Mandy White's Blog: Dysfictional, page 14

Sam and Roscoe Need Your Help

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-sam-and-roscoe-move-to-their-new-home?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cf%20share-flow-1&fbclid=IwAR0DmzbVZCo-W8P6Aood09I4AULnO9XXhxdgpn_5bo0VSbumF7tXF36bJxI

I have found myself in a difficult position. My rental home has sold and I need to move on short notice. Due to the housing crisis, the biggest hurdle is finding a place to live that will accept my dogs. I have succeeded in finding an ideal home, but it means a long distance move and leaving my current job to start another. The transition is going to be rough financially, with the cost of the move and the gap in paydays while I am between jobs.

Roscoe, still spry at 14

I’m not one of those assholes who would get rid of a pet just to get a rental. My dogs mean everything to me, and I will make this move to ensure I can continue to provide them with a loving forever home.

Sam, my water-loving gentle giant

I’m running a fundraiser between now and the time I move, because I’ve done the math and there’s no way I can earn the amount I need on such short notice. I’m moving October 1, and need to have rent and deposits paid and a truck rented, plus I need to be able to pay my regular monthly expenses until I get paid from the new job.

Someone suggested GoFundMe, so I started a fundraiser there. But the drawback is they only accept credit cards, and not everyone has one of those.

Several donors have wanted to send their contributions via PayPal or Canadian e-transfer, so here is the email address for that: drivebydelivery@hotmail.com ~ For Canadian e-transfer, no password is required; the account is set to auto-deposit.

I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has contributed so far. Even five dollars will make a difference, and every dollar raised will go to the expenses outlined in the fundraiser. If you can’t donate, that’s ok, thank you for listening. If you can share the link, I would be ever so grateful.

Blessed Be

Mandy White

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-sam-and-roscoe-move-to-their-new-home?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cf%20share-flow-1&fbclid=IwAR0DmzbVZCo-W8P6Aood09I4AULnO9XXhxdgpn_5bo0VSbumF7tXF36bJxI

Chester Gnome

A writer friend of mine wrote this clever parody of Big Bad John, inspired by my garden gnome, who now has a name: Chester. Thanks to the talented Rick Turton, and apologies to Jimmy Dean and Roy Acuff.

Chester Gnome

By Rick Turton

~*~

Ev’ry mornin’ at the shed you could see him arrive,

He stood two-foot one and weighed, oh, ‘bout five.

Kinda’ broad at the shoulders with a pointy little hat

Everyone knew ya’ should fear and dread… Ches-ter.

Ches-ter… Ches-ter-er… Chester Gnome

Nobody seemed to know where Chester came from

Just drifted to the lawn and stood off in the sun.

He didn’t say much, (‘cuz what can gnomes say)

And if you spoke at all, ya’ just said “Hey” to Ches-ter,

Ches-ter… Ches-ter-er… Chester Gnome

Somebody said he’s from Abilene,

Where he got in a fight over a sprite named Queen

And a crashin’ blow from his stubby right hand

Sent a lawn supply troll to the Promised Land… Ches-ter.

Ches-ter… Ches-ter-er… Chester Gnome

Then came the day at the back of the yard,

When a tree fell over and the gnomes cried hard

Sprites were a-prayin’, and hearts beat fast,

All the gnomes there thought they’d breathed their last

‘cept Chet.

Ches-ter… Ches-ter-er… Chester Gnome

Through the leaves and the twigs of that tree-made hell

Walked a giant of a gnome that the pixies knew well.

Grabbed the door of the shed, and gave out with a groan,

And like a short, stumpy elf he stood there alone – Ches-ter.

Ches-ter… Ches-ter-er… Chester Gnome

With all of his strength, he gave out with a grunt,

Then a goblin yelled out, “There’s a light out in front!”

And twenty elves scrambled from a would-be grave.

Now there’s only one left in there to save – Ches-ter.

Ches-ter… Ches-ter-er… Chester Gnome

With hammers and timbers, they started back in

Then came the rumbling, a terrible din.

And leaves and twigs belched out of that shed,

Everyone knew… that Chester was dead.

Ches-ter… Ches-ter-er… Chester Gnome

Now they never reopened that worthless shack.

But out in front, they placed a handsome bronze plaque.

These few words are written on that tomb…

“Under this tree, lies one hell of a Gnome.

Ches-ter

Ches-ter… Ches-ter-er…

Chester Gnome

*To the tune of “Big Bad John” – with deepest, most sincere apologies to Jimmy Dean and Roy Acuff

You can read more of Rick Turton’s work in some of WPaD’s anthologies, such as Tinsel Tales 2. Available worldwide on Amazon.

Dysfictional 4: Apocalypse Aplenty

My newest release is finally here, and I’m stoked to share this one with everyone!

Beat the summer heat with a collection of cool new stories, most of which have an apocalyptic tone – that wasn’t intentional, it was just the way things turned out. I seem to have apocalypse on the mind a lot lately.

~ A scientist develops body-swapping technology, but she must keep it out of the wrong hands…
~ The extinction of the honeybee brings an unexpected result…
~ A zombie virus only affects women…
~ A homeless hacker destroys the world’s supply of digital currency…
~ Teenagers navigate dating in a post-pandemic future…
~ A fugitive finds his benefactor and only friend has met with an unfortunate end…
~ An aspiring reality TV star finds herself in a real-life apocalypse…

Enjoy these stories and more in Dysfictional 4!

~ New Release ~ Now available wor ldwide on Amazon! ~

The Fall of Man

When it all began, nobody could possibly have known that a porn star would change the world forever.

They didn’t want the technology to fall into the wrong hands. The wrong hands, of course, being mostly of the male persuasion. It was a stroke of luck that the scientist who made the discovery happened to be a woman. The scientist in question was one Dr. Beatrice Seadie, or Bea, as she preferred to be called.

Bea began her career with the most altruistic of motives. Like many scientists, she sought to change the world for the better, but she had little vision of what that would entail. Fresh out of university and employed by a government-controlled research firm, she obediently followed instructions and shared findings with her superiors.

Until one day, she stumbled upon something outstanding while working on an unrelated project. She chose that day to distance herself from her employer. The government wanted to develop teleportation, which was frightening enough when one considered the possible uses for the technology.

But that was nothing.

Teleportation was small potatoes compared to what Bea found. And she would not let it fall into the hands of the powerful men who controlled the world.

The teleporter was for the most part, a failure. Bea managed to disassemble simple inanimate objects at a molecular level and then reassemble them in an alternate location. But it only worked with solid objects with a basic chemical composition: minerals, metals, and the like. Anything with moving parts, or synthetics such as plastic, failed to teleport.

The first trials with live subjects yielded unusual results. The test subject, a mouse, did not teleport. At first, it seemed unchanged by the process. After a few days of observation, it became clear that the mouse was dying. It would not eat or drink. It sat in its cage, unmoving. The lights were on, so to speak, but nobody was home. The mouse died of dehydration eight days later.

Bea didn’t yet know what she had discovered, but she did know that she no longer wanted to work for her current employer.

* * *

Inspired by the mouse, Bea took her work in a different direction in the privacy of her basement laboratory. She strove to accomplish what medical science and hypnosis had tried and failed to. Her work focused on the elimination of unwanted components of the subject’s personality: addictions, phobias, compulsions. If the attempt at teleportation had removed whatever consciousness resided in a little mouse brain, what if the process could be refined to only remove select parts? She continued her work, one painstaking step at a time, and five years later, she was ready for human trials.

Volunteers were easy to find; there was always someone in need of a few dollars. Certainly some might have condemned the ethics of her use of homeless addicts for experimentation, but from a scientific standpoint, it was a necessary evil. The first attempts failed. The subjects ended up like the mouse. Just a blank slate. Although they never used drugs again, which could be considered a success.

The solution came to her following a heavy rainstorm. She took a break from the lab to relieve frustration with some mundane yard work. The sidewalk near her front porch drained poorly, always leaving a puddle at the base of the stairs. She swept the water furiously to keep it from leaking into the foundation, but it kept running back down into the low spot and re-forming the puddle. No matter how many times she swept it away, some ran back. The water needed someplace else to drain, and the empty spot needed to be filled.

Drain and fill.

Holy shit! That was it!

The next trial involved two subjects. One a heroin addict, and one a smoker, both of whom desired to kick their habits. After the trial, both subjects still had their minds intact. The addict no longer craved heroin. The non-addict, sadly, was in for a nasty bout of detox. The silver lining was, he no longer craved cigarettes. And of course, each was in the other’s body.

Bea had discovered a way to transport a person’s mind into another body. Everything that made the individual who they were – the soul, as it were – could be removed from one body and placed into another body of their (or Bea’s) choice.

The next step was to find out if the process was reversible, and what, if any, side-effects there were. After numerous trials, it appeared reversal did indeed work, and none of the subjects suffered any ill effects.

However, Bea made some interesting observations in her continuing work with addicts. She kept contact with the subjects to see how they adjusted to their new lives. In more than eighty percent of all addict swaps, the addicts relapsed to their habits. Their physically addicted bodies healed under the care of their new owners; relapse rate for the bodies was nearly zero. The only exceptions were in two cases in which the new owner of the addict’s body had a past history of drug abuse. But, the minds of the addicts, free from addiction in new bodies, appeared unsatisfied with sober life and began using again, some almost immediately. The only ones who remained sober were those truly committed to freeing themselves from addiction. It reinforced what Bea had always suspected; that addiction ran much deeper than mere physical dependency. She wished she could share her findings with someone who was in the business of studying addiction, but of course that was impossible to do without revealing her secret.

She decided to shelve her work with addicts and proceed in a different direction. A pair of willing participants, it seemed, was the key to success. She had the proverbial billion-dollar idea. The question was, what to do with it? The possibilities were limitless. She considered selling it to the highest bidder, but shuddered at the thought of who would be bidding on it. No, it was best to keep the technology safe from the many evil people who had access to large sums of money; to keep it a well-guarded secret. But how to use it? And with whom could she share it?

A close friend provided the answer. Andy was a childhood friend, whom Bea trusted implicitly. Andy, whose full name was Andrea, also happened to be transgender. Andy had opted to live her life in the body she was born in, in spite of how wrong it felt. Her career as a schoolteacher would suffer and her deeply religious parents would disown her if she were to live as a male. Andy was miserable living a lie, but put on a brave face for the sake of everyone else. Bea’s heart ached for her friend, but it was Andy’s decision to make. Andy was the first person Bea told of her discovery. Her friend was skeptical at first, but after watching the videos from previous trials and observing some swaps first-hand, Andy was convinced. The body-swap with a male was Andy’s idea.

“Are you crazy?” Bea said.

“You have faith that it works?” Andy said.

“Absolutely,” Bea said. “I know that it works, with no adverse effects, based on my trials and what you yourself have seen. But do you have any idea what you’re asking? Do you understand what it would involve? Your family, your career. All of those things belong to this body, to Andrea. If you switch into someone else’s body, all those things become hers – his. And whatever life he had, will become yours.”

“It just so happens, I have the perfect candidate,” Andy said.

As it turned out, Andy had a cousin who had the same problem. Ralph desired to be a woman, and was one of the few people who knew Andy’s secret. It was a bonus that they shared the same genetics, the same family, and even the same profession. Ralph was also a teacher. Andy approached Ralph with the proposal and of course Ralph was skeptical, until shown irrefutable proof that what they were offering was the real deal. After that, he was all in.

Andy and Ralph were the first of many success stories. No one in their family was the wiser, and they were nearby to coach each other on the finer details of their lives.

With Andy and Ralph’s assistance, Bea found more transgender candidates wanting to swap bodies and lives. They did their best to match each male and female pair according to common interests, careers, and location, but for some it was enough to have the body they wanted. Starting a new life in a new place appealed to them.

Bea had to admit, it felt good to help people in a way no one else could. But it wasn’t what she had intended. Certainly there would be plenty of people interested in swapping for different reasons: a whiter skin; a better financial situation, but finding a willing partner to swap wasn’t likely, since wealthy white folks didn’t tend to want to trade their lives.

She couldn’t help but feel that her work was meant for something else. Something bigger.

* * *

The young woman seated across from her oozed sex appeal in spite of, or perhaps because of, her conservative attire. She might have been a librarian, or perhaps a teacher, if said teacher’s specialty was punishing naughty men. As it turned out, Bea’s first impression of the woman wasn’t far from the mark.

“How did you hear about me and my alleged work?” Bea asked. “And I say alleged, because I am not confirming that said work even exists. It sounds preposterous, if you ask me.”

