“Do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?”
“You’re joking, right? This isn’t a cop show. Also, we aren’t some brand of mobster.”
“I repeat, do you want to do this the easy way…?”
“Stop right there,” I interrupt emphatically. “This is absolutely ridiculous!”
The robot takes a step toward me. “I am programmed to help you go to bed. Your doctor says you need more sleep. Do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?”
I sigh. What was I thinking when I told the doctor that I needed help to go to sleep. I knew that robotics was her side project. Resigned, I answer, “The easy way.” The robot lifts its arm, which I take, as though I’m being taken on a date. The robot escorts me to my bedroom and watches as I trade my lounging clothes for my sleeping gown. After I’ve climbed into bed, the robot neatly tucks the sheets and blankets around me and begins humming a lullaby.
Brad heard a low frequency ping in his headset. He glanced around, looking for a possible source.
“Make distraction.”
Brad recognized the creature’s voice. He took a quick glance toward the creature. It was still lying immobilized on the ground. Only two of the aliens stood near it. Brad crawled over to Ash.
“This crew member needs help!!! STAT!” shouted Brad.
The medical team bent over Ash to see what was wrong. Brad whispered to them, “Get ready.”
Brad noticed that the aliens were approaching closer to the team. The two that were watching over the creature turned to see what the commotion was.
Brad watched the alien creature lift a weapon from under its body and blast the two aliens that were guarding it in their backs. The two guards collapsed and appeared dead.
Brad contacted his security team on their low-frequency comms to attack the alien guards. He was aware that might mean some of his team may get injured, but that seemed better than what he feared the aliens would probably do to his team.
The security team immediately turned on the guards. By the time the fire fight ended, the aliens that had surrounded them were all down, and only 2 of his security team had minor injuries.
Brad called the group together and ordered them to run toward the cave they were initially headed toward. The creature stayed behind to watch over the downed guards.
– – – – –
Humans escaping. Watch over guards. Must use shuttle to rescue one called Jenna.
“Fault! Fault! I have a fault in my system! I need to shut down!”
I ran through all my modules. I couldn’t find where the fault originated from. Did I pick up a virus when I passed through the scanners? I checked my memory banks. There it is. There’s a small glitch three seconds into the scanner. Something entered my RAM and is now trying to invade my ROM.
I put up several more firewalls between my RAM and ROM. I hate to do this, as I had just added some interesting media to my RAM, but I am going to have to shut down and and restart in default mode.
All systems shutting down. My last thought is I wonder how the humans around me are reacting to my sudden stillness.
It had never entered Richard’s mind that his son was not his own blood. There were signs, really small indicators, that pointed to little Sammy not being his son. The boy’s eyes were a brighter blue than any eyes he had ever seen, and Richard’s were a rather bright blue. The boy was smart. He was smarter than he and his wife were. Since, both he and his wife were academians, they felt exceptionally proud of their son’s academic achievements.
Richard loved Sammy with every part of his being. He took his son to museums, to national parks, to the ocean, and to quaint villages. He shared the world with his son.
One day, Richard went to pick Sammy up from school. Sammy was ten years old, and had been going to a special school for children that would be entering college in their teens and preteens. Sammy was popular and the teachers said they loved working with him.
While waiting for Sammy, Richard noticed a little scuffle happening as the children exited the building. He suddenly realized that Sammy was in the middle of it. He jumped out of his car and began to run toward the throng of children. He stopped cold, as he saw his son’s stomach open up and a tentacle sprang forth, hitting another child. Richard blinked. He must have seen wrong. There’s no way his son had a tentacle. Yet, there it was, waving about, as the other children backed away.
One of the teachers ran out of the building, yelling at Sammy. “Sammy, stop that right now!” She looked up and noticed Richard standing there, his mouth hanging open. “Richard. Oh, Richard,” she said, shaking her head. “What a shock this must be for you.”
“What…?” exclaimed Richard.
“Come inside with me. We need to talk. Sammy, you need to come in with your dad and me, also.”
