Fiction

Coldheart and Iron: Part 2

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READ FROM THE BEGINNING

When I next saw Lucas, it took everything in my power not to throw my gun to the ground. He jogged up to the group while we were taking our noon break, waving his way past the sentries. He wore his usual beaming smile, but I can see the worry in his eyes when he stopped in front of me. Behind him, and the reason for my urge to angrily throw my weapon, I could see a large group of people moving on the horizon.

“What did you find?”

“Hold on, Mar.” Lucas held up a hand gestured to a bit of clear space away from the sentries and the resting laborers. “Let’s step over here, quick. Officers only.”

I nodded and beckoned to Camille and Jonathan, our second-in-commands. Once we were a far enough away from everyone to have a whispered conference without being overhead, I took a deep breath and gestured for Lucas to speak.

“It was a group of nomads. Seven families for a total of thirty-one people. Twenty-three of them are combat capable and they have the firearms and ammunition to arm them, but two of them are currently pregnant and five of the rest are under the age of eighteen.” Camille shook her head at that, but I cut off the argument that Lucas was about to start.

“We can discuss child soldiers later, right now just keep giving me your report.”

Lucas grimaced but continued. “They had a semi-permanent residence on the periphery of Chicago, traveling through the old suburbs and living off the supplies they could find in old superstores. They moved out a couple of months ago when a large group of bandits moved into the area and the Chicago enclave decided they were too much trouble to chase off but not enough trouble to worry about.”

“That stacks with the last reports we have from the Wayfinder net.” Jonathan mimed swiping through a touch-screen display. “They’re on the fourth page of the Chicago report, so even the Wayfinders agreed they weren’t a big deal.”

“Makes sense. Those ruins are too picked-over to support anything larger than a few dozen people.”

“That’s what the leaders of this nomad group said, Mar.” Lucas wiped at his eyes, a nervous tic he’d had since we were college students together. “They were doing fine until they headed west. They ran into some bandit scouts, well-armed ones, so they’ve been on the move toward the plains ever since, trying to make themselves more trouble than they’re worth.”

“Any clashes?”

“A few, and only technically. No casualties on either side and only a few rounds shot by the nomads each time they see bandits catching up to them or sneaking up on their camp.”

“They’re trying to figure out their gear.” Camille crossed her arms and growled. “Shitlicking bandits are trying to get them to waste all their ammo on scaring them off so they can sweep in and clean up. We’ve seen tactics like that in the more militarized bandits. They’ve probably got a base they’re operating out of and they’re waiting for their main forces to show up before attacking the nomads.”

“Thanks, Camille.” I nodded toward the horizon, where the large group was growing slowly closer. “So you brought them back with you.”

“Yessir. I couldn’t leave them to die to a bandit attack like that.”

“So you brought them to join us so we could also die in a bandit attack?”

“No, sir.”

I took my goggles off and pinched the bridge of my nose as I squinted through the glare. Without my goggles to cut the sunlight from this unusually bright day, I couldn’t see the nomads on the horizon anymore. As I put my goggles back on, I spent a moment wishing this decision wasn’t in my hands. Once I’d adjusted the strap again, I cracked my knuckles through my gloves and started issuing orders.

“Lucas, you’re officially in trouble for this. It is against Wayfinder policy to pick up groups of nomads and offer protection to additional people while escorting a group that has paid us. We’ll worry about your punishment later because we can’t risk Mr. Eidetic Memory here when there’s someone else qualified.”

I turned to Jonathan. “Go with Lucas.  Start cataloguing their gear and make a note of everything that either is a weapon, can be used as a weapon, or can be made into a weapon. When we make camp, I’ll need you to assess their abilities. Take a few hunting to augment our supplies and see how they stack up. Tell Natalie I’ve given you the run of our supplies outside of basic essentials.”

I turned back to Lucas. “Once you’ve brought them up and introduced me to whoever their leaders are, you are to backtrack until you find traces of bandits or an excellent ambush spot. Take all the scouts and whatever guns you need. Don’t worry about silencers. The more of them that know they’re facing a real force, the fewer we’ll have to shoot.”

“Camille, get this group moving. While I’m dealing with the nomads, you’re in charge of these people. We don’t want them mixing right away. Start figuring out if any of them have skills we can use or if any of them can fight. I don’t want it to come to that, but we need to be ready.”

Once I stopped, I looked each of them in the eyes and nodded. They saluted and hurried off to take care of their tasks. I had a while before the nomads caught up to where I was, so I started getting ready. A few small adjustments to my gear and I looked like the figure on the posters of Wayfinders they post in the hiring offices. I returned to my backpack, finished my meal, and started going through the pockets of my pack. Once I found the notebook and pencil, I flipped through it until I fought a blank page.

