2.
The wipers started dragging over the surface of the windshield, slowly at first then swishing briskly as the woman fumbled with the controls. She turned them off then pawed the buttons for the radio, blasting static from the rear speakers before slamming her fist against the volume dial to shut it off. The child could see her her head turning side to side searching for something, then the vehicle's headlight came on and she turned the keys in the ignition and started them rolling slowly down the street.
"Momma...is this your car?"
"No darling, it isn't."
The car sped up, turning down a main road and awkwardly merging with traffic. The woman cut in front of a large truck and the child could hear the angry driver honking his horn and shouting at her from out of his window. She ignored him as they veered into the next lane and increased speed.
"Momma where are we going?"
"Ha ha ha... Momma. You know I'm not your mother."
"What do you mean Momma?"
The car jerked to a halt behind another stopped car. The child leaned over to see the cause of the interruption: a metal signal device suspended over the road halting the flow of traffic. A primitive optical signaling device. The child could see the edge of the woman's dress, her right hand on the steering wheel. It leaned back in its seat, shocked to look up and see the woman's eyes staring down at it from above the edge of the front seat. It could hear her low rumbling laughter as it leaned over again to look: the body was still facing forward. Still seated. Hands still on the stearing wheel. Feet still on the pedals. Yet the head was turned back to face it.
"Look at me."
"Momma?"
"You're a strange little faker. Look at me."
The eyes were glowing. Pale yellow disks that burned, gathering up the light all around them. Expanding, getting nearer. The darkness pressing in all around. The child felt it's thoughts..thinning. Floating.
Honking. A cacaphony. A row of vehicles behind them. The signal had changed and the other row had moved on but the woman remained still, halting the line of cars. The eyes abruptly turned away and the car started moving again.
"We need some gasoline." The car rolled into a gas station and stopped beside a pump. The woman leaned over and opened the glove box, fishing around inside while dumping assorted papers into the footwell.
"Do you have a credit card?"
"No Momma."
On the other side of the pump a man in a pickup truck pulled up and opened his car door to get out.
"Stay here."
The child watched the woman go to him, saw him lean over to listen to her. He was larger, very tall and heavy. There was a commotion and the woman was dragging him back to her side of the pump. He was pleading: okay lady..okay okay..easy. He slid a card in the machine. The child saw her put her hands on his head..twisting it at an angle..the man slumping to the ground before she dragged his body back to his vehicle and shoved it inside before slamming the door.
She came back and placed the pump's nozzel in the car's gas tank. She left it there in the car, turning and heading off towards the building. She emerged two minutes and 35 seconds later holding a long piece of wood, to which a small key had been bound. The lower part of her face was dripping with a reddish liquid. He hands as well, dripping with the stuff as she held then in front, apparently trying not to stain her clothing. She disappeared through a doorway to the rear of the building. When she re-emerged the liquid was gone. She grinned at the child through the window and pulled the pump from the car, dropping it on the ground before climbing back into the car.
"I hate to go anywhere without a full tank of gas."
www.battlewraith.deviantart.com
OOh, Nice and sinister. It will be interesting to see where this goes.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
3.
Hey I'm Alan Tate. I'm aware. I mean...I'm conscious. I can sense my own thoughts. I don't know where I am--I can't feel my body at all. I don't even feel like I'm floating. I just don't feel anything. Am I dead? Is this the afterlife?
There was a change, a movement around him. A shape took form. A square with edges. Light and dark as it stretched and grew becoming a room. Concrete floor. Large mirror on the back wall, flourescent light overhead. It was a police interrogation room. A table took form in the middle. Behind the table a deskchair. Then in the deskchair...his friend and coworker Jake O'Reilly. Alan felt humor. He would've laughed if he had lungs--the first person he ends up meeting is Jake.
"I am not Jake O' Reilly, Mr. Tate. I have created this visualization for the purpose of questioning you."
"Oh, am I dead?"
"No, but your body has been destroyed. We've have preserved your consciousness for informational purposes."
"Oh. Why, who are you?"
"We are a collective of beings from another universe. We are non-corporeal. Pure thought and form."
"Why are you here? Why did you destroy my body?"
"We have transitioned to your reality in order to become embodied in your world and conquer your race. Your physical form was disassembled in the course of our research."
"Oh..wonderful."
"We studied you lifeform and how to replicate thoughts and perception. Though the entropic nature of your universe was confusing, we also mastered techniques for physical projection and manipulation of matter. The scout you encountered was to do some final testing before we launched our invasion of the human world. But we have encountered a problem."
The fake Jake leaned back and turned towards the corner of the room over his left shoulder. A figure took shape there. A woman. Slight, medium height...disheveled. Pale with medium length black hair that was clumpy. Dirty maybe. Yes dirty..there was even a small twig or something poking out near her neck.
"What is this creature?" Alan's thought perceived here further. She had a weird gettup on. Dingy long-sleeved blouse beneath some sort of thin sweater or pullover. Old fashioned long skirt. The ensemble looked outdated, costumey. Like a 1950's librarian. Everything was ill-kept, faded and soiled from use. The woman wasn't old, maybe late twenties. Her skin was very pale with dark circles around the eyes. Was she following some sort of retro fashion trend? Another thought occured to him: a homeless person. Maybe she got all that stuff from goodwill or was wearing hand-me-downs from an older relative. The disheveled, malnourished look would fit with someone living on the streets as well.
"That is a woman."
"We judged her to be a female of your species...is she exceptional?"
"Um..no. Judging by her looks I'd say she was a weaker example of a human being. She looks like a homeless person to me. Why?"
"This woman overpowered our scout. We have lost contact with it."
"Really? Wow don't know what to tell you."
"How many of these women populate your world?"
"Well..assuming about half the human race is female..billions I guess. Tens or hundreds of billions.."
"Billions?!?!"
"Yeah I think so."
A ripple went through the figure of Jake. The room shimmered while the projection of the homeless women dissolved into a blur of desaturated colors. Alan sensed a strange pressure on his thoughts, almost like heat. Then he realized it was anger. The aliens were pissed and the were having a little hissy fit over their ruined invasion.
Everything faded from perception except the figure of Jake O'Reilly, which floated in a colorless void as it addressed Alan.
"We cannot contend with billions of this lifeform. We must indefinitely postpone our invasion until this threat is understood and a solution is found."
