Saturday 8 September 2018

Lots of Lands...


I've built a literary-themed garden in recent months; and thought to base a story in the confines of this garden with some of the character in this garden. I thought 'Alice In Wonderland' and 'Hansel & Gretel' would go well.

enjoy. 

“I think we’re lost.” She said looking around at the tall, dark columns surrounding them in the darkness, “We haven’t seen the path for a while.”
Her brother turned on her, “I don’t think so. Look!” he pointed and they both saw a house sitting in its own little space, “I think this is a great place. Doesn’t it look ... like home?”
She shrugged and her hair fell over her face, “I’m not sure. But my feet hurt and I’m hungry.”
He put his around his sister’s shoulders, “Well, come on, let’s knock on the door and see who lives there.”
“You do it... I’m not going near it. The last place was huge and hissed at us.” She cringed away from him and he sighed. She watched him as her brother walked over to the door and knocked on it. It opened and a kindly old woman stepped out with her knobbly old walking cane by her side and a raven on her shoulder. She didn’t look too bad; and she walked over to the house when her brother signalled her over.
“This is my sister. We’re kind of lost... we’re wondering if you could help us please?” he asked.
“Well, well... such a day to have such polite visitors as yourselves.” She smiled, bent over with age, “Please do come in and we will eat a meal together.”
“Psst!”
She turned from the door, just before her brother led her inside, “Did you hear something?”
“It’s getting dark, let’s go. This is shelter and food.” He pointed, “And you’re hearing things?”
She glared at him, as she turned from the house, peering into the darkness, “I’m not hearing things. Somebody ‘psst’ed at me.” She backed away from the door, “And I really don’t feel safe about this place. I mean, who makes a house out of gingerbread – or what looks like it – anyway? What about cockroaches and ants? And doesn’t it get wet and soggy when it rains?”
“Sis, get inside!”
“Psst!”
She turned from the house again, “There is goes again! I’m not going inside that house!”
The bent over old woman’s grin widened as she threw away the cane and grabbed her brother, “Fine, I’ll make do with just one of you!”
She picked up the cane, which landed next to her, and started beating the woman hard, “Let him go! He’s my brother!”
The woman reached for the cane, and as though it had a mind of its own, it flew over to the old woman and into her bony hand. She spun it around and whacked him over the head once with it and he collapsed. The old woman picked up the boy as though he weight almost nothing and dragged him inside where the door slammed shut; leaving the girl outside in the dark.

It began to rain.

She stood there, pulling her coat around her knowing she wanted to get her brother out of that house, but not having the slightest idea how.
“Well, if only you had turned around and taken two more steps into the darkness, you would have run into me.” A voice said to her right; and emerging from the darkness, was a lovely white rabbit in a dark blue waistcoat. He checked his fob watch and slid it back into the pocket on his waistcoat, “You don’t have much time to get him out of there. She eats children.”
“Well, how do I do this?” she asked, “And I’m talking to a rabbit...”
His ears twitched slightly, “Just think of it, I’m talking to a girl, both our worlds have collided and we have to work around them. But if we don’t work together, we’re going to be too late... like I am. I’m late for a very important date as it is; but do you see me panicking?”
“Well, not yet.” She smiled.
“Exactly.”
“So, what do we do?”

He woke up tied to a chair.

“It’s about time you woke up. I didn’t want to run the risk of cooking you with your clothes on... have done that before. I was picking buttons out of my teeth for days afterwards.” She grumbled as she stood at the stove, tasted something and then turned from it, “Now, you’re not fat enough. I want you to eat something.”
His eyes widened: “What?”
“Eat. Now.”

