It’s Only One Picture

Author: Hillary Lyon

His younger siblings didn’t mind he always shut his eyes tight whenever someone took his picture; they were used to him. But his older brother Robert pried, “Why do you always do that?”

“Long ago, I read some indigenous people thought if somebody took their picture, they were actually taking—”

“Their souls,” Robert finished. “I remember that. What’s it got to do with you?”

“I’m afraid the camera will steal my soul if my eyes are open when the photo’s taken.”

“Want to get over this fear? Let me take just one picture, with your eyes wide open,” Robert suggested. “Won’t hurt a bit.”

* * *

There was no blinding flash, no deafening thunderclap, as Kevin expected; only the feeling that a long thin scab running the length of his body had been quickly ripped off. He felt an intense stinging, then a mind-scrambling itch—then nothing.

Kevin blinked. “That’s it?”

“Yeah,” Robert replied without looking up. He was busy tapping his phone’s screen.

“What’s next?”

“I just sent the pic to our siblings.”

“Via the internet?” Kevin felt queasy.

Robert laughed. “How else would I get it to everyone, ASAP?”

“You uploaded my photo to the cloud?!” Kevin cried.

“Yep! Now your picture, along with every picture of every other soul ever posted online, resides in the cloud until it is called forth by—well, by whoever wants to see it.”

Kevin imagined his face floating among thousands—among millions—of faces in a great rolling field of fluffy white clouds, surveilled by countless shiny, swarming drones. And herded from one corner of the sky to another by headless robot dogs. He figured these techno-guards were in place to safeguard against souls escaping the cloud, and fleeing back to their original owners down on Earth.

* * *

“Slow down!” Xichtl chided as she slapped Scut on the back of the head. “Don’t scroll so fast. This isn’t a race, you know.”

“But they’re all so boring, so predictable,” Scut whined. “Each and every one,” he muttered under his breath.

“Keep going.”

Scut obediently slid his finger across the tablet’s glowing screen.

“Stop. Wait.” Xichtl peered over Scut’s shoulder at the image on the screen. “This one appears so panicked, so afraid!” She cackled. “Why, just look at the colors within the core of its soul. The center is a delicious pulpy, purple brown—like an old bruise—with its outer edge melting into a sickly, rancid yellow.” She licked her lips.

“Mistress, look closer, see that soul’s edge has a certain crumbly quality—like a cracked toenail with a bad fungal infection,” Scut added.

“Ah, Scut,” Xichtl crooned, “ever the poet.” She stroked the back of his knotty head.

“You want this one?”

“First I must consult my collection,” Xichtl said as she heaved her massive, tattered ‘Book of Souls’ onto her bony lap. She lovingly examined each frail leaf, muttering prayers to herself. At last she placed her withered hand on an empty page. “It appears I do not own one with such a unique color combination.”

She carelessly closed the tome, sending glittery puffs of dust everywhere. “Read me its label.”

Scut squinted at the screen, parsing the fine print beneath the picture. “Says it’s a Kevin 81-Beta-XXXL. Uploaded just this afternoon. Also says he believes in some muddled techno version of white-cloud Heaven.” He snickered at what nonsense mortals believed. “Well, Mistress, what do you think?”

Xichtl reached over his shoulder to tap the green ‘buy now’ button. “I think I want it.”

Red Dust Rising

Author: Hillary Lyon

The window cracked, then broke, allowing a tendril of dust to slither in, covering everything in its narrow path with a fine coating. We wiped it up, patched the oval window with a metal plate soldered in place. Reassuring each other it was repaired, we crawled into our bunks and slept.

When we woke, console lights across our pod blinked weakly under a thin blanket of red dust. Overhead, the skylight leaked a fine shower, and the dust poured down, swirling in the currents of the air conditioner, spreading far and wide across our prefabricated unit. It took us hours to clean up.

