All Things From My Brain » Flash Fiction

RC Cola, Moonpies and Zombies

Patrick Hester — Fri, 28 May 2010 12:00:59 +0000

I knew I had a problem the moment I walked through the sliding doors at the Mega-lo-mart and saw Zombies eating people.

Now, the President of these United States had just been on the idiot box telling us that we could get along with the Zombies if we just tried to understand em better. For me, that just seemed silly. I mean, how can you get to understand better something that’s focused on eating your brains? I mean, that’s the only word they know so it’s not like you can hold a conversation with one. How would that go?

“Hello. I’d like to understand you better.”

“Brains…”

“Yes, we both have brains. Mine’s a little less… decomposed than yours, and I tend to keep it inside my skull where yours seems to be leaking out a bit just over your ear. Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Brains…”

Silly.

Part of me wanted to turn right around and hightail it down to the Piggy Wiggly but, as I watched a Zombie with its torn up clothes, gray skin and wild eyes start to chow down on old Mrs. Fletcher over on the number two fast lane, I figured I had to do something.

Back about a year ago, they redesigned the whole damn store to add groceries; means that where the electronics section used to be is now all fruits and vegetables and frozen goods is where the music, dvd’s and video games once lived. All of that got moved to the back of the store which is where I headed. I kept my eyes peeled, of course. Last thing you want is to let your guard down around Zombies or else you’ll find yourself stumbling around repeating the same word over and over again like a broken record; Brains. Still, I wished they hadn’t moved everything around the way they had. Now I have to walk from one end of the store to the other to get what I need and that’s just inconvenient even on the best of days, which this was not.

My daddy was the first one to clue me into the one and only weakness of the Zombie and he figured it out on a lark one night. He and his buddies were out hunting early one morning when this Zombie comes stumbling into their camp all stiff-armed and hungry for brains. Well, it just happened to be near Halloween so mister Ferguson over at the radio station – the FM station, not the AM; that’s his father mister Ferguson Senior – well he, as a lark, slipped a few seconds of a Michael Jackson song in between Merle and Charlie. People were outraged, of course. The station got more calls and complaints about that than when he played a clip from David Letterman for April Fools. But that’s not the point of the story. The point is, damned if that Zombie, upon hearing the music, didn’t up and start dancing right there in the middle of the camp. Daddy said it was the only time he didn’t see a Zombie stumble along. It was as if the music had revitalized its whole body and, more importantly, it gave daddy’s best friend, Arlen, time to blow its head off with his double ought.

Digging through the music I found the cd I wanted, thanking my lucky stars they even stocked it (it was in the $.99 bin), then grabbed a cd player still in its box, a package of connectors and headed in the back of the store. There wasn’t a soul in sight. I wasn’t sure if that were a good thing or a bad so I just concentrated on the task at hand. I found the little office where they make the announcements over the speakers and I hooked the cd player into the rca jacks, then I opened the cd (no easy task; they had sticky-stuff along the top edge, the long edge and the bottom too) put it in and set the same track to play over and over.

I could see on the little tv screens that it was working; Zombies all over the store (and there were a lot of them) had all begun to dance to the choreography of ‘Thriller’, hands raised like claws, slashing back and forth, heads tilted up, eyes wide. It really was the damndest thing.

Once they were dancing, it was easy enough to head into sporting goods, load up a shotgun and start picking them off one by one as they slid into the isles to meet each other and dance in step. Part of me felt bad; never was a fan of ‘duck in the barrel’, but it was kill or be eaten so… Made a mess, too. Brain matter everywhere, brownish bloody goo too. Be hell on the janitorial staff come morning.

When it was all said and done, I went over to the groceries, ‘Thriller’ still playing throughout the store, and loaded up on RC Cola and Moonpies – the reason I went on this little late night snack run. In my heart I thought that maybe my clearing the store of Zombies might clear my taking of this little snack but in my head I knew the corporate types would never see it that way so I scanned everything on the number four fast lane and left twenty dollars on the til.

It wasn’t until I was halfway home that I realized I still had the shotgun and pockets full of shells.

Make me famous:

Flash Fiction: The Guardian

Patrick Hester — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:12:30 +0000

Tales from The New Universe: The Guardian

All I had to do was save the world.

Her name is Alison. I met her ten years ago. We were married eighteen months later by a Priest without a flock on a mountain with the snow falling all around us and the sun hidden behind thick cloud cover. It wasn’t love at first site. We both had a lot of baggage.

Eventually, we had four children together; Ben, Ashley, Naomi and Jordan. I got to name the first born, Ben, but then I was told that I lacked the imagination for naming kids as each subsequent child was born. I didn’t care as long as they were healthy, which they were. They’re gone now.

I watch her from a distance, sipping her coffee in one of those little white cups with the lids that seem to be all the craze. I’d forgotten about those. And she doesn’t know me now. We haven’t met yet. Probably never will now. The guy across from her is her husband. James, I think. Never met him. He wasn’t in the picture when we first met.

The motorcycle vibrates between my legs as I race down the highway. I need to stop watching her. That was another life, a life that won’t happen now, can’t happen. I can’t seem to let go, though.

The cave serves two purposes; it gives me a place where I can do my work without being discovered and it reminds me of the comics I used to read as a kid. I always was a sucker for comics. No bats in this one that I’ve seen yet. I try not to think about how this cave used to be filled with hundreds of people. If I’ve done my job right, it will never have to serve as a home to so many refugees seeking shelter from the storms.

“Welcome home, sir.” Home. Right. The voice is pleasant enough. I based it on Alison’s because I like being tortured. Goes with the whole ‘living in a cave’ motif. So does the giant super computer with the AI running stuff for me. Amazing what you can do with lottery winnings.

