Rat-A-Tat: Short Blasts of Pulp

by Russ Anderson, Jr

  Ironically, though, the first ones in line to board the ships were the protesting environmentalists themselves. It seems that as much as they enjoyed laying blame on us ‘defilers of the planet,’ when push came to shove they were more than eager to jump on our planet destroying vessels in order to save their self-righteous hides.

  After our armada elevated spaceward we made the trek to our soon to be new home. As we approached her after some Yartils, to some of us she appeared as a blue orb encircled by white clouds while to others it was Eangeler.

  Our ships unloaded our human cargo and we quickly set up the initial encampments. The encampments weren’t difficult to secure, though. It appeared that a few Najeans from our landing spot were the remnants of the previous inhabitants’ domiciles. The structures rose high into the atmosphere of the planet. Upon entering them, the buildings were cordoned off into a series of cubicles that were accessible by elevated steps and aisles. We quickly settled into the domiciles and made them our own.

  Everything had been going well, almost too well on that first day. Our primary scouting reports had led us to a prime place. The island we had landed on was surrounded by water and there was ample soil to grow food. We thanked Geansean for our good fortune and settled in for our first night cycle on our new adopted planet.

  “Aaahaieeee!” the silence of the night was shattered by her scream. I rose from my portable cot as though I had been electro shocked. As I entered the aisle way outside my habitat I found I wasn’t the only one. A few of us were thinking the same thing. As we looked around we motioned for the others to stay in the safety of their dorms and we made our way down the steps. The scream came from outside, not the interior.

  As I gripped my blaster I looked over to the others. It turned out that they had the same idea. We made our way out to the exterior and looked around.

  “Hey, over here!” Jronmeer motioned to the rest of us. We rushed over to him and stared blankly. There, on the ground, was a trail of the victim’s blood, which stopped at a large circular ore based mechanism that was in the black ground surface.

  “Where did she go?”

  ***

  “So, what is your story? You’re holed up here?”

  Her eyes observed me up and down before she spoke. “You know, you speak oddly. Familiar, but oddly. You are one of the top worlders, aren’t you?”

  “Top worlders?”

  “Yes, the inhabitants who came and landed here. Upsetting our structure.”

  I looked at her quizzically. “Excuse me, you live down here?”

  “Yes, why? What did you think?”

  “Well, I don’t know what to think. I mean, I guess, you don’t look like the indigenous life forms on this planet.”

  She laughed. As she did so I noticed the radiance coming off of her even more. Her personality was almost infectious. “Well, I was born here.”

  I couldn’t help but stare even more. Born here? Were our scouting reports that inaccurate? After all, we didn’t detect the underworld denizens that were here now.

  “But, you don’t look like the creatures that I’ve seen here. In fact, far from it. You are, umm… more like I am while those other creatures are clearly not. Looking at you I don’t see extended tentacles or arthropods from your structure. Are there more of you?”

  She giggled again and leaned against her make-shift table. “Well, you don’t really look like me, us, either. I mean you have two arms, two legs and two eyes but your forehead is sloped and you clearly have a defined jaw! The others have two arms and legs also! They just seem to have an elongated head structure! So, maybe I should be scared of you?”

  “Why, would you be wary of me?”

  “Why? Gee, I don’t know. You’re equipped with a blast gun and all I’ve ever seen your kind do is blast the Elders!”

  She had me there. Of course, I needed to explain to her that the blaster was simply for protection. We had seen too many of our companions dragged off by the creatures. Now, you may ask me what did I care if I gained trust from this girl. But, I contend to you, that if there were more of them, we could gain knowledge of what happened and hopefully build an alliance.

  “I know what it may look like. But, we really mean no harm. In fact, all we want to do is work with your kind and enhance this planet.”

  She shook her head sadly. “What do you mean? Live up on top again? No, I can’t imagine that happening ever again.”

  “Why? It appears clean to me.”

  “Appearances aren’t always reality.” She pointed towards books on her table. “See, we used to be up there. Then, the ‘disruption’ occurred. And, well, what you see is where we are.”

  As she was speaking to me I heard the distinct sound of the hunters. As I looked quickly towards the entrance of the room I spied the tip of a tentacle searching the room.

