The Man in the Field, Part II

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Continued from Part 1, here.

I sat at my desk, my fingers interlocked in front of me.  My cup of coffee, the third one of the morning, slowly grew cold beside me.

The body was down on the slab in Samuelson’s back room, and I’d carefully locked up that briefcase in our evidence locker.  Lewis had helped me put the thing in there, although neither of us spoke a word for the entire ride back to the station.

It was only after the thing was out of sight, under lock and key, that we started to drift back to normal.  I gave him a couple tasks to do – run down the prints off the dead body, try and get an ID, check for a wallet or other personal items – and sent him off.  Maybe we’d get lucky, find the guy in the system.

I, meanwhile, had a tougher decision to make.

I held the position of senior detective for our precinct, not that the title meant much.  When the county’s only got the money to pay four of you, not counting Marian’s volunteering on the weekend to sort through our files, the rank of “senior detective” is a bit like being the tallest kid on the playground.  Sure, it sounds nice, but it’s not worth printing up on a business card.

My boss… technically, I figured that would be the county sheriff.  Alan Hayfield was a nice enough fellow, bit forgetful these days, but he always showed up to the local school to encourage them to say no to drugs.  Still, he’d be just as over his head in this as me.

I drummed my fingers against the scratched wood of my desk, thinking hard.  I could still see the slight glow of the contents of that case, could feel the weight of its contents.  That case didn’t belong out in a field, in the middle of nowhere.

So what was our dead man doing with it?

And, perhaps more importantly, what was I going to do with it?

Fortunately, Lewis came barging into the station, breaking me out of my looping thoughts.  I stood up as he stomped his feet against the welcome mat, knocking off caked-on snow and huffing as he unzipped his heavy jacket.

“Any ID on the stiff?” I asked, giving him a hand with his coat.

Once he’d managed to remove a few heavy layers, Lewis nodded, looking a bit happier.  “Yeah, he had a wallet on him,” he replied, pulling out a plastic baggie containing the item in question from a pocket.  Detectives always looked happier with a lead..

I took the baggie, fumbled to manipulate the object inside until I had it flipped open.  “Bill Loonan,” I read, and chuckled at the resemblance.

Lewis frowned at me.  “What’s so funny?”

I thought about trying to explain to him how the dead guy had reminded me of Biff Loman, the dead salesman, but decided not to bother.  Lewis’s reading mostly consisted of the articles in the nudie mags he furtively bought at the gas station down the road and hid in the bottom of his desk’s drawer.

“Nothing,” I replied.  “Let’s run it.  See if there’s any missing persons out on a Bill Loonan.”

I fired up our office’s single, boxy computer, pulling out the brown-tinged keyboard.  Lewis dropped into the chair across from my desk.  When I looked up, he was frowning.

“What?” I asked, as I waited for the old machine to load.

“The car,” he said slowly, looking out past our front door.  “That farmer, Ewan, said he hadn’t seen any car.”

“So?”

“So how did this Loony guy get out in the field?  We both saw his shoes.  Leather dress shit.  He didn’t walk there.”

I shrugged.  It was a good question.  “Maybe someone dumped him there.  Wasn’t much blood underneath him on the field.”

But Lewis was already shaking his head.  “Who’d dump him, but leave, well, that?” he asked, leaning on the last word.

He didn’t have to say what he meant.  We both knew.  I didn’t have any answer.

Thankfully, the computer beeped a minute later.  I typed in Bill Loonan’s name and hit Enter, waiting for the machine to creakily send off the request.  When I’d first arrived here, I asked the town council to increase our budget so we could get a faster network, a better computer.  I had young, big ideas about improving the police force.

A decade later, we had the same connection and the same computer.

While I waited, I retrieved my coffee cup, frowning when a sip revealed that the liquid had gone cold.  I didn’t feel motivated enough to pop it into our food-splattered microwave, though, so I just took a few more sips, grimacing at each one.

Finally, the computer beeped back.  No results.  I glanced at Lewis, and he nodded, sighing.

“Looks like we’re stuck with old fashioned police work,” I said, turning the computer off.  “You got a picture of the stiff?  Head and shoulders shot, one folks might recognize?”

He nodded, pulling out his camera and loading up a picture for my approval.  I took a look, and gave it a nod.  It was clear upon close examination that the guy was dead, but he still at least looked human, apart from that hole between his eyebrows.

“What about, well, the briefcase?” Lewis asked, as I reached for my coat.  “Are we just going to leave it locked up?”

I grunted.  That damn briefcase.  That was the worst twist of all with this mystery, so far, and I didn’t even know how to deal with it.

“For now, yeah,” I finally said.  “Maybe, as we find out more about this Loonan guy, it will make some sense.”

Lewis nodded, trusting his boss, but I wished that I had more conviction behind my own words.

*****

A phone rang, three short, sharp trills, before a hand picked it up.

“Yeah.  Someone searched his name?  Police database?  From where?”

A brief pause, as if the speaker needed a few seconds to adjust.  “What?  Really, from there?  Who even has an internet connection out there?”

Another pause, followed by a sigh.  “Well, get someone out there, for God’s sake.  Shut this down, get it all cleaned up.”

“And whatever you do, make sure you recover that goddamn briefcase.”

The phone call ended.

The Man in the Field, Part I

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We got the call fairly early in the morning, according to the front desk’s note.  Some farmer found the body, out walking his dog.

And that was lucky, too, I thought to myself as I rubbed my hands together.  I always chose the thinnest pair of leather gloves I could find, for dexterity, but they didn’t hold in heat worth a damn.  The engine on my unmarked car was running full blast, but the heater always took twenty minutes to warm up.

