Sci Fi
Aye
I lowered myself to my knees to install a length of edging along the sidewalk from my porch to the driveway. It is a good feeling to find the moistness of the grass wetting my knee as I press down the decorative along the edge of the walk. As I go along, I pull clumps of grass-bladed sod that have extended over the side of the concrete, having impeded my progress. The soggy mud-encrusted clumps feel cool in my hands as I clear them. I imagine that I am renewing a connection to the good earth while I scoot my knees along, and reminding myself that a presence is ever with me. Twenty-five feet along and I stop to stand up and review my efforts. The edging is relatively straight, straight as the concrete of the walk would allow, but lumpy as it had not been completely flattened. I walked the line and tamped down the high spots with my foot, eyeing the line as I went along. I hoped my calming thoughts and attention to the detail of my project reflect well on my score.
By Joseph "Mark" Coughlin4 years ago in Fiction
Abduct - Tease
ABDUCT - TEASE Fritzie Salmano dared to open her eyes and screamed. It was a body beneath her--Harry Poller--in his satin, glitter-suit. But where was the stage? Where was Lincoln Center? She glanced around and tumbled from the still performer, whose head suddenly lolled to one side in a ghastly manner. His big saxophone was still around his neck. Her camera hung from her own. She jumped back, thinking him dead, and struggled to keep from losing control. She felt jolted like her body had gone through a lightning bolt. A whiff of ammonia worse than the stuff under her sink smacked her brain, gagging her.
By Stephen Vernarelli4 years ago in Fiction
Pure Spite
Episode 3 At Colorado Springs, Tesla had released the monster many times, but it was before there were radios, before there were computers, before the mega power systems that ran cities. Before the Electron Age. Trying to tame the monster, he blew out all the generators in the dam many times when he freed hundreds of kilowatts of high frequency, high power from a 50-foot diameter coil. He rewires the huge generators on his own and brought the massive system back online each time. With this coil, he hoped to light a bulb in Paris. There was not much for the monster to eat then, but now. It would be devastating. My coil was 60 feet in diameter and would handle a thousand times more current.
By Mark Stigers 4 years ago in Fiction
Prologue: A Day In The Life
The street was deathly quiet, the lanes choked with wrecked and abandoned vehicles. All five lanes were a jumble of rust and broken plastic and glass, the dust that had settled on the cars and trucks having rendered everything to the same sepia tone as the sky above. The scene had the quality of an old faded photograph, still life captured forever in its present state of deterioration. Along both sides of the street, the hulks of ranchers and split-levels stood precariously on their ruined foundations, some burnt out while others merely suffered broken doors and windows. Evidence of looting lay about their yards, detritus of modern-day living strewn about, all covered with that brownish dust. All of their trees and bushes had been stripped of every scrap of greenery, every bit of bark sliced and consumed, even the cores gnawed at until all that remained were thin reeds of dried somethings bereft of any nutritional value. Even the grass of all their yards had been pulled by the scrawny handful, until they also turned to the same dusty shade.
By Joseph "Mark" Coughlin4 years ago in Fiction
