Tag Archives: forward motion

Flash Fiction Friday Story: Pet Peeves

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Face, Pet Peeves, Randy Cockrell

Pet Peeves by Randy Cockrell

Alandra Nickels slammed on her brakes, her nose nearly hitting the steering wheel. She jammed the heel of her hand into the horn. “Holy crap! Use the damn turn signal, that’s what it’s there for!”

The other driver, an elderly man, waved and continued on his way.

“Oh for….” She glanced in the rear view, the driver in the car behind her was mouthing profanities, she could tell. Alandra waved in the same way the elderly driver did and stepped on the gas. As she drove she counted her lucky stars that her car hadn’t been smashed from both ends but she was shaking. “I hate that,” she mumbled. “Why the hell people can’t let other drivers know what they’re doing is beyond me.”

She was still stewing about the turn signal when she stopped at the light of a major intersection. A car pulled up in the lane beside her, sound system turned up so loud her ears hurt. She turned to see who was in the rusting car. Four young men, stoners from the look of them, playing something that only resembled music because instruments were involved. She shivered with the pain of the blast and wondered how their teeth stayed in their heads. Alandra was glad when the light changed and the boys roared off, a good fifteen miles an hour faster than the speed limit.

At work, she cruised the parking garage for a spot. A spot finally was found on the top level, in the sun, of course. That’s what I get for coming in late. I should just take the day off after a doctor’s appointment.

“Alandra, you’re here!” Her boss, Nathan Wills, called out through his office door as she passed. “Glad you made it. Your presentation has been moved to three o’clock.”

“It’s scheduled for tomorrow at two, Nathan. They pushed it back an hour?”

“No, no. Grab your stuff, it’s today,” he looked at his watch. “In half an hour.”

Her stomach rolled. “But, I’m not prepared! I was going to clean up the slides this afternoon.”

“No time, you do good work, Alandra. They’ll be fine. The VP is going out of town tonight and wants to see the presentation before he goes.”

“OK. Meet you in the board room.” She hurried to her desk, a cubicle just down the hall. Oh, crap. My brain isn’t into this right now.

As she stuck a thumb drive into her computer to download her presentation, a co-worker stuck her head around the partition. “Alandra, Thank God you’re back. The Mason account computer vendor just emailed me that the order is going to be delayed a month.”

Alandra stared. “Jean, I’ve just been called to the board room.” She swallowed, those computers had to be on site in a week. “Call them and tell them that if the computers aren’t here in five business days we’ll sue them for breach of contract?”

Jean blinked. “We can do that?”

“Of course not. But tell them that anyway.” Jean was her least reliable team member. “Be convincing. Be firm. You don’t want to be the one to tell Mason that we can’t move forward on their project do you?”

Jean’s head shook. “No, Alandra. No, not me.”

“Good. Get on it.”

She grabbed her print copy of the presentation and the thumb drive and headed to the board room. No hard copy to hand out, I haven’t reviewed the presentation, Jean is about to sink the whole Mason project and I’m still ticked about the drive here. That’s what I get. At the board room she stopped out of sight and took a few deep breaths. It never did well to arrive looking flustered and panicked.

Alandra stepped into the room, her boss, the VP, the secretary, and the CFO were already at the table. She went to the other end, plugged the thumb drive into the projector and adjusted the focus. Her boss poured her a glass of water which she sipped immediately.

“Good Afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for taking the time to hear about the status of the projects we have on our plates.”

When it was over, the VP shook her hand. “Well done, Alandra. I like that you didn’t waste paper on handouts. The information is in the database. If I want a hard copy I can download it. Good cost cutting move and fine presentation.”

She nodded and smiled and wondered at her good luck that she hadn’t had time to print out the documents. Nathan grinned when the two of them were walking back to their desks. “That went well. You were as prepared as always.”

Alandra accepted the praise. She’d remember that when the next review rolled around.

At home that evening she poured a glass of Riesling as she told her husband about her day. “One problem after another, every one of them a pet peeve.” She sipped the wine. “I thought my head would explode.”

Her husband stopped stirring the marinara he was making and leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. “Sorry you had a bad day, Sweetie. You shouldn’t let things like the turn signals and loud music bother you so much.”

“Yeah, but those things just ratchet up my stress levels.”

“Well, now you’re home and safe and the car is whole.” He sprinkled fresh oregano into the sauce.

Alandra grit her teeth. She hated oregano. She sighed and sipped more wine. “Yeah. I guess so.”

The End

916 Words

Find more of the Forward Motion Flash Friday Group here: http://www.fmwriters.com/flash.html

Flash Fiction Friday Story: Gold Dreams

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Australian, Gold, Nugget, NeroDesign

Australian Gold Nugget by NeroDesign via www.DeviantArt.com

Zeke Stanford pushed open the doors to the Oxbow Saloon and stopped to let his eyes adjust to the dimness. His fully packed donkey was tied to the hitching post in the mid-day Arizona sun but Zeke wanted a beer. Right now.

He left the door and walked to the bar. “Beer.”

“Just get in, Zeke?”

“Yeah, Earl. Just want to cut the dust before I go to the assay office.”

Earl put the mug of beer, foam dripping down the side, in front of the man, his eyebrow raised. Zeke picked it up and drained half of it in one swallow.

“Oh.” His eyes closed as he savored the brew. “That hits the spot.”

“You find something?”

Zeke opened his eyes to look hard at Earl. “Maybe.” He drained the rest of the beer. “See ya later.” He dropped a coin on the bar and left.

