May 7, 2012

From “Odessa Mullen Slips Back Into the Zombieworld” by Petra Natalia Langley

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This post is part of the May 2012 Blog Chain at Absolute Write. This month’s prompt is “zompocalypse now”.

“I’m not crazy.” There was nothing, not even high-pitched screaming street corner gibberish, that sounded crazier than that statement, Dessie decided the moment she heard it.

“We don’t like to assign terms to things here,” the psychologist said. “Just tell me about these ‘reality shifts’ you’ve been seeing.”

“Well, everybody knows that I’m into macabre stuff like zombies in a big way,” said Dessie, excitedly. “I mean, my last birthday cake was green and it had little plastic body parts sticking out of it. I’ve got a full set of George Romero films, and a complete (signed!) first edition run of Zomcomix. That goes for like a hundred bucks on eBay, unsigned!”

“Uh-huh.” The psychologist’s old-fashioned fountain pen made an unpleasant scratching sound as it worked over his notebook. “Go on.”

“The other day I started seeing some zombies for real. I knew they were real because if anyone would know them by sight it would be me and because the Zombie Walk isn’t until next month. I’ve already got my costume, it squirts real fake blood and everything.” Dessie took a deep breath. “They chase me just like the do in the movies and I see a few people that I recognize only they’ve been zombified and now they’re trying to get me too.”

It sounded even crazier when she put it that way; Dessie was sure the psychologist was scratching something about hallucinations and paranoid delusions. “So you’re seeing them in your everyday life, then?” the psychologist said, sounding bored.

“No, not like they’re popping up in the normal world, no. It’s like the whole world goes 100% Dawn of the Dead 28 Days Later with the burnt-out buildings and the wrecked cars and even a few survivors with big guns on rooftops. It’s like I’m, I dunno, in a world where the long prophesied (and some people say, for me, long awaited but I don’t really think like that and want everybody to die or anything) zombie apocalypse happened a month or two ago. A total shift in my reality.”

“And this reality shifting happens…often?” The painful scratching of pen on expensive paper continued.

“At first there was a good long gap between them, so much so that I thought the first one might just have been a hallucination or an episode maybe caused by stress or overwork (it’s finals time) but then it happened again and I think but I’m not sure that the time between them is getting shorter.” Dessie took another deep breath. “So I’m not crazy, I’m just slipping into a zombie world and spending more and more time there.”

More pen scratching, but no further word from the psychologist.

“Well, what do you think? You’re writing that I’m crazy on that thing, aren’t you? Aren’t you? I just told you in plain English that I’m not crazy (even though I know how crazy that sounds) and I set out what’s been happening very plainly (even though I know that sounds even crazier than me saying I’m not crazy), so the least you could do is say something reassuring along the lines of ‘I’m not crazy.'”

The scratchings were particularly violent now, as if the psychologist were jamming his pen into the paper in a frenzy of analysis.

“Well?” Dessie said. She sat up on the diagnosis couch and looked over at the psychologist. “It’s very rude of you to sit there and write while there’s an ever-present chance I might-”

Looking up, the psychologist revealed a dead and chalk-grey face, scratching and chewing at what appeared to be his secretary’s arm, still clutching a little bit of pink memo. The office was a wreck, with peeling wallpaper and a hole in the ceiling, while the diagnosis couch was red not from velvet but from blood.

“-slip into the zombieworld again.”

Check out this month’s other bloggers, all of whom have posted or will post their own responses:
dclary
randi.lee
Ralph Pines
kimberlycreates
writingismypassion
dclary (again)
Penelope
SinisterCola
PragmaticPimp
magicmint
Diana_Rajchel
SuzanneSeese
AFord
J.W.Alden
Nissie
MonkeyQueen
areteus
pyrosama

 

May 6, 2012

From “A Masterpiece of Cake” by Melinda Simran Kaur

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The corner shop was a custom cake decorating place called A Masterpiece of Cake. “You know you’re in a certified megamall when they have a place like that,” laughed Merie.

“Ugh, look at all that buttercream icing,” groaned Saini, pointing at a cake that had a blue sports car sculpted on top by waves of flowery sugar. “So mercilessly sweet…makes my tongue burn just to look at it.”

“How about that one?” Merie said. She pointed to a nearby cake that, through prodigious amounts of food coloring and fondant icing, looked like a giant hamburger.

