Becca's Paranormal Collection

by Vickery, Rebecca J.

  Chapter Six

  Carissa felt torn between the desire to flee, as most of the others were doing, and waiting to see what happened next. She could not help wondering if closing the box might help. She still felt a strong pull from the box, as if it waited for her touch. Taking a step forward, Carissa's toe brushed against the outer edge of the pentagram drawn on the ground. Burning heat ran up her foot as her shoe melted.

  She kicked it off and moved back, praying to the powers around her that she was not too late. Carissa's left foot visibly blistered with burns. She hopped to the jug holding the purified water for the bowl on the dais and dumped it on her foot. The stinging pain eased slightly, even though it did not stop. She shed her cloak and tore the tail from the shirt she wore. Pouring what little water remained, she wrapped her foot with the damp cloth, and hobbled away. She'd had enough.

  * * * * *

  Hearing moans and cries as she made her way painfully through the woods, Carissa looked around to see some of the followers on the ground. Some writhed and cried out while the flesh disappeared from their bones. Others were already silent, bleached skeletons like her mentor. Covering her mouth to keep from screaming, she averted her eyes and kept going. Nothing she could do for any of them. She needed to save herself.

  Cars bumped into each other, engines raced, and still people cried and screamed when Carissa finally reached the field where they parked their vehicles. Such a panic filled the remaining followers they were like a herd of cattle in a stampede. Even as she watched, a truck ran over two people; the driver so bent on escape, it never slowed.

  Carissa hopped around the fringes until she reached her small car. She desperately needed to get to the hospital to have her foot tended. "Blessed be, blessed be," she repeated over and over. She veered left and right, avoiding other vehicles as she raced to get away from the horrors behind her. Her foot felt as if it were on fire and might burst into flames at any moment. It was all she could do to keep her mind on driving to the emergency room.

  Finally, she wheeled up to the emergency entrance, pushed open her door, and fell into the arms of a security guard. Carissa whimpered, "My foot...burned..." and then she fainted from the pain.

  Chapter Seven

  Carissa woke to madness all around her. She tried to sit up, but the lower half of her body felt consumed by fire. A doctor standing by her bed casually touched her leg as he examined her. She heard a scream and realized it came from her own throat as she watched the doctor's hand begin melting off the bones.

  A nurse rushed to help. She grabbed gauze and sterile water then tried to wash and wrap the doctor's dissolving digits. The woman jerked back and stared down at her own fingers as the flesh began to leave the bones. "Oh no! No... What's happening?" The nurse fled, screaming in panic.

  "Pandora's Box...it was opened. I'm so sorry—so sorry..." Carissa whispered aloud, but no one heard. She looked at the chaos and confusion all around her. Other followers with burned or missing flesh had also made their way to the emergency room. As doctors, nurses, and hospital personnel tried to render aid, the horrors released on the world by the opening of Pandora's Box attacked them.

  Laying her head back against the pillow, Carissa swallowed her screams. They would do no good. The burning agony reached her mid-section now. She knew it would be over for her soon. Death would not be a bad price to pay for what she had helped bring into the world this night.

  While still in her right mind and with her last conscious thoughts, Carissa made a final request, "Mother Earth, Father Time, Sisters Wind, Water, and Fire, hear my plea. Forgive me for being part of opening the box. Please, spare all their souls and somehow lift the curse. May the box be sealed forever on the next night of the blue moon. Blessed be."

  As Carissa sank into the agony of her dying pangs, she again wondered what could have been in the box, invisible, yet so deadly.

  Suddenly, she heard the fierce cackling of the demon which had opened Pandora's Box.

  Then a voice, Anne, whispered near her ear, "I know you are curious. You fought so hard not to open the box, even when I urged you to. The box held the combined energy of the evils and hatred of the world. Now loosed, it is turned back upon those who deserve to be punished. Is there enough love and belief left in the world to stop it? I think not...and if not, I win...I win!"

  More cackling until, at last, Carissa found blessed oblivion.