Back out in the sun he untied the donkey and pulled the lead rein. The donkey snorted and balked. “Come on, Jenny. We go to the assay office, then the livery, all right?”

The animal shook itself, dust rising from it in great clouds. Jenny snorted again then allowed itself to be lead. Zeke looked around the dirt street. There were a few men out on the porches of the Oxbow and the bar next door and the one across the street. It didn’t seem as though they were watching him any more than anything else moving in the street. Earl’s question had raised his hackles though. It didn’t happen often but claim jumpers could be anywhere and Zeke had worked too hard for him to trust anyone right now.

The assay office was just down the street. He tied Jenny to the hitching post there and went inside. There sat a man at a table, a ledger open in front of him, making an entry with a fountain pen, the gold tip glinting in the sunlight coming through the dusty window. “Howdy.” The man capped the pen and looked up expectantly.

“I have a sample for you to test.” Zeke glance out of the window, then the door behind him before he pulled a small bag from inside his leather vest.

“Well, young man.” The assay man stood up. “I’m John Markum. Let’s see what you have.”

“Zeke Stanford.” Zeke handed the man the small bag and watched as John took it to a work bench where there was a scale and glass stoppered bottles of liquids.

John hefted the bag then poured the contents onto the bowl of the scale. He added and took away weights until the scale balanced. He turned to look at Zeke. “Could be gold. The weight seems right.” He picked up the bowl of the scale and took a pinch of the contents and placed it in a glass bowl. John handed the scale bowl to Zeke. “You can pour the rest of that back into your poke.”

While Zeke did that, John selected a glass bottle from the bench and with great care, poured a little of the liquid into the glass bowl. It began to fizz, the gold specks dancing around in the few drops of liquid, a little smoke coming from the bowl.

“Is it supposed to do that?”

John grinned. “It is if you want your sample to be gold.”

Zeke finished pouring the gold from the scale into his bag. His heart was racing but he wanted to keep a clear head here. He’d seen men whoopin’ and hollerin’ about their strike. Next thing they were dead a few miles from town, their pack animals and equipment gone. Zeke eyed the assay man. “Good. You have the papers here to file a claim?”

“I do, young man. I do.” He walked to his table. Underneath was a filing cabinet. He opened the top drawer and pulled out a sheet of paper, placing it on the table top. John pushed his ledger to the side. “Have a seat son.”

Zeke pulled his bag closed and put it back into his vest pocket. At the table he sat down.

“You read, son?”

“A little.”

“Well this says that you’re filing a mining claim. You have to put down the location son, or it won’t be official.”

Zeke nodded, it made sense but he was reluctant to reveal the mine location. He picked up the fountain pen. Someday it might be my gold that makes these nibs. In the place John pointed out, Zeke wrote out the location of his mine. He signed at the bottom and sighed.

“I’ll make a copy, Zeke, and send it to the territorial capital for filing. I’ll make a copy for you, too. The original will stay here.” He held out his hand. “Congratulations, son.”

Zeke shook hands, a little light-headed. It seemed too easy after all of the digging and shoring up and cold nights.

“That’ll be twenty dollars, Zeke. And you can stay at Mrs. Entrada’s boarding house. It’s clean and not expensive. She gives you dinner along with the room.”

Zeke pulled out the coins and handed them to John. “Appreciate the recommendation, John. And I take it this business between us is private?”

“Aye. I wouldn’t be in business long if I told everything I know.”

They shook hands again. “Thanks, John.”

Zeke left the office and pulled Jenny along the street. He wanted a bath and a good dinner. Zeke thought about all the things he could do with the gold. A nice house for his Ma. Ranch hands for his Pa. Who knew, maybe he’d ask Mary Younger for her hand. He’d love to see her in a fancy house and pretty dresses. Yep, that was something to look forward to in his gold dream.

 

The End

963 Words

Find more of the Forward Motion Flash Friday Group here: http://www.fmwriters.com/flash.html

Flash Fiction Friday Story: 4th of July

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Fireworks, 4th of July, Randy Cockrell

Fireworks by Randy Cockrell

“OK, people, listen up!”

We were in the cafeteria. The troopers all left off their conversations and turned to the front of the room. Unwashed, wearing rags, they broke my heart these young men and women were so brave. I swallowed the lump that wanted to form in my throat and sniffed back incipient tears of pride.

“We’re as ready as we’re going to get. Everything is coordinated all up and down the eastern seaboard. We strike tonight at 10pm.”

The troopers broke into cheers. They deserved a little celebration. I smiled and nodded and let them cheer. Many of my troopers were orphans, separated from parents when the aliens invaded. They’d been gathered up by what were left of the adult survivors and hidden, fed, clothed, educated as best we could in the twenty years since the invasion. Now we were ready to strike back.

I held up my hands. “Who knows what today is?”

“Wednesday!” Jay Gonzales was my comedian, always had a smart remark. The room erupted in laughter.

“Good one, Jay.” I looked around. “Anyone else?”

“July 4th.” Kim Deming was the cool one and one of my oldest. She was six when we found her hidden in the basement of a bombed out house, a piece of rebar in her hands ready to defend her 4-year-old sister. I understood. At the time I was fifteen and had only just been found myself.

“Correct. Significance?”

“It’s the holiday commemorating the founding of the United States. Our independence from another country’s rule.”

The room had quieted at her calm, steady answer. Her gray eyes burned with intensity. She was driven and the rest of the troopers respected her for it. “Right. And tonight, we do it again.”

