[MrBF1V3]

There is a better version of this story in the community. Thanks for your continued support. :) .

"Stupid commercials," Joielo, the elf in cheif of pastry, muttered to himself. It was bad enough that they had to move the real factory to a hidden grove, and turn the now famous "Hollow Tree" into a gift shop. The hidden grove was twice as far for Joielo to go to work in the morning. On top of that, the floating chocolate cookies were not moving off the shelves as well since the gnomes started marketing their Roaring Animal Crackers (TM), the ones which made realistic animal sounds as they were being eaten.

Joielo walked across the clearing and into the treeline where R and D was posted. The CEOs had decided that in order to stay afloat they would need a new, exciting product.

As he approached the hidden entrance he heard laughter from inside. He hoped it was a good sign.

"Okay troops," Joielo announced himself as he stepped into the burrow. "You have something to show me?"

Eonovelia, the head R and D elf, stood up from the round table where the elves were all seated, brushed her dark hair out of her face, then offered him a plate with several dark colored cookies on it. He took one and looked at it closely. Two hard dark disks, presumably chocolate, in between the two some kind of white frosting. Disappointing, he thought, another sandwich cookie. It had been done, and this one didn't even look interesting.

He took a bite. It was a bit bland, which in itself was not a bad thing. Too often new products had such a complicated taste that many palates could not sort it all out. It would be best to avoid the Suncrackle (TM) disaster of last year. The taste of strawberry, cinnamon, vanilla, mustard, marshmallow, butterscotch and chocolate was well beyond most non-elves.

As he ws considering the taste of this new cookie, Joielo had an uncontrollable urge to belch. Before he could stifle it, or even get his sleeve up to his mouth, he burped, loudly. Out of his mouth came the most unexpected cloud of bright blue vapor.

All of the elves of R and D were laughing.

"What the . . ?" Joielo started to say, and burped again; fluorescent green.

The elves were falling out of their chairs. Eonovelia was hunched over the table, pounding it with her little fist.

Joielo waited somewhat patiently for them to finish laughing at him. It was annoying, but he could see the marketing angle. Young boys, he thought, especially around the age of ten, would love these cookies.

"What do you think?" Eonovelia finally managed to wheeze.

"You may have something here," He admitted. "Have you run it past marketing?"

"Or course," She said. "Regoa is all for it. We brought you here to see if there would be any problems in mass producing them . . ."

"Just tell me how you made them," Joielo started to brag.

" . . . And to remind you of your nondisclosure agreement."

"Nondisclosure agreement?" Joielo started to get a bad feeling in his stomach as he tried to hold in a bright red belch.

"You signed an agreement," Eonovelia said carefully. "It would be bad for the company if anyone besides the few of us ever learned the particulars of how we made these cookies. Regoa doesn't even know."

"What did you put in these cookies?" Joielo said, looking hard at the cookie in his hand.

"Suffel root," She said, and the other elves broke into laughter again.

Suffel plants grow fast and thick, and soak up just about all of the moisture from the surrounding soil, which is why the company had planted two rows of suffel plants to be used as private areas. Joielo gulped as he realized. When he had been relieving himself the day before he had seen places where the ground beneath the suffel plants had been dug up, and filled back in. He had thought it was the work of the gardeners, thinning the roots.

He quickly put the rest of the cookie down on the table.

"You can't be serious!"

"Get over it," Eonovelia said, giving him a pat on the arm. "It's perfectly safe, and it's not like drinking the straight stuff. It a by-product of the plant."

"It's unethical!" Joielo argued. "We can't feed this to people without their knowledge."

""If we tell them what it is," She was using a calm, soothing voice. "They won't try it, will they? Then we won't make our profit goals for this quarter. There would be cut-backs."

Eonovelia was staring him down. She appeared calm, but there was definite implied threat to her stance. If he didn't do what the company wanted, they would not think highly of him. There was no way he could afford to lose his job now, not with Jzaereh, his oldest daughter, going to the university. He decided it was a good time to keep his mouth shut.

"There there," Eonovelia pushed a rolled parchment into his hand. "Just figure out how we can make these. Our office will supply all of the ingredient you need. It doesn't take much."

He was shuffled out of the burrow. Joielo walked slowly back to his office, overlooking the production line, holding the offending parchment under his arm. Once there he spent the rest of the afternoon looking at the formula. It would be a simple thing, the suffel root was just a minor ingredient. The process would make it easy to hide. He rolled up the parchment and put it on the center of his desk.

It was just wrong.

At the end of the day, Joielo made his decision. He lit the parchment with the candle on his desk, and dropped it into the trash can as it turned to ashes. Then he went home, deciding not to visit the suffel plants on his way out.

Joielo did not sleep well that night. He kept sitting up in the darkness, wondering what he would end up having to do to pay his unpaid debts. When he shuffled back to work the next day he was beyond weary. But Joielo was determined to stand his ground, and be fired. That was the way it had to be.

When he walked into his office he was surprised to find Eonovelia frantically rummaging through his desk.

"What are you doing?" He demanded.

"We must hide it," She squeaked. "We have to get rid of it. They're sending inspectors. Talk about the wrong time for them to be found out, now they'll come after us all."

"Start over," Joielo said, sitting at his desk. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't you watch the news?" She demanded. He had to leave for work earlier, and no longer had the time to watch the morning news. When he shrugged, she continued. "The news broke this morning that one of the ingredients of Roaring Animal Crackers (TM) is gnome spit. The gnome factory has been shut down, and inspectors are being sent to all of the cookie factories, including ours."

