Flash Fiction Friday! With a Ghostly SFF

Image by MATJAZ SLANIC via canva.com

The Promise 

The ship’s captain was gone. It was Captain Marrow now. Macy was no longer head of the kitchen staff. With her hand on the zoom finder, she watched her creation, Matadon, scrape along the edge of the rock. Its hydrogen center could ignite in an instant. The infrared screen showed the five-kilometer valley filling with layers of methane; the ship docked too close. Planet Xo53’s spectral rings of turquoise and cobalt wrapped an impenetrable field that had barricaded the ship. But she’d been promised a passage through. She’d seen Earth. It was the dream’s message. 

Matadon had to survive long enough to retrieve the quartz inside the cave and return to the ship before the first star set. The quartz guaranteed a lift out of here. It was a race against the methane seeping across the surface, a race they might not win.

A luminescent orb passed Matadon and returned to the ship. Her ship. Queen of the castle. The luciferin orbs were a precaution, proving there was still oxygen inside the cave. She caught her reflection, the slip of a human, breathing recycled air since her team’s journey began a decade ago. Unable to sleep, the hours and days had blurred. Eleven crew members were gone.

 The dreams had started before that, and ever since traveling through this system, she’d been able to dream awake. It wasn’t only dreams that came to her and kept her company. Ideas materialized: maps, blueprints for creating the reconnaissance orbs, and Matadon, what she named the fuel wrapped in silica. Just like cooking, the silica fibers she’d ripped from the barren galley, implicitly following the instructions, soldered with cobalt and nickel, an amorphous shape took form. Standing over twelve feet tall, once animated, Matadon could take commands. Hydrogen shifted through its sinuous reeds, erecting the branch of a neck she’d circled in lenses so that nothing snuck up on her. Having Matadon around kept her from giving up.

Her curiosity and the awake dreams held her hypnotized, punching code, traveling the direction presented, which was here. The promise. Having run out of supplies days ago, an echo drifting by had boarded and tried to kill her. She and Matadon captured the distortion into a magnetic cylinder before it settled into the carbon walls. Without a protective seal to cover the ship, the unseen world often passed through and tried to stick around. Or take crew members one by one.

Matadon stopped. Captain Marrow pushed up to the screen. “What’s happening down there?” All she could see were crystallized rocks. She dialed closer. Matadon lifted an appendage, a positive sign confirming quartz inside the fissure. Another dream that had proven accurate. Enough to jump-start the ship and return home, she hoped.

Light streaked across the screen. Matadon smashed against the rock and disappeared into the fissure. She slammed her hand on the console, eyes tracking back and forth. Now, she had to go down there. Storming out of the control room, she marched down the narrow passage and into the antechamber, a dozen bio-orbs circling, and stepped into the circle. The suit rose and sealed around her body. She picked up the Torc, a spike with a two-meter hook at one end, and strode to the platform, an orb at each shoulder, descended to the first level, and passed through the light frequency that would camouflage her from the spooks, a frequency that should last as long as it took to bring Matadon back.

The elevator grated to a stop, and Captain Marrow departed. She crossed the metal platform, scattering the phantasms proliferating weightlessness, capped the headgear, and extended the bridge. Ninety meters below, cobalt waves circled. She crossed the bridge, legs apart, distancing the rivets careful not to create friction, and met the rock’s edge. Crouching over, she peered inside. No sign of Matadon. Not even a blip on her palm tracker. She turned to the orbs. “You’re with me.” She still had to gather enough quartz to take her home.

 As she entered the cave, a magnetic field tugged at her suit, dragging her inside. Her eyes, obscured by the gray shield, traced the walls glistening with quartz. “Matadon!” she called before turning to a ripple of her reflection. Hand out, she moved forward, the ripples enveloping her fingers and arm, and she stepped through, orbs at her side. She called out again for Matadon. An image of reedy grass flickered ahead. Then she heard water and turned to a rushing creek, budding cherry trees, magnolias, and oaks in the distance. There was a familiar school. She’d seen this all before, in a dream. It was her life on Earth. So far removed from her memories, it had become a dream.

 Her crew members had said they knew the way home, but she knew another way. She saw the promise. Stuck in the galley without a voice, her future and future’s future stripped away, the ship drifted. 

