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  1. Z is for…zombies

    April 30, 2012 by Nicki

    Zanie got home from work a little later than usual that day. She had been in a bit of an accident. You could never simply walk away from an accident, she had discovered. There were always complications.

    Usually the police were involved. There was paperwork. Fines. Blame was assigned.

    Not this time.

    There were no more police.

    Paperwork was pointless when there wasn’t anyone left who cared enough to file it.

    Blame? Well, how could you blame a bird for singing?

    Not that Zanie had been attacked by a bird who refused to stop it’s song.

    No, Zanie had been bit.

    It had been about time, really. She had been fighting against the undead for so long, it was a miracle she hadn’t succumbed before now. Months, or years maybe, of shooting, slashing, smashing…a whole lot of “essing”.

    Once she was bit, the fight went right out of her. Bluntblade, her partner for the day, quickly dispatched her attacker in a great display of blood. His sword had sliced through the air, completely removing the undead’s head in a spectacular manner. And he looked at her, asking if she was all right.

    The large wound on her neck should have been answer enough.

    But she hadn’t given him a chance to get rid of her in a similar manner. She didn’t bite him, but she did put a rather large hole in his chest.

    It had been instinct. Kill the ones trying to kill you, whether they were racing for your jugular or raising a gun to your temple. That’s what had kept her alive these past few…well, since the breakdown. Who knew how long it had been? It didn’t matter now anyway.

    She walked away from the place she had been calling home with her fellow fighters and instead went towards the apartment she had shared with her fiancé.

    Before.

    The route was not without it’s own perils. She saw an absurd amount of people who had been turned before she had. It would have paralyzed her just yesterday. An hour ago.

    Honestly, she had never seen this many undead in one place ever. There were hundreds. Could she remember fighting more than ten at a time?

    And instead of terror, the buzz of adrenaline surging through her and bringing her to attention, she felt lethargic. Sluggish. No one looked at her, and she felt it difficult to look at them, either.

    Despite the missing limbs on those who had encountered killers like her and escaped, missing faces from those who had gotten in fights with other undead, and the ragged, desperate appearance of just about everyone, Zanie kept walking. And eventually, she reached her old apartment.

    Home. It was ravaged on the outside. The signs of looters and vandals let loose on society when things had looked their worst had taken their toll on their cute building in the family-oriented neighborhood. The doors were no longer locked.

    Surprisingly, things inside were much better. Signs of wear were evident, there was blood on the walls and floors where the old, young and infirm had not been quick enough for escape, but her apartment was relatively untouched.

    It didn’t matter that any food had already been looted.

    Zanie wasn’t going to need to eat it any more.

    It didn’t matter that her closet had been rummaged through, and her good hiking boots had apparently been filched.

    Zanie didn’t expect to need them for long, anyway.

    In her bedroom, stepping over what was left of the man she had once promised to marry, Zanie looked at her reflection in the mirror. She was not surprised to see a glassy-eyed woman stare back at her, eyes smudged and looking as if she hadn’t slept for weeks. That was pretty much her standard appearance lately.

    What surprised her was that the wound on her neck was…not nearly as bad as it had felt when she’d been bitten. And her eyes, while glassy, we’re still her eyes. They hadn’t taken on that animal look, the reflecting look that gave the undead away.

    Slowly, over her ex-fiancé again, and to the bathroom, she tried the water. Of course it wasn’t working. But the toilet still had water, and taking a dust hold towel she dipped it into the tank, avoiding as much green muck as she could, and started wiping at the blood on her neck.

    It all came off. Almost all. There was still a spot that looked like a bullet wound, but she looked very closely.

    It was closing.

    The sound of her own scream was more alarming than anything else she’d seen so far. Scarier than the sight of hundreds of undead all in one area, worse than walking right through the midst of creatures who usually wanted to rip her throat out, was the sound of her actual scream. Not the distorted roar that came from the throats of every single recently turned human she had ever seen.

    Including her fiancé.

    Zanie jerked back, and stumbled out of the bathroom, clutching the towel. She stumbled back through her apartment, just as she had done after killing Simon when he had come after her. Except now she was running from herself.

    Outside, they were everywhere. There were thousands. Where had they come from? Why were they here?

    Why were they all staring at her?

    She stood in the doorway. They were silent. The entire world was silent.

