Into the Strange Read online

INTO THE STRANGE:

  A Collection of Flash Fiction

  Mike Ramon

  © 2013 M. Ramon

  This work is published under a Creative Commons license (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0). To view this license:

  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

  If you wish to contact the author you can send e-mail to:

  [email protected]

  Web addresses where you can find my work:

  https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/m_ramon

  https://www.wattpad.com/user/ZeroTheHero

  Table of Contents

  Always Smiling

  Survivors

  Through the Void

  Trouble with the Porter Family

  Lunch

  Observation

  Dust

  Doll

  Bus Station, 9 AM

  Untitled

  Wreckage

  November Morning

  A Good Worker

  Letters for the Dead

  Always a Mess

  Rimfire

  Death’s Day Off

  The Phone Booth

  Across the Great Blue Sea

  The Bad Thing at the End of the Road

  ALWAYS SMILING

  I see them every day now. I think of them as the Smile Zombies. They seem to enjoy each other’s company more than the company of us unenlightened folks. I guess they don’t want anyone around harshing their buzz. No wet blankets allowed, thank you. It gets to the point where you can’t stand to see their stupid smiling faces. If what they’ve got is happiness, I want no part of it. Me and my misery are doing just fine. It’s hard to believe that that damn gadget only hit the market six months ago. They said it was guaranteed to make all of your worries disappear.

  Why be sad when you can smile instead?

  Great slogan. When I saw the first Smile-A-Tron commercial I assumed it was a load of bunk, like that infomercial they used to run for the Cray-Zee Knife. In the infomercial some British guy would tell you how the knife could cut through a pineapple like it was cutting through butter. Preparing dinner would be so easy once you had that wacky knife, which could be yours for three easy payments of nine ninety-nine, shipping and handling not included. My cousin Fred gave me one of those things for Christmas one year; the damn thing couldn’t cut a strawberry in half, much less a pineapple.

  In the weeks leading up to the public release of the Smile-A-Tron the press couldn’t stop talking about it. The fawned over the new wonder gadget. They marveled at its slim, sleek design. It looked kind of like the old smartphones they used to have back in the Stone Age. They called it a “retro look”.

  Not all news outlets were crazy about it, though. Dan Rather let it be known that he thought the device would just give people a false sense of happiness, and rob us of the true joy and pleasures that come along with perseverance over pain and adversity. I’m talking about the flesh and blood Dan Rather on Network 5, not the hologram of his great-grandfather they have doing the nightly news on Network 2.

  Then the big day arrived, when the Smile-A-Tron could finally be purchased at your local Mega Mart for the low price of three hundred New Dollars, plus tax. And to tell you the truth, it was just like any other day for me. I went to work like I always do, and after work I went home. I didn’t see a single smiling moonface all day long. It took a few days before I started noticing the Smile Zombies. Just a few at first, usually travelling solo. After a couple of weeks I started seeing them more often, and in ever larger groups. Now it’s not unusual to see a dozen or more of the bastards walking down the street together, all of them smiling like this is the greatest day of their lives, smiling so wide that you can’t help wondering if it hurts their face. I have seen the face of progress, and its face is locked in a smile.

  It’s enough to grate on your nerves. It’s enough to make a fella want to climb a clock tower and start picking off every smiling person they see. I would do it myself if I weren’t such a coward.

  Man, I think I’m starting to crack up here. I probably sound like a loon. Fine, then I’m a loon. I’d rather be that than a Smile Zombie. It’s not right to be happy all the time. It’s against nature, or something like that. So yeah, I’ll make peace with my demons and learn to live with them. But I’ll keep them close; they’re like old friends of mine. I will not be buying one of those gadgets. I will not become a dazed, smiling fool.

  It’s late, and I’m tired. Please, just no more smiling faces today. I don’t ask for much. Let me just make it home without seeing another smiling face, and I will be happy.

  SURVIVORS

  It started with a light in the sky that lit up the night. It seemed like the whole neighborhood was outside within minutes, all looking up at the bright nighttime sky in wonder. We didn’t know.

  Keeping track of time is more difficult now; I would say it’s been about a year, give or take a few weeks. Food is running out. Clean water ran out long ago. Now we get water directly from the stream, even though it’s a bit cloudy and has a strange aftertaste. A man died last night; didn’t know him, must’ve come in with the new group.

  I’m tired. We’re all scared, though most try hard to hide it. We tell each other that we’ll make it through this, but I don’t think any of us really believes that.

  I don’t know why I’m writing this. Who will ever read it?

  THROUGH THE VOID

  The scrolls were found in an underground cave in the Arabian Desert. A joint archaeological team from the Royal University of Riyadh and the Abu Dhabi Archaeological Institute found them while on an expeditionary dig. A few artifacts had been found accidentally by some oil workers who were out in the desert to fix a minor crack in a pipeline, and careful study of the artifacts convinced some real players at the Royal University that they had finally found the location of the lost city of Tal’eth Sar.

