"Mr. Sypher was right. My gnomes never looked so lifelike," she said as she loaded them into the kiln and adjusted the temperature settings. "If they look half as good after they've been fired, I'll make a fortune at the flea market next weekend."
*****
The old woman slept fitfully as the storm continued throughout the night. By morning, the skies had cleared. Sylvester was impatient for her to get up so he playfully batted her face until her eyes opened.
"Oh, alright, you silly cat. I'll get up and get your breakfast ready."
After she'd taken a shower, she went down to the basement to check the kiln.
"They're amazing!" she exclaimed as she carefully examined the finished gnomes. "I've never seen anything like them! I'll put these three in my garden and make some more to sell at the flea market."
*****
Mildred squeezed some lemon into her cup of tea and headed out onto her screened-in porch for her afternoon break. She took a seat at a small, circular table while Sylvester licked his lips as he watched some hummingbirds buzz around the yard.
Mildred took a sip of tea and turned her eyes to her garden to admire her new decorations, but the three gnomes she'd put out that morning were gone! Her mind raced. The boys who lived over the hill were a little rowdy at times, but she couldn't imagine that they'd steal anything. What could have happened to them?
There was a loud crash inside the house and the cat raced off to investigate. A moment later, Mildred heard an angry hiss.
"My lord, what could make Sylvester act like that," she said as she got up from the table and went back through the sliding glass doors into the kitchen.
Nothing in her long life prepared Mildred for the sight that greeted her eyes. The three garden gnomes had come to life!
The one with the pick slammed it into the cat's paw and blood spurted across the floor. Sylvester raced away, followed closely by the gnome with the shovel. The third gnome discarded his wheelbarrow, grabbed a sharp knife off the table, and chased after Mildred.
The old woman was slow, but her strides were gigantic compared to her pursuer. She made it to the basement and fumbled with the lock, barely managing to engage it before the possessed gnome reached the door. She screamed in pain as a knife shot through the gap at the bottom of the door and sliced her foot open.
"Poor Sylvester," she muttered to herself as she stumbled down the steps and collapsed on the basement floor. "I've got to help him," she said as she put pressure on her foot to stem the bleeding. There was a pounding on the door and she broke into tears at the insanity of the situation.
It took some time, but she eventually regained her composure. She was tough. She was a survivor. "Think, think," she mumbled as she wiped the last tears from her eyes and looked around the basement. "There's got to be a way to fight back."
*****
Mildred fired up the kiln and painted feverishly throughout the night. By morning, she was ready to put her plan into action. She listened carefully at the door, eased it open a bit, and poked her head out to make sure the gnomes weren't waiting on the other side.
When she was sure the coast was clear, she flung the door open and marched forward, followed by dozens of cupids, cats, dogs, and toads that had come to life during the night. This was her army to combat the gnomes that had invaded her house.
"Hold on, Sylvester!" she exclaimed. "Mommy's coming!"
The End
35 - Blast from the Past
The Excelsior was the world's first nuclear-powered submarine. The ship was a marvel of engineering, the magnum opus of the American Navy. Equipped with the latest in technology, it could submerge to depths beyond the limits of all previous submarines and travel to undersea locations that man had only been able to visit in his dreams. With an almost inexhaustible energy supply, it would be able to voyage far more than the twenty thousand leagues imagined by science fiction writer Jules Verne.
It launched from the docks of Groton, Connecticut, on New Year's Day, 1954, under the watchful eye of President Eisenhower. After a trial run through the cold waters of the Atlantic, it headed north on its first mission.
*****
"Ensign, what's our position?" asked Captain Fitzroy, his deep voice echoing in the tight confines of the command sector.
"A thousand yards and closing fast," he responded.
The captain turned to his chief science officer.
"Barbara, what do the magnetic readings look like?"
"They're off the chart. I've never seen anything like them," she responded.
"Five hundred yards," the Ensign announced.
Captain Fitzroy flipped on the comlink to make an announcement to his crew. "Ladies and gentlemen, congratulations on accomplishing the impossible. We're passing directly under the North Pole as I speak."
A cheer could be heard from the forward to the aft of the mighty ship.
The captain smiled at Barbara. For the thousandth time, he imagined the beautiful body hidden beneath that drab gray uniform. But he knew he could never tell her how much he loved her, so he pushed the thought from his mind.
"Captain, you better check this out," the Ensign announced.
Fitzroy took one look at the monitor and shot a concerned look to his science officer. "How can our engines be at half power? They should still be close to one hundred percent. What's going on, Barbara?"
"No explanation, sir, but magnetic readings are spiking," she declared. "I recommend we change course immediately."
"Negative," he replied. "Our mission is to test the limits of the Excelsior."
The words had barely escaped his lips when the submarine entered a pocket of extreme turbulence. Seconds later, it began to rapidly accelerate.
"Speed has doubled, sir," the Ensign stated.
"The ship can't take this," Barbara said.
"Speed has tripled, sir."
"Get us to the surface, Ensign," Captain Fitzroy ordered.
As the Excelsior climbed through the murky waters, it broke free from the strange turbulence and its speed returned to normal.
"Ensign, get me a full damage report," the captain ordered. "Barbara, let's go topside and take a look around."