“Fondant? It tastes like modeling clay because that’s basically what it is. It sacrifices any kind of flavor at all for being moldable. It’s like eating cement straight from the mixing truck.” Saini paused. “And with about the same effect on your overall BMI.”

“There’s one in there that has that nice whipped frosting, probably,” said Merie. “It’s not a salad, but it’s better for you than sugar-cement or buttercrack.”

Saini rolled her dark eyes. “Whipped stuff can barely hold the shape of cake frosting lying flat on a cake, much less anything else.”

“So you’re saying that none of these professionally-made cakes matches up to your exacting personal standards, is that it?”

“I’m saying it’s my dream to create an ultimate cake frosting that combines the light sweetness of whipped frosting with the moldability of fondant,” Saini said with a faraway look in her eyes. “It’s the cake version of the moon landing, but it can be done if we pour enough resources into it.”

 

May 5, 2012

From “The Poshumous Ionnes Regime” by G. Cathlyn Tyller

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When the stormfront of the Popular Revolution broke over the Ionnes regime, the rabble of citizens and defected soldiers who stormed the presidential palace were puzzled to find that Dr. Ionnes himself was not among the family members they captured. The newly installed Directorate, mostly made up of newly “reformed” Ionnes men, promised answers. Many rumors had the dictator escaping through a subterranean railway while abandoning his family to their fate.

As they so often say, the truth is stranger than fiction.

Under “enhanced interrogation” by the Directorate, Ionnes’ son Basil made a puzzling reference to a secret buried in the turn-of-the-century catacombs beneath the palace. An excavation team recovered a badly-decomposed set of remains from a shallow grave…one which bore Dr. Ionnes’ distinctive withered arm and silver left incisor. Forensics experts hastily flown in from overseas confirmed that the body had been in place for a considerable amount of time.

Dr. Ionnes, it seems, had been dead for the last decade of his “rule.”

Eventually the Directorate pieced the situation together, leaking information at a steady rate to keep the restive populace from noticing the repeatedly slipping date for the promised free elections. Dr. Ionnes had suffered a heart attack or stroke after a heavy dinner, and his wife, sons, and bodyguard had sought to perpetuate the illusion that he was alive through a combination of old recordings, impersonation (Basil Ionnes was a good double for his father from a distance), and carefully cultivated rumors of paranoia. They’d gone on that way for so long that some of the worst offenses of the Ionnes regime, including the May Day army shootings that sparked the Popular Revolution, had happened when the old doctor was mouldering underground.

Mrs. Ionnes was asked about this over a hot glass of boiling oil and tongs–why she or one of her loathsome sons hadn’t simply taken over the family business Duvalier-style. “We hoped to blame him and scatter if there was ever a revolution,” she reportedly said; “obviously that didn’t work out too well.”

 

May 4, 2012

From “Slaying the Mondragon” by Sonya G. Goldman-Haines

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“It’s an overstamp. You see this all the time in weapons that have been captured or changed hands.” Mayotte produced a jeweler’s lens from a drawer under the register and studied the rifle intently for a minute. “The overstamp says ‘Flieger-Selbstlader-Karabiner 15,’ which I think means ‘self-loading aircraft-carbine, 1915.'”

“So it’s a German gun? From World War I?”

“I don’t think so.” Mayotte said, still staring intently at the overstamp. “The magazine’s a snail type, but it’s all wrong for the Germans. The caliber, 7mm Mauser, sounds German, but the Germans only used it for imports and captures.”

Keith squirmed. “You’re leaving me hanging in suspense here.”

“Ah, here we go,” said Mayotte. “‘Fusil Porfirio Diaz, Systema Mondragon, Modelo 1908.’ That’s what the Germans stamped over. ‘Porfirio Diaz Rifle, Mondragon System, Model 1908.’ It’s a Mondragon.”

After a short blank stare, Keith cleared his throat. “No offense, ma’am, but that sounds like something that ought to be breathing fire in a fantasy movie more so than a long arm.”

“It’s Mexican,” Mayotte said. She removed a glove and touched the barrel; the first tingling sensations and images began to flow immediately. “The first semiautomatic rifle ever adopted into service. They were made in Switzerland by SIG but the Mexican Revolution and the fact that the rifles don’t much like dirt and rough handling got the order canceled.”

“And the Germans?” said Keith, eying Mayotte’s faraway expression with some unease.

The roar of a radial engine, the howl of the wind with the brutal nip of a few thousand feet altitude… “The Swiss sold them to the Germans,” Mayotte murmured. Her pupils visibly dilated as she talked. “They gave them to observers in two-seater biplanes to defend themselves.”

