Sunday, December 31, 2017

MORNING NEVER CAME

Copyright (c) 2017 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.




By R. Peterson

It was the small black hours of the nineteenth of April, mid spring 1932 when yellow seed planted days before had turned green, peeking from between broken clods hungry for sunlight. I had just eaten a stack of pancakes and was rinsing the dishes in a bucket of cold water. A light breeze began in the trees and then hid from some nameless sidling horror. Feathery branch tenants had already begun their restless flutters … soft talon clicks on new bark … an avian orchestra tuning before a concert. We were all waiting … plants, masters and animals … but morning never came.
In my mind, night had lightened somewhat to dim … but now I’m not sure. The hands of the windup clock on the wall, a birthday gift to Emma a year before she passed, had moved well past six under the crowing chicken’s ceramic wings. There was what we called dry current in the overhead wires leading to the farmhouse, but not enough power in the lines to make the electrics glow. Where there should have been light from the windows at sunrise there was only a creeping black beyond the lamp on the table. I opened the front door but could see nothing. In vain I listened for the rumbling of the storm clouds that had surely thrown a dark blanket over my farm and the town of Cloverdale a half-mile away. When the oil-flame sputtered out I searched the house for more matches.  But no matter how many I struck, each one refused to create more than a flea-sized spark.
I was half convinced that it wasn’t the lamp but my eyes and that I’d gone blind when the bell on the new-fangled telephone sounded - six times before I managed to find the dang thing in the darkness, and that was only because I tripped over the wire leading to the empty barrel the crank box sat on. Sarah Porter scolded me for not answering quicker as she had the sheriff holding on another line and a dozen more calls to transfer. I heard Walker’s too-damn-calm voice when Sarah transferred me to his line.
“Hank, as you probably know we ain’t got any light in town today, natural or otherwise. Some strange dark cloud is covering the city and the state police have the highway blocked a mile out on each side of town. If people find their way out then that’s okay but they ain’t letting anybody in to cause accidents. We’re on our own and we want the Emerson family to help lead some of us through the darkness.” Jack and Gloria Emerson and their three teenage children were all born as blind as bats, through some chance defect of meeting, mating and a rare genetic eye disease that was passed on to their own unlucky generations. They operated a dairy with about thirty Holstein cows and were my closest neighbors going into town.
Since blind farmers cannot legally operate teams of horses let alone automobiles they walked everywhere. The town’s only blind family knew every stone and blade of grass in Cloverdale like a mouse family knows the dark foraging passages under a granary.
The sheriff asked if I thought I could make my way there as them people had no phone. I told him I figured I could just by walking straight out my front door until I touched the fence then turning right and sliding my hands (with gloves on) along the barbed wire that ran between my farm and Jack’s a quarter mile south. The sheriff said to have all five Emerson family members report to his office in town and he’d tell them what he needed done. I hated to let go of the phone but Sarah cut me off after she said she had at least a dozen people waiting to complain to the sheriff.
It was while I was searching for my gloves that the grinding sound started … like some hungry animal chewing through the wood on my porch. Darkness is a kind of fear but being alone in it is worse. I heard the screen door bang open and felt something like broom bristles bush against my leg just below my knee. Icy fingers ran up my spine. It was a full two seconds before I could breathe. I first thought of my dog Rufus but he had died a year before Emma. Thank God I found my gloves a few moments later. They lay next to my grandfather’s old single action Remington. I couldn’t remember the last time the pistol had been fired or if it was even loaded.  I jammed the gun in my overall pocket, no longer feeling safe in my own house.
It wasn’t so much wind as it was things moving through the air, like bits of rotted fabric that dissolved when you touched them. I tried to keep going in a straight line after I exited my front door but reaching the fence seemed to take forever. It was so dark I began to wonder if I’d gotten turned around and perhaps wasn’t even going in the right direction. Another of the bristly things brushed my leg and I decided they had to be tumbleweeds … but how could they be moving without wind? Finally the glove on my outstretched right hand caught on a barb and a second later I was gripping the wire fence. I wanted to run but I knew that was impossible.