  The End

  Speculative Fiction with a twist of Sci-Fi fun...

  This story is dedicated to the men and women who have given their lives charting new frontiers, whether at home or in space. Though this particular story is designed to be "campy" and fun, we respect the seriousness of lives lost in the field of exploration as a very real tragedy.

  Ordered to fly low-level scans for trilidium on an uninhabited rock of a planetoid known only as X37, Teelak and Adria yearn for more exciting missions. Then they survive a crash landing only to learn the rock isn't as empty as they think. Just what is out there? Will they be rescued?

  The Rescue

  Chapter One

  The Explorer, a Class V Galaxy Research Vessel, established an orbit far outside the strong gravitational pull of Planetoid X37. The ship, designed to seek out and research new planets, asteroids, and planetoids, scoured this sector of space for alien life forms and new sources of minerals and elements. Explorer's current assignment included a low-level sensor sweep of the planetoid's surface. Long distance scans revealed no life forms and limited water, but very interesting meteorological and geological readings.

  Captain Dirk Winslow set aside his latest orders and called First Pilot Teelak and Co-pilot Adria to the command center. The talented human tested out as a bit of a space cowboy, but proved highly adept on several previous close scan missions. Captain Winslow liked him and the Asmordian female he chose to fly with him. They were the Captain's best team, though he wouldn't admit it to them. Might make this young team entirely too sure of themselves, Winslow thought.

  "At ease," the Captain told them as the pilots entered and stood at attention. "I have a mission for you. X37 may contain a source of trilidium the Nhoghandians need for their new reactors. We've been ordered to gather surface readings to determine the viability of bringing in a mining ship. You will leave as soon as your flyer is fueled and the scanners recalibrated to scan specifically for trilidium."

  "Yes, sir." Teelak couldn't wait to get a ship under him again. "Any chance of a bit of target practice with the 133M since this planetoid is uninhabited?" The pilot expressed his eagerness to learn to use the newest weapon in the starship's arsenal. Even a research vessel needed to be able to defend itself.

  Captain Winslow chuckled. He'd been young once himself and always as anxious as Teelak to try out the guns back then. "I'm afraid not, Pilot. Just fly the assigned mission. You'll have your chance at that weapon soon enough. Now get your gear and get to the launch bay."

  "Yes, sir." Teelak saluted. He turned to leave the command center while hiding his disappointment and frustration. Dull and slow were the name of the game of late around the ship. He needed something exciting to happen, even if only target practice.

  "We'll see some action, Teelak," his co-pilot assured him. She'd flown with Teelak long enough to read the emotions coursing through him. Had she not been an Asmordian, sworn to mate only another Asmordian, they might have shared something more. "We're bound to encounter some unfriendly life forms sooner or later. Not everyone is going to put up with your attitude like I do. I'm sure you'll find a fight somewhere."

  "Next time we're in the training room, you'll get a taste of my attitude." He grinned at her. She had a way of always making him feel better. Adria had been assigned as his co-pilot after graduation and they'd flown dozens of missions together since then. When the chance came to choose his flying mate, he picked her without hesitation. For an Asmordian human, she wasn't too bad. Her loyalty could not be questioned and, unlike the males of her race, she would take orders—most o
f the time.

  Chapter Two

  The flyer shuddered as it bounced off the dense atmosphere of Planetoid X37. "Hold tight, Adria. We've arrived in the midst of a storm, it seems. We'll have to punch straight through. No gliding in on this one." Teelak piloted the flyer gently around and pointed the nose toward the planetoid's surface. Then he hit the booster.

  Adria switched off the irritating warning beeps and grabbed onto her seat. From experience, she always took Tee serious when he told her to hold on.

  The flyer bucked and shimmied, but made it through the thick, tumultuous atmospheric layer encircling the planet.

  The pilot immediately began fighting with the next problem; leveling out the flyer before they crashed into the rocky surface coming at them at lightning speed.

