One Minute to Midnight

by Steve Lang

  "Grandma?" I called. There was no reply. The bear. I had to get the bear.

  I ignored the warning of grandma's kitchen and ran for the stairs leading up. That's when I saw the old man. He was an ancient and terrible being from a far off world, standing between my bear and me.

  "This is where you die." The man said.

  He shape-shifted into a wooden totem resembling human form, like a carving from one thick tree. His fingers grew long, like vines, and then his feet became rooted into the floorboards as the tendrils crept down the stairs toward me. The man's head, like the top of a tree, grew many branches oustretching until the stairwell was full and impassable. Behind me were the snarling, insatiable growls of unseen demons, but I dared not look back because I knew if I did, they would attack me. I felt despair as the old man laughed in my head and for a moment I thought I'd never leave that house, but then my amulet began to glow and a voice told me to ignore the illusion and keep moving. I remembered that Klactu had placed the talisman around my neck and I charged the tree punching it with my fists. It absorbed my hand pulling me in and I could hear the click, click of claws from some ancient and terrifying cat monster ascending toward me from below. I looked back just as the tree pulled me in and saw only Void the Omniscient and his cold, dead eye, staring at me. I went into the tree head first, but as my amulet touched the bark it exploded in a torrent of sawdust, freeing me. Void screamed inside my head. I smiled and ran for the bedroom as he followed.

  I rounded the corner and my bear was lying in the bed. Void followed and I could hear the sharp din of him in my head, like the whine of a broken compressor. I ran to my bear and grabbed him as Klactu stepped through the bedroom wall to face Void. Klactu held out a device resembling a garage door opener and pressed a small black button. It emitted a solid green beam which caught Void in the air. When it did, I could feel the whine inside my head decrease to a whisper and then fade away. Void was trapped and I was back inside the helicopter once more as Klactu held the evil orb in his beam.

  Klactu must have had an elemental link with his ship, because it hovered beside our helicopter and a panel opened in the side exposing a padded hole. Klactu used the device in his hand to guide Void over to the compartment in his ship and then, once the enemy was deposited, the panel slid shut.

  “There. He’s dormant once more. Thank you for your help, Nathan.” Klactu said. He turned to me with a tight, awkward smile, and then vanished without another word. His entrance and exit from my life had been the most bizarre experiences I've had. The only evidence I have from that encounter is the talisman around my neck. Klactu allowed me to keep the charm and I think it may be a communication device of some type, because at times, when I'm wearing the amulet, I can hear him speak to me like a whisper.

  We went back to the base and aided in cleaning up the mess, but most of the people affected by Void the Omniscient had begun to stumble around in confusion, having forgotten what had happened. After about ten minutes, all of them, including Sergeant Garcia, believed that we had suffered a terror attack and in their memory the armed forces underground deflected an attack by militant islamists. I was the only one who remembered the truth, and maybe it’s because of the amulet that Klactu gave me, but I never forgot the horror of Void or my encounter. I can only imagine that there was some influence by Klactu on the minds of my compatriots that made them forget what they had just experienced.

  Interviewer: Thank you Nathan.

  Nathan: No problem, I’m happy to tell my story.

  Three months later…

  Nathan was exiting his car after the interview with a documentary crew for YouTube, when he began to hear a whisper of a dialog in his head. It seemed to be coming from light years away, and the voice was muffled.

  "Nathan, its Klactu. It’s time for you to go. They're coming for you." Klactu said.

  He stopped and looked around for the owner of the voice but there was nobody there. Suddenly a black car pulled up beside his house with darkly tinted windows.

  "Go through your house and into the back yard. Go now if you want me to help you." Klactu instructed. Nathan did as instructed, but as he entered the living room, he looked out the window and two men with black sunglasses got out of their car, followed by another very tall man with almond shaped eyes and a more bulbous head than his cohorts. Nathan knew that he was not human.