“Freedom!” Kim leapt to her feet, fist raised.

“Freedom!” The rest of the troopers did the same. I joined in.

“Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!”

#

It took us five hours to get into place. The aliens didn’t spread out, they lived in enclaves, walled and secured. Their nasty crops grew around their city, circles of peace and prosperity in a land still littered with the blasted human cities and towns and farms they’d destroyed. Sure, they were slowly clearing the ruins, but only so their enclaves could expand. I’d watched over the years. Their cities grew like snails, ever circling outward. Clear the blasted areas, create farm land, inch the city out another circle. They were efficient, I’ll give them that.

Tonight the moon rise wasn’t until after midnight so it was dark. All the better for us. Camouflage was the toughest. They had heat detectors that helped kill off a good number of us before we figured out how to hide. The plan was simple. It had to be given our deprived state.

Weapons had been slowly gathered over the years. Assault rifles, ammunition, mortars, high explosives and in some cases, we even had nukes. That wasn’t my troop though. The enclave we were assigned was too small to require nukes. We did have a few HE weapons though that would blow holes in the walls. After that, we were going to have to go in and duke it out.

My hands were sweaty on my rifle. I was 35 and arthritis was kicking in. The medic said it was from living in the cold and damp all these years. Nothing could be done about it. I nodded and left the tiny clinic. As I waited for the signal I thought about what life would have been like if the aliens hadn’t come. I would have gone to college, I think, gotten married, had a kid or two. I swallowed. None of that was mine now. It was enough I had my troopers, fifty of them, as good as having my own.

We all waited in the damp as the minutes ticked with excruciating slowness. Waiting was always the hardest. A low whump and the ground rumbling told me it was time. Fifty miles away another group had just nuked the alien military garrison. An ugly purple glow blotted out the stars.

We charged forward from our hiding spots in the crop land. Kim had one of the HE weapons. She was in front of the gate and firing before the aliens could react. Almost before the smoke cleared and the debris stopped falling she and her squad were running into the breach. My troopers were screaming as the night sky erupted in flashes of gunfire and explosions. No wonder fireworks were used to celebrate when I was a kid. I pushed that thought aside as I led my squad into the enclave behind Kim’s.

It was brutal. The enemy had night patrols inside the enclave but they’d responded too late. My troopers went nest to nest and killed every alien they could find. After years of hiding, they knew all the right spots to look.

By daybreak the enclave was a ruin, alien bodies, adult and young, lying in the streets and buildings. We had planned for outside alien retaliation but it seemed our coordinated attack prevented that. I called my reserves in to help our wounded out of the town. Those still whole, I sent to gather up whatever tech and weapons they could carry. As we retreated back to our hiding places I had a team burn the enclave and those damn alien crops.

Now we had to wait. Aliens were planet wide. They weren’t going to like what we’d just accomplished. Too bad. We were all headed for the mid-west where we were planning to do the same thing all over again. With luck other humans would be encouraged and do the same. We just might get our planet back. Happy 4th of July!

The End

957 Words

Find more of the Forward Motion Flash Friday Group here: http://www.fmwriters.com/flash.html

Flash Fiction Friday Story: Radio Waves

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Amateur Radio, 2011, Field Day, Azgard2274

Amateur Radio 2011 Field Day by Azgard2274 via www.DeviantArt.com

Trapped in the radio. Not the actual device, but the ether, the sound, the waves that carry the message. Lois had been pinging around the world for the last twenty years. She wanted to reform but how?

After she’d been transformed, she tried talking to people. There were more radios then. She could talk to the listeners, overwhelming whatever signal they’d been listening to. All she managed to do was scare the crap out of them. They couldn’t talk back, most radios are receive only.

Ham radio was best. She could hold a conversation with a ham operator but they always thought it was a joke from some buddy. Joke or not, some operators talked with her about how to reform. Waves seemed to be the most likely theory. How to turn her radio wave form into the physical matter wave form? No one had an answer.

“How’d that happen?” was the first question they would ask.

“I was a web radio presenter, working out of my home. My producer worked out of his home four states away. I was in the middle of my show, interviewing an author about her just released book, and, I don’t know. I guess I was really into the conversation. At the end I went to click off but I couldn’t. I wasn’t there any longer.”

“You didn’t notice? You could still see, right?”

“I can still see. I can see you.” That always freaked them out. Every one of them would spin around in their chair and scan the room.

Once they calmed down, brushing the comment off as part of the joke, they’d ask, “Doesn’t your signal die out? Usual radio signals are fairly short range.”

“I guess not. Maybe because I was a human, not an actual radio wave.”

“Have you tried to turn into some other wave, like a microwave or a light wave?”

“I have. Microwave towers are everywhere. I’ve also tried becoming an electron because they are both particle and wave, but I just couldn’t do it.”

Then they go back to my question, “Just exactly did you become a radio wave. Was there a bomb or something?”

“No.” If I had a head I’d shake it. “I suppose I thought myself into this state, I was so involved in the interview.”

This is about the time the majority of operators would get bored with the conversation. They’d get up to go get a beer or go to bed and I would drift away. A rare few would stay and we would talk about how thoughts are things and trying to think myself back to my human form.

I wonder if I talked to a psychologist or physiatrist if they could help me. But in all these years I’ve never been able to reach one to talk to. So, here I drift with less and less human contact because technology and society have changed. There are fewer and fewer receivers or Ham operators. I have found a radio telescope. I’ve been studying its transmissions. It has occurred to me I could hitch a ride out to space. I could be an astronaut, of sorts. I’ve always wanted to be an astronaut.

