Category Archives: Science Fiction

Chuck Wendig is back from his Australia-bound carcass flinging and this week we again have a new and exciting adventure for our Flash Fiction Challenge. It’s the usual “1,000 words or so” and the random song title I got from my iTunes collection (11,752 songs and growing) is track number one on Heather Alexander‘s “Insh’allah – the Music Of Lion’s Blood” album. Amazingly, I was able to get in at only 825 words, a rarity for me. As always, comments and constructive criticisms are appreciated.

FIRE ON THE SEA

Omar sat on the beach, facing east. The hard sand was cool after it had bled away all of the day’s heat. Before him the sea was angry, the waves rolling in, the surf steadily crashing higher and higher. A dim bioluminescent glow lit the foam. Just audible over the growling of the surf were the sounds of chaos, sirens and explosions, coming from the city behind him.

Other solitary watchers sat on the beach with Omar, all of them silent and lost in their own thoughts. A few families were scattered across the beach as well, but the children were all quiet and sleeping, innocent and oblivious.

Overhead the stars were crystal clear and beautiful. Orion was high in the east, rising up on his side above a mass of thunderheads far off on the horizon. Above the ancient warrior, closer to the zenith, the last quarter moon and Mars hovered near Taurus, the red planet preternaturally shining far brighter than the red giant, Aldeberan.

As he watched the wall of clouds race toward him from the east, Omar could hear a few of those near him praying quietly. He had never been a very religious man to begin with, but after cancer had taken his wife when she was not yet thirty, Omar had found few occasions to want to speak with Allah. The sons he had raised without his beloved were now spread across the country and would have to decide for themselves if they needed to meet their fates as holy men or not.

Earlier in the evening, one of the television stations had been taken over by an armed mob of religious zealots. All night they had been shouting and wailing their theories about how Allah was punishing the world of men, cleansing it with fire. Without a shred of evidence to back them up, they continually promised that the faithful would be saved in order to rebuild the world in Allah’s name.

Omar didn’t know why the world was being destroyed. He had listened to the increasingly horrible news reports showing the cities of Europe and America burning before going silent. Some commentators had tried to interview experts to see what precautions should be taken in the few brief hours they themselves had. At first there had been speculation that the flames from the sun might be just a flare that would die out in a few hours, leaving those lucky enough to be on the night side to survive. Those hopes had faded as the night went on. With Japan and Asia starting to burn with the sunrise, Omar had come down to the beach to face the end on his own terms.

Throughout the city, thousands of others had chosen a different path, spending their last hours looting, killing, and raping. Others panicked and were desperately trying to flee with whatever belongings they could, although there was no place safe to flee to. Omar had simply left all of his belongings behind and managed to avoid the mobs until he reached the beach. After that he had turned up the coast and walked away from the madness until he found a quiet spot.

Omar did not have any family left in the city. The few friends he had were not that close to him and would face this in their own way. Alone with just his dignity and his self-respect for many years now, he had decided that he would do what he could to keep those things with him until the end, meeting the end of all things as he had lived his life.

While it should still be over three hours before sunrise, Omar could see that the eastern horizon was starting to brighten. The line of the horizon far out to sea was being defined by the constant flashes of lightning smashing down from the turbulent wavefront being driven away from the burning Pacific Ocean.

An intensely bright, white line appeared and grew in the sky parallel to the horizon. The tops of the clouds beyond the horizon were being illuminated by an amazingly intense light. Stretching up higher than any clouds ever seen by humans before, the inferno’s fury was rapidly hemorrhaging the planet’s life off into space.

Driven before this final storm to end all storms, the wind began to pick up, soon going beyond hurricane force. Carried on the wind was a rising wave of heat, raising the temperature beyond anything Omar had ever felt, even here near the Equator.

Omar could see the clouds and lighting were approaching unbelievably fast, towering up into the stratosphere and beyond. While many of those around him hunkered down and faced away, Omar chose to stand and face his fate. Holding onto a tree with all of his strength, leaning into the howling, blast furnace wind, Omar watched as the sea rose and the world turned to fire around him.