  According to lore the mythical underground city had risen and fallen long before the Arabic tongue was spoken in those lands. It was said to be a city of wealth beyond imagining, and in its time it was a hub of both art and commerce. The possibility of such hidden riches lying just beneath the sands was such a temptation that the Saudi government deployed a brigade of the Royal Saudi Land Forces to the area to keep scavengers away.

  So the joint team from Riyadh and Abu Dhabi went out into the waste land to dig. They had hoped to found a great underground city, but they found instead a large network of underground caves and tunnels. There were a few artifacts to be sure, but mostly there were just barren rock walls and dark passageways leading to nowhere. The excitement that had been stirred up by the apparent discovery of an ancient lost city waned, and curiosity turned to indifference. Were it not for the persistence of one eager young student from the Royal University the scrolls would perhaps have not been found at all, and what followed after may have been avoided.

  The young man, whose name had been lost to history--whether by chance or by some communal act of forgetting is not certain--stayed working after all others had abandoned all hope that these caves and interconnecting tunnels would prove to be the faded remnants of that great old city. Since what few artifacts they had found had already been taken to the Royal University, even the battalion of soldiers had left, leaving the determined young man to his own devices. He was a man obsessed; he was convinced that there was something there that no one was seeing, and he determined to find it. The details of his continued digging and searching are for the most part unknown; the only part that really matters is the last part, when through clumsy chance he knocked through a false wall to reveal a small hidden chamber. The sole contents found within were the scrolls.

  The scrolls were pored over and studied by the brightest minds from the varied fields of s
cience. It took six years for the secrets of the strange writing system to be revealed, and what was revealed were a set of instructions for a portal of unknown purpose. Along with the instructions were warnings not to build the portal at all--sort of a “for novelty use only” disclaimer. But the warnings were ignored, as the curiosity that had carried us first out of the ocean and then down out of the trees drove us once more into the unknown.

  The portal was built on the grounds of the University of Kapfenberg, in Austria. It was delicate work, and it took three years to complete. Perhaps the strangest piece of all was the peculiar “battery” used to turn the portal on. It was of a design never seen before, and all that it needed to work was an electric current. How the long-dead people who had left the scrolls had managed to harness electricity is unknown; the scrolls did not contain any information other than the instructions and warnings.

  On the day that the portal was switched on a crowd gathered around it, learned men of science, journalists, a few high-profile politicians who wanted to make sure they were there for the momentous occasion when the ancient device would come to life. The event was broadcast live on televisions, and streamed on computers, all over the world. Nobody knew what to expect; some thought that the device would open a wormhole through space that would allow intergalactic travel, and some thought it was a time machine. Secretly most of them expected nothing at all.

  When the time came round at last an electric current was applied to the copper wire that wound around the battery. At first it appeared that nothing would happen after all, and that the cynics had won the day. But then a bright light appeared at the center of the portal; the light spread out, growing larger until it filled the whole frame of the portal. It was a queer blue light that undulated and pulsed with a certain kind of rhythm. The silent blue light pulsed silently for some time as millions all over the world watched with bated breath, waiting for whatever would come next.

  And then It came. When It emerged from the light there were a few shocked screams from those in attendance in Kapfenberg, and perhaps from some people watching on their televisions as well. People saw It and knew all at once that everything had changed, and all that we thought we knew of our universe was a lie. It let out a penetrating, ululating sound then; to call it a roar would not be quite accurate, but it is closest to the truth. At the sound of this cry those most esteemed attendees in Kapfenberg broke as one into a scream, an utter denial of the sight and sound of this horrible thing that could not be, and should not be, but was. And then It fed.

  When It was finished It disappeared back into the light. Later a courageous few entered the grounds of the University of Kapfenberg, found the portal and disengaged the battery. The light died out; the portal had been turned off. The portal was destroyed, as were the scrolls that had been found in that hidden chamber by that nameless young man who only wished to find something incredible, and succeeded terribly.

  Now we don’t speak of it, and we certainly don’t write about it. In the telling of this tale I have become a criminal. I will leave this hidden safely away; perhaps it will be found by someone long after I am dead and gone. I have wondered if they will believe a word of it. Whether they do or not I will never know. It is enough to have told the tale, and having told it I am done.

  TROUBLE WITH THE PORTER FAMILY

  When Mr. Porter’s wife left him for her old college flame and left town, people said they saw it coming. The whole neighborhood had heard the late-night shouting matches that had been an ongoing source of gossip for the two years previous, and had seen the former Mrs. Porter’s clothes strewn over the yard on the day that Mr. Porter found out the truth about his wife and her “old friend”. When Charlie and Stephanie--the Porter children--withdrew from their friends and from school activities, people said that it was normal for kids whose parents were divorcing to take some time to adjust. Stephanie was in my fifth-grade class. I watched her sometimes in class; she had been a Chatty Cathy before, but she got very quiet after. She looked sad. That was the year I lost my last baby tooth.