    A flash of movement caught the corner of her eye. Someone, an undead, was walking around the corner towards her, but her gaze went to her reflection in the window of the abandoned car.

    Her eyes shone.

    “Welcome home,” the undead said in a voice that was more a growl than anything else. Her gaze snapped to his eyes, that shone just like hers. Like every member of the hoard before her. “My queen.”

    Zanie watched as the thousands before her all fell on their knees.

    And then she wondered if maybe it wasn’t worth living with these undead things after all.

    ===

    This post of fiction is part of the April A to Z Blogging Challenge.  I’m doing short stories, about 1,000 words, based on words I like that start with today’s letter. Don’t forget to check out the participant list to check out other amazing bloggers blogging about today’s letter!

    Category Fiction | Tags: , | 5 Comments

  2. Y is for…year

    April 28, 2012 by Nicki

    Her Year had started.

    Yuengling was packed and was standing on the transport deck with fifty or so other young women of about the same age. They all were very similar – beautiful, healthy, and all of childbearing age. They varied in height, weight, appearance, and were of wildly different backgrounds, however.

    It was better to send out a wide sampling, and the other colonies would do the same.

    She wondered about the young woman who would come to take her place in her family, her job, and try to find a mate for herself. She wondered if her mother would smother the Pollinate as she often did Yuengling.

    Probably. Her mother smothered everyone. Her friends had all received the treatment before they left for their Years as Pollinates.

    Yuengling had left her parents at the gate, as did the rest of the young women. The only people now on deck were the Pollinates along with the six ships that would take them to the other colonies.

    The skies would be busy today.

    “Please board your designated craft.”

    Fifty-some hands reached down to grab the one bag of personal items they’d been allowed to bring. Their host families would provide them with everything they would need for their visit, often from their own daughter’s closets, as each Pollinate tended to be matched with the family of someone of similar body size. It made the entire thing less stressful on everyone’s pocketbook.

    Yuengling boarded the craft closest to her, it’s hull marked with the evidence of the wars that had concluded forty years before. Now, it was a different world.

    She would even go so far as to call it peaceful.

    Inside it had been refitted to carry passengers instead of soldiers and other wartime equipment. Yuengling had an assigned seat in a row to herself.

    There were only eight of them on a transport designed to seat thirty.

    She didn’t know any of the other young women.

    Taking her seat silently, she set her bag down next to her and immediately started staring out the window. Soon the transport bay doors would open, and she would get her very first look at the world outside.

    She’d never seen anything outside of the colony walls in her entire life.

    Admittedly, she was only nineteen, not really old enough to have even had a chance to see outside, but still, she felt like she was ready for this for ages already.

    She had stared out the “window” in her room every day of her life. She watched the screen that showed her what they had decided forty years ago would be the best thing for the residents of Cylinder 14, what the landscape might have looked like before the war. They felt that those who had managed to live through the horrible years of death and pain deserved some brightness and joy instead of the dead depression that was reality of the landscape.

    But four decades had past now, and things would have grown back. There would be a new landscape, and Yuengling was dying to see it.

    “Prepare for launch,” the same tin voice from before announced as the engines began to ramp up for takeoff.

    Yuengling was greatly disappointed to see shields lower over the window she’d just been looking out before the bay doors had a chance to raise.

    “No,” she whispered as the screen that had lowered over her window flickered to life, showing a bright, cheery version of what she’d just been staring at outside. On the screen the bay doors opened, and she saw what she’d stared at her entire life. “Damn it.”

    She heard similar sounds of disappointment from behind her, and turned in her seat. The young woman behind her was sulking.

    “What do they think they have to keep protecting us from,” Yuengling wondered out loud in the pouter’s direction.

    “I’ve been wondering that myself since the day I was born. It’s time to get out of these damn towers, already.”

    “What do you think you’re doing right now,” a third young woman who had an angry expression on her face spoke up. “You’re getting out, you just can’t see anything on the way. You know, for all they tell us, we might not even be going anywhere. I mean, can you feel yourself moving? How do we know we’ve even left the hangar?”

    Two others mumbled agreement from behind, and Yuengling craned her head as far as she could to see who had spoken. She couldn’t remove her restraining harness – it had locked into place with the lowering of the view screens outside her window.

    “Why would they lie to us, though,” Yuengling asked out loud. She’d never thought of that possibility. She’d just wanted to see what she was missing, even if it was still charred and dead land. It would allow her, and others, to appreciate even more what the people before her had created, if that was the case.