-------2-------

I’d never noticed how wide the irrigation canal was that went under the fence and crossed beneath Canyon Road until I tried to step across and got both legs wet up to my waist. There was a vile smell of death that caused me to gag. Something floating in the water rubbed against the tips of my fingers. Another frosty jolt struck me as I realized it wasn’t a piece of wood but a floating corpse covered with hair, from what creature I didn’t know. I had to get away from the smell and I tore both gloves to shreds on the barbs as I ran.
I could hear the mooing of the cows when I was perhaps an eighth of a mile away. The sound was strangely comforting. Dairy herds must be milked every morning and every night come wind, blizzard or fire and I knew blind Jack and his sightless offspring would be leading the cows into the barn.
People who have come back from death have reported seeing a bright light at the end of a tunnel. I thought I might be on that same path when I noticed a glow in the distance. Fear became awe and then fear again as I approached the Emerson house. A glowing, egg-shaped object larger than the milking barn radiated greenish blue beams of light which created other glowing egg shapes around the house and several outbuildings. The glow wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the darkness completely but I could see the ground and other objects about ten yards out from each building. I was right about the morning milking. I watched Jack’s blind son David and his sister Nancy lead about twenty cows into the barn, unaware of the strange glow that covered the outside and inside of the buildings and the beams of light that led to the glowing egg. Just before the last cow ambled through the double doors, Nancy turned and cupped her hands around her mouth as she called. “Sparrrrks! Here boy. Here boy! Saaaaaatan! Here boy! Where the hell are you two mutts?”
I thought I knew where at least one of the dead dogs was.
“When we finish the milking I’ll go look for them,” David told her. “Someone on one of the nearby farms must have a bitch in heat. I trained them too well.”
“You should have had them both fixed when the Vet was here giving vaccines, then you wouldn’t have this problem,” Nancy grumbled. “It was only an extra two dollars.”
“Ouch!” David laughed. “That’s why dogs are man’s best friend and not woman’s”
I was ready to shout and make my presence known when several dark shapes passed through the light’s glow. My tongue felt like a block of ice and my voice fled into the darkness. They were at least seven foot tall, walking on broomstick legs and balancing with broomstick-like arms. The huge round heads attached to cylindrical bodies reminded me of pumpkins except for the greenish blue color and the lifeless large black saucers where eyes should have been. A wide slit halfway down each cranium opened to reveal double rows of teeth that looked like white finishing nails pounded through a thin board of flesh.
Obviously both David and Nancy were unaware of their monstrous visitors as the creatures gave them thirty seconds and then followed them inside.
I pulled the Remington from my coat pocket and started toward the barn. But I quickly stepped back into the shadows when I heard more voices.
This time it was the youngest son, Leroy herding another dozen cows toward the barn. About ten steps behind him more of the strange creatures followed. One of the broomstick monsters carried a bundle of dead chickens; over twenty orange feet were bound together with bailing wire. Another led the Emerson’s stock breeding-bull, Twister, by a short rope. Every animal on the farm large and small was being guided into the barn.

-------3-------

            I wanted to believe Gloria Emerson was in the farm house cooking breakfast. I could smell frying bacon mixed with the starchy smell of crisp hash-browns as I crept through the doorway. Despite the grave situation, my mouth watered and my stomach rumbled. But then I suddenly lost my appetite. The countertops the floor and the kitchen table were all covered with blood as if the local butcher had set up shop in their kitchen. Strips of fatty pork still sizzled in a large pan on the woodstove unaware that it would never be eaten by humans only consumed by maggots in the months to come.
            I thought I’d reached my limit of terror when I spied something flesh colored in the dust next to a table leg. Like a fool, I picked it up for a closer examination. Flaming red nail polish on the manicured end of a finger-tip caused my vocal cords to go into a kind of convulsive dance. I was screaming out loud and hurled the finger away as I lurched from the farm house.

-------4-------

            The doors to the barn were closing as I bolted toward them. The beam, slanting from the barn upward, was filled with objects flying through the translucent tube like the vacuum capsule pipelines in a large office building. I watched in horror as disjointed arms, legs and other body parts, human and animal, were sucked upward into the egg.
            I made it to the barn before the door closed and then wished I hadn’t. A mechanical ramp of some kind led to a metal platform situated about where the barn’s hayloft has previously been. A dozen of the broomstick creatures lined both sides of the ramp as people and animals were fed into a kind of shredder. Blood spattered across the inside boards of the barn and the wooden beams holding up the ceiling.
            I don’t remember aiming at anything. I was mesmerized by the huge flame that came out of the end of the barrel each time I pulled the trigger. The glowing beam of light and the broomstick creatures all disappeared just as the last body part was sucked inside the egg. The bottom of the egg looked like the open door of a blast furnace. An immense heat shriveled the stubble on my chin and I dashed outside with seconds to spare. The barn, the farmhouse and all the other outbuildings whooshed into flames.
I emptied the gun into the glowing egg rose as it rose into the air pulling the darkness with it. I remember seeing sunlight for the first time in sixteen hours as a final beam of light shot downward. My right hand felt like it was on fire and the pain was incredible. The egg got smaller and smaller until it was barely a speck disappearing into the sky. Then to my horror the darkness came again!

-------5-------

            “Bravo! Bravo!” Richard Chapman from the Montana State Police stood up from his chair and applauded. “That’s got to be the best flying egg story I’ve heard all year. His face turned from exuberant to ugly. He walked around to my side of the table, jerked me out of my seat and slapped me against the wall. “What the hell did you do with the Emerson family after you torched their farm and made off with their livestock?”
I stared at him, bemused. Thankfully the second wave of darkness had been my own mind, trying to protect me. On regaining consciousness, I’d staggered into town, headed for the Sheriff’s office. Now it seemed I was back in a nightmare.
            “I told you the truth,” I stammered. “Ask Sheriff Walker … he’s the one that sent me there.”
            “Let him go Chapman,” Sheriff Walker entered the room holding something in a plastic bag, “unless you want to explain this in court!” He dropped the bag on the table. “You were with the other cops at the roadblocks. You know something dark was keeping any sunlight from reaching our town!”
            “That don’t mean I believe in flying eggs,” Chapman sneered as he opened the bag.
            “You’ve been on the state force for what … six months? You might be a big city cop from back east but you know nothing about Cloverdale or the unbelievable things that go on in my small town.”
The look on Chapman’s face was priceless as he pulled what remained of the ancient handgun from the plastic bag. A severed finger with flaming red nail polish dropped and rolled across the table. The Remington serial number on my grand pappy’s gun as well as the black walnut hand grips looked almost new. The metal cylinder, barrel and trigger parts had turned into hardened pools of liquid steel.
            “Hell fire!” Chapman gaped. His eyes bulged like two practice cue-balls with large black-painted dots.
Completely unruffled, Sheriff Walker guided me around the table and toward the interrogation room door, careful not to bump my bandaged hand.
            “I don’t think the man under the ground had anything to do with this,” Walker said with a smile as he closed the door behind us, “… unfortunately there are far worse things outside our world.”

THE END?




Sunday, December 24, 2017

THE PROJECTOR part 7

Copyright (c) 2017 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.


By R. Peterson


The theater owner was the first up the stairs to the projection booth. The key was still in the lock; he turned it, but the door wouldn’t open. He pounded on the metal with both hands, as insane laughter erupted from inside the tiny room. “I’ve always loved Linda Blair and I can’t believe this is happening,” he moaned, as screams came from the darkened audience section of the theater. Suddenly waves of green light like fluid electrical energy flowed from under the door and washed over him. A voice saturated with insane sexuality came from inside. “I love you too … you always lick your lips when you see me in the Welch's commercials … it’s #%$^%$# time we hooked up.”
Cranston’s long hair stood on end and wild looking eyes bulged from his head as dismay suddenly turned into a childish smile. “I did promise everyone some fun and excitement,” he blabbered. “What’s more fun than warm toast dripping with grape jam?”

“We’ve got to stop this movie from showing or by the time the credits roll every person in Cloverdale will be possessed by that demon from The Exorcist,” Jesse yelled at his friend, over Cranston’s insane laughter.
Kurt scrambled up the stairs and pulled the man away from the locked door. “If I remember right, the fuse-box is in the basement,” he told Jesse. “See if you can shut the power off to everything while I try to help Mr. Cranston!”

            Jesse disappeared down the hallway leading to the basement as Cranston collapsed in a heap. “Are you okay?” Kurt leaned over him. “I’m here to help you!” Cranston suddenly vaulted upward in jealous fury and seized him by the neck. “She’s mine! I don’t need you here!” In a display of ethereal strength he lifted the youngster over his head and flung him down the stairs. “You want to help?” Cranston’s eyes cleared for just a moment before he pointed toward the basement. “Go make some popcorn … a lot of popcorn … it sounds like our audience is becoming very hungry.”

This time the door to the projection booth opened and a demonically possessed Regan MacNeil took Cranston’s hand and pulled him inside. “Glad you could join me, lover,” she hissed. “I need your help to get this #%$^*@$ party off the ground!”
Then the metal door once again slammed shut.


-------2-------


A metal cabinet with two rows of fuses and switches hung from a cement wall behind a pile of broken seats, a dozen fifty-five gallon drums and an enormous bubble-top Pop King popcorn machine in one corner of the basement. The popcorn maker was on wheels and was relatively easy to move even with its monster size. Jesse noticed a plate on the side that read: Callahan Industries and figured it must have been one of Joseph Callahan’s earlier failures. It figures Jesse thought. Everything that man does is over-the-top.
The drums would barely budge. Jesse figured each one had to weigh in excess of three-hundred pounds and started to walk them across the concrete inch by inch until he noticed a hand truck in the corner. He opened the lid on one barrel as he sat it down and wasn’t surprised to see that it was filled with enormous kernels of un-popped corn each seed the size of his thumb.
It took Jesse a couple of minutes before he could clear the rest of the litter and reach the power main shut-off lever. His hand was six inches from the rubber-coated handle when a high voltage charge surged outward and knocked him to the ground. A demonic image made of static electricity flowed from the box and flooded the room with insane laughter. “Try that again #%$^@$ now that your pants are wet!”


-------3-------

Kurt was staring into the darkened theater entrance when Jesse arrived out of breath. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to shut off the power,” he gasped.
“Then we’re in trouble!” Kurt pointed.
“Good God!”
“I don’t think God’s doing this!”


Screams filled the theater each time the projector stopped, ran in reverse and replayed a three-second close-up of a deathly white face turning and spraying the camera with green spittle.  “Your mother #%$^@  #^$%# in Hell!” Each time the possessed girl opened her mouth, dark specks flew from between her jagged, bleeding teeth and joined a swarm in the air above the projector’s beam.  A corpse-stiff Ruben Butterfield rotated slowly in the air above the center section. Nancy Benton, standing on the armrests of her seat, tried to pull her boyfriend down while next to the ceiling shadow fingers made of legs and wings tugged at the moaning cowboy with invisible strings. Fleeing audience members were trampled in the aisle by a charging rhinoceros as the silhouette of a girl vaulted across the front of the screen pursued by what looked like two upright running Dobermans made of squirming crawlies. Sheriff Walker’s fire breathing Colt 45 roared twice as he was lifted into the air and disappeared in the cloud of buzzing flies. Jesse looked for Chloe O’Brian but didn’t see her or her friend. He thought that under the circumstances … that was a damn good thing.

“Does Cranston have any idea how to stop this?” Jesse moaned.
“He’s out of his mind and the demon is making him run the projector,” Kurt said with a shrug. “He told us to make popcorn … but he must have been insane because he was pointing toward the basement.”
Jesse’s eyes lit up. “All matter has weight and occupies space right?”
            “You’re asking someone who got a D is physics?”
“Callahan created this monster with his projector invention,” Jesse said.  “Maybe one of his earlier creations is our way out of this trouble!”
            “What are you talking about?”
            “There’s only so much space in this theater even for light beams or demons!”  Jesse started for the basement and Kurt followed. “Perhaps we can slow them down until the film ends!”


-------4-------


            Kurt and Jesse moved the Pop Corn machine and two barrels of corn up the stairs and partway down the hall. They went back for one more, careful to stay away from the electrical fuse-box which now had an eerie blue/red glow. “Something in this place is using an enormous amount of power,” Jesse said.
            “How can you tell?”
Jesse pointed to a power meter on the far side of the fuses. An old fashioned rotary dial was spinning like an airplane propeller.
            “Wow! I’d hate to pay this theater’s Comanche County electric bill!”
            “If we don’t stop this madness there won’t be a theater.”
Kurt agreed. “… or a Comanche County!”

            “This is going to be the tricky part,” Kurt said as they tilted the popcorn maker onto the hand truck. The threshold above the doorway leading into the theater was covered with flies as if the air above the seats could no longer contain them and they were spilling out into the hall. The screams coming from inside seemed muffled … as if covered by a blanket.
            “I say we push this thing past as quickly as possible and into the lobby,” Jesse said. “We don’t stop for anything!”
            “Not even for an invitation to make out on the back row with Chloe O’Brian,” Kurt snickered.
            “If that happened,” Jesse said. “I’d be too worried about her head spinning around on her shoulders to enjoy myself … let’s go!”

For a couple of minutes it looked like their plan might succeed. They moved the enormous popper past the doorway and two of the barrels filled with corn into the lobby. It was when they went back for another barrel that all hell broke loose. Ruben Butterfield came charging out of the screaming theater surrounded by a cloud of flies. “Doesn’t this guy ever take a bath?” Kurt was tilting the last corn barrel back on the hand truck.
“You little pecker-wads are done for!” Ruben thundered as he lunged for Kurt.
“You may have a demon or two inside you … but you still move like a cow on ice-skates!” Kurt laughed. He released the metal latch at the top of the hand cart and the barrel fell onto its side. It only took one kick from his boot to start it rolling. Ruben was knocked down like the last pin in a bowling alley.
“We’re not out of the woods yet!” Jesse yelled. The door to the projection booth opened and a furious Regan MacNeil spider walked down the stairs’ wall.
“Better get that corn popping,” Kurt told him. “I can’t keep these people entertained forever!”

Jesse vaulted past Kurt just as his friend jumped over the barrel and grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall. “You going to be okay?”
“Sure what’s a Star like me against a few Devils?”
Just then a crowd of possessed people surged outward from the darkened theater entrance.
            “A few Devils?”
            “Oops! Didn’t know I was so popular! Better make it a hundred!”
Jesse ran into the lobby and plugged in the giant popcorn maker. He used a bucket to pour corn from the barrel into a side hopper. He only hoped the machine would heat up fast. Kurt was filling the entire hallway up to the ceiling with fire extinguisher foam. One figure fought his way through the white bubbles and lunged toward him. It looked like Ruben sculpted into a snowman. “I’m going to #%^%$# kill you!”
            “Better hurry, Paco!” Kurt yelled. “I’m running out of songs!”
The tile floor in the hallway proved to be slippery and Ruben fell for the second time in less than a minute. His enormous bulk and the overturned barrel created a crude kind of barricade. Luck appeared to be on his side and Kurt was almost ready to laugh when Regan appeared skittering along the wall. She stopped and pointed a bony finger. Kurt was lifted off the ground and into the air. “Hurry, Paco! Hurry!” he yelled.


-------5-------


Jesse was thankful that all the demonic eyes were on his friend even though he felt sorry for Kurt. They had him suspended in the air thrashing with his arms and legs while squadrons of flies tried to land on his body. “Join us and together we’ll rule the galaxy,” Regan told him.
            “That’s got to be the corniest line I’ve ever heard!” Kurt laughed.
Jesse could feel intense heat coming from the machine. Just then the first kernel of corn popped with a loud bang. It was at least ten inches across and echoed down the hallway like a gunshot.
            “Now I know why this popcorn maker failed,” Jesse said. “They couldn’t find any bags big enough!” A moment later, the second kernel popped and then a third. Within seconds the popping corn sounded like a high powered machine gun.

Jesse struggled to keep the hopper full as the giant popped corn blew out the glass dome above the machine and quickly filled the room and spilled into the hallway. The screams coming from inside the theater were replaced with a kind of crunching sound as every available place in the theater was stuffed with the giant puffs of corn.

It took almost an hour for Jesse to find the entrance to Townsend Avenue and open the glass doors to the Royal Theater. Elephant sized popcorn spilled onto the sidewalk and then into the street.

-------6-------

            Kurt and Jesse stood on the sidewalk in front of the theater and watched as construction equipment dumped scoops of the giant popped corn into the backs of dump trucks. Most of the audience had left. Sheriff Walker was assuring a half-dozen deputies that he was okay. Jesse watched as Chloe O’Brian and Susan McKinney climbed into the back of one of Chloe’s father’s limousines. The long black car slowed as it started past and then stopped. The tinted glass in the back came down with an electric swish. “I saved you a seat but you never showed,” Chloe said looking at Jesse. “I don’t know how many chances you’re going to get!”
Both boys gaped as the car sped away.
            Cranston came out of the theater saw the boys and walked over. “Thank you,” he said. “The night was a disaster but you two saved my theater and probably the whole town.”
            “How do you know the demon from the movie isn’t lurking around somewhere?” Kurt asked.
            “I didn’t want to take any chances, Cranston said. “So I burned all seven reels of the movie in the theater furnace. I’ll pay the distributor for new copies.”
            “What makes you think this won’t happen with the next movie you show?” Jesse was looking at a poster in the theater window advertising WEST WORLD with Yul Brynner.
            “The mechanical mouse that Callahan gave you proved to be more resilient than anyone thought,” Cranston said. “The demon possessing Linda Blair thought the robot had been destroyed but shortly after the film ended I found that it had recovered and removed the Aremac from the projector.” He handed Kurt the tiny robot … and the alien device.


-------7-------


Kurt and Jesse found themselves alone on the street as the last police car and dump truck left and they watched the theater owner drive away. Kurt spied a kernel of the huge popped corn hanging in a shrub near the sidewalk. He held it with both hands and took a bite. “Yuck!” he said as he spat out a mouthful.
            “Not big on taste huh?” Jesse laughed.
            “Not bad,” Kurt said. “But it could use some butter … a lot of it!”
Jesse looked at his watch. “It’s only a little past 2 AM. Do you think your mother will still be working?”
            “Someone is usually at Spare-A-Dime all night on the weekends,” Kurt said. “We might as well get something to eat … while we wait for the city library to open.”
            “The library?” Jesse laughed. “As far as I know you’ve never buried your nose in a book unless you absolutely had to … and most of the time not even then.”
            “Joseph Callahan said this Aremac is kind of a reverse camera,” Kurt said turning the alien artifact over in his hand. “Instead of turning something real into an image, it can turn an image into something real.”
            “So what are we looking for?” Jesse asked, “Pictures of machine guns … maybe a tank or two … something to scare away the Hodemedod from that pretty Momett girl?”
            “Just a present for Sarah when we find her,” Kurt sighed. “Something that shows her she no longer has to hide her face … when she’s in my world.”

It began to rain. A sallow moon slipped from behind moving storm clouds and made the old buildings and asphalt on the streets glisten as the two boys walked down the almost deserted street toward the lights of the corner café in Cloverdale … the strangest small town on Earth.

THE END?




Sunday, December 17, 2017

THE PROJECTOR part 6

Copyright (c) 2017 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.


By R. Peterson


The boys left the forbidden darkness of Motha Forest a lot faster than they’d ventured in. Kurt figured they’d already wasted too much time and all but raced through the dark pipe pulling Jesse along behind. He was thinking of the captured Momett, Sarah, and what the Hodemedod might be doing to her and not his flashlight beam that kept bouncing off his friend’s coat. Jesse didn’t notice the wiggling in his pocket until it was too late.
The robot that Joseph Callahan had loaned them to extract the alien device from the Royal Theater’s projector and which they affectionately named Mickey had “gnawed” a hole in the heavy material until it was big enough to wiggle through and then fell to the ground with a clunk.
 Jesse’s flashlight showed the metal rodent up-righting itself on the floor of the tunnel. The mechanical contraption twisted its pivoting head to look up at them. Miniature gears spinning inside the body sounded like the warning sound of a Rattle Snake.
 The “mouse” slashed the air with tiny metal claws when Kurt reached for it.

“I thought that thing was supposed to be asleep!”
“You woke it up by bouncing your flashlight around!”
Joseph Callahan had explained that the robot operated on a series of dark matter switches similar to those in a computer that could be activated with light pulses instead of electricity. The boys had only seen computers in magazines, but they sort of grasped the idea.
“What’s the command for shutting it off?”
Jesse pulled out the paper the inventor had given him with a long list of commands. “Mmmmm …dark for ten seconds … then three short, three long, three short.”
Both boys shut off their flashlights and counted to ten. Kurt turned his on with two short flashes before they noticed the robot mouse was missing. “Where did it go?”
Suddenly Kurt’s light clattered on the floor as he shrieked. “It’s going up the inside of my pants!”
Jesse’s voice held a hint of laughter as his friend twisted and danced along the tunnel. “What was the code again?”
            “Three short, three long and three short!” Kurt bawled.
            “Did you know that’s Morse code for an emergency?” Jesse’s voice took on a tone of relaxed wonder as he casually turned on his own light.
            “This is an emergency,” Kurt bellowed. “Shut it off!”
            “We better start over again.” Jesse shut off his light and after listening to frantic screams in the dark for ten seconds finally shut the robot down with the code flashes. “I guess this time I’d better keep it wrapped in this black cloth.” He held up the material Callahan had given him.
            Kurt carefully extracted the mechanical mouse from inside his pant leg and then snatched the dark cloth from Jesse’s hand. “I’m keeping Mickey from now on!” he vowed as he wrapped the tiny robot ever so tightly.

-------2-------


The one thing the boys didn’t plan on after they came out of the tunnel and into the basement of an abandoned farm house was a ride back to Cloverdale. It was still over an hour until dawn when they started running and after a mile without seeing any car lights they began to walk.
“The thing I like most about our adventures is all the careful planning,” Kurt wheezed.
“It takes a little more effort on my part but the results are worth it,” Jesse told him trying to catch his breath.

They had almost reached the bridge where Comanche Creek crossed Canyon Road when they finally saw approaching headlights in the distance.
            “That looks like old-man Romer’s truck.” Kurt peered into the dusty dimness as the vehicle approached. “What’s he doing up so early?”
            “He’s always up before dawn,” Jesse said. “I worked for him last summer. He struts up and down all five of his chicken houses playing Oh Susanna on a Jews Harp. He claims it makes his hens lay bigger eggs.”
Jesse walked out onto the road and Romer skidded his truck to a stop when he saw them waving. A drooling hound dog, half as big as a cow, crowded the torn seat next to him.
            “You young Toms ain’t been out rustling chickens or stealing eggs have you?” He looked at both boys suspiciously.
            “No sir,” Jesse said. “We just need a ride into the Royal Theater in Cloverdale.”
            “Well you ain’t carrying no bags,” Romer said. “So you’re either honest … or more likely stupid. Climb in the back but don’t crowd my livestock!”
Kurt noticed the smell but didn’t have time to complain before Jesse pushed him into the back of the truck and then climbed in and closed the tail gate behind them. “Pigs! What the …?”
            “I’ve got about two hours of chores left before I deliver these hogs to the skinner in town,” Romer snorted. “You boys can work off your ride.” He started the truck with a rattle and a bang. He yelled out the side window through the dust as the rattling contraption began to pick up speed. “But you ain’t going to see no damn movie this early in the morning … not when you both belong in school!”

            Three busses were unloading when Romer careened  to a stop in front of the Junior High School. The sound of squealing pigs caused a group of girls standing on the sidewalk to shriek and then burst out laughing as Kurt and Jesse tumbled out the back of the truck. Jesse noticed Chloe O’Brian staring with a look of horror on her face.
            “Remember,” Kurt mimicked Jesse’s voice as he nudged him. “It’s the extra effort and careful planning that makes all the difference.”

Romer, who was in no hurry, saw the crowd and decided to show off his musical talents. Giggling, the girls stuck around to listen, and they all made a point of holding their noses as the boys hurried past.

-------3-------

            For the first time after he began teaching at the school Coach Evans had two boys shower before P.E. class. Any thoughts of sloughing school and trying to get inside the Royal Theater to fix the projector were dashed when Principal Moss (Porky) personally escorted the boys to each period and waited outside each classroom door thumping the palm of his hand with a metal yardstick.
            When the final bell rang, Kurt and Jesse were sprinting toward West Townsend Avenue trying to get to the movie theater but of course a still angry Ruben Butterfield was cruising up and down the streets and they had to run through backyards and allies before they finally lost him.
By the time they reached the theater it was after six and Mr. Cranston had locked up the show house and gone home for the night. Kurt nudged Jesse as they walked toward the Spare-A-Dime café where Kurt’s mother worked. “There’s always tomorrow.”
            “Tomorrow’s Friday and that’s when the movie begins,” Jesse said. “What if we can’t fix the projector in time?”
            “Then I guess people will get what they want,” Kurt told him. They both turned to look at the Marquee already glowing for tomorrow night’s premier. COMING FRIDAY the lighted sign read. THE EXORCIST … a night you’ll never forget!
            “I’ve got a feeling we’re all going to get it,” Jesse said.

-------4-------

            Kurt and Jesse were first in line at the theater when it opened. Cranston was alone taking tickets. “My wife had to go to Billings her mother is sick,” he explained.
            “We talked to Callahan and got something to fix the projector,” Jesse told him. “Can we go up?”
            “I’ve got the door to the projection booth locked,” Cranston told them as he handed Jesse a key. “Do the repairs fast and make sure there are no mistakes … I can’t afford to have things go amiss two weeks in a row.
            The boys had to push their way through crowds of people to get to the stairs that led up to the projection room. Jesse noticed Chloe O’Brian and Susan McKinney buying Cokes from Cranston. Susan saw them and pointed as she yelled loud enough to get everyone’s attention.  “Where are your dates boys? As long as those pigs are under six they get in for half price.” Jesse tried to ignore her and the deafening laughter but the girls’ words stung like a broken nest of hornets.

            The door at the top of the stairs was indeed locked. Jesse could see light coming from beneath the frame as Kurt fumbled with the key. “Got you little %#$@%$#$ now!” Ruben Butterfield charged up the stairs like an enraged rhino.
            “No,” Jesse begged him. “I promise you can kill us later. Right now we have to fix the projector or something awful is going to happen to this town.”
            “You’re right about that,” Ruben Bellowed as he swung his beefy fist. “Starting with you two #%$%^$%#.”
Jesse saw the punch coming and ducked but Kurt was just about to insert the key in the lock. Ruben’s flying fist knocked it out of his hand. They heard an ominous tinkling sound as it fell between the stair risers. Sheriff John Walker happened to be walking past the foot of the stairs with his wife just as Ruben pulled his fist back for another punch. “Everything okay up there?” Walker stopped and stared.
            “Sure,” Ruben said pushing past the sheriff with a smile. “Just saying Hi to a couple of friends.”

Both boys tried to recover the key after the sheriff left but it was just out of reach. Jesse had to buy a large package of Juicy Fruit gum from Cranston.
            “What’s going on?” the theater owner was worried. “I should have started the film five minutes ago!”
Kurt could hear people in the darkened theater chanting … Start the show! … Start the show!

After allowing Kurt to straighten an unused coat-hanger Cranston followed them to the tiny stairs. “You dropped the key?”
            “He had some help,” Jesse assured him as him and Kurt each chewed large mouthfuls of gum.
            “You haven’t run the film yet … have you?” Kurt noticed a faint flickering from the light under the door … as if someone or something was moving around inside.
            “Just past the opening credits and then back to make sure the film was threaded correctly,” Cranston said. “I didn’t do anything wrong did I?”
Kurt moaned.
            “I guess we’re going to find out,” Jesse told him. He attached a large gob of sticky gum to the end of the coat hanger and with a bit of maneuvering was able to recover the key.

Kurt already had the mechanical mouse out and was programming the code Callahan had given them into the tiny robot by blinking his flashlight.
            “What do we do now?” Cranston asked as the door swung open.
            “Nothing,” Jesse told him. “This robot will remove the alien device from the projector and the show can begin.”

            A cooling fan was running on the projector and a slight breeze blew Kurt’s hair back as he sat Mickey on the floor and flashed his flashlight four times to start it. They didn’t notice the apparition crouched in a dark corner until the mechanical mouse started to skitter across the floor.

With a shriek meant to terrify the dead, a larger than life Linda Blair, complete with gleaming demon eyes and glistening boils on her deathly white face, crab-walked quickly across the ceiling on spidery legs and dropped to the floor before them. “Did you %^&$% think it would be so easy to defeat me,” she hissed. Each of her eyes turned a different direction. “Impossible! For as you %$%#^%# shall soon see … I am legion!”

Kurt, Jesse and Mr. Cranston watched the demon crush Mickey the mechanical mouse with her heavy boot, split open to accommodate a cloven foot, just before they were blown backward by a wave of green vomit. They had tumbled most of the way down the stairs when the door slammed and locked behind them.

It was no longer than six seconds from the time they heard the projector start running … that the terrifying screams from inside the darkened theater began.

TO BE CONTINUED …
           
           

         
         
         



Sunday, December 10, 2017

THE PROJECTOR part 5

Copyright (c) 2017 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.


By R. Peterson


            Kurt started to sprint towards the sound of Sarah’s scream. “We can’t help her until we find a way to cross the stream,” Jesse said pulling him back. “Melania’s old lover is our only hope.” Kurt listened carefully to the noises in the distance; he thought he could hear triumphant voices shouting as if some powerful hunting pack had brought down prey … abrasive, beast-like voices. “I think she’s been caught by those Hodemedod creatures … or worse!”
            “Let’s hope it’s the first.” Jesse dragged his best friend toward the old textile mill. “Look! There’s a light on upstairs … I hope its Joseph Callahan.” When no one answered after they’d pounded on the rotted-wood, they kicked-open the door and went inside.
            Melania’s flashlights showed they were in a small office where bent and broken file-cabinets leaned drunkenly against each other. The floor was carpeted with shredded paper. Kurt picked up a handful.  Pages from a yellowed scientific magazine had been chewed into rodent nesting material. A wall-mounted shelf hung by one bent nail. Jesse pulled a moldy book from the pile and wiped off the cover:  The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences by William Whewell. “Wow! This book was published in eighteen-forty,” he said. “I’ve got a feeling that even if we find the old man alive; he’s going to have a lot more wrinkles than Melania Descombey.”
Kurt agreed. “Cloverdale’s resident witch uses magic to keep herself young … I don’t think even Joseph Callahan’s brilliance can compete with that!”
 A doorway in the back led into a large manufacturing area. Obsolete nineteenth-century textile machinery had been pushed against a wall. Gurney like tables covered with thousands of tiny weights, gears and other parts in various stages of assembly gathered dust the center of the room. When they were almost across the large working area, Jesse shone his light on a tiny mechanical object with silk wings and blew off the dust. “Now we know where Melania got her flying cuckoos,” he said.
An empty elevator dangling from a frayed cable had stopped a foot above floor level; Kurt and Jesse decided to use the stairs.

-------2-------

When they’d shoved open a heavy stainless steel door, Kurt and Jesse were almost blinded by the lights on the second floor. Blinking, they switched off their borrowed flashlights.
 While the ground level of the building had been dark, dingy and highly antiquated, this level was the exact opposite. The room was spotlessly clean with walls so brilliantly white that they appeared to glow.  Spinning, blue-red globes orbited a strange light-absorbing sphere just below the ceiling with no apparent electrical attachments. Laboratory test-tubes ranging from a few inches to over twelve feet tall and other scientific instruments filled the room producing radiant chromatic gases that reflected off highly polished floors as they were collected and transferred to other areas by an elaborate snowflake-like maze of clear glass piping. There was a buzzing sound at such a high frequency that at times it pitched to inaudible, but they both knew it remained in play: it tickled their skin and turned caution into involuntary smiles. Both boys felt like children lost in a scientist’s dream-forest, giggling as they wandered across the enormous work area.
Kurt was the first to notice the only other person in the room. He was floating peacefully inside a liquid filled chamber with tubing and wires running from a metallic band attached to his ankles. He looked to be in his early twenties, although from an earlier century. Most of the hoses and electrical connections coming from the vessel disappeared into a room-sized operations console with hundreds of digital readouts and a flashing red-light near the floor. Jesse was the first to notice the electrical plug pulled out of an outlet near the base of the device. It dangled in the air just above what looked like the skeletal remains of a feline and food and water bowls labeled F-7.
Kurt looked at Jesse shrugged his shoulders and then plugged in the cord. The buzzing stopped and was replaced by bubbling and splashing sounds as the human inside was lifted from the tank by a hydraulic device. The man opened his eyes shortly after the robot arm passed him through a hoop that appeared to suck all the moisture off his body leaving him dry. “How long was I asleep?” he groaned as the arm deposited him on the floor.
“We have no idea,” Kurt said pointing toward the plug. “You were pulled from the tank when I plugged this in.”
 The man shook his head when he saw the remains of the cat. “I thought I had genetically removed all curiosity from Felix with this new model but I was obviously wrong. Looks like he played with the timer power-cord until he dislodged it from the receptacle. I was planning on a fifteen-minute nap…” He stared at some of the digital numbers. “It looks like I accidentally slept for over twenty months!”
“What were you doing floating in that thing?” Jesse had his own curiosity.
“Being emerged three times a day in body-temperature Amniotic fluid mixed with a few ounces of water from the Stream of Youth is so very relaxing,” the man opened a door on one side of the console that turned out to be a closet. As he got dressed he continued to explain. “A fifteen minute nap can leave you as refreshed and alert as an athlete who has slept soundly for eight hours … and it does wonders for the body’s’ natural aging process. Although now I’m saturated to the point where I literally can’t live without several naps and at least twelve hours at night!”
“You never asked us who we are or why we’re here!” Kurt was astonished.
The man stooped and calmly tied his shoelaces. “I make a point of never introducing myself to strangers when I’m naked,” he said just before he held out his hand. “I’m Joseph Callahan and this is my workshop.”

-------3-------

            Kurt and Jesse had just finished telling Mr. Callahan about the projector in the Royal Theater and how it was bringing things on the film to life … literally.
            “Amazing!” Joseph said. “I utilize advance planning on all of my endeavors … right down to the smallest detail. I had the projector finished and waiting on the loading ramp for the delivery man along with notes and a suggested price. I had planned to accompany the equipment into Cloverdale and I thought I would have several weeks to test it out along with Mr. Cranston before it was put into use!”
            “How can a projector bring things on film to life?” Jesse was astonished. “It has to be magic!”
            “Magic is only advanced technology that we don’t understand,” Joseph told him. “Years ago I discovered several pieces of equipment at the bottom of Palisade’s Lake in South East Idaho that I believe were left by a UFO. I’ve been doing experiments on the alien equipment for some time. The projector that Mr. Cranston is using in his theater uses a piece of alien technology that I call an Aremac. A camera captures something that is real into and converts it into an image … this device does just the opposite. The Aremac attached to the projector captures an image and converts it into something that is real.”
            “Then you knew what the projector was going to do?” Jesse stammered, “And you didn’t care?”
            “Any inventor has to place profits before ethics or he is soon out of business,” Callahan said. “But I am sorry.”
            “I was nearly raped in the city park … and you’re sorry?” Kurt’s outrage held the hint of a smile.
            “I had only planned on the image being flashed on the screen for one-twenty-fourth of a second,” Callahan explained. “Just long enough to give a sense of realism. I didn’t plan on the film breaking and getting caught in the lens …. I’m afraid this over-exposure is what brought your attacker, Miss Bardot, to life.”
            “You’ve got to help us,” Jesse said. “Cranston plans on showing The Exorcist this Friday night. If that demon possessing Linda Blair gets loose in Cloverdale who knows what will happen?”
            “And you think there’s a chance the film will break again?” Callahan looked thoughtful.
            “This is Coverdale we’re talking about,” Kurt said. “We’ll be lucky if the projector doesn’t catch fire and create a legion of demons … one for every bedroom closet in the city!”
            “Can you come with us and help us remove this Aremac from the projector so that the town is no longer in danger?” Jesse was feeling hopeful; he thought there was at least a good chance that the strange inventor would help them.
            “I’m afraid removing the alien device might prove to be difficult,” Callahan said. “The alien technology was obviously built to withstand tampering by other life forms. I had to create tiny robots to work on the device. Whenever I tried to make adjustments with my own hands I received what felt like a large electrical current that made my hair stand on end and my tongue turn yellow for several days … along with even more dreadful maladies related to certain necessary bodily functions.”
            “Robots like the tiny flying birds on the floor below us?” Jesse said. “We saw similar flying contraptions come out of a clock in Melania Descombey’s house just before we came here.”
            “I created that cuckoo for Melania on her eightieth birthday,” Callahan said. “She was delighted and for a while I considered manufacturing them for sale to others on a large scale … I’m afraid I got caught up in other things and never finished that project.”
            “But you will come with us?”
            “I’m afraid I can never leave Motha Forest again,” Callahan said. “Since I’ve started emerging myself thrice daily in Amniotic fluid and water from The Stream of Life my body has adjusted to the effects and now I can’t live without it. Even a couple of hours without a bath and I turn into a flopping fish out of water.”
            “Then there’s no way we can stop the film from running?”
            “Oh, I can allow you to borrow one of my robots,” Callahan said, “and I can show you how to use it to remove the Aremac. But you must be very careful. I’ve only skimmed the surface of this alien technology; who knows what lies in the depths of their strange and exotic knowledge?”
            “One other thing,” Kurt told him. “On the way here we met a girl who her head covered by a hood. Her name was Sarah and we think she might have been captured by some kind of ferocious beasts … she called them Hodemedod. Do you know a way we can safely cross the Stream of Youth?”
            “The Momett,” Callahan said. “I’ve been hearing reports of escalating violence in their part of Motha Forest for years … but I’m afraid I cannot help you. I made an agreement with the Momett leaders and with the forest trust administered by Sean O’Brian many years ago never to interfere in their affairs under any circumstances. To do so would banish me from these lands forever and as I’ve told you … I can no longer live without my frequent baths … or the legendary water that makes them work.”

-------4-------

            Kurt and Jesse left the old mill with a tiny mechanical rodent in Jesse’s coat pocket and a promise to be careful when the removed the Aremac from the film projector. “We have to hurry,” Kurt said starting to run.
            “It’s only Wednesday,” Jesse said. “We have a couple of days.”
            “The sooner we remove that alien device the sooner we can get back here to help Sarah,” Kurt told him.
            “We still haven’t figured out a way to cross the Stream of Youth,” Jesse argued.
            “We need to stop at the library after we fix the projector and use the copy machine,” Kurt said. “Callahan told us the Aremac could bring any image to life … like a bridge or guns … things we can use to free Sarah!”
Jesse chased after his friend … and he knew their troubles were just beginning …

TO BE CONTINUED …