Both Tim and Joana looked on, stunned and wide eyed. They had never thought of hearing such a harsh tone from such a little old woman.
“And furthermore,” she continued, staring up at Frank with beady eyes, “we are running out of time. The Arktos and their minions will soon be at my porch. We need to act… and fast—”
Frank’s cellphone rang out loud, both vibrating like crazy in his pocket and cutting Miss Yortsdayle short.
When he reached past his coveralls and yanked the phone from his pocket, his heart raced. His palms began to sweat and his knees began to buckle. The magic trick that the old lady had done, pushing back the orange field, must have given him signal reception once again.
It was Kathie!
“Hello? Kathie? Baby…”
18
Frank paced the kitchen floor, the phone glued to his ear. The smile plastered across his rosy cheeks told Joana that Frank was happy. It made her feel good to know that his girlfriend was okay. She hadn’t heard anything coming from her end of the conversation, but from the way Frank was acting it was all good news.
Joana breathed a sigh of eager relief. Seeing Frank like that reminded her of humanity and nearly losing hers in her fight for survival. She was going to make it and she sure as hell was going to maintain moral values in the processes. She sat there watching him pace back and forth smiling from ear to ear between every word he spoke.
“Why don’t you take a picture?” Tim rolled his eye, resting his chin on his fist, his elbow planted on the kitchen table. “It’ll last longer.”
“Oh, come on, Tim… really?” Joana said. “Jealous much?”
“Well, yeah. What of it? You’ve been ogling him since we ran into him on the highway. Don’t pretend like I’m wrong. I’ve been watching you. And it hurts my feelings.”
Joana looked to Miss Yortsdayle, who sat across from her and observed all of them, then back to Tim. “You suddenly want to talk about feelings?” She rolled her eyes. “That’s all I have ever wanted was for you to pay attention to my feelings. You never do. And don’t deny it. You know I’m right. And that’s that.”
“What are you talking about? Don’t turn this around on me. You’re the one holding that dude’s hand.”
“You always do that, Tim. Once you get shoved in a corner, you try to turn it around.” Joana shook her head. “I hate to tell you, it ain’t working this time. No sir. You know what the sad thing is?”
“What’s that?” Tim asked.
Miss Yortsdayle looked on, her smile never wavering as she sipped her tea. Frank was still on the phone pacing in front of the sink.
“What’s sad…” Joana continued, “is that I know the exact day that you stopped caring.”
“Oh, yeah? And when was that?” Tim leaned into his chair, crossing his arms.
“The first day we had sex. Once I finally put out it was like you finally had what you wanted and had no need to work toward our relationship anymore.”
Miss Yortsdayle’s eyes went wide. “Getting deep in here… yes… yes it is.”
Tim rolled his eyes at his aunt and lifted his mug to his lips, awkwardly avoiding what he would have to say to defend himself.
Joana could tell, he was working through it in his head, trying to come up with words that would somehow, without fail, turn it all around and make it her fault and not his. Well, if you would have… if you could have… I’m not the one who… She knew those phrases all too well. She just shook her head. And wasn’t having it. Not this time. She had wanted to have this conversation with him for a long time. It had just come down to total chaos and turmoil to force it to the surface. While she sat waiting for him to reply, she realized something. She had been changed. She was so used to getting into it with him and then just giving up as soon as the argument got going. He always won. But now, with all that had happened, her eyes were open. She was her own person. No one, not even the love of her life, was going to stomp all over her feelings and get away with it. If killer koala bears from another dimension weren’t going to get away with pushing her around, then why wouldn’t that be the case with anybody else?
“She’s okay! Thank God! She’s made it out!” Frank proclaimed, stuffing the cellphone back into his jeans under his coveralls.
“That’s good news. Yes… yes it is. Of course… of course.” Miss Yortsdayle nodded from her spot at the table.
“Hell yeah it is,” Frank said, his spirit obviously lifted high from hearing the good news.
“So where was she?” Tim asked, turning his attention to Frank, but not before getting glared at by Joana.
“She’d already made it out of town before everything went all orange and shit.” Frank smiled, breathing heavy. The weight just seemed to peel away from his shoulders as he leaned against the sink. “She said she’s been trying to call me all night. The field-thingy must have been blocking my phone signal. And when your aunt…” he pointed at Miss Yortsdayle, “did that thing with the stone around her neck, my signal must have come back. God, it felt good to hear her voice!”
“I bet…” Tim agreed.
“Like you know what it means to care about someone,” Joana snipped under her breath.
Not even paying her any mind, Tim said, “So, did she say what was going down on the other side? You were on the phone for a hot minute.”
“Yeah,” Frank nodded. “She said the entire town is encased in a huge dome and it’s so bright that it’s already all over the television. The government has already stepped in, claiming a bunch of nonsense, trying to explain it away. She said that the last she saw on the TV there was a bunch of military and stuff surrounding the dome. They’re going to try dropping a bomb on it or something.”
