Image Inspired Mini Story #19

Somehow, impossibly, the sound of the blast drowned out the sirens.  There was a staccato shearing of metal as shrapnel dug into the back of the police car.  Rick and Cathy felt a wave of hot air.  Mendel fell to the ground with a scream and and clutched his leg.

Then the sirens continued their howling.

Rick pushed Cathy down, crawled to where the officer was holding his wound.  A black patch was already appearing on the grass beneath Mendel.

"Give me your belt!" shouted Rick, reaching for his waist.

Mendel's face was contorted in agony.  "No.  Fuck that.  They're on the ridge by the highway, firing down.  That's where you've got to bring her."

Rick nodded.  Another shell exploded and both men winced.

"Don't come at them straight on.  They'll be firing blind at everything near here.  Get to the edge, circle around, try to come up on their side.  Take this."  He reached out and retrieved his dropped M-16.

Rick shook his head.  "You need that."

Mendel pushed it into his hands.  "I don't need anything anymore.  Get the hell out of here.  Now!"

A dim figure rose up on the other side of the smashed car.  Rick raised the gun and fired, holding the trigger down as the thing bucked and jumped in his hand.  Some hit, some had to have hit, but it hardly mattered.

"Cathy, move!"

She sprung from her spot as the thing pounced onto the roof of the vehicle.  She passed him at a full sprint and he followed.  They heard the sound of handgun fire as Mendel shot at it from the ground.  An inhumanly long arm reached out and, with two fingers, pinched his torso.  There was a crunchy gurgle and, despite the bulletproof vest, the man was effectively split in two.  They rounded a corner as another tank shell exploded in the spot they'd been moments before.  It blasted the thing onto it's back and peppered them with rubble.  They didn't stop.

Neither spoke as they bolted for the treeline.  Cathy outpaced him quickly.  She was light on her feet, scared, and he if he didn't hustle he'd loose her.  Rick dropped the assault rifle.  The damn thing was heavy and did no good anyway.  It was like shooting clay.  Cathy didn't slow down when she hit the bramble and vanished into the bushes.  Rick grit his teeth, increased his speed as best he could, and followed her in.

"Cathy!  Wait!"

Here, in the trees, the sound of sirens was muffled somewhat.  He looked around and didn't see her.  Damn it!  That woman was the only one with answers.  If he lost her...

Something that felt like a rock wrapped in a wet towel struck him between the shoulder blades.  Rick spiraled onto the ground, rolling in the leaves.  His ribs were in agony.

It stood there, shoulders brushing up against the higher tree branches, looking down at him with a flat, vacant face.  It trundled forward, hand extended, fingers ready.  Rick was done.  He was certain.

"Stop it!"

Her voice came from behind him.  He heard her approach, she stepped past him, and placed herself between him and the thing.  She held the collar of her lab coat and shook it.

"You see this?  I know you know what this is.  Go on!  Get out of here!"

The monstrous bulk hesitated, pulling back its arm.  It considered the woman, debating something in it's lump of brain.  Cathy didn't give it the time.  She stomped toward it, close enough to touch.

The reaction was instant.  The creature pulled back, seemingly terrified of coming into contact with her.

"I said go!  Now!"

It made its decision, turning and crashing back toward town.  In anger it lashed out an arm and splintered a tree as it went.

Cathy returned to Rick and helped him up.

"How the hell?" he asked.

"Nevermind.  I'll explain later.  Just tell me where we need to go.  They won't all listen to me."

Rick pointed into the woods, a trail leading uphill.  They went.

What Terrors Made Me a Horror Writer? #1: The Earwig Story

Back when I worked in the "real world" and had a lot more contact with different types of people and I'd often get asked why I write horror.  Whenever I explained my reasons they'd always leave dubious.  Clearly, I was lying to cover up some nightmare trauma.  So, today, I'll come clean.  It's true.  I've been afflicted by several horrors that would have broken the mind of most!  Of course, who's to say that my mind is actually unbroken?  I do, after all, write the darkest of fictions.