Joielo sat back in his chair and did something which caught poor Eonovelia completely by surprise. He started laughing.

The investigators were at the factory for more than a week, and then they established a full time office in the elven cookie factory. They never found anything. There was nothing to be found. On the other hand, there was the strange occurance in R and D. The inspectors arrived to find several of the elves burping up colored smoke. There was never a satisfactory explanation.

Other inspectors did, however, find something at the fairy snack cake factory. The key ingredient, so they found, in the cream filling of Tummy Giggles (TM) golden snack cakes, was fairy milk.

The inspectors announced it with a look of distaste on their faces. The sales of Tummy Giggles (TM) doubled in less than a week.



Character: Mirca Jeidiarka tov Raravi, a pirate
Setting: Somewhere in a dark part of space known as Hyntersky, near the edge of Intersystem space.

[Red]

Well, this is my first post. Yoiks! Since the topic of this thread had a sort of immediate appeal, I just typed this out without actually thinking about any semblance of actual plot. Apologies for that, but I hope this's okay enough to continue the thread. And hopefully, I'll be back with something better soon!

------------------------------------

It was quiet. The still black universe of his mind unfurled before him once again as he stared into yet another pair of cold, dead eyes.

He bit his lip. Another casualty of the war. It couldn't be helped. Not even for a member of his own crew. He threw his pistol away, sent a searing glance through any one who still dared to throw a look in his direction.

Mirca Jeidiarka tov Raravi, pirate, ravager, murderer. Mirca, a man born into a world of violence, sold to slavery, and set adrift in an ocean of hate.

As he walked back to the bridge, his mouth curled into a terrible grin. Not a single one of the men had the courage to pick up that pistol and shoot him in the back. Not a single one. He'd broken them all so utterly, so completely, that they would rather crumple up in an airlock than move against him.

The reality of it rasped against his brain like a rusty knife, and once more he choked back the tide of memory as it bled across his consciousness. He staggered onto the bridge, moaned out a weak curse, and slumped into a seat.

That was the last time, he'd sworn, that it would ever happen. But it was too late now. And as his ship pushed through the black velvet of space, he could see that his life had come full circle.

He had arrived.

The darkness of Hyntersky welcomed him, its crimson nebula like a jagged gash across the fabric of space.

'Automated message,' the ship's computer said in a pleasant monotone. 'Section 10921A of the InterSpace charter forbids travel in this quadrant. You have been warned.'

Mirca rose, his face expressionless. He programmed the computer with the co-ordinates for the fiery star around which his homeworld swept in slow, majestic orbit.

A jolt and a shudder passed through the ship, and the sudden flare of brilliance against the viewscreen told him that the jump had been successful. A circle of deep blue filled the screen as the brilliance died away. Cotton-wisps of clouds streaked across its surface, streaming over vast continents, disappearing from the golden gleam of the day side into the black of the planet's fathomless night.

Mirca smiled at the sight. Home. What an odyssey it had been! And how innocent it seemed, this planet of verdant green and rippling blue! Who would know, just looking at it, of what it was capable of doing to a man. What a mother was capable of doing to her son.

But that didn't matter now, no. He had returned against all odds. This was his homecoming. The time was right. He swept his hand across the control panel, initiated a complex sequence of commands. An alarm warning sounded, the computer droned an automatic message. He could hear muffled thuds from the bridge doors. They were trying to get in, trying to stop him.

Sweat beaded across his forehead as he completed the sequence. On the viewscreen, arcing across the gleaming crescent of his homeworld, a sliver of light flared, faded, and disappeared.

He could hear shrieks of despair behind the walls as his men witnessed an entire world pulse with the force of the shockwave. Cracks zigzagged the surface, liquid blue turned into foaming white. As Mirca watched, the planet came apart in slow motion, jagged chunks of it drifting off in a lazy, zero-gravity ballet.

'Beautiful,' he whispered to himself.

And then, it exploded. Exploded in a white fury that hurled a billion flaming fragments across the jewelled expanse of the heavens.

As the second shockwave reached the ship, Mirca could feel the hate, the anger flake away in its purifying blaze. The first real happiness he'd ever known in his life washed over him. He smiled as the wave hit and took everything he'd ever known with it. For that last moment in his life, he was truly at peace with himself.

'Finally,' he thought to himself. 'Mother, embrace your son.'

------------------------------------

Character: Sir Floyd Keyes
Setting: At The Ol' Witch's Shack, Belor City.

[MrBF1V3]

Bedor City was bad, this subsection was worse, much worse. They say there was a bombing attempt in this neighborhood once, but the ‘deserted’ package was stolen in less than thirty seconds, the bomb dismantled and sold for parts in fifteen minutes. They don’t even mention the carrier, who was robbed and beaten just up the street, and sold for parts...

He was standing less than patiently in the shadows, his outline clearly etched on the wall when he lit his cigar. Not a smart thing to do, considering the neighborhood. But even that foolhardy move fueled the certainty that it was actually him, and not one of his messengers.

“Sir Floyd Keyes,” I whispered, stepping out into the light of the one remaining streetlight. “Thanks for being so ... punctual.”

“Shut up,” He snapped. “Is that the ol witches shack?”

“Don’t talk about my mum that way,” I said. “I take it you brought the package.”