    “So we’ll go willingly to the slaughter, that’s why,” the pouting woman behind her said sharply. “You don’t actually think we’re leaving to get pregnant by some foreign colonist, do you?”

    Of course she did, although she didn’t say so. Several of the other young women started laughing cynically, obviously in on some bad joke that had passed Yuengling by.

    Thankfully she didn’t need to reveal her naivety, because someone else did it for her.

    “Of course that’s what we’re here for. You see the other Pollinates coming for their Years all the time, just when our girls leave.”

    “Those aren’t young women, their soldiers and spies, placed among us so when it comes time to reveal the truth they’ll be ready to suppress any uprising.”

    Yuengling’s head was spinning, and another voice answered the question in her head before she could ask it out loud.

    “Why do you think such a small percentage of our women come back home? They aren’t choosing to stay, they’ve been forced to stay wherever they’ve been taken. And the few that do have probably just been the most susceptible to brainwashing. They used to have a name for that – Stockholm Syndrome.”

    Yuengling wanted to drown out the voices. She had by all accounts lived a very sheltered life. Her parents allowed her privileges that other girls didn’t always have. She was kept out of the public school sessions, instead taught by her father at home. Her friends were similarly sheltered, but had all been called for their Years before she had.

    And then she didn’t have a chance to think any more. The ship they were on shuddered as it hit something.

    Or as something hit it.

    “Please remain seated,” the tin voice said calmly. “Please place the breathing masks over your face when they descend from the ceiling.”

    No.

    “No,” Yuengling whispered. Something her father had taught her when she was very young flashed into the forefront of her mind surrounded by alarms and a violent nauseating reaction. “NO!”

    “What the hell,” the young woman who had seemed to have all the answers responded. “You want us to die?”

    “No, don’t put the masks on! They’re…they’ll kill you. Don’t put them on!” Yuengling didn’t know how she know, but she heard her father’s voice repeating over and over in her head to never put on a mask when instructed. There was more, but her father’s voice faded. She couldn’t remember…

    “Whatever, I’m not going down because you don’t know what’s really going on,” the other young woman replied, slipping the mask on over her face. “Where the hell did you go to school? They always drilled us…”

    And she slumped over, mid-sentence.

    The ship gave another violent jerk.

    Yuengling couldn’t see any of other girls except for the girl who was sitting behind her, but she knew they’d heard her.

    The breathing masks all hung loose from the ceiling, bouncing and swaying from their plastic tubes.

    “Are you sure,” the woman behind her asked. “Are you sure it’s death? How do you know?”

    “I don’t know,” Yuengling replied, loudly enough that the other girls could hear her over the klaxon that was now sounding. “But I knew. My father taught me…”

    Her voice ended as a scream as she felt the bottom fall out of her seat, the shoulder straps of her harness pulling her down. Others screamed as well, until…

    All of their voices were cut off as the ship hit ground and the breath was knocked out of them all. Yuengling’s harness was broken, and she was flung out of her seat and over into the next row. She saw someone else flying through the air as her hair obscured her vision for a moment.

    The siren shut off, and it was quiet.

    Someone moaned, but another hushed her quickly.

    Yuengling tested her limbs, and when she decided nothing had broken, she flipped her feet down to the floor and turned herself right side up.

    Cautiously she poked her head up so she could look around the cabin, when she saw it.

    All the screens covering the windows had been shattered, but one had broken off completely. Ducking through the rows, Yuengling rushed as quickly as she could to the other side of the cabin.

    People, at least she thought they were people, dressed in clothing that blended perfectly with the surrounding vegetation were walking towards the ships.

    With weapons.

    Yuengling heard the hiss before any of the others.

    “The gas,” she said loudly. “They’ve turned on the gas. We were supposed to breathe it in and be dead already, but we’re not. They’re trying to kill us now.”

    “I’m stuck in my seat still,” someone said from the back of the ship. “I can’t get out!”

    Yuengling looked around frantically, and then remembered something her father had given her for the trip. A toy, he’d said. Something to remember home by. Not good for much except looking at.

    Except…

    Yuengling ran back to where she’d been seated and found her bag. Rustling around in it, she heard someone coughing.

    “Tie off the cords on the masks,” she commanded as she pulled the very old tube from her bag. It was a cylinder that was supposed to look like her colony from the outside, Cylinder 14. She twisted it, and the bottom fell to the ground, broken.

