Fantasy Drabble #138 “Caravan”

The wagons looked new, as if they’d been abandoned only hours before; it was the sun-bleached bones littering the desert pavement that betrayed their age and provenance.

“Search everything,” Carrand ordered, and his soldiers fanned out.  The bones looked to be those of men, of dwarves, and of the Mules. The poor souls would have had scant seconds between the first scree from above and their deaths. The bones were bare, with nary a shred of cloth or leather. The wagons would be empty, too; Hygo raiders leave nothing they can either devour or carry with them into the sky.

Zombie Drabble #201 “Losing Control”

The van came to a stop against a tree, upside down. “I told you you were going too fast!”

“Sorry. That guy came out of nowhere.”

“Zombies can’t ‘come out of nowhere’, genius. You were going too fast.”

“All right, all right. Can you get out from there?”

“I think so. I just need to catch my breath.”

“Sure. But that zombie is on his way down from the road right now, and we’re a meal in a can to him. So you might want to hustle up.”

“Hustle up? What are you, a high school football coach? Help me.”

SF Drabble #194 “Smart House”

They’re all so fucking smart. I’ll show them how smart they are. They want to give their houses A.I., and then make it responsible for home security? Fine. They want to give it lethal weapons? Fine. They want to kill my brother? My only brother? Fine.

I never got into the physical break-in side of things. I’m more a computer man. I can write a virus that erases your family’s biometric data from the house computer so it sees you and your precious little spawn as threats. I can? I have.

I’d watch the news tomorrow. And don’t go home.

Fantasy Drabble #137 “Evicted”

Listen, I’m sorry you lost your King and all, but I don’t see what that has to do with me. Why can’t you just get a new King? Why go to all this trouble? Kidnapping me and tying me up isn’t not going to bring this guy back.  What does your King want with my body, anyhow? Shouldn’t you find a better one? Younger, healthier? Hey. Listen, sport: your King can’t have my body, I’m still using it. Chant all you want, you can’t… okay, what’s the knife for? That looks sharp, let’s be careful there, okay, friend? Seriously, now.

Zombie Drabble #200 “No Leakers”

Machine guns are useless. Maybe one bullet in ten hits brain, the rest just make ‘em twitch. Though, blowing out kneecaps does slow ‘em down. But your aimed rifle fire is far more effective.

I love my boys; good soldiers, every one. Professional. They didn’t move a muscle ‘til I told ‘em to. When we had to fall back, they didn’t leave anything behind, only went as far as I told ‘em, then turned and got back to killing zombies. They know this is as far as we fall back.

Ain’t nothing dead but still walking getting past this position.

SF Drabble #193 “Under New Management”

We didn’t even know they were in the system until that Grodon officer walked into town and posted the notice on the town hall door. He was very polite, naturally.

Some folks are up in arms about it. Not literally of course. They just feel like we came out here — far away from any Association trade circuit — to get away from government, any government. Personally, I have mixed feelings. I won’t like paying Association taxes, but they’ve already taken out the pirates that were raiding our supply ships, and I hear we’re getting a new generator, so that ain’t bad.

Fantasy Drabble #136 “Raise”

She’d gotten there just after dark. The first spell was for strength and endurance, so she could dig down six feet by the start of the witching hour.

She was done in plenty of time, and she found the body well-preserved. The second spell served to keep the flesh intact, and the third worked to animate it. The eyelids opened and he looked accusingly up at her. Smiling, she said, “Hello, Manny. Welcome back.”

While Manny began pulling himself up and out of the grave, she cast the fourth spell, the one that would force him to do her bidding.

SF Drabble #192 “Discrimination”

“I’m sorry, I can’t hire you.”

“But, I don’t understand.” All my paperwork was in order, and my qualifications were impeccable. He couldn’t do better than me. Not even for what they were paying. “Your ad said you were desperate.”

“I’m afraid you’re not what we’re looking for.”

“I have ten years experience at this exact job description at a larger company on Mars. All my training certificates are current—”

“I’m sorry, it’s out of my hands.”

“But—”

“I can’t hire clones. I’m sorry, it’s nothing personal; it’s against the law. We have a gene drift detector in the doorframe.”

Zombie Drabble #199 “Storm Cellar”

She was still crying. He was too tired to tell her to shut up, certainly too tired to make her. Those things were still beating and scratching at the door above them, and dust fell through thin and intermittent beams of light. Maybe eventually they’d give up, move on.

He chided her angrily, “You should be thanking me. You’d be dead now if it weren’t for me. I saved you. You hear? I saved you from them.”

She sniveled. She wiped her eyes as best she could with her wrists still cuffed to the drainage pipe.

“I’m not the monster.”

Fantasy Drabble #135 “Discipline”

Don’t sit there and tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about. You’ve got blood all over your shoes and your eyes are still glowing. I know what you’ve been up to. I’m not stupid. You don’t think I got up to no good when I was your age? You don’t think I could hang with the dark ones on a Friday night? You’ve got another thing coming, young lady. You’re grounded. That’s right, grounded, and don’t try to argue because my mind is made up. You’ll just have to miss seeing your little friends at the rituals tomorrow.

SF Drabble #191 “ELE”

The Friktik were having an asteroid scare. They’d been moving a rock — nine kilometers of nickel-iron — in-system to mine it for ore, and lost control; it was headed straight for the planet. We watched the whole thing on the liner’s viewscreens.

Polixaci script started scrolling across the screen: the liner is going to move in, take out the rock. Take out the rock, I thought, from a passenger liner? How?

Something bright, a spear of light with arcs of lightning coming off it, reached out and touches the asteroid. Suddenly all we could see was an expanding cloud of dust.

Fantasy Drabble #134 “World Traveler”

There is a knock at the door.

It’s been years since I’ve been to Tokyo. Like New York, it’s a city that never sleeps. Which is fortunate, as I am jet-lagged. And annoyed at the two hours I spent cooling my heels on the parked airplane waiting for the sun to go down.

The concierge knows what I am saying before I say it. I don’t have to wait long.

I open the door, and she is standing there, holding her blood test results in her hands. Her name is Junko, and she is B negative.

I love this city.