"Oh yeah? Bummer."
"However we desire the return of our scout. You, Alan Tate will do this for us. We will build you a new corporeal form, superior to the original, and send you back to your Earthly realm to find the scout and return it to us. You will use your new powers and your understanding of human behavior to wrest it out of the control of the woman."
www.battlewraith.deviantart.com
4.
Movement. The first sensation he experienced, his thoughts distracted by a strange sense of flow. Then pressure. The movement taking him somewhere, through something...like some kind of aperture. He was being squeezed and contorted. The intensity of the pressure building as he felt a hardening. All around closing in on him from..everywhere. Now a sense of space..depth.. squeezing all at once from all sides. He felt his body jerk and stumble forward. His fingers fluttered and then clenched into fists as he regained control of a physical form. He grunted and gurgled as he tried to breathe, tried to recover the sense of the human being
"Well, now I know what the toothpaste feels like as it squeezed through the tube." He smiled and looked at the back of his hand, shimmering like metal dust and shavings forced into the shape of a human body. He still had his business suit, now also transformed. The shape and consistency of cloth but now composed of minerals, extra-dimensional particles, and glowing energized points of light--manifestations of his consciousness projected into this earth dimension through alien power.
He could sense the scout. It was very close, but moving away. He turned to look over in his shoulder, in time to see a sedan moving off in the distance. The ******* was making a move on some other sucker no doubt. He turned back to look at his feet, rocking his weight back and forth. He wanted to make sure he didn't fall on his face before he got his footing back. Then he noticed the woman cowering in front of him....middle aged...blond hair...eyes wide with horror. Clutching a bible and a crucifix with white knuckles as she gaped at him.
"Oh..this is awkward.." He stepped back a bit and heard his heel crack the pavement behind him. Too much mass...he concentrated on shunting some of it to a pocket dimension while smiling at the distraught lady.
She raised her hand. "You just appeared there. Out of nowhere. Right in the middle of the street!"
"Yeah..um I guess I did. Sorry to alarm you ma'am."
"What the hell are you?"
"Well you see...it's sort of a long story.. I was taken by-"
"Are you a super hero?"
"Uh..yeah. Sure. Why no? Yep that's exactly what I am..a super hero." He was joking. He wanted to calm her down, make light of the absurdity of the situation. But he felt a chill...anxiety. How was he going to get back to his normal life? What was going to happen. Joking had somehow made the issue more pressing.
"You have to help me.."
"Oh...Alan, Alan Tate." She took his hand and smiled wanly.
"Cheryl....Tierney. Cheryl Tierney..."
"What's wrong Cheryl?"
"I was home. My daughter Sheila was visiting. I heard a noise at the front door...like someone was unlocking the door. So I went to take a look and the door was open. And there was this strange boy standing there in the doorway. When he saw me he stepped inside the house and then turned and called to someone, inviting them in." Cheryl looked away for a moment, bubbling. Choking on her words. Alan heard her mumble "excuse me" then she turned back to him and continued.
"This..woman..came into the house. She rushed in and grabbed me. It was horrible..she...her hands were cold I could feel them through my sweater. Her skin was so grey. She had these burning yellow eyes..I screamed and tried to move away but she was so strong. She shoved me against the wall, but I had this--" She held up the crucifix. "It was on the wall in the hallway. She saw it and she moved away. But then my daughter came in to help me and..this thing grabbed her and took her out of the house. It took her and pushed her into a car and they took off. I ran after and that's when I saw you."
Tate rubbed his jaw out of habit. "This thing.."
The woman looked side to side around her then leaned in towards him hissing. "It was a vampire! I know it! I don't know who to tell...I don't think anyone will believe me. Even at the church..I don't know.." She buried the lower part of her face in her hands.
"A vampire...ha ha...vampire..Hahahahahahaha...of course...a vampire Hahahahahahahahahaha..."
"What IS FUNNY?!?"
"No no..it's not...no it's not funny. It just explains...something strange that happened to me.."
"Can you help me? Please?!?"
"Yeah. Sure I'm a super hero right? That's what we do. I should be able to do something about it."
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5.
For lack of a better idea, they walked down the center of the street in the direction of the scout, which Tate could sense was close...maybe a couple blocks away. He thought about warping the fabric of spacetime and jumping the distance instantly, but opted not to. Cheryl's nerves were obviously on edge and the experience would most likely fray them further. Plus the aliens had given him knowledge of a range of abilities possible with his reconstructed form, but with no firsthand experience with most of them he hesitated to rush into things.
Cheryl chewed her nails as she clutched her religious items and anxiously scanned the houses on either side of the street.
"Look there.." The passed a home on the left, all the lights out yet the door wide open.
"Yeah there's another." As they moved closer to the location of the scout, more and more of the homes were left open. As if the occupants had suddenly decided to leave and had no concern for there houses or belongings.
"How old is your daughter?"
"20. She came home this weekend to visit me from college."
"And where is your husband?"
"He passed away a few years ago. Cancer."
"Oh I'm sorry to hear--"
"Wait!"
Cheryl took a couple steps forward, cocking her head to the side. "Did you hear that?"
They stood there silently for a moment, concentrating. Then they heard it-- a young woman. Sobbing. Calling out.
"It's her! Up there on the left!" She started to run towards the doorway up ahead on the left.
"Cheryl wait! Me first."
"O-okay. Okay. Please get her out of there. Please."
A light flickered through the draw curtains of the large picture window in the front. Tate slowly made his way up the front steps and gently pushed the door open wider. The woman was inside. She was seated on a chair in the center of a den. All the other furniture had been shoved to the side against the walls. An immense flatscreen television flickered behind her, the static casting everything in a cold blue haze. On the ground, a group of bodies was placed head to toe in a circle around her. Young people, old people.....the neighbors from the housed they'd passed. Now dead, or in something like death.
The woman appeared unharmed, sitting there clutching a cellphone in her lap. She gaped at him in barely restrained panic.
"Who are you? Is my mom here?"
"My name is Alan. I'm here to help, you're mom is here too. I'm going to get you out of here, Sheila."
As he stepped forward, Sheila cringed, rubbing her nose against the back of her hand.
"Wait! You can't come in here...she told me if anyone came in..or if I got up from the chair..they'd kill me.."
"Who?"
"These people! They're like her. They came in..they walked into the house and laid here she told them...she killed them but they...they can still move..they're her slaves.."