  Nathan saw the tall man look his way, and fear shot through him like a bolt of lightning. Whoever these guys were, they were not the welcome wagon. He turned and ran through the house, kicking open the back door. Twenty feet in front of him rested the hull of Klactu's craft.

  "Your choice. Stay here and get captured for opening your mouth about your little experience with Void, or go with me."

  "Who are these guys?"

  "The boogey man and his minions, if you don't come with me. You have to consent to board, that’s one of my rules." Klactu said.

  "I consent!" Nathan said. The amulet around his neck began to glow, the eyes two brilliant rubies smoldering with fire. Nathan felt himself pulled along as he vanished from the back yard and appeared in the passenger seat of Klactu's ship. The alien looked over, smiled, and nodded a warm greeting.

  "Time to go." Klactu said, just as all three men exited the back door of his house. Klactu pressed a button on his panel and a bolt of blue light shot out, vaporizing all three of them and destroying half of Nathan's house. The entire structure went up in flames as Klactu aimed for the sky and in an instant they were space-bound.

  "Why'd you save me?" Nathan asked

  "You helped me put Void away for the rest of eternity and for that I'm grateful. I knew the gorgons would come for you if you ever talked about that day, so I left the Amulet of Fgiris around your neck to keep track of you."

  "Thank you for saving me." Nathan said.

  "Just don't make me regret it. So, where should we go first? The sun is rising on Mars in a few hours, and we could just catch it. Interested?" Klactu asked.

  "Let's do it!"

  Nathan sat back and watched the stars fly by as he and Klactu cruised the cosmos on an intergalactic joyride.

  a day in the life of a gamer

  Three friends who play an online game, centered in middle earth, realize the game is coming to life. Will they survive the fight?

  "I need heals man! Tony, where you at dude!?" Willy yelled through his computer microphone.

  "Right here, bro. Sorry! Had to go let the dog out. She was scratching at the door, and pissing me off." Tony replied. The two gamers lived three blocks from each other and rarely left the house, except to go to school.

  "Where's Scott? We need him to tank this next dungeon. He's so geared he could run this thing himself, without our help. Only three more levels and I’ll hit seventy. His dwarf paladin is geared to the teeth and can take some serious hits! We either need to get him or we have to look for a random tank." Willy said.

  "Yeah man, plus he's got herbalism and can create some mad potions for us to heal up, and get some mana!" Tony replied. "I'll call him."

  "I'm gonna' go craft some leather gear for my night elf rogue while we wait." Tony said.

  Scott lived two blocks from Willy, in the opposite direction of Tony, and although the three of them knew exactly what they were talking about, every time they opened their mouths about Planet Orc War, what they were doing in it, and the specifics of any of their characters leveling, around anyone not in the know, such as their parents, or any other friends at school, they received puzzled looks, like they had sprouted second heads. Minutes later, Scott turned on his gaming mic, and joined in on the fun.

  "Alright, losers. What's on the agenda?" Scott asked.

  "We're heading to the Dakda dungeon, in Miralase, and we need you to tank it." Tony said.

  "OK, let me go get some hot pockets before this begins. That dungeon takes two hours minimum, especially if you only have three players." Scott said.

  "You're geared to the teeth bro; you should be abl
e to run through it! I got you on heals." Tony said. Tony would typically heal each player as they ran through the dungeon, and Scott's character would absorb the most amount of damage, while holding the attention of the end level bosses as Willy and Tony would hit them with their weapons and magic.

  "You should really have five players for this dungeon guys. Let's throw a shout out in trade chat to see if anyone wants to join our party for damage dealing." Scott said.

  "Where are you guys?" Willy asked.

  "I'm flying out to Miralase on my bat. Hey, there must be some kind of a glitch in the game though. I was just flying over a graveyard full of zombies and they vanished." Tony said.

  The evening news was playing on a television behind Willy, and although he was concentrating on the digital world in front of him, he heard some of what they were saying.

  "This just in. It has just been brought to our attention that the dead have risen from the grave in at least one graveyard on the south side of town. If you can believe this, the walking dead are wearing chain mail armor, and appear to be medieval warriors." A male newscaster said.