“And?

Racking the action, taking aim across the sights and the wind and the world at the French bastards, who’d been good enough to paint a bright target on the side of their plane… “Let’s see what she can tell us,” Mayotte whispered.

 

May 3, 2012

From “Strange Lights Over Saraa” by Hayes Clarke Kantubek

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On June 16, 1984, strange lights were seen over the distant and isolated farming settlement of Saraa in the Mongolian People’s Republic, as reported by a group of Soviet troops on exercises in the nearby mountains. The central government in Ulaan Bataar reported that their sole link with the isolated community, a telex line, had been cut off.

Concerned–the hills had been a refuge for pro-Buddhist rebels during the collectivization of the country in the 1930s–the governor of Ömnögovi Province asked the Soviets to investigate and to garrison Saraa temporarily. The troops found nothing amiss, and settled down for what they thought would be a leisurely occupation–a furlough from their intense training and expected combat deployment to Afghanistan.

Within a month, nearly all of the 250 men who had been stationed there were dead.

The first deaths occurred when army rations ran out and the Soviets began eating local foods. Dozens died instantly or in the following hours due to what the regimental medic described as an “intense allergic reaction.” Puzzled, the Soviet commander rounded up locals on suspicion of poisoning his men, but no evidence could be found.

Eventually, despite generous gifts of food from the locals, the other Soviets began exhibiting signs of acute malnutrition and starvation. For some reason, only their army rations seemed to have any nutritive effect at all; Merchants from relatively nearby communities and Saraa citizens returning from trips suffered the same fate. The locals and the provincial government in Dalanzadgad could not explain why.

Eventually, the Soviet commander pulled his troops out and recommended a full quarantine to deal with a suspected bioagent. Scientists from the Vozrozhdeniya Island biological weapons unit, in full NBC containment gear, found nothing. The only effects they noted were a number of odd quirks: nearly all the residents had become left-handed, for instance.

Eventually, the quarantine was made permanent, and it survived democratization. Until a group of missionaries arrived in Saraa nearly 25 years later, no Mongolian or foreigner entered or left the village.

 

May 2, 2012

From “Last Known Whereabouts” by Kim Licorice

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Everything would have been fine if the Spanish tourists had arrived on time.

Kay and Alice had met them at the bus stop, clearly bamboozled and lost (as the island’s easygoing bus schedule was wont to do for foreign tourists). As it so happened, no one at the bus stop spoke any more than pidgin Spanish…that is, except the two young American education students fresh out of Advanced Spanish 499.

There were still problems, largely because the tourists were Galician and spoke Castilian Spanish with a heady cocktail of Galician loanwords and a strong accent. Kay and Alice, who had studied Latin American Spanish–specifically the Mexican variety–were able to communicate only with considerable difficulty. Still, they had been able to describe the bus schedule, tell the Spaniards when the next bus was probably due, give them directions to their hotel, and even attempted to impart a few useful English phrases.

That would have been that, deeds done by good Samaritans, if the Spanish tourists had arrived on time.

Only they hadn’t.

The two Spaniards, Isabella Sanchez and Inez De Rojo, never arrived at their hotel, and never left on any of the ferries. There were no bodies, and no leads–except for Kay and Alice, who were the last ones to have any contact with the missing and who had spent the following week at a rustic and secluded beach on the leeward side.

It wasn’t until they tried to take the ferry home that Kay and Alice realized they were the only suspects in a missing persons case.

 

May 1, 2012

From “Godwin’s Cookbook” by M. S. Maximian

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After the disheartening failure of her first vegetarian cookbook, released into a crowded marketplace full of competing big names and slick presentations, Melody decided to try another strategy. As a former history undergraduate before turning to anthropology, it was one that she was well-suited for.

Melody conducted deep and thorough historical research, corresponding with foreign scholars, reviving scans of faded and brittle documents from overseas archives, and reading through book after book after book. Her patience was rewarded with a bevy of official pamphlets, menus, and recipes detailing the vegetarian dishes served at the behest of a major world leader. From there it was a simple matter to devise cooking schemes, guess ingredient lists, and prepare substitution tables for vegan and diabetic readers.

The major world leader? Adolf Hitler, der Fuhrer himself.

The press moaned and swooned over Melody’s The Hitler Vegetarian Cookbook . People chatted about it on national TV, threatened boycotts, publicly and loudly wondered why a card-carrying member of the Green Party would produce such a fascist product.