 Captain Marrow staggered forward. “Matadon!” She stopped. Matadon’s sheath was at her boots. She lifted the cobalt-infused silica and gazed at the cave opening. Was this the promise? Only the mirage of Earth? She wasn’t a specter in a make-believe world. She was human, flesh and blood. Dreams weren’t real.

 But she needed the quartz. Wrenching around toward the cave's wall, she recalled the ghost ship, the spirits, the thoughts seeping into hers and Matadon’s. She dropped the sheath and raced for the opening, carelessly rubbing the rivets together, and the valley ignited beneath her feet, below the ship, and everywhere all at once. She entered the ship. Untethered the spacesuit and returned to her position behind the controls.

 She’d forgotten the quartz! Before there was time to settle over her advancing loneliness, a familiar revenant sat beside her, then another in the seat to the rear. Each seat filled with all eleven crew members circling the cockpit, including Captain Warton.

 “Marrow,” he said, slipping over her transparent body. “Get to your position. We’re going home.”

Hive Mind ~ 1K Short Story

 

P.S.  I don't know what the heck Blogspot is doing to the formatting but it has become near impossible to copy & paste my writing. Anyone know how to fix this? 

  

Metropolis Sent Me.

I have several short stories that haven't found markets, so I'll share here on occasion. This dystopian was written in 2019 and originally titled Slaughterhouse and it's under 1k words! I love writing short fiction between novels to work out ideas. Revising novels can take years. (I'm close to completing the revisions of a Middle-Grade Magical Realism story ~ While I await an agent's response on an R&R for another novel.) Writing short fiction is always fun. 

METROPOLIS SENT ME

 

The uneven floorboards creak as I follow the metallic odor, careful not to awaken the supervisor who supposed to be on guard keeping people like me out. Metropolis sent me.

It’s a death sentence to take a photograph. No one’s supposed to know this place exists. The ruins, the rusted leaking pipes dripping sulfur water, my mind reels back: pipes forced down the throats of unwitting birds and geese. Their stomachs pumped with grain and sawdust, protrude out of proportion, as they gurgle undigestible remnants humans could have eaten instead.

Fatty liver is still a delicacy to the Upper Echelons of our ruling class. The exploitation class. Those who seek out our dwindling resources and gobble them up at their leisure. Even after the fowl disease had stopped anyone with any sense. Not for those who pumped their veins with antibiotics, allowing a continuation of their exploitive appetites.

Appetites that destroy our environment. There’s scarce freshwater or land left to farm. This factory is one of the few outposts churning out animal byproducts. The buffalo and cows died off a decade ago, the rest of the land creatures drowned in the floods. Birds that didn’t escape were caught and now, here. It used to be that only geese and ducks were turned into fatty liver, now it’s any bird caught alive.

 

My camera bangs against the side of my leg as I step over a bird’s carcass, the flesh peeled back, boney ribs exposed.

 

The others in my camp grew too hungry and tired for this mission. As a ranking member of Metropolis, I volunteered. If we release the caged fowl into the sky, they could eventually proliferate and maybe, one day, we’ll eat fresh eggs again. Until then, its snails and mollusks fished out of the tide pools.

 

I don’t really need the camera for what I’m about to do. But I want a before and after shot and show the Caver’s the truth. Most, refuse to leave their cave dwellings in fear of viruses.

 

The birds sense my approach, fluttering, cawing, frantically flapping against their cages. “Shh,” I whisper as if that’ll do anything.

“Who’s there!” shouts a guard.

I slide behind a bloodied cage, a goose’s eye watches, and I hold my breath. Heavy mud-coated boots pass inches away. I shrink and chew my lips shut. The guard isn’t much taller than my 5-feet. Stunted growth like the rest of us.

 

But he has a turbo. One beam in my direction, I’ll disintegrate into vapor, and then what? What happens to my sister, my baby brother, our grandfather, what’s left of my family.

The birds squawk an ungodly sound. They’re ratting me out. Sinking,  sinking.

“Hey, you –" the guard shouts, turbo steady. “Get up!”

 

I push the hair out of my face, so I can meet his eyes. If he’s going to kill me, I want to see it coming. Defiant, jaw set, teeth clenched, I charge forward. 