  “Don’t be alarmed. They cannot hear us. They track us, you, by our genetic residue, and, you have no fear of that, seeing that you are wearing coverings on your lower appendages.”

  “Genetic residue? You mean our DNA?”

  “Yes! You call it that too?”

  “Um, yeah. Actually, that is how my blaster operates.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, on our planet we sought to prevent the chaos that manufactured weapons sometimes bring. While they served to make us on equal standards, the more unscrupulous of us used them to intimidate and… well… To help deter this our society issued a blaster to each and every citizen. The catch was that the only way it would fire was with the assigned citizens’ DNA. It ensured that no one’s blaster could be used by another for malicious purposes. But, tell me again. How do they detect us?”

  “They can detect residue left by your exposed skin. That is how they hunt. While they cannot see or hear in conventional ways their tentacles pick up your genetic print and they can approximate where exactly you are.”

  “How do you know so much about them?”

  “I live here, forget?”

  I looked at her curiously. “I did. But, have you lived down here all your life?”

  “Well, yes. As long as I can remember.”

  “You mean to tell me that you’ve never been topside?”

  She paused before she answered me. As though she was concentrating on what to say to me. “No, I haven’t been topside. Like I said, I was born down here.”

  “But, I don’t get it. How is that so? I mean, you clearly don’t look like the indigenous life forms that I’ve encountered. I mean—”

  She cut me off before I could continue. “Yes, I know what you mean. However, I think I’ve already told you but you haven’t been listening.”

  I looked at her fully. But, as I did I heard the distinct sound of a tentacle at the doorway.

  “Wait! Do you hear that?” as I looked towards the doorway I noticed an additional appendage come into view. “I thought you said that they detect DNA?”

  “They do.”

  “But, how? You said yourself that my lower appendages were covered. How could they…” I stopped mid sentence as it came into full view.

  Now, I had never seen one upfront and in full life. It was hideous to behold. While it maintained a humanoid shape its appendages were what set it apart from most creatures. While we both had leg type limbs, where I had feet it had slimy sucker like extensions that gripped the surface and kept it upright. Similarly, instead of hands were the tentacle like projections that it used to touch and grab objects. Of course, that wasn’t close to what its face, if you could call it that, looked like. That was too disgusting to even describe.

  I reached for my blaster and noticed it not in its holster.

  “Where? Where is my blaster!?” I quickly turned around and looked at my companion. As I turned around I felt the creatures tentacles wrap around my body. “Dammit! Come on! Where is my blaster?”

  “I tried to tell you. But, you didn’t listen. Did you? Look, I’m sorry. But you have to understand.” As I looked at her in horror I sa
w my blaster in her hand as I felt another pair of tentacles come across my body.

  “Why? You know you can’t use that! Why would you do that?”

  “Why? Okay, now you can listen. Oh, you and your race are so righteous! When I told you about the great ‘disruption’ you never got it. Did you? See, when your race decided to choose our planet as your new home you didn’t do your research. Did you? No. You people were so arrogant that you didn’t stop to think that materials from your planet would be harmful or possibly deadly to us.”

  I stared in horror at her as I felt a stinging numbness across my body.

  “You fools! Our planet was fine until you and your ships entered our atmosphere. The fuel that you powered your ships with was hazardous to our planet. We felt the effects long before you landed! It happened slowly at first. Our elders started to mutate before our very eyes, even! Eventually it became so bad that they grew to appear as you see now! Panicking, our people retreated to the underground through what we had called our subway terminals in order to shield us from the radiation. The cities that didn’t have such networks were killed off eventually. Of course, once again, your arrogance chose to fog your eyes from the reality. The planet you landed on, which took you 60 of our years to complete, was in complete disintegration due to your poison.”

  I felt a veil being lowered across my eyes. “But, why? Why punish us for not knowing? All we were trying to do was survive! Can’t you accept that and we can live together?”

  “Together? Yes, we are. By using your race as sustenance we are keeping those of us who were born afterwards alive to hopefully find a cure. So, yes. You are helping us. Now, thank you.”

  As I faded away my last vision was her beautiful azure face.