Today is the day. I’m telling this story and sending out into the ether. Maybe a few Ham operators will hear it. The telescope is powering up, I can feel it hum as I balance myself at the apex of the transmitter.

Goodbye.

 

The End

576 Words

Find more of the Forward Motion Flash Friday Group here: http://www.fmwriters.com/flash.html

Flash Fiction Friday Story: Betrayal Moon

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Moon, Super Moon, Randy Cockrell

Moon Set by Randy Cockrell

Zoe Ohale cursed the day, seventeen years ago, her mother gave birth. She pulled her ratty sweater up over her mouth and nose to hide the breath that steamed in the night air and threatened to give her away. It also helped to block the reek of the garbage bin she hid behind. Not hearing any pursuit, she chanced a peek into the alley.

It couldn’t be this easy, could it? She lost the hunting party in the maze of backstreets and alleys of Baia Mare? The space-faring tourists who came only saw the nice parts of town and the sea shore the city used as a major marketing point. She spit into the alley, clearing the distaste from her mouth. Tourists. That’s what was wrong, everything for the tourists, nothing for the inhabitants.

Still hearing and seeing no chase, she pulled her frayed knit cap down over her ears and crept out from behind the dumpster. Staying close to the alley walls, she worked her way right, keeping to the shadows and opening her mouth to hear better.

A siren wailed in the distance. Some other poor jerk wasn’t as lucky as she was. She kept to the back streets. Someone turned her in; that much she knew. Her stomach growled; a reminder that her hoped for dinner money was lost when the cops swooped in on her sale. It was only luck that the taser point missed her by a hair. Her buyer, Andy Many Fingers, wasn’t as lucky. Last she saw him, he was jerking spastically on the cobblestones, his purse open and credits spilled on the street.

Damn, she could have used that money. In the street outside the building where she roomed, she hid in the doorway of the house two up from hers. No way she was going straight in. The place might be watched. She hunkered down, butt to heels, and wrapped her arms around her knees. Again, she pulled the sweater up over her face. Zoe looked up and down the street. Who knew I was meeting Andy?

Maybe it was Dallas. She traded for the roll of copper wire she had been selling with a broken watch made of titanium. The watch was useless and she had no buyers for titanium. Dallas was a hustler. She had to watch the dude every minute to make sure he wasn’t cheating her but Dallas didn’t seem like the sort to sell a girl out. He was in it for the long haul and betraying his buyers and sellers was poor business.

She quieted her breathing when a young couple passed by the house. They were arm in arm, heads together. Must be nice. Out walking in the cold instead of holed up inside where it was warm. Maybe they were too poor to worry about mugging. She focused on them until they were out of sight.

She rocked a little, to keep her blood moving. Who else knew I was trading? Nick Silento, perhaps? He was a shifty little runt. Always staring, always hovering on the edges. That was the kind of guy her father called a hyena, back before he was arrested. Always ready to run in and snatch the crumbs other people dropped.  But he was a nervous sort. Zoe didn’t think that Nick had the nerve for dealing with cops.

Kortni French, now, there was a fem who had the venom to do another person dirty. Kortni had it in for any girl who she thought was after her guy. Zoe didn’t know why. Sharif Savant was a joke. Sure he was a looker but aside from the fact his parents were still numbered in the middle-class, he had nothing going for him. He was dumb as a box of rocks and the clumsiest person Zoe had ever seen. She didn’t know why the guy hung around with the gutter rats but it was a cinch Kortni was after his money. Maybe it was Kortni. Zoe had made a joke in the group three days ago and Shariff laughed and laughed. Kortni wasn’t amused. Would the fem really turn her in because her boy toy laughed at a sad joke? Zoe clucked her tongue against her teeth. She might. She just might.

A patrol rolled silently down the street. The little electric cars held two cops and a host of surveillance equipment. She shut her eyes and wished for the car to keep going. Maybe they would ignore her heat signature in the doorway and keep moving.

Zoe waited another hour. Nothing moved on the street but the rats and the cats. Moonlight eased over her building and lit the damp street. She stood with care, letting the blood flow back into her legs. Pins and needles prickled but she ignored it until it went away. Still no movement. There were no tell-tale plumes of breath in the cold night air. She eased down the steps and into the street. Her head swiveled, left then right, no alarms, no sirens, it seemed safe.

She was halfway up the steps of her building when the floodlights pinned her mid-step. A voice blasted out of a speaker “Stop where you are!”

There was nothing to do but stop. She put her hands in the air. An entire SWAT team surrounded her, tasers humming. Zoe was grateful they didn’t all tase her at once. Someone grabbed her left arm, pulled it down behind her and did the same with the right. She could feel the zip tie pull her wrists together. Two cops grabbed an arm each and half-dragged her to the wagon. As she passed the cop in charge, she could see Nick twitching next to him, his hand out and credits being dropped into it.

She spit in his direction. He jumped and spilled the credits all over the street. She looked up, the second moon intersected with the main one. A betrayal moon, her dad called it. He was right.

The End

1000 Words

Find more of the Forward Motion Flash Friday Group here: http://www.fmwriters.com/flash.html

Merry Go Round Blog Tour: Beach Reads

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Beach, Scene, Randy Cockrell

Beach Scene by Randy Cockrell

I’ll have to admit. My To Be Read (TBR) pile is full of adventure stories. I like adventure, always have. These are the easy Clive Cussler, James Patterson, stories that just take you from scene to scene, leaving you breathless at the end. Then there’s the pile of cozy mysteries by Nevada Barr. I haven’t started these yet but they’re as much research into the current cozy mystery scene as they are pleasure reading.