“Telemetry?” I asked as I toss my coat on the sleeper sofa. The heaters I installed a couple weeks ago kick on and start to take the chill out of the air.

“Twelve objects approaching upper atmosphere. Four are viable for reentry.”

Damn. That’s how I screwed up – I never considered debris or stellar drift in my planning or my calculations. Enough of the stuff made it to the planet’s surface to change things forever. My fault. My responsibility. Now it’s spread out, impossible to find until it’s on target for planet fall.

“Drones?” I asked. Felt a twinge in my gut. They were coming fewer and far between now. When I first came back, they would rip me apart for hours at a time. Now, they were ‘twinges’ that went as fast as they came. Progress, I suppose.

“Armed and ready for launch. Sir? The military has been actively attempting to track our drones for some time. I do not believe they appreciate our efforts to eliminate the debris before it can be retrieved by them.”

No. Of course they don’t. Neither do any of the private contract firms who are also scrambling for more sources of this tech. But I’m still ahead of them. Decades ahead. Perhaps more when it comes right down to it.

“Cloaking devices are still working, aren’t they?” I ask. The chair squeaks as I sit down, reminding me that I need to oil it. Soon.

“As far as we are aware, yes,” she says. “However, I do not wish to underestimate their ability to cleverly use the technology they already have to break through our countermeasures.”

“We won’t. If they take out the drones, I’ll go myself.” I turn, the suit catching the light just right. Have to admit, I’m putting it on more and more these days. Too many people have gotten their hands on the technology from the fleet, the little bits that have been slowly floating towards Earth since I carried out my plan, mined the area of their arrival and, I thought, blew the bastards to kingdom come. It was all to change the future, save the human race from near extinction.

I never counted on the debris falling to Earth and pushing technology years ahead of where it should be.

“Debris is beginning planet fall.”

“Launch drones for intercept – full countermeasures. Monitor military frequencies and chatter for a heads up on any attempts at interception.”

“Drones are away.”

I lean back, watching the telemetry on the monitor, fingers steepled before me.

“Keyword search has triggered an alert – Tokyo. News is reporting a ‘hovering weapons platform’ attacking the city, threatening to destroy it unless a ransom is paid.”

I sigh. We humans never learn. “I’m on my way.” I put the suit on, a combination of human and alien technology, something I had to build to protect me in space as I laid my trap, and had to modify to destroy alien and hybrid technologies being used back here on Earth. I point my arm and the platform locks the tires of the bike in place and flips, revealing my tethered hovercycle.

“First drone has impacted. Debris has been vaporized.”

“Update me en route.”

Where I come from, the world ended on January 14th, 2007. An invasion fleet appeared behind Mars, then attacked the Earth, killing billions and enslaving the rest. Only a few remained, refugees like me, freedom fighters waging a war to free our world. I traveled back in time, using their own technology against them, to destroy them before they could get anywhere near the Earth. Change everything. Save the world.

I destroyed them, but I failed to save the world.

Now it’s my responsibility to make it right, protect us from ourselves.

They call me ‘Guardian’ in the news.

I suppose that works.

Make me famous:

Flash Fiction-SuperHero

Patrick Hester — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 22:46:26 +0000

Tales from The New Universe: SuperHero

The thing about being a superhero is that everyone expects you to save the day all the time, to be on your toes no matter what, to have all the answers.

No one warned me before all of this started that it would be like that. I thought it would be a lark; saving pretty (grateful) women from the bad guys and always coming through in the nick of time to save the city, people cheering me on, giving me keys to the city, having days named after me so kids could get out of school to come see parades in my honor. That sort of thing.

I thought it would be easy. Stupid, right?

I did get the key to the city early on. God, fifteen years ago? Has it really been that long? The years start to blur after a while, bleeding into each other and overlapping so I don’t always remember things in the right order any more. I wonder if any of the others feel that way? There’s a couple dozen of us now, not like in the old days when there were just two or three at most.

Anyway, the rest of it? Got tired real quick. There are only so many women you can save before they all start looking the same. It becomes old hat. I can’t even count how many times the city’s been in danger and I had to save it with only a couple seconds left on a timer – the bad guys? They love their timers. It’s like some bad piece of pulp fiction.

Week after week, the same stuff happening with a new twist and I have to keep up with it and roll with the punches. It’s exhausting. Have you ever tried crisscrossing a city ten times in a night because all the loonies were out in full force and pulling crap at the same time? Believe me – it’s not easy and it’s not fun.

Forget having any semblance of a real life with the secret identity thing. It’s worse than being married to a cop or soldier. Every time you go out the door it’s not just people with guns and knives threatening your life, oh no, it’s freaks with frost guns and magic powers and lasers that shoot out their eyes – FRIGGIN LASERS! Who could sit at home and handle that kind of worry and stress every day? Not my Martha, that’s for sure. Left right after the first major threat to the city I faced, when old ColdFront brought the temperature down to ten below and kept it there for a week, demanding ten million dollars before he’d turn his machine off. Finally found him in the old sewers, the ones they condemned and built right on top of decades ago. I got pretty beat up taking him down, spent days laid up in bed, covered in bruises, delirious with fever and suffering from exposure. Lucky I didn’t lose something to frostbite. That’s when she called it quits. Left a note as soon as I was up and around again and could fend for myself.

I don’t blame her. Still hurts, though.

Seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day – that’s what this gig is all about. No vacation days, no HMO plan, no 401K; just a constant, steady beating on your body and your mind, slowly wearing you down until you have a ‘bad’ day and some freak gets lucky because you’re too slow or too tired or just too damned old. Then it’s ‘game over’ and the city moves onto the next hero to show up and save them from the bad guys.

