The Ultimate Collection of Science & Speculative Fiction Short Stories (Short SSF Stories Book 5)

by Nicholas C. Rossis

  But her sister doesn’t see it that way. She’ll never understand that she’ll be condemning Jane to a lifetime of despair. That’s why I stopped her from seeing Jane in the first place. She was always asking awkward questions, always prying. Always making Jane relive that awful experience. Doesn’t she care at all for her sister’s happiness? What am I talking about? That selfish bitch never cared about Jane. Always turning me away, when all I ever wanted was to make Jane happy. No, there is no other way. I have to pay the woman a visit.

  I jerk the drawer open. I’d almost lost Jane twice. Once, when she got married. And then, when the detonator had misfired, almost killing her in the fire. I can’t bear the thought of losing her again. Not after everything we’ve been through.

  From inside the open drawer, a detonator stares at me, its silver surface bright and shiny as if barely a day had passed since I last used its twin. I pick it up and gently stroke the smooth surface. It’s time for another fire.

  The Sister

  I press rewind. The footage that my agent has secured is grainy, and the angle from the top of the table lamp is not great. It’s good enough to confirm my suspicions, though. I’ve never liked the man. That mousy doctor, who used to hound my sister even as a nerdy kid. I’d fought him when he wanted to look after her, but I’d lost. He was the expert, and I was just the paranoid sister.

  We’ll see who’s paranoid now. I was sure he’d refuse her the treatment she needed. He’s already cut me off; prevented me from seeing her all these years. But taking her away from his greedy little hands wasn’t enough. Not for me. Not for her. Not for her family.

  I freeze the scene and zoom in. Inside the drawer, I can clearly see a detonator-like device. I have to check my records, but it looks identical to the one found in my sister’s bedroom ashes. And when we treat her and she regains her memories, I know what she’ll tell us she saw the night of the fire. Whom she saw.

  A wide grin crawls on my face. I hit a button on the phone sitting on my desk. A moment later, a woman’s voice answers. “Police. How may I help you?”

  I clear my throat. “I need to speak to one of your detectives. I have some fresh information about a cold case.”

  You’re in for a Ride: Part II

  I have no idea how much time has passed, my sleep uneasy with these strange dreams. A man opens the door, waking me up rudely. Long shadows cover his face. A suede fedora covers the top of his head, thick raindrops dripping along its edge. A long, beige trench coat, straight out of a last century movie, completes the unusual outfit. He leaves wide wet stains on the seat and floor. It’s the eyes that grab my attention, though. Straight out of hell. Yellow, with an orange flame dancing within. Demonic.

  I shudder and fight the instinct to flee. “Where to, mister?”

  He gives me an address at the city’s derelict warehouse area. His voice, a snake crawling over gravel. It sends the small hairs on my back to stand up in attention. I swallow to wet my dry throat, then punch in the address. As the cab gently swerves into the street and takes off, I keep stealing glances in the mirror. The flames in the man’s eyes grow with each passing moment. The storm outside is picking up. I can feel its chill in my bones and turn up the heating. When lightning flashes, I practically jump out of my skin.

  The ride feels endless. I almost let out a sigh of relief when we pull over. Derelict buildings litter the unlit street. We stop before a rundown colonial house, strangely out of place among the shattered-windowed warehouses and abandoned tenement halls. It might have been pretty a couple of centuries ago, but has turned into a creepy shell of its former self by now.

  “Wait here.” He lifts his collar and steps out in the stormy night, ignoring the gusts of wind that whip him with dark water.

  I stare at the empty cabin for a moment, savoring his absence. Then, my bowels growl and a rumbling, sharp pain instructs me to look for the closest toilet. That’s one thing they still haven’t been able to fit into a modern-day cab, and I curse silently its designers.

  A neon light flashes in the distance. I can’t make it out, but it has to be a bar, or an all-day convenience store. I chew my lip for a while, then a second pang in my guts makes me jump out of the cab and hurry down the street.

