Emergence

hand from grave

From the video game “Plants vs. Zombies.”

“He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby becomes a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.”

–Friedrich Nietzsche

The Fourth Chapter in the Undead Life of Sean Becker

The beast clawed its way up through the moist, cool soil. It couldn’t breathe, and while that added to its desperation, it did not dampen strength, will, or determination.

It was filthy as its hands broke through to the air and then heaved itself up from the grave. Mud, parts of roots, bits of gravel in its matted hair, under long, pointed fingernails, around the mouth and eyes, covering its pale, chilled skin.

Light! It shielded its eyes for a moment, but the faint illumination was glaring only because it had spent the past three days and nights in total darkness.

A room, a large room. Earthen floor, concrete walls. Electric lamps on stands at the far end near the door.

It licked the dirt from around its mouth. The taste was not unpleasant, but it did nothing to quench the insatiable, maddening hunger it felt deep in its gut.

Emptiness. All it felt was emptiness, ravenous hunger, unquenchable desire for…

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Night of Syn

syn - scarecrow

From the 1964 television show “Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow.”

“The character Hellspite only appeared in a 1963 television series based on the Russell Thorndike Doctor Syn novels. As you know, Thorndike created the fictional Christopher Syn and his alter ego, The Scarecrow in a book series he authored between 1915 and 1944, which was subsequently adapted for a 1937 movie and the aforementioned TV show.”

“Thank you Danae, but we already know this. How does it pertain to Fleming’s current location and where he is holding Sienna Thomas?”

Geoffrey Colins and Mikiko Jahn had arrived late last night and were currently running on determination and caffeine. This early morning meeting, jet lag, and the time change on top of lack of sleep had rendered Colins surly.

“Quite, but I need to relate the background so that my report will make more sense.”

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Not Enough Time

dino

© Yinglan

The little boy followed his Mom around the corner as Tony Lange materialized near a reconstructed fossil. His clothes were torn and soiled, his hair and beard matted with three months growth.

“I’m back. Got to warn them. It isn’t the answer. We’ll all die.”

He struggled to his feet and then he saw the wall painting and screamed.

“Mommy, what’s wrong with that man?”

Security guards kept the crowd back as an ambulance crew arrived.

“Take it easy,” the first medic said. “You’ll be fine.”

“No,” he murmured half-conscious. “You can’t save humanity by sending us 100 million years back…too hostile. We end up as prey, not colonists.”

As he was loaded onto a stretcher, the boy nervously fingered his transistor radio turning it on.

“President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot and killed by an assassin today. He died an hour ago of a wound caused by a rifle bullet fired at him as he was riding through downtown Dallas.”

Tony’s eyes widened. “I didn’t get back all the way. I’m seventy-two years too early!”

I wrote this for the FFfAW Challenge for the Week of December 19, 2017. The idea is to use the image above as the inspiration for creating a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words long. My word count is 175.

When I saw the image, I thought of time travel (of course) and of someone coming forward in time about 100 million years (the middle of the Cretaceous period) into the present. Two ideas popped into my head.

The first was the original “cliffhanger” for the pilot episode of The Time Tunnel starring James Darren as Tony Newman and Robert Colbert as Doug Phillips. In the pilot, Tony uses the Time Tunnel to send himself back into history proving that it actually works in order to keep the project’s Congressional funding from being cut. He ends up on the Titanic mere hours before it is destined to be sunk. In an attempt to rescue him, fellow scientist Doug Phillips goes back. They are unsuccessful in preventing the ship’s destruction, but the team in the time tunnel manage to switch them to a different time period.

The show always ended with a teaser scene from the next episode which in this case was an encounter with Halley’s Comet in the early 20th century, however for the pilot before the show was picked up, the teaser had Tony and Doug appearing in a steaming hot jungle and then encountering a dinosaur.