There was no simple single event that traumatized me.  There were several and today I'll share one of the worst with you; The Earwig Story.

As many of you know I spent a chunk of my youth in Guadalajara, Mexico.  My step-dad worked for Motorola and we spent nearly three years there.  Guadalajara is fairly different from the average impression of Mexico.  It's in the mountains and is very rocky, hilly, and green most of the year.  I don't know how it is now, but at the time there was pretty small middle class.  Medium sized houses were rare.  Also, any house of significance had walls.  The house next door to ours took up half a block, had a nine foot wall, and broken glass shards cemented to the top of it.  They had three dobermans that patrolled the grounds and when you walked past they'd reach their heads out of the only spot with bars and try and bite you.  Our house, the nearest equivalent to a standard suburban home in the US, had five bedrooms, maid's quarters, a party/guest building out back, fireplace, library, indoor garden area, and marble floors.  I came to this from living in a two bedroom apartment in Elk Grove.  It was massive.  We went from sharing one bathroom to having seven.  Seven.  My bedroom had its own bathroom and shower at the end of a large walk in closet.  The walk in closet was half the size of the room I'd previously shared with my sister.

Buildings in Mexico are generally box-like and this place was no exception.  The front yard had a series of walls with built in planters and iron fencing.  All of the windows and doorways facing the street had bars on them.  I once got into a fight with my sister and said I was going to run away.  While I was packing gear she left to tell my mom and locked me in the house, trapped by all the bars.  After several attempts to fabricate a rope from tied blankets and climb down from the roof, I surrendered to my captivity (oh how different my life would have been...).  The back yard was eight feet of wall with six feet of chain link after that, and three rows of barbed wire on top.  If it all sounds oppressive keep in mind that it's covered in beautiful flowing bougainvillea flowers and all sorts of other plants.  It was very pretty.

My favorite part of the house was up on the roof.  There was an iron spiral staircase that wound up to the top floor where the maids quarters were (we didn't have a maid and my parents didn't let me live up there).  It was like a little third floor with the bedroom, bathroom, and washer and dryer.  It had a door to the roof and an area for hanging clothes.  There was a ladder that reached up to the roof of the maids quarters and on top of that was a big water tank.  Drinking water had to come out of a purifier.  All the other house water was stored in the tank.  I used to like to sit out on top of the tank, not quite four stories up, and look out.

Thankfully, my mother was a let-children-run-free sort as long as my chores were done.  As such, I got to do a lot of roaming around the mountain forests.  People would let cows and horses roam loose and I spent a fair amount of time tormenting the former and riding bareback on the latter (not from lack of trying to ride a cow, stupid cows).  My friends would pick teams and we would see who could count more; lizards or chipmunks.  You had to keep an eye out for snakes and dog packs.  It was a fantastic place to be eleven years old. 

The biggest difference was the bugs.

I'll never forget opening a kitchen drawer the first day we were in the new house.  Dozens of roaches poured out, all over the counter, even onto my hand.  Some Mexican lady was there, a realtor perhaps, and she just shrugged.  "Even el Presidente has cucarachas in his palace." she said.  "Fumigator is coming."  Thankfully, the fumigator did come and solved most of the problem.  But it didn't solve them all.  Giant wasps, wandering roaches, the occasional scorpion, and various spiders.  It's a lot more than your standard mid-Western honeybee.

We had these enormous geraniums in the planters outside of the house, over three feet high, and one of my chores was so pull dead leaves from them.  They were full of spiderwebs.  I remember pulling one and finding a black widow on the backside of a leaf and freaking out.  My mom, salt of the earth that she is, told me I wasn't getting out of my chores that easy.  "Hit 'em with a stick and stomp 'em."  Every moment of that chore was like the tree-stump scene in Flash Gordon, but I did it.  I also sent many spiders to the great gossamer beyond.

