by submission | Jan 5, 2013 | Story |
Author : Derrick Paulson
“Uptown”
When Principal Wallace came back from his mid-morning meeting his secretary informed him that a student had been sent to see him; but, when he opened the door to his office, he hadn’t expect to find the sophomore girl kneeling on the carpet, her hands cupped over her knees. He had, however, expected the dress.
“What are you doing, Bella?” Principal Wallace said as he entered the room. “Get up and come have a seat.” He gestured toward one of three leather upholstered armchairs that faced his desk as he sat down himself on the other side near the windows.
The sun was warm through the panes, but the wind outside was as incessant as ever.
“Sir, I will, but look.” Bella remained on the floor. “This dress goes almost to my feet. It goes way passed my knees!” To emphasize this she grabbed some of the blue and orange floral fabric near her ankle and bunched it up in her fist.
“That’s not the point.” Principal Wallace said as he leaned back. “You know the hemline is not the issue. Bella, we’ve been over this.”
Principal Wallace caught movement outside, turned his head to see a man walking his dog. The big, shaggy, white canine moved timidly, one booted foot after another, as if it were walking on thin ice. A gust of wind came up, sending the dog’s hair flying in all directions. It reminded Principal Wallace of a picture he’d once seen of a twentieth century actress in a white dress, her skirts billowing in the blast from a subway vent.
“Bella,” Principal Wallace turned back to find the sophomore girl standing, arms folded, “you know the policy about this. You can wear jeans, you can even wear pajama pants, but you can’t wear a dress to school.”
“But this was a gift from my great grandma.”
Bella had said that on a similar occasion about a miniskirt.
“Look,” Principal Wallace eyed the time on his computer screen, “you might get away with wearing a sundress in Downtown, but not here Bella. If you don’t want me to call your dad I’m going to have to ask you to go home and change before you miss another class.”
“Fine.” Bella dropped her arms to her sides and turned to go.
“Not that way,” Principal Wallace emphasized the words as he shook his head. “Take the elevator.”
When the girl had gone, mumbling something under her breath about elevators being for babies, Principal Wallace got up and went to the windoor. Opening it up he stepped out. His anti-gravity boots hummed softly as he walked on nothing but air fifty stories above ground level. a few stories down he saw the hover-yard where some of the boys where taking advantage of a free hour to practice their 3-point dunks. Maybe tomorrow, he thought, if they were at it again he’d show them how they used to do it old school. Maybe tomorrow.
by submission | Jan 3, 2013 | Story |
Author : J.D. Rice
No one ever comes into manhood dreaming they’d one day go off to war. Sure, some boys sign up voluntarily, in peacetime and besides, with good notions like “defending one’s country” and “promoting democracy.” But those are just words. No one ever really goes to war of their own volition, knowing and understanding exactly the kind of hell they’re walking into. I didn’t. I got my draft papers and just went off to Nam without another word. One tour of duty was all they were asking for, and I wasn’t so unpatriotic as to let someone else go in my place. Only the cowards ran to Canada anyhow. Except now I wish I had been a coward. I guess that’s just how war changes you.
I remember a private in my platoon, thought he was going to be some kind of damn war hero. He’d volunteered. He was excited. He was a goddamned idiot.
“You just wait til we get to that open field on the northern border,” he used to say. “That’s where it’s going to happen. I’m going to be a hero, you just wait and see.”
We laughed, but we could all see that this boy was different. Every engagement, he’d go in with eyes like a child playing a game of baseball. He just looked into the jungle, smiled, and fired into the trees like he knew exactly where the enemy was hidden. Sometimes he’d get lucky. Other times he’d hit nothing but bark and leaves. In every case, that smile stayed on his face, like the war just wasn’t real to him, like it wouldn’t matter if any of us lived or died. It would have given us all the willies if the boy weren’t so likable in all other respects, idiot though he was.
Most days while we marched this private would entertain us by reciting his favorite science fiction stories, famous ones according to him, though most were unfamiliar to the rest of us. He’d talk about the flying machines that were coming down the pipeline, about the bigger and badder bombs the government was making, about space and time travel and all the rest. He’d cite authors like Crichton, Scott Card, Axelrod and Kachelries. I’d never heard of a damn one, but he talked about them like they were saints.
“Just you wait and see,” he said. “They’re going to be huge!”
We all just chuckled and thanked our stars that at least he wasn’t a damned coward.