They have a ‘Fallen Heroes’ museum, you know? It’s downtown. Full of pictures, videos and mementos of all the heroes who got sloppy and kicked it – ain’t no such thing as ‘retirement’ for us. It’s closed three days a week now due to budget cuts and lack of interest. They used to take kids there on school field trips, but the neighborhood has gone down hill so they don’t take the kids there anymore. Too dangerous.

If they don’t close their doors, my costume will probably be in there one day soon. Can feel it in my bones. They’ll rip the mask off my broken body and everybody will stare at my face and say that I look like anybody else, nothing remarkable about me at all – except for the scars. Then they’ll figure out who I was pretty quick. Someone will write up an expose, maybe interview Martha and give her her fifteen minutes of fame. And for a week or two I’ll be the biggest piece of news on the wire. They’ll add me to that museum, probably use my spare costume on a mannequin once they search my place and find it, build a nice little glass encased memorial full of the crap I keep in the basement; my souvenirs. The culmination of my entire crime fighting career reduced to trinkets and knickknacks arranged behind a slab of glass.

It won’t be long until some kid comes along to take my name and run with it, same as happened with the Star Kid when he died two years ago in that embassy bombing. What a mess that was. God.

The costume will be different yet close enough that people will recognize him and think he’s me, but it won’t be. It’ll just be some dumb kid in a mask who never got told what this life would be like if he got into this mess. He’ll do it because it’s fun when you start, because people will look up to him, and because he’ll think he’s making a difference.

Same as me.

Make me famous:

My Writing Projects

Patrick Hester — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:57:44 +0000

I decided an update was in order on my various writing projects. Woot, right? I know you were really curious what’s been going on so here it is.

#1 Sam Kane

Synopsis: Sam Kane is a detective with the Denver PD – it’s her first week as a Detective and she’s already screwed up. Her partner’s in intensive care and her Captain is about to rip her a new ass when in walks Jack Mayfair, a mysterious man with transfer papers that will change her life forever…

Learning that you are a latent Wizard is one thing, beginning your training and being tossed head first into a world of supernatural surprises like vampires and werewolves is something altogether different. Sam has to cope with who she thought she was, who she’s becoming, and what’s just around the next corner.

Well, if you follow the blog or the podcast, you know that I finished up the rough draft of ‘Sam Kane’ a while ago. Since then, I’ve been slowly going through and editing. I should probably emphasize slowly.

It’s a little shy of 110k words right now, and I need to cut it down to 100k. That was always my goal with this book and I want to stick to that number. With that in mind, I’ve been doing a lot of tweaking to the book. There were some very weak points that I knew were weak when I wrote them that I am either changing, rewriting or deleting altogether. Has to be done.

There is also a couple of chapters that need to be totally ditched. I wrote them, I felt good about them, but now in hindsight – it’s just too much. Too long, too much crap, too much talking – it all has to go. Sounding cryptic, aren’t I? Okay – let me try to explain and I know it’s hard given that only one person other than me has actually read the entire piece front to back. Still, I’ll try.

I’ve a character that I wanted to do more with, so I did more. I wrote several chapters where it’s him basically telling a story – a long story (keep in mind that my chapters themselves aren’t very long). I wanted to build him up as a stronger supporting character and I did that, but now I am realizing that it just doesn’t work. The story he tells is too long. The book itself is very fast paced and then you hit this section where this old man talks and talks and talks… It doesn’t work. I see that now. So, the whole thing needs to be redone.

My intention with this book was to have it, despite being 100k words, feel like it goes by so fast (and the one person who has read it cover to cover said that it is very fast paced). Everything happens rapidly over the course of a week (then it became two weeks and I need to get it back to being a single week). I need to stick to that, which means I need to make changes and those are slow in coming. My goal is to have the changes done and the manuscript’s 2nd draft/version ‘complete’ by late September.

Fingers crossed!

#2 Flash Fiction

I wanted to bring a new piece of Flash Fiction to the blog every week either on Tuesdays or Thursdays – I still haven’t made up my mind on that yet. As you can probably tell, that hasn’t happened. It’s not for lack of trying.

I’ve written a dozen or more pieces and few of them have found their way onto the blog. The rest, I struggle with them. I read them and I know I can do better, so I don’t publish them. Which is probably stupid. I should just put them out there for folks to read and get some feedback, but I tend to be a bit OCD on the subject. It has to be worth your time! It has to be perfect!

My favorite piece to date has been ‘Welcome to Solar City’. If you haven’t read that yet, please click the link and check it out.

I’ve tried to explain it before and sometimes I do a decent job and sometimes I don’t, but I’ve always had this notion in my head of ‘The New Universe’. This is the place where my stories take place. There is a past, a present and a future to this universe. Most of it is still in my head, but it’s really clear in my head if that makes a difference. The different things I write, they fit into the grand scheme of things. ‘Welcome to Solar City’ is part of the future. I hope to visit there often (I have ideas..). Lots of tales to tell in that city (Oh, yes, I have ideas…).

#3 Short Stories

I’ve found that when I get an idea, I have to put it down on paper (electronic paper). Too many times, I’ve had a fantastic idea that I didn’t write down and then lost it because other things came up and it got pushed out of my brain, which frustrates me to no end.

I have two such ideas at the moment and I’ve put both down on paper, as it were. The first is something with a working title of ‘Stargazing’. It’s set on a world from that future I mentioned above and could be considered a prequel to a novel I have planned at some point.

The second has a working title of ‘Witchcraft & Satrys’. It’s…different. I like my comedy and this has some in it. This is further along than the first idea mentioned above.