  "It must be a Halloween prank or something. Kids will do anything for attention." A female newscaster commented.

  "It is October first, so you may be right, Sheila. It sounds like we're off to a spooktacular start." The male anchor said. They both laughed in that fake, tin can way, that news anchors sometimes do when they think they’re being clever.

  "Hey Tony, I think your zombies ended up in the south side graveyard. Ha ha ha!" Willy joked. The other two dismissed him.

  "OK, it looks like we're on our own. You guys ready to hit this dungeon?" Tony said.

  "Let's do it. I got nothin' better to do anyway." Scott replied.

  "Almost there, give me a minute." Said Willy.

  In about five minutes, the three electronic avatars were standing before the large black gates of a massive castle. Dragons soared and swooped far above as black clouds swirled in a purple sky. The dead lay strewn all around, piles of forever rotting and forgotten non-player characters that had met their match at the gates of Sworn Castle. Before they went in, a player from an opposing faction called The Swarm landed next to them and emoted a friendly gesture.

  "Should we gank this guy?" Tony asked. He wanted to know whether they should kill the opposing faction character simply for being in their space.

  "Leave him, he's probably got friends hanging around somewhere and we don't need to start trouble with the swarm." Willy said.

  The Swarm was the supposed underworld, or evil faction and the affiliation faction were the good guys, white knights, but in reality, all players fought against the game bosses and monsters. Although the factions were a type of fabricated brotherhood system in the game, Willy always marveled at how Planet Orc War players carried their allegiance outside the game to real life social situations. If you were Swarm in POW, and revealed that information to an affiliation member, you were seen as opposition to players who were aligned affiliation faction in real life. The game makers became ever wealthier as people sought increasingly elaborate ways to separate themselves from one another. It was a perfect money making scheme in the digital age, and people by the millions were hooked on POW.

  "I'm clicking the gate and going in." Scott said. He waved and bowed to the opposing faction player and vanished from view as the others followed him in.

  Once inside the dungeon, they grouped together and began to run through like they had a hundred times before. The difference with this run was that every monster they battled disappeared before they could kill it.

  "What's going on? This game is glitching all over the place. We have to put in a ticket with game support, because this is BS." Scott growled.

  "I don't pay twenty bucks a month to have the game freak out on me when I'm trying to play, man!" Tony yelled.

  A minute later, as Tony was in another window, lodging a complaint with game support, the black castle faded around their characters and vanished. The newscast was still on behind Willy. He turned and saw a young guy with a tie and Members Only jacket standing in the street holding a microphone.

  "I don't know how to say this, but in the center of Baldwin Park, a massive black castle has just appeared out of nowhere. There are dragons flying around it, and there is a large monster in battle armor standing at the front gate. He's got a scroll in his hands and is beginning to read from it now. We'll try and get a closer look."

  "Kal-El2, Abraxas, and DrDetroit! You have been summoned to battle by the Lady Kalindora! She is goddess of the spiders, heiress to the Kingdom of Pain, and will roast your souls in eternal fire as you dangle from her iron web." The creature speaking was a large pig-faced orc garbed in black chain mail and steel plated armor. He rolled the scroll up, turned around, and walked back inside the castle.

  "Holy crap you guys!" Willy screamed. "Turn on the news… now!"

  They each did as they were told, and were just as dumbfounded as Willy. Real fear began to spread over them, like the shadow of doom. They couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Large black dragons soared above the city, and one came in for a landing, perching nimbly on a tall winding spire. It reared back its large spiked head and with a loud roar, belched out a long column of flames, toasting the trees in Baldwin Park. Several people burst into flames as the dragon aimed his fury at the ground. Screams of terror rang out as the town people, now dressed in medieval peasant garb, ran for their lives.

  "What's going on?" Tony asked.

  "I have no idea, but I think we're all experiencing the same hallucination." Scott said.

  "We need to meet up, and since Willy, I mean Abraxas, is in the middle. We should group up there." Scott said.