When last we left our plucky heroes, Chuck Wendig had instructed us to write a cliffhanger, which I did here. This week’s Flash Fiction Challenge is to take someone else’s cliffhanger story from last week and finish it. The usual guidelines about writing “1,000 words or so” apply. In an unusual turn of events, my story is pretty spot on at 1,011 words.

I picked a story by David Coventry for my setup, which you can find here. Go ahead, read it first. It’s a nice mashup of spaghetti westerns and zombies. I do love me something warped and bizarre!

As always, comments and constructive criticisms are appreciated.

Demonio Necrófago

“Jefe!” Rosie yelled. “Rápidamente!”

There must have been something in her voice that let the banditos’ leader know that she was not fooling around. While he didn’t get up and run over, his normal nonchalant shuffle was gone. His men followed him, with Rosie’s girls working their way into the crowd, craning their necks to see what was happening.

Rosie handed the looking-glass to el Jefe. She pointed at the crowd of figures, some starting to climb up the base of the bluff, some still moving out from the camp in their direction. He quickly scanned across the mob before settling on one figure in particular.

“Pablo,” he said, not taking the glass down from his eye, “can you see the man in the hat that Senorita Rosie has told you about? El banquero? About halfway between the camp and the hill.”

“Si, senor,” the kid said.

“Shoot him, por favor.”

The shot rang out and knocked down the man in question. His arms and head snapped forward as the bullet caught him square in the stomach. His hat was knocked off as he went sprawling. In less than a minute, as everyone watched, the man rose and resumed his relentless progress toward the base of the bluff.

“What in hell is going on, Jefe?” Rosie asked, never taking her eyes off of the approaching menace.

“It indeed is something from Hell, senorita. That is a great evil down there. I have never seen them, but my grandmother told me stories of the demonio necrófago. They can not be killed and they will not rest until they have fed on our souls.”

“That’s ridiculous. Whatever they are, we must outnumber them. Stop being a coward. We have to kill them.”

“We have to run, senorita, as far and as fast as we can. Crossing many rivers might help. It will not matter. They will follow.”

“You’re kidding! You said that you would not attack immediately because you did not want your men to be shot at. None of those things are shooting, they’re just walking. Slowly! We have to attack them now and take back my father’s mine. How many of them can there be?”

She noticed that the banditos were already heading for their horses. Some of them were sprinting to grab blankets and saddlebags, but many were leaving their gear.

“There are too many of them,” el Jefe said, “even if there were only two.” He turned to go with his men. “You must run or you will die.”

Rosie’s Riders looked to their leader for orders. Pablo also looked at her, torn between his desire to not look like a coward in front of all of the women, and his terror over the approaching demons.

Rosie wanted more than anything to stay and fight for what had been stolen from her. As the banditos started to ride down the back side of the mesa, she saw her girls ready to bolt. The first few of the demons below were nearly half way up the bluff. There was a horrible groaning and gasping chorus coming from them, with whistling sounds from some who had gaping wounds in their chests and necks.

“Let’s get out of here,” she told her girls. They wasted no time, abandoning their tents and supplies.

Before the women could mount up, the banditos came roaring back up onto the mesa. Their horses were lathered with sweat and wild-eyed with fear. Rosie ran over to el Jefe.

“What happened? What’s wrong?” she demanded.

“We are trapped, Senorita Rosie. They are behind us as well. We have nowhere to run.”

“Trapped? Now we have no choice but to figure out how to kill them. What do you remember from your grandmother’s stories?”

El Jefe closed his eyes and thought for a moment. When he opened them, he sadly dropped his chin and shook his head.

“We cannot kill them by shooting them, beating them, or drowning them. It might be possible to slow them down in some other way, but I do not know how.”

“Maybe we could stop them with fire. If we can get the brush below the bluffs and on the hills to burn, maybe that will be enough to get the demons to burn.”

“Si. That might work, senorita. But we will also burn.”