The rabbit pulled a bottle from one of his pockets and it had a label on it: “Drink me.”
“Oh thank you, I’m so thirsty.”
“This is not for you.” He pulled the bottle away from her, “This is for your brother.” He pointed to the house, “Now you have to get inside there and feed it to him, and he’ll get big – really big! – and then when he gets big enough, there’ll be food for him to eat on top of that seat over there which will shrink him down to his normal size again.” He gave her the bottle.
“Only for him.”
“Yes.”
“Why can’t you do it?”
“I’m a rabbit... she’s eats everything! And she’s been trying to catch me for a very long time.” He snorted.
“Okay.” She took the bottle and sneaked over to the house, walked down the side where her brother was sitting at a table eating a meal. Oh! It looked so good! But in the time she had stood outside talking to the rabbit, he had put on a lot of weight! Her eyes widened as he gorged himself on the food there. Then, she spotted the glass he had been drinking from; it was almost empty! She reached in through the window, grabbed it, filled it with the “Drink me” bottle contents and put it back, then waited for him to drink from the glass. The moment her brother did, she watched him stop eating, looked inside the empty glass and look out the window as he started to grow, and grow and grow!
Well, the moment his left foot smashed through the wall of the house, she was running out towards the rabbit who was hopping about whispering for her to hurry up! She made it out to him just in time to see her brother grow to the size of a giant!
“Oh my! You never told me he was going to get this big!” she slapped the rabbit on the shoulder.
“Well, you never asked.” He slapped her shoulder, “And stop slapping me.”
The house was destroyed completely and the old woman ran screaming away as her raven flew off into the night. It was then, the boy looked around and spotted the cake on the seat.  It was on a plate with a note next to it: “Eat Me.”
“Oh yummy.” His voice thundered from above them, “Cake!” he picked it up and took a huge bite from it; boulder-sized crumbs fell from above, tumbling to ground, nearly landing on his sister and the rabbit. Almost as soon as he had begun to eat the cake, he put it back down, as he started to feel strange – as though he was going to be sick and turned inside out at the same time. His whole body shrank right down to the size he was before, and he found himself standing next to the wreckage of the house he had been a prisoner of for a few hours.
“Hansel!” his sister’s voice called out from the night, “Oh you’re okay!”
He turned, “Gretel!” they embraced, “I’m so glad you didn’t go inside that house. The food was okay, but it was her... she was an awful witch.”
“I got you out – with the help of the strangest fellow.” She said turning only to find that the white rabbit had vanished, “He was a white rabbit. He got me to get that liquid to you; I have no idea how that cake got there.”
“I’m not going to worry. We better be going, though, that house will be noticed in the daylight.” He said, “I did notice something when I was bigger. We will find it better in the daylight though. So, let’s stay near here for now.”
Morning broke and the two siblings started off through the Green Forest to the white castle in the corner of the realm. Hansel assured his sister they’d be safe there for a long time.

Next to the house a huge door opened and a giant stepped outside to great the day. They looked down at the house they had put there only a week before to decorate their garden, “What the hell?” the whole little house had been destroyed by something – smashed up into pieces! She grabbed a nearby bucket, “Damned possums!”

Tuesday 4 September 2018

The Experiment


I love writing vampire stories - have done since I was in my teens. And I'm a huge 'Buffy' fan too. So, why not revisit my fun-times with a high school vampire theme? Why not indeed.

enjoy.


My phone chimed again as I stood at my locker and the bell rang for class. It was Mum reminding me to not ‘dally on the way home from school.’
“Yeah, I know.” I muttered grabbing the books I needed and pushing my phone into my bag as I slammed the door and ran to my next class.
There weren’t that many kids in Mr. Clien’s English class today – less than last week – and he was starting look worried as I walked in, “Sorry I’m late.”
“No, it’s okay, sit anywhere, but closer to the front if you can.” He said offered up the empty seats there with his open arms but I hesitated as I noticed nobody else had taken them. He looked over at me, fear oozed from him; and for an adult to show it was bad, “I was told another four aren’t here today.”
“Crap.” I said without thinking, “Sorry... I didn’t mean to...”
“No... it was my reaction too. But come on, sit and we’ll get on with the class.”
I sat near Lisbeth – a chick who normally hated my guts – and she glanced over at me with a scared expression in her eyes, “Missy, are you okay?”
She asked me, “Have you seen Ben?” Ben Fencer was her boyfriend and the quarterback on the football team, “I haven’t seen him all morning.”
Shaking my head, “Normally I see him in home room, but he wasn’t in today.”
“Crap. I didn’t hear from him last night; we talk until late over homework on skype.” She said, “I have a bad feeling about him.”
Looking towards the front of the near-empty class, I sighed, “Same here.”