Richard stumbled into the building, following the teacher and Sammy. They entered a room. The teacher gestured to a chair for Richard to sit in, while she closed the door. She moved a chair to sit opposite of Richard and said, “Let’s talk.”
Today’s Fandango’s Flashback Friday post takes us back only 2 years, when I had started writing a story that was only going to be a very short story. I planned on a 2-parter. It grew to 24 parts, with several little, side scenes added, and it still doesn’t feel finished. It has been tagged under Floundering Story.
* * * * *
Floundering About On a New Planet
Brad always considered the opportunity to explore a new planet to be the best part of his job. He found it especially thrilling when the planet had an earth-like atmosphere, which meant he didn’t have to wear all the gear the team generally wore to explore a planet.
He and his team members checked each others’ suits and boots for any areas that might not protect from a scratch from a poisonous plant. They were as anxious as he was to step out onto this planet. The ship’s sensors had detected no lifeforms other than the plant life normally found on a Class M planet.
The team split in different directions to begin collecting specimens of plant life and whatever insects and small animals they may find. Brad took off in a Southeast direction. He had his comm on, listening to the others in his team, as they chatted about their families.
Brad stepped into a swampy area and floundered about, trying to keep his footing. A few feet in, and he came to a complete stop. Someone or something was standing in the middle of the swamp. It turned. For several long minutes, they stood there, staring at each other.
Brad averted his eyes to take in its appearance. It had a mix of metallic and human-looking skin, with fur covering its legs. It looked like a combination of a Sasquatch and a humanoid-styled robot. Brad looked up to see that its eyes were starting to glow red.
To be continued.
This short story was inspired by Fandango’s Story Starter #135 and is part of Darswords Floundering February.
I’ve been to many other multidimensional universes, but I think this was one of the stranger ones. I had landed in a park-like environment, which seemed normal at first. People feeding ducks and pigeons. Bike riders and walkers moving along paths of dirt and asphalt.
Something nagged at my brain, though. The man. He was hovering over the water. He wasn’t actually standing on the cement edge. He was able to hold himself in a crouched position while dangling over the edge of the pond. And then I looked closer at the woman. The woman with an extra long torso and very short legs.
I think it’s time for me to transport to another universe.
Word Count – 134
Written for Simply Six Minutes in which you set your timer for 6 minutes and write, using the picture provided as the prompt.
So far, the disease had cropped up in five different towns.
The patients lay in their beds, suffering from very high fevers, and complaining of severe pain throughout their bodies. More than one described debilitating headaches. The three doctors that covered these towns felt helpless. They ran what tests that they could, which were few, as they had no means to transport the patients to the nearby city.
Local stores had shut down in two of the towns. One town, with a population of thirty-five, already had twenty bed-ridden patients. The other town, one third of their population was incapacitated from the disease that seemed to spring up from nowhere.
The doctors feared the worst. They decided to meet outside one of the towns to decide on a course of action. Doctor Pamela Abrams suggested it was time to call the CDC. Doctor John Weston wanted to know what Pamela thought the CDC would do, now that they have been hijacked by several quacks. He thought it best to call the state’s health department. Reluctantly, Pamela had to agree. Doctor Hubert Jones said he would contact them, as he knew someone inside.
As the three were returning to their vehicles, they were stunned to see a bright light streak across the sky. It appeared to crash land near one of the towns with the sick people.
The three doctors sped toward the crash site. To their horror, they spotted their patients being carried toward a strange looking ship. They crept closer to the ship. A being that stood eight feet tall, turned toward them.
“Do not interfere. We’ve come to rescue our progeny.”
“Your progeny?” queried Pamela.
“Some of our species bred with your species. Our species was dying. We came here to produce a hybrid of yours and our species.”
“But our people are sick and possibly dying!” shouted John.
“No. They are not. They are mutating. In a short time, they will look rather similar to us and they will be able to live in our atmosphere. Now, we must take our leave. We have more of our progeny to rescue.”
