On the pole (part 1)

Brenner had seen dead bodies before. These had been dead for a fairly long time. The buried limbs and shreds of clothing were mostly obscured by a layer of dirt and rock. Suddenly he realized he had never seen dead bodies at all, not in person, just in the news. He had certainly never stood on them.

“You out here for fun?” Lyle was making one of his rare insights. He was usually quiet, so the other men turned. Brenner grimaced.

“I didn’t say that,” Brenner leaned against the pole, digging it into the dry dirt.

“Then was you… what was you caught for?” Lyle rubbed a scar on his arm. He seemed completely unaware of the sudden quiet. Brenner didn’t answer.

“He’s prawlly married a zerglin if they put ‘im onna pole!” Ged let out a strangled laugh, “GADDAMIT, dang flippin gun!”

The men around Ged backed away. Ged had bumped the leg of tripod mounted Nikos laser, “it was… I ain’t… Brenner go run the rod, we can’t jus’ eff around all day.”

Brenner grabbed the pole and started off. Lyle lumbered over to the gun, he placed his large hands over the tripod legs with steady care and pushed them down into dirt. He was a strange sight: A hulking leather-skinned man hunched over the tiny dials on the Nikos. He peered through the scope for a moment and then slowly tilted his body away from gun.

“It’s zeroed up again,” Lyle slowly stepped from between the tripod legs, very careful not to touch. He looked up. By now, Brenner was barely visible on the jagged orange boulders that made up most of the area. Heat waves distorted his distancing form.

Ged nodded, “How’re we on sattelite?”

The shorter of the two men standing with Ged at the back of the jeep looked at a tiny computer monitor, “We’re bout a tenth off- but heck, considerin nobody been out here for this long we’re gold!”

Ged looked around at the craters,”a tenth… that’s good enough for government work!” He let out another oddly pained laugh, “Git Brenner in the sights.”

Communication

Marshal took a deep breath and stepped into the room. He had caught the faint and unpleasant aroma from the connecting hallway. Once inside the room the sheer rancid force of the smell drew the breath from his lungs. He allowed himself to slowly inhale, and then vomited.

“Who…? Get… Dawson! Get that kid outta here!” The detective glared at Dawson. Dawson turned slowly toward Marshal.

“AY SAMMAY!” Dawson’s voice muffled through the police cap clutched over his nose and mouth, “KID’S UP ERE!”

“We have gaddamn radios, shshh” Detective Pratchett coughed, “shit.”

Dawson turned back to Pratchett, eyes wide, “Hey the kid can ‘ear yah!”

“YEAH I HEAR YAH!” Sammy was calling from from downstairs.

“WHAT..?” Dawson grabbed his radio with his free hand and held it infront of his hat, “what?”

There were a few moments of silence. Pratchett tried to say something but burst into a fit of coughing. Marshal ran out of the room. The radio in Dawson’s hand cackled to life with a gritty burst of static.

“I can hear you just… hey!” The radio died suddenly. The two men could hear a scuffling of feet down the hallway. Pratchett’s eyes were watering. Sammy walked into the room.

“You puke?” Sam was looking at Detective Pratchett, “the hell is that smell?”

Security

The two travelers were bruised, frozen, bleeding and starved, but they had to push on. The little beast snarled at his companion. His companion, though several times larger, cringed at the outburst.

“Haaarruk,” the large creature grimaced and gasped, “please…”

“Fassssssster!” the small monster’s tongue scraped against his teeth and dug his claws deeper into the neck of his unfortunate friend. It had been six days since the two of them had fled the island of their incarceration. Both were dangerous and merciless, and both had taken many lives before finally being captured by the civil guard.

They had been tortured cruelly, and only managed to escape because of some clerical error involving poorly converted measurements. No doubt some pitiful worker was being tortured even now for the loss of the prisoners. Harruk was counting on the civil guards’ dutiful adherence to torture procedures to slow any pursuit.

“Harrruk, it hurrts,” the giant spoke with slow deliberate syllables. He felt the lack of air sap at his strength.