Sitting beside me, Lewis stamped his feet on the floor and huffed into his own cupped hands, making a sound a bit like a coughing dog.  “Gah!  Is it always this cold?” he complained, wriggling his fingers.

I glanced sidelong at the man.  Close to a decade younger than me, he was new blood, only just transferred up here.  I didn’t think he’d last long.  I wasn’t privy to whatever mistakes got him transferred out to the country, but I didn’t need my detective skills to see that he was a city boy, through and through.

“We’ll get some heat once the engine’s warmed up,” I commented, keeping my eyes on the road ahead of us.  The uneven gravel of the road often hid treacherous ice puddles.

“And how’s long that gonna take?”

“Maybe ’bout twenty minutes.  ‘Bout the time we get there.”

Lewis huffed in frustration, and I let myself grin ever so slightly.  Guy was definitely young; he hadn’t mastered the art of letting all the bullshit of life roll off his back.

Sure enough, just as the car’s air vents began to puff out warm air, we reached the edge of the field.  “Corner of Harris and Ewan’s lots,” the report waiting for me at my desk had read.  No street address.

To someone new, like Lewis, that might have been nonsense, but I knew the farms around here well enough to get there without much trouble.  Comes from spending my years out here chasing down cows and lost cats, I guess.

Ewan was standing there, his breath coming out in hazy clouds as he gave me a wave.  His dog, a coon hound of indeterminate age and ancestry, bayed as we approached.  I could see Ewan’s shotgun hanging down from his other hand.  At least he wasn’t pointing the damn thing at my car.

I pulled over, leaving the keys in the ignition and the engine running, and climbed out.  My boots crunched on the icy crust atop the snow as I trudged over to the farmer.  I could hear the clumsy plodding of Lewis behind me, trying to not get too weighed down in the thick snow.

“Ewan,” I greeted the farmer with a nod, one he returned.  “What’ve we got?”

Ewan didn’t respond immediately.  He glanced over at Lewis, sizing up my younger partner, and I saw his lips curl ever so slightly.  “Who’s this?  New guy?”

“Yeah.  New guy.”  At least Lewis didn’t try and start a fight.  “Now, what the hell are we doing out here?  I can feel my balls turning blue as we speak.”

That, at least, got a little snort out of the farmer.  He turned and stepped out into his field, his dog keeping at his heels.  He didn’t say anything, but Lewis and I followed a few steps behind.

There were no crops in the field, of course.  Nothing grows in the dead of northern winter.  The ground had frozen in rows of ploughed furrows, however, and we had to watch our step as we climbed over the ridges.

We didn’t have to go far.  About ten rows into the field, we saw the disturbance in the snow, a rectangular corner of something sticking up through the crust of snow.

“You go any closer?” I asked Ewan as we stepped up to the object sticking out of the snow.

He shook his head.  “Course not.  Sparky ran ‘cross it, though.”

I nodded.  I could see the dog’s tracks going over the surface.  There were no other treads, however, no other sign of disturbance on the snow.

As I crouched down, peering across the three feet or so that separated me from the object, I carefully categorized my first impressions.

It was a briefcase.  That much was clear.  It looked like a nice affair, too, leather, with brass corners.  There might be something engraved in the top, right by the handle, but I couldn’t read it with the crust of ice that had formed on top of the leather surface.

My eyes moved over to the hand that still clutched the handle of the briefcase.

It was definitely a hand.  Human, white male, maybe in his forties.  It was tough to say more.  I could see the glint of a gold ring on the fourth finger.  Married?

Like a good partner, Lewis had pulled out his camera and snapped a couple dozen pictures.  I glanced over at him, and he nodded.  I could approach.

Carefully, I stepped closer, reaching out and picking up a frozen chunk of corn stalk, left over from the harvest in the fall.  Bit by bit, I swept away some of the snow, uncovering the man underneath.

He didn’t look like much.  I thought briefly of good ol’ Willy Loman, from Death of a Salesman.  Our corpse looked to be in his late forties, dressed in a gray overcoat over a cheap looking suit.  He wore leather shoes, although the material looked cracked and worn.  I swept away snow from his head, revealing thinning hair, a scraggly little excuse at a beard – and a small hole drilled right in the middle of his forehead.

As I uncovered that hole, I glanced up at Lewis.  The younger man’s mouth tightened, but he lifted the camera and snapped a picture.

Murder, then.

“So what’s he doing out here?”  Ewan hadn’t moved any closer, but the man kept on peering with interest over our shoulders, trying to get a better look at the corpse.  “It’s not like we’ve had any visitors.  And I didn’t see a car or anything when I came out here.”

The snow covered the man with a solid, unbroken crust, I thought to myself.  He’d been here a while, probably weeks.  We didn’t have a real coroner, but Samuelson, the mortician in town, might be able to pin down time of death a little more.  I couldn’t see much n the way of blood spatter, but it might just be frozen further down, underneath him.

As I’d mused, Lewis had picked up his own corn stalk, clearing away more of the snow.  “Hey, Harry,” he called out in an undertone to me.  “Look what he’s got over here.”

The stiff had fallen in a weird sprawl, his arms pointing off in opposite directions.  Lewis swept away the last of the snow from the man’s other outstretched arm as I glanced over.

“That doesn’t make sense,” my partner said aloud, as we both looked down at the newly uncovered object.

In the man’s right hand, he held a blued steel pistol.  I’d have to check back at the office, but it looked about the right size to put the hole in his forehead.

Suicide?  It didn’t make any sense.  Or had he been shooting at someone else when he went down?

I shrugged.  Get him back to the station, run his records, try and figure out who he was.  Who he had been.  I stood up, stretching out my already stiff knees – but then paused, looking down at the poor sod.

One quest kept on poking at my brain.  I knew I was breaking protocol, but hell, I was the ranking detective out here.