Suitably armed for my upcoming encounter, I slung my pack up on my back and started out toward the nomads. By now, they were close enough to make out distinct figures, but I lowered my head and focused on crossing the snowy landscape. Even with the goggles, the glare from the sun made the distance hard to judge. Every few minutes, I’d look up again until I could start to make out distinct features and spot the Wayfinders Lucas had taken that morning, who were scattered around the periphery of the nomads.

When they were a quarter of a mile away, I stopped moving and looked them over. They moved sensibly, the large people out front and the smallest ones in back, with a couple of adults back there to keep an eye on the children and function as a rear guard. They had good coats and packs, so they clearly knew what they were doing, but I could tell from the way they weren’t constantly looking around that they hadn’t fully adjusted to living in the wilder parts of the midwest.

Once they reached me, everyone stopped and started the process of having a quick meal. Three of the people from the front of the group moved over to me and one, a tall woman with a runner’s build, held out a hand.

“I’m Brianna. Your scout told me you were the famous Captain Marshall. I couldn’t believe our luck.”

I took her hand and shook it perfunctorily. “I wouldn’t count yourselves lucky, yet. You’ve got bandits trailing you and I hope you know that your tactics so far haven’t done much.”

“Shooting in their general direction has chased them off. That’s been good enough for me.”

“Well, if you want protection from my Wayfinders, you’re going to need the permission of the group that hired us to guide them and to agree to do everything I tell you without question.”

Brianna nodded. “We will ask and you will have our complete obedience. I know how effective you Wayfinders are and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep my people safe.”

“Good.” I counted the heads of the nomads and watched as Jonathan moved the camp, talking to the people who were eating. “We’re officially too big to have any chance of hiding from any group we run into, so there’s going to be a lot of fighting before we get to Des Moines.”

The woman and her two companions nodded. I gestured for them to get back to their meal and went to talk to the closest Wayfinder. After leaving instructions for her to make sure they set a pace to catch up to the other group by nightfall, I started out, heading back toward my company using the trail I’d made getting there. I caught up a couple of hours later and, as the sun was just touching the horizon, the nomads caught up to us. Luckily, the laborers were good sports and, when presented with the results of their hunters, were more than happy to share our guidance and protection.

While the nomads and laborers made friends over their fresh meat, I called all of the Wayfinders together and we made our plans for the first signs of a bandit attack. There was the usual amount of joking and banter among the veterans, but that quickly faded as everyone focused on their roles for the next few nights. Being a Wayfinder might be a prestigious position and one of the few things you could still do in the post-collapse world if you wanted to live freely, but it also had a high mortality rate. Now, we would begin the most dangerous part of our job.

My Dream Car

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Lee stood at the window, folding laundry as he waited for his girlfriend. As he moved deeper into a pile of shirts, he saw a car pull up. A moment of excitement, the car pulled away and he remembered Amy was still too far away.

He took a pile of shirts and put them away. When Lee turned around, he noticed a car pull up to the curb, pause for a moment, and then drive away. Curious, he absently picked up another shirts and kept folding. On the fifth, the car pulled up to the curb, hesitated for a moment, and then drove off again.

Gone were thoughts of shirts and his girlfriend. Lee tossed his laundry aside and moved to the downstairs window. A couple minutes later, the car pulled up to the curb, hesitated, and then drove away.

While he contemplated this pattern, it came by again. The interval between the car’s disappeared and reappearance began to shrink until it came into sight as soon as it vanished. After a minute, he noticed the car creeping closer to his window. He jumped back from the window. He couldn’t see the car past the blinds in any of the windows, but he could hear it zipping around.

Just as it sounded like it was about to tear his house apart, he found himself sitting on his bed next to a pile of laundry, phone buzzing in his pocket. Still listening for the rush of air that was the car, he saw his girlfriend’s picture.

“Hello?”

“I’m outside.”

“Sorry.” Lee hurried toward the door. “I dozed off.”

“Really?” Lee unlocked the door and hung up his phone. Amy’s worried face greeted his.“It looks like a bunch of cars drove over your lawn. How could you have slept through that?”

Coldheart and Iron: Part 1

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READ FROM THE BEGINNING

I never liked guiding young men. The worst were always the laborers, young guys who traveled from city to city, shoring up what infrastructure they could and scrapping everything they couldn’t. They’re always drinking smuggled whiskey, forgetting to fill their canteens with snowmelt, and there’s always a few who make passes at some of my Wayfinders. A little over half my team is women and these young men are used to what we once called “Rockstar treatment” since they’re given pretty much whatever they want while working on an enclave in the hopes of getting a skilled metalworker or net tech to settle down.

