Polies - A Flash Science Fiction Story 773 Words

Polies

Clair was the tenth generation of humans on the planet.  They had colonized immediately after finding that it would sustain their form of life.   There was water, but it was deep inside the crust.  So they dug and built a vast system of tunnels with solar powered lighting provided by stations at the surface.

The tunnels lead to big greenhouses that grew any kind of grain, vegetable or fruit necessarily for their diets.  The kitchens were staffed by chefs who provided optimum nutrition for the 50,000 people who were transplanted there.  The community was fully sustainable.  Families had five to 10 rooms living spaces and singles had at least three.  The greenhouses also provided a large variety of house plants which provided extra oxygen.  Huge fans at the surface would draw in the air, clean it and send it to the occupants below.  

The air was breathable above.  It was only slightly different from the Earth’s, and it wasn’t harmful to humans.  The crust of the planet was dry and dusty.  What used to be mountains were now just hills.  The constant dry winds and breezes had eroded them.  There were huge dry valleys that were once oceans and lakes, and then dried up into stagnant  ponds and puddles.  The sky was a constant lavender color.  This galaxy’s sun was a gleaming silver tone.  Seven moons orbited and were visible at times of day and night.  They had never named the planet.  The government wanted all space travelers to refer to their respective planets as home.

Clair was running toward the elevator doors, that lead to the tunnels below.  The creatures were chasing her.  Her ancestors had discovered them shortly after arriving.  Although they were mostly lazy in the heat and dry of the planet,  they feasted on whatever living things that they crossed paths with.  They could run fast with ten legs.  The rolie-polies had first been mistaken for very round rocks.  A savvy scientist had poked one with his walking stick and it awakened by unrolling onto it’s back and then flipping over.

The rolie-polies came in various fully grown sizes.  From two to 12 feet in length.  They were shades of green, but always had pink eyes.  It was theorized that they could see you from a mile, as the lenses of their eyes were telescopic.  Their heads were lizard shaped and their mouths had thousands of long narrow razor sharp teeth. Their bodies were covered with an armor of bone that looked exactly like rock, and as it aged the bone took on a desert varnish patina.  Only their undersides were vulnerable, and the flesh was a bright pink like their eyes.

Clair could hear the rolie-polies gaining on her.  She needed to get to the elevator doors before they did.  Then she’d be safe.  She needed to see, how much time she had, so she held her breath and stopped.  Then she turned around and saw a cloud of dust and polies at the front about 1000 yards away.  The little ones were fastest.  They were in front of the rest.  She closed her eyes, turned back around, and let out her breath.  She told herself aloud, “I can make it, but next time, I have to be way ahead!  I am not going to play this game with them anymore!”.

Her lungs were hurting and legs aching, but she ran faster.  She got to the elevator doors, and pushed the button to bring her’s up.  “Come on, Come on!  Hurry!”, she shouted as she shook her hands in anticipation.  Finally the door opened.  She hopped in and pushed the button.  The door closed.  Then she pushed a button on the panel that opened the solid doors and left a cage door that she could see out of.

She was running out of time!  Quickly she pushed three more buttons on the panel to get the polie elevator open to the left of her car.  “Could I have left it down there?  No!  Here it is.”.  The big doors opened into the polie elevator.  “Their here!”, she thought.  “Timing is everything.”.  Just then the little polies scattered around the sides of Clair’s car and the corral and kept running.  The larger polies ran straight into the box.  Clair pushed the button that was marked “Rapid Close” on the panel.  “Ten of um!”, she thought.

She pushed the buttons to start the elevator’s decent.  On the way she thought about how good the meat would taste in her famous stew.  Oh, and Hank’s barbeque.  The list of recipes was endless.  “Meat at last!  Mission accomplished!”.

King Me - 793 Words Flash Fiction

King Me

By Lorna Megenity

Lee was running and remembering about how happy he had been when he was “called out” to join “The Club”. For the longest time he had thought the club to be only a rumor.  He had heard that if one were called out, then he could not utter a word about it to anyone.  Benny, the best and closest friend that he ever had was called out.  He had talked about it, but only to Lee.

Lee was desperate to find out the details.  So he followed his friend into the woods on the day of the initiation.  Benny was let out of a limo at a cabin on stilts in a forest.  Lee had parked far away from the large fenced and gated entrance to the cabin.  It was 8:30am.

Lee peeked through the fence and got a good eye on what was happening.  Benny was just standing there alone.  Lee turned around and rested his back on the fence and wondered what Benny had gotten himself into.  He didn’t feel good about it.