  Icy raindrops whip my face like tiny darts. My feet splash in freezing puddles. A TV is drowning the wailing of a baby, while a couple’s shouts—its parents?—assault me as I rush down the street. As I approach, I can see the name of the place: The Phantom. My mouth twitches, but my legs keep walking toward the entrance. The windows are too misted to see inside, but lit. I can hear people chattering and glasses clinking. After a moment’s hesitation, my hand reaches for the handle. As soon as I touch it, it disintegrates into a pile of rust, swept away by a sudden gust of bitter wind.

  All sounds cease. No tipsy patrons, no laughter, no drunken toasts. No crying babies, no fighting couples, no TV. The windows are as dark as the rest of the street. I almost empty my bowels right there and then. Instead, I whirl around and hurry back to the safety of the cab. Screw this, I’m out of here.

  Behind me, I hear footsteps. Without turning my head, I know who it is. I shove my hands into my pockets and walk faster. Instead of closing the distance, the cab looks farther away. Soon, I am panting, walking turning into running. My heart is pounding against my chest. Yet, I can hear the footsteps closing in.

  I make a sharp left into the colonial house, hoping to shake him off. Darkness covers the entrance. Cobwebs jiggle in the wind. I push them aside and bolt down a derelict stairway. I have to escape his foul presence.

  The stairway ends on a metal door. Rusted hinges keep it closed. A naked lamp illuminates the cramped space, its pale yellow light struggling to exorcise the surrounding black.

  His footsteps echo behind me, closer and closer. I take a step back and throw myself at the door with all my might. It groans but refuses to budge. My shoulder burns. I ignore it and shove the metal once again. And again. His footsteps are almost upon me when the door finally gives way and I lose my balance. I tumble down half a dozen steps and land on all fours on muddy soil. In what little light creeps into the room from the busted door, I make out bodies lying all around me. I touch one, and it crumbles under my trembling fingers. Mummified. The word rings in my head, drowning out all thought.

  I lift my head to see the man’s silhouette against the open frame. An all-consuming fire is now twirling in his eyes. I scurry backwards, but before I can blink he’s upon me. He grabs my head with his hands. Spiked tendrils shoot out from his palms, digging into my flesh. I struggle to free myself but am unable to move. He licks his lips, parting them into a hungry smile. Fiery pain fills my head. I open my mouth to scream, but no sound comes out. After an eternity of agony, he pushes his thumb into my mouth and something shoots into my stomach. A seed.

  An overpowering weakness consumes me. I close my eyes and welcome the darkness that swallows me.

  I wake up with a jolt. I’m back in my cab, waiting at the train station. Damn you, woman, and your professor. I rub the sleep out of my eyes. Despite the cold, I’m covered in thick beads of sweat. I debate taking a few steps outside, but it’s still pouring. I press a button and the misted window rolls down. Raindrops whip my face, my hands, my legs. They land on the dashboard and smudge the displays. With a muffled curse, I roll the window back up.

  My breathing has barely returned to normal when the last train pulls in. A moment later, it spits out drowsy passengers. They march out in long lines before vanishing into the darkness, unsteady steps turning into hurried ones.

  A man opens the door and steps into the cab. Long shadows cover his face. A suede fedora covers the top of his head, thick raindrops dripping along its edge. A long, beige trench coat, straight out of a last century movie, completes the unusual outfit. It leaves wide wet stains on the seat and floor. It’s the eyes that grab my attention, though. I swear, they’re yellow, with an orange flame dancing within.

  My eyes widen in recogni
tion. I struggle to keep my voice calm. “Where to?”

  He gives me an address and my blood turns to ice. The address is at the city’s derelict warehouse area.

  As the cab gently swerves into the street and takes off, I keep stealing glances in the mirror. The flames in the man’s eyes grow with each passing moment. The storm outside is picking up. I can feel its chill in my bones and turn up the heating. When lightning flashes, I practically jump out of my skin.

  The ride feels endless. I almost let out a sigh of relief when we pull over. Derelict buildings litter the unlit street. We stop before a familiar colonial house that’s seen better days.

  “Wait here.” He lifts his collar and steps out in the stormy night, ignoring the gusts of wind that whip him with dark water.

