84) By The Bridge

    My legs were cramping, my ass was cold and damp, my mind was wondering. I’d been sitting the same cramped position in the second basement car park under some middle American mall for the last eight hours. I didn’t know what city I was in, let alone which state. And as a professional super hero I only have myself to blame for my situation. Today’s big baddie was supposed to come through this particular parking lot sometime today. I should have asked for a more definite time window. I wish we could read a book on these things.
    Unprofessionally my mind was wondering and I remembered the first time my powers manifested. I was twelve years old and walking back home after school with my friend Mark. Thing you gotta know about Mark is that he was that kid who would run after you with poo on the end of a stick just to hear you scream and then earnestly wonder why you were mad at him later. Yea, a real joker.
    We went to Blossom Hill Middle school, a couple miles from home through a small forest and several housing developments.
    About halfway through the tiny forest Mark motioned me over to the edge of the trees where a small bridge crossed a mostly dried up river bed. I was a little shy but he kept motioning me over. I had a new video game waiting for me at home and cold chocolate milk and a cookie and Mark wasn’t really to be trusted.
    “Come on, it’s really cool, I swear.” He said.
    I frowned, but eventually gave in to curiosity.
    Down by the small stone bridge, tucked in behind the brambles was what looked like a pile of filthy clothing.
    “So?” I said.
    “It’s a dead body, you dummy.”
    And like those hidden 3d pictures where first you only see noise and then a picture of a shark or a building will pop out, it was like that. That weird bit of grey shadow became a a pale dead hand, that dark lump of cloth was actually a ragged tangle of hair. I gasped and vomited a little in my mouth, but I couldn’t look away.
    Then two things happened simultaneously. Mark, the ever sneaky prankster, screamed out loud, and I saw something glowing from the body down below. Mark ran off, still screaming and I took a step towards the strange thing down below.
    Then I heard a rustle. I was old enough to have seen more than my share of zombie movies, but I knew that was just fantasy, just made up stories. At least I thought there were only stories until I saw that dead man’s arm rise up out of the brambles and head right towards me. His fingers dangled limp and bloated at the end of his rotted limb and something from inside his forearm glowed brightly.
    I screamed, turned tail, and ran after Mark. After only a few steps something heavy and fleshy hit me in the back of the head. I pitched forward and landed face first in the wet dead leaves. The strangest thing is that I could still see the glowing from earlier behind me. It’s really hard to explain. It’s kind of like hearing and smell at the same time. It’s like hearing because I can focus on it, but it’s like smell because it hits me all at once. Maybe that’s not the right way to put it either. Regardless, I was still freaking out. I got up and tried to run, but this thing kept bumping into me. Eventually I turned around and it was the dead man’s arm hovering a foot or so above the ground like an excited puppy.
    What would you do?
    I fell over again from shock and tried to back up away from it, but it kept following me at a friendly distance. I screamed some more, but it continued to float there. I gave up and yelled, “Go away!”
    And it did. It flew back away from me and splatted into a tree.
    Shaking I stood up and walked back home alone, my nerves jangling and heart racing. When I got home I was so relieved that I forgot about the whole episode.
    It wasn’t until I woke up the next morning and my whole house was glowing in that same way that I was really concerned. As I took my morning shower and looked at the nozzle and the knobs it finally clicked. I could see the metal all around me.

83) Closet Survivor

    The first few days were the worst, but my quick thinking paid off and that got me through it, knowing that I was smarter than everyone else.
    Imagine utter darkness for a week while the world falls around you. That's my life. I brought two box of health bars, 10 gallons of water with me, and a plastic bucket with a lid. I bet you can guess what I use the bucket for. I think my biggest secret is to sleep most of the time, which is easy because that’s all I tended to do anyways.
    Maybe you’re not familiar with what happened, maybe my words will somehow get out into an alternate timeline where the dead didn’t rise, where we didn’t bomb our cities and napalm the suburbs.
    I had maybe six hours more warning than most people, being all connected to the electronic world I saw it happen in Sydney and Japan and India and Europe and could put the pieces together as the sun brought the ravenous dead to life.
    Back in my closet I have no sense of time. My watch says it’s Sunday at noon, but it feel like Friday night, whatever that means. If there’s no one else to coordinate with does time really exist? I don’t think so.
    A few days ago some survivors made it up to me in the Observatory. Didn’t I tell you that? Didn’t I tell you where I am? Right up on a huge hill overlooking the Los Angeles city basin, used to be more people in there than all of Canada. Hows about that?
    Today I heard them come in and argue and there were some gun shots and then that was it. I could almost make out their words.
    I wish I was a bear so I could have just hibernated and let all the would-be survivalists burn themselves out. And I’d have a fuzzy jacket all around me.
    I couldn’t save my roommates, it was hard to put down my cat.
    I guess the government figured out what was going on when I did. One of the last things I saw before I hid in the closet was the firebombing of downtown Los Angeles. Huge silent balls of flame rose up to the cloudless sky. No summer blockbuster movie looked like that. In the movies you’re always up close to the action and there’s a THX sound system rattling the theatre and your bowels. And I’m sure if this ever gets made into a move there will be some handsome survivor standing alone, or with a hottie, on a hill watching LA burn. No, it’s just fat lazy lucky old me. Less fat than I had going into the closet, totally.
    And typing away at my phone. It’s one of those with three weeks of charge at a time. I give myself a five minutes everyday and write my self an SMS. I’m afraid I’ll go insane when I can’t do anything, when I run out of food or the battery dies. I’m afraid I’ll have to go outside and deal with the real world.