The third are my boys, ‘Malachi and Madrighan’. They are almost always my comic relief, sort of a throwback to the old sword and sorcery movies of the 80’s that were just so terrible you had to watch them. They are brothers born of different fathers who have been assured by their mother that they are, in fact, twins. They are better than fair with a sword so they travel the world getting into trouble, selling their swords to whoever can pay which rarely ever works out well for them. But they’re together and having fun, which is all that really matters to them. Well, that and getting paid. And eating.

This story, with a working title of ‘The Business with the Troll’, is the closest to being ready for publication here on the blog.

Any of the short stories that get published will most likely be serialized. Keep an eye out on twitter or here cuz I hope to be publishing ‘The Business with the Troll’ in a week or two.

#4 Podcast

I know, I know – haven’t done one in a couple weeks. Truth told, I’m still pissed at PodBean. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. As soon as I know, you’ll know.

Well – that’s it for this little update. Hope it whet your appetite for some new fiction coming down the pipe soonish…

Make me famous:

Original Fiction-Welcome to Solar City

Patrick Hester — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:25:48 +0000

Tales from The New Universe: Solar City

“Welcome to Solar City” says the card in large, bright blue letters. It depicts your classic suburban dream complete with a row of large houses each with neatly trimmed yards and white picket fences all lined up nice and proper the way they can only ever manage in a piece of cheesy art. Each home has a large tree in the yard with a swing made of rope and wood hanging from an extra thick branch that just happens to be the perfect length and height for such a thing, as if it were grown for that purpose and that purpose alone. The sky above is blue and pristine, utterly devoid of clouds and the bright yellow and orange sun with its pointed halo has a smile on its face and sunglasses shading its eyes.

The whole thing makes you want to be there, want to live on that street, have barbecues with the neighbors on cool summer nights when the air feels crisp and the fireflies compete with the local stars to see which can be the better source of amusement and delight for all the little kids you’ll have with your plump wife in the frilly apron and the perfect hair that falls just below her shoulders. It’s all a dream concocted by some corporate stooge who lives in a shimmering glass fortress with an iron skeleton billions of miles away on the edge of an ancient city that can’t even remember what a tree looks like or how grass feels on a cool night between naked toes weary of their cotton and leather day prisons.

The reverse of the card shows a name and an address, neither of which are located in Solar City. Just another wide-eyed dreamer come to make their fortune and thrive in the Utopian splendor of the new frontier, a suburban paradise where work is easy to come by, the pay’s great and there’s two women to every man so your chances of getting laid are spectacular. A genetically engineered chicken in every pot and a house for everyone willing to put in some extra effort, roll up their sleeves and help build a community in the farthest reaches of the universe where such things are not commonplace.

The card doesn’t mention the hundred and thirty degree days because this rock is too close to the sun and the terraforming is still underway, or the fact that water is an expensive commodity and there isn’t enough to keep the average person hydrated let alone to waste on watering a lawn. It doesn’t show you that the jobs are all in the mines where at least it’s cooler by ten degrees if you don’t mind your lungs filling with dust and burning from the gasses or the back breaking labor because the company is too cheap to pay for anything other than hand tools and dynamite and ‘worker safety’ is a myth whispered about in the dead of night like sweet nothings in the ear of your lover. Or how, if you’re a woman, most likely you’ll be spending the majority of your time flat on your back with your legs in the air because the company knows that men who get laid are less likely to revolt and rise up to kill their corporate masters for treating them like a disposable commodity.

The sky isn’t even blue here; it’s a hazy red when it isn’t covered in dark clouds from the great machines pumping gasses into the atmosphere in an attempt to make it all the barest of habitable environments for the human animals thrust upon its surface like so much kindling tossed into the fire. The whole thing is a lie, a cosmic joke, the endless cosmic joke, perpetuated on every fresh faced virgin stumbling straight off the transport with their eyes still full of the wonder and excitement at the thrill of new adventure and the prospect of a better life. None expected what they received, none were ready for it, ready for the kind stranger who offered to guide them or show them a place to stay til they got on their feet or simply said ‘hello’ to them in passing. They didn’t know that he or she intended to murder them; steal that wonder and excitement from them along with their very life while leaving them to bake in the sweltering heat of an unforgiving sun on a god forsaken hellhole.

Nothing else was taken, just their lives; as if that weren’t enough. They still had what little money they’d begged, borrowed or stole for the trip out to the rim; pittance really, and hardly enough to buy a meal here, let alone start a life. Each still had a suitcase or a satchel or a duffel full of their worldly possessions clutched in their hands or lying nearby, wholly untouched and undisturbed, not that they would’ve been worth much, but here, anything that is worth something is worth stealing if it means the difference between eating and not eating. No sign of rape, no sign of anything at all on the bodies except for the smashed in skull, always from behind, always looking like someone lost a fight with a burning rage and pounded the poor soul to death like a miner pounds on a rock until it yields the treasure locked within or crumbles to useless dust carted out like so much offal.

Then there’s the card. The little postcard, four and a quarter by five and a quarter, sold in the giftshop out at the port and a hundred others exactly like it spread out all across the galaxy like cookie-cuttered boxes that could be inserted into prime real estate without any fuss. Printed by the Company in mass quantities, impossible to trace and always right there where we can see it, never a speck of blood or gore or anything on it, not even genetic material that the sniffers could sniff out and track. Addressed to the victim but printed not hand written with no return address and a counterfeit payment barcode that somehow, never, ever raised any flags with anybody when it was scanned by the geniuses at the postal service. Placed for us to find right there in the open. Taunting us. Daring us. Saying ‘look at what I’ve done’.