I'd gotten used to the bugs.  Some still freaked me out, but I was dealing with them.  Until the earwigs. 

As I mentioned, I had my own shower.  It was all marble with a sliding door, no tub.  I was eleven.  A pretty awkward body age for anybody.  I stripped, headed for the shower, and got in.  At that age I enjoyed turning the water on myself, not turning it on and stepping in.  I liked the rush and shock of it.  Not anymore.  I turned on the water and... nothing.  A dribble.  It was like someone had twisted the faceplate and shut it down.  So I reached up and twisted it to get the water going.  The faceplate came off in my hand.

The mass of earwigs, that had evidently filled the shower-head, shot out and hit me directly in the chest.  The faucet continued to pour a sloppy stream of both living/dead earwigs and waterlogged insect guts onto me.  I am not ashamed to say I screamed.  A lot.  Reflexively jumping back out of the water didn't turn out to be a good idea.  The lump of bugs that had struck my very heart was mostly sliding down my chest.  The majority of it was parts of bugs, legs, abdomens, antenna.  But lots of them were still alive and crawling up my neck and shoulders.  The bug 'slurry' was splashing all over my feet and legs.  They were crawling all over the floor of the shower. I started wiping myself off with my hands, doing that freakout dance, trying not to slip.  Now, you have to keep in mind, it's a big house, nobody heard me.  There would be no rescue.  Secondly, these aren't normal earwigs.  Each of them is well over an inch long.  They're jet black and yellow.  They have wings.  I only know this because I was covered in their bloated little corpses and had their wings sticking to me.

It only took a few seconds for the 'bug blockage' to subside.  Clear water came out of the tap, but lacking the head, it was like a lazy hose.  I stood under it, guiding the water as best I could, sluicing the juice and live bugs off of me.  I turned the heat up and scalded myself, and them.  They curled up in the heat, gyrating.  I stomped and kicked them down the drain.  Eventually, after hunting them all down and soaping myself multiple times, I got out.

It seems earwigs enjoy congregating in dark, cool places.  Like the water tank on the roof.  There's a reason it wasn't water for drinking. 

To this day I do not particularly enjoy a delicate touch on my chest.  I have been brushed there by a wet, squirming, insectoid god and I don't think I'll ever forget its caress'.

Oh, incidentally, the picture is exactly what they looked like.  Happy showering!

Chapter 1: The Sands of SorrowPart 4

The energy maelstrom continued to spin like a drunken tornado around the room. Through the howl of sound Dhalryk heard several loud snaps and the room brightened suddenly. A great chunk of ceiling fell crashing to the ground to his left and burst into large pieces. One of these fragments crashed into his hip and sent him sprawling onto his back. All around the room stone descended with ground-shaking impacts until the top of the Citadel of Keeping was no more. Shielding his eyes from the wind Dhalryk could see what appeared to be rivulets and waves of a transparent purple liquid, or perhaps a super dense fog, coursing and flowing out of the vanished ceiling into the vibrant blue desert sky. It began to slow as he watched, the steady course narrowing down to what appeared to be sticky strands, like colored trails of honey, and then these too were gone. The fragments of the stone seemed to cool, stop glowing, and returned to their former dead ashen color.

The stinging wind left with the departure of the released magic, but not the pain in his side. Dhalryk stood shakily and surveyed the rubble under the brightness of the desert sun. Batoda’s body had been completely crushed by the falling masonry, and many of his followers were also partially concealed, their dying crimson turning a dark brown as it was absorbed by the drifting sands. On the far side of the room the floor had given out and a dark pit gave passage to the level below.

Dhalryk turned back to the doorway he had entered through and gasped in surprise. There, amidst the broken stones, sat Jekka DuRell. She turned and looked at him with a distant look in her eyes.

“I am back.” She stated flatly.

Dhal scrambled over the rubble to her side. “My God! Jekka! The poisons didn’t kill you! I saw you fall and thought you were dead.”