  "Alright Kel-El2, I mean Tony. I'll see you over there in a few minutes." Scott said.

  "Listen guys, I have no idea what's happening to us right now, but we have to refrain from calling each other by our character’s names. It's creeping me out, and it makes us look like even bigger nerds." Willy said.

  "I don't know why I did it. Something compelled me to use your username. Uh guys… look down at your clothes. Has anything changed?" Scott said.

  "Like what? Oh wow! This is incredible! I look like my in-game character!" Scott yelled.

  He was surprised to find himself garbed in plate armor, but it felt lightweight considering the thickness of the metal. The spaulders on his left and right shoulders had been fashioned into the skulls of rams when they were crafted, and wicked purple gems were inlaid in the eyes of each skull. He could feel the wiry chain mail of the hauberk under his chest plate, and when he stood and looked down he saw that his plate boots were spiked at the toe.

  "Guys, I'm a tank… in real life! I have a whole suit of armor on, just like in game." Scott said.

  He felt his pulse quicken and the blood rushing through him as his excitement grew. Scott's change was not merely external. He could feel his strength increase as well, as if he could run through solid stone walls. He turned and saw a large double-sided axe and leaning against the wall next to his bedroom. It had gleaming twin blades, and a handle that had been constructed to look like a long, winding serpent stretching from leather grip to tip.

  "My axe showed up, and now I have a long red beard, too. What about you guys?"

  "I'm in a maroon robe with power jewels around the shoulders and wrists, and running down the front in a straight line. They're glowing, and I can feel a weird energy running through me, like electricity. Seriously, this is weird. A plant that was dead on my windowsill a few minutes ago just came back to life. It stood straight up, and bloomed a pretty red flower." Tony said.

  "Well, it looks like we have heals for this dungeon! What do you have, Willy?" Scott asked.

  "I'm wearing a leather armor vest, a cloth shirt, leather pants and boots, and a minute ago I jumped at my wall, kicked off of it, and did a double back flip. My eyesight feels way better. I can see a bird sitting on a fence post a mile from my house through the bedroom
window. It just took flight. Oh yeah, my in-game crossbow and quiver of bolts is also sitting in the corner of the room." Willy said.

  He picked up his crossbow, and hefted the weight as he turned it in his hands. It felt more magnificent in real life than he ever would have anticipated. The crossbow was crafted from elderberry tree wood, and was decorated with ornate iron plates on each side. This crossbow could fire three shots at once, and although he had a quiver of bolts, Willy knew instinctively that his shots would never run out, and he would never need to reload. Just like in the game.

  "One second, I’ll be right back." Willy put down the phone, aiming his weapon at a telephone pole outside. Without nocking a single bolt, the weapon fired three straight shots, each of them sinking into their target in a neat vertical line, one atop the other.

  "Boys, we are experiencing real magic in our time, and I appear to be my hunter now. I say we roll with it and go take down this big spider bitch!" Willy said.

  In twenty minutes, the three were in front of Willy's house looking at each other in amazement, grinning like little children in front of a large pile of Christmas presents.

  "So, how do we get there? The park is like six miles away, and if we walk it'll take until after dark." Willy asked.

  As if on command, a huge black warhorse with glowing red eyes, and breath that reeked of sulfur, trotted around the corner to stand by Scott. As he nodded and mounted up, a large jade green dragon landed next to Willy, and then a white and black striped tiger with plate armor padded up next to Tony. It had orange eyes that glowed like a Halloween jack o' lantern. He purred at them, and bowed so that Tony could mount his massive back.

  "Transportation! Let's go do this!" Willy said, and they all high fived each other. Will took to the sky following above them as he surveyed the land.

  On the horizon, where the park used to be, was a large dark storm cloud stirring above the black castle. The sky was turning purple as this cloud spread for miles in a huge radius outside Baldwin Park. Lightning flashed as they drew closer. People in the city had run inside, and now peered out their windows like timid rabbits as the three warriors passed.