Normally, I’d refuse and save everyone the hassle, but we’d dropped off the families we’d picked up in the wreckage of Chicago and the only group ready to go and capable of paying had been two dozen men in their twenties. The city’s net connection had been saved by two of the men in this group, and the rest had managed to fix up the shelters so they’d be properly insulated again. I had a soft spot in my heart for the Madison, Wisconsin enclave, having lived there before the collapse, and agreed to take this group as a whole at their request.

Between cities, the Order of Wayfinders is the law. If the people we’re escorting try to report us for anything, the enclaves simply tell them they’re welcome to request a refund and then never be escorted anywhere ever again. We are judge, jury, and executioner outside of the enclaves. There’s no room for arguing or anything but iron-clad authority in the otherwise lawless tundras. We police ourselves, so most Wayfinders who abuse their power wind up as bandits or dead.

We were ten days out of the city, heading southwest toward the great plains of Iowa the first time I had to assert my authority. Generally speaking, my Wayfinders aren’t shy about turning people down if they don’t want someone’s attention. Unfortunately, the amount of self-assurance it takes to brush off a drunk young man who desires you is a skill that often takes time to learn and one of my trainees was struggling. Once she asked for my help, I gave it. I reminded the man bothering her that he was to respect her wishes and, if he ignored her again, I was going to beat him until I was certain he’d learned his lesson.

He was drunk enough to take me seriously at that point, but a couple of nights later, as the full moon peeked between the heavy, grey clouds, he decided I was full of it. He was, after all, six and a half feet of trim muscle while I was only a middle-aged man, beard already showing the first signs of grey around my mouth, of modest stature and height. Once I’d dropped his unconscious ass back into his insulated sleeping bag, I left their shelter and found Laura in the shelter she shared with four of the other trainees.

“He’s out. If he troubles you again tomorrow, punch him squarely in the ribs. I cracked a couple of them, so he should go down easily enough.”

“Thanks, Marshall.” Laura rolled onto her back in her sleeping bag and laced her hands behind her head. “And, after that, I can just shoot him?”

I nodded. “Stabbing would be better. You’re decent at quick kills, so you should be able to do that easily enough. It’d be a lot quieter and you’d save yourself a bullet.”

“Silence Is Paramount.” Laura saluted me from her sleeping bag. “As you wish it, so shall it be.”

I smiled down at her, my beard hiding everything but the crinkle at the corners of my eyes. “Sleep.”

Laura saluted again and I walked out of her shelter, waving my hand dismissively. A few steps away, I found the night-sentry already buried in the snow. “Hicks, keep an eye on the tents tonight, too. If you see any shadows trying to get into a Wayfinder shelter and it doesn’t belong to a Wayfinder, make it dead.”

A thumb poked itself out of the snow and then quickly disappeared again. Satisfied, I walked around the rest of the perimeter, that everyone was either in their shelters or preparing for the morning. After that was done, I retreated to my shelter. Lucas was already asleep, but Camille and Natalie were still awake, huddled around the campfire.

“How’s Laura?” Camille handed me a bowl of thick soup.

“She’s fine.” I started eating.

“And the other guy?”

“Alive and capable of keeping up the pace, but unlikely to do more than that for a few weeks.”

“Pay up, Nat.” Camille held out her hand and took the twenty from Natalie with a look of triumph on her face.

“Sorry for having faith in the newbies, Millie.”

“Who else was in the pool?” I chewed at a tough bit of meat and wiped steam from my beard as I looked at the pile of cash Natalie was rifling through.

“Well, cap, it’s all the vets but you and while I was the only one to bet on the newbie, the safe bet was you beating the young groper so badly he would need a couple of days of rest before he willingly went anywhere. Technically, that still remains to be seen, but I doubt it. We’ve got two other bets on you killing the guy because he fought back well enough to need it.”

I nodded as I swallowed the gristly piece of meat. “Sounds about right. Lucas didn’t want to wait up to see how it turned out?”

“He’s got second guard shift tonight, Marshall, as do you. Finish eating and let me take care of cleaning up so you can get some sleep.” Natalie stuffed the money away and started picking up the cookware and food. I finished my bowl of soup and snatched another out of the pot before Camille sealed it up for the night. After finishing my food and cleaning myself up as best as I could with the last bits of my tube of toothpaste, I wrapped myself in my sleeping back and lost track of time until I was shaken away by Lucas.

“C’mon, cap. Second watch starts in a few minutes. Captain’s orders. You wouldn’t want to disobey an order from yourself now, would you, Captain?” I was still too asleep to see properly, but I’d seen the goofy grin plastered across his face often enough that I didn’t need to see it to know it was there.