The second thought was of a show I’ve never watched but thought might be interesting. Terra Nova was a short-lived series (December 9, 2011 to March 5, 2012) about people on an overpopulated Earth in the year 2149 who were sent back to colonize the Cretaceous Period. I thought this was kind of crazy for a few reasons, the first being the “butterfly effect,” since they’d have no idea how their actions even so far back in history would affect their present, and the second being that there are freaking dinosaurs out there and they were the dominant species on the planet at that time. What makes anyone think that even with advanced weapons, they wouldn’t turn into anything more than prey?

So what if a colonist managed somehow to project himself forward in time to warn everyone that the project didn’t work? However, as you have just read, he dropped out of the time stream 72 years too early, specifically on 22 November 1963 in Dallas, Texas at a Natural History museum just hours after President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed. Horribly tragic in many different ways.

To read other stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

Time Traveler in Plain Sight

sundial

From Sammi Cox’s blog

“Time machine? Why would you leave a time machine in plain sight, Rodney?”

“What better place to hide it, Yvette? No one would suspect it’s more than a simple sundial.”

“So you showed up for my time traveler party last week because you saw the advert in the paper the day afterward.”

“Don’t be absurd. I’m not from the future.”

“But then how…?”

“Seems the esteemed scientist Stephen Hawking has the same idea fifty years from now. I heard about it up the timeline and decided to search the records to see if anyone else did it before him. Your name came up.”

“Who?”

“Never mind. You’ll be an old woman by the time he becomes famous.”

“So when are you from, Rodney?”

“Actually, the name’s not Rodney. You see, I discovered that I’ve become rather famous by now so I assumed this name.”

“And what may I call you?”

“Herbert will do, Yvette.”

“You mean you’re…?”

“Yes. Care for a spin? I believe I’m in the mood for ancient Egypt just now.”

I wrote this for the Weekend Writing Prompt #33 – Time. The idea is to write a piece of flash fiction no more than 175 words long for a prose story. The first word must be “time” and that word must be repeated in the story at least twice. The theme is “time travel,” a favorite of mine.

I’ve milked the idea of H.G. Wells having actually invented a time machine more than once and thought I’d recycle it here since I’ve never posted anything on Sammi Cox’s blog before.

I’ve heard of these parties for time travelers before but had no idea Stephen Hawking had actually held one. Of course no one came. If time travel is impossible, that explains everything, and if it is, no time traveler worth his or her salt would screw up the timeline by attending a party thrown by one of the most famous physicists in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Oh, the name “Rodney” is taken from actor Rod Taylor who starred in the 1960 film The Time Machine along with actress Yvette Mimieux.

As you may have guessed, my story is set in 1962.

Links to other stories based on the prompt can be found Here.

Beware of Malevolent Snowmen

snow globe

© A Mixed Bag – 2013

“What is it, Noah?”

“A fake Santa guy at the store gave it to me, Rachel. It’s a snow globe.”

“Why?”

“Beats me, Rach. You shake it and this stuff floats around like snow.”

Nine-year-old twins Noah and Rachel Frisch were sitting on the floor in the living room. Mom, Aunt Sarah, and Bubbe were in the kitchen working on dinner plans and Dad went with Uncle Mortie and Zayde to the hardware store to buy a replacement for a rain gutter that had cracked after the last snow.

“It looks so pretty, Noah.”

“Just a stupid Christmas toy. If Mom caught us playing with it, she’d get mad.”

“If Bubbe caught us…”

“Hello.” The snowman in the globe spoke quite clearly for being underwater. His fake coal-lump mouth smiled and his coal eyes glowed red.

“Noah, it’s not a toy.” Rachel stood up terrified.

“Come to think of it, that Santa guy did smell kind of funny, like rotten eggs.”

“Give it to Bubbe.” The kids whirled to see the old woman scowling at them, her hand extended. “I know exactly which orifice on that old Elf to shove this into. How dare he pull this on my grandchildren!”

I wrote this for the Sunday Photo Fiction Challenge of December 17, 2017. The idea is to use the image above as a prompt to write a piece of flash fiction no more than 200 words long. My word count is 200.

