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[ Ooter's Place > Short Stories > Read ]

You don't know Ooter, most likely. You don't know about the invasion, neither, but that's why I'm telling you about it.

Some people think that being a bartender is easy. Well I've done just about every job in the universe, legal and illegal, and I can tell you it's true: bartending really is easy. You pour drinks, you pretend to listen, you collect tips. You lean over to expose green flesh, you really collect tips--especially if, like me, you've got three boobs (four when I'm excited).

But bartending stops being easy when you start to care. That's the mistake I made with Q-ru.

$ You can order a copy of Volume 12, Issue 2 from the Storyteller order page.

A group of three kids from his class spent lunch hour at a picnic table in the park near the school. Amin saw them when he went walking to pass the time before class started up again.

Today Justin and Isabelle sat on one side of the table, Laura on the other. He approached them from Laura's side, where the extra space almost screamed for a fourth friend.

"Hi!" His lunch was in a plastic bag that swung from his hand. "You guys mind if I sit with you?"

He kept his voice cheerful and confident, even though the silent looks the three turned on him--especially Laura, who had twisted herself like a snake--made him want to drop his lunch and run away. This was such a bad idea, he thought. Embarrassment and frustration burned in his stomach.

Justin and Isabelle looked at one another. Some form of communication seemed to pass between them, and somehow Justin emerged as spokesperson.

"Sure you can sit down," he said, shoving his half-eaten sandwich back into the metallic pail. "We were just about to leave."

$ You can order a copy of Issue 3 from the Fictitious Force website.

Lieutenant Brackle forced himself to walk, not run, towards the hovering truck descending slowly to the ground. He had a bad feeling about this—but he always had a bad feeling when Tracy's platoon returned from a mission.  Did she feel the same way when he went out? he wondered.  If she did, she was too good an army wife to let on.

Some medics had been waiting for the truck; others were running towards it, followed by their dog-loyal stretchers hovering a step behind.

When they started pulling out bodies, Brackle's heart sank two inches. It didn't seem anyone had made it back with all their limbs intact.

 

 

 

The alarm clock rang. Diego reached out to snooze it, but something was in the way, something hard and blocky.  He opened his eyes, then cursed.

He picked up the phone behind the alarm clock and dialed Natalie's number.

"Hello?"

"He got me," he said.  "The bastard got me."

"Which book is it?" Natalie said.

"What?  Who cares?"

"I'm curious."

With his free hand, he picked up the book and held it up to the light that filtered in through the window's blinds.  "Ben-Hur," he said.  "By Lew Wallace."

"Like the movie?"

"You're missing the point, Natalie.  The bastard broke into my house--my house."

Natalie didn't say anything.

"Meet me at the station-house in half-an-hour, okay?"

"Okay," Natalie said.  "Bring the book."

Diego checked his apartment door and then the building doors but couldn't find any signs of forced entry.  He picked the locks, Diego thought.  Or he has a key.

As he walked outside to his car, Diego thought through the list of people who had a key to his place: the landlord; Pieter, who came by to clean once a week; his mom.  No one else.

Maybe it's Mom, Diego thought with a sigh. Maybe she's the one behind all this.

He could hear the phone ringing as he put the key into the lock and opened the front door of his house.  For a moment, he was sure it was the police again.  Unsatisfied with dragging him into the station and interviewing him for three hours straight, they still had more questions and so they were calling.

He took a deep breath before picking up the receiver. He had to push those kinds of thoughts away; the last thing he needed was to go paranoid.

"Hello?" he said, and hated himself because his voice didn't sound more natural.

"Peter?"

It was Samantha, her soft and comforting voice full of compassionate concern for him. It was Samantha, and not the police at all.

"Samantha, hi," Peter said. Already he was feeling more relaxed. Hearing Samantha's voice was exactly what he needed.

"Is there any news about Debra?" Samantha said.

"Nothing new, no," Peter said, trying to make his voice sound a sadness he didn't feel and not sound the annoyance he felt whenever Debra's name was mentioned to him lately. Why did everyone just want to talk about Debra? But he had to be patient; soon, she would be as forgotten as she was gone.

"I guess she's left me for good," he said.

Have you ever seen Jesus Christ Superstar? In it, Caiaphas sings of "blood and destruction, because of one man." As I sit and write this under the rain-pelted hotel awning, that line is playing in my mind like a jammed CD. Because I've seen blood and destruction–all of it, not even on account of one man, but because I didn't take that man's name seriously.

Doctor McAllister says I should write down why I think I've been brought here, but is that wise? I know—if I'm crazy, nothing really matters anymore. But the thing is, I don't feel crazy. I feel like I'm going crazy.

The floor was cold. I lay completely paralyzed, naked flesh to icy metal. I was freezing, but sweat poured from my pores like wine out of a bottle.