"What did she tell you to do?"
"She wants me to sit here until morning and then call the police."
"Hmmm..ok well I'm gonna do something. It'll be a little weird but you don't have to move. Just relax ok?"
"Um..ok what..what are you going to do?"
"Just hold on Sheila, I'll be right back." He turned and walked out, rejoining Cheryl at the sidewalk in front of the house.
"What's going on? Is she alright?"
"Yes, she'll be fine. Just back up and give me some space."
Cheryl moved away and Tate focused, extending his thoughts into the house. He concentrated on the woman and the chair, perceiving all the molecular motion...all the extra dimensional substrates of that cross section of earthly reality. Then when he had a firm grasp of the overall composition, he shifted it. There was a soft "pop" as Sheila appeared, still seated, between him and Cheryl.
"Sheila!"
"Oh my god..Mom..what happened?" She got up and staggered a bit as a wave of vertigo passed through her. Alan took her by the arm for stability as Cheryl hugged her and choked back tears.
"You're alive..you're ok.."
Suddenly movement could be heard inside the house. Scraping, snarling...the sounds of the bodies coming to life now that the hostage had been removed. Tate rushed forward and shut the door. He placed the palms of his hands on the wood and then a layer of stoney material started spreading over the surface. First covering the doorway then engulfing the picture window and eventually the entire front of the house. He sensed the movement inside for a moment then turned back.
"They're actually pretty weak. I don't think they'll be able to get out."
"What was that?" Sheila lifted the cell phone in front of her. "Why did that thing make me sit there...why...call for help after the sun came up?" Tate rubbed his jaw and smiled, which he realized was inappropriate given the circumstances.
"You know..as a kid..before this happened to me.. I was into all kinds of monsters and weird creatures. Used to love watching all those old B horror movies and reading about the myths behind things like vampires. I know this is horrible for you guys..and for those poor people in there..but it is..thrilling to actual meet up with one..."
He paused as the two women glared at him in politely restrained fury.
"Yeah, anyways I think maybe these people are kind of...temporary vampires. They're just infected, maybe. Maybe they need to be buried to fully pass over. That's my guess. I think she wanted you to call the police--have them come and claim these bodies and bury them so that they could get that connection with the earth or whatever in order to become full-fledged vampires."
Sheila tossed the cell phone away and planted her hands on her hips. "Well what are we going to do about it? We can't let it spread--she has to be stopped!"
"Well I have an idea. I need one of you to get me a bag. Like a large, paper grocery bag...but a thick one. Double bag it if you have to. Or even a really big purse or a book bag or something. Oh and find out where the nearest church is.."
"What are you going to put in the bag?"
Tate lifted his hand and fluttered his fingers to and fro as particles began to spin and coalesce above his palm, until they turned and hardened into a perfectly round, shiny black marble.
He laughed as it floated there, reflections of the streetlight glinting on its surface.
"A bunch of these."
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6.
"I don't think you guys should hang around here."
The vampire's lair was a large brick house set back on its lot, partially obscured by thick growths of tree on either side. Tate could sense the scout inside and he doubted that the creature would leave it alone there unattended.
"We...have to see what happens."
"You can handle it right?"
The two women huddled together in the street, cowering yet glowing with a morbid fascination. Waiting to see if he'd succeed. Riveted by the thought of how bad things would be if he failed.
"I suppose. Wait here."
The path arched slightly to the right around the body of a large tree trunk, then straightened and connected with the front steps. The door was large, oak with decorative metal insets. Stained red. As he put his hand on the surface, he could feel the scout on the other side, altering it's molecular structure to bar Tate from entering. Alan focused his thoughts and pushed through, passing his the subatomic structure of himself and all his belongings past the physical constraints of the wood. Like a ghost, he stepped bast the barrier straight into the foyer of the home.
The scout stood there, opposite where the foyer segued into a hallyway. For a moment it attempted to pose as a child, like the first time he had encountered it, but Tate could perceive it for what it was and it quickly gave up. It defaulted to a nondescript grey mass. Tate felt a rage begin to burn in his mind. This was the little ******* that had gotten him into the mess in the first place. But with his new senses he could see that it was merely a tool. A device with no will of its own--even less now that it's directive to psychically connect with terrestrial lifeforms had led to its enslavement by the vampire. He began to enter the shutdown sequence given to him by the aliens when he heard a sound above him.
"AAAAAAARRRGGH!" He looked up in time to see her drop from the ceiling, a grey blur in the dim light with her pale eyes gleaming like streaks of light. She landed on him hard, driving him against the wall to the side as she sank her fangs into his neck, ripping out a large chunk of the particles and energized matter that made his new body. Struggling to hold the paper bag full of marbles with his right arm, he lifted his left reflexively to push her off.
She anticipated the motion and seized it, wrenching with superhuman ferocity. He heard a pop as the arm tore loose just below the shoulder. He felt no pain, but the sensation..the awareness filled him with a wave of panic. The closest thing he'd felt to an adrenaline rush since his own flesh had been destroyed by his abductors.
"ENOUGH!" The arm dissolved in her grip, becoming a luminous clowd of flowing minerals under his command. She snarled as it formed a huge fist the sized her tightly around the torso and launched across the entryway, slamming her into the wall behind the scout. He bent the construction to his will, gradually crushing her form as he reshaped his missing arm.
The vampire writhed and growled, her legs flailing in the air as the stoney fist clenched her. Then abrubtly she was free. Her body seemed to shimmer and fade. She floated ghostlike out of it's grip then solidified on the ground again, crouching down. Her eyes darting around manically as she looked back and forth between Tate and the stone fist. Then the expression on her pale grey face seemed to break. She muttered something to herself then yelled at him plaintively.
"What do you want with me? Leave me alone..you're tresspassing here!"
Tate snorted. "What are you going to do lady? Call the police?" She hissed at his comment but he waved to try to calm her down.
"Listen..we got off on the wrong foot here. I just need to get that thing back.." He nodded at the scout. "I brought something. I thought we could make a trade."
She eyed him suspiciously. "What? What is it?"
Tat held up the bag. "See?" He took a few steps forward and kneeled down in the foyer. He opened the top of the bag and started pouring the marbles out on to the stone tiles.
