteen minutes early. My coffee is barely lukewarm.

*****

By the end of the shift, my head is pounding.  The bus home is standing room only, and it feels as if everybody on the bus is staring at me.  Every time I try to catch one of them at it, though, their eyes dart away like startled goldfish.  When the driver lets me off at my stop, he tells me to have a good night, and I swear it sounds like me talking.

*****

When I wake up, the pain in my head is unbearable.  It feels like there’s some thing in my skull, skittering along on tiny insect legs, tearing at the grey matter with its rending beak.  I can’t call in sick, though — it’s tax time and the firm is understaffed — so I lurch into the bathroom and pop a handful of Tylenol.  I brace myself against the sink, taking deep, unhelpful breaths, then slam the cabinet shut.  The mirror cracks from the impact, and I see it — a bright red weal, the skin puckered and angry — running from my hairline to my jaw, just around the outside of my eye.

It’s hideous.  I’m hideous.  I go into Ellen’s makeup drawer, rummage through piles of mascara and foundation, and find the concealer.  In great gobs I smear it on the scar, smoothing it out like plaster.  The skin underneath feels hot to the touch, like a pan left on the cooktop.  I go to ask Ellen how it looks.  Her body rises and falls beneath the sheet, and I decide not to disturb her.  No sense in making this her problem.

*****

The boss calls me into his office and slaps down a pile of returns on the desk.  Yesterday’s.  I’ve screwed them up, apparently.  My head starts throbbing and I can’t make out a word. All of a sudden he’s looking at me funny, and then his face changes.  His sallow, pale skin tightens up and tones, his receding hairline creeps forward.  The angry red scar I saw in my mirror this morning blooms on the side of his face.  The eyes scowling at me are my eyes.  Rage overtakes me.  I leap from my chair, my fist finds his face — my face — and for a split second, the thunderstorm in my head goes quiet.  The relief is so overwhelming that I grab the phone off his desk — one of those old-school jobs, stamped metal on the bottom — and smash it into his head, opening up a wicked gash to mirror the one that’s already there.  He ragdolls to the floor.  I straighten my suit and leave the office early.

My head feels better.

*****

I walk instead of waiting for the bus.  Every face is a shadow of mine: my jaw here, my nose there.  Every eye follows me as I hurry past.  I’m bumped, then shoved, then I break into a run, throwing the false mes aside, ignoring their protests as they topple from my path.  My headache creeps back in, threatening to sunder my skull.  My own voice shouts at me from a hundred mouths.

*****

I hear Ellen moving around in the bedroom, just waking up.  I sit down and turn on the television, and my fingers leave vivid bloodstains on the remote.  I turn and see her in the doorway, but she’s not Ellen.  She’s me.  My face, imploring me in confusion and mounting panic.  My voice, asking me if I’m all right.  The only thing missing is the scar, so I grab a kitchen knife.

*****

The headache is better now that I’ve dispatched that pretender.  My own distorted face leers at me from every person I pass.  It’s too ludicrous not to laugh.  I sit down for lunch and a cup of coffee, watching all the pale imitations of myself, and there — there — is somebody who looks different.  She’s normal.  I can’t take my eyes away.  She sees me, and looks uncomfortably away, but I am spellbound.

A lightness builds in my head and then a stretching, like some invisible tail reaching up out of my head and spanning the distance between us.  Then I have her eyes again and there’s a feeling of sweet release, like taking off tight shoes at the end of the day.  The scar opens up on her cheek, invisible, beneath her skin, but glowing, white-hot.

A passing me asks if I’d like a refill.  I scowl and tell me to get lost.

When I look up, the girl across the aisle looks just like me.

A Recipe for Disaster (Anonymous Author Collaboration Concluded)

Pavowski7 Comments

Chuck’s challenge: A three-author anonymous collaboration, concluded.

Matthew X. Gomez began the tale.  His bit lasts up until the first asterisk.

Mickie continued the tale.  Her bit lasts up until the second asterisk.

My bit concludes the tale.  I wish I’d been able to “end” it properly, but there’s just so much here.  I hope I’ve done their work justice.

 

A Recipe For Disaster

 

I’m sitting on a rooftop across from a bank robbery in process when I feel that tingle at the base of my spine telling me someone’s trying to get into my head. I brush it off at first, a minor annoyance as I gaze down the scope of my highpowered rifle, mentally daring one of the jokers inside to show their face.

Then the tingle gets more persistent, a buzz in my ear, an itch at the bottom of my foot. The probe is turning into an attack.

“Control, do the tangoes have a ‘path on record?” I don’t have to talk loud, the microphone taped to my jaw will pick up every whisper, just as the camera mounted on my helmet is picking up and broadcasting in high res.

“Negative, Ballista, no ‘path on record.”