Seventeen so far. All virgins to this place, to this hell we have to call home because not a one of us can afford to escape it. We eat, we sleep, we fuck – someone else if we can afford it; we find dead bodies on the row. Rinse and repeat with genetically engineered meatloaf on Thursdays. None of them are the same, except they are virgins; different ages, different sexes, colors, height, weight – all seemingly random and all across the board without any pattern. Left for dead. Left for me to find. Left for me to clean up. One after another. An endless, nightmarish stream of broken dreams and bodies baking in the sun.

My job is to find out who’s responsible, bring them to justice, make hell safe again for the virgins, keep the flow of workers to the mines consistent and steady. A Company man through and through, as if I ever had a choice. Yay for me.

Yeah. Like the card says, “Welcome to Solar City”.

Make me famous:

Flash Fiction-Whooops!

Patrick Hester — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:12:53 +0000

Whooops!

If this is the way I’m going out, then bring it on.

That’s what I wanted to say. It’s the renegade in me; the rogue. He’s always saying stupid shit like that, and it never, ever ends well.

Still, when you’re staring death in the face, I suppose there are worse things you could say.

“Fuck.”

Like that.

I don’t usually cuss. Honest. I say ’shit’, sure, but that’s not really cussing, right? I admit that, on occasion, a choice phrase or two have been known to slip through and then there’s this f-bomb hanging in the room, kinda like right now, and people are staring at me, and I’m staring at them, and no one is really sure of exactly what to say or how to react. I guess in a situation like this one, the old f-bomb just has a bit more impact because I don’t use it all the time. I suppose, if I were some sort of sailor, I’d probably use it all the time. But, I just find it so crass. It’s sort of like a last resort kinda word, you know what I mean?

“Would someone, please, kill this asshole?”

Now he cusses a lot. You can just tell sometimes, you know? Tall, bald, tons of muscles and no neck, tattoos running up one bare arm and back down the other and this sort of perpetual grimace frozen on his face – yeah, this guy is a cusser. Not that I’m trying to perpetuate any sort of stereotypes or anything. I’m not saying that, just because he has tattoos or muscles or anything, that that precludes him to being this foul-mouthed individual. It’s just, well, he is. You know what? Stereotypes exist for a reason so don’t judge me!

Now, the other four guys – well, three really. I can’t say for sure that the fourth one is a guy or not. I’ve never been able to really tell with the lizard people – it’s the greenish-gray scaley skin that throws me every time. I read somewhere, once – or maybe it was a teacher or something that told me, I don’t recall – anyway, I either read it or heard it, but the gist was, the males had these spikey yellow things on their heads, and the females had these sort of lesser spikey things that were greenish-gold. I know, right? Yellow and gold are so close, you can’t tell either – am I right? And who wants to get close enough to look and tell for sure?

Anyway, the other four – they don’t seem like the cussing type. I can’t know for certain, of course. I doubt they would entertain the idea of a sit down to discuss it. They have other things on their minds right now, and, really – they are henchmen and have to follow orders. Wait – can lizard people be henchmen?

Whooops! Four guns are coming up and are about to be pointed at me and a split second later, they’re going to start shooting. I really don’t want this to be the way I go out, so I’m gonna have to try something a little crazy. Don’t worry – I do this sort of thing all the time. It almost always works out all right. Well, there was that one time with the-but you know what? I prefer to think positively and not dwell on things that my or may not have resulted in certain things becoming liquefied due to unforeseen circumstances beyond my control. And a laser.

First, I release the clasp on the harness, which is the only thing keeping me suspended in the air in the first place. Without that, I start falling towards the floor at a pretty alarming rate. The guns are firing now, but they’re pushing those sonic pulses through the air where I was instead of where I am - a key point and one you’d think they would’ve adjusted for by now – not that I’m encouraging them to react quicker or anything.

I hit the ground running. Well, rolling. Not easy, actually. My armor isn’t bulky but nor is it terribly flexible. Rolling? Well, let’s just say that you really have to be desperate to even try it. Which I am. So I roll. The crates stacked two high in this warehouse are the perfect place to roll to. Well, behind. I can hear that they have adjusted their trajectories now, as blast after blast hits the metal crates and starts shaving off slivers and chunks that are not me so I’m fine with it on the whole. I’m safe for a moment. Sure, also pinned down and there really is nowhere to go from here. But I’m not dead, so there’s an upside.

“Should we return fire, sir?” that in my ear.

“Would you?” I asked. Looking up, I could see the hole where the roof had been not quite as supportive as I thought it would be, causing me to fall prematurely into the fray, as it were. Lucky for me we were preparing to crash in anyway, so I had my harness on and a rope attached, otherwise this would’ve been a very different scene what with the splatting and the broken bones and the knees for shoulders…

The rest of my squad were still up there but my second in command? He does things by the book. Even if it means letting me get shot a lot while he waits for the go ahead. What do you expect from a cyborg? Original thoughts?

“This is the police,” his voice boomed through the warehouse. He could do that sort of thing. “We have you surrounded!” Then he started firing, as did the rest of the squad. Thankfully, this meant I was no longer under fire and could breathe again. I peaked around the corner and saw that the bad guys had dispersed, probably taking cover, except for one, who was lying still right where he fell. The bald, tattooed, muscle endowed leader was running out the far door.

“I’m going to do something stupid, follow me when you can,” I said, then started running after him. The cover fire from above became much more vigorous as I ran past hidden bad guys intent on seeing me dead. Actually, I can’t back that up – I have no proof that they actually want me dead, only that they were ordered to kill me. Really, there is a distinction and I need to give them the benefit of the doubt.

The door looks further away than it probably is. I hope. So I’m running. No one shoots me in the back, so my squad is doing their job. I get to the door and plow through onto the stairwell and listen. The bald guy is running down. I can still catch him. Oh. That part about us having the place surrounded? That was a fib. There’s just us, and us is on the roof and in this stairwell and I need to start running now.

