The Storm-God's Lover

After she had cleaned up the floodwaters and chivvied the snarling clouds back into their pen, she returned to the bower, where her lover sat, hangdog and fuming.

“I didn’t mean to ruin it,” he said, before she could speak.  “I wanted to make a beautiful storm for you.”

“I didn’t ask,” she answered.  “But tell me, since you bring it up: why?”

“Because I’m not divine.  I’m just a man.  I wanted to do something.  To be something.  Why would you love me otherwise?

“Silly,” she said, wrapping her arms around him.  “You are special because you are mine.”

Clickjack

He finished the e-mail and paused to reread.  He was disconcerted to see, instead of a polite request to be removed from the course, nothing but “FEAR IS WHAT THE PREY CAN CATCH FEAR IS WHAT THE PREY CAN CATCH FEAR IS WHAT”

He hit control-A and delete almost instinctively.  The page was blank, and he was suddenly unsure what he’d seen.  Control-Z.  Nothing.  He pressed a button experimentally.  “B” floated peacefully on the screen, as expected, black on white.  He started retyping the e-mail.

The letters appeared one by one, not at all matching his busy keystrokes:

“E-H-I-N-D Y-O-U”

Aftereffects

It was the one hundred and fortieth day in the bunker, and the sixtieth straight day of rain.  Today, the head-height clouds were charged with electricity, and your hair stood up on end if you walked through them.  Gigi had a red mark on her cheek where a wee lightning bolt had earthed itself.  The tiny droplets pattered down, already half an inch deep.

As a miniature waterspout formed over Kathleen’s bowl of cereal, sucking up Cap’n Crunch pieces with its tiny, terrifying windspeeds, Kathleen shrugged.  “If it’s this bad in here, just imagine what it would be like outside.”

Already Here

We didn’t find out about the invasion for a while.  They said on the news the aliens looked like us and talked like us and were generally exactly like us except they came from space and we didn’t.  They came down and lived among us, infiltrating every country, every institution, every life.  But there was a test, they said on the news.  And they started bringing people in, one by one.

The news has gone quiet since the tests finished.  Every last one of us tested, and now we know who the aliens are.  They’ll make the announcement any minute.

Stonebones at BCS

Stonebones is currently available at Beneath Ceaseless Skies for Science Fantasy Month!  Hooray for dead dragons and guns that don't work!

One for Everyone

The bowl was full of Death, individually wrapped.  The skeleton sat on the porch with the bowl between its knees.  A sign taped to its ribcage read, “One per person.  No exceptions!”  The huddle of plastic be-masked elementary schoolers huddled at the end of the sidewalk, unwilling to move forward.

“No one wants to go?” said Mike, who had been unhappily drafted into trick-or-treating duty.  “Well, then let’s get to the next house.  C’mon, chop chop.”

There was a cough from behind them.  “The sign,” said a hollow voice, “is clear.  One for everyone.”

And that’s the way it was.