The note itself simply read, “TUESDAY 7:13 PM”.
Unsigned, undated, unadorned. Stuck into my door, just above the latch where I’d be sure to find the note immediately upon my return from my errands about the city…
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That’s when I saw it. A thing — no, not even a thing, just an impression of a thing; a momentary imperfection in that seamless blue — that teased at the edge of my vision. My eye flicked toward it, but it either whipped away faster than the eye could follow or it hadn’t really been there to begin with…
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Dexter crouched beneath the toxic fruit trees in his grassless back yard, turning over black earth with the spade he’d taken from the old man, and every shovelful revealed worse things:
clumps of cinders and the dust of ashes; rusting nails, practically dripping tetanus; wickedly-curved shards of brown glass; bullets of various sizes, crusted with dirt; and a foot or so down, fragments of black-stone statuary…
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Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness. Wretched is he who looks back upon lone hours in vast and dismal chambers with brown hangings and maddening rows of antique books. Such a lot the gods gave to me – to me, the dazed, the disappointed; the barren, the broken…
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“This is the one I wanted to show you,” Rando said to his blind date, Maya, who had an artificial eye that drooped slightly, but was otherwise very cute in a chipmunk sort of way.
“Make her blonde,” Rando said, while Maya peered over his shoulder. The woman’s hair changed from brown to golden blonde…
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The Drabblecast brings you “Go Beep” by Aliya Whiteley.
Aliya Whiteley is a writer of dark tales in science fiction and fantasy, and was the winner of the Drabblecast People’s Choice award for Jelly Park! She has also been shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson, BSFA, and British Fantasy Society Awards.
Story Excerpt:
I’m a fan of Nirvana.
I mean I’m a fan of the band rather than a fan of the concept. Although, hey, what’s not to like about the idea of being no longer subject to torture over the fires of greed, hatred and delusion? Free from all suffering – yes, that sounds pretty good. But if I really wanted to free of everything that makes us human then I probably wouldn’t dig bands like Nirvana any more, and that would be bad. Then I wouldn’t be me any more.
Enjoy the show:
Drabblecast 173 – Go Beep
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You couldn’t describe a rath. You couldn’t even look at one for more than a few seconds before you started getting a migraine aura. Rovers were just blots of shadow. The breeder was massive, armored, and had no recognizable features, save for its hideous, drooling, ragged edged maw. Irizarry didn’t know if it had eyes, or even needed them…
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Izrael Irizarry stepped through a bright-scarred airlock onto Kadath Station, lurching a little as he adjusted to station gravity. On his shoulder, Mongoose extended her neck, her barbels flaring, flicked her tongue out to taste the air, and colored a question. Another few steps, and he smelled what Mongoose smelled, the sharp stink of toves, ammoniac and bitter…
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For fourteen years the North Piscataway High School History Department, under my stewardship, has honored the tradition of Duel Day, our annual reenactment of the famous, deadly confrontation of 1804, between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. And for all fourteen of those reenactments, I, Robert Stanley, have taken the role of noble Hamilton, and Paul Vasouvian from the math department has filled the boots of the scurrilous Burr…
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Two years ago it must’ve been. Me and Manny and a couple of the other boys — Carlos and T-Bone — met up at the last Dairy Queen outside of Lompoc.
Manny was going on at me about that shortcut I liked, Route Nine.
“I’m telling you that place is God-awful weird, Joe.”
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Thousands of fish — dead, dying, or flopping in the shallows — littered the shore. A dozen people in their nightgowns, pajamas, or hastily-thrown-on street clothes moved along the shore, bending, exclaiming, whistling, laughing. Some had flashlights, but most worked by moonlight, scooping up flounder, blue crab, and shrimp. This was a jubilee, as I remembered them, a pre-dawn beach-party to celebrate the mysterious bounty of the bay…
Tim Pratt Week
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To start, my pet has no roots and only two limbs. Her bark is soft and spongy. A domed leafless flower grows from her trunk. She’s small; standing a mere four branches high and makes odd gibbering sounds when I draw close..
Recorded live at Balticon, Science Fiction convention May 28, 2010
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And so we went in.
Combat formation, all five of us, me first, face masks on so tight that the edges of our eyes pulled, suits like a second skin. Weapons in both hands, back-ups attached to the wrists and forearms, flash-bangs on our hips.
No shielding, no vehicles, no nothing. Just us, dosed, altered, ready to go.
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“We’ve got one of them,” he told me gleefully.
“One of what?” I asked, bewildered.
“One of them,” he said, as if that explained it. “Cheeky sod from Accounts came upstairs and tried to get a coffee out of our vending machine. Can you believe it? Out of OUR vending machine!”
Nothing cheekier than a pandemic of murderous intent..
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