Grumbling, I slipped my insulated gear back on and clambered out of my sleeping bag. Lucas disappeared out of the door in a flurry of cold that set the embers to snapping on their logs while I cleaned up my gear. A few minutes later, I’d traded spots with one of the sentries and concealed myself in the snowdrift. The only thing peeking out of the snow was my camouflaged night-vision goggles and the end of my gun’s barrel. Even with my night vision goggles, there was nothing to see but the empty hills we’d camped near.

When the sun and the movement in the camp started to make hiding pointless, I gave in to my desire to move around and creakily pushed myself to my feet. I wasn’t old yet, but lying around in the snow for four hours sure made me feel like I was. As I took stock of the area around the camp and the camp itself, I noticed one of the laborers standing a few paces away. He was friends with the one I had educated the day before.

When I pushed my goggles up and locked eyes with him, he smiled uneasily and stepped forward. “Captain Marshall. I’d like to apologize on behalf of our group and especially Mitch. He’s an asshole and deserved everything you gave him. We’ll do a better job of keeping an eye on him.”

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.” I shouldered my gun and let my face settle into its natural glare.

The man took half a step back and held up his hands. “You’re absolutely right, sir. Mitch and I already apologized to Wayfinder Laura. I just wanted to apologize for the inconvenience of needing to police my group. It will not happen again, Captain Marshall, sir.”

I smoothed the glare from my face and nodded. “See that it doesn’t. Next one gets killed.” I watched him quickly walk away and turned my attention to the rest of the camp. The tension that had started building after I beat the assaulter seemed to have seeped away. While I was looking around, Lucas walked up. When he saluted, I nodded.

“Captain, there’s signs of tracks behind one of the hills to the southeast.”

“What was someone doing out there?”

“As the sun rose, I saw it glinting off of something and took a look through my scope. Empty food wrappers, sir. Curious, I walked over after having my post covered by one of the trainees. There’s a whole trail, sir.”

“They got that close and we didn’t see them?”

“No, sir. Basic camouflage would have concealed them at that range, given they were moving at night.”

“Right, the snow.” I shifted my gun and nodded to a small crowd of Wayfinders that had gathered when they saw the captain talking to the lead scout. “Take a small crew and see what you can find. We’ll continue course as we’ve set it, so meet us at our midday stop with whatever you’ve found.”

“Yessir.” Lucas saluted again and jogged off to the group of Wayfinders. I watched them gear up and head off before heading to the cookpot for breakfast. It was either nomads or bandits. Neither was good news for us. As the sun shone down through a break in the clouds and I helped myself to a bowl of oatmeal with dried fruit, I wasn’t sure which would be worse.

Snowy Tow

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The snow came down, coating trees and drifting into mounds beside the road. Rosie didn’t think every drift had a car in it, like the one she was looking at, but the thought pressed on her as she tried to focus.

It was a simple job. Wait for calls on snowy nights and then drive the truck into the snow to rescue unfortunate drivers. This was probably her last call of the night. Once 3 a.m. rolled around, it was someone else’s turn.

After checking with the driver, she towed the car onto the road. Ten minutes of work and talking and the driver was on their way again. As she sat in her car and filled out the last bit of paperwork, her attention kept drifting to the mounds of snow. She’d lived around here all her life. She knew the fields down route 44 were lousy with heavy bushes and hills, but something kept pulling her eyes to the sea of white.

She set the clipboard aside, bundled up, and waded into the snow. It was up to her shins, but a particular mound kept calling to her. She walked up to it and started digging with her hands.

Twenty minutes later, she was back in her truck, driving. It had been only snow over a large bush. As she rounded a bend, looking for the county route home, she got a call. There was someone else who needed to be pulled out on route 44. Dispatch sent her back out, even though her shift was over, since she was close.

She turned the truck around and started looking for a car in the snow. She spotted it a few minutes later and smiled, despite herself. She’d been right about the drift, just half an hour early.

Soonish: Fun Science and Funny Pictures

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“Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything” by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith (a scientist and a writer/cartoonist, respectively) is probably one of the best books on the market for the casual sci-fi/tech nerd who wants a break from fiction. The basic premise is exactly what the title states, focusing on ten different technologies we can see on the horizon. It breaks them down into where we currently are, where we’re going, what the technology could mean, and then how it could ruin everything. A liberal dose of background information, interviews, jokes, and short comics is sprinkled throughout, keeping the science-sections from getting too dense.