The dust was everywhere, filling crevices between keys on keyboards, gluing gears, piling up in empty cups and test tubes, shaping tiny pyramids in every corner imaginable. We ourselves weren’t immune: it gathered in our ears, eyes, noses, mouths. Eating, all foodstuffs now carried grit crunching between our teeth. Showers turned the dust to a sticky red muck, which slid down our bodies, clotted the drain at our feet. This created yet another pressing job; we couldn’t allow the red mud to clog our pipes.

Constant clean up was exhausting, distracting us from our real work. Entire days devoted to patching and cleaning, disposing and sanitizing. Searching, searching for new cracks, inside and out—sometimes finding, often not. The dust continued to find its way in.

Even our EVA suits weren’t immune. Stored in sealed closets, somehow the red dust fingered its way in. Coarse minuscule crystals were sharp enough to tear tiny holes in the fabric, rendering the protective gear useless. We patched the suits as best we could. For two team members, that wasn’t good enough. Going outside the pod on recon and repair, we lost them.

Fine as baby powder—just as sweet smelling—the red dust rose in every aspect of our existence, until we were smothering in its soft avalanche. We who remained, gave in, gave up.

When the next expedition landed, they quickly located our pod. Inside, shin deep in red dust, the new crew prowled and poked until they found us, buried beneath a thick layer of powder. Our jumpsuits worn away, our flesh abraded to nothing. Our skulls, polished by the dust and now gleaming like crystals, flashed like unheeded warning beacons beneath the side-lights of the new crew’s helmets—as the red dust continued its inexorable rise.

Marvin, Out of Whack

Author: Hillary Lyon

“Ugh, what did I eat last night?” Marvin groaned, patting his belly. It protruded, solid and round, like a bowling ball. A pot-belly! Tracy, his girlfriend, wouldn’t be pleased. If Tracy bailed, he’d have to get a real job—until the next generous girlfriend came along.

He rubbed his temples, replaying last night’s events—what little he remembered. He’d gone to the corner bar, and met—Nikki the Naughty Animatronic Stripper.

Rifling through the pockets of last night’s clothes, he found receipts: one for the bar, and one from a nearby no-tell motel famous locally for renting rooms-by-the-hour, where Nikki perfected her “acts.”

Marvin microwaved a cup of tea and on inhaling its scented vapor, remembered—steam, like a hot shower in tiny motel bathroom. And in that motel, somebody—Nikki?—jabbed him in the back with an icy needle. He ran to the bathroom to look in the mirror. He in found a greenly glowing oval scab; worse, there was a network of fine lines radiating from it, criss-crossing his back. He poked the scab, the lines pulsed, and he yelped in pain as those pulses sent electric shocks through his limbs, leaving him momentarily paralyzed.

Now he remembered, when he left the bar, pow! He was taken by intergalactic aliens. Once Tracy saw the glowing scab with its throbbing web, she’d believe him.

Marvin glanced at the analog clock on the wall. Soon she’d be home, and he was still in his pj’s. He was, throwing on clean clothes, when he heard Tracy unlock the front door.

Marvin rushed to her.

“What’s wrong?”  Tracy asked, concerned. Then she saw his pot-belly.  ”Well, somebody’s leaking hydraulic fluid.” She thumped his bloated stomach; it sounded metallic and sloshy.

Confused, Marvin scoffed. Hydraulic fluid? Was she insane?

Tracy turned him around to examine his back.

“Your skin sensors are distressed. Have any unsettling thoughts today?”

“I was abducted by silvery aliens—taken to a seedy motel, jabbed with a needle-sharp probe then abandoned in a . . .”

“Steamy shower?”

“Yes! How did you—”

“You’re programmed to enjoy hot showers, hot tubs, steam rooms, et cetera.”

“Programmed? They injected me with a paralyzing radioactive toxin—you saw my back!”

“Marvin, when your innards are out of whack, you get bizarre. Let’s see if your inny is now an outy.”