“You musssst continue!” The small beast’s own body ached from clinging to the giant’s neck.

The giant stopped for a moment looking upward. He tried to grab at Harruk once more, but the effort was wasted. The creature had intentionally positioned himself in a place the giant could not reach. The giant was still weighed down by chains all over his body. Back on the island he had been affixed to a guardtower. It now floated some distance behind the two beasts, still chained and (by some strange architectural phenomenon)  still upright.

“The sea is getting… tooo deeep,” said the giant, the water had risen to his ears, “It will be difffffficult.”

When the two escaped monsters finally made it to land, blue in the face and covered in all manner of sea-life, they were no longer a danger to anyone. Only the guardtower remained. Many years later, it was found still standing and half buried in the sand. No one in the surrounding villages knew why the tower stood there, but felt unnerved by it’s presence. It took very little discussion among the villagers to decide to repair the tower and keep it manned by a guard every night.

Spill

Coffee pooled on the hardwood floor, “I thought you were gone…”

“I’m not, do you want to read my draft?” She held up the manuscript and then pulled it back, “It’s just a first run through… it’s not very good yet, just kinda… ideas.”

Martha stepped back from the stack of papers, “But, I heard…” She staggered.

“I really think this is the one, I think I’ve got something you know? Something like, like literary,” Jesse stepped back from the swirling coffee, “It’s just a draft, but it’s good you know?”

Martha looked down at her own feet, “I should have… why didn’t you call me? e-mail?” She could feel the first touch of warm coffee creep into the toe of her socks.

“I printed it out, though- to write notes in, it’s long huh?” Jesse flipped to a random page, and skimmed it over.

“I heard you left, I would have called, I thought you left,” Martha was still holding a spoon in her right hand.

“I didn’t leave…” Jesse was still looking at the page.

“I was busy, too, school…” Martha started to tremble, her eyes watered.

Jesse flipped the book closed and stepped back again, careful to avoid the broken shards, “You wanna come get some coffee?”

Martha quivered, her whole body tensed and tears flooded her reddening cheeks, “You little bitch!”

Jesse laughed, peeking up from between locks of hair, “Yeah? let’s get some coffee, bitch.”

Martha’s smile erupted as she lifted her foot gingerly from the spill, “Yeah, well I’m gonna need something stronger if you want me to read your dumbass script…”

“Yeah, well it’s just a first draft you know…” Jesse started out the door.

Martha chased after, her right foot squelching, “I know! I know! Shutup!”

Memories

At first it was all sand. No people, walls, or structures. No roads to follow and no towering spires. Just sand. And despite the profoundly humbling thought of being born of that sand, and the sheer awe of human creation, she wanted nothing but to destroy. Every precarious and wonderful citadel she craved would crumble. Every wide and spanning archway inflamed her urge to crush. Even as she marveled at everything around her, she would inevitably conjure terrible and devastating ruination in her mind.

She was ashamed of how quickly the violent images surfaced, often reciting her lessons out loud to clear her mind. But the power tickled at her fingertips and begged her to exercise her desires.

Sometimes the feelings fought with cunning logic. Questions and rationalizations coursed through her in a disjointed array: This was a land of freedom, wasn’t it? She could do as she pleased. It was not as if someone could stop her. The people around her never seemed to appreciate the splendor of the fortress, they deserved to lose it. And in any case, what would the destruction mean in terms of the life of the earth? These massive structures were insignificant in the full scope of the cosmos… At any moment, her resolve could falter and nothing would be spared.

A man looked up from his newspaper, “Didn’t she just finish building all that?”

“Yeah, hold on I’m getting it,” a woman was holding up her camera phone, “maybe another one for youtube- crap I’m getting a glare off the sea…”

The man watched his daughter stomp around, “maybe try from the shade,” he shifted in his seat.

“Huh?” the woman was squinting at the phone, “hey Anna, look at Mommy!”

The man was suddenly annoyed, “let her play,” he grumbled and returned to his paper, “it’s just sand.”