    A knife.

    She ran to the pouting girl who was now looking rather frightened, and quickly cut the belts holding her in place. “Help anyone out who’s out of their seats. Tie off the mask cords for anyone who can’t do it themselves.”

    “Yeah, sure, okay.”

    Yuengling rushed around the cabin, releasing everyone who was still alive.

    Two had died when they put their masks on, one when her neck snapped with the landing.

    Four young women and Yuengling made their way to the hatch that had allowed them entrance only a few minutes before.

    She hit the emergency release, which thankfully hadn’t been disabled or broken in the crash.

    The door flew open, and five young women were face to face with fifteen armed men and women.

    People not from the colonies.

    Fourteen guns trained on Yuengling’s face, and four young women behind her cowered for cover.

    One young man with a gun stepped forward.

    “We’ve been waiting for you, Yuengling.”

    That’s right, they were. And Yuengling was ready for them. After all, her father had taught her to survive.

    It was going to be one hell of a Year.

    ===

    This post of fiction is part of the April A to Z Blogging Challenge.  I’m doing short stories, about 1,000 words, based on words I like that start with today’s letter. Don’t forget to check out the participant list to check out other amazing bloggers blogging about today’s letter!

    Category Fiction | Tags: ,,, | 4 Comments

  3. X is for…xenolith

    April 27, 2012 by Nicki

    It hit just after two a.m. on the fifth day of December, the year 2032.

    Right through her ceiling, slowed by the efforts of both her roof and her second floor, it crashed through her mattress, between her feet, and lodged itself somehow in the floorboards of the first floor.

    Xenia, of course, woke up immediately.

    Her bed was on fire.

    She doused it with the glass of water she kept on the bedside stand, then, when she was sure it was out (after poking the charred bed with her toe and finding it warm and wet), she scrambled around on her bed and stuck her head through the hole.

    Of course she couldn’t see anything. The lights were out. Except she could see something, and it was kind of pinkish and glowing.

    Still, she lunged out of bed, hit the switch, and fell to the floor to look under her bed this time.

    A rock. A meteorite. Glowing pink, but, as she put her hand close to the rock, found that it wasn’t hot, but rather quite cool to the touch.

    “Weird.”

    “What is?”

    “Dude, Xander, look at this thing,” Xenia said, scooting over on the cold wooden floor.

    Her roommate, housemate, whatever – the guy who helped pay the rent but didn’t sleep in her bed – got on the floor next to her.

    “Wow, what the hell?”

    Xenia rolled over on her back, and saw the gaping hole in her ceiling and then roof, showing the stars outside.

    “It just sort of dropped in on me.”

    “Duh. You’re lucky you didn’t get hit with it, Xen.”

    She nodded. “Do you suppose they have insurance for stuff like this?”

    Xander shrugged, now laying on his back as well.

    The rock, about the size and shape of a football, was in his hands.

    “I suppose you’ll find out when you call the adjuster in a few hours.”

    “Let me see that,” Xenia said, taking the rock from his hands. “Geez, this is light. What do you suppose it is?”

    “I dunno. Black? Last I checked, I failed geography.”

    “Geology,” Xenia corrected.

    “Right. I’m going back to bed. It’s not supposed to rain tomorrow, so you should be okay sleeping in here, right?”

    “Don’t worry,” she said with a smile, pulling herself to her feet and then offering a hand to Xander, setting the meteorite on her bed. “I’m not going to launch myself into your bed just because a rock hit the house.”

    “See that you don’t. ‘Night, Xen.”

    “Goodnight.”

    Not that it wouldn’t be worth her time to launch herself into his bed, if he were interested, Xenia pondered. He had a very nice butt. His pajama pants hung nicely on it.

    But, looking up at the ceiling and the gaping hole that was slightly larger than the piece of planet that had fallen through it, she couldn’t sleep in her room any more tonight. With her luck, a bird would come in and mistake her face for his morning restroom break, and she didn’t need that kind of good morning in…oh, look, she only had three more hours before her alarm would go off.

    She grabbed her phone, left the rock on her bed, and went to sleep on the sofa in the living room.

    Quietly, and with no more damage to her roof.

    * * *

    Xenia left the house at her regular time, wearing her regular outfit, with her regular bag, plus one. She maneuvered the additional pouch over her shoulder then set her backpack over her shoulders after it, more or less securing it in place. Climbing on her bicycle, she managed the ride to work with minimal effort.

