Anim8

The high definition display screen shows ten objects being tracked across a stylized map of the United States. The indicator circles, which surround a number, pulse in red and yellow. Each circle set, in no particular order, turn green and solid and stationary. Number five stops in Utica, Indiana; three halts movement in Cody, Wyoming. The seventh object slows down over Cloudcroft, New Mexico while Calabash, North Carolina is the proud recipient of object number one.

An observer or technician, shadowed by the viewscreen, overseeing the movement picks up a phone receiver, depresses a button.

“Sir,” an assured but hushed voice woman's voice says, “ninety-two percent complete. Total interpolation expected in ten minutes.” The silhouetted woman awaits briefly, then “Yes Sir, once the data flows in we will determine the effectiveness of the device.”

On the screen ahead of her, one of the red and yellow blinking circles, object eight, moves toward the California coast, settling on the small town of Carpinteria.

Along the streets of Carpinteria, scattered with beach bums, surfer dudes and betty's walking along with their following. A Ford van converted into a delivery truck, turns the corner in front of an eatery where several of them are gathered. Inside the dark recesses of that vehicle, next to a seventy-inch-long rectangular ‘smiling box’, atop a dozen parcel envelopes; a six-inch square box wrapped in plain brown paper pivots with each turn of the delivery vehicle. On the surface of this package there is no label, only a barcode of some sort. Not any of the standard UPC codes, nor dot matrix, nor QR, but a series of wavy lines, triangles, and squares.

The vehicle stops with the shrill of brakes. Suddenly, bright sunlight bathes the packages, gloved hands grab this brown papered box, lifting it away to….

A white bungalow with a covered side porch banked by Blue Grama blowing the salty air. An old couch beside the door is stained and dirty with burn marks, several crumpled beer cans are on and around it. A planter with an unrecognizable dead plant in dusty soil, a beer bottle is stuffed into it upside down, multiple cigarette butts protrude from the dirt.

The brown paper box is thrown onto the porch, banging loudly into the storm door, alarming a Deer Mouse that must have been scourging behind the sofa. It darts across the porch to the shade of the grass.

Inside, a bump, a crash.

“Mother…”, the young male voice inside screams.

Another man with a gravelly voice yells, “What the hell man!”

“Dude!” the original voice responds, “I like, freaked, alright!”

“Why?”

The door opens, “Something happened out here man.” Denny, a tan fit twenty-year-old with shoulder length blonde hair stands there looking around paranoid. His eyes are glassy, cheeks and forehead are slightly red from sun exposure. “Someone banged on the door.”

Brent, a tan young man, cropped black hair about twenty as well, pops his head out the door, pushing Denny aside and out. “Who?”

Denny stumbles over the box and lands on the sofa, crunching the beer cans on the cushions. The box ends up in the middle of the porch, Brent laughs at him and bends to get the package.

“Yow!” Denny jumps up, “Damn it, bro!”, he throws a dented can at Brent, hitting him on the forehead as he is bent over.

Denny throws another can, Brent catches it and throws it back. This activity continues for several more moments. The two old friends, reenacting a dozen years of tiffs and raucous matches, until one of them gives in.

This time it’s Brent. Denny has been flicking old cigarette butts at Brent, landing one on his left eye.

“Dude!” Brent brushes off his eye, then rubs it with his palm. “Enough. I’m sorry.”

Brent takes away his palm, opens his eye wide and blinks. “You could have blinded me, man.” Brent looks down at the beer cans and cigarette butts all over the porch. He sees the package.

“Yo! What’s this?” Brent picks it up, grunts, “It’s heavier than it looks.”

“Not mine dude.” Denny says as his foot rakes away the trash from in front of the door, shoving it under the sofa, then with a hard shoulder into Brent, he enters the house.

Brent brings the box in and over to the small kitchen table which still has food in plates from last night’s meal. He sets it down on top of a plate of mac-n- cheese.

“Man! That’s my plate!” Denny jumps at him.

Brent picks up the box to look at the plate, “Dude that’s last nights, it’s cold and crusty.” Brent shoves the plate over with the box and places it down. The plate teetering on the table edge.

Denny grabs the plate before it falls off, “It’s still good.”, he shovels a fork full into his mouth.

“Ky!”, Brent yells, “Did you order anything?”

Ky answers from the back of the house, “I didn’t order pizza. Broke!”

“No,” Brent responds, “From like online, or something! A package?”

