Individually Wrapped Horrors

by Eric Joel Kleinschmidt, Sr.

  “So to anyone who finds this, the world outside is dying and I hope to God someone can stop it before it goes belly up. I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to stop it. I’m scared. Scared of what’s out there and what tries to get in here every night. There’s a beast that is like a raptor only the damn thing’s got eight arms with huge claws on each one. I have a pit that i dug that i climb down into every night with a rope to get some sleep. I scent the top of the hole with some baby powder I had in my bag and so far, this has done the trick, but the damn thing is clever and I fear that one night it’s going to smell through the baby powder and find me. I don’t want to be eaten. I also don’t want to be poisoned by the air outside. It’s getting yellow and hard to breathe. Sometimes I forget what life was like before this happened…” More coughing, to the point of vomiting off-screen. “I’m sorry. That was highly unprofessional of me. I’m…I miss my parents.” Sniffling back the tears now. “I miss Sheila. I love you, honey. I hope you made it out OK.” More coughing. He puts a hand up to his mouth and it comes away bloody. “So much hatred in the world. We could’ve all lived long happy lives if they would’ve left it alone. So much hatred. Please help me. If you find this. If you can help me. Please help me,” he sobbed. “I don’t want to die alone.” Camera cuts off. There is no further recording.

  (Part Three: The Seed)

  There was not a single dry eye in the room as the recorded sound of his sobs ends. There was a faint murmuring as the high council was conversing on the matter. Their whole world and the crew of fifty remain still and quiet while the council speaks to one another. The high councilman spoke clearly and distinctly:

  “You shall bring the vessel home. We have no weapons nor desire to strike to up a war with demons and monsters from the deep. The dark world shall forever remain so to us from here forward. We shall have no further communication, nor shall we have further visitation of the dark world. So it has been decreed.” The captain nodded and the crew members all stood up. With the high council still on the screen, the captain said solemnly:

  “Everyone, you heard the high councilman, return to your posts and set in a course for home. Nothing further can be achieved here.” A woman’s voice, shrieking and moaning. A blur of reality in the science room for all there and all on the screen to see. A frightening blue electrical light outlines the blur and static snaps and crackles as the corpse woman Imogen is standing before them all. She fades in and out for a few brief moments, then stabilizes and is solid. The crew, the high council and the millions on their home world watching are silent and fearful. Her eyes, closed as the buzzing light fades away to a dull dim about her, spring open and look around at her audience. No one moved or breathed. She took the center of the floor and began to speak.

  “This world once called Earth has been laid low and is no more. We have been silent through the final days as we have always been through all of her days. The mother has passed away, but even now we work to birth the new mother. You will all stand witness to the great rebirth.” She silenced and stilled.

  The captain licked his very dry lips and spoke, “Who are you? What are you?” Her gaze fell quickly on the captain, but not harshly. As though a teacher recognizing and addressing the question of a student. Her rotting corpse body began to twist and alter. She shape-shifted through many forms. Now a two-headed blue demon, now the figure of a woman dressed in a black pant suit, now a doctor with a clip board and a hideous car salesman grin, now and finally, a great white glowing being, dressed in a flowing white battle dress with mighty feathered wings protruding from her back and opened to full wing span. They reached nearly from wall to wall in the science room. She was magnificent in her glorious splendor, a definitive beauty to behold. She proclaimed in a booming voice:

  “I am Zeraphyn, High Angel of End Times…and of beginnings.” She added with a trace of a grin. “I am not spoken of in any text or scripture, but I assure you, I have ever been present throughout their history…and yours.” She looked around at the high council. “You shall repurpose this dead moon into a life-sustaining entity once more. You and your young.” The high council members looked back and forth from one another whispering intensely. “This is not to your liking?” She asked.

  The high councilman stood up and demanded, “Have you not seen the devastation that has been brought to this world? That is still being brought to this world? We have no such luxuries as angels and the like with powers of the gods. We are merely mortal. Those demons and monsters down there have destroyed a planet. What threat can we few pose against them?” He looked around to the general agreement and satisfactory looks of the other members. She thought this over for a brief time, then responded kindly.