The bus lurched and I woke from sleeping.
The last thing I remember was walking outside to the car park where my car was to find it wasn’t there anymore. I pulled out my phone and headed back to the building to go inside... then...
“Dammit... what then?” I whispered looking down at my hands to find I was cuffed to the back of the seat in front of me. It was dark outside, and looking out the window, I had no idea where we were going.
“Missy?” a voice hissed from behind me; and I recognised it as Lisbeth’s hoarse voice, “Where are we?” I almost turned around, “Don’t turn around, they’ll notice and you’ll get beaten.”
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I looked out the window again, “I wish I knew. How’d they get you?”
“I was at cheerleader practice... they got the whole team.” She sniffed, “You?”
“I walked out to my car to find it gone. I was going to call my Mum from inside the building.”
A man in black walked up the aisle from the front of the bus, his voice deep and dark reached our ears, “No talking!”
“Yessir.” I mumbled.

We arrived to a large building in the middle of nowhere just as dawn was breaking and colouring the skies. I gazed toward the eastern horizon and wondered if my Mum knew where I was. Did she know what was going on? Was she freaking out? Did she call the police, or where they in on this whole thing?
I’d never know.
Lisbeth stood next to me in her shackles, “Makes me wonder if this will be our last sunrise.”
“Yeah, I was thinking the exact same thing.”
Once the busload of us were all lined up in twos, we were led off through the security fence and down a long path towards the building, where we were put into cells with the person next to us and left there for a day – or was a week?

We never saw sunlight again.

Lisbeth sat on her bed across from mine crying one ‘day’ when the locks on our door clanged open and the guard stood outside, “Lisbeth Henry and Missy Torrents?”
Lisbeth just sat there looking at the floor, so I answered, “Yep, that’s us.”
“Stand up. Time to move out.”
“Can I ask where we are or what is going on?” I asked.
The guard looked up from his clipboard and stepped inside the cell as I was fitted with shackles, but Lisbeth still sat there crying, “Well, your school was picked for a little experiment Missy. Goodlord who picked your name?”
“My full name is Missouri – Missy is a nickname.” I said.
“Nice. You’re parents were dumb enough to name you after a state.”
“It’s a family name.”
He blinked, blushing a little, “Oh, I see. And well, the grade point average isn’t great, neither is the football team... and well, nobody’s going to miss you all.”
“What?”
“Well, the population of your school are undergoing a few little government experiments. If it works out, well, we’ll move onto the next crappy school and do it too.” He smirked.
I didn’t know what to say, and Lisbeth cried harder as they moved onto her, but she didn’t move to get to her feet, “She’s been like this since we arrived... I tried talking to her, but Lisbeth isn’t like most kids.”
The guard nodded, “Okay... spoiled.” He pulled out his service pistol, checked the clip and readied it.
“No. She lost her boyfriend.”
“Yeah, to us.” He pointed his gun at her head.
“Lisbeth, get up or they’re going to kill you.” I snapped.
Her puffy eyes moved to me, and slowly she stood, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I turned away, thinking he was going to shoot her, but when I didn’t hear anything, I turned back to find he had put his gun back in its holster, and she was next to me, “Don’t do that again.” The moment we stepped out the door, we were given injections into our arms and darkness engulfed us.

I woke in another cell.
This one was bigger and there was a camera watching me.
Looking across the cell was another person – it was Lisbeth, but not her. It’s safe to say that this thing wasn’t human and I had every intention to get away as fast as I could. Lunging toward the glass screen, I felt a high voltage run through me and I was thrown across the room and hit the wall.
The creature just watched with fascination at my reaction towards it. Then it rose from its sitting position and moved towards me, lifted one of its long fingernailed hands towards me and looked into my face with such care I wondered if I was really in danger.
It was then I really looked into the creature’s eyes to find I was looking at ... “Lisbeth?”
“Oh my god, I’m not dreaming am I?”
“What happened? Did you come over all demon-y when you woke up?”
She snapped me a glare, “Well, in actual fact I did.”
“Oh shit. And what happens now? I’m your first meal?”
“No, I’m supposed to turn you into what I am.” She looked down at her hands, “They’re normal – kind of. But I saw a mirror when I was drowsy and waking up from whatever they did to me... and...” she began to cry again.
“Oh jeez, you have to stop crying like this.”
“Missouri, you don’t understand.”
“What?”
“I cast no reflection.” She looked me up and down, “And you smell so good right now.”