Short Story
What they came for
“It’s almost dawn we have to go” she said as the sun began to leak thru the dust scattered across the mountain tops of what used to be London, Ky. That was before “They” came and life as we know it changed forever. I can still remember the smell of the weapon they used to level the entire eastern part of the United States. It burns in my nose from time to time like an erie reminder of the fate I barley escaped. If Uncle Tom hadn’t pushed me and Carla into the underground cellar just before the explosion I’m not sure we would have made it. I’m not sure how many others made it, but we heard a signal on an old battery powered radio Uncle Tom kept down in the cellar telling any survivors to meet down in what used to be Knoxville, Tennesse so that’s where we are going. We had to move during the day and hide at night. That’s when “They” were active. We haven’t seen them yet but we can definitely hear them at night flying around. You could feel an electric vibration in the air whenever they are near. We guess they sleep during the day like some form of vampirism alien species but that’s just speculation. This is all too new to really have any answers it’s only been a week since the explosion an only the second time we was brave enough to leave the cellar. “Are you ready” Carla asked. You could see it in her eyes she was afraid but she was too stubborn to let me know that. We couldn’t stay in the cellar any longer we had run out of supplies so we had no other choice but to find somewhere to go. We walked for miles it seemed without saying a word. I think we was both just determined to get as far as we could before nightfall started to set in. Finally in the distance I seen the place where the sign used to be to mark the Tennessee border. “We have to find a place to stay now” she demanded and I knew she was right. Neither of us could fathom the idea of being without shelter. “Just a little farther” I said hoping she would agree. “ No we don’t have time “ she said with a growl in her voice and I knew it wasn’t a good idea to challenge her. As much as I hated to admit it my sister always tried to look out for me. “I think I see a cabin up ahead in the woods, let’s see if we can stay there.” She said so I began to follow her up the side of the mountain. We knocked on the door and looked in the windows but no one appeared to be inside so I picked the lock and we finally opened the door of the cabin. “This looks like it will work for the night” Carla said “Try and get some sleep we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow “ so I unrolled my sleeping bag and laid it on the old dusty floor of the rustic cabin and laid down to try and rest. The silence filled the room and all you could hear is the click of the Heart shaped locket opening and closing that Carla kept around her neck. Daddy gave it to her the day he died and she has kept it firmly wrapped around her neck since that day. I was too young to remember him but she was very close to him and would often tell me stories about the adventures they had when she was my age. She was 8 years older than me and I was only a year when he passed. “You miss him don’t you?” I asked and she paused for a long time before she answerd. She took a deep breath and said “ more and more each day, if daddy was here he would know what to do.” She said as her voice began to crack and I could tell the question was hard to answer. “What is inside the locket? I asked but her tone immediately changed and she almost seemed mad I even asked. “None of your business!” She said as she rolled over to face the cabin wall. “Now go to sleep” so I just laid there and stared at the ceiling until I drifted into a dream.
By Justin wills5 years ago in Fiction
Mounds
The horizon is dark. Clouds are gathering, pulsing with flashes of lightning. She tucks a strand of long dark hair behind her ear and jabs her trowel into the caked soil. She breaks the largest clods with her hands and mounds it up, patting it tight around a cluster of seeds. Zucchini. She scoots over, jabs, mounds, pats. She repeats the motions over and over. Her thighs and lower back ache. She surveys the rows of mounds that contain corn, squash, peppers, tomatoes, potatoes and thinks standing up might be worse. At the far edge of the garden is a dividing line of green between the bare soil and the dry grasses, shrubs and trees beyond. Garlic planted last fall.
By Adelheid West 5 years ago in Fiction
What He Should Have Told Her
He told her that their thoughts were trapped, and forever lost in their once childhood dreams. He said that the years in between had stolen their promises and distorted the way his heart once sought hers out. He just couldn’t wait anymore. He had stopped dreaming of her a few years back. He said that he had found someone new, and he hoarsely whispered that she was more like him.
By Author Alice VL5 years ago in Fiction
To Go Back To Before
Among thousands on that city street, she looked past the crowd and saw him standing there. She could barely move when she noticed the abrupt recognition in his face. Her world stood entirely still for just a moment as she anxiously fought to take in a breath of fresh air. With nowhere to hide, her togetherness fell apart and her transparency faded away as he came closer to her.
By Author Alice VL5 years ago in Fiction
The sweetness of peaches
She found the heart-shaped locket lying on the corner of 81st and 2nd Avenue in Manhattan. Or what was left of that place where she’d once walked with Harold on their way to the diner for her usual mundane order of scrambled eggs on white toast with black coffee. She never imagined that things, the world, or whatever you wanted to call it now that it was gone and in tatters, would end this way.