"See? Aren't they beautiful? So shiney..." He emptied most of the bag then dropped it on the floor. The marbles were in a round, irregular pile. Some had rolled away. Some were still in the bag. The vampire stood there slack jawed, a bland expression as her gaze moved over all the shiney pieces. Tate smiled.
"Hey no hurry. Take your time deciding. Look them over. See if its worth a trade. I'll come back later to ask about your decision. okay?"
".........ohhhhkaay........"
"Good good. Great. No hard feelings then. I'll check back with you in a bit. Enjoy."
www.battlewraith.deviantart.com
7.
"Alan where are you going?" Cheryl stumbled on a branch as they snuck around the side of the house. Sheila steadied her with one hand, dislodging a branch from her hair with the other. The side of the house was overgrown with trees and shrubs with a narrow unkempt path winding through them.
"Shhhhhh! Here." Tate found a clearing in front of a small basement window. He dropped on his stomach in front of it, peering through the dirty glass.
"Did you kill her?" Sheila kneeled beside him. "You didn't did you?"
"No. Not yet."
"Then she could be here any minute.." Cheryl chewed on her lower lip, nervously squinting in the darkness.
"No. I remembered an old story about vampires. That people used to go to the grave of a suspected vampire and place a pile of rice on it. The vampire would be compelled to count the individual grains. They'd be stuck in there until it was dawn again. Not just vampires actually...lots of strange supernatural creatures are said to have the trait. Something about how their minds work. Some would sneak into your house to count the silverware."
"So she's counting all those marbles?"
"Yeah. We have some time..don't know how much."
He traced his fingertip along the perimeter of the small window, weakening the molecular cohesion of the bricks before pulling the window and its frame out of the wall.
"So what are you doing now?" Sheila leaned forward to peak into the opening.
"Please back up ladies." The women moved away as Tate reached his arm inside the hole. "That's it buddy. Good..good..come on you can do it."
He slid back from the house, rising to his knees and pulling his arm back out through the hole in the wall. Cheryl gasped as his hand emerged clenching a greyish brown, mitten-like shape. As Tate kept pulling and rising to his feet, more and more of the dark substance slid out of the hole. It had a strong dank scent as it slithered over the grass and shifted. Eventually rising and taking a rough humanoid appearance with arms, legs and a lumpy top that suggested a head.
"Oh my god what is that thing..." Sheila almost tumbled into a rose bush as she recoiled from the creature.
"It's her grave--the dirt she was buried in. I was able to sense it in the basement and I used my powers to animate it."
"What are we going to do with it?"
"Walk it over to the nearest church. If we move it on to holy ground her connection to this world should be severed and she should fade away. At least that's my theory."
Cheryl waved her fingers in front of her body. "Can't you just poof it over there? You know..like you did with my daughter?"
"Hmmm...I dunno. I really don't know how much or how far I can move things that way. Do you two want to be left alone while I try to materialize over there with it?"
"Umm no. Please, my mom and I want to stay with you."
"At least until we know that thing is gone."
"Well then ok ladies. Let's hoof it over there."
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8.
The church was in sight when they heard it--the wailing off in the distance but getting closer.
"Oh my god she's noticed--listen to her." Cheryl looked pale under the streetlamp as they began to cross the street on their way to the church parking lot.
"You two go on ahead...run. Get over there and wait for me on the church steps." Tate looked at the walking heap of dirt. It had been able to manage a brisk walk, but anything faster had caused it to trip and spill over into a heap.
"Go on. I'll hold her off if I need to."
"Ok be careful." The women scampered off. He steered the dirt in the direction of the sidewalk along the fence that bordered a park next to the church's lot. They'd gone another ten feet or so when he spotted her, something like a chill passing through his reconstructed body. The vampire had actually passed him up--she was standing in the center of the street, her eyes wide with panic. Glowing. She licked her lips nervously as he met her gaze. Both hands clutched the strap of a large purse slung over her shoulder.
"Wait! Stop! Don't do this please! Please stop!"
Tate focused his attention on the animated earth. Instilling it with a sense of purpose. Simple directions that he hoped would keep it moving. Keep it walking towards the goal even if he was somehow disturbed by the bloodsucker. As they got closer she took some tentative steps towards him.
"Stay back!"
She reached into the purse and pulled out some large stacks of bills. Her hands shook as she held them out, the cash flapping in the breeze as she offered it to him.
"Look! I can pay you...everyone needs money right? Doesn't everyone need money? I'm sorry..here take this. Please take it..I'm sorry. Just don't kill me. Please.."
He grunted and shook his head no. The cash started sliding out of her grip as her arms went limp. The bills fluttered as the droped to the ground, some picked up and carried away by the wind. The dirt golem stepped into the church parking lot and turned into a straight line towards the chuch doors. Tate found himself inbetween it and the undead woman. She clenched her hands in front of her, her eyes darting over his face desperate to read his response. He felt a sinking feeling in his gut, even though he no longer really possessed one.
"Listen..please...I'm sorry...I couldn't help it....I couldn't.....please believe......I couldn't stop ... I was made into this. Do you understand? I was turned into this. I didn't have a choice...someone else turned me into what I am and I couldn't help the things....I did....please don't destroy me....mercy? Please...please have mercy on me....do you understand.. this is all I have left....my soul was taken away from me.....if you do this I will be completely destroyed.....I'm afraid......please stop...."
Tate rubbed his forehead reflexively and looked back at the grave dirt. It had made good progress across the lot. Cheryl and Sheila saw him from the steps and waved excitedly. He turned back and the vampire was once more digging in the purse.
"Look....look at this...." She pulled out a small cloth doll. Something sewed from felt or old socks, bound together with yarn and with two big buttons for eyes.
"My name is Mary. See I made this when I was a little girl. I remember....I'm still a person..see? I can remember my life...my mother helped me sew it and we took some spare buttons from my father's old coat..."
She held it in her hand. She smiled wanly as she looked at the face, it's faded line for a smile turned back towards her. She ran the tip of her finger along the edges of the buttons, her head drooping slightly.
"I'm still a person...I know I am...I know......please don't kill me...I couldn't help it....I didn't want my life to be this way...."
Tate closed his eyes for a moment. He could sense the golem reaching the church steps. The thud of each step beating in his mind like the hand of a clock counting down. He sensed it. Numbly. A bystander, paralyzed by doubt, standing there watching the train run off the tracks.
"Oh no. No......"