At 9:00am Lee heard a voice over a bullhorn blare, “You see before yuh five paths.”.  Lee turned around and looked through the fence.  Just beyond the cabin and spread equidistant from each other were five dirt paths, with many trees and thick brush between each path.  Almost like walls.  Then the bullhorn boomed, “Choose one and start runnin’.  You have a hour head start to get away from us.  If we find yuh, we’ll be a hurtin’ yuh.”.  Lee saw Benny run down the middle path as fast as he could. Five men walked out of the front door of the cabin.  The eldest was chuckling with the others about how the poor fellows always take the middle path.  Lee was thinking that he would just have to wait an hour.

After an hour, the five men strode down the stairs from the cabin and to the middle path.  They kept walking at a leisurely pace.  Lee picked the far left path, and could hear them talking as he walked along side of them out of sight.

The end of each path was a dead end at the same place.  All of the paths closed in on each other and let out at a big area that was blocked by a 20 foot hedge.  There, Lee saw the five men dislocated both of Benny’s shoulders and laugh as they did it.  Benny was a meat cutter, but now a days he was just disabled.

Since then and now, when Lee had been called out, he had been back to this cabin and the grounds memorizing everything about it.  The cabin door was always unlocked and there were many antiques in the tiny place along with a bible under a glass box that had an eternally lit lamp shining on it.  It was opened to the birth and death records of their family.

Lee got out of the limo and waited the half hour for the bullhorn.  “Right on time.”, he thought.  He picked the middle path as he had planned.  He ran as fast has he could until he was out of sight.  Then he went to the backpack he had stashed and put on his rip stop pants and jacket.  He started pushing through the thick brush and hedges toward the left and far left paths.  He made it to the left one and then pushed through to the far one.  He turned and started walking toward the cabin.  He took the little path to the right that lead to the water service for the cabin and stood behind the tree with the big crook in it which hid him and gave him a clear picture of the cabin.

After the hour was up, the five men set out down the middle path.  Lee waited 20 minutes, until they were out of sight and hearing range.  He walked up to the garage in back of the cabin that had a very black BMW parked in it.  He took the gallons of charcoal starter that he had stashed there and poured them everywhere in and outside the cabin and deck.  He also took the keys to the Beemer that were hanging inside the door.  Then Lee lit the newspaper torch he had fashioned and got it burning hot.  He threw it up and over onto the deck.  The deck started burning fast and the fire moved inside the still open door in no time.

Lee, calmly opened the garage door, and started the BMW.  He drove it out of the gate, into town and parked it in front of the general store.  Then Lee got out of the car and walked the rest of the way home.  

Mud - 530 Words Flash Fiction

Mud

By Lorna Megenity

The rage that LeAnn had felt, at the time, toward her neighbor and ex jogging partner, Sue, was still fresh in her mind.  It was an argument about nothing that had brought the friendship to an end. Certainly, she didn’t deserve what she had gotten from her.  Still, all things must settle or be settled. She did miss the small talk though.

Sue took her jog at exactly 11am every morning rain or shine.  She jogged at exactly the same pace and ran the same loop and arrived at home again at 12:11pm every time.  LeAnn and Sue had together, run several different loops until the break-up.  35 days of careful observation had proven that Sue had gone back to her old way of getting exercise.  For 35 days, LeAnn had run in the opposite direction in the same loop.  She had finely tuned her run so that they passed each other in the same spot at the same time.

The friendship seemed to be perfect.  They both had three kids each who were in elementary school.  They both had husbands who worked all day.  LeAnn’s was in construction, and Sue’s owned a barber shop.  Sue had often lamented to LeAnn about how her husband had more close friends than she did because of the business his was in.  They shared coffee or tea and small gossip in the afternoon until the children got home.  Sometimes they had baked cookies together for them.

LeAnn still wondered about the rose bush argument that had ended the friendship.  The rose bush was right at the side walk in front where the two properties met.  LeAnn had cut it back in the spring, so it could grow bushy and have more flowers.  Sue had objected adamantly.  She ended up demanding an apology for the slight on the shared rose bush.  LeAnn of course, had refused.  Therefore, Sue walked away in a huff never to speak to her again.  LeAnn had often stared at the rose bush in the afternoon before the kids got home.  She wondered if that was the crux of the argument or “Was it that look?” that Sue’s husband had given her that one evening after the barbecue and a few beers.  LeAnn would never know, and she was too angry now to forgive.

At 11am that day,  LeAnn started her run, as usual, in the opposite direction from Sue.  After running a while, LeAnn saw Sue approaching, as she did every day.  LeAnn saw herself approaching Sue and that glorious thing that would bring satisfaction to her, at last.  LeAnn veered off the path to behind her designated tree that stood behind the puddle remembering the humiliation of having to walk home that way.  Having to get into the house with the least mess possible and having to clean up the mess that Sue had made of her.   Sue had not seen her duck behind the tree.  As Sue ran on the sidewalk in front of the puddle, LeAnn leaped out from behind the tree and jumped in to the muddy hole splashing Sue with moldy, stinking mud, just as she had done to LeAnn some 36 days ago.