After that are the TBR’s I have on Goodreads, modern SciFi and Fantasy by Kevin Hearne and Chuck Wendig. And the women’s fiction, such as Hild by Nicola Griffith.

If you’re a reader, you know what it’s like. There are so many books out there. The few I’ve mentioned here are just a light dusting of all of the stories I want to read. Then we get to the delivery method.

If you’re actually travelling this summer, you want to take a Kindle or ereader of some sort. Then you can read those novels as fast as you want because you can have hundreds of them on call, ready to read when you finish the last book. If you’re like me and vacation isn’t until October, I still want to get my reading fix. So, I pull from the pile on my bed stand and dresser. Probably about 3 square feet at this point. Then, of course, the large number I have downloaded onto our ancient Kindle. So many SciFi and Fantasy stories are there, just waiting for me to read them.

So, what’s the point? Easy. I have a book ready, at all times. And in multiple genres. Are they all literary gems? No, not so much. But I read for pleasure as well as for education. It’s OK to read fun stuff. Stuff that makes your heart race. Stuff that makes you wonder about how the world could be different. Stuff that takes you back in time and lets you get a feel for what it was like to live in a different era with different mores and culture.

So let’s read. The adventures, the scifi, the romances, it’s all good. Really. Pick up a book!

 

The Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour is sponsored by the website Forward Motion (http://www.fmwriters.com). The tour is you, the reader, travelling the world from author’s blog to author’s blog. There are all sorts of writers at all stages in their writing career, so there’s always something new and different to enjoy. If you want to get to know the nearly twenty other writers check out the rest of the tour at http://merrygoroundtour.blogspot.com!  Up next: Jean Schara

Flash Fiction Friday Story: One Little Prayer

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Stained-glass Rose Window by fmr0 via DeviantArt.com

Stained-glass Rose Window by fmr0 via DeviantArt.com

Seventy-eight year-old Karen Rogers sat hunched over on the steps of the Sharing Tomorrow building, the cold of the cracked and broken cement steps seeping up into her bones through the thin plas-cotton shift and coat she wore.

Plas-cotton, she thought with disgust. Everything made of plastic now. An image of herself as a six year-old dressed in a blue dress that matched her eyes, the light cotton material of the skirt floating around her as she twirled in a field of daisies, flashed through her mind. She snorted, drawing a rheumy stare from the old guy in line behind her. He’d sat down, too, on the step below her. Karen ignored him.

That was before the government mandated implants in everyone ten and older. She remembered her implant, on her tenth birthday. They put it behind her right ear. Those implants weren’t too bad. They could detect emotions more than thoughts. She forgot about it in the flurry of childhood school and summer vacations. It wasn’t until she hit high school, that she was made painfully aware of it.

The line moved and she had to change to the next step up.

April McGura, that was her name. Karen was in the cafeteria, looking for a place to sit when she tripped, her lunch and the tray it was on, flying down the aisle between the rows of tables. The table behind her erupted in laughter. Karen got up, knees skinned and red-faced and turned to see what she tripped on.

April, long, straight blonde hair pulled over one shoulder, brown-eyes laughing, still had her foot out in Karen’s path. “What a clutz,” the girl said. Her friends hooted. “What a clod.” “Grace in action.” “Loser.” “Been walking long?”

Karen could feel the rage building as her fists clenched. She was on the soccer team, she wasn’t a clutz. She took a step forward, that’s when the pain shot through her head, driving her to her knees. She could feel her stomach churn and without warning, vomited all over April McGura’s patent leather pumps. That’s when a teacher came and took her to the nurse’s office.

It was explained to her what happened and that she had to control herself better. What wasn’t explained was why April and her horde made the next three years of her life a living hell. They stole her clothing out of her locker while she was at soccer practice. They lay in wait behind hall corners to scare her or trip her or knock the books out of her hands. Over and over her rage at the attacks made the implant zap her. It was her last year in high school that she had some relief. April and her gang graduated the year before. Things went back to normal, or so Karen thought.

It turns out that bullies live in the adult world too. And the implants became more sensitive. Thoughts could be read, and punished. Soon it became so that any emotion other than love or lust, and sometimes those, too, would deliver the thinker a shock to the brain. Then thirty years ago, religion was declared forbidden. There would be no more Sunday services. The government turned all of the churches into government buildings or razed them to the ground.

Karen moved up to the landing. The line was moving along. She was glad, the late winter wind was cutting right through her. Like this building, she thought. It used to be the Methodist Church, not that there were many who would remember that now. She went here as a girl with her parents and grandparents. Now, it seemed, even if you let your mind go blank, you’d get a shock. She sighed. It didn’t matter.

She had been called, like the others in the line. There wasn’t enough food and housing to go around. It seemed that over the last sixty years productivity had been declining. Now, instead of taking care of the productivity, they just eliminated the elderly. It used to be people over ninety, then over eight-five, then eighty. Last year it dropped to seventy-eight. Her birthday had been in February. She was surprised she didn’t get a notice then.

She stepped into what had been the vestibule. A desk was there with a young woman and a scanner.

“Your name?”

“Karen Rogers.”

“Thank you, Miz Rogers.” The young woman held the scanner up behind Karen’s ear. It hummed gently and the woman pulled it down.