The dirt collapsed onto the church steps. The vampire slowly lifted into the air, pulled by some unseen force. Her eyes wide, staring blankly into the distance, mouth agape. She dropped the cloth dolly as her arms were pulled wide. She screamed silently then started to fade. Tate watched her blur and fade away until there was nothing but a fine cloud of dust that was quickly carried away on the breeze.
He kneeled down and lifted the dolly, staring at it in his palm and thumbing the button eyes absently with his thumb.
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9.
"You're not going to keep that thing?" Cheryl's face crinkled with disdain as Alan slid the cloth doll into the inside jacket of his coat.
"Um..yeah. I think so. Why not?"
"Because it belonged to that devil."
"Devil? She said she couldn't help it..."
"Lies I'm sure. You saw what she did."
"Yes."
"She was evil, clearly sent here by the devil to cause suffering."
"Oh...well what if I told you that her being here, doing those things she did, saved the human race. What if I told you that her killing those people actually saved billions of lives."
"I don't believe it."
"Well if you did, would you hold the devil responsible for saving all those lives."
"No. Evil can't do good. Not intentionally. Maybe there was an accident..."
"I see."
"I don't get how you can have any sympathy for that thing."
"Because I'm a thing too. I'm as inhuman as she was. And I didn't have any say in becoming what I am either."
"But you helped us. You're doing good. You've chosen to be good."
"Have I? How do I know I'm the one making the choices?" He shrugged and turned towards the street.
"Tell them I'm sorry about the dirt. I have to get going."
-----
Tate retrieved the scout. Deactivated, it took the form of a small cube which he fed through a portal into the alien dimension. The simulacra of his friend Jake greeted him from the other side.
"Well done Alan Tate. We doubted your success on this mission but you returned our scout unscathed. How did you defeat the woman creature?"
"I didn't. I merely distracted her long enough to take the scout."
"Ah. Well, we have directed our attention elsewhere. Now that our scout is returned we will commence. Farewell human."
"Wait--are you leaving me like this?"
The alien's expression went blank, as if it had not considered the issue of the extradimensional body they had created to send him back.
"Hmmm...it would probably consume as much energy to deconstruct you as it did to mold your current form. I suppose we will leave it." The alien looked Tate up and down for a moment then grunted dismissively. "Given the entropic nature of that universe it won't last long anyway."
The edges of the portal began to contract. Tate raise his arm in protest.
"Wait! Wait..how long do you think I have?"
"You will be lucky if it persists for another 500 of your Earth years. Farewell." The voice faded as the portal shrank shut. Tate focused his energies to open it again but found he was no longer able to access their continuum.
"Wait! 500 years? I'm going to be alive for another 500 years?!"
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10.
"So you've decided to use your abilities to help out." The longbow liason wrinkled her nose slightly as she flipped through Tate's registration materials. He laughed and shrugged, throwing up his hands.
"Well, I was fired from my job. They didn't seem to think that someone with this sort of appearance would go over well in sales. I don't see that there is much else to do under the circumstances."
She looked him up and down, shifting slightly in her chair. She had a clinical air about her, as if she were evaluating an antique. Or a side of beef at the butcher's. He would have been a bit more self conscious if the room wasn't occupied by a dozen other freaks. People in spandex outfits, glowing, floating, sharing their heroic deeds with one another.
"It's tough work, you know. There's a lot of responsibility. There's a lot at stake."
"Yeah. Sure. I get that.."
"Well, you just seem sort of ambivalent. It's a hard life if you don't have a real..."
Tate smiled. He'd seen that look before. She was trying to find the right words to express her doubts about his motivations without offending him.
"Without a clear moral compass? Without the drive to do good spurring me on in heroic ways?"
"Yes. I guess you could put it that way." She leaned forward slightly, tapping the tip of her pen lightly against the desk. He found himselt staring at the stiff, unwrinkled surface of her grey business suit.
"I don't know what to tell you. I'm just a normal guy that got changed into..this."
Tate shrugged and slid his hands into the folds of his altered body that simulated pockets. Was he really getting turned down to be a superhero as well. The woman's lack of confidence in his motives echoed the estrangement he felt with the world. He didn't feel like himself. It was almost like being a ghost or something. His spirits sank as he imagined being turned away. What was left? A lab rat somewhere? Then it started. Low. Barely audible at first.
Giggling.
The woman was trembling. Hand over her mouth. Laughing at him. And changing. Her eyes were filling with some sort of fluid becoming lightless orbs in her face. Her skin paled, the mousey brown locks on her head lengthened and darkened. Tate found himself recoiling from the desk in shock and for a moment he pictured this woman turning into another vampire like Mary. She laughed and waved her hand.
"I'm sorry, hahaha. Sometimes I just get overcome by the hypocricy of my acting and lose it. Didn't mean to freak you out." She leveled her gaze at him for a moment. "Don't be troubled by all that moral compass nonsense darling, I was just kidding."
"Who are you?! What's going on?"
"I'm an assassin. I killed the recruiter this morning and assumed her identity. I was to take her place and.." The woman reached under the desk and pulled out a large wicked looking blade that shimmered with pale green light. "I was going to shove this into the guts of my sixth appointment."
Tate touched his chest. "And I'm the sixth?" She nodded.
"Yes. But you see you weren't supposed to be the sixth." She pointed to a young man with golden skin that was using a drinking fountain on the other side of the room. He was dressed like a typical college student....jeans, tshirt, backpack, sneakers...just with golden skin. "He was supposed to be the sixth. But you showed up instead. This was not in the plan."
"Plan? Well are you going to try to kill him."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because he's no longer the sixth."
"Well what does that matter? He's right over there. Not that I want you to kill him but what's the difference?"
"It makes all the difference. I needed to kill him when he was the sixth appointment. Killing him now would be meaningless in terms of the big picture."
"What big picture? WHAT BIG PICTURE?!?!"
Tate's yelling drew all attention towards the desk. He waved sheepishly. "Sorry peeps, um...just got a little carried away."
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11.
"I can't believe I'm doing this.."
The assassin's brows furrowed a bit as she took another bite of her crumbcake and then washed it down with a sip of iced chai. She dabbed her mouth with a napkin before answering.
"What? You would rather have talked back in the longbow office? I was hungry and I need to go soon anyways."