This warehouse backs up onto the junkyard, so this side isn’t level with the opposite side; it plunges down about six flights of stairs. He’s two below me and moving fast, so I take the stairs two at a time, then three, then I just sort of hop from one set of stairs to the next, lower set. Which hurts. Just a bit. I can take something for it after.

I have to hand it to baldy, he can move when motivated. Something about having the police chasing them really motivates criminals to sudden and incredible feats of strength, speed and agility normally unseen by the average human being. I suppose it could also be the illegal cyborg upgrades that a lot of them get that factors into it. I don’t judge. Well, I try not to. Mostly. Still, annoying, right? And so unfair.

I manage to close the distance between us, so that when he hits the door and flies outside, I am only one flight of stairs behind him. I blow through the door, ready to go full on sprint, really, really push and use the last of my energy to catch up to this scum-bag, just an all out, full on, classic sort of police on criminal chase. I’ve prepared myself for that, for the exertion and the pain. Bring it on!

So it just blows my mind that he’s only a couple feet away and pointing a gun right at my face. Which sucks. I mean, what kind of criminal turns to fight when they can run, right?

“Fuck.” There it is again. I honestly do apologize. These moments – they simply bring out the worst in me, I suppose. For his part, the bad guy seems to find it amusing because he’s got this smirk on his face. It’s the kind of smirk you just want to slap right off of a face when you see it, just open hand slap so hard their head snaps to the side and their eyes and teeth just sort of rattle around and they have absolutely no idea whatsoever what just happened and then they give you this look of utter disbelief. That’s the kind of slap I wanted to give him.

See, the rub, the crux of this situation is this; the police have been using these non-lethal sonic weapons for decades now, but the criminals? They don’t play by the same rules. They hack their weapons, crank up the sonics beyond lethal and into the stratosphere somewhere between ‘liquify the human brain’ and ‘pop your eyes like soft boiled eggs’. So, with that weapon pointed at my head, I am, without a doubt, a bona fide goner.

Which is the point where the bad guy is suddenly, and violently, replaced by my second in command. Yeah, the cyborg. He just sort of is there. I blink.

“Sorry, sir. Got here as fast as I could.” I stared at him, at the chrome legs and arms, the human chest and head half covered in chrome itself with that one, creepy green eye that just sort of pulsed at me all the time…

“Did you…?” I wasn’t sure exactly how to end that question, so I just let it hang out there.

“Crush the suspect into the soft ground by pile-driving down onto his shoulders from a high altitude?”

I nodded.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, fuck.”

Make me famous:

Flash Fiction: Ghost Story

Patrick Hester — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:17:42 +0000

Ghost Story

“Well, there it is! The most haunted house in the world! Do you know, they say a hundred people died in there on the same night! Poisoned! And we’re gonna spend the night!” George grinned at his friend Aiden, who appeared to be turning a fine shade of green. Without another word, George stalked up the stairs and into the condemned house, leaving Aiden alone in the over grown yard full of too-tall weeds and stickers. He’d already gotten a couple in his socks and they hurt.

Aiden readjusted his rolled up sleeping bag under his arm and stared up at the old house, the oldest on the block. It had sort of towers that rose up to little flat points surrounded by tiny versions of the iron fence that kept most people out. The windows were all boarded up, the green paint chipped and fading, the porch wide and flat but with spider webs in the shadowy corners and weeds growing up through the cracks. He scratched his cheek, sure he felt a spider crawling there.

George reappeared in the doorway. “What are you waiting for? Come on!” then disappeared again.

Screwing up his courage, Aiden followed his friend of two weeks, taking the steps in one great leap and then rushing inside. He looked around wildly, half expecting ghosts to be sitting or standing around waiting for him and chatting with his friend. Instead, he found a dusty stairwell to his left, a mostly gone chandelier above him and a wide open room to his right. It was here that George sat on his own sleeping bag, engrossed in a pile of old baseball cards he was arranging into piles on the floor.

Aiden quickly scurried into the room and set his sleeping bag up opposite his friend. He looked around the room; there was a fireplace big enough he could probably stand up in it, it had a fancy looking mantle with carvings in the wood and a thick layer of dust. Sitting on top was a broken mirror frame. Jagged shards were still in the top and the bottom, but the rest was gone. Suddenly, he realized that it looked like a giant mouth with teeth and quickly looked away. The walls had wallpaper on them. It was faded, but he could still make out what vague shapes and colors that twirled around. The windows behind him were boarded up on the outside, letting only slivers of the fading sunlight in. He grabbed his little lantern and set it where he could quickly grab it and turn it on as soon as that sun did go down.

“…this is a bad idea,” he muttered. George looked up, concerned, then smiled.

“Don’t you want to see a ghost?” he asked.

“Well…” Aiden said, drawing the word out and looking around again. “I thought I did, but now I don’t know.”

“Look,” said George as he stood up and walked over to his friend. “We both said we wanted to see a ghost and that we’d do this together! Ghosts can’t hurt you or anything, they can just jump out and say ‘boo’ or something, right?” he asked. Aiden nodded, looking around as if he expected one to do just that. “So, we’ll just spend the night and if we see a ghost, that’ll be really neat. And if we don’t, well, we’ll still have a great story to tell at school, right?”

Aiden nodded. He had to admit, his friends would be really impressed to learn that he’d spent the night in a haunted house, not to mention how impressed they’d be if he actually saw a ghost. He nodded to himself again, stronger now. Everyone would want to be his friend.

“Good?” asked George.

“Good,” Aiden replied with a smile. George smiled himself and went back to his baseball cards. Aiden spared them an uninterested glance. He didn’t really care for baseball, unless it was on his PSP, which he slid out of his pocket and turned on, then sat across from George and started playing. When the sun set, he turned on his lantern and they sat huddled around its neon glow until it was very late.