I know most people, Christian or secular, consider Christmas in a positive light and it certainly can be for some, but it can also be confusing for Jewish children who see their non-Jewish neighbors and playmates getting lots of presents and otherwise having a terrific time. I suppose it’s why Hanukkah, which is a relatively minor holiday on the Jewish calendar, gets so much attention given its relative proximity to Christmas.

This is my minor attempt to illustrate the dangers of assimilation into the general culture and how it might be a lure to Jewish children (with a slight supernatural spin in this case). Fortunately, Noah and Rachel have a wise Bubbe (Grandma) who will nip this right in the bud.

To read other stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

Pretending

lake rotoroa

Lake Rotoroa, New Zealand – Found at The Venturing Angler

How many times must we tell the tale?
How many times must we fall?
Living in lost memory
You just recalled

from “Pretending” written by Jerry Lynn Williams
Performed by Eric Clapton

“Janice, please stop pretending. We both know you stopped loving me a long time ago. Every time I try to talk to you, you act annoyed, as if you can barely stand to be around me.”

“It’s not like that, Harry. It’s not you. It’s me.”

“That’s what they all say when you really mean when it’s me, Harry. You’re just playing games.”

Janice and Harry had been married for 35 years. They’d raised two kids together. Ben got married and divorced in less than a year and was now on this third tour of duty with the Marines in Afghanistan. Elizabeth married Raoul two years ago and was expecting. It would be their first grandchild, but then again, they weren’t going to get that far.

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When It Deserves The Grave

buckhorn

Abandon’s church near the cemetery in the Buckhorn, Iowa ghost town.

He visited the ghost town of Buckhorn, Iowa with a very specific purpose. It was mid-December and the ground should have been frozen, but he was master of this universe and had absolute control over all the physical rules. He waved and a fresh grave appeared before him in the cemetery. He had no idea how long everything had been abandoned, but it seemed a fitting end for one more corpse.

He’d printed it out. 150 words only took up a single sheet of paper. He tore it into pieces, knelt down and dropped them in. Then with another wave, fresh earth covered the dead story. He caused a proper gravestone to be raised. “Here lies Last Flight. b. 16 Dec 2017, d. 16 Dec 2017. High Aspirations. Low Marks.”

“Fine. I’ll try again tomorrow.”

He walked back out of the story into his so-called real life. Neither was particularly satisfying this afternoon.

I can’t submit two stories at Inlinkz.com for the same prompt, but I can still comment on it. Egad, I had no idea such a simple tale would generate so much ire. I won’t delete it since I’m told we can learn more from our failures than our successes, but I can symbolically kill and bury it in a grave with the rest of the forgotten dead.

Oh, word count: 148.

Nothing more to see here. Time to move on.

The Girl in the Tiny World

globe

tiny world

“No!” Landon was startled and then crazy scared as his two-and-a-half year old sister Dani appeared before him as Circus Baby, a character for the horror-based video game Five Nights at Freddy’s but an instant later, and for the millionth time, the impossible happened.

The many fragments of the soul coin, shattered by the combined magic of Landon’s formerly animated stuffed animals leapt out of his top dresser drawer where he had put them and spun around the two children as if they were in orbit around twin suns. Then a big light flashed and they were gone.

“Coming, coming. I’m old. Don’t rush me.”

It was a very familiar voice. Landon was holding onto Dani’s hand standing in front of an ancient door set into an even more ancient tree, a really big tree in a really big forest. Sunlight was streaming through the emerald canopy above. The day was warm and the children could hear birds singing friendly songs.

The door opened and as Landon expected, the oldest dragon in the universe, Gerlilanum was on the other side of the threshold.

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Last Flight

buckhorn

Abandoned church near the cemetery in the Buckhorn, Iowa ghost town.

“Gotta set down, boys. Oil pressure’s dropping fast.”

“What about that road? Charlie, can you make it?”