Tackle. I bite his legs, rip at his arms until I’ve wrestled the turbo out of his grip. Now he’s up against the wall staring into the barrel.

 

“What’s your plan, young lady?” he says with a bored expression. “Ah, I may already know. You want to repopulate the planet with birds?”

 

I don’t speak. I don’t want to listen. I’m the one holding the turbo. I search the nearby cages for one large enough to set him inside. “Over there.”  I swing the turbo.

 

“I wouldn’t release these birds if I were you." 

They lie! The guards all lie to save their own bought skins. Living side-by-side with the Exploitation Class up on the mountain. It’s manipulation. I’d better hurry before more arrive. He could have set an alarm. The birds are worth more than gold was a decade ago. Food is our scarcest commodity. So are human lives.

 

“They’re sick birds, you know,” he says after crouching inside the cage. “They’re making the Upper Echelon’s sick too, haven’t you heard?”

 

“I know they’re sick.” I lock the cage. “Doesn’t mean the birds can’t live a natural life.”

 

“Cavers sent me,” he says. “I’ve been making sure those on the mountain eat every last bird. They’re dying up there, you know. The ruling class is disappearing. Couldn’t stop their exploitation and they never listened when we, the scientists, warned about the health of the birds.”

 

“Shut up.” I leave the slaughter room and enter the office, pull the wires on all security systems, and then return to the birds. Open the cages and I begin scooting the birds out.

“They’re sick,” the guard repeats. “They’ll be sick for generations.”

 

Ignoring him, I tip over buckets—is that grain? Squatting down, I scoop it back inside. I’ll bring what I can with me. Water buckets. Blood buckets. I smell ammonia and gag as I flip another bucket drum.

 

The geese squawk. Their webbed feet quickening, and I hold the door open until every abled body is outside, soaring into the chemtrail-streaked sky.

“Don’t do it!” the guard shouts. “I’ve been here for a long time making sure no one releases them into the wild.”

“So, you’re just keeping them here to suffer more forced-feeding. You’re lying.”

“It’s the only way to get the Upper Echelons out. They believe it’s their privilege to destroy every last living thing on this planet for their consumption.”

“No kidding.” I poke at two robins lingering behind while the guard rambles on issuing more warnings. “Where’s your tattoo?” I ask.

He pokes his dark brown arm through the cage, showing me the zig-zag river, the Caver’s tattoo and I take a deep breath. “What’d you do with the U.E. Guard?”

He shrugs.

“Either you tell me or you tell Metropolis,” I warn.

“I feed him to the birds.” 

Short Fiction: Time Travel

My 101 Word Flash Fiction, Compression, is one of the stories featured in the December Time Travel Issue of 101 Fiction 

Visit the website for more. 

Enjoy the escape! 

Beneath the Layers.

 Death of the mind,  body, and spirit, how much will cease to be? Forever? The Egyptian God, Ra, ruled death with Horus and the sky, the earth, and the underworld.

I watch the sunrise beam through the fog of sulfuric clouds on the horizon. Bowing silhouettes ascend into the orb. I don’t think the mushrooms have worn off. My roommate has crashed on the couch with her boyfriend and I can’t sleep.

Reading my palm once again, I push past the financial reports, the hyper-content I’m not interested in and search for a message from Outer-Spector.

Their messages hide in the code. My roommate Clara and I both ate the mushrooms, but I’m the one who’s awake. Suppose if I had warm arms to wrap in, I’d be asleep too. But it’s better this way.  Up and at ‘em.

Stimulating the gray mushroom-glyph that appears on my palm, and the resonance shield surrounds me; the hum growing louder until the shield becomes an opaque semi-circle.

“What is your report?” the Vector-bot commands.

The mushrooms I ate, enabled Spector Vision, which allows the initiate to see where the death riders cling to the earth. Creating havoc as they work to complete unfinished business before disappearing for good.

It wasn’t like this before. People used to pass on. Not many do anymore and I witnessed a handful this morning returning to the sun.

The food has been laced with radioactivity and chemicals from fertilizers far too long and part of the reason for the disconnect.

My job is redirection.

But first, I have to convince the specters their work on earth is finished. Many are too angry to reason with. They’re lost and confused. I use alternate scene-boards to manipulate what the specters witness, it shows their work is finished and it’s time to move on.