George yawned as he slid into his sleeping bag. They had not seen a single ghost so far, but Aiden hadn’t really looked very hard. He’d almost suggested that they take a look around upstairs, but then realized what he was about to say and snapped his mouth shut so hard his jaw still ached. Aiden followed his friend’s example, switching off his PSP and sliding into his bag.

“Do you think we’ll see anything tonight?” he asked.

“Dunno!” George replied. But he was soon snoring, so that left Aiden alone to stare at the ceiling and listen to the creeks, pops and cracks of the old house. He heard a lot of things that made him jump, but nothing said ‘Boo!’ to him – not even once. And before he knew it, he’d fallen asleep.

“Time to get up!” George shouted. Aiden woke to find his friend sitting up and once again, going through his baseball cards in the weak morning light.

Aiden groaned. His whole body was stiff from sleeping on the floor. He pushed himself up on his elbow and regarded the room again. It didn’t look half as scary as it had the night before. He threw back the top of his sleeping bag and stood up, then walked around a little bit. “Did you see anything?” he asked.

“Like a ghost? Naw, not really,” George replied. “Never do,” he said with a dramatic sigh. “I’m just not that lucky.”

“Yeah,” Aiden agreed. “I was scared and stuff, but now I sorta wish I had seen a ghost.”

George laughed and it echoed through the room. “But, Aiden,” he said. “You did see a ghost.” …and then he faded away, baseball cards, sleeping bag and all.

Aiden ran screaming from the old house.

Make me famous:

Flash Fiction: Dungeon Master

Patrick Hester — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:22:25 +0000

“Um… Okay. You’re standing at a crossroads. You see before you a mist rising from the marsh.”

Duncan stared out above his screen, only his eyes visible to the players crowded around the too small table. To his left was Mark; a Half-Elf Thief unimaginatively named ‘Marc’, a surly sort, always looking over his shoulder and muttering to himself, then came Xander as ‘Rogkar’ the Dwarf, a Warrior whose great battle-axe was nearly taller than he was. On the right sat his brother, Aaron; playing an Elf Predator Druid named ‘Sinese’ currently in her Tiger form and next to him sat Bryon with his Human Paladin, ‘Adama’, complaining about both the Half-Elf and the Dwarf incessantly.

“I don’t want to go into the marsh.” That from Mark. Or ‘Marc’. Sometimes it was difficult to tell which was doing the whining.

“Coward!” bellowed Adama, slamming his hand down on the table and causing everything to jump and shift slightly to the left. Duncan hated that name. He wanted to force Bryon to change it to something less Battlestarish but he was afraid that ‘Starbuck’ was next on his list of names, so he kept his mouth shut.

“Do you have to hit the table?” asked Xander as he scrambled to reset the minis on the map.

“I say we send the Thief into the mist – he should be right at home sneaking through the dark!” Adama again. Bryon rarely broke character during a game.

“Sinese purrs her agreement,” said Aaron.

“I’m bored!” Mark whined. He was the youngest of the group, only just thirteen. Duncan and Xander were fifteen, Bryon fourteen and Aaron thirteen and a half.

“Come on Mark,” Duncan pleaded. He really wanted this campaign to move forward. He had plans. Serious plans. Plans within plans. It had to move forward! “You said you wanted to play.”

“It’s stupid,” Mark complained, thudding his head on the table. He muttered something else.

“What?” Duncan asked.

Mark looked up again. “I said I wanna play Xbox.”

“What is this ‘Xbox’ the fiend speaks of?” shouted Adama. “I know not of such things! Surely it is some evil witchcraft! BURN HIM!”

“Are you always a douche or only on Fridays?” Xander asked him. Bryon’s eyebrows drew together but he said nothing, simply crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair.

The group was falling apart! It was up to Duncan, the Dungeon Master, to pull them together again.

“Why do you want to play Xbox, Mark? This is soooo much better than any Xbox game!”

“No it’s not!” Mark whined. “I want HD graphics and explosions and monsters!”

“But, this has all of that and better!” Duncan countered. Mark looked unconvinced. Duncan took a deep breath. “Look, your imagination is better than any old Xbox graphics! Let me paint a picture for you; You are standing at a crossroads. The night is cool, the air crisp and clean. To your left you can hear the music from a lively inn. The air carries to you the scent of roasted pork and sweet apple wood burning on the fires. You can just make out the glow from those fires beyond the curve in the road. Before you, the road trails off into a misty covered marshland. You hear the sounds of crickets and frogs and smell the musty/wet scent of old growth and rotten, decaying foliage. Down this road is the half-sunken temple of the old King Dorain, his wealth legendary, his obsession with protecting that wealth overshadowing that legend. Rumor has it, that temple is guarded by the undead, Zombies who want nothing more than to eat your brains. To your right, the dirt road becomes ancient stones five paces wide by five paces long. It stretches on as far as your eyes can see and deep into the distant mountains, leading into the West and becoming the Road to Faloan, seat of the High Elves and their massive forests.”

Duncan looked each of his players in the eye. Aaron sat with his mouth open, eyes wide and filled with excitement. Duncan could only smile at his little brother, proud that he had awed him so. Byron had a similar expression on his face, eyes wide and mouth open. To his left, Xander sat with a smirk on his face. He alone, as Duncan’s best friend, knew the work that had gone into this campaign, all the hours he’d spent, research he’d done. Duncan nodded to him and Xander nodded back. Plans within plans.

Then he looked at Mark, who looked like he swallowed a bug.

“See? If you use your imagination, there is so much more possible! There really is no limit!” Duncan pleaded with him.