“That’s a chance we’ll have to take. Start cutting all of the brush and pile it on the cliff edges. We can surround ourselves in a ring of fire. We must make the fire spread all the way to the bottom of the bluffs and beyond.”

“As you say, senorita. I think we will die anyway, but at least this way we will die with our souls intact.”

Quickly all of the banditos and Rosie’s Riders were cutting tumbleweeds and brush. It rapidly built up all around their camp, near the edges of the cliffs surrounding them. As the shuffling horror from below got closer and closer, the urgency of their task spurred them on beyond exhaustion.

When the first demonio necrófago were just a few yards below the ledge, Rosie yelled at everyone to start setting fires. Everyone was armed with every weapon they had, ready to fight if the flames didn’t work. Several of the banditos were arguing in rapid Spanish, apparently believing it would be better to die at their own hands instead of being taken by the demons.

Everyone moved to their place around the circle, lighting the tumbleweeds on fire and kicking them over the edge. Once the tumbleweeds were gone, they took burning branches from the fire and began hurling them out as far as they could toward the bottom of the cliffs.

In no time, the air was thick with smoke. Flames shot high into the air all around them. Horrible, guttural, non-human screams came up from the sides of the cliff. A hell on earth had literally been created.

Rosie and her girls, along with el Jefe and his banditos, huddled in the middle of the climbing flames, awaiting their fates.

Chuck Wendig, that little mold-breaker he, has broken the mold this week in his Flash Fiction Challenge. Instead of a randomly being given a setting or a title or a set of words to weave into our art, this week we’ve been instructed to write “1,000 words or so” about this (read the article):

Photo (c) Troy S Alexander, Tambopata Research Center

As always, comments and constructive criticisms are appreciated.

Identity Theft

“Madame President, there is a Colonel Weiss calling from the Pentagon. He says that it’s extremely urgent.”

“Thank you, Robert.” The intercom clicked off. The President paused briefly to close the file she was reading and place it in the secure drawer in her desk, although she left the drawer open for now. She took a deep breath to calm herself before picking up the phone. What had been a quiet evening suddenly wasn’t.

She hit the blinking button on the phone.

“Colonel Weiss, this is President Darby. What can I help you with?”

“Ma’am, I have to notify you of an extremely serious situation which is an immediate threat to our country, our society, and perhaps our continued existence on the planet. Trust me, I know exactly how extreme and insane that sounds, but I assure you that I’m dead serious and I have proof to back up that claim.”

There was dead silence for several seconds. The President leaned forward onto the desk and collected the thoughts that had been scattered by the outrageous statement.

“Colonel, where are you at and what unit are you with?”

“Ma’am, I’m a team leader for a Special Ops unit. I came up through the Rangers and saw service in Kuwait, Iran, and Afghanistan. I’m alone in my office at the Pentagon right now. If you wish to send the MP’s to have me locked up I won’t give them any trouble, but I would ask you to listen to me first. I’m not insane, drunk, or deluded and I have evidence that we’re in a lot of trouble.”

“Very well, Colonel. I’ll assume for the moment that you’re serious. You’ve got about two minutes to convince me you’re not nuts. What are the high points?”

“Thank you, ma’am.” The relief heard in his voice was palpable. “The short version is that I have solid evidence that there are technologically advanced creatures here on Earth with us. Signs of them were discovered by accident a couple of years ago. No one knew what they had found, but as people started to investigate those people started to disappear. The NSA and FBI stumbled onto the disappearances and their investigators began to disappear. We finally got Covert Ops involved and we’ve put all of the pieces together. I thought it best to let you and know ASAP before it gets any further out of hand.”

“Aliens, Colonel? Really? As they say, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. What do you mean by ‘disappear’? Is this an invasion? Are we under attack?”

“No, ma’am, I wouldn’t characterize it as an invasion, more likely some sort of evasion. I believe that we found something we weren’t meant to find and now that discovery is being erased and buried. And when I say ‘disappeared’, I mean much more than just killed. Somehow everyone who has gotten too close to this has ceased to exist, like they were erased.”