If I can send them into the Matrika, they will not return to Earth, for their continuous cycle of destruction.

“What’s your response?” the VB insists.

“I need another round.” I glance at Clara, asleep on the couch. “Alone.”

                                                        *

The laser beams over my eyes. This activates the molecules of the mushroom serum still in my pineal gland or third eye, and I become smaller and smaller until I’m walking hidden passages that line the planet.

My mind travels alongside the specters wispy translations I’ve created to define what I’m seeing or sensing, really.

The specters swirl around me, many  appear to walk, two by two, others with children, or entire families, complete with grandparents, and dogs leading the packs. Disguised, they pretend to be human apparitions. As if, we didn’t know.

I am concealed as a Vector-bot encased in a light that distorts my cosmic outline. Not one of them makes a noise, they’re no conversations, the dogs aren’t barking.

Steaming in one direction, I follow their trek toward the Matrika layer. The layer beneath the passages.

A green and blue aurora borealis form; I’ve arrived. While I'm an apparition, I’m safe from Matrika, the serum percolates within my cells. If we can’t clear the specters, humans will stop being born on Earth. Sure, other planets in the system have clearer channels, but this is Earth, land of green and blue, ha, we do keep the fantasy alive. Those in need of children believe they can and pay the highest price for those hopes. —If you wonder who pays the tab for this little journey.

When Matrika takes the souls, none return. It’s a distorted magnet and a trap. Not exactly, the depths of hell the mainliners joke about. Most believe Matrika is the underworld. That’s where I’ll send them.

After death, humans pass through the Sun so we can return. Once our designated tasks on Earth are finished, we move on to the next phase of matter. But this Matrika hole disregards all that seeking out all bioplasmic entities that have electromagnetic fields.

Aligning my motivations, I coalesce into a one-thought form, the specters will understand.

The Vector-bots are controlled by the human majority, there’re no hierarchies, my work helps everyone. Just the way I like it. But there’s always the risk of being sucked into Matrika for eternity, and no one has the answers to that; we can’t see anything after zero-point.

Waving my right arm into a circle, blue energy swirls up like a current, a torrent of pressure. It’ll knock the specters to attention and hopefully, they’ll understand my directions to the Matrika. The Blue Wave is a code, the original Vector-bots gave the human race. But they warned us what would happen if we continued using radioactive ingredients in our daily lives. Crimson tides of woe.

Fissures like Matrika opened up in the ethereal layers. I’m just glad the scientists won. Now we can do something.

My left arm sends another coded beam; it pierces the pressure around the vicinity. The Matrika advances, deep magenta, edged in crimson; she’s alive, and it’s beautiful, so much I’m falling into its endless pit. I pull back.

At its center is the black hole.

Vector Command reels me back, but the pulse of alternative frequencies skip past and misses me. I’m the anchor that shows the VB’s where the Matrika is.

I can’t lose contact and refocus. The light I’ve brought with me bends toward the circling scarlet pool.

I might be able to close the well, but then we’ll no longer be able to send the specters this way. And so far, it’s the only way to corner them and stop their destructive reign over the material world.

When the droves wind up here, my beam will send the scepters into the swirling the endless night at the center of Matrika. It’s the only way. At least that’s what the animation proved.

Something’s wrong, a spattering of crinkling noise and a distorted static I’ve never heard before. It scrambles my directive. The crimson spreads wider and wider, becoming darker. I signal to VB, no answer. 

The Matrika has me. The specters are gone. I’m being pulled apart, but it’s not my body, because my body is still in my living room behind the shield.

No, this is real, but I’m safe. Vector Bots have a back-up in place if anything goes wrong.

I can’t be safe. I’ve lost contact.

Hello!

Pulled and stretched, an arc of light moves farther in the opposite direction, I appear to be traveling, trying to catch up to the light, and I enter the black hole known as Matrika.

.

.

.

How long has it been?

Hello?

I had an assignment. I’m sure I’m still alive, but I’m not really that sure? What if I’m stuck in this warped plane of existence forever?

.

.

.

What am I’m looking at, the world around me solidifies into pictures, then into cubes and triangles? Triangle trees and pyramid shaped rocks. Hexagon clouds?