  When Charlie got in trouble for lighting fires in mailboxes in the neighborhood, people said they had known he was up to no good. He just stalked around the neighborhood all day, never looking anyone in the eye, with a perpetual scowl on his face. There were bruises on his face sometimes, as well, but people didn’t have much to say about that. He was a rotten kid, anyway. Stephanie had stopped changing her clothes every day. In junior high that was a big deal, when most kids wouldn’t be caught dead wearing the same clothes two days in a row. She had never grown out of the quiet, withdrawn phase that she had entered after her mother left. Her hair looked dirty most of the time. There were whispers among the adults about her, and about Mr. Porter. I was never quite sure what those whispers were really about. The adults were always careful not to let us kids overhear too much. That was the year I fell off my bike and sprained by wrist.

  When Stephanie tried to kill herself with sleeping pills and wine people said it was all her father’s fault. This seemed to be confirmed when Mr. Porter was arrested after Stephanie told a social worker at the hospital about the things he had done to her. About the bad things. After she got out of the hospital Stephanie went to live with her Aunt Irene across town; she had to change schools. Charlie stayed right where he was, the Regent Home for Boys; he’d been sent there after he broke a bottle over Steve Voss’s head and got in a fight with the cop who tried to arrest him after Steve Voss called 911. Nobody really talked about him anymore. Sometimes I thought about how Stephanie had looked at school when I passed her in the halls. She always seemed to stick close to the walls. Like her brother she had a hard time looking people in the eye. I had heard some rumors about her, about a party where she was the only girl in attendance. Boys laughed about it in the locker room, bragged about the things they had done; I hoped it wasn’t true. That was the year I got my driver’s license and my dad bought me a used car from a friend of Uncle Ted.

  When Stephanie got busted in a prostitution sting people said it wasn’t a big surprise. Weren’t there all those rumors about what she had done in high school, about that fabled party? Any girl who would do those things clearly had no self-esteem, they said. Look how her brother turned out. He was in prison on an arson charge after he burned down the Burger Shanty after he got fired for missing work. Luckily no one was hurt, but it was still awful. I leaned all of this from phone conversations with people back home. That was the year I started my senior year at Northwestern, and the year I fell in love with the girl I would marry three years later.

  I didn’t hear about the Porter kids after that. Sometime I would think about them, and I would wonder where they were and what they were up to. I thought about them long after everyone else had seemingly forgotten them. Eventually even I forgot them. And then today I saw Stephanie; she appeared out of nowhere, like a ghost from the past. I was waiting at a stoplight. When I looked to my right I saw a woman sitting on a bench. Maybe she was waiting for someone, or maybe her feet were tired; who knows? But there she was, and at first I didn’t recognize her. She was older, a little heavier. But then I saw her, really saw her, and I recognized her for who she was. She was smoking a cigarette and staring off to her left. Then the light turned green and the driver in the car behind me was honking. Stephanie took no notice of the commotion. I took my foot off of the brake and drove on, leaving the ghost from the past behind. This is the year my second daughter will be born; she’s due in December. We’re hoping for a Christmas baby.

  LUNCH

  Billy and Jill fussed at each other, swatting and pinching one another when their mother wasn’t looking, and teasing each other in whispers so she wouldn’t hear them. June knew what her children were up to, but she pretended not to notice. Kids had to be kids sometimes.

  “You’re an ugly head,” Billy said.

  “You’re a stupid face,” Jill retorted.

  Hank came into the kitchen, mussed his son’s hair and gave his daughter a
peck on the check. He gave his wife a brief kiss on the lips, which made Jill smile and made Billy screw up his face in disgust at the cooties his father had just exposed himself to.

  “You kids gonna have fun today at school?” Hank asked.

  “No way,” they said in unison; it was unintentional, and the children looked at each other for a second before breaking into laughter.

  “Don’t stay too late at work, honey,” June said. “I’m renting a movie for us all tonight.”

  “Which one?” Billy asked.

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “Ah, Mom.”

  “Here’s your lunch,” June said to Hank, handing him a brown paper sack.”

  “Thanks, babe. Shee ya aroun', shweetheart.”

  He waited for some response from her, and looked disappointed when he got none.

  “Come on, that was my best Bogart impression,” he said.

  “It was very good, Hank.”

  “Thank you.”

  Jill laughed, and Billy rolled his eyes.

  “Have a good day, ya rugrats,” Hank said as he headed for the door.

  “You, too, ya old geezer,” Billy called after him.

  “Billy, I don’t like you joking like that,” June gently chastised.

  “We’re just joking around, Mom.”

  “Still; it seems disrespectful,”

  “Yeah, you stupid face,” Jill whispered to her brother, and then hopped off her chair before he could retaliate. She ran to the far end of the kitchen and opened the door the led down to the basement. She disappeared down the steps.

  “Jill, where are you going?” June asked. “You two are going to be late for your bus.”

  A moment later Jill came running back up. She closed the door and came back to the kitchen table.

  “What were you up to down there?” June asked.

  “I was saying goodbye to Frank. I told him I would come down and see him again after I get back from school.”

  “Honey, I’ve told you that I told like you playing down there. Leave Frank alone. Okay?”

  “Okay,” the girl answered dejectedly.