“I haven’t been buzzed in a week,” Karen said.

“Oh,” the young woman smiled. “They turned it off. There’s no point, really, is there?”

Karen shook her head. “I guess not.”

A nurse ushered Karen into where the sanctuary used to be. There was still the creamy white walls and the polished dark wood of the half paneling and the banisters and ceiling beams, but the pews had been replaced with gurneys.

The female nurse led her to the far right and up a row near the wall. The stained glass remained in the windows throwing patches of red, gold, blue and green on the people lying there. “Here you are, Miz Rogers. If you’ll put your purse, keys, phone and other valuables in this bag, then you can lie down and rest.”

Karen did as directed. What was she going to do, run?

A middle-aged technician came by with a light plas-cotton blanket and covered her up, then he prepped her arm as another tech wheeled a stand and a bag of fluid to her bedside. The first tech adjusted the bag and attached tubing. “Just a little pinch, Miz Rogers.” Then he inserted the needle in her right arm. “This won’t take long, Miz Rogers.”

She sighed. “That’s all right, son. I just have one little prayer.”

 

 

The End

967 Words

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Flash Fiction Friday Post: Meet and Greet

Posted on by
Locust, Dark-Raptor

Hello Miss Big Eyes by Dark-Raptor via www.DeviantArt.com

Prompt: Photo of Raphidia mediterranea (a grasshopper looking bug) by andrea hallgass, copywrited photo seen on Flickr Photo Sharing for a writing prompt challenge on Chuck Wendig’s blog, TerribleMinds.com.

 

First Officer Bergid Svensdotter studied her reflection. This was her first official function on her new ship, the Federation of Sentient Species diplomatic ship Asimov and she wanted to appear perfect. Ribbons were aligned on her dress white jacket; no stray hair out of place.

There would be twenty different sentient species at the cocktail party in the ship’s ballroom. All oxygen breathers, thank goodness, Bergid thought. The problems with communicating with methane breathers would be left to another day.

In the ballroom she found Chief Engineer, Rob Busey, a scotch in hand. “Bergid.” He held up his glass. “You ready?”

“A glass of water with lemon, please,” she told the crewwoman behind the bar. “I guess I am.”

“Water! You don’t want something stronger?”

“I do,” Bergid admitted. “But if I drank anything now I’d vomit all over the guest’s shoes.”

“Oh, yeah, you’ve been on battleships your whole career. Not used to the diplomatic thing.” He sipped his scotch. “You’ll get used to it. You had aliens on your ships.”

“We did, but not the more,” she groped for the right word, “exotic ones.”

“You’ll be fine.”

Bergid sipped the water. She didn’t want to screw up.

As the guests arrived, escorted from the teleporter by FSS Asimov crew members, the Captain greeted each one. Then they moved into the room, some for the bar, others greeting guests they knew. Bergid’s job was to mingle. She’d been briefed on the hot button topics for each species and had been supplied with appropriate responses. She was expected to deal with hard line questions and belligerence in a way that maintained the peace.

The first aliens she greeted were from the Koa system. Humanoid in appearance, they were covered in a fine blue fur. She’d served with Koans on her previous ships and found them to be easy to work with.

She placed her empty glass on a passing drinks tray; they hovered all around the room for the convenience of the guests, and moved on to the next group feeling more confident. These were the Einess, humanoid with a definite porcine cast. They were half again the size of a human, aggressive and quick to anger. Incredible fighters, Einess served on FSS battleships but they had a hard time getting along. She spoke a greeting in their language and was treated to what passed for a smile. The Showan, their ambassador, asked her opinion of Einess being granted sole rights to the Aamaz system. This was one of the touchy topics. “I’m sure the FSS council will consider all sides of the proposal, Showan.”

He snorted. “That’s what your Captain said.”

Bergid bowed a fraction. “It is a decision considerably above my rank, Sir.” She knew the Einess were sticklers for rank.

“Fair enough.” He moved with his entourage to the next group.

She breathed a sigh of relief. At least she wasn’t causing a planetary incident. Thinking she’d get a glass of wine, Bergid turned to her left. A foot from her face was the delicate form of a basil iridescent green insectoid species, the Raphidia ambassador.

Bergid flashed back to her childhood. She was outside in the middle of a locust swarm screaming, arms waving as the locusts flew into her hair, ears, eyes, mouth. Shaking, she pulled herself out of that memory and back into the ballroom, stumbling backward two steps. She could feel the sweat start on her forehead. “Um, I beg your pardon, Ambassador.”

She could hear the Ambassador’s chitters but her implanted translator gave her, “My apologies.” It used it’s forelegs to wipe its eyes, all eighteen inches of each of them, from top to bottom in a sign of apology.

“My fault entirely, Ambassador.” She cast around in her panicked brain for a new topic. “Your trip has been productive?”

He signaled to one of his followers. It was a small bronze Raphidia, a quarter the size of the ambassador. “We have secured several trading contracts. One with your own Earth.”

The small creature moved in front of the ambassador. Bergid wondered if the ambassador thought she was a threat. “I’m pleased our two species have found mutual points of agreement, Sir.”

That’s when the ambassador ripped the head from the smaller creature. Ichor spurt from the bronze neck. The ambassador turned the head neck up and with a thin tongue, sucked up the inside as two other bronze Raphidia took the remains away.

Bergid swallowed as her stomach rolled. She could feel her blood pressure drop and she began feel dizzy. “Ah,” she wasn’t going to make it. She vomited on the ambassador’s tiny middle feet.