  "Give me more rudder. Cut the left thruster. Stand by to restart on my mark," Teelak barked out the orders as he fought the helm. This was one job he would not trust to the flight computer.

  With the left thruster off and using full left rudder, Teelak veered the flyer and angled along the surface. Wild clouds of gray dust whirled around the small ship. Winds buffeted it from both sides and played havoc with the steering.

  "Uhhm, Pilot, sir... I know we're supposed to do low-level scans, but this is a bit too low, don't you think?" Adria could see the stress fractures in the rocks they were barely skimming over. The view from the side portal shouldn't be of the surface.

  "What? You don't think this is what the captain had in mind?" Teelak asked through gritted teeth as he worked at the controls.

  He finally righted the small ship. Then he ordered Adria to restart the left thruster as they began circling from the force of the right thruster he didn't dare power down.

  "No good, it won't start," Adria told him.

  "Try it again," the pilot ordered. "Increase the fuel mixture to compensate for the higher oxygen levels."

  "The computer does that. If I—"

  "It's not enough, Adria. Do it now!" Teelak insisted, still fighting the controls. Beads of sweat peppered his brow and upper lip.

  Grumbling under her breath, Adria manually adjusted the fuel mixture and again tried the restart on the left thruster. On the third try, it sputtered and fired. She breathed a sigh of relief.

  "Told you." Teelak couldn't resist the jibe as he tossed a cheeky grin at her and brought the flyer under control. It helped that the storm seemed to be dissipating. He programmed the proper flight level and heading into the computer before sitting back to relax.

  Adria entered the commands to begin the sensor sweeps of the planetoid's surface and to a depth of several hundred meters. Following regulations, she first scanned for life forms.

  There were none. Not even a worm crawling below the soil showed on the sensors.

  Chapter Three

  Munching on nutrition bars, Teelak and Adria jumped when a warning siren blared. A few seconds later both thrusters died. Working furiously they attempted a restart. All efforts failed. The complete power grid shut down. The computer screens went blank. The back-up system died, too.

  "We're going down! Dust must have choked out the engines," the pilot warned.

  Teelak heard Adria send out a distress message over the subspace radio on all frequencies. He fought to keep the flyer level using the manual controls and managed to keep it in a partial glide. But that, too, proved only temporary.

  "Crash positions!" he yelled, seconds before they hit.

  The nose of the flyer cut into the hard surface. Gray dust flew in a shower of debris as the vessel skidded along the planetoid's surface. Bounced and jolted over rocks and small craters, the pilot and co-pilot flew about in their seats like rag dolls.

  As the flyer came to an abrupt stop in a large pile of rocks, Adria lurched forward in her seat smashing her head against the computer console.

  Teelak sat, stunned and speechless. He'd actually survived his first crash landing.

  * * * * *

  One interior wall of circuits shot sparks then the flyer caught fire. The automatic extinguishers failed to engage. Teelak lifted Adria in his arms and carried her outside away from the smoldering vessel. He rushed back inside to use the manual fire extinguisher, to salvage what he could.

  He put out the electrical fire in the circuits, dismayed at the extent of the damage. They wouldn't be flying this ship out of here anytime soon from the look of the fried wiring and ruined components. He sure hoped those distress calls made it to The Explorer.

  Returning to Adria, he thought he saw a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye. Impossible, must have been dust blowing on the wind.

  Teelak knelt beside Adria to check for injuries. A large purple bruise above her right eyebrow seemed to be the worst of it. No way to know how bad her head was injured until she came around. At least, he hoped she would come around. He dropped onto the ground to sit beside her and wait. Something he didn't do well.

  Several minutes later, Adria regained consciousness. Rubbing at the lump on her forehead, she answered his questions to prove her coherency. She recited her name, rank and serial number, where they were, and their captain's name. When he asked her age and weight, she balked.

  "Teelak, I'm fine. I just have a monster of a headache. Considering how hard I whacked it, that's no surprise. We have other things to worry about."

  "I agree. Like how we're going to get off this rock. The flyer's not going anywhere."