I glanced over at Lewis.  “You get a good close picture of his hand?” I asked, pointing down at the hand clutching the briefcase.

My partner nodded, but he shot a few more, just to be certain.  He didn’t say anything, but I could see his curiosity plain on his face as well.  He stood back, letting me do the honors.

Carefully, lips pulled back slightly from my face, I tugged the man’s fingers away from the handle of the briefcase.  I heard a couple uncomfortable creaks and pops, but nothing fully broke.  After a minute, I tugged the case free, setting it down on the snow beside the corpse.

Turning the case so that Ewan couldn’t see the contents, I pushed at the latches.  They popped open obediently, and I lifted the stiff lid.

For a moment, both Lewis and I froze, staring down at the softly glowing contents.  “Well, shit,” the younger man exclaimed, the words spoken in half a whisper.

I nodded – and then, even though I had to fight to pull my eyes away, I pushed the case back closed.

“Well, this got a bit more interesting,” I said softly…

Continued here.

Book 40 of 52: "1633" by Eric Flint and David Weber

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Last week, I read Eric Flint’s “1632.”  Given the title, it should be easy to guess that this book, “1633”, is the direct sequel – and you’d be correct!

Once again, we’re back with our time-displaced West Virginians in the middle of Germany, smack dab in the center of the 30 Years’ War.  Of course, by now our heroic Americans have established themselves as a force to be reckoned with – and word of their presence is spreading!  How are the other nations going to adjust?
I do like these sorts of “alternate history” books, but at the same time I find that they often get bogged down with a lot of historical details.  I’m not a huge history reader, and so when the names of dozens of royal monarchs and generals are being thrown around, it’s easy for me to get lost.  I felt that a little with this book, and even more with its next sequel, “1634: The Baltic War” (coming next week).

I almost need a flow chart to help with all the names.  Maybe include a glossary?

Time to read: About 5 hours – these alternate history books just keep on getting longer and longer!

Sparring

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“Again.”

For a moment, as my vision swirled, I thought that I saw three copies of the man, standing over me.  All three copies wore the same identical scowl as they glared down at me.

“Come on,” I heard his voice through woolen ears.  “Get up.  We’re going again.”

“Come on, Cain,” I groaned, even as I rolled over onto my stomach and put my hands beneath me to hoist my tired, aching body up from the hard ground.  “Haven’t you beaten me up enough today?”

Still, I pulled myself up, trying to force my fingers to once again tighten into fists as I squared off against my opponent.  Although I felt like my entire body was covered in scratches and bruises, Cain looked as fresh as he had this morning, without a single mark on him – at least, none fresh.

“Now, this time,” Cain suggested to me, “maybe try not to choreograph your attacks so much.  I can tell when you’re about to swing at me from a mile away.”

I groaned back in response.  Of course Cain knew when I was going to attack!  He had, during my time with him, demonstrated the uncanny ability to beat up anyone and everyone we came across.

On the other hand, although I still couldn’t remember any of my past, I knew that I definitely hadn’t been a fighter.

Still, facing off against this man who seemed as solid and implacable as a force of nature, I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself.  “Okay,” I said, more to myself than to him.

And I charged forward.

This time, I decided to try and be as tricky as possible.  I held my fists high, intending to drop them to a low swing at the last second.  But although I started to bring my fists down, I abruptly switched direction, launching them back up towards the man’s jaw.

For just a second, I felt his skin brush against my knuckles, and I thought I had him.

A fraction of an instant later, however, Cain moved like a snake, and I found myself spinning through the air, my legs flying out from underneath me.  My hand still hit something, but I couldn’t focus on it, and barely had time to exhale before I hit the ground on my back.

This time, Cain offered his hand down to me to help hoist me back up.  “Not bad,” the man gave in reluctantly.  “You actually connected with me, that time.  A nice feint.”

“Didn’t help me much,” I grumbled back, although I accepted his help back up.  Now, not only did my ass hurt, but my knuckles ached as well.  What was the man’s jaw made of, steel?

Groaning as a shoulder popped, I took a deep breath, trying to get ready to go again – but Cain glanced up at the sky through the trees.  “Sun’s setting,” he announced.  “We ought to get moving.  We’ve got further to go before we set up camp.”

“Not making it to a town?” I asked, although I already knew the answer.  If there had been a town nearby, we wouldn’t have paused for the sparring session.

Cain just shook his head as he picked up his pack and slung it back on his shoulders.  I bent down to do the same with my own pack, trying to ignore the complaints from my joints as I maneuvered the heavy load up onto my shoulders.

With his pack in place, Cain picked up his rifle, checking it with swift movements of his hands.  I did the same to mine, the movements almost automatic now.  Another skill that my guide had drilled into me, I thought to myself with a shiver.

With his weapon secure, Cain headed off into the jungle.  “Come on,” he called over his shoulder, not bothering to glance back to ensure I was following.

I grimaced at how much it hurt to even walk, but I didn’t let the man get too far ahead before chasing after him.  Cain might be trying, but I knew that I wouldn’t survive a night without him.

Up above our heads, as the sun dropped towards the horizon, some creature let out a long, mournful call.  I felt a foreboding chill run down my spine, and I tried to pick up my pace, sticking close to Cain.

Despite the bruises he’d inflicted on me, I was glad to have him on my side.

A Scrape in the Dark

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I stared up at the ceiling, my eyes wide open and my brain feeling like a skipping record.

Okay.  Silence.  It’s lasted a while now – it has to have been at least a minute.  Maybe that means that the sound has-

Scrape.

Nope.  There it is again.

With a grunt of exasperation, I sat up and threw off the covers.  The red digits on the clock across from me told me that it was morning, if just barely.  My brain feverishly calculated that I had approximately seven hours until I had to be at work.