I bite the inside of my cheek as the buzz turns into a drill. I smile, scanning the windows. If the ‘path is any good he could be anywhere, even halfway across the city, running overwatch on their gig. Still, I’ve got to wonder what a group of Ascended are doing robbing a bank. Aren’t there better things they could be doing? More profitable gigs? The ‘path they’ve got probably thinks he’s being subtle, but given how long I’ve been at this he might as well be marching a brass band down Main Street.

I start simple, throwing mental images to shock and dismay. Goatse. An exploded head. That time I caught my mom blowing my uncle, along with all the associated hatred and disgust that went with it. Finding out my wife was cheating on me with her best friend. That time I woke up covered in vomit with no recollection of how I got there, but there was dried blood under my nails, and blood on my shoes. All of it.

The drill disappears as rapidly as it started.

“We have confirmation that one of the tangos is down.” Control’s voice is always the same. Cool, collected, and with as much emotion as discussing this week’s corn futures.

The corner of my mouth twitches up into a smile. Maybe I pushed a bit harder than I should have. Maybe the asshole shouldn’t have gone around poking where he shouldn’t have.

“How many confirmed tangos still standing, Control?”

“Whisper confirms four tangos still active. All are confirmed Ascended.”

Bile rises up in my mouth and I fight to swallow it back down. I should have figured it was the case. They don’t bring us out for your run-of-the-mill robbers. No, we get saved for the special cases. Lucky us.

“Ballista, we have confirmation of movement. Looks like they are coming out the front door.”

I swing the gun around, get a bead on the door. It swings open. I don’t have the best angle where I am, but I bite down on my lip and concentrate. Hostages start walking out, hands on their heads, eyes a bit glassy looking. I curse when I see what walks out next.

****

It’s her.

What follows is a moment of disbelief and I feel as though I am falling through infinite blackness.Not dead. It’s the only thought I cling to. Not dead, not dead. Then horror-stricken, I am consumed with guilt. How could I have known! It was as if she had been here in this very building for those lost ten years with these psychos, held at gunpoint and waiting patiently for daddy to save her.

Then my heart freezes over as I realize there is no gun to her head. In fact, she cocks a rifle of her own with skinny arms. Her expression, upon which I once placed sweet kisses, is stony and grim. Then there are other things I should have noticed first off— the sharpness of her cheekbones, jutting hard against her flesh, chestnut hair gleaming like liquid bronze. Characteristics of all the Ascended. I groan in despair. Christ, Ixa, what did they do to you?

Her head whips in my direction as if she somehow heard me and I gasp. The blue of her eyes is piercing and I know she sees me through the darkness. Sees me clearer than anyone possibly ever has and I feel weak. My finger loosens on the trigger. She smiles then, a slow and knowing leer and the mental barrage begins again and I nearly collapse from the onslaught of the white noise that fills my head.

Then it stops as quickly as it started and leaves my ears ringing. I look to her again and her face darkens. Her message is loud and clear: She can kill me where I stand. Tears sting my eyes.Baby, please forgive me! How could I have known?

Then, Control over the earpiece, “All four tangoes in sight, please confirm.”

I say nothing.

“Ballista, targets are four adults: three males, one female. All confirmed Ascended. Confirm that you are in shooting range and take the shots.”

I swallow hard, my throat sandpaper. I breathe, “Control, I have reason to believe the female target is Ixa Manning, the subject of a missing persons case.”

I am met with the sound of fingers flying across a keyboard as Control checks the case file. “The case for Ixa Manning was closed nearly ten years ago, Ballista. She was legally declared dead.”

“Fuck that, you think I wouldn’t recognize my own daughter?” I hiss into the mic.

“Ballista…” a hint of warning tinges the cool indifference in the voice. “This is no time to lose your head. That woman is not your daughter. She is a traitor and a terrorist. Now, take. The. Shot.”

My mind races. The girl I am sure is Ixa never takes her eyes off me as she grabs a fistful of hair of one of the hostages, a wailing woman shaking so badly she cannot remain on her feet. Unfazed eyes shine challengingly at me as she positions the nose of her weapon beneath her captive’s ear.

****

I see it unfold in slow motion as the training takes over.  Neutralize the threat.  The scope comes to my eye and I squeeze the trigger.  Ixa’s eyes track my bullet and it freezes, floating ponderous in the air an inch from her nose, still spiraling, whispering interrupted death.  She hurls the woman to the pavement, and with her free hand plucks the bullet from the air.  Her eyes fix me through the scope, crystal-blue and glowing.  I know what’s coming; I throw the rifle aside and reach for my sidearm, but she steps the distance in a heartbeat.  Her sharp, seeking fingers bury themselves in my throat as she lifts me from the ground.

Control is barking in my earpiece, but her face is mere inches from mine, contorted into a mask of too-perfect cheekbones and too-blue eyes gone vivid in the colors swimming in at the edges of my vision, and I’m lost.  I don’t struggle.  What good would it do?