    She’d given up her car during her divorce, and while at first she simply couldn’t afford any other mode of transportation than the bicycle she’d picked up at a garage sale for fifty dollars and fixed for another hundred, she’d grown to enjoy it quickly. She’d never been much of a runner, and she was pleased as punch to find the zen she’d often envied her running friends reaching during their exercise regimens. Plus, after a few sweaty months, she’d stopped perspiring like a couch potato running a marathon and enjoyed the exercise.

    At the school, she even got a little extra in her paycheck for not using one of the precious on-campus parking spots that would have otherwise been assigned to her.

    Green bonus!

    Her lecture was early, and after delivering it to an auditorium full of obnoxious overachievers and hungover slackers, she locked her purse in her closet – uh, office – and made a beeline for The Rock Gods.

    “Can I help you?”

    She’d been wandering for a bit in the appropriate building, and finally someone had taken pity on her.

    “Please. I need to talk to the person most likely to know what this is,” Xenia said as she opened up her satchel to reveal its contents.

    “Oh, that’s interesting. Where’d you find that?”

    “Under my bed,” Xenia replied.

    She was rewarded with a startled look.

    “May I touch it?”

    “Are you the person I need to talk to?”

    “Dr. Zachary, at your service.” He stuck a thumb under the staff badge he had pinned to the hem of his shirt.

    “Xenia,” she said, holding out her hand. “Nobody can ever pronounce my last name, so it’s easier for me just not to tell you so you don’t have to try.”

    He smiled, shook her hand, and glanced at her own name tag.

    His eyes bulged.

    “Well, then, Xenia, would you like to see my lab?”

    “I thought you’d never ask,” she replied with a smile.

    Dr. Zachary was kind of hot.

    His lab was, of course, much larger than her teeny little office. And it was buzzing with a few grad students who barely looked up as they walked in, then went back to whatever they were working on.

    “Can I get you to set it on the scale?”

    Xenia lifted it out of her bag, and handed it to the doctor instead.

    “Wow, that’s not nearly as heavy as I expected,” he commented as he set it down on the scale himself. “It’s mass and appearance suggests something much heavier.”

    She nodded.

    Speaking would be lost on him. He was in the zone. She recognized the look from one her ex-husband used to get when work was more important than she was.

    He’d been a doctor, too.

    “Hmm. Well, it looks basically just like your average diorite, but it should weigh much, much more. You said you found this under your bed?”

    Xenia nodded again. “After it crashed through my roof, my 2nd floor, and my bed.”

    Dr. Zachary raised a brow.

    Forget it, he was absolutely hot.

    “And it looked just like this when you found it?”

    “Actually, it was kind of pinkish when I found it. I couldn’t see it in the dark, so I turned on the light and looked at it in shadows. It didn’t exactly glow, but…”

    “Huh.”

    “Yeah.”

    Xenia and the doctor stared at the rock for another few minutes in silence, and then…

    “I have an idea.”

    She looked at him curiously. “An idea?”

    He nodded. “An idea. Mind if I drop this?”

    Xenia shrugged. “It’s your floor. It did quite a bit of damage to mine. Speaking of which, I need to remember to call the insurance company today.”

    He used a finger to roll the rock from the scale to the floor.

    The black fell off.

    “What the heck is that,” Xenia said after jumping away from the gravel that exploded away from her football-shaped black rock.

    It wasn’t black anymore.

    Now it was just…rose colored.

    Dr. Zachary picked up the rose-tinted stone with significantly more effort than he’d sent it to the floor.

    Xenia watched black pieces of gravel start to fall towards the ceiling.

    That is, they were floating.

    “It’s a xenolith,” he said quietly. The entire lab had gone silent, in fact, and all eyes were on them. “A rock fragment embedded within another rock type.”

    “Yeah, that doesn’t help. What is it?”

    “I have no idea.”

    The entire room stood and stared at the rose colored rock on the counter in the lab of Dr. Zachary.

    And watched it start to move.

    ===

    This post of fiction is part of the April A to Z Blogging Challenge.  I’m doing short stories, about 1,000 words, based on words I like that start with today’s letter. Don’t forget to check out the participant list to check out other amazing bloggers blogging about today’s letter!