“Are we talking about the plot from a bad ‘Twilight Zone’ episode or something?”

“Yes, ma’am, that’s exactly it. It looks like a small group was systematically erased from almost every single data system. Almost all physical evidence of their existence disappeared. Everyone who ever knew them somehow had their memories altered. That’s what we’ve discovered.”

“Colonel, this isn’t getting any easier to believe. Folks vanishing like magic, as if some evil wizard altered reality. But if somehow everything was altered to make these folks disappear, how do you know about them?”

“I don’t believe we’re talking about magic, ma’am, just some very advanced technology. I don’t know if it’s ‘aliens’. I don’t have any idea who or what is doing this.

It’s an extremely advanced technological attack, so we fought it by going extremely low tech, figuring that maybe that would be overlooked by the bad guys.

“NSA’s got some very sophisticated software on some very big, fast, and secure data systems, all designed to find terrorists. They started noting unexplained discrepancies between real time data sets. When the FBI investigated, they started finding people with signs that their memories had been altered in an extremely complex way, far beyond what we are capable of. Then most of those FBI investigators started to vanish in the same way. That’s when my Special Ops unit was brought in.”

“Where is this happening, Colonel? Somewhere here in the United States?”

“The trail seems to have started in Peru, at a site a long way from anywhere or anything out in the Amazon jungle. Some graduate students were there in 2013 looking for new insect species and found a handful of odd spider web structures, like a central tower with a fence of twenty-nine posts around it, less than an inch across. They reported it, the story went viral for a week or so, but then the story died.

“When the NSA and FBI started investigating the data discrepancies, they thought that they were chasing down hackers. But the level of sophistication in the techniques they found was unprecedented. They finally figured out that early last year a group from USC decided to follow up on that initial mystery spider-web discovery in Peru. Except that everyone in that group was a phantom, non-existent, almost no trace at all in any system.

“Our guys finally managed to rebuild enough information to figure out who was in that group. In Peru they had found a site with billions of these web-towers. They got off one satellite call and uploaded a few pictures, then went silent. That’s the point where something started erasing them from reality, as well as everyone who tried to follow up on it.”

“Why is this being done, Colonel? Do we know who’s behind it?”

“I don’t know, ma’am, I can only guess. That place in Peru is something that has hidden from us for a long time, and whether it’s aliens, wizards, or gods, they don’t want us to know about it. They may be as far ahead of us as we are ahead of Neanderthals, or they may be as far ahead of us as we are ahead of bacteria.”

“Very well, what do we do about it? I’m assuming you have a suggestion?”

“Yes, ma’am, I…” The line clicked and there was silence.

The President hit the intercom button. “Robert, we got cut off, please get Colonel Weiss back on the phone for me immediately.”

An ice cold chill ran down the President’s spine as she calmly picked up a pen and scrawled on a piece of paper. She dropped it into the desk drawer for top secret documents before slamming the drawer shut and locking it.

A few minutes later her aide came back on the intercom. “Madam President, the Pentagon is telling me that there is no Colonel Weiss currently on duty there. Was he calling from someplace else?”

“No, thank you, Robert. That will be all.”

The next morning when her secure document drawer was opened the President was surprised to find a single page lying loose on top.  In her handwriting were the words “Peru”, “Spiders”, “Colonel Weiss”, “Pentagon”, “Special Ops”, “NSA”, “FBI”, and “DON’T FORGET!!”

She had no idea what it referred to.

=======================================================  Author’s Afterthoughts: I really liked the central idea that I came up with, but I’m not thrilled with the execution. At 1,200 words it’s longer than the “1,000 or so words” and it’s too much exposition, just two people talking on the phone. It did get better with a couple of drafts, and I strongly suspect that it could get better still with a few more. It might be too complex a plot to fit into 1,000 words, although it could just be that I’m not skilled enough yet to pull that off. And it’s really, really late.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Before setting off to revel at Worldcon, Chuck Wendig in his frothy eviltude commanded his minions to write “1,000 words or so”. Again this week we used a random number generator to pick from twenty settings – I got #18, “In a serial killer’s nightmare”.