In a flash, it’s ten years ago, Ixa is swinging with the careless abandon of a ten-year-old on a peppermint-red swingset in Glaston Park.  She shouts, “I’m flying, daddy!” and my perspective shifts.  I see through Ixa’s eyes, now; see Daddy turn and draw a previously unseen pistol and dart into traffic, forgetting about his daughter at the call from Control.  Rough hands yank me from the swing and hurry me to a waiting car, and I scream and cry for my Daddy, Daddy who always saves me and will follow me anywhere, but Daddy doesn’t come.

Another flash.  I’m still Ixa.  The transformation is taking hold; my eyes grow brighter in the mirror, the spectrum of previously invisible colors explodes in my vision, my mother’s obituary incinerates in my hands, my father — me — weeps behind a dusty windowpane.

Flash.  Ixa’s body, laid out before me, peppered with gunshots, blood pooled and congealed.  Ixa’s voice in my mouth.  “Looks good.”  Flash.  Planning the heist of this meaningless bank.  Flash.  Myself — Daddy — looks back at me through the scope of the rifle.  It’s time.

Flash.

She’s given me this gift before she kills me; the gift of knowing.  It’s enough.  My eyes focus on hers and she’s my baby again, precious, harmless, innocent.  I smile, cough up a mouthful of blood.  The gun slides from my grasp.  Then her black-hole pupils erupt with blue flame.

“Ballista!  Three Ascended are down.  We’ve lost the fourth.  What is your situation?  Ballista??”

On the street, it’s pandemonium, but up here, it’s silent, just for us.

“Sweetheart,” I say.

“Daddy.”

Her eyes are almost piteous.  She yanks me upwards, hard, and I look down and see my body topple over the railing, see my head dashed to bits on the pavement, hear Control chattering away in the shattered earpiece.  But I’m weightless, effortless, floating in my daughter’s unearthly embrace.  She peers into my eyes like she’s weighing my soul.  “Will you come with me?”

What else can I say?  “Anywhere.”

 

There are Things in the Well

Pavowski1 Comment

I’m in just under the wire for this week’s flash fiction challenge.

Chuck’s challenge for the week:  The beginning of a story.  With no further guidance than that, I foundered for a while before settling on this.  I can only imagine that the challenge for this week will be to complete the story started by another writer, so I wanted to make sure there’s lots of room for interpretation while still setting a mood, should anybody end up finishing this one.  This beginning certainly makes me uncomfortable, so I guess it’s a success, at that.

 

There Are Things in the Well

“Here she comes, Elvy.”

Elvert crunched on a handful of candy and shaded his eyes against the sun.  “New girl?”

Trom kicked at a snail and nodded toward the twig of a girl walking down the dirt road about fifty yards distant.  “Leza, I think.”

The stones of the well were cool against his back, and in the sweltering humidity he was reluctant to leave them behind.  Still, she’d only be new in town for so long.  He stood and stretched and spit his lime candy into the well, and jogged off to intercept her, with Trom following like a hungry cat in his wake.

“Leez!” Elvert called when he was close enough to make out the pattern on her backpack.  The new girl said nothing, just quickened her pace.

“Hey, Leez!”  Trom shouted.

She folded her arms and bowed her head, stringy blond hair falling in a curtain across her face.  The boys fell into step beside her while she did her best to ignore them.  They dogged her steps, staring at her, until she felt uncomfortable enough to speak.  “It’s Leza.”

“You’re new here, ain’t ya?”  Elvert spit a pink gob on the grass next to the road.

Leza gave the tiniest of nods.  Trom stepped in front of her and she had to pull up short, hugging her notebook to her chest.  He folded his arms and laughed.  “You don’t know about the initiation, do you?”

She rolled her eyes and tried to step around Trom, but Elvert cut her off.  “Of course she don’t know, Trom.  We gotta show her.”

“I’m gonna be late for dinner,” Leza protested uselessly.

“Won’t take long.  It’s right over there,” Elvert said, pointing over her shoulder.

“What is?”

“The well,” Trom said, drawing his lips into a silent “ooh” after he said it.

Leza turned to look.  There was nothing in the field but the squat, dingy-looking well sticking up like a tombstone in the tall grass.  Her stomach felt heavy looking at it.  She thought to run, but Elvert’s sweaty arm wrapped around her shoulder and she felt herself being pulled toward the well.

“I can’t,” she wailed, but in a few seconds the boys pressed her belly against the grimy stones and she felt them leaning with her over the lip to peer down into the depths.  Strands of hair wafted into her eyes and mouth in the sudden breeze that issued from the dark. The bottom of the well was eclipsed in blackness, but silvery reflections twisted and writhed far below.  The faraway hissing she’d thought was the sound of water now seemed alive and excited at the three heads peeking over the edge.

But her head was the only one peeking over.  The boys had disappeared behind her back.  She lifted herself to find them, but just as she moved she felt strong hands on her back and then she was tumbling through space, the cold stones racing past her, the hissing growing louder.