And for the fourth night, I couldn’t fall asleep, thanks to that damn noise.

I turned, dropped my feet off the side of the bed and into the slippers positioned next to my nightstand.  I fumbled for my glasses, sliding them onto my face.  Standing up, I grabbed my dressing gown and pulled it around me as I stumbled towards my front door.

It was that mysterious tenant in 201A, I knew it.  I’d only just moved to this apartment a couple weeks ago, but I’d already gotten to meet most of the tenants.  Old Mrs. Rabbish, down on the first floor, now greeted me with a cheery smile that made her wrinkled skin crinkle around her eyes.  Terry, the muscle-bound bodybuilder up on the fourth floor, gave me a high-five whenever he came hustling past me on the stairs.  The tenants all seemed like a friendly enough bunch.

But I’d never met my neighbor, the occupant of 201A, the other apartment on my floor.  Strange – I would have expected to bump into him or her sooner or later, but I never saw any sign of my neighbor on the second floor.

Someone lived there, though.  I sometimes saw packages sitting outside their door, or Chinese take-out menus looped onto the doorknob, when I left for work.  By the time I returned home, however, they’d always be gone.

Now, opening my door, I stomped over to the door for 201A.  I wasn’t sure what I would say, but my body, fatigued with exhaustion and fogged with desire for silence, carried me forward.  I lifted my hand, formed a fist, and pounded on the door to 201A.

I heard no answer from within.

After another knock produced the same lack of result, I leaned in, pressing an ear up against the cold wood.  Perhaps the scraping sound was coming from somewhere else…

No, there it was!  From the other side of the door, I heard it, fainter but unmistakable!  This neighbor of mine was making the noise that kept me awake!

I pounded on the door again, but I still didn’t hear any approaching footsteps, any sign of life.  My hand dropped down to the knob, but I hesitated for a moment as I felt it turn beneath my fingertips.

“You’re just going to put a stop to that noise,” I told myself, taking a deep breath.

I turned the knob, leaned in to push the door in – and stopped as the swinging door caught on something.

There was something in the way, some object on the far side of the door.  The crack was a few inches wide, now, enough for me to slip my arm in and feel around for the obstruction.  Turning my body to the side, I blindly slipped my hand and arm in through the crack, feeling along the door as I searched for whatever might be in the way.

Nothing at the top of the door.  I lowered my hand down, dropping to a crouch, feeling a pit open in the bottom of my stomach.

My hand bumped up against something, and I nearly screamed.  The obstruction was only about a foot off the floor.  It felt like fabric, maybe cotton – and it gave a little at my touch.

I gave the cotton object a push, and felt it roll backward with a soft thump.  Standing back up, I gave the door another push, and this time felt it open further.  It still wasn’t all the way open, but the crack was now wide enough for me to slip my body inside.

Briefly, I considered whether I should call the cops.  But I hadn’t found anything bad yet, right?  I hesitated – and then stepped inside, feeling around as I did so for the light switch.

I found it, and for a moment my eyes saw nothing but white as they tried to adjust to the sudden brightness.

Once my eyes had recovered from the flash, I lowered my hand down from across my face.  I glanced over at the door to see what had been blocking it – and nearly screamed, leaping backward.

For just a second, I thought that the… thing… on the ground was some sort of rubber suit.  It looked large, detailed, with gray hair covering the head and wearing some sort of clothing.  That must have been what I pushed on, I thought numbly to myself.

Uncomfortable, but unwilling to draw away, I peered closer at the suit.  Why did that face, despite being empty, deflated, somehow look familiar?

It wasn’t until I had lowered myself to put my own face barely a foot away that I realized how I recognized the face on this suit – and I backpedaled with horror, my heart accelerating until it was thumping like a rabbit in my chest.

I knew that deflated, sagging, dead face.

That was Mrs. Rabbish’s face.

It took several seconds before I was able to even breathe again, my heart still pounding in my chest like I’d just sprinted a mile.  What in the world was going on?  I couldn’t think, couldn’t make any sense of it.

But then, on the edge of hearing, I caught that scraping sound, coming from further inside the apartment.

I felt beyond tired, unable to think with any sense.  I stood up, doing my best to keep my eyes away from that empty skin on the ground by the door, and padded further into the apartment of 201A.

Book 39 of 52: "1632", by Eric Flint

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Ever dreamed of going back in time, maybe with a .45 caliber pistol to help smooth things over with the natives?  Well, in “1632”, an entire town of West Virginia hillbillies is magically/mystically teleported back to the middle of Europe, in the titular year, right in the middle of the 30 Years’ War.

How’s it happen?  There’s a brief little science explanation, but the “how” doesn’t really matter.  No, what truly matters is what happens next – and that’s four hundred pages of good ol’fashioned American ass kicking.
Reading “1632” makes me think of a favorite Reddit sub-forum (or subreddit), known as Humanity Fuck Yeah.  This forum features all sorts of stories about humans being awesome, stories which often have an ending so satisfying that I can’t help but cheer and pump my fist in the air.  Awesome heroes triumph over villains through firepower, courage, and daring!  Democracy kicks the ass of those cruel and vicious monarchs!

I’ve read “1632” before, but I’ve never managed to make it all the way through the series that it launches, with the following books including 1633, 1634: The Baltic War, 1634: The Galileo Affair, and many more.  This time, though, I’m willing to give it another chance.

Occasionally dense with history and politics, but with enough action to make up for it, 1632 is definitely a must-read for lovers of alternate history.  Up next?  The sequels!

Time to read: About 8 hours.

[Elements] Be meets Al, K, and V

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For reference: https://imgur.com/gallery/OawUY

“Through here!” Alli called to me, her voice barely audible over the rumble of machinery.  “We’re close now!”