82) Imigration

    We’re at a crowded airport terminal, high ceilings, beige vinyl floor and people in a queue snaking back and forth for hundreds of yards in front of bored agents sitting in their booths.
    “Next!”
    The man that walks up to the available booth is bald and a little hunched over carrying his meager luggage. Something subtle is wrong with him, maybe a spinal problem or simply a hard life. He doesn’t use a cane or a walker, but maybe he did at some recent point and he’s trying to be strong, trying to be self sufficient. He makes eye contact with the agent and they both smile wearily.
    Before the agent can say anything the man pulls out his papers and lays them down on the counter for the agent. The agent scans them and says, “Welcome to New America Sir, what is the nature of your visit?”
    Betraying his weakened body his voice is strong and almost lilting, “Just here to visit family for Christmas. Got a young niece in London. Going to stay with her family for two weeks.”
    The agent ignores the old man for a minute and pours over his computer monitor. He frowns and says, “Says here you have a mechanical animal, mister Simmons.”
    Simmons says, “Yup.” and pulls out a small white package from under his arm and places it on the agent’s counter.
    “Would you mind activating it for me, sir?”
    “Aaup, no problem.” Simmons presses something on the back end of the wooly pile and it shudders awake. A set of stumpy black legs curl out from its side, a round black head pops up out front, and it emits a weak bleat. The agent smiles and says, “I used to have one of these as a kid. Where’d you get it?”
    “Mmm, s’been in the family for a while now.”
    “Ok, sir, I’m going to have to scan it just now. Has it had any modifications that might interfere with the scan?”
    “Mmm, nope.”
    “Thank you, sir.” The agent scans the mechanical sheep with a circular wand. A little red light pops up and he investigates. He pulls out another wand, this one has branching limbs on the end.
    Simmons isn’t interested and leans against the agent’s booth.
    The agent finishes up and smiles, “She’s clean Mr. Simmons. And you’re good to go. Have a nice stay.” He stamps the papers and hands them back. The man gathers them up awkwardly and shuffles off into the airport. The sheep baas woefully under his arm.

81) Herbie's Introduction

    There is a shadow dimension just under the skin of the world and we are your best defense against it, the Illuminates. My name is Herbert Howard and I may only be a Trainee, but I promise to do better than my best against the secret dark forces that would drive you mad if you really knew what they were.

    Most people call me Herbie, I’m fifteen, tall and skinny, and a high school junior at East Valley High in Merced California. My parents are full agents and have been since they were my age. It’s an interesting life, but extra hard because between studying for algebra and world history I’m training for magical battles or hacking into government computer systems.

    Just last week we had to fly out to Italy to sneak into the Vatican. That was nuts. And all for this weird grimoire without any real writing in it, I sneaked a peak, I couldn’t help myself. But it was all chicken scratches. I couldn’t even tell if I was holding it up the right way.