The woman tucked a stray wisp of blonde hair back into her messy bun and peered at Bea over the rims of her glasses. Her ample bust strained against the buttons of her blouse.

“Really? You’re going to give me that song and dance? Fair enough. I have friends in plenty of, shall we say, ‘underground’ circles. That, and of course there are the rumors circulating around the internet. You know, it’s only a matter of time before the wrong people find out about this.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Of course not. Just a word of caution. I happen to know of some very powerful men who could do a lot of damage with your ‘alleged’ technology. I am here to hopefully help you prevent that from happening.”

“Go on. I’m listening.”

“My name is Leslie Ann Goolio. You might know me by my professional name, Brandi Buxton.”

Bea paused to think a moment. She had heard that name before, but where? And then it dawned on her. “You’re THE Brandi Buxton? From…”

“Correct. I am Brandi Buxton, star of more than six hundred adult films.”

Bea wasn’t a connoisseur of pornography, but one didn’t have to be to know who Brandi was. She had made headlines back in the nineties, when she celebrated her eighteenth birthday. That in itself wasn’t scandalous, but the fact that she was already a well-established name in adult entertainment with four years worth of films to her credit. She had starred in her first pornographic film at age fourteen.

Brandi explained to Bea that she had saved a large portion of her porn money to spend on education. She had attended night school while making movies during the day. She had a law degree and a Masters in economics. But she wanted credentials from a prestigious university like Harvard, and there was no way, no matter how smart or wealthy she was, that she could get into an ivy league school with her background. She wanted to swap into the body of a man who already had those credentials. She already had the knowledge, just not the credibility.

Brandi had the ideal candidate: J. Bartholomew Sutton II, the son of a prominent Boston judge by the same name. With a Harvard law degree and all the right connections, the younger Sutton was on the fast track to a career in law, government, or maybe even the presidency. But Bart had no interest in politics or any of the other high society snobbery that was his life. He was interested in fashion and art, and sex with men. He dreamed of being a woman, but the closest he could come to that dream was cross-dressing in private and role-playing with prostitutes. A mutual friend introduced him to Brandi. When she offered to swap her body with him, he salivated at the idea. The prospect of being an adult film star excited him, and he was willing to pay any price for the opportunity.

Bart set up a research foundation in Bea’s name and padded it with a generous donation to further her work, and then joyously stepped into Brandi’s life in Los Angeles. Brandi began a new life in Boston as Bart. For Brandi, sexuality had always been fluid: a by-product of the adult film industry, or perhaps what had attracted her to porn to begin with. She was comfortable in any skin, be it female or male. She adapted easily to her new role, and with the help of Bart’s father, landed a job in a prestigious law firm.

* * *

Bea expected to see great things from Brandi, but didn’t expect to see her in person again quite so soon. A couple of years after the swap, Brandi, aka Bart, arrived at Bea’s house, accompanied by a stunning young woman.

“So nice to see you again, Bart.” Bea smiled at Bart’s guest and led the pair into her office. “Please, have a seat. Can I get you anything? Coffee?” Bart and the woman shook their heads.

“I’m afraid this isn’t a social call,” Bart said. He nodded toward his companion. “My friend here is in some trouble, and I think your ‘special service’ might be the best solution.”

“Go on.”

“This is Michelle. She is…was… engaged to a friend of mine. You know…” Bart gave Bea a knowing wink. “Old school pals since childhood, attended Harvard together.”

“Was?”

Tears trickled down Michelle’s cheeks. “Tommy was my soul mate. He was my everything. And now he’s…he’s…” her voice hitched. “I don’t know what we’re doing here, Bart. What’s the point? Nothing will bring Tommy back.”

Bart placed a reassuring hand on the woman’s arm. “No, but maybe there’s a chance to save your life, and get some justice for Tommy.”

“From what I gather, this Tommy fellow is dead,” Bea said. “I’m so sorry for your loss. How can I help?”

“I was a resident at Mass General when I met Tommy,” Michelle began, “He came into the ER one night during my shift with a broken ankle. A drunken stunt gone wrong. He tried to leap down an entire flight of stairs on a dare from his buddies. His friends dumped him off at the ER entrance and fled to avoid a DUI. I kept him company for a while since he was alone, and offered to call his family to pick him up. He begged me not to call his parents. He said his father was very ill – stage 4 cancer – and he didn’t want his mother to see him in that condition. She was already overwhelmed, and her health was fragile. He was an adult, so I didn’t push the issue. I offered to give him a ride after my shift. I took him for coffee, then let him sleep it off on my couch. I know, I know… it was a risk bringing home a strange guy, not to mention professionally unethical, but we just hit it off. I wanted to meet the sober version of him to see if he was still just as sweet as the drunk version. Turned out he was even sweeter, and I fell hard.

We’d been dating for nearly two years before he finally introduced me to his family. I was a bit bothered but hey, I got it. With his father’s death and all…you know. Anyway, he invited me to dinner at their house, and I swore he enjoyed the way his brother and sister’s jaws dropped at the sight of me. But they were all very nice and polite, and his mother especially went out of her way to make me feel welcome.

A few months ago he popped the question, and of course I said yes. Tommy announced our engagement at one of his family’s high-society parties. Everyone congratulated us. His mother gushed about ‘another doctor in the family’.

It was late, after the party. Everyone had gone to bed, or so I thought. Tommy was snoring away with a few drinks under his belt. I couldn’t sleep, so I went down to the kitchen to find some chamomile tea. It was there that I ran into Tommy’s brother Kenneth. He invited me to join him for a drink in the parlor. Said he wanted to talk to me. All I really wanted was to go to bed, but I also wanted to make a good impression on Tommy’s family. I wanted them to like me. I was so stupid to think a bunch of rich white assholes would ever accept me into their family.” Michelle paused, her face in her hands. She sniffled and wiped her eyes before continuing.

“I made the cup of tea and then went into the other room, where Kenneth waited. He had already poured two glasses of brandy. I didn’t want the drink, but didn’t want to be rude, so I took it and drank it. He poured another one before I could refuse. He told me how much he loved his brother, how he would do anything for him. He wanted Tommy to be happy, but he also needed to look out for him, to make sure he didn’t screw up his life. I didn’t like the direction the conversation was going, but I tried to be polite.

And then he said, ‘How much?’

I felt confused. I didn’t understand the question. I said, ‘Pardon me?’

He said, ‘How much will it take for you to walk away?’ He pulled a checkbook out of his jacket. ‘Name your price. What will it take for my family to be rid of you? To save us the embarrassment of a wedding that would never happen if my father was still alive. Our father never would have let Tommy marry a nigger!’

I needed to leave. All I could think of was getting away from that horrible man, getting back to Tommy, but when I stood up, my knees buckled and my head swam, and that was when I realized I had been drugged. I slumped back onto the couch and fought to keep my eyes open.

Kenneth stood over me. His face was twisted with the kind of hate that told me everything I needed to know about the man.

He climbed on top of me and put his hands around my throat. I tried to scream, but he squeezed it off and I felt myself losing consciousness. He forced himself between my legs and pulled up my nightgown. I fought him, but my arms felt limp and weak. And then I heard a click and felt the cold steel of a gun barrel pressed against my cheek.

He said, ‘At least I’m gonna find out what my brother sees in you. Only thing you’re good for.’

He raped me.

When he climaxed, I took advantage of those few seconds of vulnerability and mustered all the strength I had, and snatched the gun out of his hand. I figured I if I was going to die I might as well go down fighting. At that moment someone tackled him and pulled him off of me. The gun went off.

The next thing I heard was a scream. Their sister Meredith had heard the gunshot and come running. She started screaming at me, ‘What have you done? What have you done?’

I thought, ‘Oh my god, I shot Kenneth!’

And then she turned to Kenneth, who stood in front of us, very much alive, and she said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll back you up. I saw it all. The fucking whore shot Tommy in front of both of us! That ghetto-rat is gonna fry, we’ll make sure of it.’ And then I couldn’t believe my ears when that little teenage bitch said, ‘It’s better this way anyways. Now we only have to split the money two ways when the old bat croaks.’

I was so confused. I hadn’t shot anyone. Kenneth was fine. What the hell was she talking about? I needed Tommy. He would be able to clear things up. I felt weak and wobbly, but tried to stand to go upstairs to wake up Tommy, and that was when I saw the body on the floor.

It was him. My Tommy was lying there in a pool of blood and that was when I realized the gun was still in my hand. He had woken and come looking for me and seen what his brother was doing. He died trying to save me.”

Michelle sobbed into her hands and Bart embraced her. Bea placed a box of tissues nearby and waited for her to continue.

“The rest was mostly a blur. Someone must have called the police, because I woke up on a cold, hard cot in a jail cell. I don’t know how long I slept. I just remember crying and crying, drifting in and out for days. I couldn’t eat. Eventually I managed to drink some water, but nobody came to check on me. No doctor came to check on my physical or mental state. No rape kit was done, even though I knew what the proper procedure should have been. I mean, I’m a physician, and I’ve done countless examinations of assault victims. But I was in no state of mind to ask for help, and none was offered. I didn’t care about anything. All I knew was that Tommy was dead and I had no reason to live.

Finally after, I don’t know how many days, they told me my lawyer was there to see me. Which was odd, because I didn’t have a lawyer. I hadn’t thought to ask for one. They led me into the little room and to my surprise, there was Tommy’s best friend Bart sitting at the table. He had heard about what happened and had volunteered to defend me. I don’t know why. Bart should hate me like everyone else does. But he didn’t believe them. He wanted to hear my side of it. It’s weird, because we haven’t known each other very long, but I’ve always felt like I could tell Bart anything. He was different from all of Tommy’s friends. Different from Tommy, even.”

Michelle cast a tearful glance in Bart’s direction. Bart reached over and squeezed her arm, encouraging her to continue.

“Bart paid my bail and got me out that day. I have been charged with second-degree murder. I pled not guilty, but there’s a good chance I will lose the trial, even with Bart as my lawyer. Kenneth and Meredith are going to testify. They’ve told everyone that they witnessed me shooting Tommy in cold blood because he caught me cheating with Kenneth. They’re making me out to be some kind of gold digger. Kenneth has told the press that he won’t rest until I’m rotting behind bars. It’s pretty much guaranteed I’ll be going to jail. Even if I don’t, my career is over. My life is over.”

“I’m so sorry this happened to you,” Bea said, “What are you going to do?”

“Oh, that part is simple. I’m going to kill myself.”

“That may not be necessary,” Bart said. “Will you excuse us for a moment, Michelle? I need to have a word with Bea in private.”

Bea retrieved a bottle of water from the mini-fridge and handed it to Michelle. “We won’t be long. Promise me there will be no suicide until we return.” Bea winked at her. Michelle nodded and gave her a tearful smile.

The two left the office and sat at the kitchen table.

“I know what you’re going to ask, Bart,” Bea said, “And while I agree with you that this woman has every reason to want to escape her life, where would we find a volunteer to take her place? Nobody is going to want to enter a body that is headed for jail. It wouldn’t be fair to do that to someone.”

“I think the most fitting candidate would be the rapist himself.”

“Bart, are you insane? We’ve never done an involuntary before. We don’t even know what could happen!”

“There’s one way to find out. The one who matters is voluntary. Do we really care what happens to the other subject? He’ll never be punished for what he did. How many other women is he going to victimize? You know as well as I do that guys like this don’t just do it once. How many has he already hurt? She is suicidal, Bea. I have no doubt that she is going to off herself. Even if by some miracle she wins the trial, and trust me, she won’t. She is a woman of color up against filthy rich white liars. The truth isn’t going to mean shit at that trial. Bea, this is huge! This is what your work can do! You have the ability to save an innocent life, and punish the one who destroyed it.”

“But you’re talking about kidnapping!”

Bart waved a dismissive hand. “I’ll take care of everything. I have a few people who owe me some favors. All you need to do is work your magic when I get him here. In the meantime, is it all right if Michelle stays with you? It’s been a constant battle hiding her from the press, and given that I’m her attorney who is about to drop her as a client, I’m not exactly incognito.”

“Of course, she’s more than welcome. I have plenty of room here. As long as she promises no suicide on the premises.”

* * *

As promised, Bart produced Kenneth in the dark of night, bound and blindfolded in the back of a panel van. After the swap, a drugged and very confused Kenneth awoke in a public park. When the situation became clear, hysteria ensued, and he (now she) was arrested and placed in a psychiatric facility for her own protection. Michelle had apparently had a psychotic break, they said. Why else would she be ranting about being a man trapped in a woman’s body and claiming to be the brother of her alleged victim?