  HEADPHONES

  By Adam Lance Garcia

  David’s headphones were clicking every so often, nothing he would have noticed unless he turned up the volume. He did his best to ignore it, keeping the volume on low, knowing it was better for his ears anyway. Times were tough, his dad said, they couldn’t just buy new headphones whenever they wanted. But the clicking got worse over time, the kind of metallic tap-tap-tap that bordered on maddening.

  David began saving up, a quarter here, a dime there, the little pocket change he would get at the end of the day. The penny he found on the floor. Learn the value of the dollar, his mother would say, though by now the dollar was worth nothing. A crappy set of headphones would cost a hundred easily. David didn’t know much about the world economy but he knew he would be saving up for a long time. America wasn’t what it was, his dad liked to say, not like it was for his grandpap.

  The clicking continued. Sometimes if David rubbed his headphone against his ear the clicking would stop, but it would come back like the droughts of summer. In those dead heat days he would need his headphones more than ever. Most of the kids went up north, where it was still cool in the valleys and streams, and David would be alone with his music. David asked his dad why they never went up north; he said it was because they spent all their money a few years ago. David asked what they spent it on, but his father just ruffled his hair and smiled. Something worthwhile, he said. Something worthwhile.

  Tap-tap-tap, everyday a little worse, and a little more annoying. He tried to tell his mother, going so far as to put one headphone to her ear, but she heard nothing but music. His mother was always cold to him, and at night David could hear her argue with his father about him. It was worse now that his headphones were breaking; he couldn’t drown them out without hearing the clicking. He loved his mother so much; he didn’t know why she didn’t love him back.

  Then the day came when he heard the clicking without the headphones. Tap-tap-tap. At first he thought it was the air conditioning breaking again, it had a tendency to do that, but David quickly realized he heard the clicking everywhere. At first it was low and soft, barely noticeable unless he listened for it closely. If he rubbed his ear it would get better for a moment, but it never really went away. If anything it got worse. Soon he could barely hear anything without the soft tap-tap-tap echoing through his brain.

  He asked the kids at school if they heard it. They ignored him.

  He asked his mother, but she only frowned, told him it was nothing to worry about, not to bother her, she was busy.

  David asked his father and his father’s eyes fell to the floor.

  His father asked him how long he had been hearing the clicking.

  About a week, he said.

  His father nodded slowly, put his hand on David’s neck and told him they would take him to the doctor.

  The doctor’s office was in a large tower downtown, where the smog was so thick the sun looked brown. David and his father took the rail in, they couldn’t afford a car. Inside the doctor’s office it was sterile and white; the doctor wore a long lab coat and looked young despite the moustache. He talked to David like he was twelve, but David was thirteen now. David told him about the clicking and the doctor took out his otoscope and looked into David’s ears.

  “I see… a banana,” the doctor said when he peered into David’s right ear. “I see… an apple,” when he looked into the left ear. He smiled at David but looked over at his father and frowned. The doctor asked to talk to his dad in his office, leaving David in the check up room rubbing at his ear.

  A few moments later David’s father and the doctor returned. His father kissed him softly on the forehead and told David he would be all right. David smiled as his father touched the back of his neck, brushed aside his long hair and flicked the switch.

  As David’s circuits and systems shut down, the last thing he heard beneath the tap-tap-tap was the doctor telling his father it was okay, he could always get a new one.

  BONE CRUSHER

  By Kevin Rodgers

  A huge, mechanical spider scuttled across the charred terrain of Brimstone Gulch while its commander, Jeremiah Thames, steered the steel beast from within the confines of an enclosed cockpit. The spider’s alloy legs leaped over molten rivers and scraped the edges of boiling geysers while Jeremiah monitored geographical features from three high-definition monitors, which spanned the semi-circular wall in the cockpit. Beads of sweat blossomed on Jeremiah’s forehead while he stroked his long, gray beard. Circles of perspiration spread outward from the underarms of his beige shirt while the temperature in the cockpit soared. He glanced at the digital numbers of a military-style watch on his left wrist and frowned. The Bone Crusher, he realized, was scheduled to exterminate the next batch of prisoners in fifteen minutes. Jeremiah knew that his lover, Alexandria, would perish if he didn’t interrupt the mass cremation. He yanked on a red, glowing lever, which propelled the mechanical spider toward the dark opening of a cave.

