Skip to main content

Small Town Talk

 They’re real, Al. That Warren boy, what’s his name—


Jeffery. 


Right! That Jeffery boy, he was scared shitless. And they’re good folk out there, Bobby is a vet too, medals and all up on his mantle. Vets don’t raise liars, Al. 


All I’m trying to say is, this Sputnik business has everybody terrified. Chasing their damn tails like sick coyotes. Lights in the sky, cars getting shut off, I mean, would you just listen to yourselves? Ain’t nothing but small town madness.. 


You sure did believe Jenny Saltrin when she came talking about Russians poking around in her backyard..


Hey! Mrs. Saltrin is a very ladylike, very Christian woman, ‘course I checked in when she said she’d seen folks in her yard at night. 



Oh, I bet that’s exactly what you did, Al, always the knight in shining armor. Was Mr. Saltrin there, too? Or out of town again?


Shut it. 


Say.. you two been getting.. odd calls, late at night? Past few nights, very early morning really— we’ve been getting the damndest calls. Phone just rings, and rings, and rings. For awhile I’d finally get my ass up to answer and it’d just be nothing. Had Dan and his boys came out, poke at the phone lines. Said everything was fine. But now, it’s different. Hissing, voices. Numbers. Just.. a man saying numbers, you know, like he’s counting lottery or something.


I won’t lie and say I ain’t been having the damndest dreams myself. 


Still think it’s all Sputnik, Al?



Shut it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Tall Grass

 Evan sat in the car and looked out into the tall grass.  The dinosaurs were out there . Up and out over the prairie was a vision of ragnarok, all tall clouds black and bruised purple painted by pinkish sunlight as dusk became night. Shadows grew long in the grass and Evan strained looking into it all, eager for a sighting. Even without seeing a thing for nearly thirty minutes— the thrill was there, he could feel it, ancient mammalian fear mixing with modern excitement.  The dinosaurs were out there! Motion, and Evan as well as his fellows in the car instantly turned, making the Jeep rock slightly. It was one of the guides, a tall and lethe woman with dark skin— she was standing. Gazing out to the left off into swaying, pink-tinted grass. Everyone seemed to hold their breath.  She whistled then— or something like a whistle came out— long and thin sounding and oddly metallic. It echoed out into oncoming twilight.  Silence.  The guide looked back at everyone ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Vanguard of the Nest

 The vast, cold intelligence maintaining the Vanguard took little mind to the unfortunate silence from Home. Even as decades and centuries turned to ceaseless, unresponsive millennia which in turn became yawning eons comprised of tens of millions of years— Vanguard continued its directives.  Mine the Stone. Birth the Legions. Keep watch. Remain silent. And so Vanguard did. Unquestioning. It’s colossal complex sprawled further down and within Lunar stone as an onslaught of harvesting machines many kilometers in size churned, chewed, cleared, and printed their way through monolithic regolith. Vanguard observed their progress where each slow, persistent mechanical moment drifted into centuries, work-schedules across millennia. Complexes the size of small continents were completed tidily, efficiently, all tethered and slaved to Vanguards super-matter heart.  The Legion, too, grew, a diligent army of genetic splicing technology unfurling and reorienting the Peoples traits. Dig...
Post a Comment
Read more

This Sovereign Place

 The lines on her arm match the lines on the ground below. She follows them. Sweat on her brow, the taste of salt on her lips and tongue, crystalline blue eyes flicking between intersecting geometry traced into flesh and lengthy, minimalistic pattern across ancient stonework.  The lines are geometric, straight, unfaltering and unbroken. Each one a thin, black-filled canal over white surface. Black lines that pass over saffron, crimson, ivory, and charcoal covered ground. Look to the flesh. Look to the ground. Back and forth. Measure each step with silent contemplation and heavy, thumping heartbeats.  The glow draped across her shoulders has slowed its strange rhythm, and the girl fears it might fade soon, it’s organic green luminescence lowering and lowering until this place is returned back to the darkness she found it in. Long, thin fingers stroke it’s cool glassy surface, warmth to cold, and the green ripples in response, purring at the base of her spine. It will last ...
Post a Comment
Read more