Bart contacted his law firm to let them know he would no longer be representing Ms Collins, and that he was revoking the bail he had posted for her because she had violated the terms of her recognizance by leaving the city.

The date of the trial arrived. On Bart’s instruction, Michelle had liquidated all of her assets before the swap and donated the funds to Bea’s research foundation. She wouldn’t need the money, since Kenneth had plenty. The body in which Kenneth was trapped had not a penny to its name. The public defender assigned to the case tried to push for an insanity plea, but the defendant refused and continued to maintain her innocence.

The jury’s decision was unanimous: Guilty. In Michelle’s body, Kenneth was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Had he been tried as a wealthy white man, he might have gotten off with time served and probation, but as a penniless black woman, he received no mercy from the court. As an added surprise, it turned out Michelle was pregnant by her rapist. Kenneth got to experience the miracle of childbirth firsthand from behind bars. The baby boy, to whom Kenneth was now both mother and father, was placed into foster care to await adoption.

Michelle visited the prison once. It was surreal, seeing herself behind the glass partition, dressed in orange. However, she had never seen herself behave the way the woman on the other side of the glass did: ranting, screaming obscenities, beating on the glass until the guards came and removed her. They didn’t even have a chance to pick up the phone and talk before the visit was over.

Michelle had one small piece of unfinished business. She enlisted the help of Bart and Bea once more. Another generous donation to Bea; another unwilling subject delivered in the dark of night.

* * *

Vernon Plotz was admitted to hospital vomiting blood and complaining of severe abdominal pain. Being homeless, he hadn’t consulted a doctor even though he had been in pain for years. He used heroin to dull the pain, but eventually even the heroin didn’t help. Doctors found a tumor the size of a football growing inside his abdomen and the cancer had spread throughout his body. It was untreatable. The doctor discharged him with three months to live and a prescription for morphine, but didn’t suggest he quit heroin. Outside the hospital, a finely dressed young man caught up with him and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. He agreed to swap bodies with the man in exchange for ten thousand dollars. Clearly the man was insane, but ten grand would keep Vern nice and high until either the dope or the cancer killed him off.

What a surprise it was when Vern found himself inside the other guy’s body, just like he’d promised! He gazed at his reflection in awe. He was young, handsome, and cancer-free! What a sucker that guy was! That rich dumbass had just traded a Porsche for an Edsel. Well, no backsies. Vern took his cash and ran in case the idiot changed his mind.

The first thing Vern did was call his dealer and buy himself a monster-sized party to celebrate his new body and his new lease on life. The second thing he did was overdose.

Kenneth’s tragic death rocked the high-society world. Who would ever have suspected he had a drug problem? It must have been too much for him: his father’s death, his brother’s murder, the trial… Poor, brave Kenneth, they said. He had battled those demons all alone.

* * *

“Medical school? But Meredith, you’ve always hated school!”

Meredith kissed her mother on the cheek. “Let’s just say, I’ve turned over a new leaf. I’ve been such a spoiled brat, now I want to do something meaningful with my life. I want to do something that would have made Daddy and my brothers proud.”

“I swear, I don’t even know you anymore, Meredith. It’s like you’ve grown up overnight.” Meredith’s mother dabbed at her eyes. “But they would all be so proud of you, my dear. God rest their souls. I guess I’ll have another doctor in the family after all.”

* * *

A year after Kenneth’s unfortunate death, Bart and Meredith married, uniting two of the most prominent families in Boston. They located Kenneth and Michelle’s son and adopted him. Later that year, Bart ran for Governor of Massachusetts and won. Three years later, he ran for president.

Did Michelle know Bart’s secret? Bea never asked, but as far as she knew Michelle was unaware that her husband had once been the infamous Brandi Buxton. Did it even matter? They were happy: a handsome power couple using their resources to change the world for the better.

* * *

And so it came to pass that a porn star became the first female president of the United States, unbeknownst to the citizens who had voted for (and against) her.

By the time Bart became president, most of Congress and the Senate had been replaced with women: the poor; the intelligent but downtrodden; the minorities; all disguised as wealthy white men. Over time, the left and right ran out of reasons to argue. Issues that had once sparked furious debate became civil discussions that ended in compromise. Meetings with other international leaders went smoothly; when problems arose, one might say that those individuals soon changed their way of thinking.

Women with unwanted pregnancies who were unable to face either choice were offered a third option. Men known for their outspoken conservative views – reverends, politicians, and others – were blessed with the opportunity to experience the joys of pregnancy and childbirth.

Bea embarked on a new mission to preserve brilliant minds trapped in failing bodies, beginning with an aging Supreme Court Justice the world wasn’t ready to lose yet. Bea found a healthy body for her in a suicidal young woman, broken by emotional trauma. The girl donated her body to the worthy cause and slipped away peacefully in place of the elder woman.

Bea found new hope for her technology. Perhaps the future Stephen Hawkings of the world could be saved and great minds could live on indefinitely.

On the surface it appeared nothing had changed. Men still ran the world. But as the old saying goes, behind every great man is a great woman.

Copyright © 2019 Mandy White

Short Story Sunday: Tell Tail Heart (or A Literary Tale)

Vampire Maman

A Literary Tale

He woke with a start.

THUMP THUMP THUMP

THUMP THUMP THUMP

Immediately he thought of The Tell Tale Heart, that story of horror written by Poe.

Bolting up in bed and now awake he realized it was just the thumping tails of his brother’s wolfhounds. Why had he agreed to take care of the beasts for the week?

These huge beasts were no Baskerville Hounds. They were sweet and goofy. Sure they could kill, he supposed they could kill, but they were just happy dogs. Large dogs with large hearts. Large dogs who needed to go out and leave large piles in his yard. And they needed to do that RIGHT NOW.

All week long he’d been obsessed with trying to find the story that matched his life. No Jane Austin. No Thomas Wolf. Maybe a touch of Charlotte Bronte or Donna Tartt. A little Dave Stone or

View original post 410 more words

The Girl in the Mirror

Photo by Mariana Montrazi

“This stops now.”

“But Daddy! Deedee needs to eat too!”

“She’s just a little girl, Hal. It’s just harmless fun.” Melanie’s mother said.

“No more! She’s getting too old for that crap! She starts school this year, and what will everyone think?”

“They’ll think she’s just a normal kid, just like her classmates.”

“Normal kids don’t act like that.”

From that day forward, only one plate was placed at the table in front of Melanie. It didn’t matter that Deedee wasn’t allowed a plate at the dinner table; she was present nonetheless, sitting in silence at Melanie’s side, sharing her plate and her meals.

Deedee had been her best friend ever since Melanie could remember. Her first memory was of learning to walk together, climbing to their feet side by side, using furniture for balance. They learned to talk, first in a language only they understood. Melanie’s mother always smiled at the sound of happy chatter coming from the nursery. A happy baby was a healthy baby.

Growing up, Melanie and Deedee were inseparable. There were always two places set for tea parties on the little table in her room.

Melanie wanted a place set for Deedee at meal times. Her mother humored her at first, but when she turned five, her father put his foot down and banned Deedee from the dinner table.

The dinner place setting was just one in a long, endless string of arguments between Melanie’s parents. They had been yelling at each other ever since she could remember. She stopped talking about Deedee and stayed in her room to avoid the arguments, which was most of the time. She took comfort in Deedee’s companionship. As long as they had each other, Melanie was never alone.

One day, Melanie’s father left and didn’t come back. She never saw her father again. Her mother said it was because of something called Divorce. Her mother also called her father “That Cheating Bastard”, although Melanie never did figure out what game he cheated at. She also called him a lot of words Melanie wasn’t allowed to say. With her father gone, the house felt peaceful and her mom seemed happier. Melanie kept quiet about Deedee for fear of disturbing her mother.

* * *

On the first day of school, Melanie couldn’t wait to introduce Deedee to all of her new friends. Sadly, her classmates did not share her enthusiasm for Deedee. They laughed and called her a weirdo. After that first day, Deedee still came to school, but Melanie stopped talking about her to other people. She wanted to ask Deedee to stay home, but was afraid of how she would react. Deedee could be…difficult sometimes. Like the time Becky Johnson fell off the swing. Melanie was waiting for a turn, but Deedee didn’t want to wait. She shoved Becky, causing her to land on her face, splitting her lip and breaking one of her teeth. Melanie was sent home for bullying and she couldn’t tell anyone what had really happened.

* * *

As Melanie grew older and she made a few friends at school, Deedee’s companionship became less important. In fact, she was becoming a bit of a third wheel. At age 8, she mustered the courage to tell Deedee that she didn’t want her company at school anymore. Deedee didn’t take the news well. She smashed everything breakable in Melanie’s bedroom, beginning with the little tea set they had always played with. Melanie’s mother was furious and took away her television privileges for a month. Deedee kept quiet after that, but Melanie still sensed her in the background, watching; listening. But at least she didn’t interfere when Melanie was in the company of her friends, and didn’t injure anyone again. At home, Melanie endured Deedee’s silent scowl at the dinner table, but she didn’t have the courage to banish her.

* * *

Sometime after Melanie’s tenth birthday, her mother announced that she had an appointment with a doctor. It wasn’t Dr Johnson, her regular doctor. This doctor was a specialist.

“Why do I need a specialist, Mom? Am I sick?”

“No, well, um… no. Not sick exactly. This is a different type of doctor. You talk to her. I thought you might need someone to talk to.”

“About what?”

“Whatever you want. Isn’t there anything you want to talk about? Your father, maybe?”

Melanie shrugged. “I don’t know. I hardly even remember him.”

“What about the person I sometimes hear you talking to?”

Melanie glanced around furtively. “What? No, I don’t talk to anyone. I just like to read books out loud.”

“This is what I’m talking about. Maybe you can tell Doctor Calloway about that.”

Melanie stared at the floor. “I don’t know… I-I might not like that.”

“Well, it can’t hurt to meet the doctor, can it?”

“I guess not.”

* * *

Doctor Calloway didn’t look much like a doctor. She was a lot younger than Melanie expected, and very pretty, like the women at the beauty salon.

“You can call me Katie,” the doctor said. “Don’t think of me as a doctor, but just as a friend you can talk to.”

They talked about interests like music, TV shows, favorite classes at school. Melanie found herself quickly at ease. Not once did the topic of Deedee come up.

Melanie came to look forward to her weekly visits with Katie. Melanie would tell her about her week at school, and Katie would ask how she felt about this or that.

One Friday afternoon, Melanie shuffled into Katie’s office and slumped into the chair.

“Want to talk about it?” Katie asked.

“She can just be so mean sometimes!”

“Who?”

“Deedee!” she blurted, then clapped her hand over her mouth. She hadn’t meant to tell Katie about Deedee.

“Who’s Deedee? A friend of yours?”

“Y-yes. A friend.”

“Not much of a friend if she’s mean to you. Want to tell me about her?”

Melanie shrugged. “I don’t know. She wouldn’t like it if I talked about her.”

“Well, she’s not here, so how would she know?”

“That’s the thing. She is here.”

* * *

“We’ve made a breakthrough, Jessica.”

“Nobody calls me that. Call me Jessie.” Melanie’s mother sat across from Katie, in the chair usually reserved for Melanie.

Katie smiled. “Ok, Jessie, I have a diagnosis for you. Melanie has Disassociative Identity Disorder. You might know it as Multiple Personality Disorder.”

“What does that mean? She has a split personality?”

“We don’t call it that anymore. Disassociative Identity Disorder, or DID, to use an acronym, is a coping mechanism. When a person experiences trauma, sometimes the brain will create an alternate personality that’s better equipped to handle it. Think of it as rerouting the power in a grid when one area experiences an outage. It prevents overload and in many cases, protects the individual from a breakdown.”

“I thought she just had an imaginary friend. She’s had Deedee ever since she was old enough to talk.”

“You ever notice changes in her personality? When she’s Deedee, she will likely be more assertive, even aggressive or rude. Typically an alternate personality will take on those traits to “do the dirty work”, so to speak. When she’s feeling challenged or threatened, Deedee will come out and take over.”

“Wait – wait.” Jessie held up her hand. “When did we start talking about her actually being Deedee? Nope. No, that isn’t what’s been happening at all. I’ve never seen Deedee or talked to her, and Mel has never, ever claimed to be her. She’s always talked about Deedee as if she’s a separate person, even to the point of pretending she’s in the room. And she hasn’t mentioned her in years.”

“She may not have mentioned her, but Deedee is still very much with her. She told me so yesterday. With your permission, I’d like to hypnotize Melanie and see if I can talk to Deedee.”

“I don’t know… it feels like we’re on the wrong track here. But, you’re the professional. If you really think it will help, I suppose it will be okay.”