“A what?” Joana gasped.
“Don’t worry, my child,” Miss Yortsdayle assured. “They won’t get through. The only way for them to get though is—”
A deafening sonic wave flooded the kitchen cutting the old lady’s words short. It was so loud that it wasn’t even audible. It was just a wave of pressure that pressed against the face and ears like surge of energy.
Wuv… wuv… wuv… wuvvv…
“What the hell is that?” Frank shouted, almost unable to hear the words come from his own mouth.
“I don’t know!” Joana yelled, covering her ears and looking around.
Miss Yortsdayle, not seeming to be affected by the booming sound, rose from her chair and grabbed her cane. She nodded at the others and pointed back toward the front of the house, mouthing the words, ‘They’re here.’
As she scooted her way across the kitchen, Tim, Joana, and Frank gathered together. Following the old woman back through the fortune telling room, past the door of slithering beads, and into the storefront living room, they could see them.
All of them.
From the yard just beyond the night sky and the field of orange light there was a mob in mass Joana could only compare to the time she and Tim watched a zombie movie on the late show. The hairy, gray bears were lined for as far as the eye could see. Every last one of them seemed irritated and ready to kill anything that moved. Lifting spears and rocks, they all shouted in one accord, eager to penetrate the field and get to those inside the old rickety house.
Standing at the dusty curtains at the living room window, Joana was about to ask where the wave of noise was coming from. She didn’t have to ask. There were three massive elephant-like beasts standing about twenty feet apart just on the other side of the barrier. They were grinding their tusks into the orange field, trying like hell to penetrate it.
“Oh my God… what do we do?”
“Nothing to do,” Miss Yortsdayle shouted, looking out the window with the others.
Next to her, Frank leaned up looking out the window, Tim and Joana in front of him.
“What do you mean nothing to do?” Tim shouted over the humming wave of surging sound.
“The portals will go away when they leave,” Miss Yortsdayle said, still not needing to cover
her ears like the others. “And they will leave when we’re all dead. That’s how it works. They want to ensure that no one, not even us, can get to their world and wreak havoc like our kind has done so many times before. Nothing we can do.”
“But they can’t get in here,” Joana cried, looking out the window at the more than 300 hundred angry other-worldly creatures. “They’ll have to leave sooner or later.”
“The backyard!” Tim shouted, then stepped past Frank and ran down the hall toward the kitchen.
Joana followed, leaving Frank and Miss Yortsdayle standing in the storefront looking at the horde of crazed creatures in the road just beyond her yard. The elephants weren’t letting up one bit. Grinding their sharp tusks against the field, they tried and tried pressing past it to get in. The bears stood waiting for that moment when they could charge forward, taking the house in one massive swarm of rage.
And then, that was when the sound stopped. The elephants quit grinding at the orange hue of energy. Frank stuck a pinky in each ear and shook his head.
Miss Yortsdayle looked up at him, leaning into her cane with her right hand. With her free hand, she locked eyes with Frank and took him by the arm. “There is one last thing to do, my sweet boy. The stones have one last purpose for tonight to be complete.”
“What?” Frank said, leaning closer to her unable to really hear. His ears were still ringing slightly.
“The last part of the plan, my boy. Yes… yes… of course… of course.” She chuckled, looking over her shoulder toward the kitchen.
The look in her eyes was one of evil intent and Frank didn’t like that one bit. The tension in the air was already growing thick with all of those things in the yard and she was getting all mystical and creepy on him again. He hated it when she did that. Now wasn’t the time for her to try training him on the ‘Jedi’ ways. He needed her to be realistic and help get them out of this mess. Not just make it more confusing. She was good at doing that.
“What?” Frank asked again.
When the little lady moved on him, he didn’t even see it coming and honestly couldn’t even fathom what the hell was happening. The cane in her hand came apart at the base revealing a sharp shiny blade. Startled, Frank jumped back. But it wasn’t him that she lashed out at. She lashed out at herself. The blade slid across her throat like a hand through water. Blood gushed out, splashing Frank all across the front of his overcalls. He gasped, taking her into his arms and falling to his knees, trying to soften her fall.
“What the fuck!” he spat, easing her down.
“Here… ta…ake… this,” she gurgled, the blood bubbling from the hole in her neck around the liver spots.
When Frank looked down, she held a stone that he hadn’t seen before. It was large and smooth. He took the deep penetrating black stone into his hand. It felt icy cold.
“What am I supposed to… I don’t… I don’t understand,” Frank tried to say.
“You… yo…u don’t need to… know, no you don’t.”
Then the oddest thing happened.
She smiled the most sinister smile that Frank had ever seen; the false teeth in her mouth eerie and cold just like the stone in his hand. She reached up with the last ounce of life she had left and grabbed at the stone in his hand.
Forcing it to stay in his grip, she breathed, “Minoto gindispa she-ba me-to-you.”