“Close to what?” I shouted back, although I knew that it wasn’t of any use.  The girl had already dashed too far ahead to hear my response, and even though she’d disappeared out of view, I saw a door fly open ahead of me.

Shaking my head, I hurried after her.  What we were even doing here, in this dangerous factory, wasn’t clear to me.  But this girl was my only contact, and I had to follow her.

On either side of the narrow walkway, massive vats of molten liquid bubbled, sending heat up in waves through the still, heavy air.  The walkway had rails on the sides to prevent anyone from tumbling in, but those still seemed like scant protection against the crushing heat.

Hurrying along the walkway before that heat could get to me, I saw the door that Alli had pulled open still standing ajar.  It looked as though she’d broken a lock that had been holding it shut, but that didn’t surprise me.  Despite looking in appearance like a normal high school girl, albeit it one with pure silver hair, Alli was much stronger than she let on.

Aluminum, I reminded myself as I ducked in through the door.  Lightweight and strong.

“Hey, guys!” I heard Alli call out in this new chamber we’d entered.  “I found a new one!”

“What!?” came an immediate reply from a male voice, delivered in sharp and disapproving tones.  “And you brought her here?  Do you know what a betrayal of trust this is-“

“Oh, can it, James,” snapped a new voice, a deeper female voice with tones of mingled annoyance and amusement.  “You react too strongly to everything.”

I stared around as I entered this new chamber.  Huge steel apparatuses sat in two lines running down the length of the chamber; they looked like molds of some sort, perhaps for the molten metals in the previous chamber.  From one far corner, I could see a purple glow rising up, stronger than the orange lights that illuminated the rest of the chamber.

Alli stood in the middle of the room, her hands on her hips as she glared around.  “At least come out and meet her!” she called out, directing her voice deeper into the room.

I slowly moved in closer to the other girl.  Alli at least seemed to have some idea of what was going on.  “Alli, what are we doing here?” I asked.

Before she could answer, however, the purple glow grew stronger – and I saw a man step out from behind one of the huge metal molds.  Staring at him, I felt my mouth drop open.

The man looked a bit like some sort of science geek – He wore jeans, a tight black sweater, and a pair of rectangular frameless glasses.  He didn’t have an ounce of spare fat on him, and even his face looked to be all lines and angles.  His mouth was also set in a thin line, frowning at me.

But that wasn’t why I stared.

The man held one palm out, his fingers open, and in that palm danced a guttering purple flame!  Some of the purple glow radiated out from that flame, burning on nothing, but the rest seemed to come from his very body.

He glared back at me.  “So, Aluminum, who is this and why shouldn’t I burn her to ashes?”

My eyes went wide at that threat, but Alli just grinned back at him.  “James, this is Ellen – although now maybe we’ll call her Beryllium!”

“Well, well,” called out the other voice I’d heard, the deeper, more mature female voice.  “So you found one of the Top Ten?”

I turned to this new speaker.  The blonde-haired woman who emerged from behind another mold looked to be in her thirties, but she couldn’t have stood more than five feet tall, even in the heavy steel-toed boots she wore.  The rest of her was covered up by a bulky navy-colored jumpsuit, and she held a large wrench in one hand with a casualness that suggested she often put it to use.  Now examining me, she crossed her arms and regarded me flatly.

“It doesn’t matter which element she is – she still shouldn’t have come here without us knowing-” James began again hotly, but this new blonde-haired woman turned to him and raised the wrench threateningly, and he reluctantly shut his mouth.

“Ellen, how much of this do you understand?” she asked me, turning back to me.

I threw up my hands helplessly.  “I have no idea what’s going on,” I confessed honestly.

She nodded, as if this was what she’d expected.  “Well, let’s start off with some introductions,” she said, as if this gathering in a factory was nothing new.  “You’ve met Alli, who’s got Aluminum.  James over there is Potassium, and I’m Lena, and I’m Vanadium.”

I just shook my head blankly.  “I still don’t understand,” I groaned.

Lena glanced over at Alli, raising her eyebrows slightly.  “You said she’s new; how new?” she asked the silver-haired girl.

Alli grinned.  “Brand new.”

Despite my silver-haired guide’s grin, Lena just sighed.  She turned back to me, shaking her head a little.

“Okay, Ellen, or whatever your name is, listen up,” she said, in a lecturing tone.  “Here’s the deal.  You know the periodic table of the elements, don’t you?”

Staring back at her, I nodded wordlessly.

“Well, out there in the world, there are a hundred-odd people who are a lot more connected with that table than anyone else knows.  Each of them can control a certain element – but has some effects of that element controlling them, too.”  Lena lifted the wrench.  “Take me, for example.  Vanadium – it’s used to harden steel, so I tend to be most comfortable around steel tools, in places like this.”  She slammed the wrench down on her thigh in the jumpsuit, producing no measurable effect.  “It also makes me a bit harder, too.”

“Now, take James over there,” Lena went on, nodding at the still-grimacing man with the purple flame.  “He’s got a reactive element, and he can put that reactivity to use.  But as you’ve already seen from his temper, it’s a double-edged sword.”

“So what about me?” I asked, already feeling overwhelmed.

Lena shrugged.  “You’ve got to figure out your own element,” she said shortly.  “But I’d start figuring it out soon.”

“Why’s that?”

Alli started to open her mouth, but Lena spoke first.  “Because someone out there is hunting us,” she said simply.  “We don’t know who, and we don’t know why.  But someone out there is killing off the elements.

“And you could be next.”

Writing Prompt: The futile efforts of a slutty secretary.

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“So, Mr. Carlyle, is there anything else I can get you?” the young woman asked, making sure that her breasts, hanging heavy in her low-cut blouse, just barely brushed against the man’s suited shoulder.