Probably the coolest part of the book, for me at least, was how they were able to take turn some incredibly difficult science into an informative book that people would be able to understand and enjoy. The metaphors for the more complex bits of physics when they wrote about space elevators are clear and fun. The examples used to illustrate (literally and metaphorically) their points about space travel are easily grasped and, from what I understand, surprisingly accurate. Even the comics sprinkled throughout add to the reader’s understanding in addition to delivering quick jokes.

The biggest downside was how hard it is to read in large chunks. There’s so much interesting information packed into each Chapter that I haven’t actually read more than one a chapter in a single sitting. I usually wind up taking a break so I can digest what I’m learning and let it get comfortable in my brain before I start reading the next chapter. Which isn’t to say it’s poorly written. The Weinersmiths did a great job of making the entire book a delight to read and I’m excited to read each and every chapter. I just wound up reading only one chapter a day and starting another, much simpler, book to read after my daily chapter.

The other side of the problem is that I have a lot more interesting conversation topics now that I’ve learned so much about space elevators, interstellar mining, and programmable matter. While these things don’t come up very much in my typical day-to-day conversation, I’ve now got a lot of excellent ammunition for the next time my friends and I decide to drink and talk about how cool the future could be. I’ve already used some of what I’ve learned to start a discussion at work, during a meeting, since one of my coworkers used to work for an elevator company and a few others just love talking about future technology over lunch. This book is easily worth getting just for the conversations it starts.

My favorite part of the book, and what I consider to be the reason the book is so delightful to read, is the sheer enthusiasm the Weinersmiths pumped into Soonish. Even after a few years of research, writing, revising, and editing, you can still feel just how excited they must have been to learn about everything they covered in the book and there are even a few panels of comics in the book that show it plainly. If you follow Zach Weinersmith’s comic, SMBC, you can see a bunch of comics he wrote about it, scattered throughout the past year, showing just how enthusiastic he and his wife were. Reading a work of passion is always a much better experience than reading something someone felt forced to write.

I suggest picking up a copy of the book for your coffee table or library. It is on sale pretty much everywhere, right now, so I suggest getting it now while its cheap. Or later, when it’s less cheap. This book is easily worth thirty bucks.

Horror Movie

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He knew his apartment did not have a good setup for horror movies, but he couldn’t resist them. His couch only fit in the living room with its back to the rest of the apartment and the room was too narrow for other chairs. Even the constant creaking of floors and the furtive sounds of movement whispering through his walls couldn’t convince him of his folly. Attendance at his viewing parties had dwindled after he moved here and now he watched horror movies alone.

He was used to surround sound from his old apartment, so he didn’t notice that not all of the sounds were coming from his home theater until the first thing fell off his counter. After fixing the mug’s handle the following morning, he kept a closer eye on his kitchen and a closer ear on the sounds of his apartment. He took careful note of every sound made by the neighbors and wrote down every creak of walls as the building shifted in the wind.

The following movie night, he was ready. It was a zombie flick he’d seen before, but he picked it because it had always sounded fake to him. As the movie went on, he noted every noise that came from behind him, glancing over his shoulder for the source. He saw a pan hanging beneath his cabinets shift in the still apartment air and noted that as well.

For three weeks, he took notes. At the start of the fourth movie, he shifted so he was sitting on the floor in front of the couch. He had his notebook ready, but he heard nothing from behind him. Once the movie was over, as he headed off toward his bathroom and bed, he heard something new.

Thanks for moving.

The Countess

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Jacob locked the door of his brownstone and stepped to the edge of his front porch, looking up at his most-recent acquisition as a wave of giddy pride washed over him. His brownstone was a perfect match for its four neighbors, only varying as a result of flower boxes and window dressing, but he felt like it glowed compared to the others. He took one last look over it before turning to walk down the five steps to the street.

It was a Saturday morning, just after nine, so traffic was still quiet and the cobblestone street directly in front of his home was empty aside from the few parked cars belonging to the residents. He straightened his sweater, stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans, and hummed to himself as he walked down the street. Everything was perfect.

“FORTY-SEVEN.”

Except that. Jacob started walking faster, hoping the woman who sat at the end of the brownstone row wouldn’t stop him.

“FORTY-SEVEN!” The woman waved a tattered bit of cardboard at him, the writing all but impossible to read as she swung it through the air. As Jacob approached, she staggered up from her seat and waved the cardboard even faster. “FORTY-SEVEN!”

Jacob rifled through his wallet as he walked, pulling out a fifty. Once he reached the woman, he tossed it into the violin case at the woman’s feet next to some lint, many coins, and a scattering of other bills. “Here’s fifty, now let me be!” The woman stopped waving her cardboard to look at her case and Jacob ran off down the street.