80) Accidental Spell

    “Ok, I think we’re done for the day. Thanks Archimedes.” My assistant and watcher, an overgrown Rhinoceros beetle grumbled, walked off the book we had been reading, and with a sputter flew off back into the house.
    Actually we had been done for a good half hour before. He’s a sweetheart, but when Archimedes reads for more than an hour or two his accented and monotone voice puts me to sleep, or at the very least a drowsy state where I can’t retain anything that he’s saying.
    I ran my fingers over the book’s rough pages. There were words there in plain black ink, but it was all chicken scratches to me. I could have cast something to make it readable, but then the knowledge of what I’d read would be gone with the spell. This was a thick tome and I didn’t want to become one of those living books who can only cast spells related to retaining information or else lose it all, a noble if sick addiction.
    I left the work on the table and got up. Even though it was late afternoon the heat and humidity quickly returned. It’s funny how studying focuses all your senses and the fact that you’re in one of the most beautiful places in the world just evaporates. I walked out to the lanai and lost myself again, but this time in the deep green of a rain forest instead of the interlocking symbols and syllables of ancient spells.
    I slipped on my sandals and walked out of the house. I took the trail down to the beach. Ancient spells swam in my head, their shapes and functions, assumptions and implications made me dizzy for a moment. So dizzy I had to sit down on a moss covered rock.
    The book had been recently recovered from the Vatican. Older than Christianity, Egyptian or Sumerian maybe. The language, even when translated, was circuitous. The meanings of words went around and around in circles, sometimes branching out and interlocking, sometimes ending abruptly. The shapes they made reminded me of some of the twisted proteins I studied back in College.
    On the last page I recalled there had been one strangely lyrical passage about rain and thunder, fire and sound that had stuck in my head. Maybe the colors of the clouds reminded me of it.
    The low rumble of a plane flying overhead caught my attention. Hawaiian Airlines, the purple silhouette of the pretty girl on the tail of the plane was easily visible even from this far away.
    Out of nowhere, and against all my training and hard won experience, I began to mumble a spell from the book. Before I could stop myself it was done. I didn’t have long to worry if anything would happen because a huge bolt of lightning exploded out of the ocean and pierced the plane’s wing. The engine burst into flames then belched out black smoke. I didn’t stay around to see if it landed safely, we needed to get the hell out of there.
    I got up and ran back to the house, swearing under my breath the whole time. I ran straight to Archimedes’ room. I hadn’t visited him there in his personal space the whole month we’d been here together, I wanted to give him his privacy, but this was an emergency.
    The door was open a crack. I knocked politely on the jamb. “Hey, Archimedes, we have a problem. We need immediate extraction.”
    I heard shuffling from the other side of the door and two spindly legs pulled open the door.
    I wouldn’t say we were soul mates, or even best friends, but out here in the middle of nowhere and a thousand dimensions from home he was my only friend. Even as he chattered at me angrily in English peppered with Insect I realized how much I’d come to rely on him for companionship and now I’d thrown it all away because I couldn’t keep a stupid spell locked down and my mouth shut. No doubt he’d be reassigned and I’d be heavily disciplined for my mistake, if not entirely stripped of my ability to hold mana. I might even be blinded and deafened. I’ve heard of worse.
    “I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to…” He cut me off with a curt swipe of his scythe like horn. Without another word he popped out his wings. I could see a thick puff of mana curling off of them. He took off and slipped through reality. 
    Depending on the path he took, and if any agents found him, and if he didn’t just leave me behind it could be several hours or days until help came.
    I sulked into the kitchen and got myself some left over sushi from the fridge. I took it to the back lanai, watched the sunset, and tried to enjoy my last moments of freedom.

