Zombies, Vampires, Aliens, and Oddities: A Collection of Short Stories and Flash Fiction

by Robertson, Michael

  Pouting, Josh said, “He also said they’d be back.”

  “Maybe they have gone back. Maybe we’ve just missed them.”

  “Don’t say that, Archie.”

  “What could we have done? Stayed in a burning house? The point is, he said we need to adapt. Nothing stays the same; it just happens to be moving quicker now than ever. Dad said as long as we love each other, then we’ll be okay. Love is constant.”

  “I miss Mum and Dad.”

  It was the first time in a long while Josh had seen Archie cry. Wiping his eyes, his big brother said, “I miss them too. I love you, Josh. Now let’s go before that lunatic comes back. All we can do is focus on getting to Nana’s.”

  With the sting of tears spreading across his eyeballs, Josh followed his brother out of the building.

  End.

  ***

  Teeth is set in the world of my Crash books. Book 1 of Crash can be downloaded for FREE here:

  Crash

  Skin Deep

  The brightest suns create the thickest shadows. I live in the shadows. With the hot sun at my back, I hide in the shadow created by my large brimmed hat. I always keep the sun behind me, even if it means taking the long way to places. I dip my head and watch the floor. It saves people having to look at me.

  At least I’m going out during the day now. For the longest time I’d only go out at night, moving through the dark like a rapist or murderer. Like the fucking animal that did this to me. Whenever someone would see me—my rictus grin, my clown makeup, my bulging eyes—they would scream or gasp and about face.

  That’s the worst part of it. It’s not the pain—the searing burn when you can almost hear the hiss of corrosion; of flesh being devoured; skin evaporating. That’s temporary, even with the post-traumatic stress. It’s not the reek of my melting face that’s left its mark tattooed in my sinuses. It’s not the first look in the mirror, because monster or not, it’s still me. I know who I am.

  It’s…

  A child of no more than about six-years-old looks up at me. Dressed as a princess, she turns to her mother. “Mommy, there’s a clown behind us.”

  The mother and I make eye contact. Her eyes widen and she pulls her daughter close.

  “Do you think she has a balloon, Mommy?”

  The woman yanks her daughter into the nearest shop. Both of them stare while I walk past as if the window’s a one-way mirror.

  It’s not the first time I’ve heard it and it won’t be the last. The girl’s right; my thick foundation and permanent maniacal smile do make me look like I should be at the circus.

  And to think, I used to be a model. When I walked down the street I’d cause traffic jams. Now I cause accidents.

  I’ve been condemned and my only crime was that I didn’t move quickly enough. The acid was eating my face and searing my throat before I realised what he’d done. I mean, I knew he was mental—that’s why I left him—but how could I have seen the attack coming?

  When he gets out of prison, he’ll have the anonymity of looking normal. No matter how dark his soul is, he can pretend to be like everyone else. He’ll blend into the crowd while I wear the evidence of his violent past. While I carry the shame for what he’s done.

  I stop before turning the corner, my heart beating, my breath shallow. This is the busiest part of my route. It’s the worst part to walk down.

  A wobble runs through me as I take an arid gulp. The air hurts my scarred esophagus.

  Why am I doing this? Why am I hiding who I am? I’ve done nothing wrong! People will stare, that’s okay, it’s not every day you see someone so hideously burned as me. But am I helping by hiding it away? All I’m showing them is that it’s something to be ashamed of. That it’s something to stare at. I need to stop living a life based on how I think others perceive me. I need to stop carrying his shame.

  With shaking hands, I remove the hat and stuff it into the bin next to me. I’m sure my hair’s a mess, not that anyone will notice. This has to end now. Let them stare.

  Deep breaths, darling, deep breaths.

  I step into the busy street.

  End.

  House Clearance

  The damp smell made Mark retch. He pinched his nose and looked around the basement; his weak flashlight illuminating only a few feet at a time. The floor was littered with body parts.