  He disappears into the house, confirming my worst fears. I fidget on my seat. My fingers drum against the dashboard. My foot taps the floor. Then, I can’t wait any longer. I must stop him, if it’s the last thing I do.

  I burst out of the cab and follow him inside. I push cobwebs out of my face as I step through the dark entrance. I hurry down the stairs. A naked lamp illuminates a broken door, hanging from rusted hinges.

  My hands can’t stop shaking as I step through the gaping opening and stagger down half a dozen creaking steps. Bodies litter the muddy floor. Only the steady drip drip drip of rain can be heard.

  The man is slumping over one of the corpses. He spins around to face me, his eyes burning with excitement. “I’ve found it,” he says, his voice cracking the gloomy silence.

  “What is this place?” I ask as I take a careful step toward him, making sure to stay between him and the door.

  “It’s the Phantom’s lair. The final piece of proof. They thought me crazy. Now I’ll show them. We can finally rid the world of this creature.” He motions around. “There are at least two dozen bodies in here. We should call the cops.”

  My eyes widen in surprise. “You’re the professor.” I hesitate for a moment, then take another step. It brings me almost next to him. He leans to the ground and pulls at a hand sticking out of the mud. It detaches from the arm and he lands on his back, splashing muddy waters everywhere. “Give me a hand, will you?” he groans as he tries to free himself from the soil. His gaze jumps to the severed limb and he chuckles. “A hand, get it?”

  I have to be more careful. Had my dream not warned me about him, I would have been doomed. The thought is echoing in my head as I hurry by his side and grab his head. Spiked tendrils shoot out from my palms, digging into his flesh. He struggles to free himself, but the poison works fast and he’s unable to move. I lick my lips, parting them into a hungry smile. With him, I have enough bodies for my babies. He opens his mouth to scream, but no sound comes out. I collect his life force at my fingertip and fill a seed with it, then shove my thumb into the open orifice. The now pregnant seed shoots from under my fingernail and into his body. Within a few decades, it will grow into a healthy baby.

  A moment later, he closes his eyes and his body turns limp in my hands.

  Still buzzing with the remainders of his life force cruising through my veins, I gently lay his dead body down on the ground and watch the mud open up to swallow him. “Don’t worry. You’re the last one—for now.” I stay on all fours for a while, waiting for the room to stop spinning. My eyes turn to the still body. “Besides, you’ll rise again. After all, even gods need someone to worship them.”

  BONUS STORIES

  To Name a Thing

  “Attention on deck!”

  The sharp voice startles me so much that my tablet slips through my fingers.

  “Crap, the General,” Sam hisses behind me as I catch the tablet midair with uncharacteristic agility; something that gives me a surprising amount of pleasure.

  Almost immediately, my brow creases. Another inspection? “How are we supposed to get any work done with all these interruptions?” I whisper, not bothering to hide my irritation.

  Sam nods knowingly, if imperceptibly, as he clicks the heels of his shoes. Snap!

  I almost chuckle. We’re not soldiers, you idiot, I scold him in my head. Even if we were, no soldiers do that, unless they’re evil Nazis in a last-century movie.

  He shoots me a warning glare as if reading my mind, and I hurry to stand up straight—no clicking of the heels for me—and lower my hands to my side. I clench my fingers around the tablet to make sure it doesn’t slip through at an awkward moment.

  Right on cue, the General marches in through the yawning hangar doors. He looks his usual pompous, stubby self. His chest is puffed out like a self-important rooster inspecting his henhouse. His head is tilted upward as if he’s studying the thick carbon-titanium beams that line the dome protecting us from the many horrors of space. His spine is so straight you’d think he’s swallowed an umbrella and any bending of his torso might accidentally force it to open and turn his tight trousers into a tutu skirt. The mental image causes me to smirk. I wipe the grin off my face as fast as I can, noting his speedy approach.