“I’m here,” Keyes said, smug as ever. He meant to double cross me, it was as obvious as the mustache on his face. I knew it was what he would plan.

“This way,” I said and walked away from the shack. I could sense his puzzled look as if he could burn through my jacket with his eyes. Fortunately he could not, but the night was young.

“I thought ...”

I cut him short with a sharp wave of my hand. I didn’t care if he got back what he came for. I just had to make sure he didn’t get it for free. We knew Keyes, he was a tricky one.

“Step inside,” I motioned at the screened in porch across the street from the address I’d given him. I understood his hesitation, the porch was a mess. Two fingers worth of abandoned dirt had combined with sooty rainwater to make the floor a sluge pile. There were bugs and disease in those floorboards, and crawling on the rusted out screens, the kind that made men like Sir Floyd Keys tremble. So I shrugged and went in first, elbowing aside the remains of the rotted door.

He had to follow, there was too much at stake. I grabbed his arm, stopping him from going into the house. There was nothing there anyway, gutted out years ago by bums and freaks.

“Where is she?” Keyes demanded. He was getting to the end of his patience, and he was beginning to understand the game was not going to be played by his rules.

“Show me the package,” I said, seeing Kent walk up the street out of the corner of my eye. He gave an imperceptible nod my way which meant Keyes had brought bodyguards, and they were no longer a problem. “From there if you don’t trust me.”

“I don’t,” said Keyes. He pulled a large envelope out of his jacket. I saw the hint of the gun he had under his arm. If I did this right, that gun would be useless. He showed me the first edge of the contents, I was here because I knew the real from the fakes. Those looked real. He put the envelope back in his jacket, and thought about pulling out his gun. He chose not to, he didn’t have what he wanted.

“We have to wait a minute,” I said, turning to look out to the street. “You were early.”

Keyes wanted to say something, to demand, but he stopped himself. I was right, he had been early. Perhaps he thought he would be able to check out the situation, find a way to get the upper hand. Not today. But I wasn’t breathing easy quite yet.

I saw them coming well before Sir Floyd Keyes.

“Best extinguish that,” I said, nodding at his stogie. He glared at me for a long minute before he took the cigar out of his mouth. It dropped to the floor, bounced off a roach and landed in the wet mud with a slight sizzle.

It must have seemed sudden to Keyes. When the police showed up here, they came in packs. There were five vehicles, one of them a truck full of bodies in dark blue armor. The cars screeched to a stop in front of the ol witches shack, policemen piled out and swarmed toward the front door.

“They’ll find her in the living room,” I said. “Tied up, but otherwise unharmed. You might want to go over there, flash your I.D. and keep her from having to go to the station with them. You know how they are.

“But they will search you.”

Sir Floyd Keyes glared at me, anger rising in his veins as he realized there was only one course of action open to him.

“Bastard!” he hissed, and slapped the envelope down on the wicker table. Then he turned to leave.

“Have a good day Mr. Mayor,” I said. He ignored me, deftly unclipping the gun from under his jacket and dropping it in a bush as he slipped out into the street.

As he approached the police, I leaned out to grab the gun. Then I slid through the hole in the corner and crawled up into the shadows next to the crumbling foundation of the house.

I was walking around the corner as the police brought the Major’s daughter out of the ol witches shack. They had just finished searching Sir Floyd Keyes, didn’t find nothing. He looked around, and of course didn’t see me. I was gone.

I nuked the package in the microwave before I opened it. I didn’t expect traps, Keyes hadn’t planned to actually hand it over. As illegal as these items were, they were much too valuable to mess with.

I stacked them on my living room table, carefully placing each one. Then I took a cold bottle out of the fridge and popped it, letting the lid clatter on the floor. Taking a drink I sat down on the dusty old couch, avoiding the broken spring, and picked up the first one. I opened the first page on my lap, looking at the drawings I started to read.

It was Superman ...

(TM)

-----------------------------------------------

Character: Samuel B. Tarzan
Location: Matt Hornblower's Bar and Grill :)

[Darkin]

Character: Samuel B. Tarzan
Location: Matt Hornblower's Bar and Grill

Truth is often stranger than fiction. Mostly that's because people can't accept the truth. It's just too much to put up on your wall and swear by.

Was the way of it with the burning down of Matt Hornblower's place. The Bar and Grill had been there since Adam was a pup. Did a fair trade too, travellers stopping by on their way up to Arkham, tourists in Summer and of course us regulars.

Took the Clingham County Volunteer fire department most of the night to drench the fire. Those of us who ran out of the place before it became an inferno watched until it was all charred ashes. We had to be sure.

She was a fine looking lady, legs like Mae West as I recall her, narrow hips though, nothing to wrap yr meat hooks around when you were riding the bedroom bronco as old Capt Hesh used to say. Long legs, narrow waist and you forgot about the rest of her when you saw the eyes, large, wide and that grey green colour of a storm where it touches the ocean and the sun is still striking the same waves. Like jade and smoke.

She was just there one night, sittin' on a stool watching the players at the pool table, one arm resting on the counter as Matt served drinks and took orders for nachos and fisherman's baskets. That night Matt looked the happiest we'd all seen him since his wife died. He was a young fella, and it was a shame that his bride didnt take to the easy life in a small New Hampshire fishing village. Not that life was easy for the most of us.

She took off one night, Matt was leading the search, in a near panic. They found her body, swept off the road by a passing rig they reckon, broken like a wet rag on the rocks below. By the time we got down there to pick her up the tide had taken her. A sea burial is pure, and clean and your loved ones get to hear you on the wind when they have a hankering to listen.