The raven hair girl stared at him as if comprehending nothing. Dhalryk suddenly felt uneasy. Her eyes were different. They had seemed duller, as if they were veiled in clouds or a strange milky pallor. “Jekka? Are you all right?”

Her face twitched and she squinted in the sunlight, trying to look around the room. She caught sight of the smashed stone and stood up to get a better look at it. Dhalryk watched her with concern. “These are ruins. Old ruins.” She stated.

“Yes. Don’t you remember? I don’t think you’re well.” Dhal pulled his water-skin out and opened it. “Here, have a drink and rest.”

Jekka stopped, looked at his offering, and then looked back to Dhalryk.

“My name is not Jekka.”

“What do you mean? Of course you’re Jekka. Jekka DuRell. Don’t you remember?” He reached out to touch her shoulder and she flinched back from him. Raising a slender hand she pointed to the broken stone.

“Within that stone slept my essence, my soul, and my memories. But now, somehow, I am here.” The girl looked down at her body in confusion and then back at Dhalryk.

“My name is Ithagar.”

Dhalryk stepped back and away from her, his eyes landing on his discarded sword by the dais steps. She raised her hands and shook her head. “Please! Do not take up your blade! I mean no harm, and I’m as confused as you.”

“Where do you come from?” Snapped Dhalryk. Watching her closely, he moved over toward his blade.

“From Garachok, I was apprentice to Elethir Devin.” The thing wearing Jekka’s body sat down on a stone and looked at him mournfully. Dhalryk shook his head.

“I’ve never heard of Garachok, or your master either.” He bent down and retrieved his sword.

“Where am I?” She asked.

“You are in the Cheytagaroth dunes, in one of the thousand ruins that they sometimes see fit to reveal.” His figure relaxed some, but he did not sit or lower the weapon.

“Ruins? I come from the nation of Cheytagaroth! Garachok the Azure is one of our great cities.” Dharlyk tensed at her words.

“You're talking about the time of the dark kingdom and their wizard kings.” She nodded.

“Yes, our rulers, the Sorcerates, are all wizards.” She stands and looks at the ancient room around her. “What has happened?”

“Centuries ago your kings almost destroyed everything, their empire vanished and they left the world in madness. Beasts and creatures walk the earth as a result, but the Cheytagar do not have to deal with the trouble they caused, because there are none left. Your nation is rightfully dead.” Ithagar shifted uneasily under his intense glare and evident hatred of the long gone Cheytagar.

“I had nothing to do with all that. I was simply a servant, an apprentice...” Her milky eyes began to tear up. “I don’t understand what’s happened...”

Dhalryk stood in thought, weighing his options. After a time, he sighed and sheathed his sword. “Perhaps you don’t, but either way, I’m not the one to figure it out. We should bring you to men wiser than me. I intended to travel to Rogmara, but perhaps I’ll take you a bit further to Iridian Doorstep, the Caldignartian city of scholars.”

Jekka, turned Ithagar, looked at him in surprise. “Do you think they will be able to explain what has occurred?”

Dhalryk walked over to the smashed stone and retrieved a fragment the length of his forearm. “I don’t know, but with a bit of this stone, and you there to explain, perhaps.”

She stood and smiled at him. Dhalryk’s mind raced at the sight of her smile. It was not Jekka, but he wanted to smile back regardless. He clamped down on his emotions and scowled at her instead.

“We should be going. There is nothing left here for us but the dead.”

To the eye, the two departed in very much the same way as they entered, but the eye was deceived, and as they headed off across the blistering sands, Dhalryk knew, that nothing was the same.


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Next week we start in on Chapter Two: The Road to Boughs Shadow! 

Catch up up on the series or read more mini-stories HERE!

Image Inspired Mini Story #18

It was metal and rivets and magic.

And it was leaving.