79) Plane Escape

    I had nothing but the clothes on my back, a set of toiletries, and several well coordinated government agencies trying to find me.
    Dallas Forth Worth Airport, late evening, the shops inside are closing down and my time is running thin. I’ve been hiding like a coward in the bathroom for several hours trying not to cast any spells while  waiting for the boarding call back to New York. As soon as I spent any mana I would be on their radar again. Hell, most airports are giant scrying glyphs. You cast a spell and it’s echoes all around in a traceable pattern. Well, if you have a powerful enough computer you could trace it back to the source.
    I glanced at my watch, ten minutes to go. It was now or never. I pulled out my eye drops and practiced a spell in my mind, something with parts of a sleeping spell and parts of a mesmerism spell topped off with a go-to potion spell. I didn’t have time to test it out, I didn’t have time to do the proper weighting on paper, sometimes you gotta wing it. And if I was unlucky I could use on myself and erase my memory before I was captured.
    I held the eye drops with both hands around the tiny bottle and cast the spell. Even though it was a simple spell I swear I could feel the magic blossom, fill out the room, and immediately leak into the hallway. I waited a second to let the magic set in the potion and then put some drops in my eyes. It stung like hot oil for a second then absorbed into my mana body and the pain was gone. I blinked out tears and left the bathroom.
    I wiped my eyes and strode straight to the gate. I quickly sussed out my quarry, a fellow human, older and disheveled. Someone who wouldn’t look out of place passed out at an airport toilet stall.
    I found one, an older white guy. I looked around to make sure he did have a ticket, I could see it peaking out of his inside jacket pocket. I tried to look less than suspicious walking over to him.
    We made eye contact and a beat later he was mine, “Excuse me, sir, would you come with me please?”
    He tried to shake off the suggestion, a normal response to any mesmerism spell. Thankfully he wasn’t wearing any protection spells or I would have been lost. He nodded his consent, stiffly stood and followed me.
    I took him by the arm to steady him and whispered into his ear, “You’re going to hand me your plane ticket and identification. Then you’re going to walk to a bathroom stall, close and lock the door behind you. Then you’re going to sleep. When you wake up you’re going to forget these instructions and who gave them to you. Acknowledge.”
    “Yes, master.”
    I hated taking advantage of the innocent and even more I hated stealing, but when your whole nation’s way of life is threatened you’ll do just about anything to save them.
    He complied easily. I took the ticket, boarded the plane and we took off. I finally breathed a sigh of relief and for an hour I almost thought I got away. I was nodding off when the ward tattooed into my left arm began to burn, someone nearby was looking for me. I tried to calmly look around the cabin. The lights were off except for a few people reading.
    “Psst, hey.” I heard a small voice. It took me a second to figure out where it was coming from, right in front of me. I looked over the seat and a small sheep was sitting alone, illuminated by a reading light above it.
    His voice was high pitched like a child’s, but scratchy like a child raised on whiskey and cigarettes, “Ah, there you are. My old eyes aren’t what they used to be. Lucky for you you’re right here, eh?”
    “What do you want, what’s going on? Are they here?” I obviously hadn’t been tricky enough. If there were agents on the plane against me there apparently were agents on my side too.
    “Oh ho ho, they’re all around us young man. And you shouldn’t be.” He coughed and something small and shiny emerged from his mouth. He turned around and stretched his neck up and forward to me. I took the hint and grabbed the thing out of his mouth but didn’t look at it. I slipped it into my pocket.
    “He he, you should probably get going now. Go, go, do our queen proud!”
    I’ve never been much of a royalist, but I took his advice. Without a word I squeezed out into the cramped alleyway and walked back to the bathrooms. I could hear some shouting from first class. I slid the door closed just as the cabin lights came on and several tough looking guys walked through the curtains separating cattle class from first class barely sixty feet away.
    My heart beat hard in my chest. The spell in my eye drops was long past potency and there was no way it’d work against several trained professionals at the same time even if I had it in gallon quantities. With what was left I might be able to knock myself out, but there was no way could I erase all my memories.
    I racked my brain trying to figure out what to do next. My fingers fiddled with the sheep’s little metal thing. I took it out. It was a small key, like something you’d use to open a teenager’s diary.
    I heard knocking on the doors to the bathrooms next to me and excited screams. Time was running out. I closed my eyes and prayed.
    Dear mother queen of all fairy, please guide my hand to do your justice and your will…
    The key pulled my hand towards the sliding door. That didn’t make any sense, there wasn’t a keyhole there. Sure enough though the key made its own hole. I turned the key and pulled the door back like a normal wooden door, not the accordioning door it should have been.
    Wet salty air blew in from the other side. I pulled the key out, crossed the threshold, and closed the door behind me just as shouts were coming from the other side. I wondered if they saw me leaving, I wondered what they would tell their superiors.
    What I was sure of is that I had little time if any. Word would reach General Watherton and he’d send out a warlock hit squad after me on this side of the fold, that is if I was in Fey.

78) Last Stand

    The crystal medallion pulled hard against the fabric of her being and tried to return to the ground from which it had come. Inside her chest she could feel it push her living components around. When she scraped by a torch on the wall she could see it gleaming through her dark flesh that was pulled taught and thin around the damned thing. She thought that carrying it through the Roster fields and across the Essen swamp was hard, but this was madness. The higher she climbed in the mountain fortress the harder the medallion pulled against her.
    Goblins raced several floors below. She couldn’t hear them, but she could feel them. And they were getting closer.
    She wished that Aton was still with her, that obnoxious human had been a good host, but she wouldn’t have gotten this far without his sacrifice. She felt her face grow thin with sadness. He would have smoothed over her frustration by telling some stupid aimless joke or…
    She screamed out in pain and fell against a rough stone wall. The darkness binding her body together had ripped inside.
    With no supplies and no companions saving the world was all up to her, but she didn’t think she could make it. She fell, shuddering in pain and curled against the wall. She stopped and tried to pull all of her strength inward. She remembered her parent showing her healing spells and fortification methods. She tried to pull herself together, sacrificing other parts of her body to shore up the broken parts. She pulled in her left arm, pushed it down to support the medallion and replace the structure inside her that had turned into lifeless shadow. Her left hand became a sad stumpy version of its old self.
    She concentrated hard and the world snapped back into focus. Though she felt stronger panic set in. The goblins were even closer, probably just around the bend. She twisted off what remained of her hand and threw it as a brute darkness spell down at the torches on the wall. The torches sputtered, she held her breath, and finally they went out.
    Aton’s lasts words echoed in her head, “I believe in you.”
    She knew that flakes and strips of herself were undoubtedly falling off from the exertion, but she got up and didn’t look back. She had a mission to complete, a fate to fulfill. She propped herself up against the wall and groped around in the dark for the staircase she had seen earlier. She slid up it towards the roof, towards the altar and the salvation of her world.