By Heidi Reed5 years ago in Fiction
History's Impact
Could this really be the place? This rubble of what once had been a set of brownstones, the stones, wiring, and pieces of old furniture was staring back at me as if daring me to move them, with walls still standing here and there but mostly open to the sky. Charlie told me that this would be where I’d find the answers I was looking for. The mystery surrounding who I was and where I had come from. The reason that people looked at me sideways or crossed to the other side of the road when they saw me coming. It was lonely enough living nowadays, but to have only a few people who will even bother to talk to me, let alone be my friend, was a lot to deal with.
By Janis Ross5 years ago in Fiction
The Doll
Glass eyes shimmered in the sunlight where the old doll was displayed in the window of the antique shop, and Skyler couldn’t take their eyes off it. They had passed by on several occasions, always slowing to look at the doll as they passed. For as long as they could recall it had been there, painted porcelain lips smiling even on a rainy day. For just as long, they had always desperately wanted the doll, having often requested their parents buy it for them, promising that they would take extra care of this one particular doll, even more so than all of their other toys. No amount of pleads and promises, however, had gotten them the treasure they sought. Skyler couldn’t understand why their parents were so adverse to the cute doll. With his porcelain face, hands and feet with a soft body and an adorable brown cut of ‘hair’ atop his head and dressed in a blue and white ‘sailor’ uniform it was the sweetest doll they had ever come across.
By Anne Arnold5 years ago in Fiction
The End
The start of the end, A scientist named Ronnie Winn, made a machine to create a better world. Started off as a side project for himself, name “Bigger Heart”. The world was for his family, so Ronnie kids wouldn’t see what he saw growing up. His three kids named Ace 24, Valentine 17, and Paul 15, they all carried a heart shaped locket but different designs. They all have one because of their late mother who was killed in the White House working for the Government. A new world where there wasn’t nothing but world peace. So our creator would be proud of us, no drugs, no death. Ronnie regrets letting his wife go to work that day, he seen the pain she was in but nothing would stop her from working. He got a job at NASA, a year after her passing, him too working for the Government as well. Ronnie and his wife always wanted to live a life where nobody had to worry about money or a rich person being too greedy with theirs. Valentine always asking Ronnie “Why did mommy have to died?” So he started working the project after his wife died, promising her one day her vision would be true. One afternoon, he was working on “Bigger Heart” on his lunch break, his manager Angel, seeing the name of it. Angel thinking to herself his trying to save the world. Angel knew Ronnie’s wife, which Ronnie didn’t know. Some people wanna save the world, others just want to see it burn. Ronnie’s wife wouldn’t sign some of the props. The props that she wouldn’t sign are killing the world. Keeping the homeless as homeless, no taxes on the rich, destroying the people’s rights. Letting America kill 3rd world countries and UK as well, and taking over. The project is like having “Heaven on Earth” but one mistake Ronnie left in the project was the opposite. Finding that mistake a reserve engineering it will bring more madness to earth before the population knows what to do. One little detail was missing.As soon Angel found out, what Ronnie was doing she was surprise. He was explaining to her what “Bigger Heart” does, it could control the weather, natural disasters, wealth, viruses, etc. They key to start it was “missing”. He knew he told her too much. As soon everybody went home, Angel and her personal team of scientists, broke into Ronnie’s lab. They took all the data. Next morning, Ronnie got to work everything of the project was gone, nothing was left behind. Ronnie went to security and ask for video footage of his office around 10:15pm-10:30pm, no footage was collected, his lab or the surrounding of his lab. He had no expectations of Angel doing this, but thought to himself, How would somebody know to cut out the cameras in his area? Unless it was somebody on the inside, but again not Angel, she’s a manager she would never steal or lie to a employee. 10 feet below the building, where Angel took “Bigger Heart” to see if her team could reserve engineer and see what kind of damage could it do if was unleashed by “accident” but her not knowing the key was lost. Small details were hidden in Ronnie’s lab just in the open but every tiny though. Later that day, Valentine seen Ronnie down with his head on the family table laying down. She ask if everything was ok or not, he goes no. Ronnie told her everything from the project to the details he was hiding. Then, Paul and Ace walked into the room with them. So with all of them sitting in one room, thinking how they were gonna pay the mortgage and bills this month. With Ace being the oldest he offer to pay for everything, knowing he only had a part time job and also had a side hustle too. Working at Footlocker, only making 1200 every two weeks, wasn’t bad for only a part time. Back in the lab, Angel and her team did finish the reserve engineering and found out the mistake Ronnie left. It was another world, the underworld, meaning letting “Hell on Earth”. But, to let that happen she needed the key to start the damage, the only missing item. She couldn’t find in the lab. So Angel looked closely to Ronnie’s office, looking for that key. The only thing closely to a key was the heart shaped necklace on Valentine. So later, Angel spotted Valentine walking home from school.
By Jonathan Lemus5 years ago in Fiction