The man, however, didn’t glance up from his paperwork.  “No, Missy, that will be all, I think,” he said, waving one hand vaguely in the air.

Missy felt a little put out, but she straightened up carefully, making sure to accentuate the long, slender lines of her figure.  Her mini-skirt ended only a fraction of an inch below the perfect curves of her ass, and if Richard Carlyle happened to slide one hand up along the inside of her perfect bronze thigh, he’d soon find a very distinct lack of underwear beneath…

The man didn’t even notice, however.  Missy was pretty sure that she could have been wearing a chicken costume, and the man wouldn’t have noticed!  She threw back her long blonde waves over her shoulder and let out a snort as she stomped out in her high heels.

It’s not easy to stomp in high heels, but the buxom blonde bombshell managed it.

As she slammed the door to his office shut behind her, Carlyle glanced up, his brow furrowing briefly.  Was something bothering his secretary?  He felt much more comfortable reading a financial report than another person, but she seemed annoyed somehow.

He glanced down at the fresh stack of documents that Missy had delivered to him.  She’d left a pink sticky note on top, complete with her phone number and a couple of Xs.  That was thoughtful, Carlyle noted absently to himself.  If she’d left anything out, he could call her about it.

He wasn’t sure about the Xs, but interpreted them to mean that she wasn’t going to strike out if she could help it.

Real go-getter, that Missy, he thought briefly to himself before his mind filled up with numbers.

*

“Your coffee, sir- oh, no!” Missy suddenly exclaimed as she tilted the cup forward, spilling the brown frothy liquid out all over the man in front of her.  “Oh my, I’m so clumsy!  I ought to be spanked for it!”

“Oh, that’s all right, Missy,” Carlyle replied quickly, standing up as the coffee poured down over his crotch.  “I’m sure you just tripped-“

Missy had already dropped down to her bare knees on the carpet, bending forward and rubbing both her hands over his crotch.  “We need to get those pants off of you right away, sir, so they don’t stain,” she insisted, her nimble fingers flying to his belt and tugging it free.  “Come, now, let’s get you out of all those wet clothes!”

She had the belt undone, the button open, and her fingers were on the zipper!  Finally, she was going to get the man naked – and then it was just a matter of wrapping her lips around him.  Missy knew that, once his dick was inside a girl’s mouth, no man would ever pull away-

“Here, no need to worry!”  Suddenly, Carlyle’s hands were down beneath her shoulders, lifting her back up!  “Let me show you something.”

Before she knew what was happening, the man was stepping away from her – and pulling open one of the wooden panels that lined his massive office, he revealed a small closet, full of clean hanging suits!

“You see,” Carlyle explained, grabbing one of the fresh suits off of the rack, “I tend to sometimes have a little accident with lunch.  And vinaigrette is impossible to get out of white linen – I know, I’ve tried.  So I keep a couple extra changes of outfit here, just in case.

“But here,” he finished, handing the coffee-stained pants to Missy as he pulled on the fresh set.  “You can take these and get them dry-cleaned for me.  Put it on the company account, of course – anyone could have slipped there!”

Met with that well-meaning, innocent smile, Missy couldn’t think of anything to do but nod and accept the stained garment.  “Of course, sir,” she sighed, turning and heading back out of the office.

Carlyle smiled as he gazed after her.  What a thoughtful young woman!  She was clearly loyally devoted to him.  She must have known that he had an investors’ meeting this afternoon, and wanted him to be both alert and spotless.  She deserved a raise, he noted to himself.

*

“Excuse me!”  The call stopped Missy in her tracks, halfway to the door to the man’s office.  “Missy, I think there’s been some mistake!”

She turned and glanced back at Carlyle behind his desk, biting her lower lip seductively.  “What’s wrong, master?” she asked.

Carlyle flicked through the stack of papers she’d just placed in front of him.  “Yes, Missy, this is the Kleiberson report.  I need the Daniels report.”

“Oh no, I’ve made such a mistake!” Missy exclaimed, dashing back and dropping to her knees beside the man.  This time, her low-cut top was held up only by the thinnest of spaghetti straps looping over her shoulders, and it offered an expansive view deep into her cleavage.  She’d carefully picked out a top a full two sizes too small – and with no bra, her nipples stood out like quarters through the thin, sheer fabric.

“Now, now, that’s okay-” Carlyle began, but Missy had already pushed him back in his chair from the desk, pushing herself forward and into his lap.  “Missy, what are you doing?”

“Oh, I’ve been a bad girl,” his secretary cried, wiggling forward so that she lay across his lap.  “Please, master, you need to spank me and teach me a lesson!”

Carlyle blinked as the woman wiggled her perky round ass up at him.  She’d chosen another short little miniskirt today, this one little more than a belt.  “Spank you?  Missy, I don’t think that’s necessary-“

“Oh, please, if you don’t, I’ll never learn my lesson!” the woman cried dramatically, managing to twist so that, even with her ass right in range of the CEO’s hands, she could give him another beguiling glimpse down at her full breasts.  “I’ve been such a bad girl, and you need to punish me with a good spanking, right on my tight little ass!”

Missy mentally crossed her fingers.  This had to work!  How could any man resist her, in his lap like this and begging for him?  This would make most men blow a blood vessel and collapse right there!  When she came in for work this morning in this outfit, two of the security guards had suffered spontaneous bloody noses!

But incredibly, Carlyle just stood up, gently easing her off of his lap.  “Now, now, Missy, I would never hit a woman,” he chided her gently.  “I’m very progressive like that, but I believe that chivalry is a lost art these days that needs to be revived.”

“But master, I’ve been bad, and I need to be punished-“

“Nonsense!” Carlyle insisted with a broad grin as he helped her up to her feet.  “You’re a wonderful secretary, and you shouldn’t punish yourself like this.  Any man would be happy to have you working for him!”