  When Mark’s wife grabbed his shoulder, he jumped and spun around. “Jesus, I didn’t hear you come down.”

  But Lisa wasn’t listening. Instead, she was staring at the floor, her jaw slack. Her voice wavered. “I didn’t realise your dad was into this. What was he, some kind of modern day Gepetto?”

  Sure, it was weird, but his dad had always been into weird things. Mark used his mini flashlight to search the rest of the basement. When it illuminated an army of dolls, his stomach sank. “What the fuck?” They were all an imitation of the same little girl. It was like a crazy obsession. But who the fuck was the girl?

  Despite his body’s reluctance, Mark picked a tip-toed path towards them through the massacre on the floor. His heart hammered as he got closer to them. “There’s something wrong with these dolls.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “But look, Lisa.” He lit up the doll’s faces, his flashlight’s beam wobbling in his shaking hand. “This one’s eyes are too close together. This one’s mouth’s in the wrong place. This one’s ears are lopsided. They all look nearly human. Nearly.”

  “Do you think your mom knew about them?”

  A chill ran through Mark as he shook his head. “Probably not; the basement was Dad’s space. No one paid it much mind.” What would his mom have thought about it? Imagine sleeping in a house with this shit downstairs.

  The loud rustling of a garbage bag snapped him from his daze as Lisa handed it to him. “Let’s just clear this place out, give the keys to the real estate agent, and wait for your inheritance. That’s—” Lisa froze as she stared into another corner of the room.

  When Mark pointed his flashlight where she was looking, his entire being sank. He kept the glass case lit up. The little girl inside was a much better version than the others. “Maybe he did make perfection.”

  “Perfection?” The porous walls consumed Lisa’s shriek.

  Mark pointed at it. “It looks more like a little girl than the others.”

  “It’s only got one eye. And there’s a huge crack running down its face. It’s like something from a horror film.”

  Mark stepped forwards and studied her broken face. “The proportions are correct at least. Do you think he stopped at this one?”

  The whites of Lisa’s wide eyes shone in the dark room. Her voice was still muffled by the low ceiling and damp walls. “I wouldn’t want to guess what he did down here and why. It’s messed up.”

  Mark turned back to the little girl and looked into her one eye, despair staring back at him. With her shoulders lifted to her neck, she was leaning forwards like she was about to fall into a zombie-like shuffle. She was so life-like that maybe she would.

  The lock on the case groaned when Mark twisted it and pulled the door open. While holding his breath, his heart pounding, he reached in and touched the doll. He then instantly recoiled, rubbing the tips of his fingers. It did nothing to banish the cold and waxy memory.

  There was a rolled up piece of paper in the girl’s hand. Mark snatched it away from her grip. When he unfurled it, he froze.

  “What is it, Mark?”

  His entire body shook.

  “Mark?”

  “This is the life model for the other dolls.”

  “What?”

  Mark turned the poster around and showed it to his wife. In the centre was a picture of the girl; above it, the word ‘Missing’. A warble shook his slow words. “This isn’t a doll.”

  End.

  Phase One

  The spinning chaos and green, swirling lights came to an abrupt halt as Marlaac crashed against the hard ground. His bony knees bore most of th
e brunt, burning pain running up his thighs to his groin.

  As he kneeled on the floor, he gasped for breath, his lungs seeming to shrink with every inhalation. They’d told him the air was thinner here than on Andredia, but that didn’t stop the panic, his hearts pounding, and his head spinning. Would he be the one Andredian that couldn’t breathe on Earth?

  The dimension hop had not only turned his world inside out, but it tied what felt like a mess of knots in his stomachs. Several twinges around his navel and his throat was suddenly filled with a hot and chunky rush of grass and gango bugs. The lumpy and acidic sick burned on the way up and splashed back against his forearms and chest as it hit the unforgiving ground.

  It was only when he’d got his breath back that he turned to his left to see his father standing next to him. It had only been a few months since he’d seen him, but he’d grown huge in that time. It happened occasionally when they entered new ecosystems. The different air and diet was sometimes more favorable for the growth of their species although it clearly wasn’t the air in this place. What on Andredia was the diet like?

  Being one of the most well-traveled Andredians, Marlaac’s dad, Lord Scartoo, had benefitted from the planet-hopping process and was by far the largest Andredian Marlaac had ever seen, and that was ignoring the biased view every boy had of their dads. Many said Lord Scartoo was the largest Andredian ever to live.

  When Marlaac held his hand out to his father, Lord Scartoo wrapped his three strong fingers around his wrist and helped his boy to his feet. There was nowhere on the hard ground to dig his toes into, and his legs wobbled from the time jump. Webbed feet were woefully inadequate here. “What is this terrain, Dad?”

  A deep frown bent his father’s mouth down. Lord Scartoo the Great rarely smiled in public. And why would he? To everyone else, he was a fierce warrior. He was the best colonizer Andredia had. He was the front line in their mission to rule more planets. It was only Marlaac and his siblings who’d seen his kind heart when he sat them on his knee and sang them songs. Most Andredians probably couldn’t even imagine it.

  “It’s called concrete,” he finally said. “The hard floor seems to suit the frames of the aliens that inhabit this planet although its production is harmful to their environment.”

  The coldness of it ran through the soles of Marlaac’s feet into his body, and he shivered as he looked up at his dad again. To look him in the eye required him tilting his head up so far it ran a pain across the base of his skull. Taking a step back helped. “Why would they do anything to harm their environment?”

  His father raised his double-jointed arms in a wide and slow shrug. “Ours is not to reason why, son.”

  That was a new phrase. It must have been one from this planet. It was often the way when his dad was colonizing. Just before or just after a trip, he would say a lot of new phrases and words. Some would stick, but most would be gone within a few weeks as he turned his attention to the next planet.

  Marlaac’s expression was clearly blank enough for his dad to explain further. “To try to understand the motivations of a race nothing like our own is a futile and baffling pursuit. You need to learn this for when you start coming with me. It’s the first thing you need to learn in fact. I’ve seen tough warriors from our home planet drive themselves to madness trying to empathize with aliens. It doesn’t work. Phase one requires detached objectivity more than any of the other phases.”

  After looking over both shoulders, Lord Scartoo, who was clearly checking they were alone, leaned over and put one arm around his son, his harsh voice softening. “But let’s worry about that as we walk. How are you? How’s school?”

  Marlaac nodded. School was rubbish, and he missed having his dad around, but he nodded all the same.

  Replying with his own stoic nod, Lord Scartoo stood up straight again and checked around once more. “Good.” He was back in character.

  “I can’t believe how much you’ve grown, Dad.”

  Lord Scartoo looked down at himself and shrugged. “We’re onto a good thing here. Our research told us it would be a planet where we could thrive.”

  “You must be what, ten feet tall now?”

  “Nearly. Nine feet seven inches the last time I checked. I’m so pleased we found Earth. Our army’s flourishing here. We should be ready to move on in record time.”

  When Marlaac wrinkled his nose, his father stared at him. “What is it?”

  With the burn of vomit leaving from his sinuses, the world’s aroma had elbowed its way in. “The smell,” he said. “It reminds me of dirt.”

  “You get used to it. I barely notice it now. Anyway, let’s not worry about that. Are you ready to go? You need to see phase one in action. It won’t be long before you’re apprenticing with me. You need to see how it’s done.”

  ###

  The rough concrete bit into Marlaac’s soft feet with every step. The sting of burgeoning blisters spread across the soles of them. He winced as he raised a hand in his father’s direction. “Wait up, Dad, I can’t move as fast as you.”

  Lord Scartoo slowed his pace, looking down at Marlaac as he pulled level. “Once phase one has had some time to settle in, we’ll make more changes. We can’t do too much too quickly; it’s not good for a planet’s ecosystem to turn up and change everything all at once. But when we do,” he stamped one of his large feet against the floor, “we’ll get rid of this horrible stuff. It’s everywhere!”

  Even standing on it was uncomfortable. “It feels like walking through the needle forests of Dengba.”

  A smile settled on Lord Scartoo’s face, and his black eyes lost focus. “That it does. It’s only been a few months, but if feels like so long ago since I breathed the fresh air of Andredia.”

  Was it just the air he missed? “Do you miss Mum?”

  “What kind of a question’s that? Of course I do. How is she? And the twins?”

  It was easy to feel like he forgot about them while he was away. Marlaac never stopped thinking about his dad when he wasn’t there. “They’re good. They send their love.”

  The pair walked the rest of the way in silence.

  When they reached the end of the corridor, Marlaac stood aside while his dad grabbed the handle of the white door. “Now, before I open this, you need to remember that phase one is rarely pretty. It’s the most effective way for us to take control of a planet. You’re becoming a man now, so you need to see how this is done, but it may take some getting used to, okay?”

  Marlaac’s throat dried, and he gulped as he stared at his father before returning a weak nod.

  ###

  When his dad opened the door, an invisible yet fetid cloud of heat rushed forward. It reeked of stale sweat and excrement. It was so potent, it left a taste on the back of Marlaac’s tongue like he’d eaten a road-killed whomp rat. With his guts tensing, he heaved again. At least he had nothing left to vomit.

  Marlaac clamped his hand across his nose and gripped hard to try and keep the smell out. The action muffled his words. “What’s that stink?”

  Several sniffs of the air as if he were trying to locate the smell, and Lord Scartoo said, “It’s their waste. It’s another one of those things you get used to after a bit of time here.”

  This wasn’t a smell Marlaac would be getting used to in a hurry.

  The room they entered was clearly large. The sound of opening and closing the door raced off into the dark, but it was too dark for Marlaac to see anything. After several blinks and rubbing his eyes with his free hand, the shadows in the room started to take form. Because this planet was much farther from its sun than Andredia, everything seemed gloomy and cold in comparison. “Does the lack of light not bother you, Dad?”

  “At first, it did. I’ve been to much worse places though. We’ve colonized planets like Cragarty and Voldarg where they only see the slightest glimmer of a sun once every thousand years. This is paradise compared to them.”

  The response drove an anxious buzz through all six of Marlaac’s
guts. Was he really up for following his dad into colonization? How could he possibly live up to his reputation? How could he spend so much time away from his beloved planet? How could he make the decisions that he knew his dad had to make? He’d seen what the job did to his dad. For days after returning from colonization, weeks even, his dad’s study door would be closed, and they wouldn’t hear a sound from him. Marlaac once walked in on him crying, and his dad went crazy. He’d never tried to go in again.

  But it wasn’t like he could tell his dad no. This was his destiny whether he liked it or not. He shook the thought from his head, his vision finally clearing to the point where he could see the room better.

  A walkway ran down the middle, but on either side were small cages. They were pressed so close together there was no gap between them. Every one of them contained a creature of pink and soft-looking skin. Each creature had eyes of different colors. Every Andredian had black eyes. The kaleidoscope of irises stared at the two Andredian’s as they walked past. Some made noises Marlaac couldn’t understand, but most were mute. “What are they, Dad?”

  “They’re called humans. They’re the dominant species here.” There was a hint of regret in his tone when he said, “Well, they used to be.” It was only a hint however. Lord Scartoo didn’t do sympathy.

  Crash! One of the humans rushed forward in their cage and head butted the bars. The noises that came from its mouth were strange and high-pitched. It was a sound so peculiar that Marlaac wouldn’t have been able to imitate it even if he tried. His tongue was too thick and his mouth too tight. “What are they saying?”