It’s late, I’m really cutting it close on the noon EDT (9:00 PDT) deadline posting deadline, so all I’ll say is that this is by far the creepiest thing I’ve ever written. As always, comments and constructive criticism are appreciated.

SNOW ANGELS

The holiday crowds flowed past, faceless, spectral forms wrapped up in grey parkas and ski jackets, breath fogging as it was expelled from unseen faces. No individuals stood out as the mass of humanity ebbed and flowed along the crowded sidewalk, tens of thousands of anonymous, ant-like drones shuffling with unseen purpose.

The sidewalk and gutters were full of sludge and horrific excrement. As the pristine snow drifted down from the heavens, it spun and writhed to avoid being touched by the disgusting world below. In punishment for their failure, the pure white crystals were transformed into obscene shades of grey and black before being trampled into the deepening muck beneath the mob’s boots.

No sound could be heard aside from the tinkling of a lone set of unseen wind chimes. The fragile, random notes floated in the snow above the crowd like golden butterflies on the wind, but none in the mob were aware of their existence.

Only He heard the music. Only He saw the snow. Only He saw the crowd. Only He wept.

Patiently and stoically He endured his sorrow and watched the crowd for the inspiration He knew would be there. From His niche off to the side of the world, in it, but not of it, He scanned the moving masses for any glimpse of anything not already consumed by the filth that filled the universe. Ceaselessly His eyes moved, searching for a way to ease His suffering.

She came from His left, flowing along with the crowd splashing along the curb in the rising runoff of sin. Steadily She drove forward, not moving or acting to draw attention to Herself, just another shapeless form in a sea of shapeless forms.

But He saw Her. To His eyes She stood out like a beacon, Her red dress as bright as the lights on a fire engine, Her golden hair as bright as the sun. He could not look away from Her. As She passed Him, He slipped out of His sanctuary and began to follow Her.

For block after block they walked. She led Him without ever looking around or noting His presence. He stayed a hundred yards in back of Her in case She turned or looked back at Him, but now that He had seen Her it would have been impossible for Him to lose Her in the crowd. He knew that they were now as one.

Gradually, as He became more comfortable knowing that She could not escape Him, He began to relax a bit. Reaching into the pocket of the oversized, black overcoat that He wore, He began to absent mindedly play with the knife hidden there. Soon it would be the time.

As She approached the train tracks and crossed them, sirens began to wail and brilliant green lights flashed. Crossing gates slammed down across the intersection. Desperately He tried to find a way around them so that He could stay with Her, but there were no openings. As He looked up and saw Her one last time, the train rushed between them.

The train went on for eternity, countless cars speeding by in a blur. The train was the same emerald green color as the crossing guard lights which still flashed like a laser show into His eyes. As He stared at the train, hoping to keep track of Her through the car windows and cracks between the cars, He slowly became aware of the train’s passengers.

As every car flashed by He could see that the side facing him was filled with angels. They were all staring directly at Him, their left arms straight out in front of them, their hands raised with their palms facing Him. In their right hands they all carried long, silver swords. Their mouths were open as if they were singing or shouting together. As He listened, He realized that the roar of the train’s passing was actually the sound of the angels’ combined voice commanding, “NOOOOOOOO!”

With a shock and a jolt of adrenaline, He awoke to find himself in His bed, His heart pounding and sweat pouring from every pore. The dingy, dirty flop house room was dark, but a few gleams of the rising sun made it past the tattered curtains. In the distance, the desolate whistle of a vanishing train faded on the wind.

He knew that the angels believed that they had stopped Him. But He knew that She was still out there, somewhere. He was connected to Her and He would find Her again, sometime today.

The angels had tried to stop Him before, but they had always failed. They would fail again today. He would find Her as He always had, as He always did, and as He always would.