She pulled up his t-shirt, then gently pushed his protruding belly-button. Her finger went deep into his stomach. Inside his abdomen, he heard a hiss, then a muffled series of beeps. Tracy turned him around, popped off the green scab, then shoved her finger into the glowing hole.

Marvin’s head cleared. He laughed.

Tracy led him to the large closet in the hallway next to the bedroom. Opening the door, she gestured to the comfy recliner inside. Exhausted, Marvin plopped down. As she hooked him up to the console beside the chair, she chided:

“You’re not supposed to actually eat or drink anything; it clogs up your works, giving you crazy ideas, painful sensations, and false memories. Plus, makes you worthless for days. Now I have to do the household chores myself. If you do this again, I’ll complain to your manufacturer.”

Smiling sheepishly, Marvin shut his eyes.

Tracy pressed the re-boot button and closed the door. As the machine inside the closet hummed, she walked to the bedroom and kicked off her shoes. The humming made the floor vibrate slightly, sending a rhythmic thrill from her bare feet all the way up her legs—and beyond.

Damn, she’d have to call her real-life boyfriend for company tonight.

Spontaneous Human—

Author: Hillary Lyon

Inspector Morrisey stood between the empty easy chair and the ancient cathode-ray television. He withdrew a pen and a small notepad from the inside pocket of his wrinkled trench coat. “Tell me again Mrs. Kittle, what happened.”

“My husband was sitting right there, arguing with me over what to watch on TV tonight, then suddenly,” she said haltingly, “in mid-sentence, he was gone.”

“Uh huh,” the inspector said, scribbling notes.

With a pink tissue, Mrs. Kittle dabbed the tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. “I walked to the bar cart for a drink, and when I turned—he was gone.” She waved her arms for emphasis. “Just gone! He waspjasih shjvdoi sj hp aryknyt!”

As her speech rapidly dissolved into gibberish, Morrisey shook his head sadly. He’d seen this many times before, when denizens of his little town became emotionally traumatized. Usually after house fires, or swimming pool tragedies. He nodded to one of his officers, and the young man gently led her away.

“So, watcha think?” McEwan, the rookie inspector, asked. “Did the old geezer just walk away from his marriage? Did his wife knock him off, then plant him under a rose bush in the backyard? Spontaneous human combustion?”

Inspector Morrisey looked at the chair, at the deep indention in the cushion where Mr. Kittle once sat. His gaze then rose to the ceiling.

“There’s no smoke damage,” he said, pointing to the clean white plaster overhead. He looked back down.“No neat pyramid of ash in the chair.” He sniffed the air. “No residual barbecue aroma. And,” he added sagely, “no ghost wandering about.”

“So . . .?” McEwan pressed.

“I’m thinking this is more like spontaneous human—” he snapped his pad shut and shoved it back into his coat pocket, “teleportation.”

* * *

“The old man didn’t just vanish,” Morrisey, now back at his office, theorized, “He’s out there somewhere. We just don’t know where.” He propped his feet up on his desk. “Might be in a closet, might be in a neighbor’s pool, might be—”

“An alien abduction!” McEwan said breathlessly, pacing in front of Morrisey. “Or snatched by a mad scientist for experimentation! Or he’s a victim of evil wizardly!”

“No, no, and no.”

“If this is spontaneous human teleportation, then he’s who knows where,” McEwan frowned.

“It’s perplexing.” Morrisey snorted. “What’s worse, folks have disappeared like this before.” He slid his notepad across the desk. “Type that up and turn it in to the captain.”

“Awww,” McEwan protested.

“You need the practice,” Morrisey added patiently, “if you want to be promoted.” The kid’s new to this game, Morrisey added to himself, but he’ll learn and—

The world went dark.

* * *

“I’m so bored with this town, with these people,” the boy moaned. “I put these characters in weird or dangerous situations, just to make things interesting, and their responses are entirely predictable!” He tossed his controller aside.“I should complain to the developer.”