* * *

“Melanie, I want you to relax and listen to my voice. Take a deep breath and exhale slowly. Imagine you’re in an elevator. You start on the top floor and you’re going to the basement. With each breath, the elevator goes down another floor.

One.

Down…

Two.

Down… Down…

Three.

Down… Down…

Down…”

Melanie had never been hypnotized before, but it sounded cool and she wanted to try it, even though her mother wasn’t too keen on the idea. Katie said it would let her talk to Deedee, who had been obstinately silent ever since Melanie had told her she wasn’t welcome at school. In spite of her silence, Deedee made a point of making her presence known with small acts of destruction undetectable to anyone but Melanie. She wrote obscenities and drew lewd pictures in Melanie’s schoolbooks. She stuck bubble gum in her hair, tied her shoelaces in knots, and scores of other small annoyances. If Katie could make Deedee stop, it was worth trying.

“When the elevator reaches the basement, the doors will open and you will exit the elevator. You’re in a nice room, with soft furniture and pretty pictures on the walls. Find a comfortable chair and sit down. Relax. Make yourself nice and cozy. Are you seated comfortably?”

“Yes,” said Melanie.

“Good. Then let’s begin. I would like to speak to Deedee. Is Deedee there?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Duh! You can see me sitting right in front of you.”

“Hello, Deedee. I’m Katie.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Deedee, can you tell me about yourself?”

“I dunno. What do you want to know?”

“How old are you?”

“You already know that. I’m ten.”

“When is your birthday?”

“May 27th.”

Melanie’s birthday. Katie jotted in her notebook.

“How long have you and Melanie been together?”

“Forever. This is dumb. You’re asking me stuff that you already know. I’ve told you this stuff a hundred times already.”

Melanie had.

“Deedee, are you the one I’ve been talking to during our appointments?”

“Yeah. Sometimes.”

“And sometimes it’s Melanie?”

“Yeah.”

“Which one of you is here the most often?”

“Me, but she thinks it’s her. I let her think that.”

“Did Melanie tell you not to come to school?”

“Yeah, but I go anyways. All kids should be allowed to go to school. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes, of course. Do you like school?”

“Yeah. Sometimes. Except for math. I hate math. And I hate tests. And homework. She does all that boring stuff.”

“Do you like Melanie’s friends?”

“Most of them are my friends. She just gets to hang out with them sometimes.”

* * *

Once again, Jessie sat across the desk from Katie. She didn’t have high expectations for the hypnosis; she didn’t believe Katie’s diagnosis of DID was correct. She would have noticed if Melanie switched personalities. She knew her daughter. She would have noticed.

“Well?” she said, eyeing Katie skeptically.

“Our session went very well. I spoke at length with the personality known as Deedee, and it seems she has been present a lot more than you realize. In fact, the person you know as your daughter may be made up largely of that personality.”

“I don’t believe you. Deedee is nothing. She’s just an imaginary friend. Nothing more.”

“I asked her if Deedee was her real name, and she told me it was just a nickname. She said her full name is actually Deidre Delaina Fisher – D.D. I guess that’s where the nickname came from.”

“No! That’s not possible!” Jessie stood, almost upsetting her chair in her haste. “This is ridiculous.”

“I’d like to do some more sessions with hypnosis, if you’ll–”

“No! I’m not paying you to encourage this behavior. We’re done here.”

“Okay, then how about if we just resume our usual–”

“No. I mean we’re done. I will not be needing your services anymore. We tried it your way, now we’ll do it my way.” With that, she stormed out of the office.

* * *

Melanie was disappointed to hear that she would not be seeing Katie anymore.

“Why? I like Katie. She’s easy to talk to.”

“You don’t need her anymore,” Jessie said. “You’re cured. Remember the hypnosis she did?”

“Yeah, kinda.”

“Well, that was what cured you. You’re not sick anymore. Deedee is gone and you are just you, from now on.”

“But Deedee is…”

“No! Don’t you even say that name anymore. She is gone, because she never existed. It was all your imagination, and now you are going to stop all of this nonsense. If I hear that name again, you will be in big trouble! Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mom.”

Melanie never spoke Deedee’s name again, not for many years. But Deedee was always there, lurking, leering, criticizing everything Melanie did. Most teenage girls spent a lot of time in front of a mirror, but not Melanie. She detested mirrors. When she looked in the mirror, it was Deedee who glared back at her, always with that cruel grin that made Melanie feel small and weak. She hated photos of herself for the same reason. No matter how pretty she tried to smile for the camera, the photo always turned out with Deedee’s signature smirk. Deedee became increasingly bitter at being hidden and suppressed, and increasingly difficult to contain. Melanie’s only recourse was to avoid mirrors and photos as much as possible. By the time she was sixteen, Deedee was seething to be released.

With graduation looming, she knew her mother would insist on having photos of her. She didn’t know how she would manage to live in a house where Deedee sneered at her from the wall every day.

Eventually, Jessie agreed to a compromise – she hung Melanie’s graduation photo on the wall of her bedroom instead of in the hallway where she had originally intended. Melanie avoided her mother’s bedroom, but occasionally she had no choice but to enter the room and glimpse Deedee’s cruel sneer. She couldn’t understand how her mother could look at something so ugly every day.

* * *

College offered Melanie the opportunity to reinvent herself. She came out of her shell a bit and made new friends. She even started dating. Her boyfriend, Hunter, was forever trying to take pictures of her, but she always refused. It was the only thing they ever argued about.

One weekend at a party, Melanie had a few drinks and let her guard down. She didn’t notice Hunter and others snapping pictures with their phones. Many of the group photos from the party contained her, or rather Deedee’s image. Hunter and other partygoers uploaded their party photos to Facebook and Instagram, unleashing Deedee onto the Internet. With each share, a copy of each photo was made. Before long, Melanie’s face was everywhere, on social media accounts of friends and strangers alike. Hunter had made sure to tag everyone in the photos, so every time she looked at social media, her face – or rather the leering face of Deedee – would pop up. Melanie was livid and broke up with Hunter immediately. If Melanie had disliked her face before, she now loathed it. The very sight of herself ignited a rage within.

She stood before the mirror in the dormitory bathroom. It was time to put a stop to this bullshit once and for all. She would conquer her fear of herself by confronting… herself. She stared at her reflection. Really stared. Gazed into the dark brown eyes of the girl in the mirror. Studied the face, so identical to hers and yet so utterly different. She supposed it was a pretty enough face. The reflection smiled. No matter how pretty she tried to make her smile look, it always looked sinister.

Except she wasn’t smiling.

Was she?

She raised her fingers to her lips. The reflection did the same. She touched her lips to confirm that she was, in fact, not smiling. The image in the mirror also touched her lips; traced her fingers over that wide, leering grin.

Was she insane? Was this all a hallucination?

“Who are you?” she said to the reflection.

The girl in the mirror laughed, her lip upturned in a sinister sneer. Her hand, still near her face, flipped Melanie the middle finger and then spoke.

“I’m you.”

“What’s your name?”

“Deidre. Or Delaina. Or Melanie. Take your pick. We’re all the same.” The girl in the mirror laughed again. Laughed and laughed until Melanie fled from the room.

* * *

Christmas vacation came, and Melanie was home for the holidays. It was good to see her mother; she hadn’t realized how much she had missed her. They baked cookies and pies together and gorged on too much delicious food. Christmas evening they cuddled on the couch watching TV, full of turkey and sipping wine. They were on their third bottle and feeling a pleasant glow.

“Mom, remember when I was little?”

“Of course. You grew up so fast.”

“You remember that friend I had?”

Jessie stared into her glass, swirling the wine lazily. “Deidre, wasn’t it?” Her speech slurred slightly.

Melanie sat up. “What did you say?”

Jessie shrugged. “I mean, Deedee. That was it.”

“No. What did you say? Where did you get that name?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jessie said. “Why are you bringing that up after all this time?”

“Because I’m worried that I might be crazy.”

“Stop it. You’re not crazy.”

“Then what do you call it? She feels real. It’s like she’s still with me, inside of me.”

Jessie sighed. “I was hoping this would go away in time. That you would grow up and we’d never hear about her again. But…”

“But what?”

“You remember Katie?”

“Katie, the doctor? I liked her, but you made me stop seeing her.”

“Do you remember when she did the hypnosis thing?”

“Sort of.”

“When you were under hypnosis, she talked to someone else. Someone named Deidre Delaina Fisher. Deedee.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it was impossible. She diagnosed you with multiple personality, and I didn’t believe she was right. I still don’t.”

“Wouldn’t I know if I had other personalities?”

“Most likely, yes. I’ve read up on it and that’s not you.”

“Then what’s wrong with me?”

“I don’t know about wrong, but I have a theory.” Jessie stood and left the room, and then returned carrying a photo album Melanie had never seen before.

“What’s this?”

Her mother sat beside her. “When I was pregnant with you, it wasn’t just you. I was expecting twins. The ultrasound showed two girls.” Jessie opened the album and showed Melanie a black and white ultrasound image. “See? There you are. I don’t know which one was you, but there’s definitely two here. Your father was so excited. He was different then. He bought two cribs for the nursery, and painted the walls pink. We stocked up on twice as much little girl stuff. Two of every pretty little dress, two of every toy. We even chose names. I wonder if you can guess what those names were.”

“Deidre and Delaina?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“Somewhere between the fifth and sixth months, two became one. This ultrasound here,” she pointed at the image in the album, “is the last one we had with both of you in it. When I went for a scan a month later, there was only one.”

“How does a whole baby just vanish?”

“It’s not uncommon at all. My doctor said it was quite normal for one twin to cannibalize the other. Usually the stronger will absorb the weaker one. It’s an evolutionary thing that keeps a species strong. I guess you were the stronger one.”

“Which one am I? Deidre or Delaina?”

“Neither. Or both. It doesn’t matter, because you’re Melanie. I decided not to use either of the names we had chosen because it felt like killing the other one. So we chose a completely different name for you.”

“Then who is Deedee?” Melanie reached for the wine bottle and refilled their glasses. Things had gone from surreal to outright bizarre.

“I think you know the answer to that. It appears your twin, or at least some part of her, has managed to live on inside of you. It’s impossible, I know, but I can’t think of any other explanation. It doesn’t seem plausible that you would have multiple personality and that personality just happens to have the same names I chose for my twins, names that you were never told, from a twin you never knew about.”

“What do we do about it?”

“Maybe we should call Katie, or someone like her. She was able to talk to Deedee before. Maybe we can reach her again. Maybe she just wants to communicate.”

* * *

As it turned out, Katie still had a practice in town, albeit in a bigger and better office. She accepted Jessie’s awkward apology and agreed to meet with them.

“Wow, has it been that long already? It’s so good to see you again, Melanie! Look at you, all grown up!” Katie smiled and clasped Melanie’s hand in hers. Jessie stared at the floor, cheeks flushed. “Jessie.” Katie placed her hand on Jessie’s shoulder. “I’m so glad you could come.” She motioned for them to sit in a pair of comfortable chairs and took her position behind the desk. “Can you tell me what’s been happening?”

“Maybe it’s best if Mel tells you what she knows,” Jessie said.

Melanie told Katie everything, starting with her earliest memories of Deedee. Her mother listened in stunned silence, hearing much of it for the first time. She finished with her encounter with the face in the mirror and her mother’s revelation about the twin.

Katie paused in thought before speaking. “What is it you’d like me to do?”

“I was hoping you could try hypnosis again. Maybe contact this Deedee, find out who she is, what she wants,” Jessie said.

“Melanie, is that what you want? You’re legally an adult now, so it’s your decision.”

“Yes. I want to try it, and this time I want to know what she says. No more secrets. I want you to record the session.”

“We can do it one of two ways. Either you can have your mother present, or we can do it in a private session, just the two of us.”

Melanie looked at Jessie. “I want my mom to stay. Maybe if she’d been there the first time, things would have gone differently.”

“Ok, that’s fine. When would you like to start?”

“How about now?”

* * *

Melanie descended the elevator in her mind. She pressed the Door Open button when she reached the bottom. She exited the elevator into an elegant yet vaguely familiar sitting room, plush with red velvet curtains and soft looking furniture. She eased into a deep armchair.

She heard Katie’s voice in the background, “Are you seated comfortably?”

“Yes.” Melanie’s eyelids drooped and she drifted off to sleep.

* * *

“I’d like to speak to Deedee. Are you there, Deedee?”

“Of course I’m here, dumbass. I’ve always been here.”

Jessie jumped at the angry voice that came from her daughter’s mouth. Melanie would never speak to someone that way.