Ky walks out, a tall black man, also twenty, he rubs through his medium curls. “Like I said, no cashy brau.” And walks over to inspect his surfboard leaned against the wall, next to the fridge. He rubs a scuff mark on the leading edge.

Denny, drops the cleaned off dish into the sink with a clank, choking down the last of the mac and cheese, “That from the wipeout at West Beach?”

Ky raises up and frowns, “Yeah.”

Bending down for a closer look, “I’ll buff that out for ya man, soon as we get some grub.” Denny says as he walks to the TV table to a pile of mail.

Brent slaps Ky’s arm, “Dude, you botched that tube.”

Denny digs out an envelope from the mail pile, “Hey! I think my Mom sent me some dough.”

“Momma’s money!” Brent says high-fiving Ky.

Denny pulls out some cash from an envelope, “Got about a hundred bucks. What do you guys want?”

Ky rubs his stomach, “Oh man, The Spot? Chili cheese fries and a shrimp taco?”

Denny pockets the cash, “Yeah, I was craving a burger, sounds righteous.”

Ky bro handshakes Denny, “Thank you brother.”

Denny walks over to Brent who’s inspecting the package, “What about you?”

“Could you go to The Elephant on the way”, Brent digs out a few bucks, hands them to Denny who waves them off. “Satay.”

Brent turns over the box, “Where’s the ship from label?”. There is a spoon attached to the bottom, Denny tries to pull it off, and with oddly more force than should be necessary, he does so, then tosses it into the sink.

Brent rubs the spot where the spoon was, “That’s weird.”

“Yeah,” digging out his cellphone to call, Denny pushes buttons on his flip phone, “Crap, I got no battery. Lemme see yours.”

Brent hands his phone over to Denny as Ky taps the box’s surface, “So, this the package?”

Brent sets it down again, “Yeah, no label except for this wicked barcode.”

Ky picks it up now, “Damned heavy.” He lifts the box over his head, like he is working out. “Is it weights? Should we open it?”

Denny hands Brent back his phone, “Yours is dead too. I’m just going to walk down.”

“OK man, hey aren’t you going to check my phone?” Ky asks.

Denny shakes his head as he walks out the door, “Yours is always dead. See ya.”

Ky rips open the brown paper revealing a block box with iridescent blue crisscrossing lines embedded in the surface resulting in an almost internal glow.

“Whoa!”, Brent exclaims, pulling off the rest of the packaging. “Dude, this might be the amp Davey was saying he’d send us!”

Ky turns it over and over, there are no labels, nor ports. “Yeah man, I don’t think so.”

“I’ll call him,” Brent pulls out his phone, flips it open only then remembering it’s dead. He tosses it on the table next to the box. “Screw this cheap ass phone! I’m gonna get a smoke.”

Ty tosses the brown paper toward the trash, it lands on the floor, he follows Brent out the door “Yo. Can I mooch one?”

The door closes. A low pulsating humming, he blue lines on the box begin to pulsate with the hum.

Brents phone screen glows a bright amber and flips open.

In the kitchen, the refrigerator dispenser starts shooting out ice.

The countertop microwave door slams open and starts to glow red inside. Near it, on the counter, the bread bag melts, the bread begins to burn quickly to ciders.

On the porch Ky and Brent sit silently on the sofa smoking.

In the distance a woman screams.

That woman is a middle-aged woman named Beth, she cowers on the other side of her swinging kitchen door, which is suddenly stabbed with a long, serrated knife. Crashes and glass breakage with such rage on the other side, as the dishwasher spews out forks, knives, and dishes with such force, even a spoon becomes imbedded into the stove door, whose window is glowing bright red hot.

In the house next door to her, Albert is being chased around his front yard by his push mower, his mouth contorted in a silent scream muted in his terror. The anthropomorphic mower’s front end bounces up and down, almost laughing as it cuts a swath through the yard, bushes, and gnomes.

The little neighborhood is alive with now deadly appliances attacking and destroying people and homes.

Brent and Ty, still relaxing on the porch, are suddenly traumatized by their stereo turning on at peak volume, the door window cracks. Holding their ears, they go inside. Suddenly a piercing scream, Brent comes staggering out with a compact disk lodged into his eye socket and brow, he falls into the Blue Grama.

In the streets of Carpinteria California, several unmarked olive drab SUV’s patrol, scanning as they drive, observing and documenting the effects of their new weapon.