“Lining it up, Jim. You and Ted like jumping outta planes so hold your water while I land this tub.”

Pilot Charlie Kern liked teasing the two veteran skydivers, but they’d proved their courage hundreds of times. The Cessna 172 approached the dirt road lightly covered with snow opposite an abandoned church.

Paul Lambert stood in the old Buckhorn cemetery looking at their graves. They crashed fifty years ago a few hundred yards away. As their closest friend, his Dad Chuck had them buried here. Paul paid his respects and listened as the ghosts of Charlie, Ted McKeever, and Jim Buckley re-enacted their final moments on the anniversary of their last flight. Somewhere above, he could hear the laboring engine of a Cessna fighting to stay in the air just a few seconds longer.

I wrote this for the What Pegman Saw flash fiction challenge. The idea is to take a Google maps image and location and use it as the inspiration to craft a piece of flash fiction no more than 150 words long. After much editing, my word count is 150.

Today, the Pegman takes us to the ghost town of Buckhorn, Iowa. I looked up Buckhorn on the web, and according to The Vintage News:

Buckhorn is a ghost town, located in Jackson County just off of Highway 64. Some quick research reveals that it was a farmers’ cooperative founded early in the 20th century, and then was bought out by a large dairy in 1962. All that is left of it is a cemetery, an abandoned church, and this building, the old Buckhorn Creamery.

Okay, not much to go on.

I looked up Buckhorn on Google maps and it’s not particularly isolated. In fact, it’s only about a third of a mile from the Maquoketa Municipal Airport. I thought about doing a historical piece, but even consulting several sources, I couldn’t find out when the airport was established. However, looking at the airport’s official website gave me an idea, but I’d have to monkey around with history to pull it off.

When I was a kid, I watched a TV show called Ripcord starring Larry Pennell, Ken Curtis, and Shug Fisher. The show ran from 1961 to 1963 and depicted the adventures of two expert skydivers (Pernell as Ted McKeever and Curtis as Jim Buckley) who did everything from perform dangerous aerial stunts to capturing bank robbers, always with the climax being jumping out of an airplane and going into free fall.

Skydiving was new back then and the sport had just become incredibly popular, which is probably what kept the show going for its two-year run.

Actor Paul Comi played the original pilot Chuck Lambert but he was replaced in the middle of the first season by Shug Fisher as Charlie Kern. I got all these details from Wikipedia and decided to run with it, making their last flight in 1963 or ’64. Not sure if Buckhorn was a ghost town by then since it had only been bought out in 1962, but here’s where I fudge history.

In my imagination, Kern was trying to make Maquoketa Municipal Airport, but again, I have no idea if the airport even existed back then.

I created the character Paul Lambert, Chuck Lambert’s son, who would be in his early to mid 60s in 2017 combining actor Paul Comi’s name with his character’s in order to complete my ghost story.

I know. My explanation is longer than the story itself, but it was fun tying all this stuff together.

To read other stories based on the prompt, go to Inlinkz.com.

Nightfall

dracula's guest

Cover to the story “Dracula’s Guest.”

“T’was the night before Christmas and all through the church,
Sean the prideful had fallen a far way from his perch.”

The Third Chapter in the Undead Life of Sean Becker

It hadn’t been Marishka. It hadn’t been her. Yes, he’d kissed Dol. He enjoyed kissing Dol. He wanted to have sex with Dol. But there hadn’t been anyone in the backseat of his car. He hadn’t seen or heard from Mariska in almost twenty years. What the hell was the matter with him?

Christmas Eve services. Like many other Christian families, the Beckers attended a very crowded First Baptist Church of Dublin for 10 a.m. worship, but for the sake of the children’s patience and the impending arrival of Santa, they would be staying home that evening.

Sean mouthed through the Advent hymns being sung, not paying any attention to the music or the lyrics but only to the demons in his mind. He wasn’t sure if he was more worried that he had hallucinated twice now or about his kiss of adultery.

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