But eventually, as it always does, the war got the best of even him. We were just off the northern border when the enemy came upon us out in the open. We were surrounded on three sides, outnumbered and outgunned. Poor boy just froze up, took a bullet right to the chest, and went down in the first five minutes. I don’t think he ever fired a single shot. After our retreat, I found him among the wounded, dying and unattended. The medics had already marked him for death.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” the boy said as I knelt beside him. “They said I would be a hero. They said the technology was flawless. I’d be him. I’d live his life. God, this wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Despite my desire to look away, I stayed with the private while he muttered on. War made fools of us all, and I wouldn’t shame him by leaving his side. It’s not like I had anywhere else to be.
“Infinite universes,” he said again, a small drop of blood running down his chin. “Infinite possibilities. They said it was flawless. They said…”
But he said no more. He was gone.
War is hell. Even the most confident and foolhardy among us eventually fall under its weight. If we don’t falter in life, it creeps up on us, breaking our spirits in death. That poor private’s face, which had for so long held that expression of stupid, youthful exuberance, now only showed the cold, hard reality of disappointment.
by submission | Dec 30, 2012 | Story |
Author : James McGrath
“One of us is going to have to make a move, y’know?”
I did know, but that didn’t make it any easier. We’d been in a stalemate for three minutes; our pistols pointed at them and theirs at us. However, the advantage lay with them, as while the two damned space-pirates were clearly enjoying themselves, Marissa, my pilot, and I looked uneasy.
Regret swelled inside of me as I thought of how I had followed the pirates here, but I knew it would lead to the fission core. This object could re-power my antique spacecraft for decades and it was only a few feet from me. If these brigands took it, it could be years before I found another. That would be too late; the ship would be drained by then. I had to act now.
The clamour of a ship exiting light-speed behind me forced me to turn. Colossal in size, it loomed overhead, bearing the emblem of the Space Federation Forces.
“We’ve been tracked!” howled the pirate Captain, his face distorted in fear.
A platform lowered from the keel of the ship and it took little time for two officers to emerge. They stepped towards us, rifles in hand.
“Captain Zhang, you are under arrest for numerous crimes against the Federation,” stated the female force member, “Civilian, please retreat from the wreckage, that core belongs to us.”
Panic gripped me. There was no way Marissa and I could survive a fire-fight while sandwiched between our two opponents. We were going to lose the core! However, by good fortune, Zhang chose this moment to get diplomatic.
“You two!” he screamed, sending searing hot plasma flying past me and into the chest of the subordinate officer, “Don’t let them take me or my crew, and you can have the core!”
Marissa flung herself behind some wreckage to our right to avoid the fire, while I went left.
“Get back to the ship; tell the crew – we get the core!” I yelled to her as I fired a round at the SF reinforcements now leaving their ship, “They’ll go after the pirates, so pick me up then!”
As a volley of fire flew past my position, I couldn’t help but fixate on the fission core that lay a mere metre from my feet. The neon pink hue captivated me as I thought of how some of the crashed ship’s crew must have salvaged it from their mangled vessel. They must have perished with no way to escape this barren planet, but their loss could mean I could continue being a pilot.
There was a whirring above me, and air buffeted my body as Red Jizo came for her cargo. The Federation Forces fired upon her, but only from the ground, worried that using their ship’s weapons could end up hitting the wreckage below. Jizo’s skin was tough, and held firm as a claw was released from the base. For once, it being an old cargo ship was coming in handy.
Just as I thought fortune had smiled upon me, Zhang broke into a filthy grin.
“The core is almost inside your ship, boy!” he bellowed over to me, “And as you can see the SFF are coming close in an attempt to stop your retreat. That thing will cause some explosion! I’m sorry, but their captain has been a thorn in my side for too long, and you should have never trusted a pirate!”
My mouth opened in a scream of protest, as a bolt of plasma tore from the barrel of his pistol and collided with the core.
by submission | Dec 29, 2012 | Story |
Author : Adrian Berg
A man and his son stood together on a mound, surrounded by a vast field of garbage. They were ragged, the boy with wild, uncut hair and the man with a knotted beard.
The setting sun painted the sky red above them as they sorted through the junk. The boy picked up a metal box that had dials on the side and a handle on top.
‘What’s this, father?’ he asked.
‘Let me see,’ the man said. ‘That’s a radio. I haven’t seen one of those in a long time. People used them to listen to music and voices that were sent through the air.’
‘Can you make it work?’ the boy turned the box around in his hands.