The stone started to glow and before Frank could determine what was happening, he was looking up at himself. With his back to the floor, his eyes locked with his own, his throat felt hot and wet. He felt cold and tired. The last thing Frank Edelman saw before he died was his arm reaching up, trying to grab at the man that looked like him. His liver spotted, old skin brought it home. But by the time he had it all figured out, it was too late. Frank was dead and Miss Yortsdayle was now enjoying her new, male body. He reached down, yanking the small stone that was on the rope around the old woman’s neck. Stuffing it into his coveralls, he smiled.
“They’re surrounding the house!” Tim said, stepping back into the storefront living room.
“Oh, my God… What have you done?” Joana screamed!
“It wasn’t me. No, no not at all,” The new Frank said, letting the old woman’s body lay there on the floor as he stood, blood covering his chest and a strange black stone still in his hand.
“What the hell happened?” Tim grimaced, stepping over his aunt’s unmoving corpse.
“I just took a… I mean,” Frank said. “She just took out a knife and slit her own throat. What was I supposed to do?”
“Why the hell would she do something like that?” Joana cried, covering her mouth with one hand.
“I don’t know,” Frank said. “See if she’s still breathing. I need to go into the kitchen and get some of this blood off of me. Yes… yes… of course.”
Before Joana or Tim could say anything, Miss Yortsdayle, who was now in Frank’s body, walked through the fortune telling room and into the kitchen.
It was strange hearing with new, young ears. She had been in that old body for so long, she was used to not hearing much. In all of her times of body transfer, this was her first time to take the form of a male. She snickered at that as she reached the door that had the two knobs on it next to the stove. She started to reach down taking the left door handle, but stopped, reaching into her pocket for the phone instead.
She dialed Kathie and waited.
The phone only rang twice before it picked up.
“It’s done.” Frank paused, listening. “Of course… of course, child. It’s me. Don’t you trust in me?” Kathie talked on the other end for a moment and then the new Frank said, “Yes…. Yes… I’m going now. Of course, we’re going to leave together. Just be there like we planned.”
And with that, Frank stuffed the phone away, pulled the necklace from his pocket and tied it around his neck. Stuffing it out of sight, he grabbed the door handle and said a few strange words under his breath. When he opened the door, stepping into what used to be the place she had kept the mugs, he grinned closing the door behind him.
That was the exact moment that Joana realized it.
The field of orange energy. It was fading the darkness of Miss Yortsdayle’s yard into itself. The field was taking over again, giving the creatures in the road access to the house.
“Oh shit!” The field is coming back! What do we do? I thought your aunt had it taken care of.”
“I thought she did, too!” Tim shuddered, looking through the window at what was happening. He took Joana by the hand and said, “Maybe the stone quit working since she killed herself.”
Truth was, the stone was no longer with them in the house, but rather… worlds away, strapped to a new neck, ready to live a new life as planned. You see, the stones have power over even our names. Power over all.
“Is this it?” Joana cried, leaning into Tim.
The creatures crept closer to the house as the field started consuming the yard.
“I guess so.” Tim nodded, taking her into his arms. “I… I love you, Joana.”
“I love you too, Tim.”
That was when she realized what she wished he had realized all night. Rather than filling with panic and fear, watching the yard flood with furry bodies, Joana felt calm, as things seem to slow down around her. As she felt Tim breathing against her, she knew that he felt the same way. She knew… this was the end. Love wasn’t something you could just pick up and set down. Moving on when the person you were with didn’t meet some unrealistic expectations. Tim was fucked up, this was true. But so was she. And she would be lying if she didn’t at least admit that he had to put up with her shit just as much as she did his. Love prevailed. Never wavered. Stayed when the times got tough and the other person’s true colors shined through. She leaned up, kissing Tim on the lips. He winced a little, the cut on his lip still fresh, but he kissed her back just the same and just as passionate as the first day they had ever met.
The front door crashed open to a bunch of hissing
animal-like grunts.
The funny thing was she was okay with it all.
At least she was going to die with her heart still intact.
Other Severed Press books by P. A. Douglas
The Old One
Epidemic of the Undead
Rancid
Watchers
Hitchers
The Dark Man
Acknowledgements
For this first edition of Killer Koala Bears from another Dimension, my thanks go to everyone at Severed Press, Dane Hatchell, Alan M. Clark, and Sarah VonKain.
Special Thanks (in no particular order)
Thanks to all of you that helped me do that thing that one time. I couldn’t have done it without Mina Jones, Sam Slater Boswell, Walker Sherman, Jonathan Realz, Brittany Renee Hagood, David Frost, Alayna Fife, Jimmy Harmon, Eddy Lashney, Shaumi Wilson Todd, Jim Dodge, Barrett Bailey, Aaron Rios, Asa Lane, Nathan Parens, Ben Love, Lauren Marek, Dustin Bryson, and Jay O'Neal. You guys truly are awesome.
Killer Koala Bears from Another Dimension Page 15