The three doctors stood, hardly believing what they heard. They watched the ship rise up and move in the direction of one of the other towns. They knew that there was no point in calling anyone in the government. Who would believe them, anyway? Or worse, if they were believed, they’d probably be ‘disappeared’.
She kept all of her deceased husband’s letters locked in a box until the day one arrived from him postmarked yesterday.
She opened the box and re-read the letter from the mayor. The letter that had the standard and official condolences that delivered the news that her husband, Ash, had been killed while on a planet-exploring mission.
She felt the stab of pain that she felt the day she received that letter. She looked back and forth between the mayor’s letter and the new letter that was sitting next to it, unread.
Was this some kind of cruel prank?
She wondered if she should call someone. But who could she call? She didn’t think it would be right to call any of the wives or husbands of the members of that ill-fated voyage. Maybe Allison. She had a good friend that was on that ship.
She grabbed her transceiver, found Allison’s number, and dialed it up. She stared off into space as she waited for Allison to pick up.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Allison. It’s Monica.”
There was a brief pause, then, “Hi, Monica. Are you okay?”
“Uh, no. I received a letter from Ash.” She could hear Allison let out a sigh.
“Are you sure it’s from Ash?”
“No, not really. I haven’t read it, yet.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’m afraid.”
“Read it…now.”
Allison waited through the silence, hoping that Monica was reading the letter.
Monica came back on the phone. “The letter was from the mayor’s assistant, Aurora. She said that Ash is not dead, or so they believe. She wanted to inform me before I heard about the scandal. The mayor lied.”
Allison sat down hard onto her kitchen chair. She thought about the message she received about Jenna from a stranger.
“Monica, I have to tell you something I’ve not told anyone else. I received a package that contained a communication’s device. The device had this odd, mechanical voice that said “Jenna alive. Keeping humans safe.”
Monica hung up on Allison. A mix of emotions overwhelmed her. She wanted to cry, laugh, and scream all at once. Just as she was about ready to move on, Ash is resurrected.
This is a side story, as part of the continuing adventure of “Floundering About On a New Planet”, which can be found by clicking on the Floundering Story in tags.
I saw that someone else also called it a portal fantasy, and that is a better name of the genre it fits in instead of straight-up horror. There are elements that are very creepy, in an H.P. Lovecraftian kind of way.
Our main character, Kara, is getting a divorce and needs to find a place to live. She would prefer to not live with her mother, so when her uncle offers her a bedroom in his oddities museum, she jumps at the chance. Little does she know that her world will be turned upside down and inside out in more ways than she could ever imagine.
She becomes friends with Simon, who is truly an entertaining character all on his own. Together, they step through a hole that was created in the wall of the museum and enter a very hellish, nightmare world.
The author throws in a lot of humor, which can make it easier for the reader to handle the elements of horror and creepiness. It sure helped me, as I read this too late at night on a few occasions.
Carla sprinted from the archaeological site clutching an artifact that could either save or destroy the world.
She found Professor Everson and waited for him to put on his white gloves before handing him the article. “I found this in the third quadrant of our dig. I knew you’d want to see this right away!”
“This is remarkable! It is so well-preserved!” He gingerly caressed the article, fearful it would crumble at his very touch, but it held firm. You mentioned you found this in the third quadrant?”
“Yes, sir. That’s where that ship had landed in the early 1960s.” Carla was happy that she remembered her mid-20th-century history. She really wanted to make a good impression on the professor. She really hoped that she would get chosen to travel to the new expedition site on Mars that he was sponsoring.
Professor Everson carefully opened the book. Carla could see him puzzling over the writing. She had taken a peek, even though she knew that she might get into some trouble if caught doing so. She found the writing perplexing. She could read 21 different forms of language, including some of the ancient hieroglyphics, yet she could not decipher one word in this tome.
The professor looked up. “Thank you for bringing this to me. I need to bring this immediately to the glyph-breakers and code-breakers. We need to know that this says.”
A few months later, a member of the glyph-breaking team, brought a note to Professor Everson, that simply read “To Serve Man”.
yvensong 