The great sloppy thing shuddered and wobbled its way up into the night sky, headed for who-knows-where.  Someplace better.  Julia didn't feel sad not to be going with them.  She knew she'd get on one eventually.  She'd been working hard on her imagination.  Her older brother, Trevor, said it was almost there.  No, Julia was a little sad because it was Becky rising up there into the speckled darkness.  Her good, big sister-style, always there when she needed her, Becky.  She'd miss her terribly.

"C'mon, Dinger, she's gone.  Lets go home."  The black cat simply blinked and didn't move.

Julia gathered up her sketchbooks, filled with pictures of strange creatures, silly poems, and colors she'd mixed, named, and cataloged.  Trusting that Dinger would follow at his own pace she headed across the roof to the ladder to the bridge-way.  She needed to get back.  If she hurried, Trevor might not notice she'd gone out to see Becky's departure.  Trevor never wanted her to leave.  He said it was "spirit crushing" to go out.  He said it had happened to him.

"I was just like you Julia," he'd say.  "I was my daydreams that were going to guide one of those ships up, to help people, to take them into new amazing places.  But I spent too much time looking around here, around Earth.  It's not good for you.  Earth is a cage and it'll trap you.  Try to ignore it."

And Julia did try to ignore it.  Even now, she kept her eyes on the ground, only occasionally peeking at the crowds of people in lines, the cracked domino stacks of buildings, the serpentine florescent streets.  Dinger watched all of it, of course.  When they got home, he'd tell her what they were.  Dinger was an expert.  Just last week, when she snuck out, she'd smelled something that made her stomach growl and resisted the urge to look.  Dinger had told her that it was, in fact, the aroma produced by a fish in a robotic suit.  It normally lived on the bottom of of a lake near a strange factory.  All the industrial runoff settled to the bottom and, by amazing coincidence, made the fish smell wonderful!  It had come out of the water on holiday, so it could sight-see the Vast, and everyone was glad it had.  The squealing she'd heard nearby had been excitement.

She always had the most interesting conversations with her cat.

She crowded into an elevator with about forty other people and went up three levels.  She had to shove to get off with all the new passengers trying to get on.  She tried to imagine they had good reason for pushing a little girl and almost trampling a cat, but couldn't.  Maybe Dinger could explain it to her later.  She was only three blocks and a nexus point away from the Insparium when she smelled it.  That smell.  The fish.

She knew she shouldn't.  She wasn't supposed to look around.  She was only out because she'd wanted to see Becky off.  To watch her ship float up on fire and daydreams.  And those other times, to visit her.  And... well, it couldn't hurt to peek.

The smell came from a stall, not a fish in a robotic suit.  It was equipped with a grill and deep frier and manned by an overweight fellow in a stained apron.  The area was piled high with cages containing live rats.  Squealing rats.  He took one out, held it by the tail, and swung it so its neck snapped on the counter.  He quickly removed the head, limbs, and guts, skinned it, and dropped it into the deep frier.  Several already cooked rats, impaled on sticks, hung from a clothesline. 

Julia gawped.  It was nothing like what she'd imagined.  It was brutal and horrible and...

"Dinger, why did you lie to me?"

The cat sat there and gazed at her silently.

If this had been a lie, then what about the rest?  She turned to look.  Before she could make any sense of things a figure burst in front of her, blocking off the spectacle.

"Julia!  You shouldn't be out here.  You know this!"  Trevor took her by the arm.  "Come on.  We've got to get you inside."

Caught in the act she immediately dropped her eyes to the ground and let him lead her.  "I'm sorry Trevor, I just wanted to say goodbye to Becky."

Trevor sighed heavily.  "I know.  I've been looking for you for an hour."

She felt the tension in her sibling and had an idea of what was at stake.  It was only dreams, random imagination, and unfiltered creativity that completed the inter-planetary drive calculations.  It was only her that could get them on a ship, up, out, and away.  He'd failed.  Becky hadn't.  She wished more than ever she was still here to tell her what to do.

"You didn't see much did you?"

"No." she lied.

"Good." he said.

Dinger, the no longer trust-worthy, followed them home.