So this prime piece of tail had herself taking Matt's attention, and it being less than a season since his Liddy died. The next night she was there again, and on the third. We got used to seeing her there, she wouldnt say nought to any other, only had eyes for Matt, as it went on he only had eyes for her too. He started looking a bit vacant to start with, I asked him if he was feeling okay, he said "Sure thing Docotor Tarzan, I'm feeling great."

But his eyes, they were dead as a day old fish. I got hold of Matt nearly a week later, he was coming out of Tino's gas station, with a big tank filled up for his boat. I ended up helping him slide it onto the deck of his truck, he was so weak like he could barely walk, let alone lift a 12 gallon fuel tank.

His skin was clammy to touch, flaking too, and that grey look had spread from his eyes to most of his face.


"Matt, you best get yourself along to my office this afternoon, you are not looking well."

Matt just nodded, defeated, or lost. It was hard to tell which. I left him feeling uneasy.

That night I went down to the bar, it was closed up. Never opened that night, or any other. Tino, McRae and Helen Corby were there already, banging on the door and raising a ruckus.

"Evenin' folks, whats going on." I enquired politely, being the town doctor, I had birthed some of these folk, and certainly tended to them throughout their lives. Gave me the same unspoken authority as the Sherrif in many things I guess.

"Matt's in there, we can hear him moving around, but he don't sound good. While back he was yelling, something about Linda, his wife. Then this choking sound, like he were drowning on his own snot."

I took everything Tino said with an unhealthy dose of salt. He was prone to exageration. We banged on the door, no response. Finally McRae swore and put his boot to it, those big fee of his had almost taken him to state college on a football scholarship, cept he couldnt read well enough.

The door was open, and being neighbourly we went on in.

The place was a mess, tables and chairs overturned. Seaweed and the stink of the ocean was scattered about. Seashells crunched underfoot.

"Matt?!" We shouted and moved on through the place. The walls were dripping, like it had just risen from the Biblical flood, we heard a thumping upstairs and went up there, one after another, Mrs Corby breathing the Lords Prayer and Bourkes Whiskey behind me every step.

Upstairs was a small aparmtment where Matt lived. It too had been torn apart, like a storm had hit it.

There was a thud, while we stood shocked on the top of the stairs, it came from the bathroom. We used McRae's point scoring foot to get that door open.

Inside, was what was left of Matt. Something was sliding over him. Something that looked like it was a nightmare that only God could dream. Translucent like a jelly fish, but with human legs and arms, and a kind of head, I could see through it, the open wound on Matt's chest where this thing was sucking blood and life out of him, sea water drenching everything and oozing from this gelatin form. Matt was so grey, we thought he was dead, maybe he was. But Helen Corby's screams roused him, brought him back to us for a terrible moment.

"Liddy..." he breathed, a harsh choking gasp. "My Liddy has come home..." he reached down with dead hands and pulled that amorphorous head up from his chest. Raising his own parchment tight face he kissed that blood smeared orifice as if if were his lover.

We quit at that sight. Some were yelling, some where crying, but we all ran. I remember tripping over the gas tank, left at the base of the stairs, barked my shin pretty good.

I tore the lid off it and knocked it around, spillling gas across the floor, and then kicked the can across the room, its contents spreading like spilt blood, staining the floor.

I heard it coming down the stairs then, that thing from the sea that had devoured Matt, it was coming down for us, its sucking mouth like a lamprey smacking wetly for more meat and blood. IT called my name, with a voice like the wind and rain. Samuel B Tarzan... love me... I have come back for you... love me...

I ran, McRae had a flare from his truck, he popped it and threw it past me, the gas ignited and the place nearly exploded.

We heard the screams of that thing as it burned, it was thrashing and flailing, but when the sheriff went over the place, no trace of a second body was ever found.

I'm moving inland now, somewhere dry, maybe the desert or the mountains. Somewhere that I can't hear the ocean at night.


CHARACTER: Alison Heyes, police officer
CHARACTER: City morgue at night.

[jts7788]

She studied the body very critically. Three stab wounds to the chest, the obvious cuase of death. Such a sad look on the mans face. Alison could only imagine the truama that the man must have went through. The medical examiner said he was also hit in the head with a blunt object, which would explain the bruising around the eyes.
She had been taking notes on her pad when a sudden clatter of noises filled the hall behind her. It was way after hours, around two in the morning. No one beside Alison was suposed to be there. "Who the hell?" she whispered as she made her way out into the hall. No one was in sight. "Hello?" she raised her voice a little. No answer, the only thing present was the expressionless walls. Shrugging her shoulders Alison made her way back into the examination room.
Alison shrieked in pure terror. She put her hand over her mouth as she witnessed the unatural phenomina in front of her. Clear across the room, on a completely difrent table was the corpse of the murder victim. In a sitting position the naked body looked directly at her with eyes as dead as the world is now. A grin stretched across his cold clammy face. Then he began to convulse. His body made quick jerking motions for a good thirty seconds until it went motionless and slapped agaisnt the cold pavement floor.
Shocked Alison ran to the mans body. "Sir?! are you okay? Sir?" She was scremaing. Then suddenly she was looking down at the dead body, only it was on the table where it had always been. It hadnt moved. And neither had she. "Detective Heyes? The coroner asked. "Could you explain to me why you have been yelling at that dead body for the last three minutes?"