Katie remained unfazed. “Hello, Deedee. Do you remember talking to me before?”

“Sure I do. And then y’all tried to shut me up.” Deedee laughed. “And you thought you succeeded.” She smirked. “But a lot you shitheads know. I’ve been here the whole time.”

“I believe you,” Katie said. “Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?”

“Well, you already know the story, don’t you? Mommie Dearest over there,” Deedee jerked her head toward Jessie, “had two buns in the oven, but something went wrong. Maybe it was those cigarettes she kept sneaking, or that little drink of wine at dinner.”

Tears pooled in Jessie’s eyes. “It wasn’t very much! Certainly not enough to harm – ”

Deedee chuckled, a dark, sinister sound. “Or maybe it was just nature,” she said. “Nobody’s fault, just survival of the fittest and all that dumb shit. The strong devour the weak. At any rate, one of us got devoured.”

“How is it that you’re still here?” Katie asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be? It’s my body.”

“No, it’s Melanie’s body.”

“Actually, honey, no it isn’t. I’m the one who survived. I just let little Miss Priss hang around to keep me company. I could boot her anytime if I wanted to.”

“How’s that possible?” Jessie demanded. “I know my daughter, and I know her personality. Melanie’s personality.”

“Are you sure?” Deedee leered at Jessie. “I bet you didn’t know it, but I’m one hell of a good actress. Maybe the personality you think you know is just me, pretending to be sweet little Melanie. After all, I am the strong one. She is the weak. The strong will devour the weak.”

“Where is Melanie now?”

“She’s asleep. And she’ll stay that way until I say otherwise.”

“Katie, do something! Wake her up! I want Melanie back! Melanie! Wake up!” Jessie shouted, on the verge of hysteria.

“Please, Jessie, I need you to stay calm and stay in your seat. Everything is fine. Melanie is fine. We’re just having a conversation with Deedee and she deserves to be heard.”

“Damn right I deserve to be heard. I’m tired of keeping quiet, always pretending to be her. Things are going to be different around here.” Deedee looked at Jessie. “Do you remember when you said it was time to end this imaginary friend nonsense? Those weren’t your exact words, but you get the idea.”

Jessie nodded, her face flush with terror.

“Well,” Deedee said, “I agree. I think it’s time we put a stop to this bullshit once and for all. I’m tired of sharing with her, and I’m not waiting in that room while she gets to have all the fun.” Deedee leaned toward Jessie. “I have a secret, Mom. It’s been me all along. Most of the time. I let Melanie take over for stuff I didn’t want to do, like chores, school work, tests, that sort of shit. But the fun stuff? That sorry bitch has no idea how to have fun. If it weren’t for me she’d be socially useless. She wouldn’t have any friends. And that boyfriend of hers wouldn’t have even looked at her.”

Jessie looked at Katie, her eyes wide. She mouthed the words, Do something!

“Melanie, I’m going to count down from ten,” Katie said. “When I reach zero, I will snap my fingers and you will be awake.”

Deedee laughed. “Do what you gotta do, Doc! I’ll seeya around.” When Katie began to count, her eyes closed.

* * *

“…Zero.”

Snap!

Melanie’s eyes opened. “What happened? Did you record it?”

“Yes, it’s all on video if you want to watch.” Katie walked over to the tripod and turned the camera off.

Jessie rushed over to hug her daughter. “Oh my God, I’m so glad you’re back! That was so scary!”

“Is Deedee gone?” Melanie asked. “I don’t feel her.”

“I don’t know,” Katie said. “But maybe she is. I think we resolved some things today. In our next session, we can explore a bit deeper and – ”

“What next session?” Jessie said. “No! No more sessions. That was too scary. I thought we were going to lose her!”

“It’s not your decision, Jessie. Melanie is an adult.”

“I don’t know. I think I’d like to wait a while and see how I feel,” Melanie said. “I will call you if I notice anything…you know, weird or whatever.”

“Ok, I understand,” Katie said. “I will send you a copy of the video to watch and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. Off the record, no sessions unless you want to. Does that sound fair?”

Melanie nodded. “I will be in touch.”

On the way home, Jessie said, “I’m so relieved you’re ok. I don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost you. Losing your sister was sad, but it’s different when you lose a child you’ve never had a chance to know.”

“Thanks, Mom. I’m just glad it’s over. I think she’s really gone this time.”

* * *

Melanie woke, yawned and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She looked around, confused for a moment as to where she was. She recognized the plush red sitting room from her hypnosis. She had fallen asleep in the chair, but now she was lying on the couch. The room was familiar, and on further examination she realized it was a replica of her childhood bedroom, embellished with red furnishings. There was the tea set on the little table where she and Deedee had sat for countless tea parties, set with a red silk tablecloth. Deedee had always liked red. She had begged her mother to redo her room in red velvet when she redecorated. Her mother had refused, but had compromised by giving her some red velvet cushions. Those cushions now adorned the couch where she lay and one was under her head. Slowly her memory returned, of the elevator, the hypnosis. If she was awake, why was she still in the room? She took stock of her surroundings. In place of her bedroom door was the elevator, which, it seemed, was the only exit. She went to it and pressed the button, but the button didn’t light up. She pushed it again, and again, furiously in her mounting panic. How could an imaginary elevator be out of order?

“Help! Help! Let me out! Katie, where are you? Help me!” She pounded on the doors and screamed for help until she collapsed on the floor, exhausted and sobbing.

* * *

Deedee gazed out the car window and watched the landscape slip by. It was a new sensation, seeing things first-hand instead of through Melanie’s drab filter. Things were going to be different now that she was in charge. Yes, very different indeed.

Copyright © 2021 Mandy White

Vacation

~*~ Last week we explored the coffee apocalypse in Battle of the Bean. Here is the sequel: ~*~

“Are we there yet?”

“No.”

“How much farther?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m bored. Can’t we stop somewhere?”

“Will you stop harassing me? We will get there when we get there.”

“Don’t yell at the children, Dax. They’re just restless. They’ve been cooped up in this vehicle for ages. Can’t we find a place to stop so they can get some exercise?” Sky said.

“Where would you suggest?”

“I’m sure there’s someplace suitable around here. How about that place?”

“What if it’s no good?”

“There’s only one way to find out. Scan it.”

Dax entered the coordinates into the computer and read the results.

“Sounds ok, but might be some kind of tourist trap.”

“Well, we’re tourists, so it sounds perfect.”

Dax sighed. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to stop and stretch our legs for a while. Maybe we will find a nice place to camp.”

“That’s the spirit. We’re on vacation. Let’s relax and enjoy ourselves.”

* * *

The place looked promising. Clean air, trees, plenty of water. The children scrambled out of the vehicle and rushed toward the beach. Within moments they were splashing happily in the water.

Sky nuzzled her mate. “See? That was all they needed. Why don’t you relax while I find us something to eat?”

Dax was feeling more relaxed already. The place was pretty nice, he had to admit. Maybe they could stay a while. It seemed like a great place to spend a holiday.

Sky wandered away, taking in the sights while Dax basked in the sun, lying on a large flat rock near the water. Some time later, Sky returned, her arms filled with tasty looking food.

“What are those?” Dax asked.

“I don’t know, but they taste good. Here, try one.” She handed a wriggling, furry creature to Dax.

“Children! Come and get something to eat!”

“But I wanna swim!” Chi whined.

“You can go back and swim after you eat something and warm up for a little while. You don’t want to get a chill,” Sky ordered.

Pouting, Chi and Dik left the water and joined their parents on the beach. Their reluctance quickly turned to enthusiasm when they saw the delicious treats their mother had brought.

“This is nice, don’t you think, Honey?” Sky said, gazing up at the brilliant blue sky.

“It sure is,” Dax agreed, “Why don’t we stay here for a while and camp? Looks like we have the whole place to ourselves.”

“Yes! Let’s do it.” Sky said.

“Yay!” the children shouted in unison.

* * *

The next day, the children did some exploring while their parents napped in the sun. They happened upon a strange object.

“Wonder what this is?” Chi said, examining the rounded metal thing.

“I think it’s some kind of lid. Help me open it.”

The steel door groaned open. They peered into the hole, closing their inner eyelids against the rising dust.

“What is this?”

“I’m not sure. Looks like some kind of ancient ruins. There’s a cave or something down there. Let’s go down and check it out.”

They scuttled down the shaft into the cavern below.

“Look there! Bones! What kind of creature is that?”

“I don’t know, but it’s not one of us. Look, only four appendages and it doesn’t even have a tail! Must be some kind of weird old fossil.”

“What’s that object beside it?”

Dik’s webbed, green-scaled hand reached for the metal object.

“Is it some kind of weapon?” Chi asked.

“I don’t think so. Maybe it’s food or something. Look, I can open it.”

Sniff. Sniff.

“What is that?”

“I don’t know, but it smells delicious! Should we taste it?”

“No, it might be poison. Let’s go and ask Mom first.”

“What’s this other thing?”

“I don’t know, but it looks like it was as important to this creature as that container. It died holding both of them.”

* * *

They ran back to their parents carrying the metal container and the other strange object they had found clutched in the arms of the fossilized remains.

“Mom! Dad! Look what we found!”

Dax and Sky examined the objects their children had found. The container was filled with dry, dark brown granules that had an intoxicating aroma. The other object appeared to be a collection of ancient writings, inscribed on thin sheets of a brittle, delicate material.

“I’ll scan this with the ship’s computer. Maybe we can decode it,” Dax said.

He scanned the documents and then left the computer to analyze the alien language. Meanwhile, the family went out to explore, starting with the cave the children had found.

It appeared to be some sort of underground home, accessed by a metal tube. The remains of a lone life form lay below. Nearby, they found some ancient ruins, above ground. Inside, they found the remains of another life form, and its death appeared to have been caused by a large hole in its head.

“What happened to these creatures?” Sky wondered aloud. “Do you think any of them are left?”

“I don’t know,” Dax said. Maybe those ancient writings will have a clue.”

“Let’s look around some more. These things are fascinating if nothing else.”

Some distance away, they found more ancient ruins that appeared to be untouched since the demise of the civilization that had built them. It was an archaeological marvel, this crumbling city, destroyed by some sort of war or disaster. They found more remains, lying where they had fallen. Whatever had happened, not everyone had seen it coming.

They explored until dusk, and then returned to camp. Dax checked on the ship’s computer to see if it had made any progress decoding the ancient language. It had. The results were amazing.

“Sky! Children! Come here! You have to see this!”

They crowded around the screen as Dax read what the computer had translated.

“According to what the being in the cave inscribed, this planet was once a thriving civilization, but it was destroyed by war. That cave was not a home, but a shelter, built to withstand the blast. It seems that poor fellow went down there to escape the war and ended up starving to death, even though he could have come back to the surface.”

“What made him stay down there?”

“He was protecting a substance more valuable than anything on the planet; the very cause of the war. It seemed this civilization worshiped the substance, until one day the plant that provided it became extinct. When the supply ran out, war broke out. They bombed themselves out of existence with their own weapons. That guy found a treasure trove of the valuable substance down in the shelter, so he went to ground and locked himself in. He had one container left when he ran out of water. He died down there, probably of starvation, locked in with his treasure.”

“The container! That must be the treasure!” Chi exchanged an excited look with her brother. “We just found the most valuable thing on the planet!”

“So, what exactly is this treasure?” Sky asked. “What makes it so valuable?”

Dax leaned over the screen again.

“It says here that it’s some sort of drink. They called it COF-FEE.”

Copyright © 2018 Mandy White

This story is a sequel to Battle of the Bean, published in Dysfictional 2 and Goin’ Extinct Too by WPaD.

Battle of the Bean

I’ve posted this one before, but it remains one of my favorite apocalyptic stories. The extinction of coffee: Could it get any worse?

~ Battle of the Bean ~

It was the end of the world as we knew it, and nobody felt fine. Remember that song by R.E.M.? It’s been stuck inside my head since this whole thing began.

Anarchy reigned; society was in chaos. People rioted in the streets. Yadda-yadda apocalypse…

All because of one little thing. A tiny thing, really. Not quite miniscule, perhaps the size of a pea, but a tiny thing nonetheless.

The all-powerful coffee bean.

We were warned of the impending extinction of our precious bean, but like so many warnings before it, we chose to ignore it until forced to confront the ugly truth.

It began early in the century, when farmers in Colombia noticed a troublesome blight affecting the Arabica plants. The blight, known as “coffee rust”, was a type of fungus that spread rapidly, despite all efforts to eradicate it.