The captain and his chief science officer made their way through the multiple levels of the nuclear submarine and opened the top hatch. To their surprise, they weren't greeted by frigid temperatures or gusting winds. Instead, they encountered balmy weather.
"Over a hundred degrees and stifling humidity at the North Pole," the captain said. "Any explanations, Barbara?"
"None that I can think of," she replied.
"There's an island over there," the captain said. "We'll get Murphy and Jenkins for back-up and go take a look."
*****
Murphy and Jenkins, two veteran Navy SEALS, jumped out of the small scout ship when they drew close to the shore and pulled the tiny craft onto the beach.
"Do a quick reconnaissance and check back in two minutes," the captain ordered and Murphy and Jenkins fanned out in opposite directions.
Barbara looked at the captain. As she listened to the hypnotizing sound of the breakers on the beach, her mind drifted. If only she could share her romantic feelings, but she knew she could never tell Captain Fitzroy how much she loved him.
"Quite the maiden voyage, wouldn't you say," he commented when he noticed the far-away look in her eyes.
"Captain! Come quick!" Jenkins yelled as he came rushing down the beach. "You're never going to believe what I saw."
When Murphy returned all four crew members ventured along a nearby path into a thick jungle. Less than a hundred yards later, they emerged into a clearing and were greeted by a staggering sight.
Two large dinosaurs were drinking from a pond.
"This can't be," Barbara muttered.
A thundering cry made the tiny hairs on her neck stand up as a third dinosaur appeared.
"It looks like a T Rex!" Jenkins called.
"But it has powerful arms and a spike
d tail," Barbara said.
"Let's get the hell out of here!" Captain Fitzroy yelled. His party needed no coaxing as they beat a hasty retreat back to the beach.
Even though they were all in peak physical condition, they were winded by the short run. The muggy conditions were brutal and they collapsed on the sand, drenched in sweat and gasping for air.
A moment later, a giant insect appeared. Jenkins shot at the creature but the bullets proved ineffective. It darted forward and drove its stinger into Murphy. The veteran officer screamed for a moment and then his whole body went limp.
"Hurry! Back to the boat!" the captain yelled as he grabbed Barbara by the hand and fled. They heard Jenkins scream but didn't dare turn back. When they reached the boat, the captain helped Barbara climb aboard and pushed off. When they were far enough into the water, he hopped in and began to paddle.
"Could we somehow have been transported millions of years into the past?" he asked.
"Something didn't seem right about the dinosaurs."
"Yeah, the fact that they exist."
They were both exhausted when they reached the Excelsior but there was no time to rest. They rushed through the ship back to the command sector.
"Captain. Something rapidly approaching the ship," the Ensign yelled.
The walls of the ship groaned as a giant sea monster wrapped its tentacles around the vessel.
"Hull pressure increasing."
"Dive!" the captain ordered.
"We're at a depth of a thousand meters," the Ensign said moments later.
"Deeper! We've got to get that thing off the boat."
The Ensign continued to announce the depth until the beast finally released its grip.
"Barbara, I need some answers."
"I don't have any facts. The best I can offer is a hypothesis. We may have gone through some kind of time tunnel."
"A doorway into the past under the North Pole?" the captain said, trying hard to hide his skepticism.
"I don't know," Barbara said as she threw her arms up in frustration. "Maybe the doorway always existed, here underwater where it was never discovered, or maybe it had something to do with our nuclear power."
A somber look appeared on Captain Fitzroy's face as he flipped on the comlink and explained the situation to his crew.
"I know this all sounds crazy," he said near the end of his speech. "But the Excelsior is the pride of the fleet. Every man and woman aboard was hand-picked by me out of thousands of applicants. This is a chance to prove our mettle."
His words seemed to bolster the crew's lagging confidence.
Barbara wondered if he had doubts, if his bravado was just an attempt to stave off his own worries and concerns, or if he truly had that much confidence in his crew and his ship.
"The time tunnel drained almost half our power. We have just enough to try to return to the future," Captain Fitzroy said. "We'll go back through the disturbance in the exact opposite direction. Hopefully, that will propel us forward in time."
A short while later, the submarine entered a pocket of tremendous turbulence and began to accelerate rapidly.
"Speed has doubled," the Ensign announced. "Now it's tripled."
"Let's resurface and take a look around. Barbara, come with me."
They walked in silence until they reached the exit hatch. "Ship's engines are down to four percent," the captain said. "If this didn't work, we're in big trouble."
They felt a rush of confidence as they were greeted by an arctic blast when they opened the hatch.
"We might have done it," the captain said.
"I don't think so," Barbara said. "Look at the Sun."
The captain was astounded to find that the Sun was much bigger than usual. It filled half the sky.
"It's turned into a red supergiant," Barbara explained. "That can only mean we've traveled far into the future."
"Did we overshoot our time period when we blasted from the past?"
"We were never in the past," Barbara said. "It was a one-way door. It only sends things to the future."
"But what about the dinosaurs?"
"I said there was something different about them. They weren't the dinosaurs of the ancient past. They must have evolved again, over the eons," Barbara explained as she burst into tears. "We're stuck here, in the dying days of the Earth."
Captain Fitzroy wrapped his arms around her. "Don't worry, Barbara. We'll figure something out."
The End
Forgotten Realms Page 16