    Category Fiction | Tags: ,,,, | 2 Comments

  4. W is for…wander

    April 26, 2012 by Nicki

    “Where ya going?”

    Walt looked down at the dirty little boy trailing alongside her. “Nowhere, really.”

    “Mom says you’re looking for something.”

    “Yeah? What’s that supposed to be?”

    “You. You’re looking for you.” The kid kicked a rock. “What’s that mean?”

    Walt shook her head. “Ask your mom.”

    “She’ll just tell me to go play.”

    “Then go play.”

    The kid kept up for a bit, then obviously getting bored with the slow pace, ran off to join a couple of friends.

    That suited Walt just fine.

    Walt, actually Waltrina, had run away from home.

    She’d left behind…well, she didn’t like to think what she’d left behind. Suffice to say that at thirty years of age, she had not left behind two sobbing, distraught parents wondering what had happened to their little girl.

    Some of the less disturbing things she’d left behind…well, she’d left behind her hair. Cut it clean off, washed what was left of it in ink, and slapped a cap on her head that she kept pulled down low over her eyes. It was enough to trick little kids, and nobody else really dared to get close enough to tell.

    She’d also left behind her ladylike senses. She had left with the clothing on her back, but no money. She slept where she could find a protected spot, used the bathroom where nobody was looking, and avoided towns wherever she could.

    Bathing? Yeah, she left that behind, too.

    Since she was the only one who had to put up with the smell, nobody complained. Certainly not her. She had bigger things to worry about.

    Like food. Did she mention she’d left behind money, as well?

    Walt reached up to play with the hair that stuck out from under her hat. One foot in front of the other, repeat, repeat, repeat…

    Her stomach growled.

    Sighing, she realized she now had to do what she’d been dreading for the past two days.

    Bathe.

    If she took a dip in the river she’d been following, cleaned off herself and her clothes, she could probably find work of some sort that would get some food in her stomach.

    She didn’t want to talk to anyone.

    She didn’t want to eat, really.

    But she didn’t want to die.

    It was bath time.

    * * *

    “Waltrina? Come on, Walt, come out here. I just want to talk to you.”

    “I don’t want to talk,” she mumbled from behind the door.

    “We have to talk about this sometime. We can’t ignore it forever.”

    “I can.”

    Her husband had gotten tired of trying to reason with her from behind the closed door, and finally left her alone. That was one of Walt’s mutant abilities – she could out-wait just about anyone.

    But she couldn’t out-wait her situation. As soon as he’d left for work, she’d left the house.

    And now here she was, shaking the memories out of her head, about to step into the water fully clothed. She wasn’t looking forward to it. The weather hadn’t warmed up enough for getting in the river to be refreshing, only freezing.

    She was up to her knees and creeping in slowly before being startled into complete submersion.

    “What do you think you’re doing?”

    Walt came up sputtering. She wiped the water from her eyes, and found ink all over her hands. It was probably dripping down her face and neck and staining her clothing. With a sigh, she dunked her head again, this time on purpose.

    “Get out of that water this instant,” the voice commanded her as she came out of the water for a second time. “You’ll catch your death out here!”

    Walt didn’t disagree. While the water had been shockingly cold at first, now her head and shoulders, soaked through, froze in the cool spring air.

    “Come on, come on, we have to hurry before the cold sets in.”

    Walt nodded, choosing her steps carefully on the slippery river bottom. She didn’t look at who was speaking to her, just concentrated on getting out of the water.

    When she made it out, a young woman that couldn’t be much older than she was herself was staring at her disapprovingly.

    Walt stood there, shivering, Waiting either for the woman to tell her what to do, or leave her alone.

    “Get undressed. I have a blanket for you to wrap up in. You can’t walk around in that wet stuff, or you’ll surely catch your death.”

    “I don’t have any other clothes,” Walt finally said, refusing to get undressed. She was vulnerable enough. What had she been thinking, trying to take a bath? It was almost like she did want to die, because what she’d just done surely had been a death wish.

    “I did just say I have a blanket, did I not? Don’t worry, I won’t look.”

    It didn’t really occur to Walt to disagree. She had spent her life planted firmly in the spheres of controlling women and men. When you did what they asked, life was pleasant.

    Walt really didn’t like life to be unpleasant.

    So with the woman’s back turned, Walt did her best to get undressed quickly. She left her underwear on. There was no way she was parting with those. Then if she needed to run, she wouldn’t be completely nude.