  "If we don't report back, Captain Winslow will send a shuttle won't he?"

  "Yeah, but we've got more immediate problems. There's something out there," Teelak insisted when he saw movement again. This time he knew he'd seen something moving in the distance.

  "No way. There's no life here, remember? Are you sure you didn't hit your head, too?" Adria sat up, groaning at the pain shooting behind her eyes.

  "Then what was that?" The pilot pointed.

  "I don't see anything. Maybe it's dust devils."

  The pilot watched the same area where he saw the movement and caught a glimmer of it again. Just a blur, a quick flurry of motion, then nothing.

  He told her, "Wait here." Pushing to his feet, Teelak decided to check it out.

  Sensing movement behind him, he glanced back to see Adria following at a distance. About to yell at her for disobeying orders, he saw her go down. He didn't know if she fell, got hit by a weapon of some sort, or what. From his present position, he couldn't even tell if she was still breathing.

  Movement to his left, alerted him to something coming closer. Drawing his pistol, Teelak circled to the right hoping to get a good look and possibly a shot at whatever it might be.

  The odd creature scurried behind first one rock and then another. It took up a position between them, effectively cutting Teelak off from his downed companion. When the creature hopped up onto a boulder to look for him, the pilot finally got a look at part of it. A small part of it anyway and he didn't like what he saw.

  Chapter Four

  A long, thick tail covered in sharp spines snapped back and forth above a three-foot-tall, brown-cloaked creature. Suddenly, whipping its ominous tail forward, the creature hurled needle-like spines toward Teelak at high velocity.

  The pilot dove behind a huge boulder. A stinging pain below the knee told him he'd been a fraction too slow. He rose quickly onto his knees, firing his laser pistol. Bits of rock flew into the air, but there was no creature in sight. He prepared to fire again and saw the creature hurry behind another rock in a blur of motion.

  Man! That sucker moves fast.

  Using boulders for cover, the creature moved farther away, but not far enough to suit Teelak. He also used the rocks for cover and worked his way nearer to Adria. He hoped there were no more of those things out there.

  "Adria?" he hissed, trying not to give away his position. "Adria, answer me!"

  She lay where she had fallen. Even though she insisted she was all right after the crash, he should have known better. Watching for movement, he saw none from Adr
ia or the creature.

  His leg burned reminding him of his own injury. The pilot glanced down to check the damage done by the alien's unusual form of weaponry.

  A long, thin spine stuck through the layer of his upper boot and into his leg. Hoping it wasn't poisonous, Teelak withdrew the needle-like barb. The bleeding wasn't too bad and he decided he could live with the damage until after he checked on Adria.

  Crawling forward, Teelak cursed the gray ash coating the planet's surface dusting up forcing cough after cough from his lungs. Of all the planets to crash on, it had to be this pile of rubble. At least he could breathe the air before all this dust got shoved into his nose and mouth.

  As he reached out to Adria, Teelak glimpsed the brown blob with the long tail scuttling across to another boulder. The dratted thing moved so quick he couldn't get a good look at much of it except the long tail. He caught another glimpse of the brown, child-sized blur zipping from one rock to another.

  Taking a risk, the pilot holstered his pistol then lurched forward to grab Adria by the arms. He dragged her backwards, staying as low as possible, until he bumped into a large rock to duck behind. Hearing a thin, whining sound, Teelak hastily pulled Adria to the back side of the rock and hunkered down.

  Tiny pings indicated he'd taken cover just in time as several sharp missiles hit against the boulder. Others flew over his head. Teelak pulled his pistol and sought a target. Give me one good shot, Brownie. I'll teach you to needle me.

  Chapter Five

  Adria moaned and tried to sit up. "What happened?"

  "Not sure. Stay down. There's something out there and it doesn't seem to like us." Teelak's wary gaze scanned the area.

  The co-pilot pushed to one elbow checking for her lazer pistol. Her holster held only air. Another wave of dizziness hit her. She must have banged her head harder than she first thought.