Clearly the stress of the murder case was getting to her.
Clearly...
The End

Character: Suan, homless child
Setting: An abandoned Cathedral. Run down.

[Mathain]

Character: Suan, homless child
Setting: An abandoned Cathedral. Run down.

Oooooh, I want this!

Give me two hours to get home.... :)

[MrBF1V3]

Sorry Mathain, it's been longer than two hours, and this thread is too much fun to let go ... And so ...

Character: Suan, homeless child
Setting: An abandoned Cathedral. Run down.


“Come out to play,” The voices from outside said. “Come have fun.”

They knew she was there but they didn’t know where, and they didn’t dare enter, not any more.

“Suan.” her mom had said. “If anything bad ever happens, run to the cathedral. You’ll be safe there.”

She had looked up a the huge building as they walked by, out in the sunshine, so long ago. The sidewalk and sky looked different now, cloudy and wet and broken.

“How do I tell when it’s something bad?”

She could tell. Suan wasn’t supposed to get up yet, but screaming from her window had woken her from her nap. She found her mom in the living room, hiding by the curtain, looking outside when the wall beside her was torn away by a huge metal man.

Her mom didn’t scream until the robot grabbed her up. Suan ran out the back door.

The cathedral wasn’t safe either. Metal men of different sizes were there, hurting people, carrying them outside. But Suan was too young to matter, or too small to find. They forgot her, until later.

At first the robots had visited the building often. They always forgot to bow in the aisle like they were supposed to.

“We have food,” The voices called. “Do you want to eat?”

Jamie had fallen for that one. He was young, not as smart as Suan. He ran outside, looking for his food, and it was dark. A bright light streaked by, and Jamie was gone.

At first there had been others, hidden like her. Sometimes the metal men found them, and dragged them out of the building. Suan knew better than to watch. They could see her looking at them, they could hear her breathe.

It was only her and Jamie when a really big metal man walked in. This one was different, it knelt down in the aisle between the scattered pews, splintering the floor. It kept saying “Unknown ... Unsolvable ... Critical ...” Jamie wanted to go talk to it. He wasn’t so smart.

Other robots found the metal man in the cathedral, the chattered and beeped at it. The metal man stood and beeped back at them. They backed away, it pointed at them with the rocket launcher in it’s arm, and blew them out the doors.

No other robots ever came in after that. They stayed way back and talked into the building, sometimes with chattering and beeping, sometimes with words. That’s how they got Jamie.

She had been to the top of the tower again. It was the best place, even though all around everything was broken and dark. She crept around the edges of the sanctuary, away from the big metal man. But she felt so tired, tired of being scared.

Suan walked up to the big metal man, kneeling in the aisle. She saw the remains of a name plate on it’s chest, it kept it’s head bowed as she approached.

It was mumbling to itself, “... reflection ... shadow ... life ... not life ...” Then the robot looked up, seeing the little girl through glistening silvery eyes. It stopped for a moment, looking at her.

“What have we done?” It said.

-----------------------------

Character: Swift Sheffield Nobell, a salesman

Setting: Tree Top Estates

[Red]

Character: Swift Sheffield Nobell, a salesman
Setting: Tree Top Estates

--------

'Tree Top Estates,' he muttered under his breath. 'They certainly got that right.'

The place was literally a forest. Trees, trees, and more trees. They crowded in and shaded the sky with a veil of green so thick that...

It's almost as dark as night here. And it's only 4 P.M.

Swift looked at the path ahead. It was a narrow, winding track that snaked through the brush and undergrowth. The place was almost deathly silent; there was just the wind in the branches, and the cool chirp of a cricket from somewhere nearby.

He sighed. There was something quite familiar about this place. It couldn't be that bad, could it? He hefted his suitcase under his arm and walked resolutely forward.

A minute later, he came across a sign, broken and forlorn by the side of the track. 'NO TRESPASSING,' it said, in faded red letters.

Swift shrugged. 'If they really cared, they'd have put that back up.' He trudged on, growing keenly aware that the path might probably lead on for another half hour. The place was huge. And it was getting darker, the deeper he went.

So, of course, he was rather surprised when he found where it led to within five minutes.

There was a house. A rough shack, constructed with heavy logs, walls mossed over, dirty windows. A stone chimney jutted above its heavy, slanted roof, billowing grey smoke.

The door was old and massive, and the knocker and handle on it, so pitifully rusted that he was afraid that touching them would risk them falling off.

So, instead, he knocked on the door.

No answer.

He knocked again, louder. A shower of rust sifted down towards his shoes. There was still no answer.

Swift shook his head, pulled his kerchief out of his pocket to mop his brow. He was sweating; he wasn't sure why, because it was rather cool, here in the middle of this benighted world.

And then he noticed something at the window.

He almost dropped his suitcase. (Which would have been terrible, because its contents were his livelihood, and were also awfully fragile)

But he managed not to, and recovered quickly enough to creep slowly towards the window. He couldn't see much, it was so dirty. But there - a movement, again, just beyond it. He rubbed his handkerchief against it, and a decade's worth of grime came off. Disgusted, he disposed of it, and looked through the window again.

There. A fireplace, with orange embers glowing in it. And next to it, there was a...

A child. A sleeping child.

Swift was a salesman by nature, but he was deeply puzzled. He'd chosen this place because no one ever came here; but he'd also thought the people who lived here were insanely rich. So what the hell was going on? Who was this kid?