"I should be escorting you to prison or something." Tate's voice was a bit of a growl as he looked around the coffee shop. The woman had changed appearance again--wavy red hair, round wire glasses, a skirt and a top with a handcrafted style that screamed Etsy. "You killed someone and I'm sitting here with you in a coffee shop."
The woman waved her hand. "That lady I killed..her name was Mary Kerr. She was slated to die in a car accident next week..." She pulled out a smartphone and started tapping on the screen with her index finger. "Yeah..car accident. Specific cause of death was severe burns." She looked at Tate.
"So you would have preferred that she died horribly in a wreck rather than quickly and painlessly at my hands."
"Well..if you knew she was going to be in an accident you could have stopped it or something.."
"Really? Do you know how many people are dieing? All the time? You expect me to stop them all? You think I SHOULD stop them?" She laughed and shrugged, taking another sip of her drink.
"But killing an innocent person is different from..." Tate rubbed his jaw, not sure of how to express his sentiment. The assassin shook her head.
"Innocence or guilt is irrelevant. This reality is a chain of events that was set in motion long ago and is moving forwards towards the future. People's actions are like fluctuations in the stream. A large enough fluctuation can cause a shift in the direction of the stream. There are forces in the world that exist out of time and are steering things towards the best possible outcome.."
"Oh great.."
"Good and evil are just two types of pawn used to steer the course." She began to gather up stray crumbs on to her plate. Tate tapped his fingers on the table impatiently.
"How do you know this is true?"
"I don't. It just makes sense."
"What if you're wrong? You killed people...what if you were wrong about the reasons.."
The assasin's eyes narrowed. She smiled. "Someone has a guilty conscience. What happened?"
"Well..um.." Tate grimaced and stared at the floor.
"Yeah?"
"I destroyed a vampire a couple nights ago."
The woman laughed. "A vampire?"
"Yes."
"So?"
"Well..I..."
"She killed a lot of people probably..yes?"
"Yeah.."
"So?"
Tate pulled the cloth doll out of his pocket and set it on the table.
"She pleaded with me before I destroyed her. Insisted that she was still a person. She had this little doll with her that she made as a girl..."
"Oh, well..." The assassin picked up the doll and ran her fingertips over the stitches. "Just go talk to her about it."
"What?"
"Use this doll. She had a strong connection with it. Use it to track her down."
"But I destroyed her."
The woman laughed. "Things in this world are like notes on an instrument. They don't cease to be just because the song is no longer being played. Track her down." She handed the doll back to Tate.
"But how?"
"You'll find a way."
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interesting.....
@tiggy
Beware the attack cat
Quote:
Indeed.
|
Originally Posted by Tigers_Rule
interesting.....
|
"Goodbye, Jean-Luc. I'm gonna miss you... you had such potential. But then again, all good things must come to an end..." -- Q
12.
2 years later.
-----
Tate stood in the empty garage of an old, abandoned gas station. Dust swam through the air, it's pace quickening whenever the wind struck the decrepit building and whistled its way through the decaying walls. In the dim light there were concrete blocks and refuse. Papers and candy wrappers left from the vagabonds that would sneak in for shelter. He heard a voice grunt his name and he shuffled his way towards the back where the entrance to the main office had been.
"Here..." The mystic rubbed his hand over the bricks and flaking paint of the wall. He stepped back and looked at the whole thing. It was a doorway. A Hung, wooden door frame set in the wall..and then sealed with brick. The doorway left in place and then filled with brick and mortar. "Very strange eh?"
Tate nodded. "Yeah. I wonder why they didn't take the doorframe out if they were gonna seal it. Really odd."
"Why even bother sealing it." The mystic reached in the pocket of his trenchcoat and removed a large piece of chalk, with which he began scrawling symbols over the bricks in the opening.
"Well it's fortunate for you Alan. This is your portal. This is the way to find that woman your after. It's a door made especially for you--nobody could disturb these bricks or the passage would be lost. But you can just phase right through them, pass your molecules through like it's not even there. Seems like fate to me."
Tate shrugged. "Who knows. So....I pass through and then.."
"And then my debt is payed. Beyond that, I can't tell you." The mystic scrawled some final, intersecting lines across the surface. The marking began to glow with a faint blue light.. "You wanted to bring her back somehow..this is a transformation spell. You go in and the two of you come out. Where you come out..when you come out....in what condition you come out...I simply don't know my friend. This is what I've been telling you all along."
Tate nodded and laughed. "Oh I Know. I know. I understand what you're saying."
"Then why are you doing this man?" The mystic slid bag the hood of his sweatjacket and ran a hand through his thick scruff of hair. "You're a good guy Tate. You've helped a lot of people. Fought the good fight. Why you gotta change things? Why isn't that good enough for you?"
Tate shrugged. "I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. It's just something I have to do. Somehow..I relate to her. I feel something. A connection. I can't explain it but I need to reach her. I feel like a stranger to my own existence. Completely detached. And the only time I've felt any...impulse to do anything was when I encountered her. It's really hard to explain."
The mystic reached out and took his hand, shaking it firmly. "Alright well I wish you the best of luck you glowing *******. I hope you find what you're looking for."
Tate smiled and then turned towards the doorway, now shimerring with pale blue light.
"Me too."
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13.
The bricks turned to a curtain of shimmering blue light as Tate entered. His senses wavered for a moment and then he felt solid ground below his feet. There was a low rumble and the sound of rubber rolling over a wet hard surface. His vision solidified and he found himself watching a Model T putter by on the far side of a wrought iron fence. He was in a courtyard, the gas station now gone and a school stretching out behind his back. A commotion to the right drew his attention.
A group of schoolgirls. Blue uniforms with flower designs. Heavy sweaters and stockings to keep the wet chill at bay. They were barely in their teens, huddled together in excitement as one read something from a magazine. Tate smiled wrly. Even in this other time you could see the popular ones. You could see the suckups. Funny how little the human animal changed over time. And then he laughed at himself, thinking of how much he himself had been altered by circumstance.
A dark haired girl meekly circled around the edge of the huddle. Her clothing was pale, and a bit insubstantial in the face of the chill. She clutched a scarf around her neck as she teetered on her tiptoes to get a better view of the pictures. Suddenly she lost her footing on the cobblestone path and started to stumble. One of the other girls noticed and gave her a shove, sending her sprawling to the ground. The victim cried out as her knees hit the ground, as the impact twisted her wrists, but the crowd all laughed. They laughed as she got back to her feet and achingly left to sit in a doorway, arms folded and head bowed in humiliation. Then they returned to their chatter about the magazine. The scarf remained stretched out on the path where it had fallen.