“So change them,” his mom suggested. “Retire the dull ones, or tweak them. Or entirely delete them, then—”

“I did already,” her son pouted. “Got rid of the ones I’d had around for freakin’ ever. Left some in a pool without a ladder,” he said with a nefarious giggle.“Even burned down a few houses.”

“And? I hope you made better new ones.” The boy shrugged. His mom prompted, “What do I always say? If you aren’t having fun, then it’s time to stop.” Spontaneously, she leaned over and switched off the gaming console. “Now go outside and play.”

We’ll Be in Touch

Author: Hillary Lyon

“So we’re outside, drinking on the patio like we do sometimes after work, when Ellie looks up at the sky and goes—”

“I said, ‘What is THAT?’” Ellie laughed awkwardly. From his seat next to the sofa, the interviewer, Mister Guest, leaned towards her, holding his small recorder. He wore a black suit and skinny tie, plain white shirt, and highly polished shoes. Very professional, Ellie thought.

“Continue,” Guest encouraged.

“Around sunset that day the clouds looked like buttered popcorn—and I’m daydreaming when suddenly this THING slips out from the clouds and glides, real slow, towards us.”

“Daydreaming?” Ellie could hear the puzzlement in Guest’s voice.

She sighed. “Like wondering what life would be like if I, I mean we, lived somewhere else, somewhere with exotic cultures and beautiful landscapes and fascinating histories.”

Listening, Guest tilted his head. His oddly-pointy ears perked up. “What did this ‘thing’ look like?”

“HUGE and silent. Triangle-shaped, dark gray. Color-changing lights on each corner—white to purple, then orange, then back to white. And in the very middle of this thing, there’s a big glass globe. Like a crystal ball.” She scrunched her eyebrows together.“You could see the sky and clouds through it, but they looked distorted.”

“Hell, I saw that, too,” Trent said, slurping his beer.

“What did it sound like?” Guest asked Ellie, ignoring Trent’s interruption.

“Nothing.” Ellie answered. “No engine roar or motor hum or propellers buzzing—”

“Speak for yourself,” Trent snorted. He was annoyed; this was supposed to be his interview. He’s the one who looked up Extra-Terrestrial Investigators, Inc., online. He’s the one who made the call to set up the interview.

“Oh?” Guest said, still pointing the recorder at Ellie.

Trent leaned in and spoke loudly. “I heard this ‘mmmmmmmm’.” Trent’s eyes became unfocused as he fell under the spell of creating his own fiction. “Like a heavenly choir holding one long note, getting louder and louder until it was rattlin’ my bones!”

Ellie put her head in her hands.

Trent took a long pull on his beer. “That UFO sent out sound-waves to hypnotize us! It was gonna beam us up to be probed or who knows what, if I hadn’t dragged Ellie back into the house. I’m the hero. That’s your story, mister.”

“Huh,” was all Guest said; he lightly touched Ellie’s shoulder. “You were saying?”

She looked up. “It hovered over us for a minute or two, then smoothly slipped back into the clouds and disappeared.” She shrugged.

Mister Guest clicked off his recorder. “Thanks for your time, and information.” He never took his eyes off Ellie. “We’ll be in touch.”

* * *

Back at headquarters, Mister Guest turned on his recorder. His supervisor, Director Cloak, listened closely, occasionally nodding. “So the male, though an absolute beast, was actually closer to the truth.”

“Yep,” Guest agreed. “He’s physically fit, steeped in Earth-culture UFO lore, and prone to gross exaggeration. No matter what we do to him, or how long we keep him, his peers won’t believe him.”

“An excellent find, then!” Cloak commended.“Well done.”

“One last thing,” Guest added.“My youngest has a birthday soon and, as this female is intelligent, docile yet adventurous, I think she’ll—”

“Make a good pet,” Cloak finished. “Go ahead. Schedule your follow-up interview.”

“Terrific!” Guest chirped. “I’ll wrap her up.”