He tried the door-handle. It refused to budge, but he twisted it savagely, and it gave, coming clean off the door to bounce on the ground and roll away into the undergrowth. He pushed the door open.

At once, the smell overpowered his senses. It was a dank rot, like something had been decaying for years. He cupped his hand to his nose, and moved forward, the floorboards creaking under his shoes.

The child continued to sleep.

Swift saw a staircase that led to an upper floor; it was decrepit and grey and liable to collapse at any moment. The ceiling planks were loose and eaten through as well, by the same sort of terminal rot that the rest of the place seemed to be afflicted with.

This was a very unsafe place to be in. It could very well come down on him in the next instant.

But first, there was the matter of the child.

She was making little moans, like she was having unpleasant dreams. Long hair was draped across her face, and she was curled into a foetal ball.

Swift laid his hand on the child's cheek, and swept the long locks away towards the sides.

He started back in horror. First, at the feel of her skin. It was cold, cold as bone. And second, at her face.

There wasn't one.

Slowly, the thing began to rise. It raised a hand, a single finger pointing at Swift, and it seemed to be saying something. But all that came out was a horrible gurgle from its throat.

Swift ran towards the door. It was closed - he distinctly remembered leaving it open! He tried the handle; it was stuck fast.

The thing was closing the distance between them. He couldn't try the windows, they were too far away. The only other way out was the staircase. He'd have to risk it.

He leaped up the rotting timber, fleet as possible, towards the upper floor. Surprisingly, the staircase did not collapse, despite appearances. Swift gasped his thanks to the powers above as he cleared the last step.

The thing was coming, he could hear it. The slow creak of wood under its step, and that sound, that sound - it reminded him of the accident, with Fred and Stacy - Fred had suffered a crushed windpipe, and died drowning in his own blood.

There was a bedroom, with the door ajar. He ran in, closed the door, bolted it shut. He gasped for breath, almost bent double by the strain.

He needed to sit down.

He turned around, and there on the bed was his wife.

She was as beautiful as he remembered her. Her hair lustrous as it swept across her brow, and that sad, quiet smile still on her lips.

Her hands were on her swollen belly. Of course. He remembered that night.

Only three more months to go, honey. Only that long for us to have our own little sunshine.

He'd known that her 'little sunshine' wasn't his. God, how he'd wished he'd had the courage to confront her with that knowledge. But he never could, because she always had that sad smile on her lips when he wanted to say it, like she knew what he was going to do.

So, seven months into her term, he couldn't take it any more.

She was sleeping like an angel. He'd gotten ready for the night, gotten into his night clothes. Took his place by her side, watched her smile in contentment as he curled his arms around her.

He remembered the savage strength with which he'd forced the pillow. The muffled despair, how she tried to kick him away from under him. And the slow, uneasy stillness that came, an eternity later.

God, how he hated himself. Never more than after he'd removed the pillow...

She had that same smile then. Always so sad, always so hurt.

He felt the tears roll down his cheek. 'I'm sorry, Lucy,' he whispered, 'I didn't know what to do, and I was so angry with you that...' he choked back his sobs.

The door was rattling.

He knew what was coming next. He went down on his knees and crawled towards his wife's bed, took her hand and clasped it in his.

'I'm sorry, Lucy,' he whispered, as the wooden doorframe splintered. He looked up at the faceless child as she entered, and knew who she was. 'I'm so sorry, I was a coward.'

She advanced, her head jerking from side to side. He held tight to his wife's hand, and kissed it. The girl kneeled before him. Swift squeezed his eyes shut, and his body shook with terror as the child's eyeless gaze pressed closer to him. She took his hand, and she was as cold as death. Her tortured gurgle of blood was right next to his ear.

'I wish I'd said it then. I wish I'd been able to do the right thing. But I'm such a coward. I'm not asking for forgiveness, because I know I don't deserve it. But I love you, Lucy. I want you to know that. And my hell is right here, having to live my life without you.'

There was a shriek, one so loud that Swift cupped his ears, and it still dug into him like a white-hot knife of pain.

And suddenly, it stopped. And he opened his eyes, to find himself outside the house again.

The briefcase was next to him.

He didn't know what to do. Turn back? Maybe that would be best. But...

He tried to look through the window, but it was grimy. He found his handkerchief back in his pocket, clean. He wiped the window, and looked through it.

There was no one there.

No one.

A smile crept onto his face, and it turned into a laugh, and he laughed, and he laughed until finally, he sank to his knees and cried.

--------

(Inspired, of course, by 'Darkness', from Peter Gabriel's 'Up'.)


Character: Kevin 'Silhouette' Whittaker
Setting: In Orbit (Spaceship, space station, anything!)

[YoungAuthor]

Kevin Whittaker was on board a small, cramped shuttle. He sighed, it didn't make sense to him, why did they send him up there if they already had. done enough experiments? But then he remembered his countries motto: Don't ask questions. He looked at his pet Meerkat, it looked at him with his beady, innocent eyes.

He floated from his small, extremely cramped private closet, and into the hallway. He floated to a tiny peephole, and saw a planet that was not Earth. I forgot to mention, this is year 2789, and he has been frozen for 300 years. The freeze wasn't an accident. The government of his country, the "Republic" of Sanndina. A large, powerful tyrranical future empire that ruled the face of Asia and Africa for over 400 years. They froze him so he would be preseved for the 300 year trip to Demeter III, third planet from a small, white sun. Suddenly he saw a small object moving from the atmosphere, what was it? It was very small, and bullet shaped. It was headed strait towards the ship. It didn't collide though, it slowed down. And it must have docked with his ship. Again, his pet Meerkat gave him an innocent look, with onnocent beady eyes.