Some blamed pollution, others blamed global warming, but regardless of whom or what was to blame, Arabica crops in Latin America were wiped out by 2027, and from there it spread to crops in Africa.

Still, the public pooh-poohed. As long as Starbucks kept pouring eight-dollar lattes, there was no cause for alarm. The problem was far away from their sheltered yuppie environment. Cultivation was the farmers’ problem, not theirs. Even when the Arabica crops were gone and the price of that particular variety skyrocketed, people simply switched blends.

It wasn’t until every coffee plant on the planet was dead that we were willing to acknowledge that we had a problem. The problem escalated to catastrophic levels when the governments took control of the world’s remaining supply of coffee.

Coffee disappeared from supermarket shelves. Starbucks went out of business. Coffee shops with boarded-up windows littered the urban landscape.

At more than ten times the price per kilo, coffee replaced cocaine as Colombia’s most lucrative illegal export. Coffee cartels waged war on each other in hopes of controlling the world’s dwindling supplies of the precious brown bean. Penalties for smuggling coffee ranged from several years to life in prison or even death by firing squad, depending on which country one was arrested in, but that didn’t stop an intrepid few from trying their luck.

Street value of an ounce of ground coffee climbed higher than that of gold. Users traded automatic weapons, priceless family heirlooms and even the deeds to their homes for a cup of espresso, just to get one more fix of that aromatic black nectar.

We tried consuming tea, colas and caffeine pills, but it didn’t take us long to learn that caffeine wasn’t what gave coffee its addictive nature. It turned out there was another ingredient we had overlooked. A mystery ingredient that latched onto the brain much like cocaine did. Suffice it to say, lack of this ingredient made some people very unhappy indeed. Scientists analyzed it, tried to isolate it and tried to synthesize it but to no avail.

The increase in violent crimes due to coffee withdrawal led to the global legalization of marijuana. Pounds of Purple Kush, Amsterdam Indica and BC Big Bud now occupied the shelf space that had once displayed pounds of French Roast, Breakfast Blend and Decaf. A society of anxious, stressed-out bean-hounds became laid-back and complacent, sleepily smiling as they crammed their mouths full of snacks.

Of course, there were still the hardcore addicts, for whom nothing else but the bitter ambrosia would do. White-collar professionals became organized crime bosses, dealing the world’s most valuable substance to street addicts, some of them former colleagues. When the coffee finally ran out, one country accused the next of hoarding it, even though nobody had any coffee anymore.

With everyone at each other’s throats, the UN dissolved. Their final meeting ended in a massive brawl; a Battle Royal between nearly 200 delegates that resolved nothing. The situation deteriorated to the point of war, with everyone pointing warheads at everyone else.

With a bunch of coffee-starved world leaders holding their jittery fingers over the red button, I did what any sensible man would, and went to ground.

I found the bomb shelter in my neighbor’s back yard after investigating the sound of a gunshot. I found him at his kitchen table, where he had been trying to snort lines of instant coffee before giving up and swallowing the barrel of his .357. Poor bastard – everyone knows there’s no real coffee in that instant stuff, but looks like he died trying.

I found a shovel and thought I’d do the neighborly thing and give him a decent burial, but damn, the ground was hard! I tried a few different spots but kept hitting rocks, then at one point I hit something metal. Curious, I dug it up, and damned if I didn’t find a bomb shelter! Probably built during World War II and long forgotten under layers of landscaping. My neighbor probably bought the house without even knowing it existed.

So, when the threat of nuclear war became imminent, I packed some supplies and retreated into the shelter with plans to stay put for a few weeks or months until the coast was clear. I brought food, plenty of water, books to read, flashlights and batteries, but I needn’t have bothered to pack so much because when I got down there I discovered the shelves well-stocked. Sure, eighty-year-old canned goods might not be ideal, but they were better than nothing if it came down to it. I scanned my flashlight over the shelves and lo and behold! What did I see? Coffee! Cans and cans of magnificent, marvelous coffee!

I had packed a butane camp stove and several cases of fuel, so I was all set to prepare hot meals. Now hot coffee would accompany those meals! This dark, dusty hole in the ground had suddenly become paradise.

I’m writing this down, partly to keep myself busy so I don’t think about coffee. I also thought it would be a good idea to record what became of our world just in case nobody else is alive to do it.

As close as I can figure, it’s been about six months since I felt the first of the bombs hit. My food supply is dwindling, even the really old stuff. If I have to eat another can of cold lima beans I’m going to scream. Who the hell puts lima beans in a bomb shelter? I guess I could leave the shelter, but as long as I have coffee in my possession, I run the risk of getting robbed, maybe even killed for it. Lord only knows what’s happening up on the surface.

I’m down to my last can of coffee, but I’ve been putting off opening it because once it’s gone, then I truly will be out of coffee. After that, I will leave the shelter and see what awaits me up above.

I’ll wait one more day to open it. I can go without coffee for just one more day. I’ve been saving one last can of butane to make it nice and hot. Cold food I can handle, but cold water won’t brew coffee.

See? One day wasn’t so tough. Why not make it two? If I have a cup of coffee every two days, it will last twice as long. If I wait one more day before opening the last can, that’s one more day before I run out for good.

I made it a whole week. Wow. That’s one more week before I run out. As long as I have that can of coffee, I’m the richest man on earth. I might also be the only man on earth, but… mere details.

Two weeks, and that damn can of coffee sits there unopened, mocking me, daring me to open it. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Nice try, coffee can. I’m smarter than you. After all, you’re just a stupid can of coffee. I’m over you. I don’t love you anymore. I could quit you cold turkey if I wanted to.

Aw, fuck it. Since I know I can quit anytime I want, I might as well drink it and enjoy the last coffee on earth.

I’m doing it. This is it. I’m opening the can.

Tomorrow.

I’ve been out of food for weeks now, and starvation is weakening me more each day. The can of coffee still sits unopened, though. I have decided to save it until the very end. If the last thing I do before I leave this world is drink the last cup of coffee in that can, I will die a happy man. I’ll have to do it soon, though. I’m on my last two gallons of bottled water.

Maybe it’s time I left the shelter. There is probably clean water on the surface. Hell, I don’t even care if it’s contaminated, just as long as it will make a decent cuppa Joe. But… what if it’s total chaos up there? I’d be killed for my can of coffee for sure. I guess I could leave it in the shelter. Nobody knows it’s here. But what if I was followed on the way back, or worse, what if someone found this place – and my coffee – while I was away? Without my coffee, I have nothing. No, the only way it will be safe is if I stay and guard it.

When I finish the water I have open, I will open the last jug of water along with the can of coffee and brew a nice steaming cup of Heaven. When the coffee is gone, I will leave the shelter. If the world is destroyed, I’ll use the revolver I took from my neighbor’s hand and exit in likewise fashion.

NO! NO!!!! I went to open the last water jug and found it empty! DRY! All this time I thought it was full but I didn’t actually pick it up and shake it. The jug must have had a leak at the bottom because the water is long gone. No! No! No! I can’t live without water, because without water I can’t make coffee. A world without coffee is not one I want to face.

Goodbye world, whatever’s left of you.

* * *

The steel door groaned open. Two faces peered into the hole, closing their inner eyelids to shield their eyes from the rising dust.

“What is this?”

“I’m not sure. Looks like some kind of ancient ruins. There’s a cave or something down there. Let’s go down and check it out.”

They scuttled down the shaft into the cavern below.

“Look, there! Bones! What kind of creature is that?”

“I don’t know, but it’s not one of us. Look, only four appendages, and it doesn’t even have a tail! Must be some kind of weird old fossil.”

“What’s that object beside it?”

A webbed, green-scaled hand reached for the metal can.

“Is it some kind of weapon?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe it’s food or something. Look, I can open it.”

Sniff. Sniff.

“What is that?”

“I don’t know, but it smells delicious! Should we taste it?”

“No, it might be poison. Let’s go and ask Mom first.”

 Copyright © 2014 Mandy White

Don’t Feed the Fruit Flies

Dr Rogin was right. These were no fruit flies. Nothing I’d ever seen compared to them. Sure, they were tiny, dark and winged, but the resemblance to anything on earth ended there. The most notable difference was the number of legs the things had. Insects had six legs, arachnids had eight, but these bugs had ten. I’d never seen anything with ten legs before, though I’d heard of one rather obscure case involving a ten-legged creature of Australian origin. What I was looking at had to be one of two things: a newly evolved or previously undiscovered species from Earth, or something alien in origin. Both options simultaneously excited and terrified me. Having seen the destructive power of these tiny swarming creatures, I had no doubt it was a matter of time before humanity was overcome, unless we could find a way to stop them.

The insects, if that was what they were, (I preferred to think of them as ‘bugs’ until I knew exactly what they were) appeared to be evolving. Or maybe it was another stage of their life cycle that we hadn’t seen yet. The new bugs looked different. They had tripled in size, and had pale whitish wings instead of the mottled black wings of their ten-legged predecessors. Their bodies were shiny, black and heavily armored. The smaller bugs had translucent gray bodies with visible innards. Both varieties were unlike any insect I’d seen. As if the ten-legged bugs weren’t disturbing enough, these new ones only had four.

What the fuck am I dealing with here?

“So what do you make of it?” Dr Rogin had slipped into the room while I was looking into the microscope.

“I’m not sure what I’m looking at here. Is this another phase of its life cycle, or an entirely different species?”

“That’s what I aim to find out. Then you can get busy with your job, which is to figure out how to kill them.” He glared at me over the rims of his half-moon spectacles. “While killing as little else as possible in the process, of course.”

Dr. Leonard Rogin was my partner on the project, although we didn’t work for the same employers. He was a senior FDA research scientist who spent most of his time evaluating the safety of products before releasing them to consumers. He was responsible for double-checking my research to ensure that I didn’t endanger any lives in the process of doing my job.

The company I worked for, Evergreen industries, worked in cooperation with heavyweights like Monsanto. My job was to ensure the safety of the. North American food supply by eliminating any possible threats to said food supply.

I used my degree in entomology to study insects for the sole purpose of finding the most effective methods of killing them, and I was paid handsomely for my effort.

These bugs were unlike anything I had ever encountered.

It had all started innocently enough.

A year previously, swarms of fruit flies descended over the Midwest. At first we assumed it was merely a heavy season for the tiny pests, but it soon became obvious we were faced with something much greater. Granted, we had noticed an increase in fruit flies and other pests in the past few years, but nobody gave it much thought. We shrugged it off as ‘just a bad season’ for this pest or that one. How blind we were, not to have recognized the signs.

For the past ten years that I worked for Evergreen, Monsanto and the many organizations that worked in silence beneath them were doing what they had always done – messing with the genetic makeup of plants to produce hardier and more prolific versions. Their mission, as stated, was to make our valuable and life-giving food crops resistant to pests, extreme weather, poor soil conditions and other potentially destructive factors. As the world’s honeybee population plunged into extinction, increased focus was placed on the development of self-pollinating hybrid varieties of all staple crops.

One of the less-talked-about projects was the nuke-resistant crop.

Worried that the threat of nuclear attack was imminent, the powers that be felt the need to protect our food supplies by making them resistant to radiation and other challenges faced following a nuclear strike. For years, scientists had been working (covertly, so as not to create panic) to develop nuke-resistant strains of corn, wheat and other vital food crops. They succeeded, but what they didn’t anticipate was the effect these new crops would have on the rest of the ecosystem.

It’s a well-known fact in science that every living thing has a survival mechanism. Even minute viruses and bacteria have ways of surviving when faced with obstacles. When a body becomes immune to a virus, it mutates in an attempt to circumvent the immune system. When an infection is bombarded with enough antibiotics, the surviving bacteria evolve into antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

Darwin called it survival of the fittest – living things adapting in order to survive.

What made them think the genetically altered crops would exist in the same environment as their predecessors without having any effect, adverse or otherwise, on the living things around them? For a bunch of brainiacs, we scientists could be pretty stupid sometimes. We ignored what should have been plain to see until it was too late. And now, there I was, stuck inside my lab at the eleventh hour and no closer to finding a solution than I had been five, ten years ago, before this whole mess began. Back then, there would have been plenty of time to avert disaster if only we had seen it. If only.