  A swarm of gargoyles and red-eyed demons took flight from stone perches and dive-bombed the exterior of the stainless-steel arachnid. Sharp claws and massive talons scraped the cockpit’s window while Jeremiah wiped sweat off of his brow and cursed at the interlopers. Bursts of lava streamed into the air while volcanoes erupted in the distance. Jeremiah’s forearms flexed while he struggled to keep the mechanical spider from falling into a deep ravine near the cave’s entrance. He jammed the steering wheel into a high, upward position, which caused the spider to leap over the flowing rapids of a lava river. A triumphant roar radiated from his larynx when the spider landed safely on the other side of the river. The gargoyles and winged demons retreated when pressurized air from a nearby geyser scorched their skin and blistered their wings.

  “I promise I’ll rescue you, Alexandria,” Jeremiah said.

  Jeremiah stamped a brake pedal with his left foot. He guided the lever to a central position and powered the mechanical spider’s engine down. Beeping noises echoed throughout the cockpit while steel doors opened on the ceiling above Jeremiah’s chair. He yanked his Sig Sauer pistol from a brown, leather shoulder-holster, popped a release button, and checked the clip. He smiled when he realized that it was full of rounds. After he pushed the clip into the weap
on’s handle, he yanked on the barrel. He shoved the weapon into the holster and climbed out of the cockpit. Intense heat radiated from the spewing geysers and rivers of lava. Black combat boots landed on ash-covered rocks after Jeremiah leaped out of the cockpit. He reached into the left, front pocket of his black, BDU-style pants and removed a glowing, double-edged knife. He sprinted toward the dark opening of the cave. The ground fractured and rocks tumbled from nearby cliffs. Jeremiah whirled on his feet when he heard loud footfalls. His heart skipped a beat and his eyes widened while he watched a thirty-foot-tall, winged demon wade through molten rivers and charge through walls of flames. Jeremiah removed his Sig Sauer from its holster while the massive demon glided toward the cave’s opening.

  ***

  Huge flies buzzed around Alexandria Clifton’s face while her weak, frail hands gripped the steel bars of her jail cell. Rumbling noises caused the walls to shake while prisoners screamed and begged for mercy in adjacent cells. Cold gusts of air caused Alexandria to tremble in her torn rags. Spiders crawled in her tangled, auburn hair and scurried across her pale, freckled skin. Huge rodents scurried across the floor of her cell. She hoped her lover, Jeremiah Thames, would arrive and set her free before the Bone Crusher escorted her to the hot furnace where he planned to incinerate her. She knew the Bone Crusher needed to cremate dozens of humans on a daily basis to generate enough energy to please his lord, the Soul Master. Alexandria realized that the Soul Master would emerge from his underground lair and punish the Bone Crusher if he failed to complete the task.

  A frail, elderly man leaned against the steel bars of an adjacent cell. A foul stench emanated from patches of gangrene on the flesh of his feet and legs. Purple lesions and festering sores covered his sunken face and bony chest. He exhaled a shrill scream while he listened to someone insert a key into the lock of the prison’s main door. Rusted hinges ground and the door swung inward. A pair of demonic guards descended a short staircase and strolled into a long corridor, which was lined by jail cells on both sides. The guards wore black plate armor and wielded double-edged swords. The black pupils of their red, glowing eyes surveyed the prisoners. One of the guards removed a key ring from a metallic loop on his duty belt. He inserted the key into the old man’s cell, yanked the door open, forced him to place his hands behind his back, and attached manacles to his wrists. A lump formed in the back of Alexandria’s throat while the guards forced other prisoners to obey similar commands. Salty tears crept from the corners of her green eyes and flowed across her cheeks while one of the guards inserted the key into the lock of her cell’s door. She screamed and begged for mercy while the guard forced her to place her hands behind her back. Chains rattled and metal clanked while the guard placed the manacles on her wrists and locked them. A hard, callused hand shoved her between her shoulder blades and forced her to walk out of the jail cell. She closed her eyes, ascended the stairs, and yelled: “Please hurry, Jeremiah! I’m running out of time!”