As he reached the end, he stepped into a puddle and his leg sank up to mid-calf. His shout of “Damn it!” was met with a laugh and a shout of “FORTY-EIGHT.”

The Affair

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I ran down the hallway, doing my best to get out of the building as quickly as possible. Charlie had told me that if I ever showed my face here again, he’d kick my ass. As self-critical as I often was, I did not think that my ass needed kicking, and so had resolved to stay away. Despite what I had thought were my best efforts, one look at her face and I went running back into her arms. Only this time I came running back and slammed into Charlie, which constituted much more than showing my face.

I could hear Charlie’s cursing echoing down the hallway behind me. I could also hear what sounded disturbingly like the clatter of a metal baseball bat bouncing off the walls. When I reached the end of the hallway, I paused and risked a glance back. Charlie burst around the corner, waving a metal baseball bat around like he trying to make a tornado with it.

I took off running again, taking the stairs right in front of me and vaulting over the railing onto the next set of stairs as I reached the bottom. I kept this up for 10 more flights of stairs, getting a little further ahead each time. On the ground floor, I had almost two whole flights of stairs on him. As quickly as I could in order to preserve my advantage, I darted down one of the three hallways that branched out from the foyer I was in and ran until I turned the corner. Pressing my back against the wall, I looked around for someplace to hide. Twenty feet down, there was a janitorial closest.

Moving as quickly and as quietly as I could, I slipped down the hallway and tested the knob. Locked, Damn! I gave the door a sharp tug in frustration and, to my surprise, it swung open a few feet. I ducked inside the door and pulled it closed behind me, making sure to listen for the click! that told me it was completely closed.

Crouching behind a pile of rags, I took my cell phone out of my pocket and silenced it. The last thing I needed was for my it to go off and give away my position. I can’t believe I’m hiding in the janitor’s closet from Charlie. God, it’s not like I slept with his wife or anything…

Just then, I could hear the heavy tread of Charlie’s booted feet. I held my breath, not trusting the door to hide the noise of my ragged breathing. “Where’d you go, you bastard professor?” I heard. “When I find you I’m going to rip you open and smear you all over the sidewalks!” The footsteps got ever closer. He was moving slowly now, as if he could sense that I was nearby and he didn’t want to spook me into running again.

I started and nearly fell over when the doorknob jiggled. I waited, breath held, hoping that the door stayed closed and my hiding place remained undetected. I’m getting too old for this… was all that ran through my head. The jiggling stopped. The heavy steps moved away and I sighed with relief. This is the last time I sleep with one of my students…

Flash Fiction and Post-holiday Blues

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Since I’m stuck deep in the Post-holiday blues and am almost too tired from them to care, have a bit of flash fiction. If I’m still this down tomorrow, I promise I’ll post some poetry instead.

I wrote this piece a few years ago, while spending a summer working on a show being put on at my college. It was Les Miserables, and this piece was the result of a challenge from one of my coworkers, who took a rather antagonistic (but still appreciated) role in encouraging me to write. He wanted me to write something about someone with a cell phone in the French Revolution, so I obliged. I had a thing for flash fiction warm-ups that summer, so I did this while preparing to write that night and he loved it. I hope you enjoy it and that you’re avoiding any kind of holiday-related blues.

With a crack and flash, guns fired. Someone screamed. Someone died. A cannon roared in the distance. Part of the barricade exploded and fell in as the cannons facing them blazed and belched their iron-fisted demands of surrender or death. Revolutionaries screamed in defiance with their last breath, refusing to retreat or take down their red flag.

Deedle-oo-doo deedle-oo-doo deedle-oo-doo-dee.

“HOLD”

Absolute silence. Nothing moved.

“Mark, if your cell phone goes off one more time during rehearsal I am going to throw you both in the river!” The director waved his arms as he yelled and started pacing through the theater.

Everybody but Mark pulled their cell phones from their pockets and ignored the irate director. Not a single person held a gun, but every pair of hands held a cell phone. Who can ignore the call to revolution, much a less a call from a friend?

The Tale of the Magnificent Prince Abrams

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I normally don’t like to preface my creations, but I want to explain this piece a bit since I’m not ready to continue with the serial fiction yet (there’s way more prep work that needs doing than I anticipated). I wrote this story for a Fairy Tales class I took in college and it was my first attempt at what would become my favorite writing voice. I started reading Terry Pratchett in the year following this story and I improved once I had a wider variety of examples to emulate when writing this sort of humorous, trope-challenging fiction. Still, this story holds a special place in my heart because it was my first expression of what I consider MY narratorial voice, rather than the one I pick up and put down for most of my other storytelling. Here it is, reproduced and only slightly edited (I couldn’t just leave ALL the grammatical and spelling errors). I hope you enjoy it.