The fruit flies appeared to have evolved into the ten-legged abominations I was now studying. Not only had their appearance changed, but their habits had as well. This latest batch of flies was of a more devastating breed than anyone could have imagined. They decimated fruit, vegetable and grain crops. They squeezed through the tiny holes in window screens, coating everything inside and out with a live, buzzing ash-colored blanket. It was impossible to display fresh produce at a market without seeing it covered with the tiny gray flies. The usual pesticides had no effect on them.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when winter came, because it meant the end of what they considered to be the worst fruit fly season in history. But the flies persevered. In spite of sub-zero temperatures, they survived and even seemed to thrive. Extreme temperatures, lack of water and even lack of food didn’t seem to slow them down. They continued to multiply and spread, until all of North America was infested. International flights were halted to prevent the swarms from migrating to the rest of the world, but the outlook was bleak. We knew that it was only a temporary solution; attempting to quarantine an entire continent was neither logical nor feasible. Sooner or later the bugs would spread if we didn’t find a way to stop them.

By the end of the year, their numbers had reached disastrous proportions. Car engines developed problems as the insects clogged air intakes and exhaust. People wearing safety goggles and surgical masks were a common sight on the streets. Due to mass crop dusting, Malathion poisoning in people and animals became commonplace, but the flies remained healthy.

And now, there were these new bugs. Larger, faster and, presumably, even more destructive, though we had yet to see what effect they would have on what was left of the continent’s crops.

* * *

I stared into the twin glass tanks that contained my test specimens. A swarm of small bugs in one, and a slightly smaller group of the larger bugs in the other.

An idea occurred to me.

I placed both tanks inside the glassed-in observation room and then removed the lids. I exited the room quickly, sealing the door behind me.

I had set up a video camera on a tripod outside the room to record the experiment, just in case anything unusual happened. To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect, but it was better to be prepared than to miss anything.

I wanted to know how these two species interacted with each other, and if they were indeed different developmental phases of the same organism, or if they were two different animals entirely.

I grabbed a fresh cup of coffee and pulled up a chair next to the glassed-in room to watch.

The bugs kept with their own kind, each forming a thick swarm. It was eerie, watching the two swarms moving about the room, flying in such an organized formation they could have been mistaken for two single organisms.

The swarms stopped and hovered, maintaining a distance of two or three feet between each other. They seemed to be waiting. I knew it was an insane notion, but it looked like they were ‘facing’ each other.

When it began, it was a sight I would never forget. The larger bugs attacked, and I could have sworn I heard a faint collective scream like a battle cry as they charged into the thick black cloud of tiny flies.

The two clouds of insects became one, and the battle cry became a squeal that increased in pitch and intensity until I had to cover my ears. When it was over, only one swarm remained. The larger bugs were the victors.

The big bugs were able to kill the small ones. I had found the solution to one problem.

Now I had a new problem. What else did these big bugs kill? What would it take to kill them?

Oh, dear God. Have we gone from the frying pan into the fire?

I picked up the phone. It was time to call my superiors and inform them of this new development.

* * *

I woke with something wet and sticky on my face. I raised my head from my desk, where I had fallen asleep after my twenty-eighth hour on the job. A document was stuck to my cheek, from the remnants of a cup of coffee, which I had evidently knocked over in my sleep. I sighed and pulled the paper off of my face, then checked my watch. It was ten-thirty, presumably at night.

I hadn’t been home to shower or change clothes in two days, ever since we received word of the government’s 72-hour countdown. If I, and the others working on the problem didn’t find a feasible solution to the bug invasion, we would be relieved of our duties and the military would intervene. They would eradicate the problem by any means necessary. That meant poisons, experimental chemicals, nerve gas, napalm, and if all else failed, Operation Black Flag. Operation Black Flag, named after a popular insect extermination product, involved luring the bugs to remote desert areas and nuking them. Residents would be evacuated, but any who refused to go would meet the same fate as the bugs. That was, assuming a nuke would kill the things. For all we knew, it would kill everything except for the bugs. We had no way of knowing the effects of things we hadn’t tried yet.

There had to be another way. The potential for global catastrophe was enormous, whether by bugs or by humankind’s ham-handed intervention. The time to find a solution was running out. Who knew what kind of horrific nerve gases and biological weapons the US military had in its possession? They let the public think such things didn’t exist, but I knew better. History had proven that we were capable of creating some pretty nasty stuff.

My head spun when I thought about all the lives at stake – not just people, but livestock, crops, and natural flora and fauna were all in danger of extinction. The government assholes didn’t care; all they thought about was winning. They had to prove they were number one, and no little bug was going to knock them off the top of the food chain.

I stretched my arms over my head as I walked back to the lab station where I had been working. A metal rack next to the microscope held twenty-four glass vials, each containing an individual specimen of the larger bug. I had studied them, poisoned them with everything I could think of, and still they lived, bouncing angrily against the glass. Attempts to dissect them had proven fruitless; their armor seemed impenetrable. As much as I hated to admit defeat, it was starting to look like our time on this planet was coming to an end.

The odd thing about the large bugs was, they didn’t seem to be multiplying the way the small ones were. I had yet to catch one in the transition from small to large, either. When the small ones appeared, we saw them multiply exponentially. The larger bugs hadn’t shown up until the small ones had reached epidemic proportions. They didn’t seem to hatch or evolve – they just appeared.

I breathed a weary sigh and reached for a vial containing an untainted specimen. I didn’t know where to turn at this point, except to repeat my previous experiments to see if I had missed anything. There had to be a clue somewhere. These things had to have a weakness.

I was overtired; otherwise I wouldn’t have been so clumsy. When I reached for the vial, the sleeve of my lab coat caught on the rack and I accidentally swept the entire thing onto the floor.

I gasped at the sound of glass smashing. The specimens were free.

“Shit!” I shouted, jumping back from the station. I ran to the door and hit the Emergency Quarantine button. The doors automatically locked, sealing the room and everything in it. The lab was now contaminated, and so was I. Nothing would enter or exit until the threat was contained.

The buzz of the bugs rose to a high-pitched squeal as they swarmed around my head. I swatted at them, even though I knew it was unwise to do so. The little buggers were already pissed off; there was no need to antagonize them. I pulled my lab coat over my head and retreated into the inner office, slamming the door behind me. I leaned against the door, panting, while the bugs hummed angrily on the other side.

Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my neck.

“Ouch!” What the..?

I was bitten! One of the bugs had followed me into the office and stung me.

“No,” I whispered as the strength left my body and I slid to the floor.

Darkness.

* * *

I heard the soft murmuring of voices. At first, I thought I had fallen asleep with the TV on, then I remembered the lab, and the bugs. I opened my eyes tentatively.

I was no longer in the office where I had fallen. In fact, I was no longer in the lab at all. I was surrounded by a bizarre alien landscape. The ground beneath my feet resembled a dried-out lake bed; It was flat and solid, covered with cracks. It reminded me of the Bonneville Salt Flats, which I had visited to watch land speed testing on a couple of occasions. How I had managed to travel from Nebraska to Utah? More importantly, why? Had I been unconscious that long?

I looked around for landmarks; anything that would help me get my bearings. The horizon was hard to distinguish because the sky was the same color as the ground.

“Hello?” I called. “Anybody here?”

I heard a fluttering sound, but couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from. Then more voices, whispering. It occurred to me that maybe I was dead. Was this Purgatory, or some kind of spirit world? I pinched myself, then slapped my face. It hurt, and I felt solid. I certainly didn’t feel like a spirit.

Voices whispered, like rustling leaves.

 “Who’s there?” I shouted. “Show yourself!”

The fluttering grew louder, then I sensed movement above my head. I looked up and my jaw dropped in amazement.

The individual responsible for making the sound descended from above and landed lightly on the ground in front of me. She was my height, and looked somewhat human, but that was where the resemblance ended. She had wings. Wings! Her skin was the most beautiful pale iridescent blue, like an opal. Her long wings were long, narrow and clear, like those of a dragonfly, with the same iridescence as her skin. Her delicate beauty was breathtaking. She wore a suit of armor similar to a Medieval knight’s, but form-fitting, shiny and black. A smooth helmet covered her head and a sword hung from her lower back, positioned pointing straight down with the hilt resting at the base of her wings.

“Please accept my apology,” she said. Her voice was light and musical, with an odd accent I’d never heard before. “I didn’t want to wound you, but I had no other choice. All other attempts at communication have failed.”

“W-who are you?” I stammered. “Wound me? How?”

She placed a delicate, shimmering hand on her hip, where a sheathed dagger was attached to her armor. “I had to inject you with serum. I am truly sorry.”

“I am Ilara,” she said, “Warrior. Wanderer. Guardian of the innocent.”

My questions remained unanswered, given that I didn’t have the slightest idea what she was talking about.

“But how? Where?” Questions swirled in my head. I didn’t know where to begin.

“You are the one who can bridge the gap. We need you to communicate with your race, to let them know we are here to help.”

“I don’t understand.”

Ilara turned away from me and made a shrill whistle. The whir of many sets of wings filled the air as more of her kind descended from the sky. I gasped, awestruck at the sight of them. This had to be a dream. I must have hit my head when I fell, and now I was having a most bizarre and wondrous dream. Irridescent wings flashed as a vortex of tiny beings swirled around my head.

Fairies, I thought. They look like fairies!

They alit on the ground and gathered around Ilara, chittering in a musical language like a flock of sparkly birds. Then they lined up in a neat formation, as if waiting for inspection. All appeared to be female, and breathtaking in their delicate beauty.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

“We have no home. We are citizens of the universe. We travel wherever we are needed. At this moment, your planet is in dire need of our assistance.”

“The bugs,” I whispered.

“The ‘bugs’, as you call them, are evil overlords who conquer through utter annihilation of all which they encounter. They are eaters of worlds; ruthless, vicious parasites. They will not stop until your world is devoid of all life.”

“I was starting to get that impression,” I said. “Can they be stopped?”

“Yes,” Ilara said. My army has the power to stop them. They are many and we are few, but they are no match for us. You must release us before it is too late.”

“What will happen after you defeat them?”

“Then we will leave your world in peace.”

 “And if you don’t defeat them?”

“There is no ‘don’t’. We will be victorious. Listen to me when I tell you, your leaders’ plans to attack the Horde with nuclear weapons will have no effect on them. You will destroy yourselves and your planet in the process, while the Horde grows stronger. They absorb the properties of that upon which they feed. Nuclear weapons will have little effect on them.”

“Nuke-resistant crops…” I whispered, thinking.

“Correct.”

 “Why us?” I wondered aloud. “Why our planet?”

“They are the reality you have created for yourselves through your own actions.  The Horde is here because the ideal conditions for their existence were already present. They are here because they were drawn here.”

“By what?”

“Why, you, of course. You attracted their attention, and they found your world to be a worthy investment. They are parasites. They attach themselves to existing life forms, and then become those life forms. They are attracted to large masses of life forms – whatever will make the best army. As their army grows, so does their ability to take over larger forms of life. They started with bacteria. Now they have graduated to fruit flies. Next, larger insects. Then the higher life forms. Eventually, you.”

“Us?”

“Yes. Without our assistance, you are on the verge of extinction. This planet and everything around it will become uninhabitable by everything except the Horde.”

“How will they survive once everything is gone? Won’t they die off, too?”

“No. The Horde feeds on low frequency.”

“What does that mean?”

Ilara explained, “Energy vibrates at different frequencies. That which your kind refers to as negative energy – anger, hatred, violence – all of those emotions emit a low frequency. Higher frequencies are at the other end of the scale – love, hope, compassion – all things which the human race claims to practice but only takes part in sporadically.”

“We’re not that bad, are we?” I asked, even though I knew the truth. The company that issued my paychecks was a prime example.

“The Horde are energy parasites, and they are attracted to the frequencies easiest for them to consume – the lower ones. They are like…” she paused, searching for the right word, “like the things you call vampires,” she finished. “Each of them is a merciless vacuum of nothingness. They devour everything they encounter. In the beginning, the higher frequencies were immune to them, but as fear spreads throughout your world, you will become more and more vulnerable, until nobody and nothing will be safe. They are only in their first stages of attack right now. They are generating fear, charging the planet with negative energy until everything on it is ripe for the harvest. You have only seen the beginning of what they can do.”

“And you can stop them?”

“Yes. It is early enough for us to stop them if we attack now. If you wait too long to release our army, all will be lost.”

“So, where are you, and how do I get there to release you?” I asked.

“We are already here,” Ilara told me.

“I don’t understand.”

“We are trapped in the place where you work.”

“My laboratory? But all I have in there are…”

“Bugs,” Ilara finished. “You call us, the ‘big bugs’, I believe.”

I looked around at my surroundings. Nothing looked familiar until I looked up. Suspended in what I had originally thought was part of the sky, I saw a large, shiny silver object. After studying it further, I recognized a familiar shape. A rectangular metal plate, with three round holes and a cylinder on one side… it was a hinge! I was looking at the office door, which I had been hiding behind when I lost consciousness.