Kevin heard a screeching noise. He looked up from his meal of pills, and saw for an instant, a surpirsing creature. A large, mammal creature. He looked up into the face of a man. Another human being, the first he first he'd seen in 300 years. "Don't you remember us?" He asked. "Who?" Kevin aksed, looking up in wonder. "We are your species. You came from one of our colonies that we lost contact with when an ice age struck." The man held out a hand. "Come." He said, Kevin touched the hand, his hand was seized by the man, and a large edged knife was thrust into his gut. "Fool," The man said, as his face began to change, into the form of a rodent. A Meerkat. "I wasn't talking to you human, I was talking to the Meerkat." Kevin looked at the Meerkat. "What?" His pet Meerkat looked at him, with those beady, innocent eyes. The pet Meerkat began to talk. "Sorry, master, but it is true. The lage Meerkat before you is my Officer. We Meerkats have colonized Earth, and now we are about to strike the human race." Kevin was furious. With te little strength he had left he pointed at his pet Meerkat. "Damn you! I should have knoooowwwwwnnnnnn...." And with that, the knife that was shoved into Kevins gut killed him. The Meerkat morphed back into his false human form, and walked away, while the pet Meerkat followed him. On Earth, humanity was being destroyed by the Meerkat Imperium. Millions wre dying at the hands of cute little, murderous Meerkats, and then when Earth was destoyed, they turned thier bloody gaze to another planet, and then to another planet, until there was no life in the galaxy except Meerkats. Then the Meerkats turned on eachother...

Character: Sleet James
Setting: London, UK

[NilsDesperandum]

SHADOWS OF LONDON



Sleet staggered through the back door of O’Mara’s and aimed himself towards the two chairs that he saw before him. He reached for the nonexistent one which sent him crashing forwards into the real one, leaving it obliterated and him a bloody mess on Helen’s clean quarry tile floor.

After what could have been either one or ten minutes he made the effort to force himself into a slumped position against a base unit and there he remained until she arrived.

It was the smashing crockery that started him into an abrupt wakefulness but his aching muscles refused to come to his aid in preparation against any attack. Instead he strained his eyes into some kind of useful focus and there was her anxious face before him, her hands now clutching his shoulders, trying to shake him.

“It’s okay…” he managed, “I’m alright, I’m alright Helen.”

“Alright!” she exclaimed, “Sleet James, will you look at the state you’re in? Why do you put yourself through it? Why?”

He stifled his laughter before it caused his shattered ribs to send another explosion of pain through his body, feeling instead a bubbling of blood on his lips. “Believe it or not, I didn’t do this to myself!”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” she scolded.

Her rising pitch rang through his skull, causing him to clutch at his temple. “Shhhhh……please Helen, I’ve taken enough of a battering for one night.”

“You go looking for trouble, to be sure, and more oft than not find it to, you know you do,” she said, reverting to an urgent whisper that served only to accentuate her Celtic origins.

Memory started to flood back into his brain as it returned from an involuntary temporary shutdown and a glimmer came into his eyes as he recalled the earlier events of the evening. “But I almost had him tonight Helen!” he said, “I was this close you know!” he forced his arm to raise his hand before his face, his thumb and finger a fraction apart, “so bloody close. He was lucky alright, really lucky.” He brought his hands together into an encircling shape, “I’ve had these around his scrawny neck you know, had him in my grasp.” He banged his head back against the cupboard door in frustration, “****, I mightn’t have another chance like that, not ever!”

“Quiet now, quiet. Worry about it later. Do you think you can get up?”

“No, but I will, if you help me.” He coughed, spitting blood onto her clean white apron.

“Come on then, let’s get you cleaned up,” she stood and leaned down to try and lever him off the floor. Even in his current condition the smell of her was intoxicating, as it always had been. Another time, another life, and maybe there could have been something between them. “And then you can tell me all about it.”


Three hours earlier…….


Sleet waited, crouched in a confined position between the cold church wall and the rusty waste skip in a back street of Highgate. His muscles, although well enough developed, were unaccustomed to this prolonged compression and were on the verge of cramping up in rebellion.

He knew this to be one of their major haunts, had tracked them around the environs of London for years now in ever decreasing circles that centred upon no more than half a dozen locations, one of which this was.

Shadows, is what they were, no more than that. They slipped in and out of existence as they glided along in their purposeful fashion. Ghosts, he knew, they were not. Not spirits, wandering amongst the reminders of their lost lives. No, these things, these Shadows, were something else, something otherworldly.

Where they had come from he did not know. When they had arrived in his life he knew well, very well, for they had taken the life of his brother. And not simply killed him, murdered him, no. They had drained him, the eyes of the largest one, whom appeared to be master to the others, glowing a devilish crimson as his brother’s body turned into a greying husk, literally into a shell.

And then they had turned upon him as he cowered unbelievingly into the corner of the living room where only moments before the confrontation had been between the two of them only, two angry young men on the brink of coming to blows, his brother’s fiancé the bone of contention.

The intervention of the Shadows had been startling, numbing. Not fear alone paralysed the pair of them, there was something else, something in the air that arrested their muscles and also their minds. And then the demons had fallen upon Sky, his brother.