  His gaze caresses the monstrous device behind us. The missile is almost as big as the hangar itself if one includes the many workstations that line its gleaming exterior. Perhaps a hundred of us are working on what our cliché-loving General, in each of his less-than-inspired speeches, calls “humanity’s last hope.” In fact, humanity is doing just fine, thank you very much, and I increasingly feel that we have no business poking our noses in Centauri space. Not that I’d admit as much to anyone, of course. Treason is an ugly word and has even uglier repercussions. Much as I love space, I wouldn’t want to fly out of an airlock with nothing but my socks on.

  As they say, truth is the first casualty of war, and my personal truth is that the Centauris are actually quite nice, seeing how their pacifist religion means we’ve been fighting a casualty-free war for the past six months. As far as I’m concerned, we should shake hands with them—or claws in their case, seeing how much they look like beetles—and move our colonists to some other part of the galaxy. Preferably, an uninhabited one this time. But no, the unceasing tussle between Earth and the colonies has everyone scrambling to plant their flag on as many exoplanets as possible. Naturally, no one cares about the natives, and the army is more than happy to kick out the Centauris from their homes. After all, another military campaign means extra funds allocated to their budget. The fact that this particular war is casualty-free must make the situation all the sweeter for our dear General.

  While I regurgitate the same thoughts that have gone through my mind a myriad times before, the General performs a cursory circle around the missile before heading for the podium, a satisfied smile plastered on his face.

  I groan mentally. Oh man, not another speech.

  Once on the podium, he taps the microphone and glares at a technician who hurries to turn it on. A loud squeal is drowned out within a second, but not before earning the poor technician a scowling frown. The General then turns his attention to us. “At ease,” he orders, and the soldiers surrounding us relax their tight stance. “My dear friends,” he starts, beaming us a smile designed to boost our productivity.

  I sigh inwardly and prepare for a lost hour of work. At least we’re getting paid for it, I console myself and force my fingers to stop tapping the tablet’s dark screen.

  “We’re nearing completion of the greatest project humanity’s ever undertaken.”

  It’s just a big bomb, you big-mouthed bully. Or should I say, a giant bug-repellant? And we’ll drop it on a bunch of peace-loving, fruit-munching creatures that won’t even fight back. I tune him out for a while and space out, focusing on Tina, the General’s aide. As always, she’s standing right behind him, lovely as ever. I lose myself in her soft, curly, blond hair, imagining twirling it around my fingers. I wonder if she’d ever go out with an engineer like me, and swallow a sigh. Nah, probably not.

  The General’s wild gestures and flailing arms snap me out of my pleasant reverie. “You’re humanity’s last hope,” he booms. �
�You’ll protect us from the terrible menace that’s been plaguing our galaxy.” His voice turns soft. “We have no quarrel with the Centauris. Lord knows we’ve tried making peace with them.” He slaps his fist into his palm. “But they’ve rejected all of our attempts to communicate. How can we make them see reason? They won’t share their resources with us. Even now, we have information that they’re planning humanity’s demise.”

  What did you expect; a cheese and wine farewell party before they kindly leave their planets to us?

  “They don’t even have the courtesy of discussing their terms. We’d be more than willing to compromise. But no, they have no interest in communicating with us.”

  They’re freakishly large beetles, for heaven’s sake. They probably communicate by rubbing their antennae together or something.

  “They just terrorize our brave colonists. Their wives. Their children.”

  I almost roll my eyes. Please don’t bring the children into this. A little-known fact: no colonist has ever been harmed by the Centauris. No man, no woman, no child, no baby, no pet spider. Centauri resistance has been limited to acts of sabotage against our equipment. Acts that were severe enough to require the evacuation of three planets so far, but that have led to no casualty. At least not in life terms; I’m not sure how many managers have been fired or officers demoted because of the resulting mess.

  Amazingly enough, the media portray Centauris as the scourge of the universe and a deadly threat to humanity. I wouldn’t even know the truth if a clerk hadn’t accidentally included me in an email that contained a classified report. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him in a while on the station. I wonder if Tina would know what happened to the poor bastard.

  A pang of pain shoots through my temples and skewers my brain. I shut my eyes, sudden dizziness blurring my vision. It only lasts for a moment and I blink to clear spots from my eyesight. What the hell was that?