She could hear the guests gasp. Two crewmen rushed over, grabbed her by the arms and hurried her out of the ballroom. The Captain came into the med bay half an hour later. Bergid leapt to attention. “I’m so sorry, Captain.” She focused on the bulkhead behind him.

Hands on his hips, he scowled. “Damn, Svensdotter, you made quite the show.”

A blush started at her neck and raced up her face.

“What do you have to say?”

“I was traumatized by locusts as a child. When the Ambassador ripped the head off of that little one and started sucking the brains out,” she began to gag again.

The Captain stepped back. When she recovered, he nodded. “Well, that must have been a trial. You knew they eat that sub-species live, right.”

“Yes, Sir. But to actually see it.” She struggled not to gag.

“Yeah, the old bastard does it to all of the new human crew. Thinks it’s funny.”

Relief flooded through her. “I didn’t cause an incident?”

He laughed. “No, but you’re going to have to live with that story.”

“Great.”

The Captain clapped her on the shoulder. “Go back to your cabin. You’ve had enough excitement for the night.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“Wish I’d seen it,” he opened the door. “I would have loved to see his feet covered in vomit.”

 

The End

999 Words

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Flash Fiction Friday Post: Warrior Defeat

Posted on by
UNSC Army Soldier by Lordhayabusa357 via www.DeviantArt.com

UNSC Army Soldier by Lordhayabusa357 via www.DeviantArt.com

Ensign Zara Slater took off her helmet and wiped the sweat. Three days she’d been in her stinking battle armor but it didn’t look like she was going to get relief anytime soon.

“What do you see?” Corporal Masi Waters checked his weapons belt, counting the number of HE bombs, gas grenades, and smoke bombs he had left.

She slid down the rock they were sheltering behind to sit beside him. “Bomb craters everywhere. You could hide a battalion out there and we’d never see them.”

“Crap.”

“Yep.”

The corporal checked the charge on his laser rifle. “You got anything left to eat?”

She coughed. The smoke rising from the blasted landscape was scraping her throat raw. So much for fresh air. “No. I split the last food bar I had with you yesterday.” Zara sipped from the nipple coming up out of the collar of her armor. The suit captured her sweat, distilled it and stored it around her body until she drank. It tasted flat and warm but it at least wet her dry mouth.

“We have to get back to the cruiser. The Captain sent us out to recon, at least one of us needs to get back with the info.”

“What for?” Masi rubbed an eye. Neither of them had slept in twenty-four hours.

“Because that’s what we do.” On board the ship there would be no talk of “what for” but out here, separated from the rest of their command, things didn’t look all that good. “We’re fighting for our rights, you know that. To keep people safe.”

He snorted. “Safe? Tell that to the people who used to live here. We bombed the crap out of this planet because someone told someone else who then issued orders to wipe the place out because the Mords were supposed to be here.”

“Well,” she said, the tired seeping up through her bones. “They are here. In numbers.”

“Fine.” He jammed his helmet back on his head and seated it. “Let’s get on with it then.”

She sighed and put her helmet on. As soon as she sealed it, the displays reconnected and a series of status updates appeared on the inside of her visor. Ambient temperature, wind direction, humidity, appeared in the upper right corner of the screen. She clicked the infrared and red hot spots showed in the area all around her and the corporal. Mord soldiers, a lot of them. Another click and she pulled satellite information for the area. Her battle cruiser was five clicks in front of them. Symbology on the map told her where the Mord concentrations were. There didn’t seem to be any way through to the ship.

“Sending you the overhead.” Zara clicked once more.

“Got it.” After a moment, “Crap. How the hell are we going to get through?”

“I was hoping you’d see something I missed.” She studied the map. “If we go left, there seems to be an open area, no heat signatures. That would put us a klick closer and maybe something will open up by the time we get there.”

She could hear a sigh over the comms. “Yeah, why not.”

Zara crept out from behind the rock and moved with as much stealth as possible. The battle armor was coated with stealth materials but that didn’t stop a pair of eyes from seeing her. They were both breathing hard when they dropped behind the broken wall of some building still smoking.

“Is it worth it?”

“What,” Zara answered.

“This info. If they don’t know the Mords are here they don’t deserve to be in command.”

She was too tired for this. “It’s all I’ve got.”

Another look at the map and she thought she saw a way through. She shared the updated map. To the east, it looks like the Mord are maneuvering.”

“I don’t see anything on the map that looks like our forces. Maybe they’re getting ready to attack the cruiser.”

Zara wished she could call them but the Mord would pick up the transmission and use it to find them. “They must see this, too.”

“Where are all the other recon teams? We could hook up, strength in numbers and all that.”

“Unknown. Let’s move. We’ll follow the Mord. That will at least get us closer to the cruiser.”

After a klick Zara was exhausted. After two, she was pulling on her reserves. At three klicks they were both stumbling like drunks. “Rest,” she gasped.

“One more klick,” Masi groaned. “Can’t we call them to come get us?”

“Not yet. We’re still too far out.” She sipped more water. Jets screamed overhead leaving white contrails in the blue sky. If they were scanning, she and Masi were already dead. “Gotta move.”

He groaned but rolled to his feet.

They were less than half a klick from the cruiser when the Mord began their attack. The ship was surrounded. They dove into a ruined basement for cover. “What can we do?” Masi sighted his laser rifle on a passing squad.

Zara pulled the barrel down. “Don’t. You’ll kill four or five and we’ll be found.” She heard him mutter under his breath but he put the rifle down.