“Now,” he went on, as Missy blinked and tried to understand how she’d been so kindly rejected, “if you could go bring me the Daniels file, that would be perfect.  There’s a good girl, then!”

Wondering if the CEO had somehow lost his penis in some sort of yacht accident, Missy tottered out of the room, defeated.

Carlyle shook his head as he watched her go.  A fine girl, he thought to himself, but she needed to shake those old-fashioned notions of punishment.  Maybe he needed to sign her up for a woman’s empowerment course, give her a bit of self-confidence.

Book 38 of 52: "The Map of the Sky" by Felix J. Palma

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Steampunk science fiction and fantasy has been a rising genre, in my eyes.  It’s often difficult for me to immerse myself initially in the complexity of the steampunk universe, trying to remember how I know names like Algernon Swinburne and Charles Babbage.  However, I’ve found that, after the first 100 pages, I’m irreconcilably mired in the story, and I can’t bring myself to close the book until I’ve reached the last page.

Of course, it’s helpful when the plot is sufficiently fantastic, as well.
Such is the case in Felix J. Palma’s “The Map of the Sky,” which happens to be the second of three books in his Map of Time trilogy.  Ideally, I’d read the three books in order, but this was the only one available at my library, so I’m going with it!  Not to worry – I have reservation requests in for the others.

In this story, our hero is none other than Herbert George Wells, cranky and irascible author of “The Time Machine” and “War of the Worlds”!  The man has just published War of the Worlds, and finds himself initially amused when the story begins to come true!  However, amusement quickly turns to horror as he finds that Martians truly are invading, and they appear unstoppable.

I won’t give away much more of the story, as there’s a significant plot twist that would quite spoil the ending.  However, I will say that I was able to guess this twist was coming – it was really the only “out” the author had.  That perhaps slightly dampened my enjoyment.

Still, the book was well written and engaging, and I’ll be reading the others.  Plus, at a hefty five hundred pages or so, it’s long enough for some decent world-building, without initially growing too overwhelming or fantastic.

Time to read: About 6 hours, all in two days.  Damn that immersive universe!

REWRITE: Possession Talk Around the Neighborhood Grill

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Author’s note: I like this story!  But I feel that it could actually use a rewrite, to give these characters some description.  I normally hate editing, but… why not give it a shot?

The sun shone brightly down from above the trees, as a thin wisp of smoke rose up from below.  Given the scent of charcoal, mingled with that of charring meat, any observer wouldn’t be amiss in guessing that they were catching a sniff of neighborhood barbecue.

The street was a cul-de-sac, a little half-circle of houses wrapping around the widened end of the street.  Today, the men had dragged their grills out to the middle of the street, plopping a couple of orange traffic cones further up the street to dissuade any lost drivers from plowing into the little gathering.  The grills were a motley assortment, from Jerry’s traditional round charcoal grill to Bill’s monstrosity of a modern grill, covered in knobs and adjustable flaps, its aluminum shining in the sun.

Gathered around the grills, the men chatted back and forth, occasionally opening up the grills to poke at the meat and produce sharp hisses of grease and juices flashing into steam.  Meanwhile, the women gossiped in little circles as they sipped at freshly made margaritas, and the children ran around the groups, chasing each other and occasionally letting out high-pitched screams.

It was a great day for a barbecue, overall.  The sun hadn’t yet reached its apex in the sky, but the day was already pleasantly warm, with just the slightest of breezes rustling the leaves on the trees.

The women gossiped, but the women always gossiped.  Most of them stayed home during the week instead of heading out to offices, and they’d raised gossip to a high art form as they ducked in and out of each other’s houses.

For the men, on the other hand, ‘gossip’ had become a taboo term.  If asked, each man would insist that he never gossiped – he merely updated the other men of the neighborhood on current events within his sphere of influence, his household, his kingdom.  They considered the exchange of information now occurring as vital to defending their homes as the motley assortment of baseball bats and golf clubs that they guiltily kept hidden in the back of their closets.

As he lowered the cover of his round charcoal grill back over the hissing meat, Jerry shook his head back and forth in disbelief.  “Man, you cannot be serious.  On either count.”

“No, I swear it’s true!”  Bill reached out and adjusted some knob on his huge, gleaming aluminum monstrosity of a grill.  Most of the other men would wager – accurately – that even Bill didn’t know what that knob did, but that didn’t mean that the others weren’t envious of the hulking machine.  Here in the suburbs, men gauged the measure of each other by the size of their grills.

Once the knob had been satisfactorily adjusted, Bill looked back up at the others.  “Summoning ritual gone wrong, the whole nine yards.  It’s really the only way for me to explain it.  She’s nothing like how she used to be.”

Jerry waved his tongs dismissively.  “No, man, demons don’t exist.  It’s all hogwash.”

On the other side of the circle, Keith nodded, crossing his arms over his large belly.  “Yeah, what Jerry said.  No such thing.”  He narrowed his eyes at Bill.  “Did you ever think that maybe she just conked her head or something?”

“Come on, guys!  You think I wouldn’t notice if she had a big bump on her head?”  Bill flapped his arms, perhaps trying to express exasperation, but instead only succeeding in making himself unfortunately resemble a large waterfowl of some sort.  “And no, it has to be possession.  I mean, it all started with the book, anyway.”

Keith just grunted, but Jerry leaned in.  “Yeah, what about that?  How did this happen in the first place?”

“Well, her Aunt Agatha died a couple weeks ago.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry to hear that, man.”