 

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, where dragons and princesses lived and magic was still a part of life, there was a Prince Abrams who traveled the country and rescued all sorts of damsels from dragons. He was a brave hero who was loved by all the land and won the hearts of many princesses.

“Didn’t I tell you to stop that?”

I’m merely informing the reader of your many illustrious deeds and-

“Don’t listen to the narrator, he’s not telling you everything. My NAME is Prince; I’m not actually a prince. My father thought it would be funny and my mother loved the idea of having a prince for a son.”

Now why’d you have to go and spoil it for the reader, Prince? I would have told them a tale of your daring and bravery!

“I’m sure they have better things to do than listen to you talk about how I ‘slayed the mighty Pig-monster that was terrorizing my town!’ It was only a pig, a normal-sized pig that no one else wanted to bother with.”

Well, how about the adventure you’re on now?

“Narrator, as I’ve told you before, I’m not going on an adventure, I simply moved out of my parent’s house and am going to start my adult life in a different town.”

That may be true, but it sounds more interesting the way I say it…

“Just be quiet for now, I’ve got a long way to go before I reach my destination.”

~

The valiant Prince trudged over hills and through valleys, forged mighty rivers and blazed a trail through an ancient forest! He travelled for many days and fought his way through terrible storms but finally, he caught sight of–

“IT’S ONLY BEEN TWO HOURS!” Prince exclaimed, “and are you going to say I ‘fought my way through terrible storms’ every time I wash my face?”

-caught sight of a grand castle in the distance. It had majestic sweeping parapets and two tall towers on the far side. The lower walls were covered in vines and moss and there were many ancient trees growing near its walls. He made his way to the aged castle and knocked on the sturdy, oaken door, seeking shelter from the brutal elements. When no one answered, he cautiously pushed the door open and stepped inside.

“Hello?” called Prince, “Is there anyone there?”

Hearing no response, he walked through the empty hallways. The castle was modestly furnished, for a castle, there were torches in all the brackets and a fire burning cheerily in every hearth, but there wasn’t a person to be seen anywhere. As Prince searched the first floor, he noticed a quiet wheezing noise was coming from above, almost as if the castle itself where breathing. He found himself in the kitchens and was surprised to find that there no sign of food anywhere. All the pots were hung on pegs, gleaming and spotless, there were stacks of mugs and plates that looked as if they had never been used. Prince gazed in awe at that spotless kitchen and was thus caught by surprise when a door opened behind him.

“Who are you?” exclaimed a burly man with a sword and buckler in his hands.

“I’m merely a traveler,” answered Prince, “one that is looking for a place to spend the night if I may.”

“You certainly look harmless enough,” murmured the burly man, “but it is up to the steward to decide. Follow me.”

Prince followed the burly man through the door and down a flight of stairs into the castle’s cellar. The cellar was furnished much better than the rest of the castle and hardly resembled a cellar at all. The only signs that this was indeed a cellar were the stained walls, the group of ale barrels in a corner, the vast wine racks, and food stored in a side room. The burly man led him through the entry room and into the back storerooms where they greeted by a tall, well-dressed and distinguished-looking man.

“Ah, Maxwell! I see you have corralled our intruder. Who is he?” asked the distinguished man.

“He claims to be a simple traveler and his possessions speak to the truth of what he says.”

The distinguished man turned to Prince and said, “Hello, I am this castle’s steward and I wish I could welcome you into the castle in a more comfortable setting, but we are having a few issues at the moment. Pardon me for asking, but what is your name?”

“I am Prince Abr-” began Prince, but he was interrupted by a gasp from the burly man and the steward.

“Prince!?” exclaimed the steward, “Please forgive me for my rudeness, my liege!” and with that, the steward fell to his knee in a bow, as did the burly man.

“Did I hear you say prince?” came a voice from the other room and in walked a broad and well-built man wearing a white apron. Seeing the steward burly man bowing, he too fell to one knee and called out over his shoulder, “I heard right, it’s a prince!”

Prince groaned inwardly as more people came rushing into the room and fell to their knees. After everyone had come into the room, they all rose and returned to their business. The steward approached Prince, but Prince rushed to speak before the steward: “You misunderstood me, good steward, I am-”

“You are our savior!” exclaimed the steward jubilantly. “You will be able to break the curse that awful witch has set upon our castle.”

“Please let me- wait, you have been cursed?” queried Prince, for he was truly a good man who would not hesitate to help others in need.

“Yes,” replied the steward with a mournful sigh, “a witch placed a curse on our beloved princess that caused her to grow enormously fat and eat everything in sight in one bite!”