‘I doubt it.’
He started putting it down.
‘Tell you what,’ the man said and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘Let’s take it back with us. Maybe we can fix it. If not, your mother can use the casing to plant herbs.’
The boy nodded and put the radio in a faded satchel. ‘Why did people throw away all this?’ he asked and looked out at the hills of discarded things, dotted with cracked television screens that reflected the setting sun.
‘It’s not important. It was a long time ago.’
The boy looked up at his father, shrugged and turned his back. For some time they continued scavenging. The only sounds were of busy hands moving useless gadgets aside and the whistling wind. The boy picked up a yellow plastic brick with a piece of glass and some buttons on it.
‘What’s this, father?’
‘That’s a gameboy. Kids used to play games on those.’
‘Can I take it as well?’
‘What for, it’s just a piece of plastic?’
‘I like the color.’
The man looked at his son. ‘I guess you can use it as a paper weight.’
He pried a blow dryer out of the rubble, cracked it in two against a stove and took out the heating element.
‘Were they fun?’
‘What?’
‘The games.’ He held up the yellow gameboy.
‘I suppose. I remember one that I liked a lot when I was your age, called Tetris. You had to move falling blocks and fit them together.’
He tried to show with his hands but he could tell the boy did not understand.
The man looked at the garbage around them. ‘Let’s finish up and get back home while we still have some light.’
He picked up two bags and descended the hill. The boy followed with his satchel. As he jumped down he saw something that looked like an open plastic book. One side was covered in keys, though some were missing. The other side had a glass screen. In the middle was a round button. The boy stopped to press it.
‘Come on,’ the man shouted and the boy hurried to catch up.
They walked down to where two horses were tied to a rust-spotted oven. The animals pawed the dusty ground while the man untied them. They mounted the horses and rode east.
‘Do you really think we can get the radio to work?’ the boy asked his father.
‘You know what, we might actually. There’s no signal though, so we’ll only hear white noise.’
‘I don’t mind.’
They rode past a truck that was tipped over on its side and were gone from sight. The rubble field was quiet. On the side of the mound the glass screen flicked on, showing blue with white writing for a moment before fading to black.
by submission | Dec 23, 2012 | Story |
Author : Helstrom
“Do you like them?”
The voice snapped me out of my concentration. Things reverberated in my head. I turned it right and saw nothing.
“Who said that?”
“I did.”
My eyes pivoted down and found a small girl looking up at me.
“Oh. Hello. What?”
“Do you like them?”
“Yes.”
They were majestic creatures – hooves beating the compact earth as they galloped in circles, manes and tails flowing, teeth gripping steel bits.
She smiled: “I love them!”
That was a funny thing for a child to say and I bared my teeth as well: “Yes, fantastic aren’t they? All that muscle, all that spirit. Mind you it’s not often that they’re seen in groups like this. Let alone being ridden.”
“Really? We ride them all the time.”
“Then you have a braver heart than me, little girl.”
“Are you scared of them?”
“Terrified.”
She frowned: “But you said you liked them.”
“I can see the beauty in such a sublime hunter, little girl,” I tried to mimic her frown but botched it pretty badly and ended up looking at her through one squinted eye, “Have you ever seen them in the wild?”
“No.”
“Neither have I. But I know the stories. They roam the forests for miles and miles, always alone – but one is quite enough. It will slip into the trees like a ghost when it finds you. It will stalk you for days, weeks, months if it must. It will always be there, always just out of sight. You will hear it though, maybe catch a glimpse every now and then. It does that on purpose. It wants you to know you’re being hunted. It wants you to be afraid. That’s what it feeds on. And that’s how it kills you in the end. It kills you with a final stroke when it lets you see it. All your nightmares, all the monsters you have ever thought could be hiding under your bed, all in one horrible form. The natives have a name for it: intoki. The fear in the dark.” I tried the frown again and nailed it this time, “I’m surprised you didn’t know that, actually.”
Silence hung between us. Something had changed. The little girl’s eyes had taken on a reddish hue and small amounts of water were pooling beneath them. She turned and ran off in a flutter of brightly-colored coat, shawl and rubber boots.
“Jeb, what did you do?”
Jim was walking up to me.
“Nothing. I think.”
“There’s something wrong with these intoki.”
“Yes.”
“They’re not intoki.”
“Oh.”
“In fact I think we’re not even on the right bloody planet.”
“Oh.”
“Let’s get back to the ship.”