    The blanket brushed the ground as she pulled it tight around her neck and shoulders. There was no way to fasten it except with her fists, so she dropped the sopping clothing to the ground, and waited for the woman to turn again.

    “Are you done yet?”

    Walt’s stomach let out a loud rumble in response.

    The woman spun around and didn’t wait for an answer. Seeing her clothing on the ground, she scooped it up, and waved for Walt to follow. Wringing the excess water out, she walked ahead of her.

    “Really, what were you thinking? You’re damned lucky I walked up on you. You obviously don’t know the river, or you would have realized you were about three inches from a drop-off and an undercurrent strong enough to sweep you three miles downriver before you had a chance to pop your head back up above water. Now my truck is parked just over here. We’ll go into town – I own a laundromat, and we can wash your clothes and get you something to eat. You’ll wear some of my…some of Will’s old clothes. They’ll need to be cinched up, but at least you’ll be warm until your stuff is done.”

    Walt got into the truck. It wasn’t in her nature to disagree. And the woman hadn’t realized yet that she was also female, and not some young teen-aged runaway boy skipping dinner for a little adventure.

    Maybe this would be okay. Maybe it would work. She’d get some supper and then could work at the laundromat for a few days to earn some money before she moved on. Maybe she could even buy some of those old clothes the lady was going to put her in tonight.

    She filtered out the ramblings of her rescuer, watched the landscape fly by outside her window much faster than it had been during her pedestrian wanderings, and concentrated on thinking forward, and not behind.

    ===

    This post of fiction is part of the April A to Z Blogging Challenge.  I’m doing short stories, about 1,000 words, based on words I like that start with today’s letter. Don’t forget to check out the participant list to check out other amazing bloggers blogging about today’s letter!

    Category Fiction | Tags: ,,, | 2 Comments

  5. V is for…vacant

    April 25, 2012 by Nicki

    It was perfect.

    “So, how much is it?”

    The question was superfluous. She was going to take it anyway. But people liked to hear you asking the right questions when they were suspicious about your motive.

    Made them feel better.

    “Four hundred thousand,” the agent said. “It’s the entire building plus the parking across the street. Zoned commercial.”

    “And you said it was last used simply as a warehouse?”

    “Yes, but it’s been empty for about five years. There’s a lot of work to do to get things cleaned up, and there will probably be quite a few squatters and such hiding in the corners. I know a company…”

    “I’ll take it.” Violet didn’t want to hear about his company. She could take care of her own messes.

    The real estate agent didn’t think so, obviously. She was dressed far too uptown for this location. Her skirt was tight and short, her blazer open and her blouse showing that she wasn’t taking the cold weather too seriously with the amount of skin she was showing. She had to watch where she walked so her heels didn’t fall through a crack and send her flying.

    “Well, we can go work up the paperwork back in my office then,” the agent replied with a smile.

    He was glad to be out of there. He wasn’t comfortable, with Violet or the location. She could tell, practically smell his fear in the air.

    “Yes, let’s finish this off. Do you think they’d agree to immediate possession? I don’t want to wait for settlement to get to work.”

    * * *

    Money talked, and the entire amount paid in cash to the seller did indeed let her have access to the property before they cleared escrow. She didn’t bring in a team, she took care of everything herself.

    First she drained the building of life. Starting with the first floor and working up, giving her prey time to panic and gather all in one spot, it made the job so much easier. There were one or two cats she considered turning, thinking they could be quite attractive if they cleaned up, but she couldn’t bring herself to hurt the poor creatures.

    She allowed them to leave.

    The human inhabitants weren’t so lucky.

    A few drug addled teenagers, several elderly homeless, and one prostitute hiding from her pimp, all bitten, drained, and turned to dust. So simple, no bodies to hide, just a little sweeping, at some point.

    She could hire that done.

    And when her building was clear, she started on the real work.

    Hiring an appropriate contractor to whip the place into decent shape.

    * * *

    Violet was nearing on five hundred years. She’d been turned into a flesh-eater (a somewhat misleading name, but she hadn’t invented it, so there you go) on her thirty-fourth birthday, and she hadn’t been happy about it at first, because who liked to be savagely bitten on the neck and then forced to go through a completely agonizing process to become immortal? Especially on the eve of the anniversary of ones thirty-fifth birthday, where one was about to spend another entire year as a virginal example of purity.

    It was crap.