They watched as their ship was pounded from all sides. It was full dark and the glow of fire from the ship lit the night sky in front of them.

“Hold still,” they heard behind them.

Masi twitched. Zara put a hand on his arm, holding her rifle out to her side straight armed. “Take it easy.” She dropped her weapon and raised her hands. Beside her, after a moment, Masi did the same.

“Take two steps back and turn around. Slow.”

They did.

“Kneel down, fingers clasped behind your head.”

They did that too.

“You are now prisoners of war. Prepare yourselves for the camps.”

Zara sighed. No one ever came out of those alive.

 

 

The End

983 Words

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Flash Fiction Friday Post: Loathsome Sport

Posted on by
Polo, Horses, Mounts, Men, Players, SAMLIM

The Polo Player by SAMLIM via www.DeviantArt.com

The air was just breathable.

Captain Jenkins and I stood at the side of a large field, the aliens arranged in ranks around us as though at a soccer match. Not that they had jerseys. Their scales changed color, apparently at will. On our side the natives had all changed to a purple-fuscia color that rippled from dark to bright and back again as they gurgled and hissed in rhythmic ululations. The opposing side was in lime green and lemon color. Their sound was of the ocean, a low rumble that morphed into a hissing crash. Danged if I knew how they did it.

The Captain pressed a finger to his ear piece. “Keep a scan on the whole crowd. I want to know if anything seems wrong.”

I felt the sonic vibrations of the two sides. It was as though they met in my chest and churned. I asked, “Sir. What if things go wrong?”

He snorted. Not a good sign as far as I was concerned. “Then we’ll take it like men, Jordan.”

Since I was a bit behind him he didn’t see me roll my eyes. Always the drama queen, the Captain was. I didn’t really fear. The security force hovered above us in stealth mode. These aliens didn’t have a clue that they were there. But the chanting from both sides seemed intense and, to be honest, my last visit home for the local soccer team championship sounded quite a bit like this. Twelve people died in the rioting. I didn’t want to be an alien statistic.

“Jordan, keep an eye on the other side. The Most Holy told me in audience today that there might be trouble.”

“Aye, Captain.” What else could I say? The Most Holy seemed to me to be a psychopath. Last news I had was that he exterminated then burned the northwest quadrant of his land because he thought there was an earworm invasion. I wondered what story we’d have heard from the Premier on the lime green-lemon colored Teepar continent. After all of the reports, I’m thinking we should have landed in the other hemisphere.

After a long interval of confusing parades and discordant horn blowing, the teams lined up on opposite ends of the field. Each alien was astride an eight-legged beast that looked all the world to me like a cockroach. They held mallets that were curved, quite elegantly to say the least, and ended in a cupped blade.

It looked to me as though the cupped blade would hold a ball quite well. Hence, when the Grand Marshall trotted to the middle of the field on his cockroach painted in red and black, I was unprepared to see a lime green and lemon colored ball tossed onto the middle of the field.

The Grand Marshall rode up, bowed and pointed his spear at the Captain. There was some squeaking, the Captain’s translator must have handled it because I saw him go pale.

“I’m sorry,” he told the Grand Marshall. “That is outside of our mandate to refrain from interfering in other planet’s politics.”

The Grand Marshall hissed. I don’t know how that translated but the Captain turned to me. “Jordan. I have to do this. Turn on your body camera if you haven’t already done so. Record everything and get back to the ship, no matter what.”

Well that didn’t sound good. But I watched him take a cloth, purple-fusia, from the Grand Marshall and put it on. He hauled himself onto the cockroach with no elegance but once atop the beast looked as though he’d been made for the task.

I double clicked my tongue against my upper pallet to activate the recording. My Captain was being brave beyond the call of duty and as second in command, it was up to me to document every moment.

He kicked his mount in the sides and with awkward sawing, managed to get the beast to the correct side of the field. The Grand Marshall sounded what looked like a conch horn but to be honest, I was too far away to see clearly. Captain was trying to control his beast when there was a horn blast fit to blow out the ears of any creature.

The cockroaches, and really, I have no other way to describe the foul creatures, leapt forward. The Captain was nearly unseated but managed at the last second to right himself and lean forward, low over the carapace of his mount.

I saw the lime-lemon ball being batted with those hooked sticks, back and forth at the far end of the pitch. It rolled erratically. Under inflated, I thought. Captain began to maneuver his mount with some skill. He was a horseman on Earth. I suspected he was bringing to bear some of that skill though how a cockroach compared was beyond me.

The ball bounced downfield toward our side’s goal. The alien crowd made sounds like the hissing of an overheated tea kettle. The Most Holy stood up in his box as the ball crept ever nearer to his team’s goal. I worried for the Captain, involved in a game he didn’t expect to be playing in. What if the team lost? Would the Captain be blamed? I muttered quick instructions to the cloaked ship above.

At the end of the field, near the Most Holy, I watched as the ball neared. Several hard blows had sent it my way. As it rolled to a stop, the coverings came undone. The ball was the head of the opposition envoy. I gulped. The Captain rode up and with the stick, smacked the ball back into the middle of the pitch. He signed me. I spoke quickly and with a twinkle, he and I disappeared from the grounds.

On the bridge, he still wore the colors of the Most Holy. “Jordan, quarantine the planet. They’re not ready for admittance just yet.”

“Yes, sir.” I jotted notes on my epad. I wrinkled my nose. The Captain smelled of cockroach.

The End

722 Words

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