All three men paused, looking down at the ground as they each tried awkwardly to think of a way to comfort a casual acquaintance for the loss of a loved one.  Although, in this case, the loved one was only linked by marriage.  Were condolences necessary?  The etiquette was hazy and unclear, so they elected to just pause for silence for a few seconds.

Finally, Bill broke the momentary hush.  “Eh, no big loss,” he said, shrugging off the uncomfortable moment.  “We didn’t know her well, and the woman was crazy.  Always wore black, stayed locked away in her old Victorian house, one of those shut-ins.  But we went up to pack up her stuff, and we found the book.”

“The book that possessed her,” Keith interrupted, still looking unconvinced.

Bill started to answer, but then paused, shook his head, and rephrased.  “No, Keith, I don’t think the book possessed her.  I mean, not directly.”  He waved a hand, struggling for the right words.  “But the book had the spell that summoned the demon that possessed her.”

Jerry held up his hands, his eyebrows jumping.  “Wait, man.  So who said the spell?”

“Jerry, I was just getting to that!” Bill retorted, turning back and forth between the other two men as if unsure who to confront first.  “Let me get my story out!”

He sighed.  “Anyway, since you asked, I think my daughter did it.  Sarah gave the book to her, since she’s getting into that whole “goth” nonsense, and next thing we knew, there was a pentagram in blood on our kitchen floor.”

“Her blood?” Jerry burst out, his eyebrows climbing and knitting themselves together in alarm.

Bill quickly waved him back down.  “Nah, I think she grabbed one of the venison steaks from the freezer and dragged it around.”

“Oh.”  Jerry wanted his neighbor to continue telling his tale, but neighborhood formalities had to be upheld.  “Hey, those were delicious, by the way.  Thanks for sharing them.”

“My pleasure, we had more than we’d ever eat,” Bill replied, an accepted answer, before returning back to the story.  “But anyway, so Sarah’s the first one into the kitchen when we hear all the chanting, and she just freezes.  And I swear that I saw a cloud of smoke go shooting into her mouth.”

“Not a smoker, is she?” Keith asked.

“Nope.”

“Huh.  And you said it shot into her mouth?  Not out of it?”

Bill nodded, and Keith shrugged.  “Man, that’s crazy.”

For a moment, all of the men just stood around, flipping through their limited knowledge of demonic possession.  A couple of them had tried bringing horror movies home, hoping that their wives would feel the need for closeness after getting a few jump scares, but after Rich accidentally left the DVD in the player and his kid put the thing on, well, the wives quickly put an end to that trend.  The men vaguely remembered something about needing bells and candles and a Bible, but they couldn’t even claim any degree of expertise in the subject.

Eventually, Jerry broke the silence.  “So what, do we need to exercise her or something?”

“Dude, I think you mean exorcise,” Keith corrected, making good use of his one piece of knowledge on the topic.

“Yeah, whatever,” Jerry waved him off.  The man kept his attention focused on Bill.  “But really.  How do we get the demon out?”

Bill held up his hands in a forestalling gesture.  “Well, wait a minute!  See, at first I was thinking the same thing.  But now, I’m actually kind of not minding Sarah being possessed.”

Bill smiled for a moment as the eyes of both of his conversational companions widened.  As usual, Jerry managed to get his mouth open before Keith.  “Wait, what?  But there’s a demon in her, you’re saying!”

“Yeah… but the demon is trying really hard to pass itself off as a human!” Bill answered, grinning.

The blank looks on his companions showed that they didn’t understand.  “What’s that mean?”

Before he answered, Bill did something else with his grill, opening a small window to peek at the chicken breasts inside, and then closing it with a nod.  “Well, she’s doing the dishes, cleaning the house, buying groceries, taking care of all the chores – and trust me, she’s like an animal in the bedroom now!” he explained, a wide grin on his face.

Both of the other men nodded in customary, ritual jealousy.  “Dude,” they both chorused, although a note of concern tinged their voices.  This was a devil, after all.  Maybe.

“Hey!  It had been a while for us!” Bill defended, before anyone could attack him for possibly sleeping with a member of Hell.  “Sometimes a guy is just happy to be getting some, even if the woman might have a tiny little demon in her!”

The other two reconsidered, weighing the two sides.  Sleeping with a beast from Hell was bad, they knew, but on the other hand, they both knew the feeling of a cold bedroom far too well.  “Well, maybe,” Keith eventually gave in.

Jerry was a bit more focused on the conversation.  “So Bill, what are you going to do?”

Bill opened his mouth to answer, but then paused and shrugged.  “Oh, I don’t know.  I’ll take her to church on Sunday, maybe.  If she doesn’t start smoking in the service, well, maybe it’s for the best, you know?”

“S’pose so,” Keith agreed.  His mind, however, clearly was still a couple sentences behind.  “Crazy in the bedroom, you said?”

“Oh yeah,” Bill grinned, happy to be back on a topic where he could brag.  “I’ve got scratches all up and down my back.  And I think she’s even more eager than I am!  Makes me feel like a teenager again!  I’m thinking she might be one of those ‘suck-bus’ demons, or whatever.”

“Well, damn,” Keith said, unable to keep a note of jealousy out of his voice.  He held his mouth shut for a second, but eventually the thought on his mind couldn’t be contained any longer.  “Think your daughter could bring that book over to my place?”

Bill smiled, but pretended that he hadn’t heard this last question.  Instead, he opened up his grill, picking up a pair of tongs and experimentally lifting the chicken.  “Looks like the meat’s about done!  Who wants to eat first?”

Talk in the middle of the cul-de-sac returned back to more normal topics, such as who had the worst lawn, what new rules the homeowner’s association might try and enforce next, and whether this would be a good year for the local high school football team.  But secretly, not sharing their thoughts with the others, each man pondered Bill’s confession – and whether they could manage to get their hands on that cursed, Hellish book of his.