    Why couldn’t it have happened on the eve of her twenty-fifth birthday?

    But one worked with what one had, and she’d made the best of it, for quite a few years. Now she was ready to start over. Build a new life.

    Sleep for a while.

    Just a while.

    And an old building, acting like it was older than she, for goodness sake, with the holes in the floor and rotting wood, it was as good a disguise as any. She’d gotten it cheap – after five hundred years, you could save up quite a little nest egg, and the building purchase made hardly a dent. She could spent twice that getting it all fixed. Turn it into a lovely resting place.

    Violet didn’t know why she was so tired. There really was no earthly reason. She had been awake nearly ever moment since she’d been bitten and turned into this blood-sucking immortal. And now…she didn’t look it, but she felt it. The undeniable urge to close her eyes, just for a moment. Except she had a feeling that moment would last a bit longer than a moment. Or even a few hours of moments.

    When Violet fell asleep, she was going to be there for quite some time.

    Which was dangerous.

    And why she was taking a ten story warehouse and turning it into a long-term bedroom.

    You know, just in case she was there for longer than a year or so.

    She walked through the finished building, her impossibly tall heels clicking on the marble floors in the foyer. Bob the security guard, one of her own, nodded her way. The crush of people waiting for elevators parted for her as she walked purposefully towards her elevator.

    It was an odd effect she had on these humans. They knew she was there, but purposely avoided her. Almost like she gave off an aura of “leave me alone or I’ll hurt you”. Or like a reverse magnetic field. She was wired differently, and they bounced away from her.

    Violet had been bothered at first. Now it was almost useful.

    Her elevator looked just like the others, but nobody used hers but her.

    The avoidance thing again.

    She entered it, and hit the button for the 8th floor.

    Perhaps it had been an odd choice, but she hadn’t wanted to be on the top floor. What would happen if the building somehow began to fall apart? She didn’t want to be the first one to be vulnerable when that time came. She wanted some time for Bob to get her out.

    Or, you know, whomever was still around to care.

    So she’d taken the top floor of her building and turned it into a hotel of sorts. Where people like her could rest in safety. Not as much safety as her, of course. Her suite was on the 8th floor, with two floors above and two below of suites for hemoglobin-deficient creatures. Her bedroom was in the center of the floor, reinforced, with security inside and out. Nobody entered the 8th floor but her. They all knew she was there, but it was her building, so she could sleep wherever she wanted.

    The rest of the building was leased out to humans. They would help keep the money flowing while she slept, and Bob and a few others she’d gotten to know over the years would manage things until she was feeling better. When she woke, they could take their turns.

    Just not in her bed.

    The elevator doors opened on her floor. The decor was impeccable, a minimalist theme she was sure would never go out of style. Or at the very least, come back into fashion in a couple hundred years if it came to that. She passed the giant plants – plastic – and mourned the dust she would have to deal with when she woke.

    Down a hallway, turn left, then right, another left. It was a maze and it was difficult to navigate, it was feng shui, and it was on purpose.

    A girl couldn’t be too careful.

    Finally she reached her room. This one was not feng shui, it was chaotic. Everything she’d ever loved in her life was here, surrounding her. Her favorite colors, her favorite memories, things she’d collected. And in the center, an enormous bed.

    She’d thought about a coffin. Something more traditional. But Violet was claustrophobic.

    She wore nothing to bed. She climbed between the satin sheets and wondered briefly how long it would take for them to fall apart from age. Nobody was going to come in to change her linens.

    Crap. She’d forgotten to set the alarms.

    Back up, then back between the sheets. It felt amazing to finally relax. It hadn’t felt this good to lay down in about four hundred and seventy-five years. Come to think about it, that was the last time she’d…

    * * *

    Bob turned his head as a new security feed came through his usual loop. He looked and saw Miss Violet in bed, fast asleep. It was good. He would look out for her, and then she could look out for him when his time came.

    Nobody noticed he was the only security guard on duty. They actually didn’t pay much attention to him at all. And taking care of troublemakers at night was easier for him than most men in his position.

    Just a little dust to sweep up.

    ===

    This post of fiction is part of the April A to Z Blogging Challenge.  I’m doing short stories, about 1,000 words, based on words I like that start with today’s letter. Don’t forget to check out the participant list to check out other amazing bloggers blogging about today’s letter!

    Category Fiction | Tags: ,, | 4 Comments

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