A sharp stab rips through me. An alert system shrieks, and an orb of light lands nearby. Two cubed-footed fluffy beings pick me up and throw me into a shoot, from what I understand it’s for refuse or waste—or recycling.

And I land in a fluid. Is it water? I can’t taste or smell anything to be sure.

Only my mind has traveled here, the Vector-Bots will find me. I have to finish my assignment.

I’m flowing in a current.

There’s pressure, and a hell of a lot of pain, and it’s so very dark. But then suddenly there’s light.

It’s soft and warm here.

I had a mission once, but I can’t remember. I’m comfortably wrapped into a warm blanket, and open my eyes. Familiar eyes stare back, smiling.

 “Congratulations, Clara, the doctor says, "Yours is the first rebirth we’ve had in almost a century.”  

                                          ~  The End ~

What They Leave Behind

I'd already published this story on Wattpad and couldn't send out for a sub.  (My long forgotten Watpadd account) 

So I share here, it's a little early, and slightly over the 1K mark. The beginning was taken from a true life event. Of missing time and a head wound from when I was five years old living on an Air Force Base in Caribou, Maine. I remember that day very clearly. 

   What They Leave Behind   

I heard a helicopter. The leaves soaked with sunshine made them translucent, but I couldn’t see anything. A clear summer day, and I was playing with friends near the Air Force base. Helicopters certainly weren’t unusual. 

Helicopters and sunlight, those were my only recollection. When I came out from under the trees a friend shouted, “What happened to your head?”

Sure enough, I found a wet, warm spot, and had a look. It was blood. Definitely blood. My head didn’t hurt and I had no idea what happened. I know now, the head can bleed profusely, but I was only ten years old.

I walked home and my mother approached, fast and frightened, asking what happened.

“That’s probably when it started.” I turned to Doctor Murphy. “ . . . the missing time. Isn’t that what they say?”

“Who?”

“The Abducted. They always mention missing time, and ...”

I stopped. I wasn’t sure what they said. I might have heard Dillon say something once. Dillon’s kept my head straight, through all this.

“What about the other time, with Sadie?” he asked.

“That’s why I’m here.” I settled back. I much preferred the times when I couldn’t remember anything. This wasn’t going to be fun.

“Sadie and I were walking, out on 9D. It was dark, as you know. It was last Monday just after the sunset. There were lights floating around, orbs or  balls …”

I had to take a breath I couldn’t control the wretched pain in my stomach. The wave machine and my hands were shaking.

I rub my sweaty hands on my pants and re-crossed my legs, stiff from sitting too long. I’d hate to lie down, never know if he’d wiped the couch.

“Just go slow,” the doctor said.

Yes, slow, but the images don’t run in slow motion.

“The darkness was unreal and with the new moon, we could see the stars to infinity. We walked toward the river, and at first our legs slowed, and then our arms wouldn’t move. I looked at Sadie. Her face vibrated, every line and crease. The trees started vibrating and hummed, like maybe they were slowing down too. Or matter was breaking up? It’s hard to put into words. Dillon said that happens.”

Doctor Murphy’s glasses dropped to his nose. “You and Sadie hadn’t been drinking? Or anything?”

What if we’d used drugs? We didn’t, but come on.  It’s a judgment call. He’s calling it. My gaze drifted outside of his home-office window. His daughter played with dolls near the woods. “That’s when we saw it.”

 “Is that when they took her?” he asked, his jowl flexed.

He must love this part and wanted me to say it again. Why I had to go over it, over and over? I nodded. “They said they were watching, and that Sadie had a contract with them.”

“Is that what they said to you?”

“It’s not like we talked, but yeah, they did. Said her family made contact years ago. Why don’t you ask them a few questions? Honestly, I think you really should.”

I couldn’t breathe again, the room spun, and to ground myself, I watched the little girl through the window. Dust particles floated on the beam of sunlight. I wanted to float away with the dust.

“Why do you suppose they didn’t take you?” he asked.

“They said they did, many times. My number wasn’t up, I guess? Not that day, anyway.” I laughed, but it wasn’t funny. My nerves were impossible to tamper down. They were always watching. I screamed for them to release her.

“That was only a week ago.”