Prince was startled at this horrid curse and immediately felt a pang of pity for the poor princess. “What can I do to help?” he asked gently.

“You must take your sword and slay the awful witch! She has taken up residence within our princess so we would not be able to touch her! But you, my good Prince, will be able to survive being eaten by the princess. Then you can hunt down that dreadful witch, slay her, and everything will return to normal!”

“How will I survive where another might not?” asked Prince.

“All princes have some magic that enables them to survive,” said the steward, “did you not know your own power?”

“No, you see I-” began Prince.

“Where is your majestic sword and princely attire?” interrupted the steward, “how can you go save our princess without your sword and attire?”

“You see, I haven’t got a majestic sword and princely attire because-” Prince said before he got cut off once again by the distinguished steward.

“You where robbed during your travels? How awful! Then we must find you a sword and dress you in our finest garb! Blacksmith? Bring your finest sword to the prince so he might save our castle! Good Tailor! Bring your finest tunic for our savior, the prince!”

A blacksmith appeared from one of the back rooms bearing a beautiful sword with a jewel encrusted hilt sheathed inside a scabbard with gold and silver inlay. He lowered himself to one knee and presented Prince with the beautiful sword and scabbard. Prince took the sword somewhat reluctantly and bade that man rise. As he left, a tailor appeared through the same day and presented Prince with a tunic of purple that almost simmer as it shifted in his hands. The prince slipped the tunic over his head and buckled the sword to his waist.

“Wise prince! You look marvelous in your princely attire and your sword looks most fearsome! Please, find our princess underneath the west-most tower and defeat the evil witch inside her!”

Prince looked at the smiling, expectant face in front of him and sighed. “I shall do as you ask good steward. I will save your princess.”

The steward began bubbling with gratitude and showed Prince to the stairs, supplying him along the way with directions to the princess’ room. Prince walked up the stairs and strode out confidently to the princess’ room. He stopped at the door as the wheezing sound seemed to grow stronger the closer he got to the room. He threw the door open and was horrified by the sight lay before him. A mountain of flesh lay in the room. It was impossible to distinguish any body parts from amongst the piles of flesh. Prince stepped cautiously into the room and before he could react, he was grabbed by a pink lump and thrown into a gigantic mouth. He tumbled down the throat and splashed into what appeared to be the princess’ stomach. He pulled a lantern out of his pack and lit it.

Prince spent the entire day searching through the princess organs, but found no witch, only enough furniture to furnish the castle and innumerable bones, both human and animal. After sleeping awhile, he continued his search in her leg. He found a vicious tapeworm that proceeded to attack him. Prince slew it with a few deft strokes of his majestic sword and continued on his way. After finding nothing more in her leg, he returned to the stomach, slept, and then he searched her other leg. This leg looked almost like a huge empty hallway except for stacks of partially digested food sitting around on the floor; her entire leg was completely hollow. The next day he searched one of her arms and found it filled with weapons of all sorts, but all of them were rusted and decaying. The Princess’ other arm was a maze of tissue that took him two days to navigate his way into and out of. Finally, on his 6th day inside the princess, he searched her head and found it full of brains but otherwise empty.

“Narrator, it’s been 6 days since I began my search, and I’ve found no witch.”

Do not give up yet valiant Prince! The witch may yet be hiding within the poor princess!

“No. I’m done. I’m leaving.”

But you can’t! You told the steward you’d slay the witch! And if you don’t, who will save the princess?

“How about this? You, Narrator, go find an actual prince to narrate and get him to come to this castle.”

But where will I find another prince as brave, kind, and valiant as you?

“I’m no prince, and there’s no witch here. The princess is simply a person of gargantuan proportions who ate so much that her skin no longer fits on her bones, or has been an unfortunate victim of some unnatural phenomenon.”

But princes save princesses!

“Indeed? Well, maybe that’s why they always need saving. You can’t count on someone to come along and solve all your problems for you. More often than not, no one will do anything about your problems unless you have already started.”

But Prince-!

“No, I’m leaving. If these people want the princess to return to normal, then they had better break a hole in the wall so she can go out and get some exercise. But I’m done. I’m going to cut my way out and leave. Good-bye Narrator, hopefully you’ll find someone else to narrate.”

Prince swung the jeweled sword and cut a way out. He dodged the pink lump that tried to snatch him then ran out the door. He returned to the steward, fully explained his name, returned the sword and tunic, and recommended that they take the princess out to get some exercise as there is no witch. He was then chased out of the castle by the steward and burly man as they believed the witch had taken him under her control. Once out of the castle, the prince brushed himself off, and without a look backward, walked off into the horizon…

So… Um… Reader! How would you like to save a princess…?