Aw, nuts! This is just some stupid hallucination. I’m probably dying from some alien toxin right now, I thought. And just when I’d begun to have some hope that there might be a way out of this mess.

“Not a hallucination,” Ilara said, confirming my theory that this was indeed, a hallucination.

“I was unable to communicate with you,” she explained. “I could hear your thoughts, but for some reason you were unable to hear mine, so I had to take drastic measures. I used my sword to inject you with serum to reduce you to our size.”

I looked down at the ground, which I had thought looked like salt flats. Now I realized I was standing on the tile floor of the office. They had shrunk me!

“I’m your size?” I said, still in disbelief.

“Yes.”

“I’m not going to stay this way, am I?”

“No. I will put you back into your world, but we need to explain some things first.”

“Okay, I’m listening.”

“Once you return to your normal size, you will need to release our army from your laboratory. It is also very important that you release the Horde as well, so that we can eradicate them. If you do not, they will multiply all over again and this disaster will be repeated.”

“But, labs all across the continent have them contained! How am I supposed to convince them to release their specimens?”

“You will have to find a way. The more of them left alive, the greater the risk of re-infestation.”

“Risk, you say? You mean, re-infestation isn’t certain?”

“Not certain, but likely. There is one weapon your race has that can eliminate them, but I do not believe enough of you will use it.”

“What weapon is that?”

“Love.”

“Love?”

“Love energy has the highest of all frequencies. Love, mercy and compassion for each other is the most powerful weapon your race possesses. Sadly, too few of you make use of it. You find it easier to dwell in the anger frequency. Anger is powerful in its own right due to the passion that often fuels it, but it is lower than the frequency of love. If more of you could rise above that plateau to exist in love, the Horde would be driven from this world, never to return.”

“I can’t expect everyone to just drop everything and start loving each other,” I said.

“No, neither do we,” Ilara sighed. “We will do what we can for you, but when the battle is over, it will be up to you whether or not the Horde will thrive again.”

“But, there’s a chance, right? I mean, even a slim chance is hope.”

“Hope is a good place to start. A good place indeed.” Ilara smiled, and the army of iridescent faces behind her lit up as well.

“Let the battle begin!” Ilara crowed, drawing her sword. The rest of the warriors joined her cheer. Silver flashed as they drew their weapons and raised the blades to the sky. Their visors slid shut, and shiny black suits of armor unfolded to encase the warriors’ bodies. With full armor, they looked exactly like the ‘bugs’ I had been so exhaustively analyzing under the microscope.

Ilara stepped forward and pricked the back of my hand with her sword. I smiled as I slipped down into blackness once again.

For the first time since the whole mess began, I felt like humankind might have a future.

Copyright © 2014 Mandy White

Sitnalta

Peter had always wanted to see what lay beyond the gate, but it was forbidden. Venturing beyond the iron barrier meant certain death, they were told. Having lived all his life within the walls, he had to rely on the stories related by the elders, whose parents and grandparents had once lived on the outside.

The tales spun by the fireside at night told of wondrous things: gleaming silver castles that rose to the heavens; of magical devices that flew or sped along the ground at a breathtaking pace. At one time, people lived without walls and could travel anywhere they wished. They had even flown to the stars themselves.

That was before IT happened.

The land was tainted, he was told. Tainted by a mysterious force that had swept the planet after a collision with a gigantic asteroid. The blow disrupted the Earth’s magnetic grids, changing the position of the axis and forever altering the face of the planet. Strange radiation emanated from the impact site, traveling along the lines of longitude until it enveloped the planet. The electromagnetic frequencies on the planet began to shift to a new energy that was not compatible with biological life.

Areas where the new frequencies were strongest became “dead”. The old frequencies were too weak to support life in those regions anymore; vegetation died off and surviving humans were forced to move. Collecting seeds, plants and livestock in an attempt to preserve themselves and as much of their old world as possible, people migrated in a series of mass exoduses to the few regions left on Earth where the old magnetism remained strong. Several “power spots” on Earth that had mystified humankind for centuries became safe havens in the face of an extinction-level natural disaster.

Pockets of surviving humanity clustered near Stonehenge, the Great Pyramids of Egypt, temples of Mayan and other origins, Easter Island, the Hawaiian Islands and the newly located North and South Poles. Because of the polar shift, the planet’s ice caps melted and refroze in the areas surrounding the new poles. The movement of the ice and change in magnetics resulted in repositioning of the oceans. Ocean floor became dry land and entire chunks of continents, including the southern half of North America, were swallowed by the sea.

It was in one of these former ocean floor regions that Peter lived. He was born there, as were his parents. Neither he nor his parents had ever ventured beyond the walls of the city of Sitnalta, located in the center of what had once been known as the Bermuda Triangle. The two thousand or so survivors who had colonized the site had found the ruins of an ancient city and built upon it. According to legends, the place was once a thriving continent that had met disaster and sunk into the sea. The ruins were remarkably well preserved and served the residents well after a bit of rebuilding. The new citizens of Sitnalta built a massive wall around the majestic city. A large iron-barred gate sealed the path to the outside world. The gate was the only way through the wall. Only the Mayor of the city had the key, and he opened the gate for no one.

Peter knew that the wall was for his own protection. Even though the magnetic energy was strong and healthy in the middle of the Triangle, it weakened as one moved away from the site. “Out There” was where the bad energy was. Peter could never go Out There because he would die. His grandfather told stories about early explorers who ventured Out There. Some never returned. The ones who did make it back to the safety of the city were weak and pale. They were also insane; ranting and babbling incoherently. They died soon afterward.

The land outside the city was dead, and all who ventured Out There would die as well. The exact borderline between safe levels of magnetism and dangerously low levels could not be accurately measured, so the law stated that all citizens must stay inside the walls where it was safe.

Just the same, Peter longed to explore beyond the gate. From the roof of the temple, the city’s tallest building, he could glimpse parts of the world outside the city walls. It was a magical alien landscape filled with colorful rock formations, the remnants of what had once been a coral reef. Pink and white seashells covered the sparkling sand as far as the eye could see, scattered like forgotten treasure. In the distance, on the other side of the reef the mast of a ship could be seen. It begged to be explored and it was close enough to the city that it had to be safe. He dreamed of being a brave explorer, even if he couldn’t venture far from the walls.

Life wasn’t fair; he was fifteen years old – practically a man – and yet he was unable to choose where he could or could not go.

Day after day, Peter made the trek to the gate to peer through the bars, hoping to catch a glimpse of something new. Each day the same view greeted him: rocks, sand and coral. He knew that the gleaming white bones to the left of the gate were part of a massive skeleton, from a creature called a “whale” that had once lived in the water. He wanted to touch the bones to see if they were as smooth as they looked. The seashells beyond the gate looked the same as the thousands of shells found within the city walls but Peter was convinced they would somehow be better.

One day, on his usual visit to the gate, he noticed something different. The iron barrier sat at a different angle than before. On closer inspection, he discovered that it was ajar.

How? More importantly, who?

Maybe it had come open on its own. He inspected the lock. It was well oiled and appeared to be functional. No, the gate had been opened by someone with a key. The only person who had a key was the Mayor. What would the Mayor be doing outside the gate, violating the very law it was his job to enforce?

Peter hesitated, hand on the gate. This was it. Here was his chance. Did he dare?

He took a deep breath and then swung the gate wide and stepped through to the other side.

“I won’t go far,” he whispered under his breath. “Just enough to see. Just to the other side of these rocks.”

Well, maybe he would go as far as the whale skeleton, but no farther. He could touch the bones and maybe take one of its teeth as a souvenir.

His legs shook as he took first one step, then another. He saw footprints in the sand leading away from the gate. They had to belong to the person who had opened the gate. They led past the rocks, away from the whale skeleton.

Just a quick look, then I’ll turn back, he thought.

He followed the footprints past the rocks and another larger group of rocks loomed in front of him. The footprints led into a narrow crevice between the rocks. He had to follow if he wanted to see what was on the other side. He looked back. The whale skeleton was getting smaller in the distance and he considered turning back. Yes, he would definitely turn back. Just as soon as he saw what was on the other side.

Peter eased through the narrow path, trying to step softly. His feet crunched on layers upon layers of tiny seashells that had accumulated between the rocks over the many centuries the place had been part of the ocean floor. The path twisted and turned and became almost completely dark. Once again Peter considered turning back but then he saw a sliver of light up ahead. He pushed forward and the path widened until he stepped back out into brilliant sunlight.

The footprints continued past an outcropping of rock. Peter followed. A flash of color up ahead caught his eye. As he drew closer, he saw a small red flag, planted in the sand. As he followed the path further, he saw another flag, then another. When he rounded the corner of the rock formation, he froze.

No!

It couldn’t be.

Peter stood before another wall, much like the one that surrounded his city. Set within the wall was another iron barred gate, just like the other.

What did it mean?

As Peter approached the gate, he saw that it had a sign on it. He stopped once again when he read the words on the sign:

DANGER

POINT OF NO RETURN!

Peter stumbled backward and rushed back toward the crevice in the rock. He’d seen enough. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to be back inside the walls of Sitnalta, where he would be safe.

“Young man!” A stern voice spoke. “What are you doing out here?”

An old man stood near the wall, holding a strange looking device.

Peter stammered, “I… I just… I’m sorry!”

“I was finished anyway. I will walk you back,” the man said. “What’s your name, son?”

“Peter.”

“Well, Peter, you need to understand that this is no place for you to be. There is a reason you are confined to the city.”

Peter nodded. “I’m sorry. I was on my way back. I just wanted to see…” he gestured toward the wall. “What is this? Another wall?”

“Yes. And beyond that wall, there is another.”

“What? Why?”

The old man sighed.

“I suppose I should introduce myself. I am Professor John Davenport. I am a scientist. I work for the Mayor.”

“The Mayor… he has the key.”

“Yes, he is the Keeper of the Key but that is not to say that he is the only one who uses it. I have clearance to venture outside to do my work.”

“What are you doing?”

“The same thing I’ve always done, and my father before me and my grandfather before that. I am the Monitor. My job is to monitor the electromagnetic levels, the only way possible. This device was designed by my grandfather. He lived in the old world, before IT. He remembered the old technology and the way it worked. This Gizmometer is the only means we have of measuring the energy levels to determine where it is safe and where it is not.”

“So, is it? Safe, I mean. Around here.”

Professor Davenport shook his head sadly. “No. It is not.” Seeing Peter’s panicked expression, he touched the boy’s arm in reassurance. “You are not in any immediate danger, don’t worry. But, one day in the not-too-distant future this place will be dead, just like out there.” He nodded toward the gate.

“What are those?” Peter asked, pointing at the flags.

“Markers. They mark the spot where the energy begins to drop. As you can see, the weakness has already advanced into the second circle.”

“Second circle?”

“Yes. Remember, I told you that beyond this wall there is another? At one time, that was the wall to our land. Your ancestors could move freely about this area, just as you now do within the confines of the city. That was the first gate. As the weakness spread, our magnetic safe zone began to shrink. My grandfather advised that another, smaller wall be built to ensure that everyone remained well within the healthy area.”

“The safe zone shrunk?” Peter asked, alarmed.

“Come.” Davenport beckoned and walked back toward the gate. Peter followed hesitantly. The Point of No Return sign made him nervous.

“It’s ok. It’s still safe at the gate… for now. The levels are just beginning to drop in this area.”

They reached the gate and Peter stood beside the scientist to look through the bars. The boy gasped at what he saw. The meaning of it hit home all at once.

Flags.

Hundreds of them, as far as the eye could see, gradually advancing from the gate where they stood, far into the distance.

“Each flag marks the new border of the safe zone. Most of the ones you see were placed there by my father, then by me. When the red flags reached this wall, we had to pull back and build another one. The third wall was built about twenty years ago. In your lifetime, you will witness the building of another.”

Peter followed the professor back down the path toward the crevice.

As they passed the last flag, the scientist paused.

“This one,” he said, pointing at the flag, “I placed here today. The one before it, six months ago. It is accelerating. The smaller our circle gets, the faster it shrinks. We build the walls to keep everyone safe, but also to keep them from knowing the truth. We don’t want mass panic on our hands.”

Peter’s heart thudded in his chest. “What are you saying?”

“Isn’t it clear, boy? Our safe zone is shrinking. ALL of them are. The planet is dying and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. Sitnalta will continue to shrink and we will be pushed closer and closer together until there is no more room to move. No more room to build walls. There will be no escape.

When it reaches that point, it is written that the Keeper of the Key will open the gate and we will be locked in no more.”

Copyright © 2014 Mandy White