The whole scene shimmered. The vision blurred and then coalesced and then Tate was watching the encounter again from the beginning. The encounter played through again, exactly the same way, until it ended with the very same moment as before. And then he could feel everything resetting to start again.
"That must be her."
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14.
As Tate draped the scarf around the girl's neck, she reached up to draw it tighter against her body. His index finger brushed her hand and he shuddered at how cold it felt, How the skin looked taut and shiny from too much prolonged exposure to the elements. Her head bobbed slightly as she mumbled something.
"Mary.."
She didn't look up or respond to his voice but he could hear her more clearly.
"Why do they hate me so much..."
"Mary."
"Why..."
Tate fished around in his pocket and pulled out the cloth puppet. It glowed in his hand. Somehow crisper..more real than everything else around them.
"Mary look! I've got your doll. See? I brought it with me."
The girl looked up. Her eyes widened as she saw the doll. Some color and warmth bled into her face. She smiled and rose to her feet, gingerly taking the doll into her hands.
"My dolly!" She rubbed her fingers over the seems, gently poking the button eyes before looking back at him. "We made this....together. Momma and me." Then suddenly she was clutching it against her chest, her eyes lowered, her mouth small and tight with anxiety. Tate turned back and saw the group of girls all staring. Standing tall and still. Unified, as if they were of one mind. Glaring, their faces all about to break into scowls of derision. Tate waved his arm in anger.
"Enough!" The girls shimmered for a moment, as if someone had thrown a small pebble into a reflection on a pool of water. Her turned back to Mary, taking her gently by the shoulders.
"Mary..you have to stop. You have to let this go."
"What? What do you mean...I don't understand..."
"What were you thinking as you were sitting there. Something happened. You were thinking something. Something important."
The girl coughed. Her eyes started to water and she rubber her face against the sleeve of her sweater. Then her head drooped again slightly as she stared towards the ground.
"I was thinking......it was the first time.....that I thought that..." She shuddered and wiped her face again. "That I was garbage. That I wasn't worth anything. That I wasn't special at all. My parents loved me. And I always thought maybe I could..fit in. Get others to like me. But...then I gave up...."
Tate took her hands, still holding the doll, within his own.
"Where did it lead Mary? Where did that feeling lead you?"
Tate resisted the urge to let go as the girl changed. She rose up. Matured and darkened before his eyes, her skin losing color. Her head rolled back for a moment, eyes clenched shut. And then it snapped back, hellish circles of yellow light staring back at him. Her lips pulled back, reflexively exposing sharp fangs that elongate before his eyes. Yet she wasn't like before. She pulled a hand away from his grasp and covered her mouth, eyes glancing sidelong at the scene taking shape around them.
"Oh god....Oh no....."
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15.
The room was vaguely blurry. Desaturated. The edges running slightly like an old photograph brought to life. There was an elderly woman face down on the floor, her neck at an odd angle. Broken glass and a dark stain beneath her body. One arm stretched out, pointing towards a metal tray that had fallen several inches away from her grasp. Past her, there was a man in a chair, his head thrown back, a gaping wound at his throat. Blood flowing down the front of his shirt. A bloody handprint on his right sleeve near the elbow.
Further in the background Tate spotted Mary in the doorway, looking back over her shoulder--the pale yellow eyes glowing. A vague expression on her face, as if caught mid-sentence. A darker figure was leading her out, pulling her by the hand, not really much more than a large shadow on the other side of the doorframe.
"Who were those people?"
The woman's eyes drifted vacantly for a moment. Her breath rattled in her chest as she gathered the wherewithall to speak. "Our neighbors. The Kleins. They were the first."
"The first people you killed after you changed?" She buried her face in her hands.
"Yes."
"Mary do you remember me?"
She peered up at him over the top of her fingertips.
"Yes...you led me to the church. It burned. I burned......" Her eyes darted around the room. "This is hell. I'm in hell aren't I? I'm here to rot for the things I've done."
She began to shrink again, turning back into a child. The schoolyard scene began to reform around them. Tate took her by the shoulders.
"Wait! Mary wait! Stay with me.....focus on me..please." She grimaced as the adult version of herself returned again in his grasp.
"I knew that man was bad. I knew it. I knew I shouldn't have gone with him, but...I just wanted... I just wanted to be..something. Even if it lead to this. I deserve this, just let me go."
Tate laughed and released her. "Mary I don't think this is hell. I think you're here because you are keeping yourself here. You've locked yourself in this moment of time. You've got to let go."
She threw her arms up. "But I've ruined it. I've ruined so many lives. Hurt people, killed them. Destroyed their lives!"
"Yes you did. It's done. It's over. There's no going back. You can't change it."
"Well then...what..what is there to do? What is this? Why are you here?"
"I'm here because I want you to leave. With me. I want us to go together."
"Where?"
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16. fin
The environment shifted yet again, objects breaking apart, floating through the air as glowing motes of dust. They hardened and flowed across the field of vision, rendering scenes from Tate's life. The two years that had passed since the encounter at the church. A car flew through the air towards them, only to be caught in a rising pillar of earth and redirected away from the civilians cowering on the pavement below. Robot and werewolves flailed as they sank into patches of quicksand. Garishly costumed supervillains lurched around in a drunken stupor as concussive particles stunned their senses.
Scenes of victory. Heroism. Yet as the tableau progressed, it became clear that Tate was somehow apart from the proceedings. Distant. People embraced him for his exploits, yet he never seemed to fit.
"It's like I was sleepwalking through my life." He turned and over his shoulder Mary could see herself. Tate was on the steps of the church. The grave dirt was moving towards the entryway. She was beckoning. Pleading for her existence. Showing him the cloth doll and trying to convince him not to destroy her.
"That was my defining moment. I had a choice. I had the option of sparing you."
"But you were right to do it. You did the right thing...."
"Yes. But that's just it. I've always done the right thing. I've always done what was expected. What people wanted me to do."
He turned to face her.
"You made a choice. You wanted to be something. Right or wrong, you chose to become something. I've never wanted anything. I never wanted to be anything. I was changed and gifted with these powers." He looked at his hands, glowing with cold shimmering light. "But I do what I think should be done. I feel like a ghost in this body. Acting out a script that was given to me by someone else."
