dontravis.com
blog post #350
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| Courtesy of PNGTree.com |
I’m
not a Sci-Fi or Fantasy writer (although I’ve done a couple of short stories),
but the yarn that follows inserted itself in my head, so there was noting to do
but write it. That’s all I have to say on the subject. You can have the final
say after you’ve read both parts of the story.
*****
I must have been pretty grown
up for my folks to leave me alone at home after dark. Alone except for Brute my
gray Schnauzer, that is. My parents had gone to a birthday party at Aunt
Mitzi’s and Uncle Darrell’s house in town, but I’d begged off. Wouldn’t be any
kids there, and the gifts would be grown-up things. The TV in our living room
was more interesting than a bunch of people talking about things I didn’t care
anything about.
The freak thunderstorm
rattling the shutters took a little wind out of my sails until Brute plopped
down on the couch beside me with his head in my lap. But just as Marshal Dillon
was about to draw down on a sneaky bad guy, the television went black. I hadn’t
even had time to recover from that before the lights went out too. My heart
lurched as I sat in the dark, watching a dying spot of light on the TV set.
I didn’t panic—maybe scared a
little but didn’t panic. Heck, I was ten-years-old and a Cub Scout to boot. In
a couple of years, I’d be a Boy Scout, and they were always prepared. I groped
my way in the darkness, listening to the rain thump on the roof and rattle
against the glass panes, until I reached the kitchen cabinet where dad kept the
big tactical flashlight he’d bought for emergencies like this. Long and heavy
as a club, it cut a big swath through the darkness when I managed to get it on.
I liked to make it strobe, so that’s the way I set it, but the flickering light
made walking back to the living room too uncertain. I made it quit.
I no sooner sat down on the
couch again than the telephone on the table in the hallway rang. I scooted
over, wondering how come the phone worked when nothing else did. It was my mom.
“Are you all right, Tommy?”
“Yes, ma’am. Raining like blue
blazes and the lights went off, but me’n Brute are okay.”
“You know where the
flashlight—”
“Yes’m. I got it right here.”
“Your father wants to speak to
you.”
After a moment he came on the
line.
“You okay, sport?”
“Yessir.”
“There’s been a flash flood at
the creek, so your mom and I won’t be able to get back home for quite a while.
Maybe not until morning. You all right with that?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
Was that something moving in
the corner? I swung the flashlight around. Nothing there.
“I—”
A big crash followed by a
bright light made me just about jump out of my skin. The phone went dead in my
hands. Lightning. Close. I stood quietly as chill bumps puckered my skin. I
swallowed hard and spoke into the dead phone. “Brute and me’ll be all right,
Dad.”
After I crawled onto the couch
again and got over that scare, things didn’t seem so bad, even though the old
house made noises I’d never noticed before. The rain passed, but the wind that
came after it kept my mom’s rose bushes scratching at the front window like
they were trying to get in. My heart stopped racing when Brute lifted his head
and gave a big yawn. He was asleep before his head hit my lap again. Nothing to
worry about.
With nothing else to do, I
fiddled with the flashlight, making it strobe, widening the lens so half the
room was alight and then narrowing it down so I could pretend a laser was boring
a hole in the wall. Eventually, it dawned on me that I’d better save the
batteries. When I shut it off, everything was as black as I’d ever seen it
before. Long before my usual bedtime, my batteries needed recharging,
and I dozed. I must have, because I came awake with a start when the bang came.
Bang… it was more of a crash. Or a crash bang. From outside somewhere.
When I turned on the tactical
flash, Brute was standing on the couch, looking out the west window. “Yap!” he
barked. Then he followed with some yips before hopping off the sofa and going
to stand on his hind legs at the window. I was right on his heels, but the
glass reflected back in my eyes, so I killed the flashlight. As soon as I
recovered my night vision, I saw a bluish glow coming from the potato field my
dad left fallow this season.
“What’s that?” I asked.
Brute answered with a bunch of
yips and yaps.
Before long, curiosity won out
over fright, and I pulled on a jacket against a night colder than it oughta be
and took the flashlight outside on the front porch, Brute hard on my heels. The
storm had passed but lightning still played in the distance. Peering through
the moonless night, I made out something big and indistinct in the far field.
The glow came from there. I couldn’t be sure, but there seemed to be shapes
moving around in the blue light. Maybe someone needed help. But who? There
ought not be anyone in our potato field. The only thing I could think of was an
airplane crash.
With a glance at the boiling clouds overhead, I abandoned the porch and walked
through a stiff headwind toward the distant glow. I hadn’t even reached the
edge of the yard before I came to a dead stop. Something in the windbreak line
of elms caught my eye. A shape. Like a man… sort of. My heart went crazy when
he moved forward. Brute went down on his forelegs, his rear end in the air, and
growled.
The hair on my neck prickled
when the thing—it sure wasn’t a man—made a noise like a cricket, except a lot
louder.
I managed to get my words out
without stuttering. “Who’s there?”
“Who’s there?” came back at
me.
“I-I’m Tommy Schmidt. I live
here.”
“I-I’m Tommy Schmidt. I live
here,” the thing said.
“No, you’re not! I’m Tommy.”
“No, you’re—”
“Stop that!” I yelled. Freaked,
I switched on the flashlight, but in my excitement, I set it to strobing,
surprising me as much as it did the man… the thing. The flickering light
exposed a big head and huge eyes over two holes where a nose should have been.
The next blink of light showed the thing’s head wrinkling, like it was collapsing.
With a horrible shriek, the creature fell to the ground and lay still.
“Good Lord, Almighty, what
happened?” I muttered aloud.
I about jumped out of my boots
when another voice came back at me. “Good Lord, Almighty, what happened?”
Brute was halfway back to the house
before I had time to swing the strobing light to another big-headed, pale man…
creature… thing, who flung hands or claws to his face as his head seemed to
collapse too.
Other shapes moved, but they
seemed to be retreating. So did I, catching up with Brute on the front steps. We
almost tripped one another getting through the door. I slammed it, latched it,
and for good measure, lowered the bar that Dad had installed when we had a rash
of robberies in the area a year back to hold it fast. Then I locked the back
door—wishing it had a bar too—and latched all the windows, closing the curtains
as I did so.
After that, I collapsed on the
couch and held a terrified Schnauzer tight against my chest until my heart quit
thumping and some of the panic ebbed.
“What were those things?” I asked
aloud. Brute didn’t bother to answer, he just burrowed deeper into my armpit.
Fear shrank and curiosity
grew. I got off the couch and went to the west window. Pulling the curtain
aside enough to peek outside, I saw that blue glow in the distance. Then
something blotted out the light, and I made out the faint shape of a creature’s
head right outside the glass pane. Except I couldn’t see the big eyes.
Something was covering them.
Giving a yelp that matched
Brute’s yip, I dropped the curtain and ran back to the couch, curling into a
ball and clutching a shivering dog close against me.
There
you have it. The first half of the story, at any rate. See you for the finish
next Thursday.
Dreamspinner’s publishing
date for my next BJ Vinson book, The Voxlightner Scandal, is November
19, 2019. A buy link follows: http://www.dsppublications.com/books/upcoming-releases-c
Now
my mantra: Keep on reading and keep on
writing. You have something to say, so say it!
My
personal links: (Note the change in the Email address because I’m still getting
remarks on the old dontravis21@gmail.com. PLEASE DON’T USE
THAT ONE.)
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/donald.travis.982
Twitter:
@dontravis3
Buy
links to Abaddon’s Locusts:
See
you next week.
Don
New Posts are
published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.
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