“Yes, Kylie and you’re still under investigation for Sadie’s disappearance. I believe you I do. I’ve heard a case or two similar to yours, and yes, there was missing time as well. But to get the police to believe it, and a lawyer, not so easy.”

“Unless she comes back,” I said, hopefully.

 “Yes, if she comes back.”

“They hang around military bases, you know, like the one in Maine, where I used to live as a kid.”

Doctor Murphy stood up. “The officers are here.” He put down his clipboard, and briefly checked on his daughter from the window before leaving to greet the officers, waiting in the other room.

“Time’s up,” said officer Frank.

I was already standing, and he took my arms by force. I didn’t resist. Doctor Murphy winced.

I told them everything I saw. How Sophie split in two: one bubble and one transparent body, a duplicate of herself. Her “earthly” body or what every you want to call it, disappeared without a trace. I’m the only trace. Everything leads to me.

Doctor Murphy said he believed me, but I don’t buy it. I’m escorted, or more accurately, towed to the police car. Head shoved under and in like a deranged killer.

Where’s the body. Just tell us where the body is? I stopped telling them what happened to her body.

Years ago, while listening to the radio, the music changed to a song that answered the question on my mind. It got my attention. The lights flickered in response and I knew they were there. “How long have you been doing this?” I whispered.

The song, Time After Time by Cindy Lauper played, the station was set to a rock-n-roll only broadcast.

“For years?” I asked. “What did you do to me when I was ten years old?”

You are here to help the others. This earthy role is not your own. It’s not good to know too much or you won’t want to stay.

I felt lighter after that, but it only lasted a couple of years. The cooperative feeling dissolved when my dog was killed. I knew it was them. Blood drained from his little terrier body. Why my dog? Never an explanation only cruelty. They were sloppy enough to leave a sticky residue: bioluminescent fluid they leave behind like slugs. There were traces left behind on the radio dial after our “conversation”.

What if the police found bioluminescent residue near the river? Would that create enough doubt? Investigations were done during the day. They never saw it glowing at night? “I need to call my lawyer,” I speak through the wire mesh.

“Yes, at the Station.”

After being shut inside the holding tank, I waited for my parents and the lawyer. I was innocent, and no one believed what really happened. Why were they making me suffer? The bully-aliens didn’t stick around to take the heat. Gonna let the human go down for it?

The bunk was cold and without a blanket to keep warm, I crossed my arms and started to cry. I was lost. Even Dillon couldn’t help me now.

A ball of light floated into the room and bounced about before settling at the foot of the bunk.

“You’re crying,” it was Sadie’s voice.

“Sadie, is that you?”

“Yes, Kylie, I can see you.”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m perfect. But you, I had no idea.”

“What? That you could disappear without a trace and it wouldn’t look suspicious?”

“You’re going to be fine,” she said.

“What are they doing to you?”

“I’m fulfilling my agreement. My parents will come, and you too, Kyle, have a family here. They wait for your “timing”.

“But I already have a family.”

“Here, you have two boys and a daughter. Your daughter plays with mine.”

I sat up; the metal surface pressed against my bones. Was I hallucinating?

The orb grew and I saw Sadie through its sheen like an otherworldly God, and she smiled.

“I have another family?”

“Yes, Kylie, and your dog is here.”

I rubbed my eyes. I rubbed them so much,  I was sure my eyelashes would fall off. “When do I get to see them?” The request was more of a dare.

“Are you ready to leave your parents and this world?”

I glanced around the jail cell.

 “Come Kylie, fall into the orb. It was a little soon, but we decided we couldn’t continue to let you suffer what you didn’t do. I’ll bring you to them.”

The light orb danced and grew larger. Sadie stood there, bright as day, looking much the same, only more beautiful and filled with light. Or bioluminescence?

Footsteps marched down the hall. I heard my mother’s voice. I’d miss my family. But how do I know I don’t miss my other family?

“Come, Kylie, the conduit is closing.”

I stood and leaped into the orb.

The cell door opened.

My father and the guard entered first. They must have seen something because Momma put her hands over her mouth. The guard reached out. Then their heads fixed on the ceiling.

I floated with Sadie inside the orb. I’m not sure they saw me, but then Dad yelled that the light was too bright. Momma began crying and clutching at the air.

I wanted to tell her I’d see her again.

             The End