The scene dissolved again. Tate's image remained on the steps. Frozen in the time.
"For the first time in my life, I felt guilt. That I should've done something differently...not just gone with the flow. Not just done the right thing or the expected thing. I felt bad, but this guilt also...made me feel alive somehow. Like I was waking up from a dream. I realized that I can't keep floating along. I have a lot of time left. I can't keep going like this."
"But what does that have to do with me?" Mary lifted the doll in her hand. It glowed faintly in the space between them. "What's happening?"
"I believe we're connected somehow. We complement each other. It wasn't just a coincidence that we met the way we did."
"What does it matter? I wasted my life. It's over."
"No. I've made a pact. I'm trading mine in."
"What? You're giving up your life for me?"
"For both of us. We can start over. I'm giving up 500 years of existence for a new start."
"But what's going to happen to us?"
Everything faded. All the light in the world formed a doorway. A rectangle of blue light that seemed very small but at the same time immense. Size and proportion passed away. There was no color. No sound. Only the thought of what was taking place. The rest was as Tate pictured it in his mind.
"I don't know what will happen. We'll try again. We'll be different people. Will you come with me?"
"I think I'd like that."
She took his hand.
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Thanks to everyone that read this. Sorry that it was updated so intermittently.
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Thank YOU for posting such an thought provoking story.
@tiggy
Beware the attack cat
Incident
"Damn this traffic..we should've left a little earlier." Alan Tate quietly mumbled obscenities and squinted as the turn brought the morning sun into the windshield. He glanced at the round face in the rearview mirror, his kid's head bobbing slightly as it stared out the window at the construction vehicles passing by. "Hey, we might be a bit late this morning ok? It's not your fault...if I have to go in and tell them at the office I will. I'll explain it to your teacher or the principal or whatever."
"Ok."
The dashboard clock said 8:05, still some time to get there before the bell rang. Maybe they'd make it. The road looked like hell up ahead, everything down to one lane and large patches of concrete cut out along the other side of the cones. But then traffic was lighter. Tate turned down a side street towards the school, leaving the congestion behind. Yeah, maybe they'd make it. He shrugged his shoulders and adjusted his tie reflexively. Time enough to drop of his kid and hustle into the office.
"Daddy.."
"Yeah?"
"What is entropy?"
"What?"
"Entropy. What is it?"
The car eased to a stop as a woman pushing a stroller passed by on the crosswalk.
"Ha ha..well..that's a funny question for a seven year old...um...I think that....scientifically...entropy is that state where things are at the maximum state of disorder. Like at the end of the universe, everything will be uniformly...spent. Everything will have run down. Um...I'm not a scientist. I think it's something like that."
"What about life and death? What is entropy with respect to life and death?"
"Uh well all living things go through a life cycle where they mature and then decline and eventually die. I guess getting older and dieing is entropy."
The school was coming up on the left but Tate slowed the vehicle and stopped on the right hand side of the street.
"Holy crap." There was an enormous sinkhole in the street. It was the width of both lanes, perfectly round as if a drill bit had lowered from the sky and bored into the pavement. "Stay here I need to take a look at this."
He got out of the car and cautiously made his way to the front, the fingertips of his right hand sliding along the surface of the Mustang's hood. At the edge he peered down at the depression the dirt and the gravel in the hole so dark and fine, like discolored sand. Off to his right he noted a section of curb, perfectly cut with the arc of the circular shape. Was anyone else seeing this thing? No one in front of him. He raised his hand to block the sun from his eyes and turned back to look the way they came.
Then his cell buzzed angrily in his pocket. He lifted it in disbelief. 5 missed calls...what happened?
"Hello?"
"Alan where the hell are you I've been calling..
"Yeah Jake, hey man I'm just running a little.."
"They are here Alan. We are waiting on you. You were supposed to be here twenty minutes.."
"Jake, Jake yeah I'm just...just dropping off my kid then.."
"WHAT? Alan..what?!"
"Hey Jake..just--"
"Are you trying to be funny or something? So help me god Alan if we lose this deal because of some crap you you.."
"Woah! Hey what's wrong man, why are you blowing up?"
"Alan....YOU DON'T HAVE A KID. You don't have a wife. You don't have a girlfriend. You don't even have a dog...WHAT THE HELL are you doing?!"
"But I..."
Tate leaned on the hood with his free hand, peering around at the passenger side of the car. It had gotten out. A shape. Dully grey, vaguely human. Sort of like a child. Shimmering slightly like the surface of an oil slick. Small round, black depressions for the eyes and mouth. Tim Burton's idea of the Pillsbury Doughboy. He felt it tugging at his thoughts, the vision of a real child flickering in front of him. He backed away in swelling panic, raising the cell.
"Jake..Jake I.."
Then the ground gave way below his feet, the concrete rolling away like water. His upper torso fell forward on to the hood of the car as his hands squeaked over the hot surface of the hood, the cell phone clattering away behind him.
"Hey! Wait! Wha--"
He clutched the hood ornament and the passenger side wiper blade lurching up, trying to pull his feet out of the expanding muck. His forehead clunked against the windshield as he slid himself all the way up on the car, but then there was a tremor. Motion. He felt the Mustang dipping, falling forward. He slid off, his gut slamming into the bumper as it pressed him down.
"NO! NO! God, hey..wait! Stop!"
--
The dirt and sand and gravel rose. The sinkhole filled, the pavement reformed smooth and unblemished. The child perched on the newly shaped curb as a van turned down the sidestreet and passed by it.
[Human and vehicle samples deposited in transdimensional core. Scout unit disembarking from corporeal manifestation to replenish energy reserves. Will reincorporate in 12 of the human "hours".]
--
"Well hello there little girl, are you lost?" The woman smiled, her skin pale in the fading light. She brushed her jet black hair to the side, cocking her head a bit as she waited for a response.
"Yes, can you help me." The child went to her, fingering the pale worn fabric of the woman's long skirt.
"Of course sweetie, my car's parked right over there. I'll drive you home....you know your address right?"
"Yes ma'am."
"What are you doing out here by yourself? Your parents must be worried."
"I was just out playing and I just lost track of time."
"I see." The woman smiled broadly, patting the child on the back and gesturing towards a four door sedan parked near the end of the block.
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