When their attentions had turned upon Sleet, his unlikely saviour had been the headlamps and chugging engine of a night bus as it turned into the road outside. The ill creatures had fled, except for the larger one that had remained a moment longer to glower at him, opening its jaws to cackle horrifically before it turned to follow its brethren, winking out of existence before it reached the opposite wall of the room.

Since then he had traced their movements, plotting the locations of their foul acts upon an old OS map pinned to the bedroom wall. On numerous occasions he had gotten too close, but by luck more than judgment he had found several methods of fending them off. Shadows was his name for them, he did not care to think up anything more creative, did not feel them deserving of the effort. For the most part they appeared as no more than shadows and so let them be known.

He was startled from his reverie by a young woman who walked silently into the street before him. Silently, he realised, because she was barefoot. Even from some distance he could see the terror upon her face, the unvoiced scream, but he could sense that her movement was impelled, her choices no longer her own. He had seen it before.

And they came. Gliding down amongst the streetlights to circle their chosen prey like an ethereal wolf pack. One by one they snapped forwards, the temptation to accost this girl obviously proving too great, but upon each occasion they restrained themselves and returned to their circling motion.

Sleet felt that he could wait no longer and was mentally preparing himself for the effort he would require to propel himself forward against the wishes of his aching muscles, but at the last moment something happened that stalled him, stopped him dead. Another figure was sweeping down from the dark night sky, a larger figure.

He waited, disbelieving, but as the Shadow came closer he felt that there could be no doubt. Only once before had he seen a creature of this size, only once, and that event was burned into his memory. This was that one, he was certain of it! He reached for his nearby rucksack and retrieved the items that formed his unlikely arsenal, assembled as a result of several experimental Shadow encounters.

One, two, three……he counted slowly to twenty, time enough for the Shadow Master to enter the circle, and then rose, ignoring the protests of his cramped body, and stepped out into what little light was afforded by the streetlamp above. No attention was paid to him, their focus appeared to be centred solely upon their selected victim. The Master was now approaching the girl and Sleet could see the blood red glow beginning to emanate from the pits of its eyeless sockets.

“Stop!” Sleet shouted with as much command as he could muster. It had the desired effect, the creatures halted their circling motion and, as one, their hellish faces turned in his direction, an evil cacophony arising from their throats tauntingly. But they did not move towards him and Sleet was surprised by this unexpected behaviour.

The Master meanwhile remained focused upon the young woman, as if needing to ensure that the spell cast over her remained effective. Once it was certain of this, however, it also turned to face Sleet’s challenge.

Christ, he thought, this is it!

He reached up and pulled the ski mask down over his eyes, nervously fingered the dog whistle held in his left hand whilst his right hand squeezed the handle of the hefty ultraviolet torch, his thumb caressing its on-switch.

The next moment was a blur. The Shadow Master was instantly gone. For a split second Sleet thought that it had simply vanished but he soon realised his error as the creature came plummeting out of the sky to make a perfect catlike landing on the pavement not six feet in front of him, then hollered at him, it’s jaw dropping inhumanly far down it’s muscular chest.

Sleet knew that he could not risk being entranced at this point and prayed to God that his numerous encounters with these devils had built some kind of resistance within him. Without further thought he launched himself into action, flicking the torch’s switch whilst simultaneously raising the whistle to his lips and blew with all his might. The creature lurched back suddenly, stumbling to one bony knee. Sleet, not wanting to miss the opportunity, fell upon the Shadow, pummelling it with his one free fist whilst forcing the head of the torch into the creatures gut. It screamed and this alone would have been enough to paralyse, but in this moment there was a pure clarity within Sleet’s mind. He dare not waver, he could not. It would mean his death and worst still it would leave Sky un-revenged (or rather would leave his own guilt un-cleansed).

The Shadow’s eyes fixed upon him now, their boiling rage seeming to reach a frenzy. Even through the mask Sleet could feel them burning into him. He dropped the torch and reached both hands for the creature’s throat, gouging his fingers into its leathery gullet. The response was instantaneous, razor-like claws slashed at his face and body followed by a fierce kick into his chest which Sleet felt must have fractured more than a single rib, but still he clung onto the Master’s neck.

It was at this point that the girl screamed out, a shrill piercing terror filled shriek that must have sent the other beasts scattering. The Master flinched at the sound, yet still continued its assault. Sleet fell back, gasping, and looked up at the creature that was about to descend upon him, about to finish him. His fingers searched frantically across the flagstones and then fastened upon the torch.

The Shadow leapt at him and in the same instant Sleet brought the substantial bulk of the torch up in a swinging arc which terminated against the side of the monster’s head with a satisfying crack. It fell to the side, hissing in what Sleet hoped was agony. It rolled, then turned to face him once more, but the burning fire of its eyes was gone. It uttered its awful cackle and then launched itself into the air and was away.

Sleet watched it vanish into the night sky, half grateful, half saddened.
His breaths came in jagged gasps as the pain in his chest finally registered. He spat blood and turned to face the street but there was nothing to see. The Shadows had gone. The girl had gone. I don’t blame her neither! He thought.

Eventually he crawled to the wall of the church which he used to gain his feet before stumbling off in the direction of O’Mara’s place, where he knew succour could be found.

“Next time!” he shouted into the sky, each word paining him greatly, “I’ll have you next time, you bastard!”


ND

Character: Cat Calder
Setting: The Himalayas