The cookbook stayed on the bestseller lists nationwide for six months. If Melody had learned any lesson from anthropology, it was that infamy would sell as well as fame in a pinch.

 

April 30, 2012

From “The Pruning” by Paul Philip Crett

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“That particular branch of the family tree died with Mr. Baines, who would have been…let’s see…your third cousin once removed.”

“How do you mean it died with him? Family tree says he had a daughter.”

“Yes, but mind the dates: she died a full two years before he did: April 1918. There’s something of a salacious story that came down to me regarding that.”

“Really? Tell me.”

“Well, as I remember it, Mr. Baines was the chair of the local draft board. He was a businessman of some means and well-positioned to sway the other members’ opinions, quite the literal first among equals. Then one day he tried to use that power, much to his sorrow.”

“He had someone drafted?”

“It seems his daughter, Isabella, fancied a young man of very modest means. She was all he had after the death of Mrs. Baines in–what’s the chart say?–yes, in 1889, by the Russian flu. He was determined to arrange a suitor for her that matched his aspirations for her future. But, as it always does, love had other plans.”

“He drafted his daughter’s suitor? That’s horrible.”

“He threatened Isabella with that, yes. Story goes that Mr. Baines picked out a young dandy for his daughter and threatened to draft the poor boy she preferred straight into the Ardennes if she didn’t break it off and marry his preferred gent.”

“What happened next?

“Well, that’s the salacious part. Isabella refused, and Mr. Baines, in a fury, followed through on his threat. That young boy–don’t rightly know his name–was shipped off to France. He fell at Château-Thierry in 1918; the very day she got the telegram young Isabella took her own life.”

“That’s…horrible.”

“Yes, and I imagine the horror of what he’d done dawned on poor Mr. Baines as well. He was, after all, the only child of only children and the legacy of his entire line had been bound up in that child. Is it any wonder he died not long after? Our distant side of the family inherited his holdings and sold them off piecemeal. You owe your college education to that sad turn of events, matter of fact.”

 

April 29, 2012

From “The Book of Ending Softly” by Harold Grimes Bibble

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Detective Stevens had seen the book among the deceased’s personal effects, and had been sufficiently intrigued to gingerly open it with gloved hands. There, in ink that had been wet enough to blot the opposite page when closed, the young woman with her head in the gas oven had written a meticulous account of how she planned to end her life and the silly, petty (in Stevens’ mind) reasons behind it.

He’d listed it as evidence at the inquest, but the volume had vanished before it could be consulted again–most likely taken by a family member worried about the poor young thing’s posthumous reputation, Stevens reasoned.

Fifteen years later, arriving at the house of someone who had dissolved a bottle full of sleeping pills in sparkling water, Detective Stevens saw the book again. The last page bore, in the dead woman’s own hand, her research on the dissolution of sedatives in carbonated waters and the personal and professional failings she felt had driven her to such.

How could he be sure it was the same volume? For one, leafing through the myriad and Bible-thin pages brought up that long-ago death by natural gas. For another, the dark leather binding and embossed writing were unmistakable.

The title? The Book of Ending Softly.

 

April 28, 2012

From “The Hidden Institute Rules” by Daniel Sanders Guillarme

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The Institute served a dual purpose: rounding up and containing the rowdiest and most dangerous delinquents the City had to offer…and honing those skills to a fine edge. The officers who ran the Institute normally kept the second part of their mission a secret, naturally, lest some graying City Councilor complain that the youngsters were being rewarded for their transgressions.

And, to be sure, few of the Institute’s residents would call it a reward.

The “cadets” were enrolled in a rigorous program of martial training along the lines of the City’s final military schools. But there was a second, and unwritten, training system in place: for each cadet to graduate, they had to perfect the skill that had landed them in the Institute in the first place.

Say that, as it was for one cadet, they had stolen a car on the outside. Their challenge, then would be to steal more cars–perhaps one of each type, or just a round number like twenty-five or fifty–from the Institute grounds. A delinquent who had hacked into a transport network to steal a shipment of nutri-gel might be tasked with 50 comparable hacks at the Institute. In a very real way it was a crucible, since the Institute staff did their utmost to prevent the assigned tasks from being carried out.

Those who didn’t meet their hidden goals? If they were still at the Institute at 21 they risked transfer to the City Prison as lifers or executes.

 

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