“That’s stupid!” Mark cried. “I don’t wanna use my imagination – I wanna play Xbox!”

Duncan hit his head on the table, then tossed a die on the table, not even bothering to see how it landed. He muttered to himself.

“What?” Mark asked.

Duncan looked up and shouted, “A DRAGON SWOOPS DOWN AND EATS STUPID MARC IN A SINGLE GULP AND THEN WINGS AWAY WITH A FULL BELLY AND A SMILE NOW GET OUT AND GO PLAY XBOX!”

Mark exited quickly, slamming the door to the basement as he hit the landing above. Duncan looked over his screen at his remaining players. They were each staring at something of interest on the table before them so they would not have to meet his eye. Duncan picked up his dice, rolling them over in his hands. “Okay, so, you’re standing at a crossroads in stunned silence at the pointless, sudden and violent death of your comrade. You see before you a mist rising from the marsh…”

Make me famous:

Flash Fiction: Free Falling

Patrick Hester — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:18:23 +0000

This is an original work of Flash Fiction by Patrick Hester

Free Falling

Falling from a thirtieth floor window sucks.

If you don’t have a parachute, it’s worse. Still, I don’t panic. I still have the crossbow and the bolt with the line. Plus the automatic pistol. I shoot down, shattering the windows below me, then pull the crossbow and shoot for the hole I’ve made as I pass it. The ground is rushing up, or am I rushing down?

The line is attached to my harness and as soon as the bolt hits, I can feel the tug, feel the resistance. I have no idea what the bolt has hit or how well it’s in place, so I have to make this count. I pull the brake and start to swing in. The machine pistol makes short work of the window and in I go. I didn’t give myself enough slack though, so I have to cut the line or else get pulled back out the window which, as I already mentioned, sucks.

Luckily, my harness has a dead man’s switch; it slices right through my bi-pattern 9.9mm, Dry-Core two hundred dollar line. My feet firmly back on solid ground again, I take my first breath in I don’t know how long and then start racing for the door. I’m in some sort of office, lots of computers and cubicles but no serious lock on the door, just one of those deadbolts with the switch on the inside – I love those. So easy to get passed em.

Elevator is still locked down, so I hit the stairwell. I can hear the shouting from upstairs. The guys who forced me to exit through the window in the first place are not happy that I’m back inside. It’s my fault they’re on me; missed a pressure sensor on the display case. I’ll kick myself later. I pause on the top stair and pull out the small bottle of vegetable oil from my backpack and spread it in a thin line across that stair, then I start down. From the noise above, I don’t have much time so I skip some stairs here and there.

There’s a satisfying yelp followed by tumbling noises above and I allow myself a brief smile. The random gun fire wipes it away. Idiots! Who shoots a damned gun blindly down the stairs?! Do they not know that bullets ricochet?! I go through a door with a giant ‘3′ on it and look around. Nothing screams ‘use me’ except for the fire extinguisher, which I pull off the wall and start spraying towards the door to create a little fog. It’s less than I hoped for but it’ll do. I don’t have much time. I jump into one of the cubicles and see a stash of Mardi Gras beads. I cut the string and toss the loose beads down the hall, then spray the rest of the fire extinguisher’s contents after the beads.

If I remember my floor plan correctly, I’ve got another stair well in the north corner so I start running. I hear the shouting behind me, hear the crash as someone slips and slides. I round the corner before they can figure out which way I went. It won’t take them long to catch up though, so this is where all that cross-country training comes in handy because I can punch it and go full out sprint. I’m through the door and down another flight of stairs in eight seconds, which isn’t bad, though not a personal best.

I’m nearly out of tricks.

The first floor has a security desk and some monitoring equipment but nothing too terribly fancy. The plan never included having to get out of the building this way. I can’t imagine the guards haven’t heard the shooting, which means they’ll either be on alert and paying attention or they have called the cops or both. None of these scenarios especially appeal to me at the moment, but I don’t see another way out at this point.

I slip through the door and listen; nothing comes to my ears and I have excellent hearing. I push down the hallway, towards the only option left to me; the front doors. The halls are lined with this green marble tile – pretty snazzy stuff. I’m hugging the left wall pretty close, trying to get a glimpse of the security desk. What I see isn’t good, so I stop skulking and step out into the foray.

“Freeze!”

I count at least a dozen cops spread out, weapons drawn, all looking at me. Behind them I can see a line of squad cars forming a perimeter outside and all of it cutting me off from escape.

It’s so much easier to steal things when you don’t get caught.

I slowly raise my hands, releasing the small flash grenade I palmed before stepping out into the open. It’s a small, silver ball – my own design. It bounces once. Twice. All eyes are on it except mine, which are shut when it goes off. Screams but I’m already moving. Past the disoriented police officers blinking against the spots, through the glass double doors and out beyond the squad cars with their red and blue flashing lights.

I don’t stop until I’m at the door of the limousine. The driver opens the door and I slide right in. The man inside is wearing a suit that costs more than my monthly mortgage payment, and he is anything but pleased as I take my glass of champagne and down it. I slide the 800 year old Japanese sword onto the seat between us, then press the button on the timer. Twenty-two minutes. That is a personal best.

“I told you your security sucked,” I say with a smile. I pour myself another glass of champagne. Easiest two hundred and fifty thousand dollars I’ve ever made, and all to help fix the holes in this guy’s security.

…then the bastard picks up the sword, admiring it. The limo starts moving and something occurs to me; the look in his eye as he stares at the sword, that’s lust. Then he stabs me with the damned sword I just stole for him. I’m an idiot. I should’ve known. I’m still awake when he pushes me out the door of the moving car easily doing sixty-five. I hit the pavement and take a bounce down the embankment before everything goes dark.

Make me famous: