"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
“Not much. This way, just watch your step,” Eric said.
I was watching. There were rocks all over these foothills and it was getting dark fast. I had my flashlight but I could hear Eric’s voice ahead of me, I followed it.
“There was a Native encampment here, way back about ten thousand years ago. But they left around, well ten thousand years ago.”
“Ten thousand of their years or ours?” I asked.
“Theirs,” Eric said.
I could hear Eric’s smile in his voice. Also, the term Native had nothing to do with North American natives back on Earth. I glanced up; I knew I couldn’t see it from here but I knew I was looking in the direction of Earth’s sun. This world had lakes and hills and this rocky desert. And people, thanks to we immigrants.
“Okay, watch your step,” Eric said. “Here, give me your hand and whisper if you talk at all.”
Holding hands with him made me smile. Eric was an expert on the ancient cultures of several worlds. He’d documented what looked like a huge pictograph that actually was a landing strip, unused in millennia. My eyes were getting so used to the dark that I almost didn’t notice the soft, yellow glow ahead.
“The Natives left behind some of their technology,” Eric said, his voice a near-whisper. “Most of it is stuff we’ve had for hundreds of years. Some of it we can’t begin to understand. Like this.”
We stepped over a small rise, which led to a long, flat plain. And for a seemingly infinite area in front of us were what looked like small, square lanterns, glowing with that same yellowish glow. The edges of the squares shimmered and wavered. These were not solids but pure light.
“Beautiful!” I breathed. “What are they?”
“We don’t know,” Eric said. “They may be some kind of projection, but we don’t know the source. The fact that they appear at regular intervals seems to work against their being landing lights. Maybe it’s some signal that never stopped sending.”
“Luminarias.” I said.
“That’s what they reminded me of too,” Eric said. “That’s why I wanted to show these to you this evening.” He grinned again and squeezed my hand. “You know what night it is back on Earth, don’t you?”
We moved in closer to the glow of a thousand otherworldly luminarias.
—end—
Wishing all the readers Happy Holidays and a Wonderful New Year, from all of us at Friday Flash Fics!
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The draws for December’s Flash Fiction Draw Challenge (by Cait Gordon, thank you very much!) were a dystopian story (yeah, like that could happen!) set on the Eiffel Tower involving a cane. I’ve been reading a lot of stuff about Ancient Rome, so this is what came out!) ——jsb
When In Rome
By Jeff Baker
Devius Flatulus Maximus XVII raised a hand ordering the liter to stop. He stared up past the banners proclaiming Saturnalia there in Roma-Gaul Past the huge pictures of Devius Flatulus Maximus adorning the walls. The tower was made of grey metal and narrowed as it reached the top. It hadn’t been there a few minutes before. It wasn’t part of the Factorum Complex; there were no workers streaming in for their shift.
“Move over to the other side,” Maximus ordered the liter bearers. The young slave at the front nodded and the four of them proceeded to carry the leader closer for a better view. He didn’t notice someone had pasted a small banner on the back of the liter: HONK IF YOU VOTED FOR MAXIMUS; NEITHER DID ANYBODY!
The two slaves carrying the liter in the back were keeping their mouths shut.
Maximus stared again; he hadn’t heard of any new construction projects. He would have demanded the new erection be named after him. He touched the metal; there was a tingly shock.
He touched it again. Static lightning, like he’d felt on his carpet. Maximus pointed at one of the slaves at the back.
“You,” Maximus said. Then he gestured.
On the Eiffel Tower’s observation deck, M. Alden Engrenage was staring through what looked like a cross between a potbellied stove and a telescope. A moment earlier, he had been staring down at a muscular young man eating at a sidewalk café. Now, it was a set for a bizarre sitcom. Behind him, a weathered old man stamped a steel cane on the platform.
“What in the blazing Hell is this?” M. Charles Pelouse was the richest man in the E.U. “You don’t have to spend money on some kind of show; I just want a new viewing scope that works!” M. Pelouse slammed his cane against the metal railing. “I bought this tower, and by God I can buy you if your gadget doesn’t pan out!”
M. Engrenage had been paid to create a device that could see through time. He’d flipped the switch, hoping for a view of Paris in 1890. Then the scene had changed beneath them. His fingers tapped the steel bolts that held the device to the Eiffel, or rather, the Pelouse Tower. It was like the device was part of the tower now. That would explain some of this The whole tower had moved and them with it. The horizon was full of smokestacks topping dour-looking buildings.
“Well?” M. Pelouse grumbled.
“We seem to have moved,” the inventor said. “But I believe I can…”
“Um, excuse me,” came a voice in oddly-accented Greek.
“What?” M. Pelouse said.
“I am Etienne,” the muscular, red-haired young man said. “Loyal slave to Master Maximus who demands that you explain how this edifice was built without his approval.” He paused. “Unless you are working for the Gods.”
M. Engrenage spoke Greek, along with six other languages (being a polymath had some perks.) and was even more unsettled by what the young man had said, as by his ragged tunic and the chain tattooed on his right forearm. This was no joke. He introduced himself and then asked to see the paper he observed sticking on the young slave’s belt. He made sure to ask for it with a tone of authority.
“Yes, Sir,” Etienne said, responding automatically to someone who was of a higher station and handing over the rolled-up newsprint. “But my Master, the Great Maximus, demands that you immediately appear before him.”
M. Engrenage quickly scanned The Daily Acts, with a headline proclaiming “Saturnalia MMDCCLXXIII.” An alternate world! One he didn’t want to stay in.
“I don’t know how to explain this to you,” the inventor began in his best Greek, “but we have travelled from another, another…” how the hell does that police box doctor whatever explain things like this? M. Engrenage thought.
“I don’t know what the Hell you think you’re up to,” M. Pelouse said, limping towards the device, cane raised. “But you wasted too much of my money and time!” He quickly slammed the cane down on the telescope-thingie.
There was a crackle and the scene around the tower flickered in and out like a TV picture when the dog chewed the remote. In another instant 2021 flickered into view.
“See?” M. Pelouse shouted. “A trick! You’re fired.” He stalked towards the elevator.
M. Engrenage stared. Etienne was still standing there, staring over the railing.
“I’m not where we were, am I?” he asked.
“No, and I doubt we can take you back,” said the inventor.
“Good,” said the former slave. He grinned broadly. “This is a better place?”
“It depends,” M. Engrenage said, “on who you ask.”
“Woah!” Skip said. “Look at all those books! Hey, what’s that statue?” he pointed to a small, naked woman reclining on the top of a bookcase.
“A library should be nurturing, so that’s Amalthea, who suckled Zeus,” Arthur said.
“It should also be in a big house you inherit from a cousin,” Skip murmured. He stared at the rows of books, many of them old, all of them hardback. “You don’t have the Necronomicon here, do you?”
Arthur laughed. “In the vault, in the dungeon, guarded by a dragon. Naaah! But I did find this. It was my cousin’s.”
Arthur reached behind the books on one of the shelves and pulled out a frayed book tied with string.
“Open it up,” Arthur said. “But be careful.”
I set it on the round table in the middle of the room, undid the string and opened the book. It was a notebook, one of the old ones you could buy in the 1800s, filled with a handwritten scrawl. I’d seen one like it before at a friend of mine’s house when I was a kid. A family heirloom.
“Read the first page,” Arthur said.
I turned back to the first page. It started with a date:
July 16, 1865
This fool plan seems to be working. Maam is not happy I hear but there is no other way. I am out here where there are few people and nobody will no (sic) me in this disguise. At least I am a backwoodsman again for a while. Now, I am going to do more of this work for I have a messenger from Andy Jones tomorrow.
It was signed; Al.
“I’ve seen this handwriting before,” Skip said. “Somewhere. I don’t know who Al is though. If he just signed his last name.”
“He did,” Arthur said. “Sort of. A lot of that’s in code, but ‘Maam’ is just bad handwriting. That’s his wife, Mary. The writer was in hiding. It was a tense time for the country. And Andy Jones was his new boss. Being code for Johnson.”
Skip stared, his mouth open.
“A. L.” Skip said. “Not ‘Al…’”
“1865. It couldn’t be anyone else.” Arthur said. “I’m betting it was Pinkerton’s idea. There are hints of that in the notebook later on.”
“The funeral was faked,” Skip said.
“With a dummy in the casket they took back to Illinois,” Arthur said.
“And the assassination?” Skip asked. “In front of all those people?”
“Who couldn’t see into the theater box. Booth wasn’t the only actor up there. But someone really did go after Booth, that wasn’t planned.”
“What are you going to do with this?” Skip asked.
“Sell it and get rich,” he said.
“It all sounds like something out of a novel.” Skip said.
Arthur grinned. “I thought of that too! I’m writing it! I intend to have my books on those shelves right there!”
—end—
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I just ad-libbed this and it didn’t go in the way I wanted! I had fun, though! (Yes, I was going to bring on the Necronomicon!) —–jsb
Sat down about 10:00p.m. and wrote the monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge story. Sometime around 1245a.m. I wrote two more; one of them the weekly Friday Flash story. Phew! I have a column and a flash story I’m going to write for Christmas that I want to finish this week.
Actually wrote a full story today! Got up early about 5:00a.m., bummed around the web and thought I’d write a bit on the Christmas story I’m planning to post on the web in a couple of weeks. Two hours later I had about 1300 words and a finished story that looked pretty good! Good enough that if I revise it a bit the unsalable story will become marketable and I can send it to a paying market and maybe have it sold for a Christmas issue! Not bad!
The water was the green of late morning, not yet the gold of afternoon.
Duoaud was grateful for the hat as his strong arms rowed the boat forward. He was not going fast. It was good.
The tall man with the silver carrying case stood on the bank waving. Duoaud dutifully moved the boat over to where the man could get in. He recognized him.
“Hello, Hyew,” he said as the man sat down in the front of the boat. The boat was sturdy, made of firm, old wood. Hyew did not need to indicate the direction; they had been on this route before.
“I feared it would be humid today,” Hyew said, not really paying much attention.
“On those days, I wish I could stay in,” Duoaud said. The cool shade of a tree or a glass in a cool, shady house had an appeal, but he had to make money. His expenses were meager but they included upkeep of his boat. He smiled to himself. There was always the river.
“It’s a nice enough day,” Hyew said, “that in an earlier era I would have walked into work today.”
“In the days before the river expanded across the world, you could have,” Duoaud said.
But then, there would have been no leisurely trip down the river for the two men, the river making them equals for a short while. They heard the lapping of the waves, the sound of the oar, the wind whistling.
Duoaud glanced up and saw the pale Moon in the bright blue sky. He could make out the ridges and the blotches of cities. His passenger could afford to travel there, to live there, to breathe the cool Moon air from the Luna tanks.
Duoaud moved the boat along. No. He had the boat and the river and the payments of his passengers. For him the sky was for looking, not attaining things out of his reach.
Duoaud brought the boat to a stop at the destination. The man paid his coins and left the boat, walking along the stones set evenly on the bank.
Duoaud pushed the boat back into the flow of the river. There would be other passengers. Tonight, maybe there would be fish to catch. Fish to cook over a hot, outdoor fire, beneath the stars.
Haven’t done any real writing for maybe a week. Thanksgiving and general laziness are the culprits. Did find more time to read; various short stories, one novel and parts of a couple other novels I need to finish reading. Read through some story notes of mine and did some more notes and a little research. And tonight, I did write the Friday Flash Fiction story for this week. (We took a break for the holiday!) The story didn’t jell in my head even though I had the basic setup in my head. Then I suddenly thought of doing a riff on Hemmingway! (You can judge for yourself Friday!)
‘Nathan Burgoine’s first Y. A. novel “Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks” is another damn good read from this author who is just getting better. It throws a bit of an X-Men curve into a kid’s last days in High School with excellent results.
Cole Tozer is just a few weeks shy of graduating from High School and getting away from the pressures and bullies an openly gay kid faces. Fortunately, he’s had the support of his friends (a mixed bag of out LGBT kids) and some teachers, but then Cole steps through a door and suddenly finds himself miles away; he can teleport. This sudden and unwanted power which he can barely control gives Cole, a meticulous planner, a whole new set of bullet points to work on. (What do you do when you accidentally pop yourself into your school locker and can’t pop out because you need to open the door to do that but can’t from the inside of the locker?)
Add to Cole’s list; finals, mysterious people who are shadowing him and, oh yes, Malik. The cutest guy in school who may just like Cole too! What follows is a blend of fantasy, humor and adventure, all told in Burgoine’s usual fine style. Cole (who narrates the story) comes off as likable and very real.
“Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks” (2018, Bold Strokes Books https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/exit-plans-for-teenage-freaks ) is an excellent read and is highly recommended. And if there is no immediate sequel, anything with Burgoine’s name on it should immediately be snapped up and read.
“Hello? This is special agent Gobbler calling agent Goosey-Loosey. I’ve found Agent Tom Turkey, and it doesn’t look pretty. Yeah, like we figured. Plucked. Stuffed. Cooked. No, not the Pellegrini Boys, not this time. And not B.U.T.T.E.R.B.A.L.L. either. No, I think it was an inside job. Turkey-Lurkey. Yes. I’m having him picked up. What? Why? Easy. Turkey-Lurkey was wearing an apron. Something he wouldn’t have done unless the act was premeditated. Motive? Jealousy, I guess. Tom had all the hens following his wiggling tail…”
authorjeffbaker 