  “My Tribe of Twelve are there. They have followed me here to lay low the beasts of the apocalypse and open the way to new life once more. You shall all bear witness on your screens.” The forward screen with the high council on it, cut to a devasted wasteland. Smoldering ash and soot billowed in the stale yellow air. That same wavering of reality, only a much larger spot this time. Twelve times larger, to be precise. The blue electric light buzzed and hummed as the spoiled ground beneath gave way in swirls and puffs of acceptance. The light began to fade down to that same dull dim and the twelve robed figures stood in a semi-circle. Their heads were bowed as their hands were all clasped in front of themselves. “We are bid wait and watch and not interact in the affairs of man. We may not interfere in their wars and ways. We may only guide them once they have departed the mortal realm. The ways and wars of man are gone now, we thirteen are now free to act on behalf of the great mother Pangea, as she was once known. My Tribe of Twelve are the coming of the great cleansing. The time of purification is at hand. Witness.” All eyes, including her own, turned to the screen. The Twelve stood completely still as an aerial view of them gave all the vision of hordes of terrible horrid beasts and creatures approaching from all sides. The Twelve stood silent, waiting. The ground shook and broke open in a great many vast and titanic sections. The skeletal hands of The Twelve came out and up, reaching toward the sky, which was now crackling with that same blue electricity. The crew members’ eyes were drawn also to the side monitors showing the planet outside the ship. It was as if the atmosphere had been electrified in one very large spot and was spreading to cover the whole of the dark world. Back on the main screen, the blue light came down from the sky in a radiant blast of power that channeled in through the hands of The Twelve and lit them from heads to feet in a stunning glowing array. It became understood by all that the first wave of blue light filling the atmosphere was a shield to keep all in. Restraining the monsters in a scape-proof prison. The second blast that channeled through The Twelve blew out from them all and in every direction as a great explosion of blue fire. The monsters, the demons, anything in the path of the blast was instantly incinerated. The blood and gore that flew from the great horde of beasts never soiled the ground with its poison. It was vaporized in mud-splatter. The blast went on, nearly blinding all who watched on the screen and from their planet far far away. When, at last, the blast began to lessen, and the sight slowly came back to all witnessing the event, only The Twelve stood in their semi-circle, surrounded only by an empty and vast wasteland. The demons and all creatures of the deep were gone. The planet stood quiet and waiting.

  The great and breathtaking Zeraphyn held a closed fist out toward the captain in a silent gesture of peace. “Take this seed and let life begin anew.” He walked to her and stared fixedly at the closed fist, now uncurling with grace. He beheld a tiny seed, no bigger than a pencil eraser, and giving off that same soft blue glow. He dared not touch it for fear of what had just been seen. “Take it, I assure you it’s quite safe,” she said reassuringly. He looked up to meet her gaze and in that one second before looking back down to the seed, he beheld generations upon generations to come of life and prosperity on the reborn world. He saw families and farms and wildlife and beauties untold, he saw love and understanding and
an end to all things wicked and brutal. He saw the coming of a new people and the joining together of their races and their worlds and the harmonies to follow for centuries without end. He saw home in every possible sense of the word. His heart stayed behind with her eyes as he managed to look away. Never in all of his long days to come had he ever loved again so deeply as in that one brief moment within the angel’s eyes. He looked down to the seed and saw in fascination that his own fingers were closing around the seed. He held it safe in his grip, swearing a silent oath to give everything that was him to the planting and nurturing of this new life. He took a few steps back and bowed to her.

  “Plant it anywhere on the surface of the old world and the new world shall begin. Give it water and love and patience and time. All that you have foreseen shall come to pass.” The screen cut from The Twelve dissolving into the blue light to the exterior of the planet and the vastness of space beside it. A much larger blue fire appeared where once there had been only nothingness. Just beside the world that waited eagerly for its second chance. “This is a portal leading back to your world. It shall remain in effect until such time as travel of your own might be amended and made easier and faster. It will take you there in no time and bring you back in the same way. Use it to heal this planet, this great mother Pangea, that she might live again and sustain many forms of life. Now,” she said bowing back to them, “I shall take my leave. We will become watchers again. It is all up to you. Do not disappoint,” she said with another grin. In the flash of blue electricity, she was gone and the captain stood with his crew, holding the seed.

  On the surface of the dead planet, all traces of the beasts and the remains of mankind and even traces of their civilization were gone. It was completely erased, a clean slate. A dried-out desert world, but they found the yellow air had also cleared. There was still no breathable atmosphere as of yet, but that would change in time. The captain leaned down in his protective suit and with one gloved hand, he made a small indent in the dirt. He laid the seed down lovingly, as if putting his child to bed and tucking them in, he pulled dirt over the top of the seed and poured water on, the cup of water before bedtime, he thought. He stood to his feet with his crew around him and they all watched in splendid fascination at the first sunrise on the bright new world.

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